Motor Manila

Sparkle, shimmer and shine!

2011-08-09T10:30:00.000+08:00

I've posted up reviews for the Spark to two outlets. Obviously, different target markets, but it's interesting to see the differences:

http://bigbigcar.com/boards/default.aspx?g=posts&t=4563

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/08/review-2011-chevrolet-spark-1-2-global-spec/

To the American market, the Spark is just another rubbish small car. Too slow, too small, too cheap. In a more global sense, in emerging markets like the Philippines, it's spacious enough, it's more than cheap enough, and the fuel economy benefits are more than worth the sacrifices in size.

A fundamental difference in requirements... one that reflects the reasons why manufacturers struggle to have a relevant line-up wihtout having a huge variety of models, and also why "Carmageddon" hit the US harder than us.

Hyundai Accent: Domination!

2011-07-30T14:29:00.002+08:00

Now tell me... why do we need compact cars, again?

The Deadly Consequences of The Lack of Consequences

2011-07-29T13:11:00.006+08:00

More precisely, it's when the consequences of one act outweigh the consequences of not doing it. It's a gamble that many bus drivers make... but you can play Russian Roulette for only so long before your luck runs out. As it did for one unfortunate driver last Tuesday as he lost control of his bus in the rain, flew off the Skyway and fell four stories to the ground below.

Much has been said about the "boundary system", which requires the drivers to do more trips than humanly possible simply to break even on a day's worth of work.

While there's nothing inherently immoral with a quota system for service jobs... the level of the boundary is of much debate. Simply: the number of trips a driver can make is constrained by traffic. Hence, drivers try to make up for lost time by driving faster once out of traffic.

Drivers are always aware of the consequences of not making their boundary. It weighs on their every thought as they go home bone-weary and hungry, and as they wake up in the morning, even hungrier. But do they ever think of the consequences of their actions on the road?

I firmly believe that these drivers' inability to properly weigh the pros and cons of their actions stems from a lack of proper driver's education and training. Doing 130 km/h (the bus's estimated speed) on a crowded freeway in a bus is reckless. Doing the same in the rain is insane.

But drivers never really think about it. They think of it as allowing them to do just one more trip on the day, to earn more money.

How much time do you save? Over the 10 kilometer length of the Skyway, overspeeding by 50 km/h nets you a three minute saving. That's six minutes per round trip. Given the traffic and terminal time, and that a driver might be able to do only four or five round trips in an entire day working double-shifts (depending on the length of the route, if it's Manila to Batangas, make it three to four), that's a total of half-an-hour saved. Not even enough to complete half a trip. To make one extra trip a day, drivers have to maintain at least 140-160 km/h on both the regular highway and the Skyway. And some actually do.

All to earn a little more money. And since there are no consequences for overspeeding except a small fine and a confiscated license, drivers have little reason not to try and hit that golden turn-around time.

It's obvious that bigger disincentives than confiscated licenses are required. How about impounding? A driver breaks the limit by over 40 km/h, the entire fleet gets grounded for a day and the bus in question gets impounded for a week, and the driver's license gets revoked for a month. The driver loses out, but the operator loses out even worse. This then creates consequences for the operator, which forces them to review their policies and boundaries. Because if the only incentive for companies to change policy is the one-in-a-thousand accident rather than the one-in-ten overspeeding incident, then there will still be a thousand overspeeding, swerving and racing buses plying the roads for every bus taken off of it.

LTO Emissions Center Quota?

2011-06-28T09:56:00.003+08:00

Heard a rumor today, that certain emissions centers have instituted a daily quota. One is limiting itself to 160 cars.

Yes... they are only allowed to do tests on 160 cars a day. Apparently, they're too efficient.

How efficient?

A customer complained that he passed by after lunch, and they were closed for the day.

Let's recap: You open at 8:00 am. You manage to drive a car into the booth, attach the testing equipment, get the probes warmed up, do the emissions test (which requires the car to be revved through a simulated driving cycle... instead of idling for a few seconds), take a picture, detach the probes, drive the car out of the booth, print out the test results and collect payment in just two minutes? Either LTO testing centers have managed to breed a new class of supermen who can catch speeding bullets with their teeth, or there's something scwewy going on.

A time-motion study has convinced embattled LTO Secretary Virginia Torres that there's something fishy about all of this, and she's been closing down centers that process cars way too fast.

Unfortunately, the testers have found a way to not trigger alarm bells. Just get it all over with in the morning and take the rest of the day off.

Makes sense, right?

Commonwealth... common sense...

2011-05-25T14:49:00.002+08:00

It saddens me no end to see report after report of death and dismemberment on the most useless road in the country, Commonwealth Avenue.

It makes no sense... not here... to have a road that's sixteen lanes wide with no clear lane-segregation markers and no safety.

Simply put... for pedestrians and small vehicle users, this vast sea of concrete is a deadly place. It's impossible to cross on foot, and the pedestrian bridges are few and far between. Public utility vehicles, private cars and scooters, zip across several lanes to enter a U-turn slot, then merge right several lanes on the other side, all in one motion. Buses weave in and out of lane with impunity... the wide expanse of concrete encouraging drivers to push a little faster than they would on the narrower roads of the metro.

Let's face it... we don't have the manpower for active enforcement... what we need are better designed roads, with clear lane demarcation and maybe even islands separating the inner and outer lanes. No... not the "pop-up-in-the-middle-of-nowhere" islands and fences that Bayani Fernando tried to institute on EDSA, but honest-to-goodness continuous islands down the length of the avenue.

Not only for this road, but also for the Quezon Circle, which is also a very difficult place for pedestrians, cyclists and small vehicle operators to navigate.

All it takes is political will. Or maybe more well-known personages dying. But you and I know that the latter is the more likely trigger...

Is 2 liters 2 much?

2011-05-20T15:55:00.002+08:00

Yes, I started updating again. Yes, it's been a loooong time. So sue me... it's easy to lose photos in the morass of data I have stuffed into my laptop, and with the magazine starting up and BBC undergoing a change of status, it's hard to know where to start.

I know most people won't find two liters excessive. In fact, for some, it's probably a bare minimum requirement for interesting cars... others might even see it as inadequate.

But your basic commuter... the person most likely to buy cars like these... doesn't really need the power to overtake semis on the highway. Or to hit 200 km/h. Or the ability to do scandinavian flicks...

Okay... so WE like cars that'll swing wide under trail-braking, but then people like us don't buy gray cars, right? Right?

There's sometimes a deep-seated disconnect between what car manufacturers sell and what buyers want. In this case, I think both shots are pretty wide off the mark.

The Last Airbender: Unfortunately, it won't be

2010-08-02T13:05:00.004+08:00

As a homage to the cartoon series, The Last Airbender falls woefully short.

As a movie that stands on its own merits, M.Night Shyamalan's latest opus stands as a reminder to all budding film-makers as to how NOT to make a movie.

It all could have been so much better. The actors themselves show some promise. Noah Ringer does a decent job as Aang, the last airbender (his "Air Nomad" clan is extinct), the new avatar whose mastery of the mystic powers of "bending" make him the target of the imperialistic "Fire Nation", who are intent on conquering the "Water Tribes" and the "Earth Nation". Nicola Peltz is also authentic and believable as Katara, his "water-bender" companion.

And that's it. Jackson Rathbone's inability to deadpan his way through Soka's (Katara's brother) comedic antics surely left a lot of the humor on the cutting room floor and Dev Patel (Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation) looks unsure of himself in this role and lacks the intensity and fire required. A big shame, as this character is probably the true star of the cartoon series, more so in later seasons. It's an incredibly deep, complex and difficult role... and I wish Dev would grow into it.

Let's not blame them for all that is wrong with the movie. Clumsy narrative exposition interspersed with sporadic fight scenes and set-pieces fail to immerse you in the fantasy world that the design department so lavishly creates for Shymalan. At points, the movie presents you awesome vistas that show in short flashes between excrutiatingly long close-ups of actors looking dazed and confused. For a children's movie, the absolute lack of humor is a capital crime. Where the odd joke actually manages to avoid being cut from the final film, it falls flat due to the lack of comedic timing by both director and actors.

It's a shame that some of the fight scenes are so good. Because they merely serve to draw attention to the clumsy camerawork and cutting. There are flashes of brilliance, mind you, in the intricate choreography between Prince Zuko and Aang, but as these parts are lifted mostly whole from the source material and rely on excellent performances from the actors themelves, it's hard to credit Shyamalan with this feat.

Near the end, Shyamalan brings the move to a crashing close with a big set-piece battle. Hundreds of Fire nation ships sit idly by while dozens of extras flail their arms at each other in shots reminiscent of 70's popcorn Kung-Fu flicks. In the midst of this, we find Dev Patel looking perplexed in his final confrontation with his arch-nemesis, General Jao. Perplexed, surely, because the script asserts that this important piece of the story never actually happens... a change akin to having Gandalf face the fiery Balrog in the Mines of Moria and walking away while a wandering band of dwarves hack the hoary monster to bits.

At the end, Aang saves the day, in a display of power that promises much, but falls oddly impotent, washing away as the Fire Nation fleet and most of the audience flee in disgust. Some parents may leave with the feeling that they've given their kids a good show, but all the kids I've talked to so far hate the movie even more than I do.

As the movie ends with the half-hearted smirk of Aang's future antagonist, the Fire Princess Azula, who seems to be just as fearful as the audience at the thought of a sequel, we're left with the uneasy knowledge that it's a sure thing. And as Shyamalan is not only the director and writer of the film, but also the producer, it is almost certain that he'll remain be at the helm, to steer it even further off course than he already has.

Driving in Inclement Weather

2010-07-15T12:50:00.006+08:00

Now that the dust has settled from Typhoon Basyang, it's probably time to address the issue of what to do when it's stormy out. Here's some tips:

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Before you drive:

1. If you know that a storm is coming and can avoid going out, stay in. Park the car in a spot where it is safe from flooding and falling branches or electrical/telephone poles. If you cannot find a high spot, disconnect the battery and jack up the front end to keep the engine and engine electronics as high as possible. If the rear carpeting on your vehicle gets wet, that's an inconvenience. If the electronics get wet, that's a problem.

2. If your trip is necessary, plan your route and know which streets are less prone to flooding. Also bring contingency money in case you get stuck somewhere and either have to wait it out or call for a tow.

3. Check your car before you leave. Ensure that you have more than enough fuel to make the trip, even if you get stuck in gridlock. Make sure that your car is in good condition, with a complete set of tools. Having a 24-hour tow service number saved on your (fully charged) cellphone is also a good idea.

