mcqueenmachine v. the Pious

[chaseracer]

PM on R4, this evening: well said, Steve!

[Mr Lobster]

Available on Listenagain or anything? What programme etc?

[Milford Cubicle]

The programme's called PM.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00qgsg9

 

About 52 min 30 in.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

There was an amusing letter/blog thing in the Guardian the other day about this. I love the Guardian but i had to admit that this effort was quite eye-wateringly ridiculous.

 

"I'll never buy a Toyota again" (even though i have been driving them for years and have never had the slightest problem with any of them)

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/07/heather-mcgregor-toyota-recall

 

Starting the article with 'As a mother of three' tells you all you need to know.

[chaseracer]

Available on Listenagain or anything? What programme etc?

That would be the PM programme on BBC Radio 4...http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00qgsg9It was on just after halfway through, I think :wink:EDIT: Beaten to it - thank you, Milford

[Mr Lobster]

Sorry I'm being a bit thick there aren't I? Didn't realise the programme was called PM y'see.

[outlaw118]

I'm with Mr Berry, Quentin should try and pull his head out of his arse.

[Pete-M]

I did a few hundred miserable miles in a Prius a couple of years ago. Bloody dismal thing, and not very good on fuel away from town.Picked it up in Dorset and sold it in Sheffield, used a Mondeo TDDi Estate to go and pick the thing up and the Mondeo used less fuel than the Pious. It was also quicker, quieter, comfier, roomier, cheaper and a lot less susceptible to crosswinds. Drive a Pious in a cross wind and it's bloody scary. The only good thing about the Pious was it managed 70 mpg in town. The 38 mpg out of town wasn't impressive though.As for the radio thing, could Quentin have sounded any more condescending if he tried? Fucker just wants people to keep buying new cars, ignored Steve's comment about running 100,000 mile old stuff for another 100k as if it didn't make any sense. May as well have said "Ah, but Steve, if people run old cars for longer, I get less money from the newspapers to review them. Adopt early, that way I can get on telly more. After all, I'm an expert... I quit Top Gear to work for Virgin Cars..."

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

There was an amusing letter/blog thing in the Guardian the other day about this. I love the Guardian but i had to admit that this effort was quite eye-wateringly ridiculous.

 

"I'll never buy a Toyota again" (even though i have been driving them for years and have never had the slightest problem with any of them)

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/07/heather-mcgregor-toyota-recall

 

Starting the article with 'As a mother of three' tells you all you need to know.

That article was dire, but at least the comments are near unanimous in condemning it. Not had so much fun reading Guardian comments since they published that 18 year old's 'Skins travel blog'.

[Mr Lobster]

That Guardian article is pathetic.Woman buys Toyotas. Has them for years, never has a single problem. Now because of media over hype shes never having another. Twunt.You'd think that no other manufacturer had ever recalled a car really wouldn't you.

[Pillock]

Looking at the last decade....Ford: 104 recalls - including brake fluid loss and restraint systems, overheating wiring and fuel leaks.Volvo: 156 recalls - fuel leak, fuel leak, fire, fuel leak.BMW: 136! Including self-slashing tyres (!) and "steering may not operate" (!!)Toyota: 123 recallsSo sitting pretty much right in the ballpark then

[pogweasel]

Pious's don't make any sense at all, economy wise they are actually pretty poo, then there's the manufacturing & long-term environmental impacts. The only "benefit" is that they attract naff all company car tax & road tax, so users in that bracket can reap a reward. I am enjoying making derisory offers on post 2005 toyota's on eBay though, eventually some old twit has gotta bite.

[wuvvum]

This comment on the Observer article amused me:

No-one has a Prius because they care about the environment - if they did, they would either have no car or get something with lower emisissions, like the VW Bluemotion range. They have them so that they can say things like "Sorry I'm late, I had trouble parking the Prius" and "If you need a lift, we'll pick you up in the Prius", where you and I would say "car". Although it's a little bit too neat for someone to actually boast about having both a Prius and a gas-guzzling fake off-roader : does Heather McGregor actually exist or is this a new Craig Brown character?

[Volksy]

I agree with the article above, bit like the 'i'phone....Rubbish at what it does, but smug-oids love the fact it is a statement.

[Mr H Sceptre]

I agree with the article above, bit like the 'i'phone....Rubbish at what it does, but smug-oids love the fact it is a statement.

See also Apple Mac.

[Cavcraft]

I'm glad this thread is here because I'd been pondering whether to start one asking why people seem to have a grudge againt the Prius.I've never driven one or even been in one and was intrigued to know why they seem so loathed to be honest.Pete 38mpg doesn't seem too bad for a fairly large car but I suppose if people are doing long distance journeys then the fuel savings of a decent dizzler compared to purchase costs of Prius makes the dizzler a better bet?

[wuvvum]

I think for a lot of us it's not the cars that are the problem, it's the mentality of the people who buy them.

[seth]

Pete 38mpg doesn't seem too bad for a fairly large car but I suppose if people are doing long distance journeys then the fuel savings of a decent dizzler compared to purchase costs of Prius makes the dizzler a better bet?

There's your answer. They are not really very economic cars. But it sounds good to have one if you're in certain circles. Hence it seems that the owners tend to get as much stick as the cars themselves.I agree with ol' Quents in that piece to a certain extent that to develop better stuff requires a demand to be made. But the Prius has been around for long enough now. As Mr Berry said, move along please. Make me something decent. Ta.

[pogweasel]

I'm glad this thread is here because I'd been pondering whether to start one asking why people seem to have a grudge againt the Prius.I've never driven one or even been in one and was intrigued to know why they seem so loathed to be honest.Pete 38mpg doesn't seem too bad for a fairly large car but I suppose if people are doing long distance journeys then the fuel savings of a decent dizzler compared to purchase costs of Prius makes the dizzler a better bet?

