Andrew Hamilton's weekly motor clinic
The case for LPG
Remember LPG - otherwise liquefied petroleum gas? It was the flavour of the times 20 or more years ago. Essentially, it meant a separate or ancillary tank of fuel. It got a bad press when a botched conversion job caused an explosion in the boot where the LPG fuel tank was located and there were serious injuries.
Ron Smith from Dun Laoghaire asks if it has a future. He is a "reasonably" long distance motorist and he felt it might have appeal. "The trouble is I never hear anything about it. Is it still around?"
Very much so. Ron Smith can get a lot of information on the website of the Irish LPG Association which is ilpga.ie. Other sites are those of Flogas and Calor Gas, flogas.ie and calorgas.ie.
Fergus Finlay, spokesman for the LPG Association, paints a positive picture. A motorist doing 50,000 miles a year could reclaim the cost of conversion in the first year, he says. There's a good supply infrastructure, he claims - at least one outlet in every county. LPG retails about 45.65 cents per litre, about half the price of petrol and he think that adds to the appeal.
Volvo, alone among makers, builds cars with LPG capability on its production line and here in MOTORS we will be giving our road test impressions. Ford has been assessing demand with a bi-fuel Focus, particularly among fleet owners. The response wasn't totally enthusiastic.
"Operationally, it was fine and they liked the seamless transition from petrol, to LPG", says a company spokesman. "But LPG needs a big incentive fiscally. At the moment, while it's cheaper than petrol or diesel, the lower mpg returns offsets the advantage. We'd like to see something akin to Britain where the government gives a grant towards 75 per cent of the conversion cost."
Rural oil spills
David McNamara from Co Galway wonders if Irish motorists are sufficiently alert to the dangers of oil spills on country roads. "I nearly had a terrible accident the other day, momentarily losing control and heading for the ditch. I managed to regain control and then I realised looking at the surface of the road, what had happened.
"It was a dark, wet morning and there was no way I could have known that there was oil on the road. What recompense is there in the event of an accident?"
We can sympathise. A similar experience affected us during the recent press launch of the Nissan Primera. We were on a narrow B road near Kinsale, Co Cork, but fortunately again there was no accident.
Is there compensation in the event of an accident? It sounds a dubious proposition. Pot holes can be put down to the negligence of a local authority and we know from readers that it's possible to sue through the Small Claims Court.
An oil spill, however, is an entirely different proposition. Responsibility doesn't really lie with the local authority. If the person causing the spillage was on the scene, that could make matters easier.
Fiddly car radios
Janis Brown from Clondalkin, Co Dublin, complains about radios which are fitted to cars these days. She drives a new Suzuki - she doesn't say what model - but she finds the radio controls fiddly and complicated and almost impossible to read.
"I like to move around the stations and I find I have to stop to do that safely." Many motorists will empathise. But some cars still have simple audio systems - the Ford Focus is a prime example. On most modern French models, Renault, Peugeot and Citroën, it's possible to do all the adjustment by fingertip from the stalk on the steering wheel, a hugely important safety consideration.
Shifting memories
John McCarthy from Douglas, Cork, remembers the days when the manual gear change was mounted on the steering column. It made a lot of sense, he writes. Why aren't more manufacturers doing it, especially now that there's so much emphasis on greater space in the cabin?
We well remember column-
mounted changing too, in cars such as the old Ford Consul, Zephyr and Zodiac - all had large bench seats which were well able to take three in the front. (Those were the days before compulsory seat belts).
John might like to know that some manufacturers are going back to that concept. They do it, however, with the more modern and familiar gear lever sprouting from the fascia. Honda has it on the three- and five-door Civic and on the Stream. Fiat is able to offer three full-sized front seats on its Multipla MPV by employing the same principle.
The last car on the Irish market with the column-mounted manual gearshift was the Renault 16, a big family car seller in the late 1960s and early 1970s.