Engine failure within 5 years - where to compain

shaun_from_Africa

londonTiger wrote: »

I would not describe a car that lasts for 2/3 years as reliable or robust.

But during that 2 or 3 year period, a taxi in many parts of Africa may well do more miles than a similar car in Europe or the USA would do in its entire life, often in far worse conditions (weather and the state of the roads).


I know for a fact that most taxis in the cities in Nigeria (and probably many other African countries as well) are in use pretty much 24 hours a day and get passed from driver to driver when one has had enough for the day.
Add to this the fact that there generally isn't any routine maintenance or servicing and any repairs that are needed are usually done in the cheapest and fastest way often using 2nd or 3rd hand spares removed from other cars.

dannyrst

londonTiger wrote: »

I meant the unreliability of British cars, not the sales. British automobile died because they were unreliable and not great value for money.

But surely it goes without saying that if French cars were so unreliable their sales would be dropping, not increasing?

bigjl

Stoke wrote: »

Apparently they're better than a Mercedes mate.

Perhaps ask all those owners of Mercedes who had to have massive structural repairs on their fairly new Mercedes......

Some failed their first MOT!

But you continue to ignore the fact that unlike Mercedes from the late 09's and early 00's and VAG 2.0tdi engines this was not a widespread issue.

It happened on a small number of Dusters built in India and was a localised production issue.

Which part of that is difficult for you to understand?

I was going to buy a Duster in 2013 and looked into the rust issue. I found it was irrelevant as I was looking to buy a LHD which would be made in Romania not India. Was also going to be badged a Renault as they don't use the Dacia brand in Ghana.

From my research at the time all vehicles were fixed and I am sure I remember that some people managed to reject theirs.

But you continue to spout rubbish based on rumour and Internet forum opinions if it makes you happy.

bigjl

londonTiger wrote: »

LMAO!!!! The only thing that matters in Romania and Africa is price point.

That's why VW still sells a mk2 deriviative golf in South Africa and sells the mk4 deriviative golf in China. It's because they're cheaper to make and sell.



Race cars are entirely different from production cars. Many race teams like mcclaren don't even make production cars (apart from the super cars).

French cars are jut the worst of the best. They're not !!!! enough to suffer the fate of British automobile industry, but they're just clinging on by the thread. They are unreliable and suffer from issues that should have been solved in the 80s (such as Engine dying at 25K mile). Compared to German, Japanese & Korean car makes, they're aweful.

They're just driven by Francophiles who wish they were French.



I would not describe a car that lasts for 2/3 years as reliable or robust.

Price Point?

Do you have any idea how many Land Cruisers they sell in Ghana every year?

Have you been to Ghana? Or in fact lived there?

Most Taxis are used. Usually imported at around the 8/9 year mark to minimise import tax and duty.

And I never said all Taxis last 2/3 years I said most. Which is not the same. Some last a year.

The vehicles used are also not typical Taxi vehicles, Matiz, Atoz, Accent, Rio and there are still some Daewoo Tigos from ten years ago knocking about, as well as Astras, Cavaliers, Vectras, Toyota Matrix, Rover 75 (he was a brave soul), the Almera and Almera Tino are popular at the moment, the vehicles are also routinely overloaded, think 6 people Matiz with the boot filled with 3 or 4 bags of cement kind of overloading.

Current Taxi we have is a Hyundai Accent, from Germany, it has been used since 2012 and is a 2002/3 1.5 from memory. When it landed in Ghana it was a clean and tidy fairly low mileage vehicle.

Now it has more body filler than a spares shop and at least 260k km on it, the odometer no longer works which is fairly common as the drivers can hide fares from the Taxi owner, over half of Taxis in Ghana have a broken odometer. It has probably done closer to 300k km.

However to consider Africa in general and Ghana specifically as a poor country/continent is rather naive.

One of my houses in Accra is worth £100k and I still haven't put the roof on.

