gjm

I'm on a roll today. Probably due to lack of sleep. Why is that we now seem to accept that genuinely expensive (when new) prestige-badged cars need to have huge amounts of money spent on them at (what I'd think of as) low mileages? A recent article in the news talked about a 2-million km Toyota Corolla based somewhere north of Auckland. In the UK, I'd routinely see older cars advertised with 200000, 300000, 400000 miles and more. Yet I now see reports of engine life expectancy, without $BIG being spent, to be as little as 200,000km. Range Rover TDV8. Expensive when new. Over 150000km (not even 100000 miles) and turbos will have to come off for work which is likely to be required. Getting the turbos off means removing bodywork. It's not especially complex, but it's a long and messy job. Of course, that doesn't touch on the pletora of electrical issues that can be a problem. And don't buy a TDV6 because the crank can fail. Audi 3.0 TDi. "Some of them can make it to 200,000 miles, but likely won’t last much longer." Obviously engine maintenance is crucial with these engines, as with most others, but "expect problems after 100,000 miles if not kept up properly." [Let's skip over the BMW N42 and similar.] These are far from isolated examples. Has the accountant's pen really slashed through so much good engineering that cars are now inherently unreliable, and even regarded as disposable at 10 years old? Japanese cars are far from immune to issues, but do seem less susceptible than European or American ones. Maybe because they've never put the effort into making a decent small diesel, potentially diluting the funding for other mechancial work, so petrol-engined car development is properly addressed? Diesel high-pressure fuel pump failure is unheard of, because they don't make diesel cars! (Yes - there are exceptions.)

Had one of them on SH2 around Napier this morning. Complete with one even narrower space saver type rear wheel. 80km/h, max. And right hand lane through every roundabout. 🤬🤬🤬

Slow drivers in the outside lane approaching a roundabout, who hang back because overtaking a truck on the roundabout would be too dangerous, and then don't accelerate off the roundabout, trundling gently along behind the truck because they might not make the pass in the two lane space available...

Looks a bit better in a different colour. Interesting that so much effort is being expended by BMW in quite different alternative propulsion system directions (electric, hydrogen, fuel cell...)

Agreed. The number of cars being listed has dropped, and those that have been listed for higher prices don't seem to be moving as quickly.

Pricing is still optimistic?

Given the frankly optimistic prices of some E30s, this one looks almost reasonably priced. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/3518045341

S/h car market is a ridiculous thing at present and despite the Covid import issues, doesn't really make any sense. The vehicles you mention are right up there with other overpriced vehicles. I'd add a Hilux to the list! (Bl**dy horrible things to drive - what do people see in them?) What is your V6 wagon?

Really not sure where all the negativity around cheap BMWs is coming from. Maybe it's an impact of Covid? I bought the 320d with fairly high mileage, and ran it for a few years, piling (by most standards) huge kms on. Without issue. Look after it, and all is typically good. (It has been sold, and a non-starting issue is puzzling the new owner.) 560000km. We bought a genuinely cheap E46 318i. It runs, and runs... And runs... Look after it, and.. well, you get the idea. Bodywork is pretty rough, but it's solid. Well over 250000km. The Merc 500SE cost me $2500 nearly 7 years ago. Paintwork was poor when we got it and is not really better now, but it's cost very little in the meantime, despite having extended periods of daily use (which probably did it a lot of good, actually). Only real expense has been replacing the shock absorbers. Heading to 500000km Japanese cars? My experience is entirely contrary to what appears normal. Nothing but trouble. Buy cheap, run for 12 moths, throw it away, rinse, and repeat. I see people doing this A LOT but still saying how great their cheap Japanese hatch is (and how expensive European cars are to maintain), but something goes wrong and they buy another one every 12 months or so. YMMV. And obviously does.

Any chance you could go back to eRoad? They are among the most awful companies to deal with. No-one knows anything, and shipments for installation come in unmarked boxes with no information as to which vehicle they are for. Contacting them is a nightmare. Customers have spent hours on hold waiting to speak to someone, and we sometimes get emails replied to - eventually.

