Bumpy Trax: Holden's new baby SUV
Holden’s had a shot before at a small SUV; last time around it was the Suzuki Ignis based Cruze (yes there was a Cruze before the Cruze…confused?). This time around they’ve ‘roided up the Korean sourced Barina and called it Trax. I back to back the entry level LS and top spec LTZ.
The Driven Heart
Anyone that’s driven the Holden Cruze (the new one, not the old one) with the original 1.8L petrol engine will be instantly familiar with the heart of the Trax. It never received good reviews and won’t here. It’s underpowered, undertorqued and should be six feet under. There’s just 103kW at 6300rpm and 175 torques at 3800 rpm. With the option of manual and auto for the LS and auto only in the LTZ (auto supplied), the slow revver just fails to deliver pizzaz, pop and pow. The automatic transmission is fitted with six ratios which, at least, use what’s available (60kmh equals 2000rpm….) and the driver has the choice of allowing the ‘box to do its own thing or manually changing via the oddly sited switch (ala Malibu) on the top right hand side of the lever. There’s no real advantage to using the manual shift (slow, ergonomically awkward) nor does it make any sense (unless to NOT encourage people to use it) to place the manual selector switch where it is. Left to its own devices, the transmission offers an odd mix of short/sharp or hold and delay changes. One would hope that the 1.4iTi and 1.6iTi plants plus the diesels available overseas will make their way into the range, sooner rather than later. It’s coarse, thrashy, unrefined, even the 1.8L in the Camira sounded smoother.
Car Makes By State!
Thanks to some collaborative work with our friends at Progressive Insurance, we’ve got the results of some very interesting analysis on the distribution of car makes by state or territory using the data from the 2012 Survey of Motor Vehicles by the ABS.
Simply select the car make you are interested in and the map will show you the total number of vehicles registered in each state and the penetration – the number of that model of car against total vehicle registrations.
Drivers In The Storm
First of all, I’d like to pass our best wishes and sympathy to the people in the Lithgow area of the Blue Mountains who are having to cope with all the bushfires and possible evacuations. If you have been evacuated, please take care on the roads, as traffic accidents are probably a bigger killer than fires. And those who live in the areas where the refugees from the fires have come to, mind out for the extra traffic on the roads with all the extra people.
In my last blog, I discussed the issue of lightning striking when you’re out driving. However, this isn’t the full story about what you need to know when driving in a storm, as the heavens can throw down a lot more than just a few bolts of lightning – and don’t we all wish that a good storm or three would pour down on all those fires! Heavy rain and hail can also be a bit tricky to negotiate if you’re driving in a storm.
Hidden Speed Cameras: Safety vs Revenue.
It’s a contentious issue and one that changes a simple conversation into full blown arguments: speed and speed cameras, safety device or revenue raiser? First up, what EXACTLY is speed? According to Wikipedia:
In kinematics, the speed of an object is the magnitude of its velocity (the rate of change of its position); it is thus a scalar quantity. The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance travelled by the object divided by the duration of the interval; the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as the duration of the time interval approaches zero. Like velocity, speed has the dimensions of a length divided by a time; the SI unit of speed is the metre per second, but the most usual unit of speed in everyday usage is the kilometre per hour or, in the USA and the UK, miles per hour. For air and marine travel the knot is commonly used.
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