Note that the Chinese have just introduced  a new look alike Toyota Ute onto the Australian market from the Great Wall Car company  at about a thrid cheaper or around $20,000.00.

Problem is that it comes without most of the safety features  that the other imports do like Airbags and ABS breaking .

I always thought the idea of having ADR's  was to eventually weed out all the vehicles that didn't aid in the improvement of road safety  or help in reducing the road toll.

What has China got  special exemptions  to  ADR compliance because Big Kev can speak the language .

One step forward and three back,  will we never learn

-- Edited by Wombat 280 on Wednesday 1st of July 2009 02:00:47 PM

-- Edited by Wombat 280 on Wednesday 1st of July 2009 02:01:07 PM

If we take a good look at history, in it's many forms, it's obvious that NO WE DON'T LEARN from past mistakes.   Sorry situation.

Christ! the way they fly your not safe in a seat let alone on your feet .

Our local flight training school has just been taken over by the Chinese to provide training for their  student  pilots from scratch . With no control tower and a first in the circuit best dressed approach the mix of novice non english speaking pilots and commercial flights using Port Macquarie should make for an interesting airshow everyday. Bugger! what am I saying I live at the end of the runway

-- Edited by Wombat 280 on Wednesday 1st of July 2009 07:08:17 PM

  i wonder how they are getting these vehicles,registered.    if they dont comply with the adr38 regulations,how do they get a compliance plate.  

They probably do all their negotiations in MAndarin........Nah should not say that

hey,for a good laugh.......Aeroflot the Russian airline.Cant even be funny about them.thank god for vodka.................cheers.Ibbo.

Wombat wrote:

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I got my wings flying gliders........perfectly safe mode of flying, until they put engines on airplanes..........then they became dangerous. Now why do I not fly Garuda???? 

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very good friend was an engine fitter with Qantas.  He advised "if you fly Garuda make sure you have your will up to date"   Not a good recommendation me thinks.
Ma

 

When Garuda started flying into Perth, one of their pilots lined up at night on the well lit, wide and and straight main entry road to the Airport for a landing and had to be called off. Now that's scary!

Vic

-- Edited by Vic41 on Thursday 2nd of July 2009 11:18:19 AM

Our son, has to use an airline (To get to his place of employment) that is majority crewed by expat Russians. He reckons it is like playing Russian Roulette.

When I was in the ADF there were restriction on which airlines you could fly with and not all were asian airlines

I wore a "green suit" for twenty years. What colour was yours?.

Same same here mate.

You are in luck being on the outside of the Fridge......bloody cold here in the Freezer.

the base model "great wall" ute does not come with airbags or some upmarket saftey features but then neither do a lot of low priced small cars, imported or not, it does meet ALL australian saftey standards and can be purchased with ALL saftey equipment extras at extra cost the ute is aimed at a price range of about $20,000 dollars, to buy a secondhand ute of the same caliber would cost a lot more than that and also would not have any of the saftey features and have roughly 70,000 kilomtres on the dial, I think it would be a good thing the chinese normally buy the engine/gearbox drivetrain complete from a company that is already producing these things, the same as a lot of vehicle producers, as you know most driveline assemblys are produced in only one or two factorys and simply "rebadged" as nissan or whatever, much cheaper than starting an engine driveline facility from scratch, so dont be surprised if it has an Isuzu or nissan drivetrain the same as your upmarket high price ute I would buy one!!!

Dave I agree but I was under the impression that as the older utes with "70000" on the clock where worn out and scrapped then the new line second hand cars feeding into the market will have all the features we demand in our current line of vehicles . If you let cars with only partial safety features onto the market then the status quo remains for ever. Safety is the paramount concern unfortunately it has become necessary to legislate those safety features into vehicles to protect us from ourselves. I personally think it's a backward step to allow safety to be sold as an optional extra just to flood the market with an unsafe product in an attempt to balance trade between nations while spending billions on road safety education campaigns

I love gliding. The first time I left the ground in an aircraft was in a glider, and I just loved it. We take our lives in our hands and trust them to the airlines evertime we get on board. The Asians are servicing Qantas planes too. Can we trust them? I hope so. I love flying when I'm not caravaning. Cheers Chris

