> Some of the East German plastic body cars would probably be worse.
By no means. Trabant is the most fail-safe technology I've seen so far (and I've seen a lot, incl. nuclear reactors). Plastic has no corrosion, engine is very, very, very simple (2cyl/2stroke) and there is almost nothing to break - no water pump, no fuel pump, no oil pump, no valves, no distributor cap, no brake servo, no water circuit at all - and it was sold with spare engine wich you could change alone on the road:) (done myself, trice - it was driver's faults, not engine's). I see a lot of them around, some of them a lot older than me, still running happily. I have to add, it was open source (everything publised, a lot of user improvements merged), it starts easily in drastic winters (-32 deg C) when everything else fails, it performs excelent on snow/ice/mud... and there are tousands of jokes about it.
(it has also a looooot of disadvantages, but I still prefer it for urban use)
on what you really need Niva for. For offroad work (mountain, snow, abandoned roads, no roads at all) it outperforms everything else, no kidding. So if you just need the work done, it is your car. BUT: It is noisy and there is nothing to work around. It breaks on regular basis and needs a lot of technical skills. It is by no means economic (16l/100km is the best it's score for urban use). It shakes your ass a lot, also no hope for improvement. No, not for a daily use.
Slashdot Mirror
> Some of the East German plastic body cars would probably be worse. By no means. Trabant is the most fail-safe technology I've seen so far (and I've seen a lot, incl. nuclear reactors). Plastic has no corrosion, engine is very, very, very simple (2cyl/2stroke) and there is almost nothing to break - no water pump, no fuel pump, no oil pump, no valves, no distributor cap, no brake servo, no water circuit at all - and it was sold with spare engine wich you could change alone on the road :) (done myself, trice - it was driver's faults, not engine's). I see a lot of them around, some of them a lot older than me, still running happily. I have to add, it was open source (everything publised, a lot of user improvements merged), it starts easily in drastic winters (-32 deg C) when everything else fails, it performs excelent on snow/ice/mud... and there are tousands of jokes about it.
(it has also a looooot of disadvantages, but I still prefer it for urban use)
on what you really need Niva for. For offroad work (mountain, snow, abandoned roads, no roads at all) it outperforms everything else, no kidding. So if you just need the work done, it is your car. BUT: It is noisy and there is nothing to work around. It breaks on regular basis and needs a lot of technical skills. It is by no means economic (16l/100km is the best it's score for urban use). It shakes your ass a lot, also no hope for improvement. No, not for a daily use.