OK, here in Australia it’s the first couple of days into the Federal election campaign and I am already appalled.

Yesterday the Liberal/National coalition Government made, as its first election promise, a pledge that personal tax cuts would be instituted across the board. In fact, no less than AUD$34 billion of tax cuts.

Commentators immediately suggested that in their forthcoming tax policy, the Labour party opposition will probably be forced to match this promise.

Am I the only voter who thinks that this is a AUD$34 billion waste of money? Sure it’s nice for the electorate to have a few more dollars in their pockets but in this time of near record unemployment and low inflation, now is not when we should be reducing the tax take. Instead we should be doing something real and useful with the funds that the country as a whole has available.

Think what that thirty-four billion dollars could do.

It could vastly improve our road network. And ‘vastly’ is a massive understatement.

It could invest hugely in areas in which Australia used to be a leader, areas that our climate lends itself to, technologies that will be in increasing worldwide demand. Solar energy is one obvious candidate: in solar water heating and photo-voltaic cell technologies, Australia was once a leader.

It could invest itself in revolutionising the local car industry to produce cars that would be in world-wide demand.

It could universally introduce zero consumer cost broad-band, in so doing allowing far more to tele-commute to work.

That thirty four billion dollars could be used to address what are surely the most pressing problems facing Australia: potable water supply and energy production. Instead we have state governments struggling on an ad-hoc basis to provide infrastructure that is geared solely to a short-term election cycle. Where are the federal government visionary schemes to transform our system of water harvesting, water recycling and water conservation? Where’s the federal government lead in moving away from coal burning power stations that provide nearly all of Australia’s base-load electricity generating capabilities?

Instead, the election promise is about how many extra dollars you’ll have to buy a huge flat-screen TV…

Note: comments that don’t address the ideas covered here (eg comments that simply say one party is better than the other, or that all politicians are idiots, etc) will be deleted.

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As I write this I am back in my home town of Adelaide. I lived here, and also in various parts of country South Australia, until seven years ago when I moved to the Gold Coast hinterland.

Adelaide is a strange place to drive in. Long ago, in the Sixties, it was decided that the city would better prosper without a freeway network. The MATS plan, which laid out freeways across the suburbs, was abandoned with the smugness with which only Adelaideans can reject change and progress. For many years it didn’t matter: the grid-like network of secondary roads sufficed, and the clever sequencing of traffic lights improved arterial flows considerably.

But now, especially with the widespread introduction of 50 km/h speed limits, car travel in Adelaide is mind-bogglingly slow. It’s a fact that a city trip that in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane non-peak-hour might take half an hour, takes in Adelaide a full 60 minutes. Every time I come back, I am late for appointments because I simply miscalculate how long it takes to travel even a short cross-city distance. It’s not even any use looking at public transport: the bus service is as slow as the traffic (except for one dedicated route, there are no bus lanes) and the suburban train and tram services are awesomely inadequate.

However, I have found a solution.

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It’s amazing how ‘normal’ is such a flexible term. That idea can be applied as broadly as you wish – normality in society simply depends on majority behaviour, nothing else – but here I’m applying it to fuel consumption.

The main reason I picked a Peugeot 405 diesel as our project car is fuel consumption. Like the hybrid petrol/electric NHW10 Prius that I turbo’d, the Pug has to maintain good fuel economy, even with the performance modifications that I’m doing.

Basically, if it starts to drink like a Commodore, the project’s a failure. [Where oh where is the Commodore diesel?!]

And I am not talking about fuel consumption in some economy run; nope, I’m talking my real-life consumption. Most of my driving is up and down the steep mountain where I live, plus a little urban and a fair serving of freeway.  Over long experience I have realised that this driving regime penalises small engine cars – they have to work really hard climbing the big hill – and so no economical car gets optimal fuel consumption in these conditions. That’s especially the case with the air con running. But that’s where my cars are driven, so it’s the fuel consumption that applies to me.

My hybrid Honda Insight, capable in the right freeway conditions of turning in a real-life 2.8 litres/100km, gets in the high Threes / Low Fours in my normal use. The turbo Prius, off the road now with a defective high voltage battery, got in the mid-Sixes.

Frank the now departed modified EF Falcon, got in the mid-Tens to low-Elevens and my standard Lexus LS400 (also now departed) got similar consumption.

And the Peugeot? The first tank, with the car driven on my local roads, yielded a measured economy of 6.9 litres/100km.

A 700-odd kilometre country drive, two adults, one child and a fair amount of luggage resulted in 5.7 litres/100km.

Another tank involved lots of performance testing, dyno runs, draining of fuel from the filter to remove water, and up and down the hill and some freeway work. The result was 7.0 litres/100km.

Now these results are pretty damn’ good. The Pug, while certainly no performance demon, is a comfortable car with room for four, a big boot, very good air conditioning (in fact, with the heavily tinted windows, amongst the best air conditioning systems of any car I’ve ever driven!), and – most critically – it cost only AUD$6900 to buy. (Even the cheapest hybrid is roughly twice the dollars.)

