TurboSlag

It's no worse than any other hatch i've owned in this regard, and of the 68 cars I've owned 38 were hatches, so I've had time to mull on it.

My renewal was a joke to, so I did what I do every year and rang around. Got it for £92 with Churchhill this year (fully comp, NCB protected, 22 years NCB). Compare that to £1400 for the Honda NSX I just inherited and it's good value indeed. However, compare it to my £9000 Kawasaki ZZR1400 which does the quarter in a veryon crushing 9.21 seconds and blasts up to in excess of 190mph, and costs only £77 a year to insure, and it seems poor value indeed. The Westie is in storage and is on an off road theft/loss policy for about £40 a year with Flux at the moment.

I'd buy 3 new 107s. 1 would be fitted with a 106 GTi motor. 1 would be fitted with the TTS blower conversion 1 would be trimmed luxuriously inside with would and leather. I already have a Westfield SE with a tuned XE20 Vauxhall engine and a Kawasaki ZZR1400, all 203 BHP of it, so I'm already well catered for when a sunny day strikes and a Veyron needs embarrasing.

I averaged 63.3 on my latest fill up. Prior to that, managed 77.1 on a disciplined 60mph 120 mile motorway run, and that's with phat 195 tyres (inflated to 34psi).

An oil change at 1000 miles (or whenever) was dropped 15 or 20 years ago by most manufacturers. Modern oils are so good, that to slap in fresh oil yet again at a very low mileage would delay the running in process, and on some high performance engines (especially motorcycles) the engines werent running in properly with a good working seal between the rings and bores, the bores would glaze, compression wouldn't be to par, and you'd often end up with a smoky engine that wasn't quite as frisky as one that didn't suffer thus. Especially prevalent these days, where chumps were dropping their oil out at 1000-1500 miles and replacing it with exotic synthetics in the belief they were doing good, when all they were doing is preventing the running in process from running its course.

How exactly do they plan to get fingerprints off of a rock?

I've never had a problem on either of my 107s, but I periodically clean the runners and give it a spray of dry lube, maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

It is not a service, and has nothing to do with the service schedule, and will not affect your warranty. Forget the days of yore when cars had to go in at 1000 miles for oil and filter, get the head bolts retorqued, that kind of thing. They check your lights, levels and tyre pressures - that's it. The hand book also advises that you as an owner do the same weekly.

It's simply a lights, levels and tyre pressures check, although some stealers do a test drive too. Nothing more than that. It's exactly the sort of thing a conscientious driver will do weekly anyway. Missing it will not invalidate your warranty.

I can get my Kawasaki below 15mpg if i'm kack handed, although to do that it's smashing though the 1/4 mile a second and a half quicker than a Veyron, and squeezing past 190, neither of which are advisable on public roads.

Nothing - keep the receipts for the parts, and a couple of date stamped pics as you go.

Any 'competent engineer' can service the car and the warranty is upheld provided they a) use genuine parts/or parts of an equal or superior standard, and :) follow the manufacturers schedule. If they are doing it for profit or reward, then they must be VAT registered. These rights are enshrined in UK consumer case law. I've been doing my own routine servicing since this was incorporated into the block exemption regulations in 2000 (I'm an ex Nissan and vauxhall techie) and have never had a warranty claim declined, or even queried, with Vauxhall, Volvo, BMW or Peugeot. Many dealers will try and fob off the unwary and foist needlessly expensive servicing, and many dealers simply do not understand your rights as a consumer, but it's law. If you can't do it yourself then find a trustworthy indepenent and request they use genuine parts. A 10k mile service on a C1 (assuming you do a fairrly typical mileage) costs only £22 in genuine parts, but a dealer will shaft you for £65-£90 for a job that takes 0.8 of an hour.

All components are covered against faulty materials and workmanship for 3 years/60k miles, whichever comes first. however, certain items can also suffer fair wear and tear (tyres, brakes etc) and failure of these components for these reasons is not covered. The warranty also covers consequential damage, so other items damaged as a result of a failure of another are also covered, as are oils, fluids etc when required to efect a warranty repair. There's a cosmetic upper body warranty for 3 years, and 3 to 6 years has an anti perforation body/structure warranty. Not bad really, considering what these wee beasties cost.

No, thats simply the cold/fast idle program doing it.s stuff. under certain ambient conditions the engine will riase the idle slightly for the first second or two before letting idle drop to a more regular speed. This is a good reason for old timers who grew up on carbs to leave the gas pedal well alone when starting, or it confuses the ECU as to what the base idle setting is and you get lumpy/erratic idle until you restart the motor.

No, heavier parts have a harder time taking the strain due to inertial forces. For example, a large piston as it passes TDC at a crank speed of 3000rpm will have an inertial 'weight' of several tons at the top of its stroke. A smaller piston under the same conditions weighs much less , and therefore also gives other reciprocating items such as conrods etc an easier time. Big and beefy reciprocating parts are a liabilty, which is why you rarely get pistons beyond 500cc these days - lots of smaller pistons can withstand far higher rotational and reciprocating forces than a few pistons of the same capacity. I've had the motorbike since it was new in 1991 and it's tired but still going and I can see no technical reason why I won't squeeze 10 years minimum from my 107, and 15 realistically. Thats only 80 to 120 thousand miles (c.8k miles a year), with one ex techie owner from new. Thats hardly an unreasoanble likelyhood. I've only got to look at the cars at work thrashed to within an inch of their lives and do that mileage in 2 years to see that my expectations are actually quite conservative. If you reckon there aren't many old cars out there then have a leaf through the classified ads of your local newspaper to see the ancient high milers that folk are punting out, and most of these won't have been cared for or maintained as I plan for mine. 10 years old is only T reg, and in the time it's taken me to type this i've seen 2 drive past.