New Ford Mustang or Holden Commodore or alternatives

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#1709855 26-Jan-2017 10:19

MikeB4:

TimA:

The New Old New Falcon, Its like the mustang but actually works and can fit stuff in it.

unfortunately Falcon is no longer available as a new car. Sad to see an iconic name disappear.

I thought they discontinued the FPV side of things and the Falcon and Terror Tree will be around until 2018?

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#1709856 26-Jan-2017 10:19

networkn:

MikeB4:

My wife made a telling statement this morning as she headed to the airport....

"where have all the good cool cars gone"

It is hard to answer her.

Heh, there are many choices, but they have stalks on the "wrong" side :)

I like a some of European marques, I particularly like Audi. I am not a fan of BMW or Mercedes. My wife is not a fan of European cars. On her way out this morning she did ask me to have a look at Mazda and Honda to see what they offer.

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#1709877 26-Jan-2017 10:38

TimA:

MikeB4:

TimA:

The New Old New Falcon, Its like the mustang but actually works and can fit stuff in it.

unfortunately Falcon is no longer available as a new car. Sad to see an iconic name disappear.

I thought they discontinued the FPV side of things and the Falcon and Terror Tree will be around until 2018?

Falcon is not listed on the Ford NZ website now. They do have Mustang, Mondeo, Focus and Fiesta for the cars.

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#1709950 26-Jan-2017 12:08

What are folks experiences with Mazda, in particular the Mazda 6? The last Mazda I had experience of was the Mazda 3 MPS my wife had a few years back. It was a nice, very quick machine but suffered from quite bad torque steer.

networkn

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#1709953 26-Jan-2017 12:13

MikeB4:

What are folks experiences with Mazda, in particular the Mazda 6? The last Mazda I had experience of was the Mazda 3 MPS my wife had a few years back. It was a nice, very quick machine but suffered from quite bad torque steer.

We recently ruled the Mazda 6 out because it was too big (wagon). They are nice cars. They even have HUD in some models. Can't speak to Torque steer, but not difficult to get a test drive.

If you were going to consider Mazda, as strange as it sounds, consider an I40 as well. You can get one with every bell and whistle with 1000-1500KM's for around $40K with haggling, and they are exceptionally well spec'd. Though probably not enough power if you are used to SSV's

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#1709955 26-Jan-2017 12:23

networkn:

MikeB4:

What are folks experiences with Mazda, in particular the Mazda 6? The last Mazda I had experience of was the Mazda 3 MPS my wife had a few years back. It was a nice, very quick machine but suffered from quite bad torque steer.

We recently ruled the Mazda 6 out because it was too big (wagon). They are nice cars. They even have HUD in some models. Can't speak to Torque steer, but not difficult to get a test drive.

If you were going to consider Mazda, as strange as it sounds, consider an I40 as well. You can get one with every bell and whistle with 1000-1500KM's for around $40K with haggling, and they are exceptionally well spec'd. Though probably not enough power if you are used to SSV's

I have experienced 3 Korean sourced vehicles, A Holden Craptiva, A Kia Sorento and a Hyundai Sonata, I know I know don't say it, the Hyundai Sonata was a company vehicle and I am sure it was assigned as a punishment. Now I know that Kia and stable mate Hyundai have come a long way fast especially under the influence of Peter Schreyer but still have an irrational fear of these vehicles and I freely admit that it is irrational but the Holden Craptiva was the worse piece of engineering excrement I had ever experienced, it was a hateful, nasty, horrible, useless, sh!tbox directly from the devils own production line.

I will however take a look at the i40 as Hyundai do have some nice designs these days.

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#1709965 26-Jan-2017 12:38

Mazda doesn't really have any true performance versions of their range, ie no equivalent of the SPs of days gone by, so you'll not need to worry about torque steer in a 6!

I've a 2013 6 wagon and love it - I'd certainly recommend taking a 6 for a test drive. (Note: the wagon is actually slightly shorter; it's also not the most generous in boot space, which would be dwarfed by the boot and general interior space of a Superb.)