38mpg these days is abysmal. I can get that out of my 18 year old BMW if I try, and a standard 5-10 year old diesel will do that even if being totally beasted. Factor in that a Pious is not a large car, externally yes, but the boot is tiny & pointless the interior is crap.. plus it is all "fly by wire" shit, you haven't a hope in hell of ever DIY-ing any of it. Like they say, it's an iPod car, all image and full of irritation.In comparison, a Dacia Logan would be a £19.99 MP3 player - does the job much better but if the fashionable types find out they'll eat you alive for being uncool.

[Polystratus]

I'm glad this thread is here because I'd been pondering whether to start one asking why people seem to have a grudge againt the Prius.I've never driven one or even been in one and was intrigued to know why they seem so loathed to be honest.Pete 38mpg doesn't seem too bad for a fairly large car but I suppose if people are doing long distance journeys then the fuel savings of a decent dizzler compared to purchase costs of Prius makes the dizzler a better bet?

It's all down to how it's presented as the 'most environmentally friendly' car on the planet, when in fact it's not - look at the materials consumed making the batteries and electric motors, plus the additional emissions making the thing. You can tell the company car Prius - they are the ones being hammered down the motorway in lane three. A modern diesel will give good mpg etc without the associated electrical crap.

[wuvvum]

I remember a feature in Top Gear fairly recently where the Stig was thrashing a Prius round the track as hard as it would go and Clarkson was sat on his tail in an M3. If memory serves the M3 managed about 20% better mpg round the track than the Prius. Priuses (Prii?) are fairly pointless outside of big cities.

[pogweasel]

I remember a feature in Top Gear fairly recently where the Stig was thrashing a Prius round the track as hard as it would go and Clarkson was sat on his tail in an M3. If memory serves the M3 managed about 20% better mpg round the track than the Prius. Priuses (Prii?) are fairly pointless outside of big cities.

Correct. Is that available to view 'on line'. I need it to add weight to my "I need an M3" arguement.

[wuvvum]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKLARk

[Cavcraft]

I'm glad this thread is here because I'd been pondering whether to start one asking why people seem to have a grudge againt the Prius.

I've never driven one or even been in one and was intrigued to know why they seem so loathed to be honest.

 

Pete 38mpg doesn't seem too bad for a fairly large car but I suppose if people are doing long distance journeys then the fuel savings of a decent dizzler compared to purchase costs of Prius makes the dizzler a better bet?

38mpg these days is abysmal.

I can get that out of my 18 year old BMW if I try, and a standard 5-10 year old diesel will do that even if being totally beasted. Factor in that a Pious is not a large car, externally yes, but the boot is tiny & pointless the interior is crap.. plus it is all "fly by wire" shit, you haven't a hope in hell of ever DIY-ing any of it.

Like they say, it's an iPod car, all image and full of irritation.

In comparison, a Dacia Logan would be a £19.99 MP3 player - does the job much better but if the fashionable types find out they'll eat you alive for being uncool.

Shit a brick, I'd be dancing naked round Trafalger Sqaure if I could have got that out of two of my latest cars.

To be fair the V70 (2.5 petrol) could better that on a long motorway run but started getting a bit silly round town.

The Pajero (2.8 dizzler) was a bit worrying in the MPG stakes but that is a big car with a big engine, though around 20mpg on the commute to work sucked donkey whang. Very, very nice to drive though.

 

I have to say I did wonder if the general loathing of the Prius was based on it's 'look at me, I'm really green' image and I'd imagine a lot of owners were smug pretentious wankers.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I remember a feature in Top Gear fairly recently where the Stig was thrashing a Prius round the track as hard as it would go and Clarkson was sat on his tail in an M3. If memory serves the M3 managed about 20% better mpg round the track than the Prius. Priuses (Prii?) are fairly pointless outside of big cities.

To be fair, that was a test obviously engineered to return that result.I don't like the smug attitude of a certain subset of Prius drivers, and I can't see myself ever owning one. But I am pleased that a mass market manufacturer has taken a risk and popularised a new technology. Better that than yet another diesel with yet more fragile guff bolted on to gain a touch of refinement.The future is electric, and the more people buy cars with honking great batteries in them now, the better that battery tech will be when I eventually buy one when the last drop of oil has been extracted from the earth.

[warren t claim]

 

Toyota Prius with bonus lesbian content courtesy of my hero's Penn and Teller.

[M'coli]

The future is electric, but not battery - fuel cells may (eventually)be capable of turning out enough power to power a car.All they need to do then is make one that sounds like a Metro 6R4 and it'll be just fine.

[garbaldy]

i would love to own a prius just so i could smugly go around telling everyone how shit it was on fuel and that my 2 ton pickup will get more miles to the gallon

[chester drawers]

I agree with the article above, bit like the 'i'phone....

 

Rubbish at what it does, but smug-oids love the fact it is a statement.

See also Apple Mac.

Good so it’s not just me then

 

iSmug adjective pattern of behavior exhibited by Mac owners; characterized by an inability to stop banging on about their computer of choice’s perceived superiority over everything else.

 

Whilst I quite like the Mac, I also tend to regard Apple’s other offerings as triumphs of form over function. Alas in these days of brand and marketing that appears to be a very successful business model

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Whilst I quite like the Mac, I also tend to regard Apple’s other offerings as triumphs of form over function. Alas in these days of brand and marketing that appears to be a very successful business model

I was very disappointed with the iPad. I'd have lusted after a touchscreen tablet with OS X on it, but who'd want a scaled up iPhone complete with all that device's limitations?