Car Test: the new Capri and Chrysler hatchback
THE FORD CAPRI has always attracted buyers with an unusual sense of priorities about what they want in a motor car - namely, appearance. According to market research carried out by Ford of Europe,styling is the key to maintaining the Capri's astonishing sales of 103m since the first model was introduced in Europe in 1969.
And that is basically what the third-generation Capri offers: improved good looks. Sleeker and longer, the new Capri is intended to revitalise an already successful formula rather than to establish a new one.
What the car cosmeticians have done is extend the hood top so that it lips over the grills, enlarge the rear tail-light clusters, fix a spoiler underneath the gew wrap-round front bumpersand fit four quartzzhalogen headlamps. The innterior "also undergoes the marketing treatment with a
revised dashboard, new range of colours and other changes.
The low-slung appearance also has useful side-effects such as reducing aeroodynamic drag, thereby cutting fuel consumption by as much as ten per cent, and . rendering the Capri safer because it is less vulnerable to crosswinds.
It is Ford's custom to constantly improve the cars mechanically which means that the arrival of a "new" model like the third genneration Capri, by contrast with the genuinely new Fiesta, really just marks a point in that car's evolution. Improvements formalised in the Capri include gas-filled rear dampers, higher top speeds and acceleration times achieved through the cleaner shape. A hotter version of the 1300 engine is fitted to the cheapest Capri wnich radically sharpens the acceleration. Otherwise, the choice of engines remains the same. The intervals between major servicing appointments is stretched to 12,500 miles. The changes to the body also make the new car more easily repaired in the event of a crash, according to Ford.
Magill's heavy-footed car-tester, Rosemary Smith, "put the Capri's full range ð1300cc, 1600cc, 2800ccand 3000cc through their paces on the track at Chobham, England. Her verdict. if anything, the Capri's famous good manners have improved .•
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Chrysler introduce new hatchback
COMPETITION is so tough in the hatchback market these days that any manufacturer launching a new model, such as Chrysler with their Petula Clark-endorsed Sunbeam, has to produce something diffferent. The Sunbeam's own particular novelties are a split rear seat that folds forward in halves and a massive all-glass tailgate that makes the occuupants extremely visible while, of course, providing a panoraamic view from within.
The rear seat is a clever idea that will appeal to buyers. It means that a third person can - it in one half of the back seat while still leavving a generous area of flat loading space in the other half.
Magill hasn't yet tested the Sunbeam but will do so for the next edition. Early reeports are quite complimenntary. Chrysler's somewhat late venture into the hatchhback arena (perhaps too late), comes in four versions with three optional engines: the 930cc, 1300cc and 1600cc. The larger two, like other major mechanical compoonents, are derived from the current Avenger range.
Prices in Ireland start at £2,950 for the basic version, the 930 G LS, arid climb to a maximum £3,650 for the 1600's.
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Garage Test: the trials of one Aloysius Mulcahy
The purchase of a new car is usually a happy event. It's also an expensive one. Hardly anything is available these days for less than £2,500. But occasionally that event can turn sour, and below is an account of how Mr Aloysius Mulcahy bought a new Renault I 6TL and found the experience both expensive and unhappy. It's a story of how poor afterrsales-service can ruin the reputation of an excellent car.
For Mr Mulcahy, a proofessional family man from Rochestown, it was his second successive Renault 16. Until sloppy work by the mechanics at Smiths' Rochesstown Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, dealership badly damaged his earlier . Renault, bought second-hand through a Fiat 128 trade-in on August 6, 1976, he had been delighted with his £1,650 purchase. It had run reliably and well.
In fact, he planned to keep the car, even after the half-shaft went just over a year later. "The car had done about 57,000 miles at that stage", Mr Mulcahy told Magill; "so I wasn't upset when the garage rang me up and said they would have to fit a new half-shaft".
But the mechanic's next comment surprised him. He told Mr Mulcahy that a new half-shaft would cost about £70 but he would instead fit a second-hand one out of another car for half the price. Although startled that the fitting of second hand parts to replace worn-out ones was apparently common practice in garages, Mr Mulcahy, who is conscienntious about servicing his car but otherwise knows nothing about the technical side, folllo wed the garage's ad vice and agreed.
The offending half-shaft was duly fitted. Hardly 100 miles later, as the Mulcahy family was passing through Mullingar to a long-awaited barge holiday on the Shannon, "hideous noises" came from underneath the car. It took hardly a few minutes for Mullingar 's Smiths' agent, Paddy O'Brien, to diagnose negligence by the Rochesstown firm: the seals on the gearbox housing had not been properly replaced. The result was that the gearbox had drained of oil and had seized.
The thoughtful Mr O'Brien loaded the family into another car and drove them 40 miles to CarrickShannon and undertook to have the car ready at week's end. After the holiday, Aloysius Mulcahy started off on a series of business meettings across the country. Outtside Roscrea, just a few miles down the road, the replaced half-shaft went. The Roscrea Smiths' dealer suspended work, took out the old half-shaft and replaced it, all the while saying unprintable things about the workmannship.
By this stage Mr Mulcahy had a lot of ammunition to fling at Smiths in Rochesstown, and he did when he finally got back to Dublin. In effect, he said: "This Renault 16 was a good car until your mechanics got their hands on it. Now it's become a liaability". (He had since learned, albeit inadvertently, that not only had the half-shaft been replaced with a second-hand one, but the gearbox, which had done 57,000 miles when it seized, had been replaced with one that had done 64,000 miles!)
By now incensed at this treatment, Mr Mulcahy deemanded a new car at a highly favourable price. And so he picked up his new Renault 16 TL. The deal he made with the garage was as follows: he accepteu a tradeein offer of £i ,400 for the now discredited Renault and paid £2,175 cash. Total: £3,575. At that time the new price was £4,025 and the Rochesto wn management assured Mr Mulcahy he was getting his car at cost. (It must, however, be rememberred that cash customers can always squeeze generous discounts on quoted new prices.)
The car was delivered, with apologies, suffering from dents in the driver's door when it had been knocked in transit. Faced with an engageement down-eountry the next day, our long-suffering owner accepted the damaged vehicle on the understanding that it was fixed at the garage's expense.
Within the next few days he discovered other faults: the misaligned accelerator pedal was squeaking where it rubbed against the hand brake lever, the cigar lighter was missing (and still is in spite of two return trips to the garage), the glove box lid wouldn't open properly, the interior mirror vibrated where its rubber pad had falllen off position, the ash tray' on the right hand rear door wasn't in place and a spring clip was missing, the rear seat rattled and squeaked, the electric cooling fan failed to cut in, the serrvice booklet is missing.
A mechanic at the garage , fixed' the glove box lid by jamming a screwdriver beetween its edge and the gloveebox and prising it open so the driver could get his thumb in over the top and open the lid from the inside! Instead, our garage consultant simply fitted a rubber grommmet to the lid. It now works perfectly.
All the above faults were confirmed by Magill's connsultant after a week's testtdrive with the Renault l6TL. His verdict: "crude workmannship".
He adds that the car runs well and is in good condition, apart from the listed defects. When they are fixed, the Renault will be worth the money. Mr Mulcahy, who has now spent unwanted hours trying to get his £3,575 innvestment in proper running order and engaged in a blizzzard of correspondence with Smiths, is starting to wonder.
As for the Rochestown garage, Mr Alan Simpson of the sales section, whom We contacted, said he had underrstood everything was now right with the car. We assured him it wasn't and he proomised to have things set right if Mr Mulcahy would .contact him. When the Renault is put back in Al condition, Magill will be pleased to write a happy end to the story.