Automotive Academy

The Nissan GT-R has had such an impact over the last 12 months it would be impossible to ignore and the scale of Nissan’s achievement deserves to be recognised.

Even the most hardened roadtesters have struggled to get to grips with just how fast the GT-R actually is. Put simply the mighty Nissan offers 911 Turbo pace for M3 money and deploys an incredible array of technology in its single-minded pursuit of redefining what a modern performance car is all about. 

It’s one of the most talked about cars of recent times and it’s easy to see why there is such a fuss about Nissan’s new GT-R. It’s certainly one of the most dramatic looking cars of recent years. And while carrying various classic GT-R styling cues it’s resolutely futuristic, the origami-style creases and detail distinctively Japanese in flavour. The super aggressive styling certainly shouts loud about the car’s potential. 

At every step of its development the GT-R has been benchmarked against the 911 Turbo. But while the 911 is devoted to the past, the GT-R looks only to the future, ripping up the supercar rule book.

The Nissan has already lapped the Nurburgring in 7min 29sec, three seconds faster than the 911 GT2. And while the Porsche retails at £131,000 Nissan is asking just £55,900 for the GT-R.

Watch the video below of the GT-R reaching a top speed of 190 MPH

There is no doubt there has been some huge upheavals in the car industry over the last year of 2008. And there is also no doubt there is likely plenty more to come too, but for now we should put that aside and look at and celebrate some of the best cars of 2008.

Obvious highlights include a brave new start from Jaguar and Nissan’s GT-R – by any stretch one of the most exciting cars of recent years. It wasn’t all about fancy sports cars and supercars though, more everyday family hatches and superminis from the likes of Vauxhall and Ford have also shown that class isn’t confined to the upper names in the car market.

Ford Fiesta

As household budgets shrink this causes many drivers to reconsider their options, it’s nice to know the Fiesta – for many the benchmark of accessible, everyday transport – proves budget motoring needn’t feel cheap. Excitingly styled and brilliant to drive, the all-new Fiesta deserves every one of its glowing reviews. Ford are masters of building cheap to run, efficient, good-looking and fun to drive mass-market cars like the Fiesta. 

Audi Q5

It appears that Audi can do no wrong when it comes to designing cars. The firm continues to dominate the premium sector with hit after hit. And though both its key rivals have faltered in the mid-sized SUV field Audi has inevitablycome up trumps with the sleek Q5. The Q5 is a more sensible, usable size and its A4-derived running gear means it’s decent to drive too. 

BMW X6

The polar opposite of the discreetly luxurious Q5, the X6 takes in your face SUV style and ramps it up to a whole new level. The result is a segment-busting luxury four-seat ‘coupé’, with looks best described as unapologetic and running gear derived from the superb X5, suitably upgraded to suit the X6’s sporty aspirations. The X6 is available in both the hard-hitting 286 BHP Diesel and 408 BHP Turbocharged Petrol V8. 

Jaguar XF

2008 has been a tough year for Jaguar and, 2009 doesn’t look like it’s going to get any easier. The reinvention of the product range, symbolised by the XF could be a positive for the company in 2009 though. Jaguar desperately needed to get with the times and this sleek, sporty saloon commands the best of the firm’s traditional strengths with a new, forward-looking attitude. 

Volkswagen Scirocco

Some people have claimed the Scirocco, is just a Golf in fancy, far less useful clothes. The Scirocco has proved how performance and practicality don’t have to be mutually exclusive and debuting a discreetly sporty, aggressive new look carried over into the new Golf, also unveiled this year. The Scirocco is available in Turbocharged petrol and diesel and has smooth shifting gearboxes and adjustable damping systems.

Rear-facing not only turns out to be safer for infants, but for people of all ages. In fact, we would all be safer rear-facing in cars, airplanes, trains and elsewhere. Of course, this would not be acceptable to most adults.  

When seating babies, it is best to remain rear-facing to the weight and height limits of the carseat.  Some convertible carseats have 30 or 35 pound rear-facing limits.  In all cases, infants should be rear-facing until they are both one year and twenty pounds at the very minimum.

Usually a child can be moved to a booster when they are too big for a harnessed carseat, and once they are able to sit properly in a seatbelt.  A child should be in some type of booster seat until around 8 years old, unless they are already 4′ 9″ tall.

Fortunately, adults are somewhat better able to withstand the forces on the head and neck in a severe crash when they are front-facing. Babies have very immature bones and connective tissue, and this is especially the case when they are younger than 1 year or under 20 pounds. For that reason, front-facing babies face a particularly serious risk of spinal cord injury in a frontal crash.

