Thank you Ford Europe :)

Since I started this blog, several car companies visited by blog and this is a great motivation to keep writing. I was not expecting that car companies could find my blog and keep reading it. But it happened! From millions of blog around the internet, they have found me :)

However, there is one company kept reading my blogs frequently! That's the one who sold every European brand and made profit recently. That is Ford! Actually, Ford Europe.

People from Ford Europe Cologne, Germany and Basildon, UK. I don't who is reading and which department is reading but they are reading it. Despite the fact that, I am not writing things which they could like them.

I am not writing these things to criticize Ford. I am writing these criticisms to express my thought about Ford to help to make better cars. I know that, my blogs will not change any production line or any car feature, but at least I wanted to share my ideas. I am driving Ford Mondeo and that's a really nice. New Mondeo is an excellent one, even the S-Max (I found people carriers are boring) is nice people carrier. However, there are some serious facts (I know, Ford knows these also) which become obstacle in front of their competitive advantage.

Ford is offering great designs, much better VW even better than Audi. But but but; Ford should also offer compact engines like VW and better production quality inside the car, features should be competitive, customers should find some reasons to buy new models. Offering same engines and four-speed auto gearbox will not emerge motivation. I really want to see 1,6lt turbo diesel automatic Mondeo and also 1,4lt turbo petrol engine automatic Mondeo. Also 1,3lt turbo diesel automatic Fiesta or Focus. Also for Kuga! Engine range, automatic gearboxes and interior quality should be revised. I know that, you are doing your best but you can do it better :) Despite the fact, Ford US is still producing Lincoln Navigator.

I do hope that, new Mondeo will offer more competitive engines! Ford is doing great in emerging markets and emerging markets like Turkey have very high tax rates. So, if you want to increase your market share, offer new technology compact engines ;)

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Ford has acceleration issue!

Toyota is suffering serious problems with gas pedal and sudden acceleration. Usual Toyota's does not wish to accelerate but this time, problem is extremely serious and it is going to destroy its reputation!

And Ford started to make profit! It is also sudden like Toyota's problem. Because, Ford and Profit words never used together for a long long long time. However, during last years Ford sold everything they owned. Land Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Volvo. Also they closed some of the production plants. And they started to make profit! Really? How long you can sustain this profit level? For two months?

Ford is still has the old, unsuccessful, and failure making approach. You sold everything what you were expecting? Huge loss! Ford lost so much money, I cannot even remember it. This profit level will not satisfy anyone and twitting some "funny" cartoon will not have impact. I really cannot understand, US has the best Business Schools on earth but Ford cannot find people to create “proper” profit!

These tactics have the same efficiency as much as your inefficient petrol V8s. Ford; Wake Up and Think Twice!

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Future of luxury cars!

Automotive industry started to downsize the engines to reduce emissions levels and offer more fuel economy. Ten year ago, a Mercedes S Class with 2,2lt diesel engine would sound funny and there would not be any demand to it. Also a BMW 3 Series with 1,3lt engine would also sound interesting! Or 1,4lt engine produces 170 horsepower would be impossible. Now all of these things are possible and in near future we will have chance to buy 3 Series with 1,3lt turbo engine, 2,2lt diesel S Class and smaller engines will be revealed.

A few days ago Volvo announced the revised 1,6lt diesel engine for S80 and V70. For those of you who don't know what S80 and V70 are; S80 is the flagship of Volvo and trying to be a competitor for Mercedes E Class, BMW 5 Series and Audi A6. I know it is quite hard to play in that market but Volvo is positioned as cheap and reliable alternative! However, this new 1,6lt diesel engine might be an opportunity for Volvo. This new diesel engine produced 109 horsepower and 240 nm of torque. These figures are the same figures which can found in other Volvo models. I guess, Volvo revised the transmission ratios to use this engine. However, this weak engine would struggle to move Volvo S80 even the revised transmission won't avoid being very slow.

Highway driving consumption will be 4,0lt of diesel as Volvo announced and this car will have a range of 1750km. Sounds interesting but without automatic transmission, there won't be a huge rush to this car. However, in emerging markets with high import taxes this car will be loved!

Future of E and F segment cars will be combination of; Small and Powerful Diesel Engine or Petrol Engine and Automatic Gearbox. E Segment is Mercedes E Class, BMW 5 Series and competitors. F Segment is Mercedes S Class, BMW7 Series and competitors. The one who offers the pocket size engine first will catch the most!

Don't be shocked when you see a BMW 7 Series with 1,3lt turbo petrol engine :)

Pictures are from;

Volvo Website

BMW Website

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How to ruin your trip quickly ?

This is the most unwanted thing for a trip, being ruined! While making plans and trying to figure out what to do next, you end up in a total mess. Unfortunately, this happened to me once. Last summer, we rented a car with my Cypriot friends to go around UK. Of course, nobody was expecting a trip to be terminated by a ridiculous liquid but it happened.

Before I mention about this liquid, I would like to give short information. For last ten years car manufacturers started to replace the spare tyre with a tyre repair kit. As we were told, this repair kit will help to rescue us from a flat tyre problem. However, many people had a question mark! How a liquid can repair a tyre with profile damage or suffered from several puncture. And car companies do not wish to comment on this and they offer the spare tyre as a free option in some brands(You can see from the picture).

This ridiculous decision was made to increase the boot space and reduce weight. Because, this superb liquid technology is consuming a small space and less weight. So, you can use the spare tyre's space as a cooking place when your tyre is flat in the middle of nowhere! Not bad, you will have extra space and in an unknown place in the middle of the night and the magical liquid will fix the holes in your tyre. Expecting this liquid to repair a tyre is like expecting see Andriana Lima knocking your door to get merry with you. Both cases have the same impossible possibility.