wombat, when in amongst the ute or off road brigade 70,000 is only just "run in", wouldnt dream of chucking it out at that early stage, little blue has 240,000 k's on the clock and there is no saftey features in there, whats more she'l do another 240,000 and I will probably still proudly own her, we have an old "jeep" on the farm, the speedo gave up the ghost at 850,000 miles not kilometres but miles, she is still going strong, no compression but she still goes with a little coaxing when up north, along the many great inland rivers and deserts where the nissans and toyotas rule (poofy other fake off roaders dont last long out there) 70,000 would be one of the flashier "later models", Hi-lux, patrols and cruisers are the go, not many safety features in the old "unbreakable" hi-lux the airbags actually "fire" when things get a bit rough or if you nudge a sunken stump, if you ever had one fire, then you know what a scary and expensive thing that is, as for abs, Hah! no good on the descents where you need full control over every aspect all the wizzbang technology that city folk "must have" is not worth a cracker when one is rounding up sheep or cattle or pulling through 5 foot of water with a camper trailer on behind, the electrics dont like it a new ute that is relatively capable and has a "modicom" of safety would be a welcome addition to any ****ies shed or young couple on their first trip round the block or genuine off roader especially when it is around twenty grand, just the ticket for shooting off round the backblocks the showpony brigade will still want their features and shiny bits, and they can have them but at a price and look thats fine, horses for courses but lets have just a wee bit of "honest" competition here, for too long the big end of town has had it all the same way when seatbelts were first introduced the death toll actually went up, not because of seatbelts but because the price of vehicles came down slightly and there were more on the road, airbags have not been proven to actually make the road toll go down, just the opposite in fact, south australia's death toll has risen by a whopping 60% this year alone, idiot Hoons mainly but dead all the same, other states are following suit I am actually dreading having those airbags in front of and around me firing in the event of a low speed collision, fingers out, dont cross the wheel with your arms, dont wear glasses as they will shatter sending glass into your eyes and send you blind, and that traction control crap is a pain in the bum, slight wheel spin and redlights are flashing everywhere I would prefer to get back to "basics" with all the rubbish out, I dont need 8 speaker stereo or bluetooth enabled am fm, multistack cd player, I dont care what the temperature is outside or the temperature inside, if I'm cold I, not the computer, will put the heater on, if I'm hot I, not the computer, will put the air con on too much has been taken away from the driver now, my dash resembles the ****pit of the spaceshuttle and almost as complex, but I dont want or need all that rubbish, driving now is so damn boring, I have to actually "talk" to the dragon just so I stay awake, and that is just plain cruel, uncommon and inhumane torture if going on a trip of over a thousand k's, I'm praying for the failure of saftey features by that time yay!! chinese for taking some of the rubbish out and making vehicles more affordable, if I could I would import or construct a "TUK TUK' to just go down the street and around town, 600 million chinese cant be wrong, but b/s regulations state that they cannot come in, we are so heavily regulated and all skewed towards the benefit of the big end of town that we now stand and shout and demand these things that are shown to have little or no benefit in the case of a collision, they simply add more dollars on to the price of a motor vehicle and more to its service costs the airbag is now the predominating factor as to whether your vehicle is to be "written off" or repaired they are just that expensive to "fix up" vehicles especially new ones are now so far out of reach of some people it is just ridiculous, we need to get back to basics here and take up volkswagons philosiphy when mr porsche was asked by mr hitler to make a "peoples car" the volkswagon a new reasonable 4wd cruiser with a few "extras" can quickly ammount to $100,000 or more put a reasonable van on behind, another $80,000 and a few extra's and very quickly there is $200,000 worth of phallic symbol crap barreling down the highway with a driver of advanced years and dead reflexes just looking for someone to kill now when someone invents a safety feature that takes these out of the equation then they have my vote until then, no thank you!!! plain and simple suits me just fine

Oh Man you are so right ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a new reasonable 4wd cruiser with a few "extras" can quickly ammount to $100,000 or more put a reasonable van on behind, another $80,000 and a few extra's and very quickly there is $200,000 worth of phallic symbol crap barreling down the highway with a driver of advanced -years and dead reflexes just looking for someone to kill -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The RR discoverey, with traction control and the ability to drive itself, (so they claim ) over any tract of ground came to a resounding stop on one of their field day a few years ago, apparently the Generator went into over drive and cooked all the computors, over 8 thou in damage control was spent, Saw an 79 cruiser walk all over its new cousin here just after the floods, the electrics in the diesel computor went into the water, wipe one new Toyota I drive an GQ patrol 1990, wouldnt have a new one,, it wont be any more comfortable on the long trip, will chew up more fuel, and is more liable to breakdowns than my old girl, and not a computor in it good on ya mate for saying what I have thought for years The daydreamer has over 600,000 thousand Ks and runs like a swiss clock, Remember my old man wouldnt swop or update till the motor had at least 300.000 MILES

I am desperately hoping that I can keep my 1985 FJ62 landcruiser on the road for the rest of my driving years. (Another 25 of them if family history is anything to go by.) It it virtually the last of the "all mechanical" vehicles. The very thought of the hassles and extreme cost of repairs to these electronic 'marvels' terrifies me and having the driving skills that I have religiously nurtured over many decades taken over by electronics that have less than 0.01% of the intelligence of a rhesus monkey, leaves me less than confident for my safety. The 'old girl' has less than 225,000 kms on the clock and , at the rate at which I travel - I'm a real 'stop and stare' kind of driver - it will be unlikely to accumulate more than another 200,000 whilst I still need it. My last trip to Geraldton from Perth, all of about 410 km, took me 5 days! Got some decent photos though and a lot of fine fish dinners :D

And we thought we were the only old fashioned ones on the forum hooray there are others. Helena.

