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Thoughts and musings on the new defender


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3 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

The other things that annoys me about environmental matters ... whilst we are off topic ... is the number of individuals who won't do easy things to reduce their consumption. We have had kerbside recycling for some years yet people won't wash tins out, pull the plastic window out of card packages etc etc. Then moan that they don't have enough space in the general waste bin and drive bags of rubbish to the tip or pay for extra collections. Also people who drive 10 miles to work, take a plastic bottle of water and get a drive through coffee on the way in a throw away card cup. Have one at home or take one in a reusable cup. Don't buy clothes from Primark because they're only a quid, wear them once then throw them away because they were only a quid. Buy something well made that will last. It's not hard but people just don't see it or don't care. They will protest for someone else to fix it but it doesn't matter what the government do if 65 million people (or 7bn for that matter) can't be bothered with really basic stuff then it's all meaningless anyway. Anyway... back to the car... :rolleyes:

I agree with that. The bit in bold is relevant to this thread and cars though - the longevity, cost to fix and throw away attitude consumers have to cars is a HUGE problem. We are less likely to be culprits here as most of our vehicles are a lot older than the average car on the road. I almost solely drive my 30 year old 110 these days you could have had at least three other vehicles in that timespan. 

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12 minutes ago, reb78 said:

I agree with that. The bit in bold is relevant to this thread and cars though - the longevity, cost to fix and throw away attitude consumers have to cars is a HUGE problem. We are less likely to be culprits here as most of our vehicles are a lot older than the average car on the road. I almost solely drive my 30 year old 110 these days you could have had at least three other vehicles in that timespan. 

I wonder if EV's might see that equation shift back the other way - the current argument is that scrapping a 10-year-old car and building a new greener one is better for the environment as the emissions are that much lower. Of course, with EV's, that doesn't hold true - they're not going to lower their emissions by much, and all the major efficiencies to be gained seem to be in future battery innovations, so rather than scrap an EV you might just scrap a battery pack & bolt in a new better one.

It's easy to imagine 3rd party companies selling battery upgrades for 10-year-old Teslas and it's a far easier prospect than trying to sell engine swaps or LPG conversions for old ICE cars.

There's even talk of the "sled" platform a lot of EV's are built on being a base for replaceable bodies.

I just wish they'd crack on and sort batteries out so I can EV swap my stuff and retain the practicality.

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That assumes the other components are sufficiently long lived and/or reasonably priced, though. It's never been the drive train that's forced me to replace a car. Even the last Honda (which was a well built, reliable bit of kit) became uneconomical at thirteen years old due mainly to the cost of replacing worn suspension bushes.

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1 hour ago, geoffbeaumont said:

That assumes the other components are sufficiently long lived and/or reasonably priced, though. It's never been the drive train that's forced me to replace a car. Even the last Honda (which was a well built, reliable bit of kit) became uneconomical at thirteen years old due mainly to the cost of replacing worn suspension bushes.

Well there's a lot less moving parts - engine has a couple of bearings and that's about it, there's a diff and maybe a 2-speed gearbox but no clutch, brakes get a very easy life thanks to regen braking... just think a lot of the difficulty of keeping older ICE cars on the road is gone with EV's.

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2 hours ago, geoffbeaumont said:

That assumes the other components are sufficiently long lived and/or reasonably priced, though. It's never been the drive train that's forced me to replace a car. Even the last Honda (which was a well built, reliable bit of kit) became uneconomical at thirteen years old due mainly to the cost of replacing worn suspension bushes.

Something wrong with your Honda.  I have one from 1988 and the suspension bushings are all original and in perfect condition, along with the engine.  Rust is the only issue. Beyond rust, it is always cheaper to fix a vehicle than buy a new one.  Except for European cars which are money pits before 15 years.

As to brakes...  On all vehicles with sliding calipers, you are supposed to take the calipers off every second service and lubricate the components and ensure the pistons are free.  It is not only electric cars.