A liquid which looks like a hair jelly has no chance to fix any flat tyre! Unfortunately, tyres are facing huge forces and when they go flat, they really go flat, like a bankrupted Swiss Investment Bank, no chance of survive. May be some miracle will happen and your tyre repair kit will fix your tyre and you will go back to your trip This very tiny possibility is the same tiny possibility to find you Andriana Lima was looking for you for getting married!

Our trip ended up in a petrol station at 2 or 3am, we had a flat tyre and this unbelievable repair kit. Until that time, I had a very tiny hope this repair can do something but nothing has happened and our trip ended up like this, as you could see from the picture.

So, if you want to finish your trip in a tow truck, do not ask for a spare tyre and use the repair kit :)

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Lancia Delta Integrale

Product lifecycle of modern cars are only seven years, because people get bored cars easily and after seven years people don’t want to buy one. However there are some exceptions for this! Lancia Delta Integrale from 1979 to 1994.

If you were born after 1990s, you have never heard of this car and if you don’t know this car stop thinking about cars :) During the end of 1980s and until the middle of 1990s, Delta Integrale was a phenomenon car of the World Rally Championship! It won Constructors Championship six times from 1987 to 1992 and it turn into an icon for Lancia. It showed what Lancia can do. Its 2lt turbo charged engine was producing 215 horsepower (1993 model) and four-wheel drive was transferring all those power to the road. Not only its engine was magnificent, but also its design! Many people wanted to own one. And still today, we can see that why people love this car. The WRC successes and powerful engine completed with an Italian design, if this car was made by someone else with the same technology but without this design, it won’t be create this impressive.

Those fantastic years did not live for long. Lancia could not manage to carry on this heritage and brand’s reputation started to dissolve. After having financial problems, Lancia disappeared from the automotive business. Then Fiat bought the company launched the brand again. And when I read about new Delta model, I was expecting to see contemporary interpretation of Delta Integrale but the result was catastrophic. This new car was totally destroyed the legend of Delta Integrale. Lancia should have preferred a different name for this car and reserve this brand as an asset to use it later on. However, they didn’t do this and revealed a family car.

Pictures are from;

Wikipedia

Lancia

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New Range Rover, really better ?

For long years Range Rover was my favourite SUV. Timeless design, exquisite interior quality and off roading ability were the details which kept it top of my favourite list. However, one and half year ago I had chance to drive Range Rover Vogue TDV8 model and every good feeling of mine were collapsed. I was expecting a much better vehicle than this.

When I started driving it; steering wheel was not communicative and it was hard to feel the road, breaks were senseless pedal was not that effective, engine had a huge turbo lag as big as a black hole in space, traction control was letting too much wheel spin on corners in normal road condition and stability programme was struggling to control back of the car, V8 diesel was very heavy and car tend to dive from noise and a little bit heavy breaking exaggerate the situation more.

In a half an hour drive, my dreams were lost. And I started to think why this happened? May be I should compare with another SUV and think twice. I drove Mercedes ML 320 CDi and I drove in the same as I drove the Range Rover and surprisingly Mercedes did not behave like Range Rover. Ok, it was V6 diesel I should have driven V8 diesel but the rest was much better than Range Rover.

I shared my reviews about Range Rover with a Land Rover engineer and he did not reject any of those and told me to drive the new one. Unfortunately I did not have any chance to drive a Range Rover, especially in Turkey if you don't have that amount of money, you should be lucky to drive one! However, I read something on Land Rover website;

"The new 2010 Range Rover is now equipped with a new braking system, comprehensively updated to provide enhanced stopping power and improved driver feel."

So, it is obvious that even the Land Rover understood that breaks were not that good! And they introduced "Enhanced Understeer Control and Electronic Traction Control". I guess, 2010 Range Rover is a far better car than the previous one. I will share my comments when I drove it ;)

Pictures are from;
Landrover

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The most environmental Lamborghini !

Lamborghini was never elected as green car of the year and Green Peace never used it as official car. Now, there is a battery powered Lamborghini Gallardo cabrio. Yes, totally works with batteries and emits no emissions and it is still a Lamborghini. However, there is a minor problem with this car; it could only accommodate one person who does not have a driving licence and drivers should be a bit small :)

This is a electric car for kid! Like Top Gear mentioned, this is a totally better than ridicilious G-Wiz. And capable of doing 8 km/h, fast enough for driving at home!

Picture is from;
Topgear Website

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Veyron Le Locomotive

When you buy a Bugatti Veyron, you will a big problem! You paid more than a million euro a car with thousand horses. But you still have a problem! You cannot use the full potential of your Veyron in open roads. Even if you are living in Germany with unlimited autobahns, you still have some traffic. It is quite hard to find a place to speed and you cannot predict the road and unfortunately there are some corners as well. Now, there is a solution for this!

I have an idea for Bugatti. Bugatti loves to introduce unique limited editions of Veyron. I think they could combine; railways and Veyron for another limited edition. As you know that, France has the most sophisticated fast trains in the world and Bugatti is a French brand. So, why they don't combine these two different things :) A Veyron which could go on railways. Mercedes offers this technology on their truck range; with the help of a special feature, trucks are able to travel on the railways.

Veyron Le Locomotive will provide opportunity to speed up your car without any limitations and also you don't need to hold the steering wheel and no need for ESP. There should be a button for using the railways, car will disengage the ABS and ESP, because railways don't need any stability control and also there is no way to use steering wheel while breaking. So, there two systems won't be necessary. Speeding up to 400 km/h will not a big problem and you can stay relaxed at any speed :)

I know this sound funny, however Bugatti is offering a new limited edition to increase profit. After some time, there won't be any option to extend it and it could end up with very close to this funny model.

Pictures are from;
Bugatti
Mercedes

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