[Phil48]

Dacia making big gains in the uk with the owners giving the cars the big thumbs up..as you will probably know its a Romanian company owned by renault..:wink2:

Best Tow Cars - Duster is ranked @ No1.
http://www.carbuyer....d/best-tow-cars

Top 10 best cars for dog owners - Logan ranked @ No9.
http://www.carbuyer....-for-dog-owners

Best new cars for £10,000 - Sandero ranked @ No4, Logan ranked @ No8.
http://www.carbuyer....-cars-for-10000

The top ten cheap new cars on sale today - Sandero ranked @ No1, Logan ranked @ No3.
http://www.carbuyer....s-on-sale-today

Best Cars for £15,000 - Duster ranked @ No1.
http://www.carbuyer....-cars-for-15000

Best cars for winter - Duster ranked @ No2.
http://www.carbuyer....est-cars-winter

Best 4x4s and SUVs - Duster ranked @ No3.
http://www.carbuyer....t-4x4s-and-suvs

Best cheap cars - Sandero ranked @ No7,
http://www.carbuyer....best-cheap-cars

Cheap cars to insure - Sandero ranked @ No5.
http://www.carbuyer....eap-cars-insure

Top 10 best first cars - Sandero ranked @ No9.
http://www.carbuyer....best-first-cars

 

[batfink5]

Friend bought a 4x4 duster for his 20yr old daughter as he stays in a rural area reached by a dirt track ...reckons of road capabilities as good as his evogue with a tiny fraction of the running costs

 

[Nottnoc]

That post may just be a little biased Phil :smile2::smile2:
Full marks to the Romanians, must be the build quality.
Remember Skoda................. Same story.

 

[A55ii]

That post may just be a little biased Phil :smile2::smile2:
Full marks to the Romanians, must be the build quality.
Remember Skoda................. Same story.

and Lada FSO Polski Fiat

 

[Ralph]

and Lada FSO Polski Fiat

Do I, but things could only improve, even though we
did get a few Trabant's.

 

[A55ii]

LOL we did get a few Lancia's too - but they dissolved literally !

 

[Phil48]

Build quality is very good on my Stepway and with some dealers offering the lower spec steppy's at £8,495 brand new its a gift..mine has the renault 3 pot turbo which many others are now also doing..Ford ecoboost is supposedly the best on the market at the moment but that could change in the future..:smile2: there are only two things I would change if I could..1 would be to have a coolant temp gauge and the other to have a central horn button on the steering wheel instead of at the end of the light/indicator stalk..finding the second very hard to live with..

 

[Renoir White]

and Lada FSO Polski Fiat

My FSO 125P was very robust and reliable, but had a noisy gearbox and steering linkages prone to wear, all this at only 17k miles.

Build quality is very good on my Stepway :smile2: there are only two things I would change if I could..1 would be to have a coolant temp gauge and the other to have a central horn button on the steering wheel instead of at the end of the light/indicator stalk..finding the second very hard to live with..

Don't think I'd like to be pressing the horn button when the airbag goes off (I presume there is one in the steering wheel?) :surprise:

 

[Phil48]

My FSO 125P was very robust and reliable, but had a noisy gearbox and steering linkages prone to wear, all this at only 17k miles.


Don't think I'd like to be pressing the horn button when the airbag goes off (I presume there is one in the steering wheel?) :surprise:

Horn button is at the end of the light/indicator stalk RW..:frown2:

 

[Dancingdad]

Horn button is at the end of the light/indicator stalk RW..:frown2:

That's cos you have an airbag in the wheel and they don't want switches flying around if it goes off.

 

[batfink5]

All my cars are horn on the steering wheel ..like Phil i prefer a temp gauge to a warning light as by the time a light comes on the damage is usually done

when talking about Lada/Trabant etc remember an uncle having a Wartburg Knight :rofl:

 

[Phil48]

That's cos you have an airbag in the wheel and they don't want switches flying around if it goes off.

All my many other cars accept the early Layland ones have had a horn in the centre of the steering wheel..they had them on the end of the stalk on the right just like the few fords I owned..Dacia uses a combination of modern and old tech parts from the spares bin and in many cases Clio 2..thats where the lights/indicator/horn stalk comes from and its also used on some other early Renaults..

Photo now added..

 

[Ralph]

Yep worked on a few Wartburgs 3 pot 2 stroke,
don't care were the horn button is only thing I
use it for anyway is to send the V di-di-di-dah
in morse as I pass one of my mates houses.

 

[stuart j]

Ford ecoboost is supposedly the best on the market at the moment but that could change in the future..:smile2: .

Unfortunately I can see quite a few good fords being scrapped when they hit the ten,, eleven year mark because of this engine:surprise:

I was reading on the ford forum a few weeks ago,, someone as had one as a reps car basically and it's got a lot of miles on it so had to go in for service..

Quote for cambelt is getting on for nearly a grand:surprise::surprise:

The cambelt sits quite deep into the engine on them and it's a fairly big job (9 hours labour alone) and the belt kit costs around the £450 mark..

It's not like your conventional belt,, this actually sits in the engine covered in oil all the time...

Problem is let's say a ten year old fiesta is going to be worth £1000 - £2000 and will be due a belt,, who would buy it knowing it's going to need another £800-£1000 spending on it for a belt?

 

[Phil48]

That comes as quite a surprise Stu coming from Ford..I have only seen some reports about the engine and not looked further into it..the Renault engine in my Steppy is the 3 cylinder Tce 90 turbo engine and it has a timing chain thank god and I would have thought the Ford engine would have been the same..all manufacturers seem to be going the same way now even Kia brought a 3 cylinder out last year I think it was but their's has two different horse powers one is 89hp like mine and the other is 118hp iirc..a timing chain seems to be the norm now with this new type of engine [small HP with a turbo]..

 

[stuart j]

No Phil the it's quite a big job in all accounts...

This doesn't show the work involved but you get the idea just how much of the engine that need to be stripped due to where the belt sits and also why it's so expensive to have done:surprise:


http://youtu.be/Rd6mUcqV8oY

 

[Phil48]

My guess is the renault engine would be a bit of a strip down as well but at least you do get a longer service period with a chain..

 

[stuart j]

Don't get me wrong as you know I own a Ford so am not slating them, I honestly love mine but it's still a relatively new engine..

I think in a few years you Could well start hearing a few horror stories about it:surprise:

 

[knownClone]

That's cos you have an airbag in the wheel and they don't want switches flying around if it goes off.

Proton SAVVY has Airbag + press/tilt sprung airbag pad as Horn... Malaysians showing us all the way lol

Phil & I have/has had a Savv... :nerd:

knownClone

 

[Andrew Fanning]

Been living out here in Romania for the last few years and obviously the Dacia are everywhere. They were only really starting to take off in Ireland when I left so didn't know much about them. Nearly every Taxi you get into is an older model Logan from which I understand is based on the Cilo but a lot of them are still going strong with over 400,000 kms on them.

I have taking a test drive in the duster and was seriously impressed will be strongly considering one in the future.

I can really see them being the next Skoda but think they need to try and step up the design if they want to start targeting the younger markets in the likes of the UK and western European countries.