Murcers Cars (and Bikes) Thread. What do you have, and maybe, why ?

[Evildead666]

I have two loves in life, cars and computers.
Computers are sometimes cheaper (not lately though, seeing the price of Graphics cards are more expensive than a used car).

I have an old Clio 1.9D 64bhp, no turbo, from '99 and a very old Passat 1.8i 112bhp from '89.
I have just ordered a load of parts for my clio, which are surprisingly cheap.
Headlights are 40e a pop, and a new soundproofing tray under the engine, only 32e ! Delivered !
The passat is basically a bigger VW golf, so parts are also very cheap, and plentiful.
Its also now a "classic', so i can find parts on VW classic.com that weren't available before. Almost the whole car is available in parts

The clio is the daily workhorse, it may be a diesel, but its not a turbo, so doesn't generate all the NoX that they do, and has a Cat, so there's that, and doesn't smoke at all.
Clio is 350000km, and the Passat is 198000km approx. It doesn't get used much, but I love it for the 4 seats, and the comfort.
Passat is also the last model without a Cat, so it sounds pretty good too

Clio does about 6L/100km on highway, but at the moment is nearer 8, as I only use it for very short distances to the station and back, so is always in warmup mode...
Gearbox was changed for a couple of grand a few years ago after it exploded. Well worth it.
Passat does 6L/100km on the highway too, and I don't drive to keep the consumption low.
Its an oldie, so its light, no pesky security things like ABS or airbags to go wrong. It has electric front windows
It is a multi point injection, so its not a slouch. Need to pull the inside heater fan at some point as it blew the fuse last time it was on. Thats a hells own job, most of the dashboard has to come out...

The clio cost me 150e back in the day, and the passat cost me 10000 francs, both have served me very well, and i hope to keep them going for another few decades at least !

The only bummer is that Diesel is now more expensive than 98 octane here....very happy its not thirsty

[Umfriend]

So I have a Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 16APH8 and I am very happy with it. It replaced my MSI Leopard 8RE (i7-8750H / Nv 1060 GTX) which was a terrible machine. But at the time, it was very hard to find a laptop with a beefy CPU, I/O, Ram without a dGPU. Now, I have a great CPU, enough Ram and a very decent iGPU, certainly for my purposes (gaming: chess, League, BG3, Lords of the Realm 2).

Also, we have a Volvo V70 since 2011, the car itself is from 2007. Around 270Mm, mostly because since Covid, it just does not get used a lot. I really appreciate the car except for consumption. The next one is likely to be full electric but it will be a while. I can imagine a full electric Passat Break for instance as I do like the space and will not likely settle for a smaller car. Alrentively I might have a small electric and just use the V70 for cargo and trips. May be running the V70 for another 10 years or so.

[VJ]

We have a 2 year old Subaru XV, bought new just after pandemic to facilitate traveling between Belgium and Poland. It now has 33000 km as we made several trips to Belgium and one to Denmark (we combine trips between Poland and Belgium with sightseeing in Germany and/or Netherlands). We got the Subaru as it was the most comfortable care we tested (for highway driving) and it was immediately available - it also scored very high on safety-tests and its eye-sight automatic cruise-control is said to be one of the best systems out there (and we really like - I cannot compare with others, but it hasn't given us any surprise so far). It also is surprisingly light inside (big windows, narrow A-pillar) with very good visibility. Living in an apartment without an own parking space and with limited public charging in the area were arguments against getting an electric car. We know LEZs are coming, also to Warsaw, but according to current plans we are still good till 2035.

We also still have my VW Polo from 2003 (175000 km), which my mother in law uses. She sold her Hyundai i10 from 2012 (or so), as the Polo is an automatic and is much more comfortable and better equipped.

[Dr Mordrid]

Family car is a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV, which has a 35 to 38 mile EV range. Almost everything we need is within 8-10 miles so... Including three Meijer hypermarkets about 250,000 sqft each. Lots of agricultural space around us so we have farmers markets up the kazoo.

In storage is a 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z, which has had loving care. Metal flake garnet with silver air dams, whale tail spoiler, etc. loaded. Nice car, bought it new.

Daughter and son-in-law drive an Audi, and they have a loaded up F-150 pickup. Grandson is busy working and trying to outrun his girlfriend, who has him in her sights. I think he's a goner, but she's a good catch herself (geologist in training)

[UtwigMU]

Still the Civic.

