Auto Gossip

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32998, 18 August 1972, Page 20

Auto Gossip

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A.J.P.

Washer law The latest law British motorists have to face is one making windscreenwashers compulsory on all cars. It may seem a little severe to us, but it is understandable: the heavier the traffic, especially on damp roads, the more essential screen-washers become. On several days recently, I would certainly not have liked to drive around Christchurch for long without screenwashers. With the sun making a brief appearance, but the roads still wet, spray from the cars ahead soon coated the screen, dried and, in the dazzle from the wet pavement, quickly made the screen almost opaque. In a land with very heavy traffic and frequent rain, the problem must be severe, and in heavy traffic there is little chance of stopping to wipe down a windscreen with a cloth. Even if there was the chance, few would take it: they would blunder on halfblind, like washer-less ones do now. How reliable? The law is not as likely to be as severe on British car-owners as might at first seem, either, for screenwashers have been standard on British cars for many years. Thinking quickly- of the vehicles available locally, I cannot recall a new car which does not come with washers. A British writer has suggested many new washer kits will

be needed in that country, because he has always found that screen-washers are the first fitting to “pack up.” In my experience, electric clocks fail first, but washers must be a close second. Electric-ally-powered washers are the best to use and the least reliable, and after years of struggling with the system in my British car (and replacing the entire pump and motor once, at huge expense) I have now fitted the “works” out of an Australian car’s washer system, with (touch wood) outstanding results. Until I did this, I had plenty of opportunities to notice that you never realise how often you use the things until they stop working. National styles The cars of any particular nation always seem to display certain peculiarities. Japanese windscreenwashers seem the best, with the most generous output, but Australian ones come a close second. British cars seem to specialise in weak horns and weak screenwashers, Italian cars usually have good hooters and accelerator pedals which assume a comfortable angle only when pressed firmly to the floor. French cars are

never conventional and generally have the most comfortable seating, Australian models tend to come towards the bottom —er, lower end—of the seatingcomfort list. All cars, of course, tend to reflect the national geography: American cars are excellent for long, medium-speed trips on straight sealed roads, Italian cars have good gearing for hill-country, French cars, high top gears for fast cruising, and Japanese cars, until recently, tended to reflect driving conditions where handling and steering accuracy were not at a premium. And Australia is one of very few countries in the world still producing cars with three-speed column-change gearboxes. But as time passes, these national differences are becoming less marked: we are seeing more models fairly described as “European,” or “mid-Atlantic” in character. Spice of life

Unless safety rules finally press everything into a standard mould, national differences will remain, and different models will have very different characteristics. I hope they do: the people who buy them will, I hope, always have differ-

ing tastes and needs. Dealers tell me the local trend is clearly to more variety —people want something different and individual, in colour, general design, and fittings. Long may they continue to have a choice.

Quote of the week

“We wonder whether manufacturers are not to some extent to blame for designing cars with scarcely a thought to the subsequent cost of servicing. It is not necessary, for example, to design a hub that needs a hub-puller to dismantle it. On the back of a Mini you can remove a brake drum with no special tools; yet on the 1100/1300, a similar design, you need a hub-pul-ler even to check brake-lining wear. On one new model, the instruction book tells us to remove a front wheel to renew the adjacent headlamp unit, on another it takes five hours to replace the windscreen wiper motor. Have our designers gone mad?” — From an editorial on car repairs costs in “Autocar.”