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During the drive:

1. Drive slowly, drive gently. You can't avoid a falling tree at 140 km/h in the dark.

1. You should always, always know the flood-fording capacity of your vehicle.

If the fording height is not available from the manufacturer, lift your hood and find your airbox (where the air filter is). Look at the tubes connected to it. The the tube from the airbox that is open to the air is called the snorkel or intake tube.

The height of this tube indicates the theoretical maximum height of water you can ford in the car. A good rule of thumb is to NOT cross water that is less than six inches below the snorkel height, as bow waves from passing trucks and buses can raise the water level to the intake level.

Many people have bought SUVs assuming they can ford deep water... only to be sorely disappointed when their car dies in the middle of a crossing that the carbureted taxi in front of them successfully completed.

2. When in doubt, don't. If you are not sure how deep the water is (because no one else is crossing) or are unsure if your vehicle will make it through, back out and find another way. Saving yourself a few hours of waiting is never worth destroying your vehicle or endangering your life.

3. A note for trucks with high ground clearance and/or snorkels. Just because you can ford water that's three feet deep, doesn't mean you should. If a drainage canal or river sweeps over a bridge, it may have the power to carry you off the bridge and out into the water. Your SUV may weigh two tons, but guess what? The passenger cabin is full of air, and that makes it float. Anything that floats can be carried away by a strong current.

4. If you are stuck in traffic or a low-lying area and it becomes obvious that the water will cover the car, disconnect the battery (and, if you can, remove the ECU (electronic control unit)), and make for higher ground. Having the battery disconnected will help prevent a short circuit caused by water penetration from frying your ECU. Congratulations, you've just saved around fifty thousand bucks in repairs.

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After The Flood

1. If your car forded the water successfully and experienced no cabin leakage, check all fluids and suspension parts. Water can still leak into your engine oil or gear oil, and it can contaminate bearings and CV Joints.

2. If your car has been inundated by flood, do not attempt to start it. Have it inspected by a mechanic or electrician. Change all fluids and dry out all electronic sensors and systems thoroughly before even attempting this. Some vehicles have water resistant ECUs. Others don't. But even if the ECU is water sealed, there's no guarantee that everything else is. This includes sensors in the engine bay, electronics in the dashboard and various electrical couplings throughout the vehicle.

3. You may also want to take apart your seats and carpet and lay them out in the sun to dry. If the flood water contained mud, you will want to take the vehicle to a professional to disassemble the dashboard and doors to clean out everything thoroughly.

Automotive Market Recovery is Both Encouraging and Depressing

2010-07-07T15:26:00.005+08:00

Sales figures are in for the first half of 2010, and it appears that the market is starting to recover.

CAMPI stats page

US sales, first half, 2010

Sales are good for many manufacturers both locally and in the US, which is a good sign... but depressingly... worryingly, most of those sales are... you guessed it... for big vehicles.

Not that I'm against people needing or buying big cars. It's your money. Do what you want. But the plain fact of the matter is: People don't seem to have learned their lesson. Fuel economy matters. Fuel prices are not going to stay at this low level for long... and when oil goes back to the $100 per barrel level, as the Chinese economy picks up steam again, people are going to start panicking and bitching about it. Get over it. It's your own damn fault.

Just look at US sales. The Honda Jazz/Fit is down. The hybrid market is showing a small downturn. In local sales... the top three spots are all taken up by SUVs... one of which wasn't even available in diesel at the start of its run (the Tucson).

First Quarter Sales, Philippines, 2010

The electric contingent also seems to have lost some steam. Tesla just released its IPO this week. It went up and down faster than you can say "What-the-..." Not that Tesla has ever been more than two steps above vaporware, but general sentiment and interest in alternative energy vehicles is not as bullish as it once was.

I wish I could say that we've learned our lessons from the disaster that was 2008-2009. But apparently we haven't. And we seem bound to repeat this vicious boom-bust cycle all over again. Will people ever learn?

So... did you sleep through the 2010 F1 European GP at Valencia?

2010-07-02T16:38:00.003+08:00

Red Bull's Mark Webber sure did, snoozing off the starting line and falling far back... before executing an airborne assault on a hapless DHL sign off the back of Hekki Kovalainen's Lotus.

I'm sure Fernando Alonso wished he had, after the heartbreak of being one of the only two drivers caught behind the resulting safety car. (The other being his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa). Needless to say, the Spaniard was livid, especially since McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, just a second ahead of him, took time out of deciding whether or not to pass the safety car to wag his tail at him. Just to, you know, piss him off. Because we all know Lewis and Fernando just love playing with each other.

Other than that, and an almost race-ending clash between the two wonder boys, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton (boy, did he have an eventful race), it was the typical Valencia snooze-fest. To the point where people are talking about overhauling the circuit for next year. And not just people, but, y'know... people.

The most excitement, actually, was generated when Fernando Alonso had an apoplectic attack on air as Ferrari told him that finally, the stewards had decided to penalize Lewis for his borderline illegal overtake of the safety car (it would have been legal if he hadn't spent an extra millisecond mooning Alonso), and that Lewis's penalty had lost him exactly zero places.

And it only got worse, as other drivers who sped under the safety car got a mere 5 second penalty for this action. Alonso's fair-minded and faithful following of safety car rules landed him in ninth... promoted slightly to eight after the penalties were assigned. Maranello was not amused.

As Ferrari and Fernando continue a conspiracy theory assault on the ears of all and any who will listen, the FOTA looks at clarifying safety car rules... but really... the whining has got to stop. As if Fernando or Ferrari are completely innocent of racing shenanigans in their long and colorful (but separate) histories in F1...

What price, economy?

2010-06-28T14:32:00.005+08:00

A lot of people seem to consider greenhouse emissions consideration numero uno in guiding the direction in which automakers need to go in the future. As a happy coincidence, lower carbon dioxide emissions also equate to greater fuel economy.

And yet, the alternatives available to consumers to lower emissions and increase economy are either unpalatable to the common consumer or too expensive.

A car like the Suzuki Alto will get you up to and over the 30 km/l mark, but concerns over safety and useable space turn off buyers looking for something more like their Toyota Corolla.

A Toyota Prius will also do over 30 km/l, but it's twice as expensive as said Corolla, as well.

In Europe, buyers have long had the diesel option, yet locally, diesel cars are the exception, rather than the norm. While modern common rail diesel SUVs and compact SUVs are quite popular, diesel cars are less so. The trouble is that modern diesel cars cost more than their gasoline counterparts. Only Hyundai and Ford are bothering to attack this market. While Ford has the benefit of a local factory, which gets them tax breaks, Hyundai has to make do with CBU (completely built up) units from Korea.

Which is why the Elantra never really got off the ground. Will the i30 be any different? One would hope so. The i30 doesn't break any new ground as a motor vehicle per se, but the economy of that 1.6 liter diesel cannot be denied.

EDIT: As an aside: Why do people always seem to think that journalist review economy is any different from user economy? It's not like we go out of our way to game a car's economy to make it look great. Far from it, in fact. Most "motoring journalists" drive like maniacs.

Just because I get higher numbers than you doesn't mean I don't know anything about measuring economy (in fact, quite the opposite)... it just means my route is less congested than yours and that I drive gentler.

No two people will ever get the same economy. I don't get the same economy on different days. On the Focus TDCi, for example, I got as low as 7 km/l on one 3 kilometer school run (though this was done long after the review), averages of 11-13 km/l in traffic on our regular 20 kilometer commute, 9-11 km/l in heavy traffic on a 15 kilometer trip, and 20 km/l on the highway.

Some people see the highway numbers, do a run in rush hour traffic, taking an hour to go just two or three kilomters, and think we're pulling these numbers out of our butts. We're not. Your driving route sucks. Buy a bicycle and get over it.

Seriously... unless you're driving for little kids or old ladies... what's wrong with walking or biking?

How badly does smuggling hurt the Philippine car market?

2010-06-22T10:29:00.004+08:00

This came up in an online debate a while back. And when the subject comes up, people always point to the 2003 numbers, which show that over 50% of "new" cars registered in the Philippines were not sold by the local Car Manufacturer's Association (CAMPI). Since I heard that, I figured I'd look it up.

Citation for article in question (link).

2003 was the first year after the ban on vehicle importation via the Subic Freeport. Thus the built-up stockpile of "legal" imports was still incredibly large. This helps explain the large numbers, in part. But more on that later.

Yet there are still complaints of "technical smuggling". So I decided to find out what the current figures are.

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CAMPI* production figures: (link)

1,219 Truck/Bus
2027 Light trucks (includes large SUVs, but also cargo trucks)
52708 LCV (light commercial vehicles, includes small SUVs and pickups)
30,262 AUV
46,228 Passenger cars

Total: 132,444

*does not include assembled Jeepneys, Multi-cab Jeepney conversions, products from smaller manufacturers (Norkis, Chery, Chana, Foton, Haima, ectera) and various "legal" grey market brand-new imports

If we exclude trucks and buses, which are exempted from the import ban, we get a figure closer to this:

CAMPI Total: 131,225

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LTO Registrations: 2009* (link)

2,833 Trailer
2,679 Bus
18,711 Truck

31,516 SUV
83,645 Commercial

46,038 Passenger Cars

Total: 185,422

*May not accurately reflect total number of "new" cars on the road due to delays in registration, double-registration, dropping of commercial plates for private and vice-versa, re-registration of carnapped vehicles with false papers, and the fact that some smuggled vehicles will not be registered.

If we exclude trucks and buses, which are exempted from the import ban, we get a figure closer to this:

LTO Registrations, Total: 161,199

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Discrepancy between LTO and CAMPI figures:

LTO: 161,199
CAMPI: 132,444

Difference: 29,974

Granted, neither figures are completely accurate, but it gives us a ballpark figure to work with.

Now, CAMPI is composed of 18 automakers, yet there are no separate figures for Chery, CATS, Chana, Foton, FAW, Greatwall, Norkis, Motor Image and other small players are not yet included in the 2009 report. Also not included are locally assembled vehicles and legal brand new imports sold by distributors like Pitstop, Emperor and other concerns.

Let's say CATS has sales of around 200-400, Motor Image around 600, Chery maybe around 600 or so. Foton, FAW, Chana, Norkis and Greatwall are too small (right now) to matter... but maybe sell around 200-400 altogether. Add legal brand-new imports by small shops and OFW-imported vehicles, and a conservative estimate of these "non-smuggled" registrations is around 3000 vehicles. (may be higher, but NOBODY posts statistics regarding returning OFW vehicle importation and backyard assemblers)

Difference: 26,974 (approx.)

Which is a large number, certainly, but far from the over 100,000 vehicle discrepancy from 2003.

CAMPI 2003 Figures (link)

Part of that huge discrepancy is undoubtedly due to the legality of Subic Imports. Sales of legally imported Subic vehicles did not stop in 2003 after the ban, since there was a large backlog of these vehicles on importers lots.

