"Mike G" wrote in message
news:AumdnRfQzPKQDb3VnZ2dnUVZ8qKvnZ2d@plusnet...
"Zimmy" wrote in message
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"Dave Baker" wrote in message
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"Doki" wrote in message
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wrote:
Going rate for an 8 year old Focus looks like £1-2k. I
recently picked up a 5 year old 406 HDI estate for £2.5k. If
you avoid the German makes, the depreciation is pretty
vicious and the cars end up damned cheap for what they are.
The speed of depreciation on cars always surprises me. My
Focus 2.0 ESP is 7 years old in June, hasn't gone wrong in the
4 years I've had it, does everything just as well as a new car
but is worth only a tiny fraction of the price. High
depreciation makes more sense with cars that rust badly but
the Focus doesn't do that. If the government really wanted to
do something about the environment they'd make it more
financially attractive to keep running older cars rather than
squandering resources building new ones.
How about no road tax on cars over 10 years old?
That would put the cat amongst the pigeons as far as the car
manufacturers were concerned.
I think any measures taken to promote the idea of making products
that last longer, and that encourage consumers to have things repaired
rather than simply replaced if they do go wrong, is far greener than
advising we use things like fluorescent bulbs, or switch off low
volt adaptors, phone chargers etc, when not actually in use.
Mike.
Whenever governments get involved in things like the environment A) they
cock it up and B) they run into big business interests which generally don't
want things changed. Numerous examples spring to mind.
1) My house has 80 year old single glazed metal framed Crittal windows. They
have the insulation properties of tissue paper and leak like sieves anyway,
but if I want to replace them with double glazed windows I have to pay for
building approval. Now any double glazed windows, however crappy would be a
huge improvement but I can only fit 'approved' double glazed units for which
I have to pay the local council for the privilege. If they want people to
improve their insulation why give grants out on the one hand for some things
but make people pay for approval to do it on the other? No f**ing sense
there at all. The way to do it would be to regulate the window vendors as to
what they could sell rather than make every single house have its new units
checked by the council.
2) When condensing central heating boilers became mandatory the early
versions only lasted a few years because the heat exchangers failed. Even
those which don't rust through have so much electronic crap in them they
break down on a regular basis. My old Potterton might not be as efficient as
new boilers but it's lasted nearly 30 years and has bugger all in it to go
wrong. A new thermocouple every 6 years is about all I have to do. I reckon
the average household has to spend far more on short lived replacement
boilers than the savings on gas used.
3) Cows generate more greenhouse gas than all the cars in the world
combined. They also turn grain into meat at an efficiency of only about 8lbs
per lb. If we really wanted to eliminate both global warming and world
hunger we'd quadruple the tax on meat and remove it on grain sold for human
consumption.
4) Designing a car that can average 100 mpg isn't just easy it's trivially
easy. The two main areas that impact fuel consumption are aero drag and
weight. Reduce the average cars frontal area from 21 sq ft to 14 and the Cd
from 0.35 to 0.28, reduce the weight from 1300 kg to 500 kg, fit a 40 bhp
direct injection diesel engine and you end up with a low, narrow single
seater (maybe a passenger behind the driver) with some luggage capacity that
can do 110 mph and better than 100 mpg at 70 mph. At 40 mph it could achieve
200 mpg. For most single occupant journeys it would reduce fuel consumption
by at least 70%. Big oil would have a fit though.
--
Dave Baker
Puma Race Engines