But today when I punched the calculator’s buttons to work out the consumption of the most recent tank, I was rather disappointed. After a whole bunch of mods (which we’ll detail in due course in AutoSpeed), mods which have revolutionised on-road performance, I saw the fuel consumption number and felt a bit miserable.

Yes, the tank might have included towing a 6×4 trailer loaded with two large bookcases – the aero drag on the freeway was like a giant hand pulling the Peugeot back! 

Yes, it also included the climb up the hill with the trailer, air con running and two adults and a child in the car; the 1.9 litre Pug was certainly working hard. (I’d love to know how hot the intercooler got!) And the air con was running for basically the whole time this tank of fuel was being consumed.

So 6.6 litres/100km is actually quite fantastic: but when I saw the digital numbers, I was disappointed. That’s what looking at the Honda Insight’s fuel economy read-out does to you… it changes your definition of ‘normal’!

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To:

Tiffanny Junee
Manager, Corporate Communications and Media,
Hyundai Motor Company Australia

Tiffanny,

Re today’s telephone conversation in which you expressed unhappiness about this blog post http://blog.autospeed.com/2007/10/05/the-gravy-train/#comment and suggested that as a result of the post, you would need to carefully consider before deciding whether or not to make available a previously booked press car.

I believe that all that is written in the blog post is factually correct. I take note of your point that the iPod contained the i30 media kit (something that was not apparent when it was switched on); however, since the same material was available on the provided CD, I still believe the gift of an iPod to attending journalists was completely inappropriate. I have added a ‘PPS’ to the blog post to cover this matter.

Your expressed perspective that, as an independent journalist, I am free to write whatever I wish appears at odds with your apparent horror at my blog post. You said to me that you thought the blog post was an attack on Hyundai; I consider it to be utterly appropriate that readers should know how your launch was conducted.

That other new car launches may be held in a similar manner simply confirms to me that journalists are doing their jobs poorly by not communicating such corporate behaviour to their readers. I am certain that all readers would like to know when journalists are presented with gifts and other benefits.

If you believe it appropriate that on a new car launch journalists should be given an iPod nano to communicate your press package, and be treated to a four-course, chef-prepared lunch, then clearly you would have no problem with my disseminating these points to readers.

Regarding the long distance drive in a Hyundai i30, a proposal that was discussed at the launch and in a subsequent phone conversation. After giving this some consideration, I have decided to withdraw my offer of undertaking an 8000 kilometre test drive in your car. Simply put, after our conversation this morning, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I stated to you at the i30 launch that I believe Hyundai is likely to achieve great success in the next five years. That remains my perspective, at least on its cars.

Julian Edgar B. Ed, Dip T (Sec), Grad Dip Journ
www.autospeed.com
www.autoweb.com.au

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It’s an obvious thing, but not so obvious that I haven’t been caught twice in the last month. When buying a secondhand car, or just the secondhand tyres off a car, check every tyre!

To the latter first. Recently someone in the small town in which I live advertised the tyres from an EF Falcon. ‘Near new’ said the ad. Since at that time I still owned an EF Falcon, I rang up. The seller didn’t know the tyre size but dutifully went away and checked. The size was right, so I went off to inspect the tyres.

Much to my surprise, I found that the tyres – and wheels – were still on the car! A wagon, it had spun and hit a tree. The car was a write-off, but the owner was trying to recoup more than she’d have got from a wrecker. So, the tyres (and wheels) were for sale, as was the engine. Trouble is, she didn’t tell anyone that you’d have to get them off (the wheels) or out (the engine) on your own!

This flummoxed me a little, especially when I pointed out that if I took the wheels and tyres off the car, it’d be awfully hard to move around her steep, grassy backyard – that’s where the car was. So, I suggested, perhaps she should place the car where it would be easy to winch, wheel-less, onto a truck when it was time for the car to finally go. I looked at a couple of the tyres, saw the brand-new tread, and made an offer. She accepted, so I went off for my trolley jack.

It was only when I was taking off the wheels that I noticed that in fact only two tyres were near-new. The other pair was probably half worn. But it was too late to complain… I should have checked the tyres more carefully before making my offer…

And blow me down if the same thing didn’t nearly happen again! This time I was buying a complete car. With the incident of the Falcon tyres still very clear in my mind, I checked with more than usual care the tyres on the car I was buying – a Peugeot 405 SRDT. And, again, there was a surprise in store.

Incredibly, the sizes front and back didn’t match. Now that might not be a shock on a Porsche 911 but it certainly is on a Peugeot 405! The correct standard tyre size for the Pug is 185/65 14. But lo and behold, on the back were 185/70 tyres! I quizzed the owner and he waved away the problem with a sweep of his hand. But why were they different? Oh, he said indifferently, perhaps his son had been responsible for getting those put on the car…

So, as I said, always check all four tyres….