Just put in a new clutch master and slave cylinder into "old faithfull" a 92 model Mazda Bravo B2600. 335000Kms on the clock. Never had a flat tyre or blow out. Never any mechanical failures. Has been serviced regularly every 10000kms.

Way back when the road from the east was dirt, we did the trip Sydney-Perth-Sydney in a Datsun 1200 with 3 kids. T'was an interesting trip to be sure. Anyone remember Ivy Tanks?

I actually cried when we sold our lh torana, I owned her for close to twenty years, all she ever had wrong with her was a busted clutch cable which I fixed with a welding rod and a couple of ball bearings welded on each end and a fuel pump which cost me $18 at K-mart and I fitted myself in ten minutes, I dont even know where the fuel pump is on the Magna, in the tank I think????????

my lad learnt to drive in that old girl, my wife got her license in her, a lot of memorys went that day when a stranger drove her out of the yard heading for complete restoration with a huge grin on his face, at least she's in a collection somewhere

when we sold the blitz, I did cry, off and on for about 5 days, there was so much of my "soul" in there that it was worse than selling one of the kids, you will be the same with the daydreamer Mike when she goes

I have had many offers for "little blue" and many more for "squeeky" but I think I would much rather cut my arms off, I think when or if she goes then I will be back sleeping with the "black dog", I may arrange a larger than usual grave so I can be buried sitting up in the drivers seat

I have no intention of purchasing another "new" vehicle, I think I made a mistake when I purchased the 380 Magna brand new, I could have had a "demo" model with about 10,000 kms on board for about $10,000 less, but never owning a "brand new" car before we took the plunge and emptied the bank account yet again, would have been better off with an older car and pocketed the savings (many thousands of dollars) the ride and destination would have been the same

in this day and age of the "disposable, must have society" I think we are leaving many of our good units behind and taking up unreliable soft as mud junk with a lot of unecesary bells and whistles that look "pretty" but really serve no "usefull" purpose and will probably let us down when we rely on them the most

there are a lot of damn fine reliable older units mentioned above and they will be going strong when the soft shoe brigades modern junk is predisposed in the scrap,

I still see far more earlier model falcons pulling older vans behind them quite happily with Mum and dad grinning from ear to ear enjoying the JOURNEY and not the gadgetry than I see high price, keep up with the mcnaughtys show pony's racing from van park to van park so as to enjoy all the amenities they should have left behind in the first place

you are not alone owning and enjoying older vehicles, in fact I would call you the MAJORITY, just get away from the east coast fakers and see what the real world is driving, I see it all the time

-- Edited by dave06 on Sunday 5th of July 2009 09:04:45 PM

kenmarg wrote:

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if only g.m.h.     was making the old fj holdens ( what a car ) i am sure they wouldnt  be loosing $70.000.000 a year.

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Was talking to a mate about that yesterday.

He reminded me that in an FJ, if you took off sharply dragging a heavy trailer, the back doors would pop open as the whole car flexed.

Regular towing of heavy loads could result in a permanent 'stretch' after which the door locks needed readjusting and the boot lid re-fitting.

"Aye! We 'ad a lot of things in them days that we don't 'ave terdai: Diphtheria, Rickets, 'itler,........"

Alas! Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

 

Come on fellas tell me you wouldn't rather be driving the latest cruiser with it's push button everything than a pre 85 road disaster waiting to happen. Pre 85 wasn't that the first of the kero wick models after they up grade from the crank handle ? . I have a 49 FX in the shed undergoing slow and painful restoration along with an FE, drove the FX around the block the other day and your right there's nothing to compare the tug of the Armstrong steering with today. Great for upper body strength development. Just sold a restored EJ for twice what it was worth showroom new so there is something about old vehicles that still attracts the young. I'll stick to the all singing and dancing models as I age

until it breaks down!!! the old holdens represent an era that I would dearly love to return to, I remember very fondly my blue EH, or my vc valiant, the memories they reconjure will never die if I wanted i could have the latest cruiser and all it's junk but I CHOOSE not to , my next vehicle will have a few km's on it, never a new one for me again a pre 85 disaster, good grief many a good time was had in those vehicles and I dearly wish we could all return to pre 85 I had a look at an "a" model ford going reasonable just up the road, thought long and hard before I turned my back on it, sometimes I think I should have bought it, not new for me