I’ve had several French cars, starting with an R4. That one was good, did exactly what it was designed to do. Next I had Talbot Horizon, an american (Chrysler) car with a very good diesel engine. Then I had a Peugeot 505, that had a good engine that was over complicated to the extreme, to the point that the oli overflow pipe litrelly crossed over from one side of the engine to the other, a truly brain dead design. Also the electrics in the back were literally routed under the rear light seals, so a seal failure meant that the electrical system shorted when it rained, the central locking and windows actuators had similar design flaws.
I also had a Xara, which had several secondary ecus, which had to be progressively eliminated , until I sent the thing to the scrap yard, out of despair, despite having a sound body and engine.
I’m in Europe, and I sometimes play the game of observing how many old cars (15+ years) I spot by nationality. Plenty of German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Korean. Very few Italian or French.
My daily driver now is a 26 year old Skoda. I do all maintenance. In nearly 500.000 km, it has had zero major failures. A few minor things, starter (Bosch), two window regulators, a CV joint, and the usual, belts, clutch, brake pads… Consumables. I love how logical the engine bay is.
Any example ?
The Pompidou. They haven’t even put the facade on it yet!
I’ve had several French cars, starting with an R4. That one was good, did exactly what it was designed to do. Next I had Talbot Horizon, an american (Chrysler) car with a very good diesel engine. Then I had a Peugeot 505, that had a good engine that was over complicated to the extreme, to the point that the oli overflow pipe litrelly crossed over from one side of the engine to the other, a truly brain dead design. Also the electrics in the back were literally routed under the rear light seals, so a seal failure meant that the electrical system shorted when it rained, the central locking and windows actuators had similar design flaws.
I also had a Xara, which had several secondary ecus, which had to be progressively eliminated , until I sent the thing to the scrap yard, out of despair, despite having a sound body and engine.
I’m in Europe, and I sometimes play the game of observing how many old cars (15+ years) I spot by nationality. Plenty of German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Korean. Very few Italian or French.
My daily driver now is a 26 year old Skoda. I do all maintenance. In nearly 500.000 km, it has had zero major failures. A few minor things, starter (Bosch), two window regulators, a CV joint, and the usual, belts, clutch, brake pads… Consumables. I love how logical the engine bay is.