Police cars in Ghana are mostly Nissan Navaras with senior Officers driving a mix of Land Cruisers (they still have the old 70series there) and Nissan Patrol, at least on the occasions they passed me in traffic.

Just so you are aware a current shape Land Cruiser in Ghana is around £100k. The 70 Series is not much cheaper.

In Accra I saw a Lamborghini and a Ferraris near the Accra Mall as well as more Range Rover Sports, Discovery 3+4 and Range Rovers than in Kensington&Chelsea at school run time!

The main consideration in Ghana is robustness and ease of repairability.

The hub went on our car, the driver managed to get it to a nearby workshop and they had a used strut and hub fitted to the car the next day, would have been done the same day but the breakdown occurred on a Sunday and the spare place was shut.

And if you want to know what a proper pothole is or a proper speedbump then go to Ghana. Massive things that cause nearly every car to scrape its underside.

You could lose a car in some potholes and they use speed bumps on the main roads to slow traffic down due to pedestrian deaths, when I say main I mean the Accra to Cape Coast road. Many drivers fly over these smaller speed bumps, they are only about 2" high but they position 3 together and they have a domed profile so rattle the car to death every time unless you slow down to walking pace(which very few do)

And if you want to know where most of the used Mercedes Sprinters go it isn't the scrap yard it is Africa. Most trotros are Sprinters, with a healthy mix of Hyundai and Kia vans aswell.
.
And let's not forget one important issue, only a small number of Houses are mortgaged and very few cars are financed.

The traditional way was to finance was over one year on a brand new car, though one dealer could finance over 4 years.

How many new cars do you think they would sell in the UK if you had to either buy cash or pay it in 4 instalments over a year?

Cars are also extremely expensive in Ghana.

$19000 (US $) for a fairly basic spec Renault Duster or $13500 for a Renault Logan (basically a current shape Dacia Sandero saloon)

The Logan new in Europe seems to be around £6000.

What your post has informed me is that you have very little knowledge about cars/vans etc LondonTiger in general and have almost no knowledge about the world outside of the UK/Europe.

Stoke

bigjl wrote: »

Perhaps ask all those owners of Mercedes who had to have massive structural repairs on their fairly new Mercedes......

Some failed their first MOT!

But you continue to ignore the fact that unlike Mercedes from the late 09's and early 00's and VAG 2.0tdi engines this was not a widespread issue.

It happened on a small number of Dusters built in India and was a localised production issue.

Which part of that is difficult for you to understand?

I was going to buy a Duster in 2013 and looked into the rust issue. I found it was irrelevant as I was looking to buy a LHD which would be made in Romania not India. Was also going to be badged a Renault as they don't use the Dacia brand in Ghana.

From my research at the time all vehicles were fixed and I am sure I remember that some people managed to reject theirs.

But you continue to spout rubbish based on rumour and Internet forum opinions if it makes you happy.

That's great champ.

I don't own a Mercedes, so why you keep bringing it up like I'm some kind of class snob is irrelevant. I own a banger, but it's a good banger and it's a car I trust (hence the fact I've done in excess of 60k miles on it).

bigjl

Stoke wrote: »

That's great champ.

I don't own a Mercedes, so why you keep bringing it up like I'm some kind of class snob is irrelevant. I own a banger, but it's a good banger and it's a car I trust (hence the fact I've done in excess of 60k miles on it).

I don't care what you drive

But I am a bit bored with your pointless comments regarding a small number of Dusters as if that in some way indicates how good or bad the vehicle is.

It isn't as though they tried to avoid responsibility like VAG and Mercedes have done on many occasions is it?

You are aware that a design fault is not the same as a localised production problem?i suspect not as I have pointed out the FACTS several times and you seem to be unable to comprehend the difference.

bigjl

Stoke wrote: »

http://www.daciaforum.co.uk/forum/topic/706-do-you-have-a-rusty-duster/page-306

August 17th 2015


23rd August 2015


26th August 2015


Sounds like that localized production problem.... might be a design problem after all mate.

