Tuesday, 13. October 2015
Whilst I happily sit on the wall over the whole EU thing – should we be in or should we be out, there are certain things that they do that provide us with great benefits. One of these is standardisation. Safety issues sometimes require a group of people to get their heads together in order to agree a standard because clearly we can’t leave things to the individual manufacturers.
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Have I ever told you about the Ford Pinto back in the 1970’s? At the time it was the best selling compact car in the US. In fact there were 11.5 million of these cars on the road but they had a major fault. The fuel tank was mounted in the back of the car in a position where, if the car was shunted in the rear, the tank would explode. More than 500 people died as a result of the fuel tank exploding and bursting into flames with many more suffering severe burns.
This only came to light because one of the burn victims sued Ford. It then turned out that Ford engineers were fully aware of the danger posed by the fuel tank but company executives carried out a cost benefit analysis with shocking results. They decided that the benefits of fixing the problem in lives saved and injuries prevented were not worth the cost of $11 per car to fix the problem on all of the Pintos.
They calculated that if the tanks weren’t repaired there would be a further 180 deaths and 180 burn injuries. They then applied a cost of $200,000 per life and $67,000 per injury. They added to this the cost of repair and replacement of cars as a result of the tank explosions and they came up with a cost of $49.5 million but to make the cars safer at a cost of $11 per vehicle would cost $137.5 million so they chose not to repair all the cars already on the road.
When this came out in court the jury found against Ford and awarded the plaintiff $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $125 million in punitive damages (later reduced to $3.5 million). So my point is that if manufacturers were left to make their own decisions on safety I suspect that cars would be nowhere near as safe as they are now.
So on the plus side we can feel comfortable that when we get into any car across Europe we are protected by some very high standardised safety levels. God forbid we ever leave our safety in the hands of just the manufacturers. By Graham Hill
Saturday, 15. March 2014
Something else I write about far too often is warranty claims. Dealers continue to let down customers and drivers know too little about their legal rights and don’t do things that would help their case. A lady had a Toyota that she bought second hand but found shortly after that the alarm constantly and randomly went off whilst parked on her drive.
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She returned the car whilst covered by the warranty but the dealer couldn’t replicate the problem so refused to accept that one existed. The problem continued and the car was returned, still no joy as the dealer effectively called the lady a liar.
The fact is that I have an extremely small amount of sympathy for the dealer as faults can often be intermittent so with modern technology why didn’t the lady take a video of the car with the alarm going off to show that it happened.
Or take a letter from a neighbour explaining that the alarm continued to sound without anyone touching the car so at least she can speak with some authority. My sympathy ended when I read that the dealer refused to continue checking the car for the fault after the warranty ran out.
As I have said time and again your legal rights don’t end the day your warranty runs out. Alarms should function properly for the life of the car so if it is faulty when you buy the car from a dealer there is something wrong with it and the supplying dealer needs to fix it or give you your money back. If you are not satisfied get the manufacturer involved and also advise the Office of Fair Trading.
In the case of the lady with the Toyota the manufacturer arranged to have the car looked at and turn down the sensitivity level on the alarm which fixed the problem. Unbelievable! The manufacturer needs to address the incompetence of its franchised dealer. The good news is that I am now working closely with several manufacturers as a consultant and this is an area that will be addressed as part of my shake up of the industry. By Graham Hill
Thursday, 6. March 2014
Bits & Pieces: Britain’s most expensive parking space is up for sale in London’s Kensington Area. The underground bay is up for sale at £400,000, 15 times the average UK salary of £26,500. It is also double the average price of a house in the UK. But with property prices in the SW7 region of London averaging £2.3 million the parking space will soon be snapped up I’m sure.
Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.
I reported a while ago that electric cars will soon be charged wirelessly (like your kettle) in the near future. I can now confirm that Toyota are carrying out field trials on a wireless charger embedded into the floor of a number of domestic garages. The car is parked over the bed and fully charged in 90 minutes.
Trials are being carried out on the new Prius Plug In Hybrid. Again talking about Toyota they have closed on a deal with BMW to supply them with a family of diesels. The 1.6 currently fitted on the Verso will be extended across other cars in the range whilst platforms developed for 2.0 litre units are already prepared for production. By Graham Hill
Wednesday, 5. February 2014
For years manufacturers have shared ‘bits; in order to keep costs down. Many vans have the same platform and various parts and until fairly recently you would see several makes of van coming off the same production lines in Southampton. Well now you are going to see the same sharing thing happening with sports cars.
Z4 Sdrive35i (Photo credit: kenjonbro)
Our dodgy weather in the UK means that sports cars will never sell in big numbers but as a nation of motor sports lovers we don’t like giving up sports cars altogether so we are seeing a few manufacturers joining forces to make sure the tradition continues. The first twins were the Toyota GT 86 and Subaru BRZ. Subaru supplied Toyota with its 2.0L Boxer engine as well as a modified version of its WRX platform.
When the new Mazda MX5 and Alfa Romeo Spider are launched later this year, whilst they will look wildly different they will share several common bits. Even further down the line Renault will be re-inventing its famous Alpine whilst Caterham will be producing its own version based on the same platform.
Both are likely to have the same powertrain and even be made at Renaultsport’s facility in France. But the really big news is that the new BMW Z4 is being developed with Toyota. And that Toyota will be bringing out its own version based on the same platform, powertrain and materials. I’m all for it if it keeps the sports car tradition going in this country.
It wouldn’t be Britain if you weren’t cruising around the M25 in the middle of January with the sun shining but minus 10 degrees centigrade and a little old couple in an MGB, muffled up to the nostrils comes racing past you with the hood down doing 95mph. Long may it continue for the nutters out there! By Graham Hill
Tuesday, 1. November 2011
Image via Wikipedia
It would seem that the motor industry is doing quite well over the pond in the US as their economy continues to grow mildly. Low interest rates and the need for many to replace cars that they have retained through the recession have been credited for the slight increase in sales over October last year. The sales of ‘light vehicles’ (cars) last month rose Read more »
Monday, 31. October 2011
You have to have some sympathy for Honda after our hearts go out to those that died in the Tsunami then over the last few days those that have lost their lives in the Thai floods. But talk about bad choices of location, Honda shut down production for most of the summer following the tsunami and we now hear that following the severe floods on 4th Read more »
Sunday, 23. October 2011
Maybe it’s a sign that I’m getting old, but when I was young you established male dominance by beating up other boys until you got to puberty then you started to beat up girls. It was all very normal but of course frowned upon these days. You then proved you were a man by smoking which led into drinking 27 pints of Courage ale and still remaining Read more »
Tuesday, 27. September 2011
There are some encouraging signs coming from the Japanese manufacturers with regard to recovery following the tsunami. Toyota and Nissan are working close to capacity now to fulfil orders and to replenish inventory of cars and parts depleted as a result of the March 11th disaster. Whilst car production was ready to roll very quickly it was a Read more »
Wednesday, 31. August 2011
Image via Wikipedia
Those people working on the development of electric cars are yet to run with my idea of replaceable batteries, in the meantime it looks as though we will have to go with the sort of technology that allows you to have a petrol engine in the car as well as the electric motor. However even this technology is split although both types are referred to as hybrids Read more »
Saturday, 6. August 2011
I’m going to hate saying this but I’m a bit of a fan of Citroens. I know they’re French and they haven’t had the greatest of reputations over the years but also being French they are very comfy, something you appreciate more as you get older, and many of the cars look quite good fun. I like the DS range of cars because they look great and actually drive Read more »