Part of it can also be attributed to the difference in make-up of the CAMPI. Ford-Mazda only joined recently, and they're good for around 8000 units a year. HARI was admitted in 2004 and they're good (currently) for around 11,000 units a year. Before HARI was incorporated... and even today, imported brand-new Starexes were a hot item on the market.

Hyundai Automotive Resources, Inc. History (link)

It's interesting to note that 2003 was an especially good year for AUVs, with 2003 sales exceeding that of 2009 sales by nearly 9000 units (for this purpose, the absence of Ford doesn't matter... all three major AUV manufacturers are CAMPI members). Those with keen memories will recall that the AUV tax exemption pushed many people to drop passenger cars in favor of AUVs at that time, and Honda was selling the 10-seater "AUV" CR-V at this time, also. 2003 was just before the dropping of AUV tax exemptions.

I will try to find a way to get proper statistics from the LTO for 2003, since they don't break down registrations by motor vehicle type in their online statistics. It would be interesting to know how much of that 90,000 unit figure is composed of ban-exempt trucks (2009: over 20,000 trucks registered were NOT built locally brand-new) and how much was sourced from legitimate brand-new importers and manufacturers who were non-CAMPI members.

As it is, I can only give a guess-timate that around 20,000 of those 100,000 vehicles were (ban-exempt) trucks, around 7000 were Ford-Mazdas, around 6000-7000 were probably HARI. That leaves a discrepancy of maybe 70,000 vehicles or less.

Which, granted, is a huge number. But unless the LTO releases accurate records or someone goes through those records one by one, the number of "SUV-ics" included therein will remain unknown. An even bigger unknown is how many of those were smuggled and how many were properly declared. We may never know.

Encouragingly, it points to the government's current drive being somewhat effective at restraining the informal trade of vehicles, if the numbers have dropped to nearly 1/4th that of 2003 levels. ;)

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Hence:
CAMPI Sales, 2009 (non-truck/bus): 131,225
LTO Registrations, 2009 (non-truck/bus/MC): 161,199

Difference: 29,974

Non-CAMPI manufacturer sales: 2000+ (an even more conservative estimate)

Thus: 27,974 units, approximately, not sourced from manufacturers, includes locally assembled "backyard" units, OFW imports, legal brand-new grey market units and smuggled units.

This is 15% of all "brand new" LTO registrations.

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It's unknown whether smuggling and the Subic import phenomenon depressed the local market, delayed recovery, or merely indicated that people simply did not have the budget to buy brand new vehicles after the Asian Economic Crisis of the 90's. And, indeed, brand new registrations are still a fraction of total registrations (taking into account the new 3-year LTO cycle).

Encouragingly, though, it suggests that the government's drive against smuggling may be having a positive effect, but unless statistics gathering is made more comprehensive, we might not know the total cost of smuggling on our local car industry, and whether calls for stricter anti-importation measures are really necessary, or detrimental to the fortunes of local assemblers, traders and consumers.

2010 Montreal GP, ey?

2010-06-16T11:59:00.000+08:00

After last weekend's exciting romp across Montreal, I think the FIA would do well to propose that at least half of next year's F1 races be held on freshly-paved track. The 'green' surface of the Giles Villeneuve circuit provided for one of the most exciting races ever, with drivers struggling for grip on the high-speed, low-downforce track and wearing down even the notoriously durable Bridgestone "hard" prime tires down in just over a dozen laps.

It was a sweet victory for Lewis Hamilton, his maiden win and McLaren's first 1-2 of the season. He did it all last weekend, setting a blistering pace in qualifying that the other front-runners struggled to match, and performing a "hero lap" to clinch pole after his early time was eclipsed late in the third session of qualifying as the track rubbered in... on a car running on fumes and on the wrong end of the wear curve on the "soft" option tires.

The race didn't always go his way. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was on his tailbone for almost the entire race. Those option tires wore down very quickly, and he saw the lead cushion he built up over the Red Bull Racing cars evaporate as Mark Webber overtook him down the main straight... As Mark Webber's Red Bull Racing car zoomed past, Lewis dived into the pits and changed onto the prime tires, and Alonso did the same.

Alonso beat Lewis out of the pits by fractions, and Lewis raced him to the line. He eventually had to settle behind the Spaniard as they chased down the Red Bulls. It soon became evident that the hard tires on the Red Bulls were wearing out incredibly quickly, and they also had to pit. When the dust settled and all the pits had worked themselves out, Mark Webber was in the lead on a long stint in the hards, having made up places all the way to first after a gearbox penalty dropped him from P2 to P7 on raceday; Vettel's RBR had fallen afoul of Jenson Button's Mclaren, the Brit making up time for graining his tires early on in the race; and Lewis Hamilton had overtaken Alonso on a daring dive behind Sebastian Buemi, who was actually racing them for position (Indeed, the Torro Rosso's performance in this race would be headline material if it weren't for all the other drama going on).

Mark Webber had built up a thirteen second gap, but unfortunately would be forced to go onto the soft tires at his next pit stop. He heroically tried to preserve his tires, but it soon became apparent that nothing of the sort would be possible. They were cut to ribbons. Hamilton and Alonso zoomed past him, and after his pits, he had to settle for a distant fourth place. Button, through canny tire conservation, caught up with Alonso and Hamilton, and through backmarker traffic, in which the Spaniard struggled to keep up with Lewis, Button pounced, taking second place from Alonso.

With Hamilton and Button sewing up first and second and Alonso in third, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel had to settle for fourth and fifth. Vettel, in frustration, asked if he could at least go for "fastest lap", but was informed that his gearbox was on the brink of failure, and that he'd have to take it easy to the checkered flag.

Elsewhere in the order, chaos reigned. Renault's Vitaly Petrov suffered two drive-through penalties, one from a jump-start and one from a collision. Felipe Massa in the other Ferrari fell afoul of a Force India sandwich. Renault's Robert Kubica and Mercedes GP's Michael Schumacher traded paint as Kubica tried to overtake Michael, who was coming out of the pits. Both Saubers failed, and a lot of nose-cones were replaced in frantic pitstops.

After a disastrous start, and an even more disastrous collision with Schumacher, Massa managed to earn some distinction for performing perhaps the best overtake of the day, going three abreast into a chicane. The Force Indias, after falling back down in the order, with Liuzzi replacing his nosecone twice, managed to clinch ninth and tenth by passing a struggling Schumacher... whose many battles and collisions earned him the nickname "Dick Dastardly". I think it'll stick.

-

Red Bull Racing downplayed the loss, as many both inside and outside the organization are aware that Montreal is perhaps the track least suited to an RBR that relies on good aerodynamics. In fact, going by the slow motion replays showing relative tire wear, the Ferrari appears to be the car best suited to the high-speed circuit. And yet, McLaren has been pushing them hard for the last few races, and in Turkey, was able to push Vettel to the edge. In this race, McLaren's performance was utterly dominant, with the car a clear two to three-tenths faster than anything else given the same track conditions in qualifying. Whether that results in absolute parity on tracks which favor the RBR is unknown, but the signs are surely pointing in that direction.

Chevrolet Captiva: Who needs Sat-Nav?

2010-06-10T16:34:00.005+08:00

Yeah, like you're actually going to do that while taking the kids to school.

Going by what automakers lend us as test units, you'd think that all people are interested in nowadays are SUVs or crossovers. In a country characterized by seasonal typhoons, flash floods, man-eating potholes and cheap diesel, there's probably a good reason for that. But for me and my three and a half person household (I count as two, my daughter counts as half), there's such a thing as too much space.

Of course, I'm not going to complain about shoulder room here. No, that's a topic for another time. But driving with a SatNav-equipped Chevrolet Captiva for a week has got me thinking:

Who needs SatNav?

Granted, it's convenient if you're going someplace you don't know. But how often do you do that? Five to six days a week, we're driving to the same old places. Once a week, we'll go out and do something fun. Probably at the mall, which you can see from kilometers away... maybe leagues away at night when the neon goes on.

Maybe once a month, or, when financially constrained, once every few months, we'll go out on vacation. At that point, SatNav might be useful.

So would a map.

Besides, getting lost is half the fun, isn't it? I've found the neatest restaurants, the most curious little shops... the most interesting backyard museums, exhibits, yard sales, whatever... just by getting lost.

In the meantime, on my daily commute, I will be driving on the exact same roads I always drive, even though the SatNav wants me to get off the highway several kilometers too early (despite being told to prioritize highway routes). And I will end up at the exact same places, even if the SatNav keeps telling me my office is in the middle of a cemetery, for some reason.

Oh well.

Aside from these small niggles, the Captiva was a nice, if utterly inoffensive car. Not my cup of tea. I like my cars obnoxiously loud, stiff and rudely powerful.

Ocean's Thirteen... the Subic jinx

2010-06-08T12:16:00.011+08:00

Someone up there must really have it in for me.

Every time I drive up to Subic, something interesting happens.

More specifically, every time I drive to Ocean Adventure Park in Subic, something interesting happens to me.

Ocean Adventure just happens to be the only open-water marine park in all of SouthEast Asia. It features dolphin shows, a sea-lion act, diving shows, etcetera. And it lies just a dozen kilometers or so away from Subic Freeport.

The first time I passed through the area, simply to scope the place out, I was driving a Hyundai Getz test unit... a diesel one... and that car had a host of issues... bad diesel... wobbly engine mounts, tires worn almost bald.

The second time I went, on a lark with some friends, my Ford Lynx developed third-gear pop-out. Sure, it had been grinding third gear for the previous 60,000 kilometers, but I think the dozens of full-bore third-gear downshifts on the highway as we cycled between 80 and 225 km/h had something to do with it. And we never got to go inside... we simply went down to Meat Plus at the Freeport for breakfast.

Third time's the charm. This time, I joined a package tour, and spent the trip there in restful bliss on a nice, big bus. Left with my wife and kid at five in the morning, and had a wonderful time. Sure, we were herded like cattle between shows, and packed like sardines at the venues, but it was fun. Enough fun to drain my digital camera's batteries at the end of the day.

Oh... who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Relaxing trip!

Coincidentally, the Mini club were doing a Baguio run at the same time. Nice.

The diving act was rather nice...

Batman decides to escape the heat with a quick dip...

Lots of superheroes at the park. here's Superman taking a bath...

One serious advantage of an open-water park over a place like SeaWorld is that tricks like this are easier to pull off given the extra space. Both this and the previous trick were performed by a Pilot whale.

Many of these dolphins were saved from fishing nets.

That was a looooong day trip.

What was I saying again? Oh, yeah... third time's the charm. The bus had developed a knocking sound on the way to Ocean Adventure Park. They "fixed" it at the Subic Freeport, a few kilometers away. On the way home, the knocking came back... and the bus dropped its propeller shaft just a hundred meters short of the Subic-Tipo toll road.