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If anything, I suspect the trend towards electric vehicles will mean that more and more people will lease/PCP their vehicles (here in the UK the vast majority of private cars are already leased).
Leasing does at least give you an easy way out if you find battery-life starts to become an issue as the vehicle ages, rather than you being lumbered with a 5-year-old 100,000-mile vehicle that needs £10K-worth of new battery.

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The thing that kills our machines at work is availability of parts. The manufacturer promises supply for 5 years, beyond that it depends how common that part is across a range of machines. It's pushed a lot of people to cheaper Chinese machines who just write off the machine at 5 years. On the older machines it wasn't too bad, motors and pumps could usually be rebuilt and single layer circuit boards could have components replaced but now it's third party computers and software, multi layer boards etc etc. We can't get drives for some of the machines and I think electric cars will go the same way. They will be built with a life and disposal will be a design consideration. Leasing is a big thing with electric cars, even if you buy the car you often lease the batteries which makes the car worthless second hand. It doesn't pay to own them at the moment as they're going out of date too quickly. 

I think long term the model on none ownership will come in, a bit like a boris bike, where you just take one when you need one, possibly in the future ordering the car on an app and it driving itself to your location to get you. 

Edited by Cynic-al
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52 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

 We can't get drives for some of the machines and I think electric cars will go the same way. They will be built with a life and disposal will be a design consideration.

Well yeah... but engineering an electronic control board to replace another is a far more doable prospect than engineering a replacement pump or gearbox or whatever for a machine - it just has to behave right, it doesn't have to physically match as long as you can join the wires up. That makes it attractive to the aftermarket to develop controllers, batteries, etc. that can be retro-fitted to a huge number of vehicles with only a change of software settings and the right wiring diagram.

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Yes, while you can use the likes of Megasquirt/Megajolt to re-engineer older standalone engine-management, these don't really integrate well with 21st-century stuff where the engine/gearbox/transmission/ABS/traction-control all needs to work together as a package.

Sure, you *could* re-engineer such a setup - but you'd be needing one hell of a lot of product-liability insurance to cover you for when a divide-by-zero error in your retro-fit system's software caused the engine to apply maximum-throttle rather than zero in a panic-brake situation on a vehicle you'd never tested your kit against.

[Trust me on this: one of my clients were specialists in re-engineering 40-year-old aircraft electronics. Even getting the specs as to what--it-had-to-do was a nightmare; they turned down loads of what would have been highly-lucrative contract-offers because nothing good's ever been reported about a kludged-together Boeing 727's electronics causing it to bellyflopp onto a kindergarten]

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21 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Well yeah... but engineering an electronic control board to replace another is a far more doable prospect than engineering a replacement pump or gearbox or whatever for a machine - it just has to behave right, it doesn't have to physically match as long as you can join the wires up. That makes it attractive to the aftermarket to develop controllers, batteries, etc. that can be retro-fitted to a huge number of vehicles with only a change of software settings and the right wiring diagram.

I understand what your saying, and I think if it was a controller that sat in between a motor, battery and pot then you could get another controller to work. I don't know much about the details but I suspect there will be more to it than that. I know cars such as the mini and golf just bolt a packaged unit in but that's clearly not the way to do it and not the way it will be done. I think what will pop up more are companies that will repair the electronics, a bit like how a garage will take an injector out or an ECU and send it away for testing / repair and what you pay includes their liability insurance. We do it with drives, power supplies etc at work although more often than not they're either dead or you can get a used or recon for less so I still think the car as a whole will get dumped and replaced. Or exported to places like India where people will fix them to sell locally. This is quite common with things like trucks, companies have them for 5 years on a lease, noone wants to buy an old 5 year old truck so it gets exported to where labour is cheaper and standards are lower to spend the time keeping them going. 

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8 hours ago, Happyoldgit said:

What do you mean "they" for some of the more - ahem - senior members here that should read "we"!!! 😉

Well atleast the second half of your display name is right! 🤣

8 hours ago, Red90 said:

Yes.  60 km range while driving 40 km/h.  Really cracked it.

