Archive for 2013
Modern safety technology: Does it make drivers lazy?
Driving along in a new Mitsubishi Outlander Aspire, I was enjoying the sound quality of the Rockford Fosgate stereo as I sat in climate controlled comfort. Suddenly, the dash lit up with a panicked ‘Brake!’ and an accompanying beep. There was a turning vehicle several metres up ahead that I had already slowed for and was preparing to move around. The reality was that if I had to, I could have stopped comfortably within the space between the Outlander and the car ahead. For me, the Forward Collision Mitigation (FCM) system was a jumpy (and pre-emptive) distraction to something I had already seen…but I can’t talk for everyone, or indeed for every situation.
At advanced driver training courses, the first thing you are taught is to look far ahead so you can make such avoidance manoeuvres with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, this is not always related to those learning to drive, but that is a story for another day.
Manufacturers, to their credit, are trying to add safety to their products, to save lives and sell more cars. The advancement in active safety measures has been impressive these last few years and though it’s apparent that not all of these new technologies can claim a definitive ‘number of lives saved’ they are obviously doing their bit in the fight against any incident ranging from a simple accident to a vehicle-related death. But are these systems sometimes too smart for their own good?
Take the FCM system. At its extreme, you could suggest that people will no longer care to look too far ahead, ‘safe’ in the knowledge that the car will tell them when they need to start paying attention.
I also wonder if cars that reverse-park themselves will render that driving skill obsolete…and how much damage will be caused a) if the technology fails and b) if the driver has to do it for themselves! The same goes for cars which use FCM and/or sonar to adjust vehicle speed automatically (and in extremes perform an emergency brake with no driver input). The intent is to avoid upcoming dangers but it can go wrong (search ‘Volvo Brake Test Fail’ on YouTube to see an example).
A rear-facing camera can also embed a sense of dependency on what the camera shows when reversing. I’ve done it myself when in a hurry: “There’s nothing on the screen and the parking sensors aren’t beeping, so I should be right.” It’s usually then that a pedestrian appears from the side, or a stationary object in your blind-spot suddenly greets your bodywork.
More broadly, Automatic Stability Control (ASC) systems do a wonderful job in assisting safety- just watch a driver training demonstration video for proof of that. In my opinion, however, it can lead to complacency behind the wheel and a lack of understanding as to what caused the ASC to trigger in the first place. In my mind, ASC and indeed these other technologies can be seen as cures, but developing your awareness by taking a defensive or advanced driver training course can prevent a potential accident from occurring in the first place. Such courses will also aid in your understanding of these systems and show you how to work with them rather than rely on them completely.
Automotive brand hierachies
The concept of ‘brand hierarchies’ is nothing new in the automobile manufacturing world. Take a corporate giant and its want to expand into different market categories- or indeed different markets- without diluting its parent brand’s strength or market position.
The example of General Motors and its Holden brand is probably the most well-known to Aussies. A man by the name of Willam Durant had risen to fame in the 1900s as a key driver in the success of the Buick Company. Durant acquired several other manufacturers and named the conglomerate ‘General Motors’. His vision was simple: that each GM sub-brand would stand-alone in its own class, so they wouldn’t be in competition with each other.
As a result, Cadillac became the high-end luxury brand, Buick for the upper-middle class, with Oldsmobile seen as the entry level to the corporation. Later, Chevrolet was added as the ‘everyman’ brand, and so it continued.
Though the ‘one brand per class’ philosophy has faded and several sub-brands have come and gone since, today GM’s presence is still felt world-wide. As well as the home-market Chevrolet, GMC (a commercial vehicle producer) Buick and Cadillac, they have a presence in mainland Europe through their Opel brand (now in Australia), in the United Kingdom with Vauxhall and in Australia with Holden.
Given their heavy global presence and continued success, the Volkswagen Group (VAG) is the most influential of the multi-brand car corporations today.
Currently in Australia the VAG hierarchy commences with the Czech Republic’s Skoda as the entry-point. From there, it moves through the German Volkswagen brand to a premium German marque, Audi. The aristocratic English Bentley is on the next rung before the red-blooded Italian peak of Lamborghini. Other countries receive bookends to these, the budget Spanish SEAT (which failed locally) and the artisan Bugatti, originally of France.
Although there are distinct steps in prestige with each of the brands sold here, sub-brand pricing strategies often collide, particularly when the marques in question share a model platform. For example, a Skoda Fabia RS in three-door hatch form has a list price only $1000 less than the better-specified (though similar underneath) Volkswagen Polo GTI. The Audi equivalent A1 Sport is better specified again, but costs over $10,000 more than the Polo. Of course, if you are looking into any of the cars mentioned, Private Fleet can help save you thousands off these prices!
The Fiat Group has also established a hierarchy, though their reasoning is perhaps more patriotic- if they hadn’t acquired other Italian manufacturers, the entire Italian car-building industry may well have died. The Fiat brand itself sits below Alfa Romeo, Lancia (unavailable in Australia), Maserati and Ferrari and technologies are shared across brands to ensure economies of scale. The re-emerging strength of the Fiat Group has been highlighted with the acquisition of a majority stake in Chrysler to increase its distribution capability in the United States.