Ouch.

Fixed?

Apparently not.

Turns out the knocking sound was a worn linkage, which they attenpted to repair by welding more material onto the ends of the rods. Now, obviously... or at least obvious to anyone who's shorn a drive-axle while drag-racing... that's not going to work. At least not very long. And yup, the repair lasted all of twenty kilometers.

The back-up shuttle picked us up at the new Total gas station (conveniently located right beside the exit... in the middle of nowhere) at nearly nine in the evening. We got home at around midnight.

Whatinheck is a Daewoo Classia?

Terrible location for a station... thank goodness it was there.

I suppose next time I go to Ocean Adventure, I'll suffer an engine-blowout? Gotta make sure it's not my car we're using next time, then.

For those who aren't absolutely jinxed, though, I'd recommend the trip if you're in the Subic area. It's an interesting way to spend a day.

2010 Ford Fiesta Launch

2010-06-04T19:38:00.006+08:00

I suppose I've been remiss in not writing about the Turkish GP, but the shock of what happened during the race has kept me off this subject for long enough that even Webber and Vettel seem to have put the incident behind them... or maybe not...

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-news/236241/red-bull-bury-the-hatchet/

If that actually looks like sincere contrition on Vettel's face, I'm a monkey's uncle. In the meantime, the forums and blogs are abuzz with conspiracy theories that Mark's jedi mind tricks managed to warp time and space so that it only appears that he's driving straight down the track and Vettel is running into him, instead of the other way around. Sneaky Aussie...

Anyway, good boost for Hamilton, who, at this point in the season, seeems to be the only one even close to Red Bull's pace.

In the meantime, we attended the Ford Fiesta car launch the other day. And by launch, we mean sneak-sneak-sneak preview... with the car hermetically sealed so that we can't smudge the paint. It'd be a bad sign, considering Ford showed the previous Fiesta a few years ago (and actually let you stick your nose up to the heavily tinted windows on the right-hand drive test car) but never followed through... BUT... Ford has committed to selling the car.

In October. Ouch.

To make up for the long wait, Ford has bribed us auto-journalists with toy Fiestas.

I love it.

In the meantime, we've got a zillion launches to attend this week... including the new Cayennes and the facelifted Nissan X-Trail. There's simply no rest for the wicked.

2010 Monaco GP, Formula 1

2010-05-17T11:51:00.001+08:00

An eventful GP this weekend, and for a lot of reasons.

Red Bull Racing went into Monaco on a high after having won at Spain, and they continue their streak of pole positions here with an impressive dominating performance in qualifying, with only Robert Kubica's Renault on the same pace. Fernando Alonso could only watch passively during qualifying, as his ultra-quick Ferrari, which was the only other car as quick as the leaders, bit the dust in the last practice session. He would be starting from the pits.

RBR's Mark Webber ran a wonderful race from the start, putting his stamp on the race by pulling away from his team-mate Vettel, who outdragged Robert Kubica into the first corner. Massa's Ferrari and Hamilton's McLaren pulled up the rear of the front-running pack at the start. Schumacher, Rosberg, Button and Hulkenberg lost out in the scuffle, but the pack was away from the first corner safely. Unfortunately, chaos ensued as Nico Hulkenberg, experiencing problems with his wing and clutch, shredded his Williams along the barriers in the tunnel. Fernando Alonso took this opportunity to pit on the very first lap, from 24th, to change from the soft option tires to the harder prime tires, which would get him all the way to the checkered flag.

Jenson Button's championship lead went up in a puff of smoke behind the first safety car, his McLaren burning itself out in the sluggish air and heat behind the safety car, McLaren's first engine failure of the season.

As soon as the green flags came out, Alonso began cutting up backmarkers, doing daring overtakes on less experienced F1 drivers into the downhill chicane out of the tunnel, sometimes on successive laps, making his way up to 16th. Alonso's pace prompted all the mid-pack drivers to change strategies, as they realized that they might not have enough time to pit and stay out in front of Alonso. A flurry of early pitstops ensued, but it was all for naught, Alonso was back in the top ten after the first round of pits, then up to P6 when everything sorted itself out.

This would trouble the top five little, however, as after the pittops for the front-runners worked themselves out, status quo remained, with Webber comfortably in the lead and piling on lap after blistering lap in front of Vettel. Perhaps he was trying to prove something.

And we would see Mark do this over and over again, as the race was punctuated by safety cars. While some of the backmarkers and lower-midfileders had to park their cars in the runoff or in the pits with mechanical problems, there were a number of spectacular failures. Barrichelo, en route to a fine result in the other Williams, having worked his way to 6th in the first lap scuffle, had his rear suspension disintegrate on him, bringing out another safety. He's sure to be docked some money on his paycheck, as he threw his steering wheel out into the track on disgust, where it was picked up by a passing HRT car.

By the 40th lap, everyone was comfortably where they would be till the end of the race, and the results seemed set in stone, but a loose drain cover forced another safety car. By this point of the race, Mercedes executives must have been jumping for joy. The sonorous exhaust note of the new gullwing Mercedes SLS AMG is sure to have sold at least a few dozen cars. After the third restart, Webber again pulled out a lead, and Vettel came under attack from Kubica. Alonso was also trying to put pressure on Hamilton, who was suffering from a brake issue (and quibbling with his pit wall about it). Yet near the end of the race, it became apparent that none of these battles would pan out. Vettel started picking up pace and despite Hamilton dropping pace from Massa due to his braking issues, Alonso didn't have the tires to take him on.

And then, with four laps to go, an incident between Trulli and Chandok almost ruined Mark Webber's race. Right at Rascasse, with Webber pulling up behind them, Chandok ran slightly wide, and Jarno made a move to pass the HRT on the inside line, which just happened to be several inches narrower than his Lotus. Wheels touched, and Jarno's car went over Chandok's head, taking a few layers of paint off of Chandok's helmet in the process. A horrified Mark Webber later stated that he thought that Trulli's car had taken Chandok's head off, since he couldn't see it. As it turns out, Chandok had seen the Lotus jump into the air, and ducked just in the nick of time.

The safety car finally came in at the end of the very last lap (selling a dozen more SLSs...), allowing the runners to cross the finish line at racing speed. Alonso's tired Ferrari moved a few millimeters too wide crossing the safety car line and Michael Schumacher took a bold lunge up the inside to just steal sixth place from him.

A place that he had to return, as despite new ruling allowing racing after the safety car line at the pit entrance, the old rule enforcing the "no racing until the finish line" was still in force in the event that the safety car comes in on the last lap. The 20 second penalty demotes Schumacher to 12th. Mercedes is appealing the decision right now.

But the big headline is Mark Webber's dominating performance at Monaco, and both Red Bull drivers now have a joint share of the driver's championship lead. Red Bull Racing is also now leading the constructor's championship by a healthy margin, taking over from McLaren. Ferrari's strong showing, despite Alonso's misfortune, puts them ahead of Mclaren by five points. Alonso is also now third in the driver's championship, overtaking Jenson Button, whose unfortunate turn puts him in fourth.

An Exercise in Breaking the Unbroken

2010-04-30T14:32:00.001+08:00

I'm pretty sure every gearhead on the planet will have heard the news by now that Ferrari has broken the seven minute barrier for production road cars at the Nurburgring with its 599XX.

No, wait... I meant to say.. the seven minute barrier for production-based road cars... since the 599XX is a limited edition only technology test-bed.

Well, what I really meant to say was... the seven minute barrier for production-based, non-road legal cars... since the 599XX isn't road legal, either. And it's not homologated for race use and doesn't meet the restrictions for any current race class.

Was there a point to all this, really? Someone wake me up when Nissan breaks that record with a 1000 horsepower GT-R with a carbon-fiber body and slicks.

Sex, Lies and Statistics

2010-04-17T12:39:00.005+08:00

It perpetually astounds me when people cite numbers like horsepower, power-to-weight ratio, displacement, lateral g’s, top speed and 0-60 times as reasons to declare a car “desirable”.

You can’t fall in love with statistics. Numbers are meaningless.

Repeat after me: Numbers are meaningless.

Numbers like 36-24-36. Ideal numbers, maybe. I can’t get excited about a number like that, because it’s an objective measurement, not a metric for beauty. That number could describe anyone from Charlize Theron to Oprah Winfrey. (seriously)

In the same way, performance numbers for a car are relatively meaningless. Granted, anything that can hit 60 mph from a stop under six seconds is bound to be brisk. But there’s brisk and there’s exciting. A 747 taking off is brisk. A rodeo horse leaping out of the gates is exciting.

A top speed of 250+ km/h sounds great... but if you’re doing it in a 7-series, it can be downright boring. Doing just 150 km/h in a rickety-rackety little Alto will have your life flashing before your eyes.

Maybe it’s a bit hypocritical of me to be saying this, as one who goes to great pains to record acceleration and economy numbers in his regular work reviewing cars. But I measure these things only for completeness. I’m more interested in the driving experience than the numbers.

It’s the things that can’t be described by numbers that define the motoring experience. What you see, feel, touch and smell... these are the things that matter.

It’s with this in mind that I enjoyed my time with the new Mazda Miata immensely. The pre-facelift NC was slightly... disappointing. It didn’t sound right. The steering felt numb. The car cornered like a champ, but felt ever-so-slightly soft and waffly. Granted, it got a lot of things right. It felt quick on the highway, even at legal speeds, it was tightly screwed-together and it looked and felt the part.

But even though it was better than the older NA and NB cars by every conceivable metric (over two seconds faster to 100 km/h, more powerful, more grip, better lap times), by the one metric that really matters, the experiential metric, it fell somewhat short.

This new car solves all that. Through a host of mechanical upgrades, the new Mazda Miata becomes more organic than its predecessor. It corners better, it communicates better and it sounds better.

You could make a thousand horsepower and still get the sound wrong. A Veyron is many things, but it’s not necessarily musical, not in the same way a Pagani Zonda is musical. And that musicality makes it much more desirable. Now an MX-5 can't approach the tunefulness of a V12 supercar, but it's a wonderful sound, nonetheless, and makes it more desirable than before.

It’s desire that separates the new MX-5 from the old. The old car was one you could respect, but the new one finally stirs the loins the way a sportscar should. It’s sharp, yes, but it’s not just that. The steering chatters at you now, the front and rear ends of the car feel better tied together, more in harmony. Mazda constantly harps on about jinba ettai, the horse and rider ethic that the MX-5 represents, but the old horse was slightly aloof. This new one is as talkative as Mister Ed. It has personality.