[TransformX]

1997 Lancia Kappa 2.4L 20v

[VJ]

We were in Belgium for just over a week, and upon return our car (the two-year old Subaru) refused to start. It had been parked for 10 days, with temperatures going down to -15⁰C. The dashboard lights up, there is fast ticking noise and nothing else. We called the service, and basically those are the tell-tale signs of a depleted battery. We'll now connect it to a charger (luckily it is on the driveway at my inlaws) and try again. Hopefully the battery is ok, if not we would be very unlucky as it is 3 weeks past its warranty.

[VJ]

We were in Belgium for just over a week, and upon return our car (the two-year old Subaru) refused to start. It had been parked for 10 days, with temperatures going down to -15⁰C. The dashboard lights up, there is fast ticking noise and nothing else. We called the service, and basically those are the tell-tale signs of a depleted battery. We'll now connect it to a charger (luckily it is on the driveway at my inlaws) and try again. Hopefully the battery is ok, if not we would be very unlucky as it is 3 weeks past its two year warranty.

Edit: charging stopped very quickly, showing 100% and we managed to start the car. The likely cause is the OEM battery: its CCA is 390A, but for cold climates generally 500-550 is recommended (CCA is Cold Crank Amperage: the amount of current the battery can give at -18⁰C for 30s without dropping below 7.2V). With the ambient temperatures of -16⁰C, probably the battery was just not up to the job - in the afternoon, after the short charging and with ambient temperature of -8⁰C we managed to start it. I've found on internet that it is quite common for the battery in new cars to have a rather low CCA specification, so that may be the cause as the short charging clearly showed it was not depleted.
Still, the specification of the car states that it needs 165A for the starter and 120A for the DC converter, so a battery with a CCA of 390A should suffice at -16⁰C - unless it supplies less now (which would have made it a candidate for warranty return). This morning the car started just fine, but it was not that cold.

[Dr Mordrid]

When the kids were growing up and I was coaching Babe Ruth baseball, we had a 15 seat Dodge B300 Sportsman van - absolutely enormous. 5.9 l engine, etc. We had two large format batteries connected in parallel and an oversized alternator because of the cold Michigan climate. Each battery had a warming pad, and it had an engine block heater.

When not hauling around mass quantities of kids you can take out the seats, install some camper equipment (sink, cots, etc) and head up North for camping, hunting, fishing etc

Loved that thing.

[Umfriend]

Hom many cars have you guys had in your lifetime? We've had an Opel Ascona, VW Polo, Nissan Bluebird, Renault 5, Renault 19, Renault Megane and a Volvo V70 (to this day). That is 8 cars between the two of us.

[VJ]

I've had a VW Polo (2001), which was a lemon and which I subsequently replaced with a VW Polo (2003). My wife had a Hyundai i10 (2012, sold in 2023). Now together we have a Subaru XV, the Polo is in use by my inlaws. So 4 cars between the two of us...
(my parents had 5 cars that I know of between the two of them: a Ford Taunus, Renault 25, Volvo 850, Volvo V40 and now an Opel Mokka)

Does any of you have some protection installed against marten? Upon opening the hood yesterday, we learned that a big part of isolation on the hood was bitten and we probably will have to replace the isolation. It most likely happened at our work in Gdańsk, where we later learned there is a problem with them. Problem is that at one point we'll have to go back there, so it would make sense to consider some ultrasound protection or so... any experiences with this?

[Umfriend]

Wait, you did not have a car prior to 2001?

[TransformX]

• Peugeot 205 1300cc (carburetor, 90s)
• Peugeot 205 1100cc (injection, 90s)
• Citroen ZX 1400 coupe (1994?)
• Toyota Corolla (work rented car, 2008)
• Mazda 6 (2006)
• Alfa Romeo 147 (???)
• Lancia k. (1997)

[Umfriend]

Hmmm, I always figured we drove our cars for a long time and that we had had less cars than usual. But then, it is 8 between the two of us (we sometimes had two, sometimes just one).

[VJ]

Wait, you did not have a car prior to 2001?

I graduated from university in 1999 and bought my first car two years later... Edit: I got my driver's license earlier and had access to my parents car when needed, but that was not often.
My wife actually bought her car just before we met, but then as we moved in together we had no need for a second car (we work at the same places) so her mother was mainly using it.

The main reason I changed from my first car was the non-stop issues: the fuel meter was replaced (had to return the car on the first day I got it), the computer twice, ignition lock, door hinge, various sensors. It was even returned for a fuel consumption check (around 14l/100 km for a Polo, with calm driving). The main issue was the poor combination of gearbox and engine, a combo of which all proof disappeared from the internet after a few months - but of course they won't acknowledge that it is a bad combo. It got rid of it when it started loosing all electronics randomly while driving (quite scary to loose everything including propulsion when you are passing a truck on the highway). So if it weren't for that I'd probably be now on my second car rather than my third.