As with all brands, Mazda save the best tech and safety features for the top models (though this is starting to trickle down), hence why I went for a Limited as that had radar-based cruise control etc (which I wouldn't do without now).

Mine, being a '13, is the first version of the current model, and is noted for being somewhat (relatively) noisy and a hard ride (especially with the 19" that comes as standard with the Limited). Personally, I don't find it too bad in this regard, but I understand the two later iterations have made changes to improve this (the latest iteration only got released in the past couple of months, I think; this included improvements to the cruise control allowing it to slow the car down to a stop, whereas mine stops working below 30km/h).

A key feature I like about the 6 is the handling - so much more involving than any of the other cars I tried at the time, especially compared against the i40 (which I found underwhelming, but I think there's been a new version since) and the (hybrid) Camry.

Be mindful regarding the cost of parts - as per this thread here I found out I could have paid as much as $1160 for a new battery, and replacement tyres are $500 each - but I imagine this may be common amongst many new cars, and I recall you tend to sell cars while they're relatively new. Mazda also provides three years of free servicing which is a great benefit.

Finally, after owning the car for 3.5 years I still think it's a stunning design and one of the better looking (affordable) cars on the road!

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Satch

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#1709966 26-Jan-2017 12:39

MikeB4:

networkn:

MikeB4:

What are folks experiences with Mazda, in particular the Mazda 6? The last Mazda I had experience of was the Mazda 3 MPS my wife had a few years back. It was a nice, very quick machine but suffered from quite bad torque steer.

We recently ruled the Mazda 6 out because it was too big (wagon). They are nice cars. They even have HUD in some models. Can't speak to Torque steer, but not difficult to get a test drive.

If you were going to consider Mazda, as strange as it sounds, consider an I40 as well. You can get one with every bell and whistle with 1000-1500KM's for around $40K with haggling, and they are exceptionally well spec'd. Though probably not enough power if you are used to SSV's

I have experienced 3 Korean sourced vehicles, A Holden Craptiva, A Kia Sorento and a Hyundai Sonata, I know I know don't say it, the Hyundai Sonata was a company vehicle and I am sure it was assigned as a punishment. Now I know that Kia and stable mate Hyundai have come a long way fast especially under the influence of Peter Schreyer but still have an irrational fear of these vehicles and I freely admit that it is irrational but the Holden Craptiva was the worse piece of engineering excrement I had ever experienced, it was a hateful, nasty, horrible, useless, sh!tbox directly from the devils own production line.

I will however take a look at the i40 as Hyundai do have some nice designs these days.

Although your wife's car selection appears to be an impossible task, I will say that I have owned two near new Kias in the past (a 2.0L Cerato hatch and a 2.4L Optima) and I had zero issues with either. They make some very good cars so no need to discount them until you've driven one. They don't come close to the performance and handling of the late model BMW I have now but then the BMW cost a lot more.

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#1709968 26-Jan-2017 12:41

MikeB4:

I have experienced 3 Korean sourced vehicles, A Holden Craptiva, A Kia Sorento and a Hyundai Sonata, I know I know don't say it, the Hyundai Sonata was a company vehicle and I am sure it was assigned as a punishment. Now I know that Kia and stable mate Hyundai have come a long way fast especially under the influence of Peter Schreyer but still have an irrational fear of these vehicles and I freely admit that it is irrational but the Holden Craptiva was the worse piece of engineering excrement I had ever experienced, it was a hateful, nasty, horrible, useless, sh!tbox directly from the devils own production line.

I will however take a look at the i40 as Hyundai do have some nice designs these days.

The i40 was nice, but yeah, it's obviously not European nice, nor is it a performance vehicle with performance suspension etc. We looked at the Diesel 2.2 Elite Limited. We came within seconds of buying it, but they wouldn't meet our price and we left to consider our options, drove past Audi.

