Biiiiink

They look awful... the love child of a Range Rover and a Nike running shoe...

I saw on Top Gear that they were designed for a 23yr old male who has just left university but hasn't got a job yet. How precise (and bizarre) is that?!

Don't think they sell them in the UK still, in that TG show Honda said they "already had enough exciting cars in their UK range" I guess it wouldn't be popular there as Honda has such an aged customer base in the UK, it's what your granny drives, not what a 23yr old male would opt for.

Biiiiink

I don't get the trend for keeping names for completely different vehicles, weird. If I was Kia I'd want to disassociate myself completely from that old pile of crap and launch my new range with new names.

I keep reading the Toyota Corolla is the best selling car in the world - is that because it's actually been 20 different cars but they've not bothered to change its name over the decades?

dbd33

Pardon my late response. Some prospective buyers are coming to look at the house so I took the Element and hid it down at the beach.

The Element is practical, some friends (a family of four) moved house using only their Element, but it's expensive to run and only has a range of 200 miles on a tank of gas which is a huge bother. It's also very ugly and excessively gay positive.

iaink

No, its 'cos they sell more of them every year than any other brand/model.

The fact that they have a strong presence in all global markets, and market the same sort of car with the same brand name around the world rather than renaming for local markets helps of course, but it is a bullet proof car with reasonable cost to buy, great resale value and reliabiliy, with a practical combination of enough room for most, with good economy and running costs, which is why its always on someones short list.


Unless a car has horrendous associations, they try and keep the same name as the brand awareness already exists. Thats why the cavalier/ sunfire name was dropped with the new GM models!

"Gay positive"...LOL, Ill have to remember that. At least its not an Aztek

dbd33

Had the YAL come with an Aztek, instead of the Element and LC, I would have sent her back.

iaink

I would hope so too. One has to draw a line somewhere!

H143

Brilliant!! And I'm very impressed you have a seat belt for him. A true dog lover.

dbd33

It's just to stop him bolting at the traffic lights, not really for safety, but it does seem to impress cops when they stop us for speeding.

H143

Lol. Yes I guess in a convertable there could be a sudden dash for a passing squirrel, cat, or hot looking dog of the opposite sex!

Karma point for you anyway for the seat belt.

Did you see that article about this chinese woman who thought she'd 'let her dog have a go a driving' because he always sits on her lap in the car and she thought she'd let him try. Guess what? They crashed!! duh. They were both ok though.

Steve_P

You state your Element has a range of only 200 miles on a tank of gas. If this is true it would appear there is something wrong with this vehicle.

Your 200 mile figure suggests that it is only getting about 15mpg this is far below Honda's claimed 26mpg city and 34mpg highway for the manual transmission.

Even if you assume a real world average of 25mpg combined city highway it should be getting around 300 to 325 miles per tank. Perhaps you got a smaller gas tank than everyone else.

Just a thought.
Steve

dbd33

<bites tongue>

Biiiiink

That's my point, it's not the same car. There's got to be happy medium between that and changing it every 5mins/for other regions though, I think we did the VW thing a while back where we needed a chart to figure it all out

I think Toyota are starting to do that though - is the Echo the Yaris? And the Matrix is the Corolla?

Atlantic Xpat

Or to put it another way dbd33 not only do you have an excessively gay vehicle but one underendowed in the fuel tank department. Bit Harsh that hangman bloke isn't he?

Around these parts the Pontiac Sunfire / Chevy Cavalier vehicles are known for being 'Bay' cars...eg. driven by someone from 'Around the Bay' or anywhere outside of St. John's. My Brother in Law's partner drives one and he is from St Anthony which is way the hell up North. BiL drives a Jeep like mine but is a Jeep salesman. I suspect neither of them would be seen dead in a Honda Element..............

iaink

Echos gone now, but yes, I think the old Echo was the Euro Yaris. The Echo was replaced here by the new Yaris.

Matrix was based on a Corolla platform, but it was engineered with Pontiac input too, the Wave is the same thing basically for less $.

Was there a Corolla Hatchback/Wagon? I dunno. We dont seem to get many hatches here for historic reasons (Ie due to the "Pacer"). I thought it was a separate beast, there is nothing unusual about auto companies using the basic bits of one car to make somethind different. For example the mechanicals of the VW beetle and Golf are remarkably similar.

TBH I dont know if the various worldwide corollas are significantly different to each other or not, other than different engine options and manufacturing locations depending on the market. I agree though, its a bit silly to call a car one thing in one market, and another in a different one...unless its a going to translate embarasingly as was rumoured with the GM "Nova"

Pretty Flowers

I ended up buying a Pontiac G6. It's a top car, probably not that family suitable though...