Frontal crashes are more frequent, more severe and usually have less ride-down time than rear-end crashes.  In such a frontal crash, it is easy to see why a rear-facing carseat is a better choice.  The entire shell of the carseat cradles the child’s back, neck and head. Some seats even have foam protection in the shell to cushion the child even more. 

The crash forces are spread throughout the large area of the child’s back and head, reducing the pressure during the crash, and keeping the head from snapping backward with respect to the body.  Unlike this rear-facing carseat, a child’s legs and head are not restrained at all if they are turned front-facing.  In a serious frontal crash with a front-facing carseat, the head and legs of the child are thrown forward like a rag doll, and serious forces are put on the child’s spinal cord. 

In a front-facing carseat, only the harness couples the energy to the child’s body.  The smaller area of the harness means more pressure on the child.  In the egg analogy, the egg is much less likely to break if it is caught using the whole padded area of your hand rather than with just a couple bony fingers.

Similarly, for the uncommon rear-end crash, a front-facing carseat may be safer than a rear-facing model.  Still, rear-end crashes are much less common and much less severe than frontal crashes, and it is for that reason we choose to maximize the protection for a frontal crash instead. 

In addition, rear-facing carseats can also provide an added degree of safety in side-impacts.  Rear-facing seats will usually protect the head from being thrown outside the shell of the carseat much better than a front-facing carseat in a frontal offset or side impact.

When your child is sat in the car seat ideally you want the child to be coupled in as tightly as possible to the harness system and car seat, and the car seat as tight as possible to the vehicle with the seatbelt of latch system.

When you do this, the child gains all the benefit of “ride-down time” provided by the crushing frame of the vehicle in a crash.  With a loose installation of any kind, the child gets less ride down time and suffers a more severe crash into the harness system.  The analogy is that a tight installation is like catching an egg when you “give” backward with your hand to prevent it from breaking.

A loose installation will be more like holding your arm and hand rigid when you catch the egg.  The egg will splatter in your hand if you don’t give, much like what happens to the internal organs of a person when they are flung into a loose seatbelt or harness. Vehicle frames, advanced seatbelts and airbags are all designed to help passengers slow down more gradually.

Car seats themselves are not designed provide much ride-down time; their main functions are to prevent ejection and to allow the child to be coupled tightly to the vehicle so the frame can provide the necessary ride-down time.??

Rear-end crashes allow for a lot more ride-down time than frontal crashes, the potential energy in a rear-end crash is usually lower than a frontal crash because the speeds involved are slower. In addition, the two vehicles are not usually moving toward each other like they would be in a frontal crash.  That often means one vehicle is allowed to “give”, and the overall ride-down times for both vehicles are much greater, meaning lower forces on the passengers.

The speed of a vehicle is very important to the energy in a crash, even more important than the weight in the vehicle, when frontal and frontal offset crashes occur they are the most severe as they often happen when both vehicles are traveling at a high speed and in a opposite direction.

Rear and rear offset crashes often happen at lower speeds, and most of these cases are when one vehicle is stopped or nearly stopped, and another vehicle hits it from behind at a low speed.  Other cases of accidents like this are when both vehicles are traveling in the same direction at a similar speed and one is bumped from behind.

So the difference in the speed of the vehicles is usually much slower in a rear end crash, this means the energy in the crash will be much lower and if the energy is low there is less chance of a injury. Ride down time is the time is takes for a person to come to a complete stop in a crash. The total force on the passenger will increase with the weight of the person and the speed they were traveling before the crash. The total force on the passenger decreases as the time it takes to stop increases.

While we have often have no control of the speeds involved in a crash, we can do some things to help increase the time it takes for a passenger to come to a stop.  As mentioned earlier, in a frontal crash the vehicles are often traveling in opposite directions at high speeds.  When they crash, both vehicles stop very suddenly, in a small fraction of a second, and even a small increase in the stopping time can considerably reduce the risk of injury. 

Even with best practice, not all injuries can be prevented. Some crashes are unsurvivable. Still, much of best practice is based on statistics, and how to have the best chance to reduce injuries. Best practice may also be based on crash forces and physics. Both are very important regarding the use of rear facing seats.

Rear-facing seats are a lot safer for babies, as they would face a greater risk of spinal cord injury in a front-facing car-seat during a frontal crash, a rear facing seat may not be as effective in a rear end crash but severe frontal and frontal offset crashes are far more common and severe than rear end crashes.

A few factors govern the physics of crashes as they relate to children in car seats. Obviously, the faster the vehicles are going, the more energy will be in the crash.  Perhaps most important is the length of time passengers have to “ride-down” a crash.   The longer the “ride-down”, the more time your skeleton and organs have to absorb the crash energy.   Longer time means less power is transferred to your body, and less chance of injury.