From that point onward my wife only had eyes for the A4 Wagon and we paid the few extra thousand to get that instead. It was a close second, because on paper it was very very hard to beat. My BIL has a Santa Fe and he really rates it (though his opinion is lower on my scale than ideal).

Not sure it's what your wife would like though, in all honesty. I know it's like flogging a dead horse, but an XDrive 3 (330D) Series with Adaptive Suspension and Steering, on a drive to Piha, or a similar road, would change her mind about the indicators, I am certain of it.

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#1709982 26-Jan-2017 12:58

Satch:

Although your wife's car selection appears to be an impossible task, I will say that I have owned two near new Kias in the past (a 2.0L Cerato hatch and a 2.4L Optima) and I had zero issues with either. They make some very good cars so no need to discount them until you've driven one. They don't come close to the performance and handling of the late model BMW I have now but then the BMW cost a lot more.

Not impossible just a little tricky but a lot of fun, get to do something I love and thats try different vehicles, a lot of different vehicles.

I have added the Mazda 6, the Hyundai i40 for this weekend and may look at the Lexus ES

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#1710000 26-Jan-2017 13:35

jonathan18:

Mine, being a '13, is the first version of the current model, and is noted for being somewhat (relatively) noisy and a hard ride (especially with the 19" that comes as standard with the Limited).

We (the Mrs) had the 09 wagon for 4 years, with the same issues on 17"s ... I was amazed they never addressed it for the 13MY. The Mrs even looked at updating until we read the issues were still present.

The steering annoyed me too. It wanted to "change lane" on every pothole if you didn't have a hard grip on the wheel.

We actually decided to go backwards and get an older X5. Even with M suspension and 20"s, it's a billion times more comfortable than the Mazda was for us.

I like the look of the new Mazdas, and hopefully it's sorted now, but that wagon has put me off them for the foreseeable future.

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#1710311 26-Jan-2017 21:35

If I recall correctly Jonathan has the diesel powered Mazda6 and I have a Mazda3 SP22 Ltd which has the same mechanicals. This diesel engine may not have as much power as your wife would ideally like, but being a diesel it has masses of torque and the twin differential turbos ensure virtually no perceptible turbo lag. My SP22 Ltd handles like a go cart but the cheap Mazda3 that I had as a rental had comparatively vague steering, so don't assume all variants of the same model drive the same.

I had a Mazda6 GSX (140kw petrol) as a rental when I went down to Queenstown for the half marathon in November and don't recall having any complaints about the handling. Performance wise it felt a bit anaemic compared with my diesel, but just prior to returning the vehicle I realised that I had it in economy rather than sport mode so that's probably why.

There are a few things in the cabin of my car that could have been better designed - e.g. sunglass holder too small, lack of cargo hooks, and redundant transmission tunnel in the rear (I assume they use the same platform for the AWD CX5). Also the entertainment system - although often praised by reviewers - is quite laggy and clumsy. I would much prefer to have Carplay but Mazda don't seem committed to offering it in the foreseeable future.

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#1710632 27-Jan-2017 12:14

Interesting to note, relevant to earlier in the topic, the current gen Mustang V8 Fastback has only scored 2 out of 5 stars in the ANCAP safety testing, with a dismal 32% result in Child Occupant Safety and only 72% for Adult Occupant Safety.

As to the Mazda range, the best 'performance' vehicle in their range currently seems to the CX-9, with 170kw/420Nm and available with AWD. Actually quite fun, for it's size.

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#1710634 27-Jan-2017 12:18

We were talking about this last night, the wife suggested we go buy the McLaren we tried for size a few weeks back in Auckland. I told her OK but we will need to sell the house to fund it and her was response " I'm not seeing the problem here" was both alarming and exciting.

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#1710691 27-Jan-2017 15:05

MikeB4:
We were talking about this last night, the wife suggested we go buy the McLaren we tried for size a few weeks back in Auckland. I told her OK but we will need to sell the house to fund it and her was response " I'm not seeing the problem here" was both alarming and exciting.

Does she think you could live in the McLaren? :)

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