It’s personality that makes a car. It’s personality that keeps me and hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts driving our old cars despite the bevy of new models that come out on the market each year. Not that I haven’t found any new cars with personality, but after each first date, we’ve never really gotten past first base. I’m still looking. Car and driver compatibility is something that can’t be conveyed by numbers or statistics. Something that you’ll only find out by going out and driving the car yourself.

Which is a good reason to go out now. Take advantage of the car show season, go out there, test drive and check out your choices. Just like dating, test drives are unpredictable. It may not be that 36-24-36 stunner you end up driving home with, but that mousy-haired little number sitting in the corner of the lot might just steal your heart away.

It's the End of the World as we Know it...

2009-09-28T14:37:00.002+08:00

There's not much I can say about what happened last weekend. The losses, in terms of lost lives and destroyed homes, were devastating, to say the least... but it's maddening to think that so much more could have been done to prevent or alleviate this disaster.

Ford versus Ford

2009-09-08T23:45:00.006+08:00

I "borrowed" my Dad's Ford Focus TDCi the other week, to use in the Ford Club Philippines exhibition at the Enchanted Kingdom theme park (a most successful event, with sixty cars on display!), but I've been hanging onto it since then. I figured the car could use some exercise, since he takes it out once in a blue moon. The fact that it's only covered 600 kilometers (about 400 miles) in the past year tells you how often it's driven.

Consequently, I have promised to clean the car up and change the oil. This being a two-year old car under warranty, I was mildly surprised to find out that it was twelve months overdue for its next oil change. Oh well... still runs, doesn't smoke, and the dipstick isn't telling me any sob stories. I'm scheduling an oil change for later this week, but in the meantime, the diesel really needs to be changed, and I've been putting a lot of kilometers on the clock draining the tank so I can put a fresh batch in.

Many of those kilometers were spent bringing my daughter both to and from school. While I've been enjoying the cossetting ride of the Focus, the extra sound insulation and the whomping torque of the PSA 2 liter, I've started feel just a wee bit guilty for neglecting the Lynx for so long. Just the other day, I decided to take the Lynx RS out for a spin and put some gas in the tank, because hadn't run it for an entire week.

After getting acclimatized to the Focus, returning to the Lynx was a shock. It felt lighter, nimbler and rortier than I remembered it to be. After driving the turbodiesel for so long, the torque of my cammed naturally-aspirated motor feels a bit underwhelming, but the absolute lack of inertia in the car, in any sense, compared to the 1.4 ton Focus, is refreshing.

That's the reason I keep coming back to the Lynx. After every new test unit, getting back in the Lynx is a breath of fresh air. Sure, the leather is starting to chip in places, the gearshifter's as woefully wobbly as in my old 626 (understandable, considering it's the same gearbox and both cars are well past 90,000 kilometers) and it's tinny and noisy as hell, but the puppy-dog eagerness of the thing always endears itself to me.

Not that the Focus is without driving panache. It handles well for its weight, and the hatchback layout gives it a good balance. And the TDCi engine is tremendous fun, even at a pedestrian pace... but the Lynx just does some things better.

Too bad my daughter doesn't think so. Almost threw a fit when she learned she wasn't going to school in the blue car today. Oh well... she'll survive the disappointment when we use the red car again tomorrow.

Though I think she might be able to persuade her grandpa to let her keep the car on a permanent loan. A little motoring variety never hurt anyone.

The Fallacy of Low Expectations

2009-08-28T14:49:00.004+08:00

It's a title that's near and dear to me, as applied to movies... simply... I can no longer stand the dross coming out of Hollywood. Action movies don't need to be smart, I get it! But, as "Iron Man" has shown, non-smart movies don't have to be unbearably stupid, either, not like "G.I.Joe".

Entre Formula One. A sport, yes... and an expensive one, at that, but also a form of entertainment. One team in particular, Ferrari, has been responsible for much of the entertainment value over the past two decades. Right now, they're in a clinch. Felipe Massa's injury last month, and Michael Schumacher isn't healthy enough to make his highly publicized comeback yet... so they're short one driver.

Who do they pick? Luca Badoer. test driver extraordinaire.

Here's a guy who hasn't raced in decades. He was never the best driver or the fastest, though, since he drove mostly for the smaller teams, that's understandable... but he holds the distinction of the most starts without a point in F1. That's not good...

And Badoer doesn't disappoint, given his record. four instances of speeding in the pits.... before the race even starts. Gets a penalty for crossing the white line at the pit lane exit in the race. Doesn't beat anyone who has a car at least half-as-good as his. Sure, he brought the car home in one piece... but so did Jamie Algesuari, who's half his age and only on his second race.

I've been told, here and there, to give the guy a break. He's got to get his feet wet before scoring anything... but the question is: why should we give him a break? Why should we not give Ferrari grief over this strange choice of a replacement for Massa? Renault brought in Romain Grosjean... and in his very first weekend in a Formula One car, he manages to pace his team-mate, double world champion, Fernando Alonso.

Ferrari many have no chance of winning this year's title, but they owe it to the fans to put up a game fight. And putting in a placeholder like Badoer simply isn't going to cut it. C'mon, Ferrari, I expect more. Give me Robert Downey Junior... not another Channing Tatum.

Lists, lists, lists

2009-08-20T14:51:00.001+08:00

It's getting close to that time of year again.

Once again, various organizations are getting set to deliver their verdict on which new cars are the best on sale today.

Of course, the alchemical and sometimes thaumaturgical calculations and machinations involved in deciding the winners of such awards sometimes leaves non-automotive enthusiasts... and even some enthusiasts... hell... even some of the judges who vote on these things... confused.

As well they should be... there's really no system that can't be gamed to produce any results you want. Since bench-racing is a favorite pastime of most automotive enthusiasts, those of you who know what "0-62", "bhp" and "lateral g" signify can understand this. It's tempting to give scores for performance... or for "value-for-the-money"... such cheap tricks the media employs to convince the manufacturers that their cars should be cheaper and better!

But things get awfully wooly when you start adding subjective scoring to the mix. Some awards are decided subjectively for items that most lay-people will never notice... the cleverness of the engineering of a car's engine mounts... the use of cylinder deactivation for fuel economy... hybrid implementation... etcetera. Such subjectively decided criteria have led to some pretty crappy cars being crowned for no other reason than their uniqueness. I'm looking at you, Motor Trend and "European Car of the Year"!

Others may try to rigidly structure subjective observations into a quantifiable table. But they find that the scoring then gives them an answer that nobody was expecting. Car and Driver has all but given up on its methods of calculation and has created a master subjective score: the "Gotta-Have-It" score. One score to rule them all. Or at least one score to make the numbers look nice and neat at the end of the day. Such baldfaced manipulation is tantamount to an admittance that their scoring system sucks, but at least their "TenBest" list doesn't rely on scoring, but are rather editorial picks debated by the whole staff.

Which brings me to the inspiration for this post: the "C! Awards 2009". This is one list I usually agree with. Because it's a list created by car enthusiasts for car enthusiasts... but with an eye towards practicality and grounded in reality. Well... as real as any list with three categories for high-end supercars costing more than my house can be.

One funny disclaimer, though, for the list. It notes that category winners aren't always comparo winners. Even the new editor-in-chief, James Deakin, says he doesn't agree with every award, but hey, that's democracy.

I find it funny that many people have criticized the magazine for dropping scoring from their comparisons in the past. I don't actually care about scoring. I think the way Top Gear Philippines does it works. Just pick a winner. There was a time C! didn't do this for their comparos, which made them somewhat pointless. I'm ambivalent about the new scoring system. It seems to be continually under development, and criteria can vary from comparo to comparo. What I'm not ambivalent about is the category winners for the "Editor's Choice" awards, since they seem to have picked the right winners given their categories, for the most part, though there are some that could go either way.

It's a challenge facing the "Philippine Car of the Year" panel. With a voting panel the size of a small barangay, it's impossible to sit around a table with some beers to decide the winner, so a scoring system is a must. I haven't agreed with all the category winners in the past, and I still think that older cars still on sale should be made eligible (how do the new cars really stack up to the old guard, I wonder?), but you can't deny that most have been good cars. And if you weren't there, you don't know how or why a car won. It could be that your favorite horse rides like a bucking bronco over potholes and got negative marks from the judges for it (as well it should!), or a car you think is "boring" turns out to be more practical and easier to drive than that flashy new model. This is the advantage of having all the contestants available at the same time and at the same place. It's a proper comparison. Of course Gwyneth Palthrow was great in "Shakespeare in Love" (one of the most controversial Oscars of the past decade...), but how would that performance stand out if you had every Academy nominee for that year reprise the role on stage in front of a voting audience? Exactly. The outcome might have been completely different.

I think what the PCoTY lacks is an explanation of how a winner won, which would satisfy both enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. A detailed press release... or... hopefully... a publication? :)

As this is a growing organization, there has to be a continuous refining and tweaking of the rules, to make them fair and balanced. Of course, there comes a point where you have to accept that no scoring system in the world will be perfect. At which point, it's up to the judges to be as fair and impartial as possible, to give the best results possible.

It's a Congested Life

2009-08-19T11:25:00.005+08:00

Traffic in Manila nowadays, is, I don't need to tell you, pretty shitty.

Thanks to Gloria's promise to finish the Skyway ASAP, I'm stuck with Ramos-era congestion on my trips up north. I should be glad I no longer do this on a daily basis, but I feel sorry for anyone who still does.

I haven't resorted to being a complete asshole, yet. I don't drive on the grassy shoulder to get around traffic. But I have found that sometimes it's much, much faster to just get off on the long detour to the Filinvest Toll Gate and U-turn after the Toll Plaza and get back on just before the bridge.

Saves me twenty or thirty minutes. Still leaves me with two hours of clutch-pumping, finger-tapping boredom. Two hours to go a mere thirty kilometers. I could walk faster than this.

What's even more maddening is the Lynx's tendency to either die out on my "rich" map as the ECU enrichens the fuel mixture even further to deal with the heat, or to start idling high on the "lean" map because it's still running too lean.

That's something I finally attempted to fix yesterday, with a borrowed laptop at Speedlab... leaning out the mixture on the "rich" map slightly, and adding fuel to the areas of the map it would only see at high idle. Copy-pasted different iterations of this map, with slight fueling differences to three of four of the available mapsets on the Unichip Q (leaving one blank except for idle enrichment, just to see how LPG runs without interference) and consigning my previous "lean" map to the rubbish bin. (It never worked well in the cold, anyway)

Works much better now, although I still have some hot idle problems with the leanest of my maps after a really stressful flog. But at least I'm getting a better handle of ECU tuning.

Eventually, I'm going to have to learn how to use the temperature sensor intercepts and the Lambda function, but that's something best done when I have more time on my hands.

Hopefully, by then, I will have figured out how to make the Dastek tuning program work with Windows Vista.

