Just heard on Radio 4, 7am news

[Arob]

The big european car manufacturers like volkswagon and fiat have enormous lobbying power within the EU. They have been pushing the EU in this direction for years for obvious reasons. They fail to take into account the pollution produced in making a car of course. In fact I'd love to see the figures for total pollution for these two scenarios:

 

1) driving an old beatle / landy / mini and keeping it running for the last 30 years, Inefficient but just one car.

2) Replacing a car every 5 years with the latest most efficient model.

 

Lets assume the milage is the same for both.

 

Bang on, (though you'd have a distribution curve based upon the mileage you chose - the more miles you do the better option 2 looks), if you're just pootling about then the old motor's got to look good, and without modern engine management system much easier to maintain.

[Ben Ballard]

its good for keeping jobs with in the industry and to maintain production,least at the moment with not so much demand for new cars and other products with the current economic situation not so much pollution is been chucked out into the inviroment

Edited February 7, 2009 by Ben Ballard

[Log-ologist]

The industry is screwed at the moment so they are trying to pursuade us to buy new, but your right, surely keeping an old car is better than making new ones!

 

Older vehicles require more servicing and spares than new so in theory I'm helping the parts makers and garages by using an old motor.