LDV vans

kazbanz, Mar 31, 2:53pm
Ya wanna talk the ultimate in stretching the truth advertising?
Have a look at the advertising being used by the guys selling LDV vans.
Very VERY carefull not to mention that they are built in China.
I drove one recently and was highly unimpressed by the DSG gearbox.
Its like driving a vehicle with a bad driver using the clutch for you.
-I'll THINK about putting the clutch in then think about changing gears-sloooowly.
Pity really because the layout in the back is perfect for my use
tamarillo, Mar 31, 3:05pm
Ah but there the talk of Europe so must be good!
Sounds like the manual would be best. Guy I ride with was looking at one for his business as he has to cart stuff to chch and back from Nelson. He accepts their cheaply made but reckons their cheap enough to justify it and will sell it once warranty done. Dunno if he has gone ahead as he was thinking about how little he'd get for it again.
kazbanz, Mar 31, 3:16pm
ithe darn thing drove well except for the horrible gearbox. I mean truly horrible.--was cheap to run and fairly quiet.
muzz67, Mar 31, 3:55pm
Is it like the automated manual boxes in the 2000onwards Transits?
a.woodrow, Mar 31, 4:08pm
One of our courier drivers has one. Every time he shuts the drivers door the back doors bow out a little
bigfatmat1, Mar 31, 4:16pm
It's not a dsg. If it's new it would be horrible till you have a few ks clicked up. It's adaptive learning.
ally-oop, Mar 31, 5:08pm
If it's made in china none of it's good points will last
ally-oop, Mar 31, 5:12pm
And just as your learning adapted, it's chineseness would come to the fore and it'd start falling apart,
flashgordon_nz, Mar 31, 11:26pm
Had a relation over from the UK a couple of weeks ago. Involved in the light commercial market over there.
Reckons their pretty average. Funny enough mentioned he's only dealt in the manual model.
Informed me they have a different badge/grill here in NZ. On top of that, apparently were stopped being manufactured a while ago in Europe.
Mentioned he bought a couple of crashed ones so he had a few spare parts up his sleeve.
He reckoned in their market, nothing special.
tamarillo, Apr 1, 6:19am
So what is it. Only info can find is that it's an automated manual, which can be even worse at this than dsg. Not an old style torque converter.
Drive a panda with its automated manual recently. Can see one could get used to it, and in triptronic it was good, but in auto it was just bad.
kazbanz, Apr 1, 7:51am
What gearbox is it then?
-honestly how it felt was that some clumsy clot was changing gears for me in a manual box.
THUMP as the clutch disengaged. Shuffle around for a long time with the gearlever to find a gear then BANG up to the next gear.
definitely more noticeable at town speeds rather than open road speeds.
The "manual" option was no better except at least I could choose at what speed I did the thumping I guess.
The other thing it did was after being stopped at lights or at a gas station etc it would refuse to rev up at all, Just idle and nothing else.
robotnik, Apr 1, 9:41am
Sounds like it might only have the one automated clutch, rather than the dual clutches most systems use these days. I remember driving a BMW with a single clutch system back in the 1990s and it was pretty bad.
intrade, Apr 1, 11:06am
ok i looked at them at the dargaville field days.
could not test drive it but what i seen was enough i think. the vans they had all had already rust from brand new where paint was missing and rust formed . plus the doors you would not want to lean against them , i dont think you could make them any thinner low grade metal with one finger you could put a huge dent in to it . inside its also looking flimsy all plastic that part was ok you cant expect a high grade finish ,
the other make as bad as this is the foton tunland.
Next to it was ssangyoung and that was night and day compairing quality the ssangyoung be a 9 out of ten and a ldv a 2 at most.
ldv are the scherpas
robotnik, Apr 1, 11:21am
They should use the Leyland brand name. The punters will think they are getting a fine piece of British engineering then.
sr2, Apr 1, 11:33am
LOL, "Lucas - Prince of Darkness".
buyit59, Apr 1, 11:35am
Cheap to buy new will equate to being much much cheaper to sell second hand .
ally-oop, Apr 1, 12:34pm
Apparently the reason that the English have come to enjoy warm beer is that lucas used to make some of the components for their refrigerators.
poppy62, Apr 1, 1:53pm
This is all reminiscent of the 60s when the Jappas first appeared, get used to it guys, the made in China, is here for long time,not short time. Can't wait for the Oz brands (made in China) appearing here. There'll be a lot of hand wringing and this board will be awash with tears. Mind you at least there'll be a choice China or India.
ally-oop, Apr 1, 3:30pm
The difference is that the Japanese always wanted to improve and make better and better quality stuff and were/are proud of it, whereas the Chinese are happy to pump out crap forever.
bigfatmat1, Apr 1, 4:04pm
They actually use bosch electrics on their italian engines
poppy62, Apr 1, 5:54pm
The main issue is that the Chinese (like the USA ) don't really need the rest of the world, they are self sufficient and their domestic market is enormous where as the Japs have very little in natural resources and do need international markets.
sr2, Apr 1, 6:06pm
Just taking the piss mate, I'm a great fan of Italian common rail diesels.
(Although my old 58 T100 had the worst electrics you could imagine!).
bigfatmat1, Apr 2, 8:49pm
it's a 6amt manual gearbox auto shifter.