I’ve had several French cars, starting with an R4. That one was good, did exactly what it was designed to do. Next I had Talbot Horizon, an american (Chrysler) car with a very good diesel engine. Then I had a Peugeot 505, that had a good engine that was over complicated to the extreme, to the point that the oli overflow pipe litrelly crossed over from one side of the engine to the other, a truly brain dead design. Also the electrics in the back were literally routed under the rear light seals, so a seal failure meant that the electrical system shorted when it rained, the central locking and windows actuators had similar design flaws.
I also had a Xara, which had several secondary ecus, which had to be progressively eliminated , until I sent the thing to the scrap yard, out of despair, despite having a sound body and engine.
I’m in Europe, and I sometimes play the game of observing how many old cars (15+ years) I spot by nationality. Plenty of German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Korean. Very few Italian or French.
My daily driver now is a 26 year old Skoda. I do all maintenance. In nearly 500.000 km, it has had zero major failures. A few minor things, starter (Bosch), two window regulators, a CV joint, and the usual, belts, clutch, brake pads… Consumables. I love how logical the engine bay is.
I’ve had several French cars, starting with an R4. That one was good, did exactly what it was designed to do. Next I had Talbot Horizon, an american (Chrysler) car with a very good diesel engine. Then I had a Peugeot 505, that had a good engine that was over complicated to the extreme, to the point that the oli overflow pipe litrelly crossed over from one side of the engine to the other, a truly brain dead design. Also the electrics in the back were literally routed under the rear light seals, so a seal failure meant that the electrical system shorted when it rained, the central locking and windows actuators had similar design flaws.
I also had a Xara, which had several secondary ecus, which had to be progressively eliminated , until I sent the thing to the scrap yard, out of despair, despite having a sound body and engine.
I’m in Europe, and I sometimes play the game of observing how many old cars (15+ years) I spot by nationality. Plenty of German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Korean. Very few Italian or French.
My daily driver now is a 26 year old Skoda. I do all maintenance. In nearly 500.000 km, it has had zero major failures. A few minor things, starter (Bosch), two window regulators, a CV joint, and the usual, belts, clutch, brake pads… Consumables. I love how logical the engine bay is.