So, next time you see a car with a familiar shape but a badge you weren’t expecting, you know why!
Debunking ADR Fuel Consumption Figures
We’ve all seen the fuel consumption stickers attached to every new car’s windscreen. But how are the figures calculated, and what do they mean in the real-world?
As society shifts towards a green energy future, it was inevitable that the automotive world would be swept up by the ever-building wave of environmental sustainability.
Manufacturers were once boastful of their power and torque figures, with fuel consumption relegated to the fine print- if you could find a reference to it at all.
It was perhaps the energy crisis of the early 1970s which first gave pause for them to consider just how much fossil fuel their products were burning as they supplied mass transportation to the world. Since that time, mechanical carburettors have been surpassed by electronically-controlled fuel injection, a far more efficient and accurate method of supplying fuel to the engine. This process has been refined further, with today’s ‘direct injection’ petrol motors providing excellent engine response and power while also being frugal with fuel. Additionally, diesel engines have found wide-spread acceptance across the globe thanks to their headline fuel consumption figures (though their pollutant levels are another matter).
When shopping for a new vehicle today, the government has ensured that Australians have a set of combined fuel consumption figures which allow us to directly compare rival models. Set under Australian Design Rule 81/02, manufacturers have to provide a windscreen sticker on all new cars which shows ‘urban’, ‘extra-urban’ and ‘combined’ fuel consumption in litres per 100 kilometres.
How are these figures arrived at?
Using a chassis dynamometer in a workshop, a sample vehicle is strapped on to the machine’s rollers and taken for a stationery spin. Each car uses either pump-grade diesel fuel or 95-octane unleaded fuel to ensure there is no fuel advantage. It is then run over 20 minutes, simulating the stop-start conditions of an urban drive, followed with a sustained run up to freeway speeds. The figures garnered are then merged to provide the headline ‘combined fuel use’ figure.
Although these tests are thorough- they use fans to simulate air-flow and the rollers to generate inertia- it is nevertheless very difficult to paint a truly accurate picture of that vehicle’s performance on the road; the external variables are too great.
Think of everyone you’ve ever sat next to as they drove. They all have their own driving habits, and that affects fuel use. Other variables, such as the road surface, gradients, altitude, temperature, fuel quality…the list goes on.
In practice it is our experience that the simulated figures are very difficult to emulate in real-world conditions, particularly with modern smaller-capacity turbocharged cars (not to mention the traditional large-capacity V8s) when you want to use the available performance- which is the point of buying such a car in the first place.
In essence, the ADR combined fuel use offers a valid point of initial reference, but when shopping for a new car should be used as a guide only.
Buying Privately?
OK, although here at Private Fleet, we work with customers to help them get the best deal on the sort of car they want (). But we do know that sometimes, people will use our site for research via the car reviews and then go and buy the car they want through a private sale that’s been advertised on an online auction site of the EBay type or through the good old classified ads in the newspaper.
For those that are buying through private sales directly from the owner rather than through us or from a dealer, here are a couple of tips to help you get a good deal (of course, you can avoid the hassle by going through us, etc. etc. in shameless plug for what we do).
1. Don’t agree to meet the car owner in a park or anywhere apart from their house. For one thing, you won’t be able to see those tell-tale pools of oil on the driveway or in the garage. For another thing, the owner will have driven to the meeting place, so when you see the car and try to start it up, it’ll be hot and you won’t have the chance of starting it from cold.
2. In a similar vein, the first thing you should do when inspecting the car is to put your hand on the bonnet. If it’s warm while the rest of the car isn’t, the owner has warmed it up. This is a warning sign about what the thing is like when starting from cold.
3. Sellers who are about to move overseas are more open to negotiation, as they just want to get rid of the thing for a price that’s more or less in the right vicinity. What’s more, the car is likely to be in reasonable condition – they would have been driving it still if they hadn’t been moving to Japan or wherever.
4. Wealthy people can be easier to haggle with, as a couple of hundred bucks don’t make much difference to them, even though it can mean a fortnight’s groceries to you. However, some wealthy people became wealthy by watching every single penny. In this case, keep your fingers crossed and hope that they sympathise with your situation as they were there once and know what it’s like to be on a tight budget, rather than Mr Scrooge.
5. Be very, very suspicious about cars being sold privately by mechanics or panel beaters. If they’re selling it, it’s probably because they can’t fix it up any further and want to get rid of the thing before it explodes. If you’ve ever had a courtesy car from a local Mum & Dad garage/mechanics (as opposed to a courtesy car from a specialist garage), you’ll know that these tend to be in rather rough condition, although they are road legal. Something being sold off is probably worse. Stay away from them unless you own a wrecker’s yard. Stay even further away from amateur car mechanics, as the resulting junk heap is a failed project and is best used as scrap or given a second life as a hen house.
6. Also be a bit dubious about cars that have been given after-market modifications such as lowering, fat tyres and sporty accessories. Guess how this car has been driven.
7. You are less likely to find them being sold off in private sales, but ex-taxis and ex-cop cars tend to have high mileage and good maintenance histories.
Level 2, 9 Help Street