Weird car options, an observation

[Richard A Thackeray]

We don’t bother locking our 56 plate Peugeot Partner Combi (Berlingo).

Pre-Octavia, we had a Ford C-Max
I used to leave the horrible thing unlocked, with all 4 windows down, hoping it would disappear one night
Sadly, it never did

 

[mustang1]

Ahem, I believe you mean "de-chrome"...



No, the manufacturer will sell you a nice RF blocking pouch to put the key in with their logo on the front for £75. Or you can buy a generic one for £6 off Amazon.
Or just put the key in an old metal tin.

When keyless go was first introduced on the Mondeo, Top Gear magazine tested one and found that the car could be started and driven away with the key on the inside window sill of the reporters house...

Keyless cars are the best thing ever to happen for car thieves since I don't know when. Especially as you can buy the kit to steal the car online with no questions asked. This story is a few years old now but shows the scale of the problem: https://www.driving.co.uk/news/news...in-west-london-after-surge-in-keyless-thefts/

Anyhow, getting back on topic, what about £250 extra for yellow brake callipers on a Fiat?

Did you know that metallic paint costs the manufacturers hardly any more than a "solid" colour does? Yet they charge hundreds extra for it? Or that white used to be a NCO, until it became trendy and now it costs £600 extra on some makes?

Aston Martin proudly assure their customers that they can match any colour on the planet for your new car. Simply provide a sample and they'll do the rest - just like the guy on the paint aisle in B&Q does, although they will change you considerably more.

You can also specify any colour of leather (and stitching) for the interior. I saw one with purple leather / yellow stitching when I was at their place last.
The craftspersonship was amazing, but the colour scheme offended my very soul.

Still, if you really don't want to be ripped off by a motor dealer, don't buy whatever paint protection they're selling. It costs them under £20 a car - they'll charge you ten times that or more.

I recall years back if you wanted black paint (non metallic, just solid black) it was an cost option. Now black is a no cost option and white has become a cost option. Some people must have figured there's something dodgy going on here with the prices so the manufactures made white a no-cost option again but added metallic white as a cost option. I reckon most of this stuff doesn't cost much and there is a huge profit to be made just on the options.

Then again, I suppose it's the same with bike wheels. A lightweight set costs similar money to make as a heavy set, yet are far dearer for the consumer to buy.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Pre-Octavia, we had a Ford C-Max
I used to leave the horrible thing unlocked, with all 4 windows down, hoping it would disappear one night
Sadly, it never did

Thieves have got standards you know

 

[Levo-Lon]

I had a motorbike like that, a CZ175, in the two years I had it I never locked it, but it was always there when I came back to it.

someone stole my Puch Maxi, my first bike KPK 39K cost me £40 a whole weeks wadges !!

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Thieves have got standards you know

I thought we had too, until we suffered that thing for 18 months

 

[slowmotion]

Some Estonian builders locked themselves out of their Transit outside our house. Over the course of an hour and a half they borrowed at least a dozen of my tools in an attempt to gain entry. Their determination not to call out an expensive locksmith was very impressive. In the end they gave up on the door locks and simply attacked the rubber seals that held in the glass quarterlight.

 

[Drago]

Back when I was married to my minted first wife, I discovered it was (at the time) a £200 option to have a BMW 7 series without the model number on the boot lid. 200 sheets for someone to not stick a £3 badge on it. To this day I never quite got my head around that one.

 

[mustang1]

Whilst the "restriction" is no doubt just a setting, one really important consideration is tyre speed rating. If your car is restricted to a mere 130 say, you can have lower speed rated tyres - but if the car is undrestricted you'd really need higher speed rated tyres. The thing I'd not realised till it had been explained to me by a car design engineer is that the higher rated tyres are not "better" tyres at all, since ride, roadholding, longevity and cost had all been sacrificed for a speed rating that you'd never use.l The lower speed rated tyres were likely better in every other respect

Range Rover Sport (and maybe other models) has something like this going on. If you choose (for example) a 3.0 engine, but you choose HSE rather than HSE Lux (or whatever the model was), then the speed limiter changes from 130mph to 140mph as it depends which tyres you get with the package.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Some Estonian builders locked themselves out of their Transit outside our house. Over the course of an hour and a half they borrowed at least a dozen of my tools in an attempt to gain entry. Their determination not to call out an expensive locksmith was very impressive. In the end they gave up on the door locks and simply attacked the rubber seals that held in the glass quarterlight.

early ford and some others central locking "80s" could be defeated with half a tennis ball.
Place half of the tennis ball over the door lock and give it a whack with your hand.
The air pressure popped the lock!!

Here's a vid of same thing with a tennis ball

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0NEZlpdzrB4

 

[PhilDawson8270]

early ford and some others central locking "80s" could be defeated with half a tennis ball.
Place half of the tennis ball over the door lock and give it a whack with your hand.
The air pressure popped the lock!!

Here's a vid of same thing with a tennis ball

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0NEZlpdzrB4

That video is a fake. That’s really not how car door locks work.

Reason they do it with electric central locking is so the guy filming can hit the button.

 

[Levo-Lon]

That video is a fake. That’s really not how car door locks work.

Reason they do it with electric central locking is so the guy filming can hit the button.

That vid maybe but a lot of cosworth owners would disagree..

Though it does sound silly

 

[fossyant]

We don’t bother locking our 56 plate Peugeot Partner Combi (Berlingo).

Ohh - it's apparently a big favourite with MTB'ers for lugging bikes about. My dad had a Berlingo for some years.

 

[fossyant]

Back in the 80's two of my colleagues could get in their cars with scissors and a paperclip - Cortina and an Ambassador (shudder)

 

[Levo-Lon]

Ohh - it's apparently a big favourite with MTB'ers for lugging bikes about. My dad had a Berlingo for some years.

That's why I got my Doblo, perfect for 2 MTBs

 

[fossyant]

Does anyone have 'auto parking' and trusts it ? My brother in law has both "parallel parking" and "parking in a space" options, but has chickened out of actually trying it.

I'll stick with 360 degree cameras - makes the 'park dead in the middle of a space challenge' good fun.