Well the electric crafter due out soon has a range of 120 miles at 56mph so at this rate of development they're not going to have a practical car by their 2040 target. 🤷‍♂️ Still atleast the concept of only 2 pedals has stuck to help out the little lady drive you back from the local! 🤭

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we seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent as the new Defender isn't electric !

bit concerned to read of the diesel in engine oil contamination on the Ingenium engines,

I really hope this is resolved on the new Defender, does anyone have any insights on this ?

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41 minutes ago, ashtrans said:

we seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent as the new Defender isn't electric !

bit concerned to read of the diesel in engine oil contamination on the Ingenium engines,

I really hope this is resolved on the new Defender, does anyone have any insights on this ?

I can't remember where I read about that but it's all to do with anti-pollution measures and short runs and is a problem with many other engines too.  It must be a feature of the new Defender because even Land Rover recommend getting the petrol engine if you are doing short runs!

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They're going to do a hybrid... and a mild hybrid...

 

Is that from the dpf regen? I had an isuzu d max that had a high level on the dipstick as well as a low level. If it got to the high level you had to do an oil change. If the driving you do creates enough heat to naturally burn off the soot in the dpf it isn't a problem. If not it does a regen by injecting extra diesel to do the burn off, some of which ends up in the sump. 

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On 2/2/2020 at 12:03 AM, Cynic-al said:

If not it does a regen by injecting extra diesel to do the burn off, some of which ends up in the sump. 

Particularly, if my reading up on this is correct, if you stop the engine during the burn-off cycle? Which is why they tell you to keep the revs above a certain level and not stop driving until it's finished.

Trouble with that is you don't always have any choice. Had the DPF cleaning warning come up for the first time on Friday in our Zafira (we've had it for a couple of years, but it's doing a lot more short runs since we moved). Trouble was, it came on while running the kids to school - I took it for a blast down the motorway afterwards, but I couldn't really drive around and deliver the kids late, so I had to stop and park up in the middle of the cycle. It would be helpful if there was the option to delay the cycle (maybe a certain number of times).

Also didn't help that I was low on fuel and the alert takes over the display that shows the both fuel consumption and range - so I knew I was using more fuel than usual, but not how much nor whether I could make it to the garage I was planning on filling up at or if I needed an emergency stop at more expensive one...

I would imagine if you're doing the sort of driving that has the DPF cleaning running regularly, then having to stop in the middle of it is also going to be a regular occurrence. For a lot of people that's going to mean modern diesels aren't actually suitable - but it's more of a problem if you have mixed use and a petrol is going to be hideously thirsty for the rest of it (in my case, a petrol would be okay for local running around - but this car is also the tow car and long distance family car where petrol fuel consumption would really hurt).

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I drove my car to Gloucestershire and back one Thursday, about 2.5 hours each way, work and back Friday, 5 miles each way, then London and back Saturday, 3 hours each way, didn't use it Sunday, Monday work and back, then I was called back to work Monday night and it was mid regen when I got to work. So it's done a regen within 15 miles of a 3 hour motorway run.

Another time I left it at an airport for 3 weeks, came back and drove 2 hours home from the airport, the next week I only went to work and back, 5 miles each way, and it went into limp home and forced me to do a long journey to clear it on the Saturday. 

Another time it didn't force me to clear it, just went into limp home and brought the engine management light on, I got VW assist out who said the DPF was full but it couldn't do a regen as I had less than 1/4 tank of fuel. I had to drive it to the fuel station to fill it, then he came back the next morning and forced a regen. Apparently it causes them no end of problems with hire cars and vans. 

