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Has The New Commodore Changed Your View


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  • 8 months later...
its still a holden....crappadore

hahahahahahahahahaha :)

I learnt how to drive on a VS crappadore. I thought it was strong and torquey, with plenty of room and comfort for the price. Newish holdens aren't bombs,that's definite, but on a level playing field against European and Japanese cars it really lacks an edge- both in performance (mainly everything but straight line grunt) and sophistication. The VS didn't turn heads like my beautiful R33 does, and it's older!

But i've never thought highly of Holden anyway. I drove my first Skyline and was astonished at how far ahead the Japs are. Comparing a 1995 model crappadore to a 1993 R33, the Nissan wins it for me. Better technology, more power, better looks, strength. The only thing the Holden has over the Skyline is more rear seat room for the kiddies. But if you have a family you're not really looking for a sports car, or something with tuneability. You're looking for a family car.

Ah, well no one cares about you because that's boring.

+1 Skylines

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i have owned a commodore, a falcon, a 180sx, a skyline and 2 magnas (plus a few other cars). i must say that handling wise the imports win hands down....... until you hit a rough, typical australian outback road. then the softer suspension of the aussie cars does help quite a bit. i have been on roads where even at the speed limit the stiffer sprung japanese cars will walk across the road but the aussie cars will soak it up nicely.

but they are designed for different purposes. the skyline is a family sports car. the aussie cars (well the sports versions like the vrx magna, xr falcons and ss commodores) that get slight handling upgrades are sporty family cars. also the majority of roads in japan are in better condition than the majority of aussie roads.

if you have a family and want something that is going to be cheap to run (all running costs from fuel to insurance, etc) and plan on keeping it for years and years and do plenty of kms then a ford or holden will be fine. you don't have to run it on premium fuel so that cuts your costs down a bit, repairs are generally cheaper, and they will do well over 300,000kms easily on a motor, where as you don't see too many healthy japanese motors with that many kms on them.

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I tend to dissagree. :(

The ol RB30 is a jap motor and no different to the rb26, 25 or 20. They push well over 300,000km's without issues providing they are maintained and not stupidly fiddled with which results in broken ring lands.

The thing is who keeps their jap car long enough to push over 300,000km's; or if they do own their car for such a time leaves their jap car standard; its usually pushing more 2x the power and driven hard. Unlike the family commodore or ford.

I wouldn't exactly say fords and holdens are reliable to well over 300k;

The inlaws VN commodore bought from new required a rebuild a little over 200,000km's; graaandpa and nanna's EA ford required a rebuild close to 300k and went through 2 gearbox's each before they hit 400k; they had an EA ford each and live out in the country so lots of open road driving.

They now have an AU and AU II both of which are starting to have trans problems a little over 200,000km's. :)

Then there's a mate of mine which bought an EB ford; crank end float required a rebuild before 100k; my old man bought an EA Fairmont back when they were new; same thing crank endfloat before 100k and also required a rebuild.

I owned a VL years back; had 80k on the clock basically new. When I sold it I had done 320,000km's in it still the std motor perfect compression; the auto trans had only just been ripped out of it for a manual but was still working fine. I was lucky not to crack a head especially as I thrashed the absolute crap out of it, as you tend to do when your young. :)

I then bought a VS 5ltr 5speed commodore; did the usual cam, ecu and exhaust made just under 2x the power at the wheels than it did from factory. Within a few weeks it smashed a gearbox; then smashed a diff then broke the rear subframe which caused the rear to sit on the ground with 45degree neg camber.

Give these new fords/holdens a little time and lets see how they hold up.

The new ford/holden motors are nothing like the solid old 202's or 250 ford motors back in the day. :)

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yeah, i forgot about the rb30.

and i was more talking about motors rather than gearboxes and diffs. sure they need a bit of upkeep. i think part of the problem with them is that a lot of people never service them. most will just drive it till it dies. but i know plenty of commodores and falcons that have done over 250,000kms on the standard box and diff and they are still running fine.

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Maybe the problem is with factory servicing. The grandparents fords were both serviced by ford as are the new ones.

The VN was (until the motor let go) servced by holden.

The parents 100series v8 landcruiser is serviced by Toyota and after 30,000km's has developed a lifter tick on cold morning starts. :S

They claim they use really good oil; castrol magnatec. lol

Castrol; some really good oil that stuff. :S Claim a grp 3 base stock is a 100% synthetic. top work castrol. :)

Makes me wonder what their lesser non synethic/semi synthetic oils use; grp 2. :S

Within the cab industry the VN/VP's were known as buckets of poo with gearbox's and motors letting go well before the fords.

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both the ea's and vn's were the start of a new era too. the vl was an in between model. it had styling based off the vk and the nissan motor (which is loosely based of an earlier motor anyway), but the vn and ea were the start of a new era. the vn was the first v6 holden used, and the ea was thr first of the 3.9L. ford had problems with batteries exploding (so they gave them a CAI) and had problems with head gaskets going (i know mine did a few, but the bore itself looked like new) amoungst other things. then the later model eb's got the 4.0L and they didn't have as many problems.

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The fords had quite a few problems for a while there.

All of the ford bottom ends up to the EL had issues with early failure resulting in crank end float.

The solution was to drop the EL crank in to the EA-EF's.

The EF's still had problems of breaking headbolt/studs. So it really wasn't until the EL's they got it right so to speak.

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Within the cab industry the VN/VP's were known as buckets of poo with gearbox's and motors letting go well before the fords.

Interesting that the cab industry hasnt embraced the VE to much of an extent yet

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The thing is who keeps their jap car long enough to push over 300,000km's
My AE86 cracked 420,000kms. 4AC toyota goldness!
Interesting that the cab industry hasnt embraced the VE to much of an extent yet

I'm starting to see more and more of them... but give it a year. Cabbies here seem to be loyal to ford as they come with the Gas option from factory, wheras Holdens have to be retrofitted.

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