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| Thread ID: 148853 | 2020-02-18 05:14:00 | The great Aussie icon - The Holden Brand | kenj (9738) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1466758 | 2020-02-22 01:50:00 | The Holdens, 73 Belmont I think had a very good reputation in Africa for long distance travel at high speed without breaking down. That would be the HQ the 202 did have a problem with piston cracking though. I have a HQ story my neigbour in Blenheim had one it was a station wagon, the lady of the house was driving back to home when it started making a knocking sound. Unbelievably for a woman she pulled over right away. I towed the car back, dropped the sump and found a big end bearing cap bolt had almost fallen out. All the other ones were tight. There was little damage to the crankpin or the shell bearing so we slapped it back together. It was still going for a few more years before they traded it on another car. The one thing I remembered is there was totally no locking of the bolts not even a spring washer. |
prefect (6291) | ||
| 1466759 | 2020-02-22 02:50:00 | The Holdens, 73 Belmont I think had a very good reputation in Africa for long distance travel at high speed without breaking down. There were very few Holdens in East & central Africa, they were privately imported. General Motors supplied Opels. They both handled rough roads well, but the Opels were nicer to drive. |
mzee (3324) | ||
| 1466760 | 2020-02-22 06:59:00 | In the wave of nostalgia about the death of the Holden brand in Australia, something important has been overlooked. Holdens were never Australian. Their origins stretch back to 1856, when James Holden established a saddlery in Adelaide. The firm expanded into the car industry in the first world war when the Commonwealth government placed a ban on the import of cars, and only permitted import of chassis. Holden seized the opportunity to build the cars on the imported American chassis. Holden assembled cars The tariff on imported cars introduced after the war led the firm to negotiate a deal where it assembled (“manufactured”) General Motors cars, often Chevrolets. Holden advertising said the “new Chevrolets” were “built in Australia for all conditions of service”. His son Edward sold out to the Americans in 1931 who renamed the firm General Motors Holden. During the second world war, it deftly offered its services to the Commonwealth government. With car sales stalling, government contracts to produce trucks and aeroplane parts kept the firm in business . In May 1944 the government gave it permission to divert scarce war-time resources to drawing up plans for an Australian-made car. As Australian as it gets, right? Well, by way of America, that is. Then the campaign to present the Holden as an Australian car began in earnest. Politicians and journalists were wooed with special tours and advance viewings of the prototypes. However, it was made clear at the time that this was not an entirely Australian endeavour. Chifley launched it at a lectern festooned with the Australian, British, and American flags, describing it as a link “between this country and the American people”. An early advertisement described it as “made in Australia especially for Australian conditions” but with the “engineering experience and know-how behind all General Motors cars”. “You get the dependability which stands behind such famous GM names as Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet and Vauxhaull,” it reassured wives and husbands. It mocked rather than competed with Japan Holden’s dominance began to erode in the 1960s in the face of competition from Ford and Japanese manufacturers. Rather than developing local solutions, GMH increasingly looked to its parent company GM for new Americian designs. American commercials were imported and “translated”. The removal of government tariffs on imported cars in the 1980s increased foreign competition. Although its financial fortunes improved in the 1990s, its Australianness was becoming more tenuous with each new model. By the new century, Holdens were indistinguishable from German Opels and South Korean Daewoos. And became more foreign, the more it denied it While advertising campaigns continued to extol Holden’s Australianness and, increasingly, its nostalgic connection with growing up, buyers could increasingly see through them. Holdens were no more Australian than Fords, Toyotas or Mitsubishis. Denied ongoing government support, and facing a market that no longer identified with its products, GM decided its relationship with Australia was no longer worth the effort. This week’s announcement was the inevitable formality. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. theconversation.com |
piroska (17583) | ||
| 1466761 | 2020-02-22 08:39:00 | My Grandfather back in about 1966 or so in Northern Rhodesia had an Opel, a Capitan I think, then a Vauxhall Cresta which was stolen, then a Vauhall Victor 101 which he brought to NZ with him and I bought it off my Gran, after he had died, for NZ$900 in 1973 after I got here. The Cresta was Gold colour though: en.wikipedia.org The Victor was this model and this colour: commons.wikimedia.org October_1965_1595cc.jpg |
zqwerty (97) | ||
| 1466762 | 2020-02-24 10:24:00 | LOL, not sure Ford is much better. Husband had a Ford Rodeo once. He loathed Ford ever after. There is something to be said for reliable go forever japanese cars. Or utes. With Ford Australia and Holden, it was a case of race to the bottom. In the last couple of years both Ford and Holden have worn fines of $10 million each by the ACCC, for despicably ripping off their customers, Ford because of their Direct **** Gearboxes, renegging and chiseling on warranty. Both Ford and Holden epitomise the worst in customer service, or more precisely disservice. If one wants a reliable car buy Japanese, Toyota, Lexus, Isuzu, Subaru, Mazda, Honda etc - exclude Nissan since they got into bed with Renault, and include Hyundai and Kia from Korea European cars are not as good as they are cracked up to be, VolksWagen Group vehicles after Dieselgate should be shown the same contempt they showed for their customers, Mercedes are over priced and over rated, BMW are excellent but bloody expensive, especially if they need any work done on them, Italian cars are rustbuckets, the most durable part of a Lancia is the stainless steel exhaust. Unless you have so much money that loosing several grand on depreciation doesn't worry you, stick with vehicles with a good dealer chain and a reasonable percentage of the new sales. Read: autoexpert.com.au |
KenESmith (6287) | ||
| 1466763 | 2020-02-24 17:05:00 | You can take Subaru off the reliable car list squire. | prefect (6291) | ||
| 1466764 | 2020-02-24 19:40:00 | Nissan? So Renault makes Navaras unreliable then? How? | piroska (17583) | ||
| 1466765 | 2020-02-24 20:51:00 | The only thing more unreliable than a French car is the Welly public bus network. | allblack (6574) | ||
| 1466766 | 2020-02-24 21:17:00 | Nissan used to be reliable but from 2000 onward with Renault involved quality has taken a nose dive Also the Extroid CVT fitted to Nissans from Jatco (another Nissan shareholder along with others) has quite a few issues |
Lawrence (2987) | ||
| 1466767 | 2020-02-24 21:29:00 | I don't know about the Navara but when I was looking for a cheap second car I considered the X-trail as a cheap useful looking vehicle and paid for the Dog & Lemon guide review to see what they had to say about it. There are usually a few comments about the manufacturer and then a review of the vehicle, the X-trail review however has pages of information about all the things wrong with Nissan, then later more pages about all the specific things wrong with an X-trail. It completely put me off ever buying one. I also got the review for the Nissan Leaf, which I own. They do admit it's one of Nissans most reliable cars, but then say that isn't difficult. And I have to say despite owning and liking my Leaf I can't really argue with the negative things they have to say about it. One of their comments was the philosophy of many European car companies like Renault is to make a car that looks good and lasts out the warranty period and that's about it, and that Nissan inherited this when Renault became a major shareholder. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
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