Frontal and frontal offset crashes are accountable for 72% of severe crashes, side impacts are 24% and rear crashes are only 4%. The odds of being in a fatal frontal crash are far higher than a rear end crash. Rear end crashes are very common when cars are moving at a low speed, and these types of crashes usually result in whiplash injury to adults especially passengers lacking head restraints. 

Green Flag offers one of the most competitively priced vehicle breakdown and recovery services in the UK today. Since its formation in 1971 as ‘National Breakdown’, the company has grown to serve some 5 million motorists in the UK with 24-hour breakdown assistance, 365 days of the year.
 
Green Flag’s cheap breakdown cover is a result of the organisation’s reliance on a network of independent vehicle breakdown and recovery agents across the UK and Europe. When a call for roadside assistance or other breakdown service comes into Green Flag’s incident management centre, the closest Green Flag agent in the network is contacted and dispatched to the breakdown scene.

In the UK Green Flag has more than 6,000 independent technicians on call; across Europe Green Flag has some 15,000 bilingual agents ready to assist. Customers can expect a rescue patrol vehicle to arrive at their location within 40 minutes, or within an hour at most of making the call.

Cars are becoming more like computers so it is no surprise that fewer people than ever are willing to dive under the bonnet of the car when a vehicle breakdown occurs. High-tech devices now control most of a modern cars engines performance, and now a laptop is the only device needed being used as a diagnostic tool instead of a bag of tools and a torch.

It seems a lot safer and quicker to call for breakdown assistance instead of trying to tackle the complicated modern engines ourselves. Another reason to take out breakdown cover is as the use of satellite navigation and multi-changing CD players increases – so does the second most common reason for calling out breakdown assistance – flat batteries.

Also on the rise are call outs for cars that won’t start because the immobilizer has been activated, either by accident or through driver error, and call outs to drivers who’ve locked themselves out of their cars. The two fastest growing reasons for breakdown assistance calls are immobilizer issues and being locked out of cars. Whether you’re locked out, stranded by the roadside or stuck at home with a car that just won’t start, if you’ve bought breakdown cover, you’ve no need to worry. Just pick up the phone.

Broken down vehicles can sometimes lead to horror stories that have been the result of a broken down vehicle being in a dangerous place, broken down vehicles at the side of the road run the risk of being hit by passing traffic, is the simple act of changing a flat tyre on a motorway hard shoulder worth risking loosing your life?

We’ve all heard the motoring horror stories that have resulted from broken down vehicles being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are many cases of stricken vehicles on the side of the road being hit by passing traffic. For some the simple act of changing a flat tyre on a motorway hard shoulder has ended tragically.

When you choose to take out breakdown cover you have access to a vehicle rescue and recovery service experienced in safe roadside assistance. Your safety and the safety of your passengers and other road users is their priority. If your vehicle has broken down in a dangerous location, such as at a blind corner or on the side of a busy stretch of fast road, the breakdown patrol unit will know what to do to make the situation as safe as possible for all concerned.

When you buy breakdown cover you get an experienced organization that not only knows how to fix your vehicle and get you to your destination with the minimum of fuss, but an organization that makes your safety their priority. 

Statistics from the UK’s leading breakdown cover providers have shown that Britain’s vehicle breakdown services are called into action on an average 20,000 times each day. The most common reasons for the calls outs are flat batteries, punctured tyres and general engine troubles.

A high percentage of these breakdown issues are resolved at the roadside by the patrol cars and emergency repair success rates have risen by 85% for many of the UK’s breakdown service providers. This means that a high majority of drivers who break down and then call for roadside assistance are back on the road in their own vehicles without suffering a delay and can back on their journey trouble-free.

If your vehicle cannot be repaired by the roadside a tow to the nearest repair centre will be included as standard. More flexibility can be provided by buying breakdown cover which includes full vehicle recovery to your home address or your local garage, also you can add options which cover the cost of a replacement vehicle and emergency accommodation if it is needed as a result of a breakdown. This is a full service option that provides complete peace of mind every time you go out onto the roads. 

Scottish driver Allan McNish has been voted ‘Driver of the Decade’ in the American Le Mans Series. Allan McNish is a Audi racer, who won the 2000, 2006 and 2007 ALMS championship titles and received the most votes cast by fans of the North American-based endurance sportscar series.

‘It is an accolade that has come completely out of the blue,’ said McNish. ‘Over 70 drivers, including all of the legendary names from the past 10 years of sportscar racing,  were eligible and I’m honoured to have been chosen by the fans – especially as I’ve only completed three full seasons in the ALMS and just two races this year.’

Recently McNish managed to make up two laps in the first two hours and 45 minutes of the Petit Le Mans race after crashing his Audi R10 TDI on the pre-race reconnaissance lap. He went on to win the 1,000-mile race with Dindo Capello and Emanuele Pirro by 4.512 seconds.