Fuel Consumption Conundrums

2009-08-12T17:45:00.003+08:00

Fuel economy is one of those topics that everyone seems to have an opinion on, but which very few can give accurate facts about. Unless you're a hypermiler or a Prius owner, you're probably about as adept at calculating your fuel usage as I am at calculating income tax returns (and no, I don't know how to do that).

But even for those of us who do know something about calculating fuel use, sometimes, the numbers just don't add up. We fudge some numbers, try to make concessions to test methodology variations, and... well... sometimes we just have to guess.

Terrible, isn't it?

This has been on my mind for the past few days due to a very unusual car... the Toyota Corolla.

It's not an unusual car, per se, but it's unusual in the fact that it has a very big engine in it... a two liter lump from the Toyota Camry. Now, I've always championed the fuel economy of Toyotas... though their cars of late don't impress me otherwise... as a sign of engineering expertise used correctly. I wasn't expecting Yaris or Prius-like numbers from the combination of small car, big engine, auto-box, but I was hoping for the Corolla to post numbers significantly better than some of the two liter porkers that have gone through my hands, lately, like the Dodge Caliber or two-liter Ford Focus.

But did it? No. Maybe. I don't know.

Confused? So am I.

My co-tester, Carlo, drove the car for two days. Claimed brilliant economy... doing 9 km/l on one day, and an amazing 16 km/l the next. All in-city driving, though the 16 km/l was not stop-go traffic. I was, frankly, skeptical, but he had the gas receipts to back it up.

My turn at the wheel got me two days (with two separate fill-ups) of 6.5 km/l in pure city weekend driving. Mostly low speed stuff between stoplights. Just about what you'd expect from a slushbox equipped two point oh on Manila streets... so... maybe the car is better on the highway, right? Automatics love highway driving, with their long gearing and smooth shifting.

On the highway, the trip computer, previously pessimistically under-rating economy by 0.2 km/l, was enthusiastically proclaiming a mixed 12.5 km/l, with highs of 16-18 km/l at maintained speeds of 80 km/h. It only sunk down to 12.5 km/l due to the stops we made along the way.

Imagine my disappointment when a trip to the pumps and a quick set of calculations on the back of the gas receipt netted me 10 km/l. A quick drive around, to do acceleration and handling testing, (with the trip computer reset) gave me 7 km/l by the clock and 8 km/l on the receipt from the same pump.

What the hell was going on?

Granted, you expect onboard fuel consumption computers to be inaccurate, but you don't expect this kind of schizophrenia. The odometer was accurate by our GPS meter, but that doesn't really matter if you're comparing onboard calculated economy to trip economy based on fuel consumption and odometer readings.

The first clue I had when trying to puzzle this all out is the "Range" readout on the Corolla's trip computer. We make it a practice to fill up the tank to the automatic shut-off on whatever pump we're using. Of course, there are pump variations, but with our schedule and drive locations, you can't always return to the same pump. But looking at the "Range" readouts showed how ridiculously large the variance in fill-up levels was on the Corolla. On most pumps, the "Range" went up to 299 kms at the "full" mark. On the last pump I used, it went up to 360 kms. That's a difference of potentially 3-6 liters! And the "Range" calculations don't reset with the trip computer... they're calculated internally, and don't change whether the last hour was driven like a hypermiling loon or a gas-guzzling hoon.

This indicated that, much like the Prius Toyota had lent us two years ago, the Corolla's filler neck is a literal pain-in-the-neck for accurate fuel consumption. Most cars will have a variance of one or two liters, but this was off the scale.

Given some quick corrections based on assumptions of how far off each pump was, we ended up with the 16 km/l trip being around 12 km/l... one 6.5 km/l trip being 7.5 km/l, and the 10 km/l trip being 12-13 km/l. The trips where we were able to fill up at same pump (6.5 km/l in the city... 8 km/l in hard driving) remain unchanged. Maybe. Maybe there are bubbles in the system that make these inaccurate, too. We're not really sure.

But short of jumping up and down on the rear bumper at the gas station and topping off till gasoline comes out of the overflow pipe (which would render all calculations moot, anyhow), I don't know of any other way we can assure reasonable accuracy, except to drive far enough to deplete the tank and lower the percentage of inaccuracy.

If you're doing this kind of testing at home, that's what you've got to do to make sure you're getting real numbers. Drive as far as possible on one tank then fill her up (at the same pump) and measure from there. It's not 100% accurate, but it's the best you can do without taping a fuel bladder to the hood of your car.

For our next Toyota test... that's what we'll probably be doing, maybe with an IV bottle stolen from the hospital dispensary.

Pacquaio vs. Wolverine

2009-05-06T09:09:00.004+08:00

This weekend played host to two media events of significance to males aged 15-35. The first, many contend, was over too soon, the second, personally, took two hours too long. Both included lots of rock'em sock'em action, the old-school nitty-gritty... blood, sweat and...

Ahurm. First was the Pacquia-Hatton fight. The big one. I love Pacquiao fights, because when he's on, I can turn off my TV, go out for a nice relaxing drive and lunch, and not have to put up with annoying crowds and traffic. It's not that I'm not interested in the fight, far from it, but I don't have pay-per-view, and listening to the fight on the radio is never as satisfying as watching the replay that inevitably comes on when I get home, so, at the very moment "The Hitman" hits the canvas for the third and final time, I'm in the shoe section of the department store.

The buzz of conversation, even here, where salespeople are thicker than shoppers (yes, the fight really does thin out weekend crowds, even on a payday weekend), is Manny, Manny, Manny. The Pac-Man is the Philippine equivalent of Elvis, though you wouldn't play his music at your wedding. And while Manny's philanthropic sprees don't quite match Elvis's Cadillac giveaways... they come close.

To be fair, though, Elvis really isn't all that great an actor, either, and he's definitely no action hero. Manny, on the other hand, has beaten the best of the world, and has beaten them so badly it seems like they aren't even trying. Even then, life in the Philippines comes to a stand-still every time he knocks another hapless foreigner out cold.

The sight of Manny standing triumphantly erect over the flaccid, pale body of the British hometown hero probably has some historical or symbological significane, but to many fans, it simply means that he's proven that he's "it". No longer can you question whether he can fight at this weight class (dela Hoya was visibly over-the-hill in that last fight), but you question whether any of the other mugs in this class can last all twelve rounds with the Pac-man.

Another superhero moment this weekend was the premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This one featured a similarly buff Hugh Jackman in some similarly exciting action, but despite outlasting the measly two-and-a-half-minute Pacquiao-Hatton match by an hour and a half, the movie fell flat on its face.

Granted, prequels often struggle to match the excitement of the originals... take Star Wars, for instance... you know Anakin Skywalker = Darth Vader... and neither he nor Obi-Wan Kenobi are ever in any real danger of dying or being horribly disfigured over the course of Star Wars I-III... oh... Anakin is, but you know how horribly disfigured he's going to be... so any time he gets a limb lopped off, your only reaction is: "Oh, so that's how that happened..."

With Wolverine, we know from the first three movies that his skeleton has been implanted with an indestructible metal, he's lost his memory, and that he's really got it in for this guy called Stryker. Oh, and he hates Sabretooth. Thus, we know that none of the three are likely to die, Wolverine will suffer one of the most excrutiating bondage and torture scenes in cinema, and he will forget absolutely everything that happens here... although how everyone else from the other three movies who plays a part here forgets him is an even bigger mystery.

The movie starts out in grand fashion, showing the origin of Sabretooth and Wolverine, segueing to a montage of their lives over the past century, fighting in every military action engaged in by the United States... strange, I thought they were Canadian... Too bad they left out Captain America during the World War Two sequence... leading up to their recruitment by Stryker for a special ops team, which Wolverine, here, still called "James", then quits in disgust over all the killing. Strange, he didn't have a problem with that part before.

This leads to a romantic interlude with a schoolmarm up in the Canadian wilderness. Now, this may be a bit spoiler-ish, but obviously, Wolverine doesn't have this girl, anymore, which means that she is either going to die, or going to betray him, because for all his traipsing around the world afterwards, she never shows up again (at least, in the movies). So we get exactly what we expect, a bloody betrayal, a revenge plot and the creation of the iconic Wolverine.

And this is where the plot collapses in a mess of Machiavellian manipulation, wasted cameos and sillier-than-comic book logic. The fights are pretty enough, but the computer graphics are glaringly bad, at times... most notably when our hero has his metal claws out, which is most of the movie. Patrick Stewart's brief cameo has him looking so face-liftingly tight that I wondered, at first, if he was another figment of the computer's imagination. The attempts to tie this flick into the current movie mythology while staying reasonably true to the comic book mythology seem strained. Especially woeful is the introduction of Wolverine's classic jacket and motorbike-look, neither of which he has (nor remembers having) at the end.

While Hugh Jackman's half-naked physique is arguably more impressive than Pacquiao's, and his patented muttonchops are certainly the better hair arrangement, not even his muscular buttocks (lovingly showcased in the first half of the movie) can save this film from its ultimate mediocrity. "Wolverine" is too poorly scripted, too poorly paced and too cliched. The best movies are like a good boxing match, there's drama, tension, and a sense that you don't really know what's coming next, but you know that it's going to be good. In fact, even if you know who's going to win, eventually, the fight itself will be a nail-biter.

But all that I was biting was my tounge... to distract me from the distinct pain of watching the cinema destroy one of the more interesting comic book characters so thoroughly that not even his mutant healing factor can save this flick.

Not as thoroughly as Pacquiao destroyed Hatton though. While Wolverine woke up and walked away before the credits started rolling, Ricky Hatton, much wiser than the be-clawed Canuck, decided to sleep them out.

Pac-Man 1 : Mutants 0

Hyundai i10 Review now up!

2009-02-01T11:21:00.003+08:00

Hyundai i10 review now up!

Nice little car. but a little bippity in the suspension department.

In fact, a lot of new cars are this way. The only Honda of late that I've driven that didn't have a spleen crushing ride is the new Accord. Jazz/Fit? Stiff as a board. Civic? Stiff as a rail. CR-V? Don't even ask.

BMWs? Run-flats and the need to corner with supernatural poise means that a 3-series will shake your fillings out on a gravel driveway.

That's why the Corolla was such a pleasant change. Didn't handle worth crap, but rode beautifully.

It's nice to see that one manufacturer has their priorities straight. Still wouldn't buy one, though.

Gran Turismo Blues

2009-01-27T14:59:00.000+08:00

My life, of late, has been utterly boring. A tight schedule, a lack of media test units and a car waiting for a replacement gear synchro have left me twiddling my thumbs at home doing nothing but watching paint dry and my daughter's favorite song and dance routines. Thankfully, I have a brand new PS3 at the house, and, to my wife's eternal disgust, I've actually had some time to bond with it.