'That lovely Nissan' has an awful ride at highway speeds! And it's worse in town, crashing through potholes and the like. I dread to think what an early X3 would be like. 🤯

It's an F25 so hopefully wouldn't see me incur the spoon-up-bum wrath of Mr Doogle... I do like the idea of that. I'm trying to persuade my boss that he wants to part ways with his X5 3.0D, but he quite fairly says - what would he get to replace it that won't cost $Big? Edit: Ah. Slight fiduciary issue in the purchasing department where a 3.0D X3 is concerned...

The one I found is a low mileage... E83. On paper - fits the bill. Based on the experience of others (my favourite way of learning) it seems it is not such a good idea.

E46 M43 318i.

Reviewing online data, I should get better than 5.9L/100km in the X3 (equates to 1100km per tank). The job and role I have, and the purpose for the vehicle, mean an X3 is better-suited than a saloon or similar.

I was looking at an X3 diesel. Claimed 1000km+ on a full tank. (Can't confirm!) So that's $72 in RUCs, and (at $2.30 per litre) $154 for the diesel. $226 for (in my case) little more than a week of driving. A 2.0 petrol-engined car will take around 40l of fuel, 3 times in a fortnight. At $3 a litre, that's $180 a week, based on same usage. From an economy perspective, a diesel stops making sense very quickly.

Agreed. I'd focused on petrol-engined vehicles. The existing RUC charge is unreasonably harsh on those with private, smaller-engined diesel and mostly economical vehicles. It's simply not been changed to accommodate the change in diesel engine technology. EVs are going to see an RUC introduction at some point. It'd make sense to extend this to all road-using vehicles.

To do the job properly, the dashboard will need to come out. There's just not enough room to properly sort any cracks that may be close to the screen - the cracks can be like icebergs. What you can see is not all that needs sorting.

The cost of fuel at the pump has increased dramatically over the last few months. There was the usual big money-grabbing increase before Christmas, sustained through New Year, and a slight drop in early January. Since then though, it's been an inexorable increase. 1c/litre a day looked to be an average at one point. Lots of the usual noise about how bad the NZ govt is at managing this, and the tax they're taking. Yes - it's a significant contributor, but if the fuel companies didn't increase price, the govt percentage wouldn't compound the problem. I've said elsewhere that a cap on govt taxation would be a way that the public can be helped. Take a time and price - let's say $2.50 per litre - and once the price of fuel reaches that, the government doesn't take any further tax. However, that doesn't address any transparency issues that the public may have regarding what the oil companies are making vs govt taxation. A better way would be a fixed amount. Without going through all the tax take calculations, let's say the govt takes $1.50 tax on a litre of fuel. A huge amount of money to be sure, but we could expect the govt to be able to say that 30c is spent on x, 27c on y, 2.6c goes towards wrestling mats for one-legged black lesbian mothers of three or more children, 40c goes towards... whatever. Fix that figure. Any change in fuel price is purely and simply at the behest of the oil companies, and is clearly calculable and obvious. It's also far, far simpler for the govt, the filling stations, and so on. It can 'hide' any cents/dollars per barrel taxation, but the public won't care about that. They'd have a clear view of the tax take. Refineries... Lots of fuss and blame being laid at the govt feet for the closure of Marsden Point, a privately owned entity. All the fuss about that, and the offshore barges - all private owned/used. No govt involvement. Should there be? Maybe. Australia is nearly 30x the size of NZ, and has 4 refineries for the entire country. From an Oz standpoint, an area the size of NZ doesn't warrant consideration, and certainly not it's own refinery. Finally... Profit. Oil companies are raising prices at a time when they are making ever-increasing profits. Oil companies are also taking subsidies from governmental institutions... And they're not paying a 'reasonable' amount of tax on the profits they are making - lots of offshore obfuscation around ownership and finance. Clever move by the petrol stations. Announce a price increase, empty the filling station tanks so they can fill right up while they can still get fuel relatively cheaply, and then hike the price up to what the new barrel cost is. There's a LOT going on in this area. A lot of behind-the-scenes long-term planning, all the way down to individual and corporate profiteering with taxation somewhere in the middle. It's incredibly complex.

Original manual 325i 4-door manual, UK import.

Could be an NZ 'thing'. Those who own them, love them. I'd not expected to be selling and hadn't considered the possible problems that might present, but change of health circumstances means it is no longer a practical idea.