So you know for a fact that the Dacias mentioned in your quotes were not made during the same production run?

Though if you had read your own links you would know that RHD Dusters are now made in Romania rather than India. So I would think the Indian made models will now be for the other RHD markets.

What is the definition of localised?

bigjl

jase1 wrote: »

Dacias are cheaply made. They're no better than Chevrolet, and that stands to reason as they're aimed at the same market.

Mechanically sound but flimsy construction.

Dacias are only a recent introduction to Ghana but have been in Morrocco for much longer.

But the number of Chevrolets (Daewoos) in Ghana is significant and they are widely used as Taxis.

They even have a version of the Matiz which is badged as a Chevrolet. Larger stuff like the Cruze is not that common but the small hatchbacks are all over the place. Some are from Europe (mostly Germany) but also lots from South Korea, they have a Matiz with a CVT gearbox which is fairly common, they handily put "CVT" on the bootlid so they are easy to spot.

Somebody mentioned that in some African counties the Taxis are on the go 24/7, that is not usually the case in Ghana though people's working day tends to be an awful lot longer than a standard Western working day, 12hours or more if you are running your own business (as most people do to some extent or another).

Maintenance is largely oil and filter changes. The air filter on my Accent was the same one as 2yrs ago for example. Everything else is on a break and replace kind of basis.

bigjl

AdrianC wrote: »

You mean the CitiGolf? Apart from it being Mk1 based, they dropped it six years ago - and it was always sold alongside the then-current Golf, as an entry-level model.

I worked with a bloke years ago that had a CitiGolf he showed me pictures of it once and it had what looked like a Polo dashboard in it.

He wanted to try and import it to Europe but I think it turned out to be unviable.

Stoke

FlamaBlanca wrote: »

Whats with the OTT use of 'champ' and 'mate' when responding to the guy? Its weird, almost like you have no faith in your own rebuttals and are trying to take attention away from that fact with condescending terms of address.

It's an internet forum? People say mate...... that's pretty normal. Maybe I'm saying champ to be a teeny bit condescending

bigjl wrote: »

I don't care what you drive

But I am a bit bored with your pointless comments regarding a small number of Dusters as if that in some way indicates how good or bad the vehicle is.

It isn't as though they tried to avoid responsibility like VAG and Mercedes have done on many occasions is it?

You are aware that a design fault is not the same as a localised production problem?i suspect not as I have pointed out the FACTS several times and you seem to be unable to comprehend the difference.

According to customers, Dacia absolutely tried to avoid responsibility. Just read the thread I posted earlier. Most dealers have refused to repair the corrosion, with only a few providing a solution to the tailgate holding water (aka drilling holes in the tailgate).

As for a localized production problem, I have pointed out, at least 4 times now, that the tailgate rust issue, according to none other than the DACIA OWNERS forum is not a localized production issue, but caused by the tailgate holding water due to the way the 'D U S T E R' letters are a applied to the bootlid. I assume they clip in as opposed to glued, and because of that, there are no seals so water then seeps through and holds in the bottom of the tailgate. That causes the tailgate to rust from the inside out, hence all the complaints about tailgate rust.

Still, like you say, Dacia have dealt with the rust issue admirably. It's not like there's a website called, I don't know 'Rusty Duster', dedicated to highlighting the fact people aren't getting support from Dacia dealers.

A quote from the webmaster of the non-existent Rusty Duster site:

It now seems that the initial statement made by Dacia was just an effort to buy time. It would now seem that every Duster produced for the UK is possibly going to be affected.

You've taken everything I've said well out of context anyway. I don't mind French cars. I think the 205 GTi was a fantastic vehicle. I think the 5 GT Turbo was a stunning motor. The Saxo VTS. I just think Dacia's are !!!! and that's my opinion.