My videogame addiction of late has focused on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Being a “Prologue” title means that it shows what you may or may not get in the actual Gran Turismo 5, which was supposed to be released 6 years ago (it honestly feels like we've been waiting that long). In other words, it has better graphics than Gran Turismo 4, better driving physics, a handful of cars and races, and a measly five tracks.

Now having a small selection of cars is annoying, and being able to finish all of the game's challenges in a fortnight makes for poor single-player replayability, but for a racing simulator junkie, the limited selection of tracks is the worst crime of all. The wide selection of tracks in Gran Turismo 4 has me spoiled, I'll admit. It was just so much fun to waste endless hours practicing lines on random tracks. On GT5P, you'll become so well acquainted with each track that you could probably drive them blindfolded.

Thus, with the single player experience played out, I went online, curious about the competition in the online races. At first, I was surprised that my incredibly bad internet connection actually worked with online, despite the occassional twitch lag of the other players. Second, I realized that most of those other players drove like they were actually blindfolded.

One day. That's how long I lasted. I'd start from 12th position, fight my way up to 6th, then have some idiot bump me off on the last lap, relegating me to 12th. I'd start from 6th, have someone shove me off in the first corner, fight my way back up to 6th, then get punted off again by someone else. I'd start in 1st, get punted off... fight my way back to first, then get punted off by someone who, in the previous five or six races seemed to be a good, clean driver, just as I was rounding the last corner.

No “ban” buttons. No “report to administrator” function. No “private rooms”. Nothing. It was like being stuck in a boxing ring with a bunch of gibbering monkeys carrying brass knuckles and chains.

When I actually got a fair shot at winning, the loser (the session host) turned off his Playstation and cancelled the race. The bastard.

The next day, I went back to playing solo. Next time I do multiplayer, it'll be in a face-to-face LAN contest. At least there, when you get punted off, you can smash your chair across the other guy's skull. In the meantime, I think I'll practice for quick lap times in my Suzuki Cappuchino.

Corollas

2009-01-26T10:37:00.004+08:00

Just put up my Corolla article. Of course, I can't say on a consumer oriented site that I think it's pure merde, because, from an objective point of view, it isn't, but I'm really not feeling this car.

Which is a shame.

Corollas weren't always dull, boring econoboxes. I've never driven one that excited me much to drive, though there were some undoubtedly quick ones (Corollas with 20-valve, high revving 4AGE engines)... but I could respect the fact that they were pretty decent sport compacts. In fact, every time I see an old AE92 on those geeky four-spoked TOM'S rims, I actually stop to admire it, even if I've seen that combination a hundred times before. Corollas, before the jumbo-bodied “Altis” generation, were actually fun cars. The 9th generation “Altis” body may have had better-than-expected handling, but it was about as much fun to drive as a Toyota Hiace. This new one promised a return to the Corolla's sporting ways of old, with a more exciting, sleeker shape:

But even at the launch, just getting in the seat and feeling the suspension gently sag around you, twirling the feather light steering wheel... I'd gotten the feeling that it wasn't going to be all that.

And, surprise, surprise, it wasn't.

Now, I'm not typically anti-Toyota... in fact, I think the MR-S is the bee's knees and the AE111 is on my list of "might buy it on a lark for a secondhand toy" cars... ...but their cars of late have been disappointingly sterile in the fun department. Which is a shame... here's a company that produces great motors... ultra-stiff bodies and cars that are a few hundred pounds lighter than their competitors... they should be fun to drive, but they aren't. Now I don't know if this is part of Toyota's mass-market bias, but I don't see people dumping the Honda brand in droves just because their cars have a little extra zest.

The Corolla seems to be the pinnacle of Toyota's current addiction to novocaine. Everything is soft. The steering. The brakes. The body roll. I can honestly say I'd rather drive a Toyota Previa around the racetrack than the Corolla. At least the Previa has some balls.

And to think, the improvements needed to make the Corolla a decent car are minor. Just a little bit of tightening in the steering... a little less understeer dialled into the suspension, a tiny bit less body roll... but there's scant chance of that happening now, is there? As the Corolla sells awfully well on its own, and given that Toyota went a whole six years without changing a single damn thing on the old one, it's going to be a long wait for a "better" Corolla.

Philippine Car of the Year

2008-10-18T10:28:00.005+08:00

Last weekend was fun, but tiring. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I've got to miss one whole double-header of a weekend. Rats. That's over 30 cars. Oh well... I get to go pick up the Ford from the shop, do the groceries and finally buy new SD cards for all my toys. But the guys left on secretary duty (of which I was supposed to do 1/2) are sore at me. C'est la vie.

Link takes you to the cover article on Kotse.com. What isn't on my cover article is how enthusiastic I am about the new Lancer. Obvious, huh? Sure, the Lancer's interior isn't any richer than the horrible rent-a-car interiors of Evos of years past... but it looks good. And who has time to fondle dashboard plastic when they're having this much fun? Many North American reviews have really hammered on the Lancer... somewhat unfairly, I think... but they get really wimpy trim levels saddled with tiny wheel fitment and tires that don't do the chassis justice. With the large 18" wheels (which, by the way, feel perfectly controlled by the suspension), our local Lancer kicks butt. Oh, and it's huge inside, too. This is one compact that feels categorically better than the Lynx/Protege in all ways. (The Mazda3 is too soft, the Focus too heavy, and the Civic too inert in the rear suspension). Okay, so the steering's electric. So's almost everything else on the market except for the trucks and the penalty-box Alto. Good bet for class winner, and possible contender overall.

The Focus TDCi... now here's an interesting car. As compared to the Lancer and the Subaru Impreza on hand, it's not the grippiest car here, but the same basic Focus goodness is there, the keen balance, the predictable handling... now matched to a Dual Sequential Gearbox (DSG) that gives incredibly snappy and seamless shifts. Selling this car on Goodyear Eagly NCT5s makes about as much sense as selling an Everest with 15" steelies shod in the same tires. C'mon, Ford, give this car some real tires.

Another contender for the overall crown is the Honda Accord. Too bad it's saddled with Michelin Energy Eco-tires. Terrible. This car deserves Conti-Sport Contacts, at the very least... the Michelins don't have the ability to control a car this fast, and a bout of hard driving may end in tears for some hapless owner. Oh, and the suspension is soft, too, but underneath that softness is excellent body-control and suspension geometry... An Accord Sport would be terrific, but as it is, the Mazda6 and Subaru Legacy are much sportier handlers, if quite a bit slower in a straight line than the mighty 3.5 V6 Accord.

Oh, and not mentioned in the article is the absolute love I have for the Kia Picanto. It's borderline psychotic, really. I haven't adored a small car this much since the original Beetle... and the Beetle wasn't nearly this much fun to drive, or this useful.

Another one from the Chery Picker

2008-10-10T22:56:00.004+08:00

Oh, before I forget... I've finally started uploading articles again.

This one was an interesting little car, the Chery QQ. Not quite the pick of the bunch as far as superminis go, but this one is pretty decent for the price point (which is ridiculously low... under $10,000). Gutsy engine, light weight... too bad the rest of the package is so bland.

Seeing as how Korean cars are now like Japanese cars with a different nameplate, it'll be interesting to see if Chinese cars can become just like Korean cars used to be... hopefully at the same low price point they're at now.

PCOTY Testing starts!

2008-10-09T13:57:00.001+08:00

The Philippine Car of They Year testing has just started, and I'm tickled pink to be part of it, even in a limited capacity.

One round of testing has already finished. Unfortunately, it's the round that includes most of the interesting cars this year, the new Honda Jazz/Fit and the Hyundai i10. While I've expressed disappointment at the i10 versus the Getz that preceded it (the Getz is one segment higher, but due to price increases, the i10's introductory price is similar), but feedback from the test indicates it's actually a very swell car.

Oh well... more V-Box and drag-testing time for me this weekend. Pics to follow.

Rain Rain Go Away... again.

2008-08-20T17:34:00.001+08:00

Dropped off the Lynx for final programming at Speedlab. No alcohol nozzles yet for the Crosswind, but I'm hopeful.

Can't wait to start testing with the LPG. So far, I seem to be getting somewhere between 7-9 km/l (yeah, reaaaally accurate... LPG fuel gauges suck)... but I think a more definitive test will be a trip to Baguio.

In the meantime, it's time to spruce up everything and make our vehicles liveable for the next few months. We had a Merc B-Class for road-testing, but I passed... just not interested. Besides... had something more interesting to test over the past two weeks. Stay tuned.

Elpiji!!!

2008-08-16T22:08:00.006+08:00

Okay, while most people will install a mod and call it a day, I'm the type of person who will install it... fiddle with it... break it or find some niggling problem... work on it... and fiddle some more until I get it right. In this case, LPG. Now, while most people would be happy to have their car running on LPG, I can't stand the fact that you lose a significant amount of horsepower with LPG.

So, thanks to Ferman Lao at Speedlab, the Lynx has not only been installed with a Sequential Gas Injection kit... it's been tuned to make nearly exactly the same horsepower on LPG as it does on gasoline.

Now most FS-DE owners (Ford Lynx and Mazda Familia/Protege alike) would be happy with 144 whp... but I was hoping for a bit more... still, I make more power than the other non-turbo guys in the club... on a fuel that makes 10% less power as standard. I'm tickled. But if anyone mentions the 240 whp that the turbo guy who just finished at Speedlab is making, I'll kick them in the nuts.

Of course... as with all things I do with the car, this has had its problems... turns out my ECU and O2 sensors are having a hard time adapting to having the car in two different states of tune, especially since they're already strained to the limit in adapting to the big camshafts stuck in the motor.

See... big camshafts with big overlap make for poor airflow at idle... which means a lumpy idle. And once the idle is lumpy, the air going past the O2 sensor is too slow to register... which makes the computer reluctant to give the engine any more gas. This is even worse with LPG, which reads slightly differently on the O2 sensor, especially since we tuned it slightly rich for more power. So the car doesn't idle. Not on LPG, not on gasoline... nothing.

Complicated problem... simple solution. We unplug the O2 sensor and everything's back to normal. I can finally drive my precious baby. Now all we have to do is fine-tune those LPG maps and see if it can't hit 150 whp.

I can dream, can't I?

A short blast with the BMW 320i and the Hyundai Genesis Article, too...

2008-08-15T13:34:00.006+08:00

Oh, by the way, our Genesis article is up... sadly... that was a very short test (don't know if you can call a drive of less than ten kilometers a "test")... sadly because it was an interesting car... lots of power, good suspension (great for a Korean...) and lots of toys... but my last test, a BMW X6, which should go up next week... was even shorter in terms of kilometers driven... but in terms of how much driving we were allowed to do, it was a world of difference.

