HJ shut button his lip over attempting to lecture us on his disagreement on Brexit and stick to what he's best at, giving some opinion on cars.

HJ made no stance on Brexit other than mentioning that Brexit would have no impact

Scot - just like speed cameras - many people who break the law will still do so despite them. I've seen many 'yoofs' drive a ridiculously fast speeds over speed humps, and on more than one occasion actually have all four wheels in the air and nearly lose control when they 'landed' on the other side.

For many other people, and again, like with cameras, they concentrate way too much on braking hard just as they approach the hump (or camera), then floor it after passing, which means they could easily bottom out or take their attention away from the rest of the road (e.g. to the speedo for cameras) when they should be watching for people crossing.

As HJ says, cumulative damage is done to tyre sidewalls (especially those many of us who have cars [not me] with low profile tyres), which can easily lead to blowouts on fast moving roads like motorways, which can easily lead to multiple fatality RTAs. A lot of the money councils spend on road humps, including their maintenance could be spent on policing speed limits with greater numbers of traffic officers and coming down hard on bad driving in the court system. How much compensation for motorists/home/business owners after road defects (including and especially speed humps) cause damege to cars and buildings is then not spent on better education of young drivers and policing our roads?

You have to think about this from other angles - its often just moving the problem elsewhere, rather like electric cars that require polluting, inefficient power stations to provide electricity for them, rather than trying to avoid the use of the car in the first place by better city planning and public transport.

And what a fool you are for buying into the system of buying new and flogging after just a few years and £££ depreciation, and paying whatever the dealer wants for servicing. Whilst I agree that if a car is used predominantly for longer distance driving and driven sympathetically, most nowadays aren't, and their emissions control systems are very vulnerable to driving unsympathetically, especially regular short trips from cold.

I see far less older German and French cars on our roads these days than 20 years ago, despite the sales of German brand cars being significantly higher now than in the 1980s and 90s. I mean, how many mk 3 Golfs do you see, or mid 90s 3-Series, or C-class Mercs from the mid-late 90s? I see far more Toyotas and Hondas from that era on the road. The reason is mainly because a) they are better engineered, and b) are far more likely to be serviced either annually or per 9-12.5k as per that manufacturer's service intervals.

If people who buy (mainly German) cars with long service intervals that have been stipulated by the manufacturer for good money at 3-4 years, then wonder why they develop (far more often than Japanese or Korean equivalents) serious and very expensive problems in the 7-10 year age range, often meaning they are uneconomic to repair, then those people are idiots and deserve to be take for a proverbial ride.

As regards the price of servicing and especially oil changes, its only because we Brits don't kick up a stink and demand better value for money (often hoping, like you, we can pass any future problems onto the next mug), as our friends in North America, and it seems, in parts of the Far East do. Surely it cannot be byond the intelligance of some enterprising business person over here to start up a basic, non-flashy chain of auto lube shops for oil changes and other basic fluid changes and top-ups for a reasonable price?

The glass palaces have to somehow claw all that investment in flashy showrooms back, and normally the service dept is the answer, which is why most cars are built to only last about 7 years before becoming unconomic to run if they are manitained to the required standard.

My Hyundai has a 20,000 mile service interval with an optional 10,000 mile oil & filter change. For £30 & 45 minutes of my time I can change my own oil, using top-brand fully synthetic oil, to a standard which meets or exceeds what a dealer would provide. The trend towards longer service intervals is primarily to bring down fleet costs, where all they're interested in is getting through the 3 or 4 year lease period at minimum cost before off-loading the car into the secondhand market. What happens after that is immaterial.

Personally, I think the higher specific power outputs of modern engines puts more stress on the oil, so 20,000 mile interval seems excessive. When I looked at the price of the oil you had to buy for a VW Golf to work with the variable service interval, it worked out less costly to use a cheaper oil and change it more often.

I don't believe in the throw-away society. I expect to run my car for at least 150K miles.

"Last point - I've never kept a car for more than 40,000 miles. If it were true that oil needs changing every 10k rather than adhere to flexible servicing, why should I care if that engine doesn't last 100,000 miles?"

Hear,hear. Honest John really needs to take into account every single reader's personal circumstances before he issues his so-called "advice". I never keep cars beyond 8000 miles. What am I supposed to do? My brother doesn't even own a car, He was so worried that he asked Hertz if it would be OK if he rented one and had the oil changed. They became border-line abusive after 20 minutes.

Get a grip HJ!

Edited by MrPogle on 08/09/2018 at 16:34

Last point - I've never kept a car for more than 40,000 miles. If it were true that oil needs changing every 10k rather than adhere to flexible servicing, why should I care if that engine doesn't last 100,000 miles? I pay for the time I own the car, why should I shell out my money on behalf of the 3rd, 4th or 5th owner? I couldn't give a monkey's about them.

Remind me never to buy one of your discarded motors!

No oil in the engine at a 2 yr service! Astounding, are people too lazy to check the oil level these days.

I think they probably meant the car's second service at year 2. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.