There are many great things about Canada and even the United States. The auto industry is not one of them. My first rule in deciding what to buy is I refuse to get anything that you can't buy in Europe. This narrows the choice down considerably.
We are looking for something in the 'small family car' segment, or 'compact' as it is known in North America. For the sake of this blog, I'll say we've narrowed it down to three models: Mazda3; VW Golf; Volvo S40. Now being the environmentally responsible person that I am (what am I doing considering buying a car then you ask) I am not after a huge engine. Just powerful enough to not be sluggish when fully laden with people and gear.
So, firstly, lets compare the Mazda3 - European and Canadian engine choices. (Now we're not necessarily looking at buying something brand new, but for the sake of this comparison, we'll use the current models.)
In Europe, engine choices for the Mazda3 are:
- 1.6
- 2.0
- 1.6 D
- 2.2 D (150bhp)
- 2.2 D (185bhp)
- 2.0
- 2.5
- 1.4
- 1.4 TSI (120bhp)
- 1.4 TSI (160bhp)
- 1.6
- 2.0 TSI (GTI Only)
- 1.6 TDI (88bhp)
- 1.6 TDI (103bhp)
- 2.0 TDI (110bhp)
- 2.0 TDI (140bhp)
- 2.0 TDI (170bhp)
- 2.5
- 2.0T (GTI Only)
Notice how I have been extra generous here as if you remove the GTI, you land up with nine engines in Europe and ONE in North America. And finally, Volvo, with the S40. In Europe, the choices are:
- 1.6
- 1.8
- 2.0
- 2.4
- 2.5T
- 1.6D
- 2.0D
- 2.4D
- 2.5D
- 1.8F (Bi-Fuel)
- 2.4
- 2.5T
Just to make it worse, our favoured option at the moment is the Mazda, and the hatchback, I believe, would make more sense for us. However, the hatchback is the 'sport' model and only the base spec comes with the 2.0 engine. The mid and higher spec hatchback only come with the 2.5. The base spec misses some important features which you cannot add as options.
I will finish with a quote (as far as I can remember) from a Canadian car review website that I read recently, referring to the soon-to-be-released-in-North-America, Ford Fiesta. It went something along the lines of, 'our sample fiesta had the 120bhp 1.6 engine, but I expect we'll get something larger when it arrives in North America.'
And you know what? It will be the only 'choice' as well.
What an amazing place to live - no slow rubbish cars - heaven!!!
ReplyDeleteGo for the fastest car possible and reduce your carbon footprint with energy saving lightbulbs.
The Mazda 3 MPS is the way forward - 263BHP!!!
So all garages in Canada are like this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.churchsperformancecars.co.uk/stock.asp
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ReplyDeleteLooking on the bright side, you'll probably get the North American type of tyres/suspension and what not, so your car will lope around like it's using jelly for suspension coils.
ReplyDelete...and the engines will probably be 'special' versions that are more fuel inefficient, so will have the same crappy performance of the 1.4 you'd get over here.
One of the reasons for less choice of cars in Canada is we are a relatively small market (compared to the US) but insist on odd things like daytime running lights and kilometres on the speedo. Apparently this makes it uneconomic to offer more models - according the the associations of manufacturers and importers.
ReplyDeleteI am in the identical position having just moved from the UK to Canada. I am looking for a car right now and I understand your frustration. However you are comparing apples to oranges, as the two markets are completely different.
ReplyDelete1) In North America the fuel has much lower octane, 89 RON standard even premium is just 91 RON when as in the UK standard fuel is 95 RON and premium is 97-99. Therefore the NA cars need to have bigger engines to produce similar performance as their European sister models.
2) Also, diesel is considered an agricultural fuel in NA whereas in Europe the majority of cars sold are diesel and the car manufacturers tailor their engine line-ups according to this market. Each marque has intense competition from others on diesel economy and emissions.
3) In the UK emissions are directly related to road tax and many engines are designed to fall into those tax brackets.
4) The market in the UK is much more fluid compared to Canada. There are more people and they change their cars more often, typically because of the age notification on the reg plate. This creates liquidity in the market which drives prices down and increases demand from manufacturers to meet all the market sectors.
5) The drivers in Europe are more demanding in terms of driving performance. This is because of the layout of roads and cities and the requirement for cars that handle well and can go around corners. In NA most roads are straight and handling has always been not as important as straight line speed.
6) Fuel has always been more expensive in Europe and especially in the UK. Hence the demand has always been for small, economical engines. In NA fuel is much cheaper (even with recent hikes) and therefore drivers could afford to run bigger engines and there was no demand for small cars. Only recently, because of fuel price increases, have small cars and diesel cars started to be popular in NA.
Good luck with your search. In the UK I only had German or Japanese cars. IN Canada German cars are prohibitively expensive and Japanese cars are of lower specification. Hence I'm getting pretty frustrated, but I need to buy soon.