The Genesis is an absolute revelation for a Korean car. The quality, the build and the technology (brand new chassis, suspension, etcetera...) and the confidence are something you would never expect... even if you're familiar with the new and improved Hyundai models already roaming our streets. even better, Kelley Blue Book and other authorities are giving it a big thumbs-up. This looks like it'll be a home-run for Hyundai... if the public is willing to give it a chance. Still, it's no BMW... it's just nowhere near as good a driver's car as the BMW 5-series... or even the X6.

Of course, this entry isn't about either car. It's about the car we took up north to the test and that I drove back down to Manila. The BMW 320i.

Lito German, the ever-loving Marketing guy from BMW, set us up with various BMW models to take to the X6 test up on the racetrack at Subic. Brent Co (of http://www.autoindustriya.com ) and I drove up in the middle of the night in blinding rain at a steady 120-140 km/h. The car felt utterly stable, but I wasn't so sure of the speeds Brent was driving at. Of course, being a sigurista... I called dibs on the driver's seat for the drive back.

And you know what? I can understand how he got up to those speeds... the 320i is not just stable... it's very stable. And, as most European cars are, it's build with highway legs like Claudia Schiffer... they go on and on and on... I was doing a lazy 160 km/h at just 3000 rpms in 6th gear on the SCTEX on the way home... Brent, my wife and my kid sleeping like babies. Impressive. My Japanese motor might accelerate faster, but I wish it were this quiet at just 100 km/h. The 6-speed automatic and perfect drivin position made long-distance motoring absolutely relaxing.

Despite not having the new BMW Navigation system, the trip was uneventful and easy. The SCTEX has really cut time off of the Manila to Subic trip. While our trip to Subic was beset by flash floods on EDSA and torrential rain, the trip home was mostly dry with a smattering of light drizzle. It took us just two hours to leg it back to Manila, despite catching rush hour traffic around Quezon Avenue and slowing to 120 km/h every time I thought I saw a patrol vehicle on the side of the road.

And the 320i impressed on the racetrack, too. Handled very well, punched out of corners easily, and slithered through slaloms and chicanes with ease. Great composure. There's some push when you exceed the tire's limits, but then, that's easy to cure. In fact, I'd say this feels more organic than the MX-5 we drove a while back... and less buzzy, strangely.

Great seats, nice interior, decent space... this car ticks all the right boxes. While this variant may not have all the bells and whistles, I don't really mind... I like my cars simple. And while the steering may not have the "right-now" handling immediacy of the C-Class we tested a while back, the chassis balance and steering feel are still leagues better.

The only niggles with the 320i are the side mirrors, whose concave wingtips can give you headaches, and the run-flats, which make the ride over gravel parking lots and broken pavement terrible. Otherwise, I could imagine living with one of these cars for the rest of my life.

Only, make mine a manual.

Hyundai Veracruz versus Mazda CX-9

2008-07-13T12:00:00.001+08:00

Well, this was a fun two tests... the CX-9 and Veracruz are both fine automobiles, but obviously, for us motorheads... there's only one thing that matters... excitement. And the Veracruz just doesn't have any. But the backseat of the Veracruz is a fine place to be if you're taking a long road trip out and can afford a driver.

The CX-9 is fantastic, though... the sound, the power, the driver-oriented stance. It doesn't give up much (if anything) in the way of comfort to achieve its sportiness. Handling is, like the BMW X5, very muscle-car-ish... except that the X5's AWD system allows for a little more tail-happiness than the CX-9, which acts more like a front-driver most of the time. The CX-7 would probably be a better drive, but, sadly, we don't get that here. Too bad, a CX-7 with a 2.0 CRDi would sell like hotcakes.

Doldrums Doldrums Doldrums

2008-02-17T01:35:00.005+08:00

Getz article is stalled by the lack of hard testing data on a fresh Getz CRDi. I wonder if HARI (Hyundai's marketing arm in the Philippines) actually cares that their test units might be driving customers away. On a related note: I'm getting sick of testing the same old stuff... I want new cars to test! Wouldn't say no to another Focus test-drive.

The Hyundai Getz was a fine daily driver, but the suspension systems on modern Hyundais are still a step behind the best of the rest. There are Japanese cars with terrible suspension set-ups, too (*cough* Toyota *cough*) but they still feel much more refined than the Hyundai/Kias (at least in this aspect).

Suzuki Alto Article now up

We had a blast with the Suzuki Alto, too. A great illustration of the way weight affects the speed of a car. With only 47 ponies and a dry weight of about 750 kilos, the Alto loses about 3-4 seconds against the clock (to 100 km/h) per passenger. Theoretically, it would go much faster than the 17-18 seconds we got if a monkey were driving it. We're still looking for a monkey.

The Alto is a truly horrid car. Indian build quality, golf-cart tires, a thrashy engine... but the V10-like wail of the three cylinder engine (Imagine a Lamborghini Gallardo, volume at "2" instead of "11"), the lack of nannying understeer (never has 60 km/h felt so... entertaining...) and the wheels-at-the-corner feeling of the tiny little thing made it a blast to drive. Too bad there's nothing else to recommend it for purchase.

Tucson Article up!

2008-01-22T14:10:00.001+08:00

Agh. I'm still getting used to working on this Eee PC, so my GIMP-work is a little shoddy... oh well... it's done, it's up, and I'm happy.

As I've said previously, it's not the best CUV out there, but it was a fun little thing, and I'm sad to see it go... especially since this means I'm stuck rowing my own gears again... in traffic... oh joy... but hope looms on the horizon... A test drive of the Santa Fe and Starex loom... as well as one for the CR-V... but then, I'd really like to sink my teeth into a car again. Something nice and zippy...

Hyundai Tucson

2008-01-19T17:51:00.000+08:00

I'm currently finishing up an article on the Hyundai Tucson... I didn't expect it to be much of a test-drive... in fact, aside from the diesel engine, I couldn't think of a single reason for anyone to buy the Tucson... but man, does it handle sweetly...

Not many cars nowadays will talk to you about what's happening at the wheels, and not many will give you the adjustability that keen drivers look for in a motorcar... so it's very refreshing to find a compact SUV with a sharp turn-in... and even more refreshing to find one that you can actually trail-brake or throttle-lift into oversteer... quite an entertaining little beast... too bad the interior screams "Corolla" and the diesel in this car is the most gutless of Hyundai's CRDis... 13.8 seconds to 100 km/h... and only when it's cold out... this is a car screaming for a better transmission, an intercooler, and about thirty more horses.

Me? I'd love to have one... buy it? No thanks.

New Year, More Cars

2008-01-05T15:20:00.000+08:00

It's been a slow Christmas, dental operation, sensor issues with my red rocket and the general blahness of the season... but now that the new year has started, I'm finally getting into the swing of things. I'll be posting an article on the Kia Carens this Monday, and I'll be doing test drives of the Kia Spectra and the Hyundai Tucson this month.

I'm also hoping to sink my teeth into a Chery QQ, as well as do some photography and a short review of the Alto.

Ahhh.. ain't life grand?

Some updates from Bigbigcar

2007-12-12T16:40:00.000+08:00

Have a lot of others on already... just haven't had time to update this Blog.

I really had a blast doing the Focus article... it was long overdue, as I had two features on the TDCi pending and I wrote them into one article... it would be unseemly to post three Focus articles at once, so the other two are probably going to be uploaded "stealth" style... without being reflected on the main page.

Things are going slowly right now... haven't done a test-drive in two weeks and I'm getting pretty antsy... well... maybe next week we'll do one or two little things... ;)

Our website just went up!

2007-10-23T11:06:00.000+08:00

It's been over a year since I was approached to get on board this project, and it's nice to see it come to fruitition. It's a site about cars, car buying and driving, etcetera. Some blood, some sweat, some tears, some roasted tires and endless kilometers of test driving. At least we finally have something to show for it. ;)

http://bigbigcar.com

Now all we need are some sponsors.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2007-08-15T17:53:00.000+08:00

Two typhoons within spitting distance of each other. No testing. No test-driving. Nuthin. Damn weather.

My right arm for a V-Box

2007-08-06T13:37:00.000+08:00

Sorry, no photos with this one...

It's been a slow week for test-drives, so I've been fiddling with a friend's VBox for the past week, and it's disappointing that this supposedly 142 bhp car (++, with my mods) still can't get to 100 km/h in under 8.9 seconds.

I know my driving sucks... but that's not the point... I should be able to get about 8.5 easy. Time for new engine mounts, I suppose... lots of lurch on launch from the soft, cheap replacement parts. But also, it may be time to lower my tire pressures... 35 psi on the street is kind of excessive.

What's interesting is that at 8.9 to 100 km/h and a further 16.1 to 160 km/h, I've matched Car and Driver's 25 second run to 160 km/h. Which means, if I'd gotten the 0-100 km/h right, as per C!'s supposed 8.2 second run, I should be 1.5 seconds faster than stock to 160 km/h. Pathetic... time to sort out my intake again. :)

Ford Focus TDCi

2007-07-31T19:55:00.000+08:00

In August, Ford will be launching the Focus 2.0 TDCi on the Philippine market. With 136 hp and 340 Nm (250 ft-lbs) of torque available on overboost, it's got enough muscle to stomp all over the competition while still hitting fuel economy figures of 20 km/l.

The Ford Club of the Philippines was lucky enough to get a preview of this car last Sunday at the Subic International Raceway, care of the Tuason Racing School. It was a fiesta of roasted tires out on the tarmac, with a special guest appearance by none other than Pocholo Ramirez. Articles on FCP coming up within the next week, but here's a teaser.

Oh, it's still a bit nose-heavy, and those tires are cheap, but most everything else comes on horrible tires, and only the Mazda3, locally, has better balance. What the Mazda3 doesn't have is the Focus's unflappable stability (due to much better shocks)and, obviously, that wonderful diesel engine.

I wonder how much I can trade my Lynx in for?

MVPMAP Review and Design Analysis

2007-06-15T16:16:00.000+08:00

From the Tsikot Forums.

As a backgrounder, here's the MVPMAP Website.. While I applaud their efforts to produce an original Philippine-manufactured vehicle, this effort falls short of what other local small-scale manufacturers have done on a lower budget.

Click through for the article.

Still, this is merely the prototype. Which is why I've actually held my acid tounge for this article. There is plenty of time for them to fix things before implementation. In the meantime, the Chinese are slowly eating into the market, while the Koreans and Japanese rediscover the fact that they're supposed to be producing cheap vehicles (Hyundai has recently re-released their Porter, Isuzu, the IPV). It's going to be a very interesting year.

Good Morning, Manila!

2007-06-06T19:33:00.000+08:00

There's nothing here right now, but eventually, I hope to put more content in this site. This will serve as a central link to all of my writing, past, present and future, relating to my endless obsession with the automobile.