The famous Nurburgring is having building work on a massive scale and it’s all part of a €215 million investment that’ll see Europe’s most famous race track build on its popular track day reputation to become what marketing boss Stephan Cimbal describes as a motor sport theme park that’s open 365 days a year. Work started just one year ago, but it’s on track, so to speak, to meet the self-imposed 11 June 2009 deadline.

The plans are to include the world’s fastest rollercoaster. There’ll also be a new arena with up to 6000 seats for ‘everything from boxing matches and beach volleyball to new car presentations’; 100 budget condominiums; and another hotel – currently only the Hotel Dorint is track-side – with 148 rooms, a casino and a heli pad for motor sport moguls; plus a proper welcome centre to lend a sense of occasion to the slightly anti-climatic greeting today’s visitor’s receive. 

Manufacturers have embraced the German circuit in recent years, so the ’Ring Boulevard makes perfect sense – a 300m-long ‘motor sport mall’ with Ferrari, Aston, Nissan, Yokohama and Bilstein showrooms. Other attractions will include the Eiffel Village Green Hell that’ll house a steak house, bar and disco. There will also be a Ring Werk theme park that’ll really get tongues wagging, it will be a 15,000 square meter theme park with a science and history exhibition and a crazy rollercoaster that will start inside and then run alongside the track doing 0-135mph in 2.5 seconds – twice as fast as an F1 car and 3.4g, which is the highest permissible by the German authorities.

Cimbal hopes the outlay will add an extra 500,000 visitors to today’s two million and extend the season from the current April to October – I certainly wouldn’t bet against it!

1.) Ensure that Tyre pressures are maintained as per manufacturer specifications. Over or under inflated tyres would mean better mileage or better handling respectively but will drastically reduce the Tyre life.

2.) Adjust Tyre pressure when the Tyre is hot, i.e when the vehicle has run for 15 to 20 km. Hot air expands if Tyre pressure is regulated, when cold you will mostly have excess air in the tyres.

3.) Try to fill fuel in the mornings, as specific gravity of fuel is high in the morning.

4.) Try to keep the fuel tank above the half mark in city driving conditions so that a proper pressure is maintained. Also this will ensure that the fuel lines are always clean and are not clogged by the gum like residue of slow flowing fuel. The Fuel tank too will not catch rust.

5.) Get the vehicle serviced at regular intervals from authorized service centers to ensure that the vehicle is in proper tune at all times.

6.) Use recommended fuel additives to keep the fuel system clean. (Please note these additives have recommended instructions and applications.) 

7.) Higher octane fuels as X-tra Premium (91 octane), Speed 93 and Power 93 (both 93 octane) are recommended for cars with engines having higher compression ratios, viz., C segment and above. This results in improved mileage as well as enhanced performance. No additives need be used with these fuels. 

8.) Drive your vehicle smoothly and avoid sudden acceleration or braking. Anticipate stops to avoid harsh braking.

9.) Try shifting to higher gears at lower speeds, especially in citydriving to get the maximum mileage out of your car. Ideally, one should be in 5th gear or the highest possible gear at speeds above 50-60 km/h.

10.) Avoid clutch riding. i.e make sure that your foot is not resting on the clutch pedal while driving. This will reduce both your clutch life and your mileage.

A basic guide can be defined as the loss of traction between a vehicle’s tyres and the road surface due to the forces acting on the vehicle. Most skids are caused by driver error, although only about 15% of accidents are the direct result of a vehicle skidding. Skids occurring in other accidents are usually the result of last minute action, by the driver, when faced with a crisis ahead rather than actually causing an accident. Skids can occur both in the dry and wet as well as icy conditions, however, the chances of losing control and having an accident increase by 50% in the wet. The main causes of skidding are as follows:

a) harsh or sudden acceleration

b) excessive of sudden braking

c) coarse or jerky steering movements

The effects of the above will be enhanced by speed. Combining these effects with non-recognition of adverse road and weather conditions will create problems for the driver. The main types of skid that a driver could encounter on the public highway fall into three categories:

1) The front wheel skid.

2) The rear wheel skid.

3) The four wheel skid.

The best ways to avoid skidding in any type of conditions are:

• Accelerate gently as opposed to harshly and in a straight line wherever possible.
• Treat all braking operations in the same manner as acceleration.
• If conditions are adverse, delicate use of foot controls and gentle shallow movements of the steering wheel are called for.
• Ensure that the vehicle’s position, speed and gear are correct before entering and negotiating the hazard.
• Reduce speed in good time if conditions show any sign of deterioration.
• Make sure the vehicle is correctly maintained, especially that tyre pressures are correct and the tyres are in good condition. Also have the vehicle’s shock absorbers professionally checked; they are all that is holding you on the road.