Ah-ha, I seem to have stumbled across the Citroen appreciation society
. No I wouldn't have one, or anything from the sister company Peugeot, but it's not because I think they are inherently bad cars, I just don't like them, the compromises they use are not the ones that best suit me.
They do make some cracking diesel engines though, and Peugeot make shock absorbers (or used to) for many different cars on the road as OE, and are about the best ones to have. They're not badged as Peugeot of course. The problem I have with them is they (particularly Citroen) tend to be overly complicated for the price they try to build them down to. This causes problems with relaibility due to cheap installation. The actual technology itself is usually sound. Rolls Royce have been using Citroens hydrolastic suspension for years, and yet, not many make reference to their silly unreliable suspension. Given the budget, proper execution is possible.
The sheer amount of testing that goes into most cars is incredible, both by the manufacturers themselves and their parts suppliers for specific bits. As someone who plays in this area, it's very interesting seeing the different approaches
apparently taken by different companies. Ford and VAG for instance, (Note: this being more a personal observation rather that a substantiated fact, but my take on what I've seen is...) take for instance, things like switches, Ford's approach is the make them as simple and cheaply as possible, and then spend ages testing them to make sure that they will forfill the intended life without problem. Whereas VAG seem to specify that they are built to a higher standard using higher quality materials in the first place, lessening the emphasis on the lifecycle testing. Of course, the VAG unit cost per switch might be higher, but then they will use them in more models and hence have to develope fewer different (Silly, moulded, and model specific in the case of Ford) designs.
At the end of the day you pays your money. We may not have much of "our" own car industry except Rover, and we would be hard pressed to prove that anything they sell is entirely their own design at present, or indeed for some time (Rover 800 anyone? Tone?
), but we sure do make a large number of cars in this country, with Honda, Nissan, Ford, GM, Toyota, Peugeot, BMW's Mini, and Land Rover amongst others, all churning out cars over here. Even more so though, are the sheer numbers of companies here supporting the car industry both here and abroad, from the servicing of the plants etc, to the number of OE parts suppliers from everything from pumps, switches, lights, instruments, sensors, windows, brake linings, etc. etc. Personally I think that all this adds up to a sucessful industry to be proud of.
Sorry, seem to have deviated into a rant....
Cheers
Living in Portugal, I speak Portuguese aswell and "punto" in Portuguese means "point", as in, the point of a needle. It's possible that "punto" might mean "small penis" in Brazilian slang but I don't know.