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Most of our Australian readers won’t be old enough to remember the release of the 1978 VB Commodore – and to be honest, at the time I wasn’t taking much notice of cars myself. However, it was common contemporary lore that the VB represented the new, small and modern family Holden while Ford, with the XD Falcon, persisted with the larger, outmoded type of traditional family car.

With the increasing price of fuel, it appeared that Holden was onto a winner with the Commodore.

But in fact they weren’t onto a winner at all: the VN model of a decade later went to a larger – especially wider – body, initially perched on the narrow track of the previous series.

Most pundits would have thought – and in fact did think – that Holden was heading in the right direction with their smaller original Commodore. It seemed the correct car for the times and in comparison, the face-lifted XC that became the XD looked like a big mistake. (In fact, a few years after this, I can remember looking at an open XD wagon and wondering who on earth needed a load area so enormous.)

But new car buyers didn’t agree with the smaller VB-VL Commodore strategy – Holden would have sold more Commodores if they’d stuck with the larger body all the way through.

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Maybe everyone already knows about these – but I didn’t and since I have discovered them, they’ve been extremely useful.

What I’m referring to are twisted wire brushes designed to screw onto angle grinders. You take off the grinding disc (and then leave off the screw collar – don’t lose it!) and then screw the wire brush onto the shaft.

The angle grinder spins the brush so fast that the amount of material you can quickly remove is amazing. Compared with a wire brush you might use in an electric drill, you have much better control (using two hands rather than one) and can achieve results perhaps 20 times as fast.

For example, today I needed to clean up the exterior of a big muffler. It’s stainless steel but of the sort that slowly rusts. There was corrosion all over it and I wanted a clean surface to paint. Literally 5 minutes of work with the angle grinder-driven wire brush had it looking so good I even considered not painting it! (But I did anyway.)

However, when using the brushes, you must wear full protection – goggles, ear-muffs and good clothing. The brushes tend to shed wires and at the speed they’re travelling, they could do eyes very serious damage. In fact, if you have a clear full length face mask, I’d suggest using that.

When buying, take along your angle grinder (with disc removed) so that you can be sure of getting the right thread size. The twisted wire brushes are available at hardware stores and tool suppliers.

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I spent last weekend at Maryborough in Queensland. So what was happening in this pretty town, a little inland from Fraser Island? The Holden-sponsored Maryborough Technology Challenge (MTC), that’s what!  

The MTC consists of technical competitions designed for school students, both primary and secondary. The challenges – that are really races – are fun and pedagogically worthy. Amongst other events, they consist of pushcart races, solar-powered boat races, robotics challenges, CO2-powered miniature drag racing and a human-powered vehicle race.

I went along primarily to watch the human-powered race but found myself much enjoying the solar-powered boats. The boats race side by side in pairs, pushing their way through a long shallow pool. They are kept in line by wire guides following two stretched longitudinal fishing lines.

The differences in boat performance were extraordinary – some boats just plugged along while others lifted their polystyrene noses and powered through the water, leaving a substantial wake. One student that I quizzed told me the electric motor driving his craft was Swiss-made – it was about as big as an AA cell yet gave the boat amazing performance. And of course, all the boats were directly powered by the solar cells mounted on them. As a way of integrating into the curriculum concepts of hydrodynamics, solar cell and motor efficiency, propeller pitch, renewable energy (and of course team-work and co-operation), I thought the boats were fantastic.

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As we all know, successive models of the one car tend to get larger.

A Corolla is now bigger than the original Crown; the new-age Mini is vastly bigger than the original; the current VE Commodore is very much larger than the first VB model.

Bigger is apparently better, until the size has grown so much that there’s a created place for a new, smaller model – like in the Corolla’s case, the Echo and then the Yaris. (Or in the Honda Civic’s case, the Jazz – there are many examples of the phenomenon.)

But the Holden Commodore has proved rather problematic. The newer, smaller models designed to slot in where the Commodore once was have not been very successful – the Vectra being the expensive case in point. So now we have the much cheaper Epica, which in terms of cars like the original sized VB-VL model Commodores, is actually large indeed. (But despite its size, it’s still smaller than the current VE Commodore…)

So what does it take for a long-time Commodore owner to finally jump ship? You know, the older person who has driven Commodore models continuously since their 1978 release? (For Commodores and Falcons, it wouldn’t surprise me if people in the ‘have-always-driven-them’ category make up half of the current private buyers.)

Do these people just religiously follow the upgrading in size, the upgrading in power, and the upgrading in weight? Or at some point, perhaps now with children having left the nest, do they say to themselves that the new iteration of the model simply doesn’t suit, and it’s time to get a car that isn’t smaller than their current model – it just isn’t yet again bigger. To step out of a VZ Commodore, not into a VE but into an Epica, for example.

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