I would definitely agree that diesels are becoming quite niche due to their environmental gubbins but dealers seem to be unable to guide people on what to buy, they only seem to know about the finance options, not the vehicle. I think giving people the option of when to do it would be too much for most people as they wouldn't understand what or why. I have thought about changing the way I use cars so instead of having my car and my wifes car, we have a big diesel car and a small car and you take whichever suits your journey. Small petrol for the school run, big diesel for caravan towing or whatever. However there are two problems, firstly my wifes car is like an extension to her handbag, permanently full of useless junk, I can't be doing with that, and she doesn't like driving huge cars. The other option was a plug in hybrid, battery for the commute and fuel engine for the longer trip. However I need to carry heavy stuff for work so there isn't really a practical vehicle yet. 

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With modern turbocharged petrol engines, the need for a diesel to 'do towing' has somewhat evaporated. Modern turbo petrol have buckets of low down torque to get you moving and can be pretty economical at the same time. 

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I had an astra as a courtesy car for a few days recently. It drove well, I was impressed with it. One thing that was annoying was the engine vibration at idle, it would get on my nerves in traffic. I looked up what engine it had and it was a 1 litre, 3 cylinder turbo petrol. I was really surprised, it drove so well for such a small engine. Not pin you in the seat fast obviously but easily fast enough for every day driving, it didn't feel lacking. I really thought it was a nice small car, then I looked up the price, I figured a basic astra would be around £14,000. £22,000 :o I think I'm really out of touch with what things cost! That said you can get them delivery mileage for around £15,000 so maybe I'm not that far off!

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1 hour ago, Cynic-al said:

I have thought about changing the way I use cars so instead of having my car and my wifes car, we have a big diesel car and a small car and you take whichever suits your journey. Small petrol for the school run, big diesel for caravan towing or whatever. However there are two problems, firstly my wifes car is like an extension to her handbag, permanently full of useless junk, I can't be doing with that, and she doesn't like driving huge cars. The other option was a plug in hybrid, battery for the commute and fuel engine for the longer trip. However I need to carry heavy stuff for work so there isn't really a practical vehicle yet. 

Exactly our issue - I used to have the small car (Skoda Fabia - small petrol) and my wife drove the Zafira. Since we moved we've swopped as her commute is much shorter most days and she has to use overcrowded car parks where the smaller, more maneuverable car is a big plus. She likes sticking to the same car all the time (and keeps things in it). Plus in between school runs I'm sometimes using the trailer or filling the big car with stuff - though that's not likely to be a regular thing long term. Most of my wife's driving is probably best done in the small car for exactly the same reasons anyway.

 

1 hour ago, Bowie69 said:

With modern turbocharged petrol engines, the need for a diesel to 'do towing' has somewhat evaporated. Modern turbo petrol have buckets of low down torque to get you moving and can be pretty economical at the same time. 

I looked at petrol when I bought the Zafira, thinking it might be more sensible to switch to petrol (I wasn't just looking at Zafiras - but MPVs generally). All the petrol options were much thirstier than the diesels.

 

38 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

I had an astra as a courtesy car for a few days recently. It drove well, I was impressed with it. One thing that was annoying was the engine vibration at idle, it would get on my nerves in traffic. I looked up what engine it had and it was a 1 litre, 3 cylinder turbo petrol. I was really surprised, it drove so well for such a small engine. Not pin you in the seat fast obviously but easily fast enough for every day driving, it didn't feel lacking. I really thought it was a nice small car, then I looked up the price, I figured a basic astra would be around £14,000. £22,000 :o I think I'm really out of touch with what things cost! That said you can get them delivery mileage for around £15,000 so maybe I'm not that far off!

Our Fabia is  a 3 cyclinder 1.0l turbo. Nippy, but not hot hatch fast. It's got a surprising amount of poke (and gets a lot smoother) when you spin it up, but it also drinks like a much bigger engine when you do. It's actually not that pleasant to drive on the lanes round here as you either have to hold low gears all the time and pay dearly at the pump, or accept that it'll bog down on every corner and every time you slow for a hazard. You can't have flexible power delivery and economy at the same time. It also wasn't cheap - we inherited it from my father in law, but he paid £15k for it. Although it's much smaller than the Zafira it does less miles to the gallon, too (theoretically they're similar - but the Zafira gets a lot closer to its stated economy figures).

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