Daihatsu Charade

The Daihatsu Charade wasn’t a car I was thinking about buying when I was looking through Auto Trader, infact, I had never heard of it before. This was until I went to the local garage which I swore I would never go too as their prices are a bit on the steep side and spotted what I thought was quite a groovy looking car in stunning red that had the look of a bit of a beast about it. I looked at it a couple of times while driving past and decided to give it a test drive. After the test drive I was extremely impressed and it was time to check it out properly! The car in question is a Daihatsu Charade GSXi 1.6. What this means is that it is nothing like the ...  Read the complete review

The Daihatsu Charade GTti has a 993 cc, 3 cylinder, twin cam, fuel injected engine. plus a SCREAMING TURBO!!! Lets get the facts out of the way first... 99 bhp may not sound like a lot, but when you put it in a car that weighs the same as a bag of spanners, you get a 0-60 time of approximately 7.9 seconds (manufacturers estimate). Lets put this into perspective, you will beat BMW's (325i's) Escort and Fiesta RST's, and you will probably keep up with the Renault 5 GTT crew as well! Another plus is the fuel economy. With such a small and light frame, you will be rewarded with 35+ mpg. Hoot it around and these figures will ...  Read the complete review

Having decided to buy a small new car rather than a bigger used one because the extras that come with a new car save a lot of money and hassle (3 years of free breakdown cover, and 3 years warranty, a year's tax and no MOT's for 3 years, plus no costs from having to fix what the previous owner wore out) I made a list of what was really important to us and began researching online. The list looked like this: MUST HAVE: ABS (Antilock Braking System - an electromechanical system used in vehicles and aircraft to avoid wheel locking during braking.) NICE IF IT HAS: EBD (Electronic Brake Force Distribution or EBD is an automobile brake ...  Read the complete review

my mum has one of these and it is the worst car i have ever driven, i have nothing against automatics but this one only has 3 gears! this is made even worse by the 16V engine that only has power high in the rev range, so changes up always drop you out of the power band. So you would think the manul would be ok? well i dont think so because the handling is terrible, it really has no grip going round corners at all, it just feels all wrong when pushed, you soon give up trying to drive with any pace at all On top of this is the crap driving position, uncomfy seats and the nasty plastic/glue smell that has stayed with the car even though it is 8 years old now ...  Read the complete review

If ever there was a car that fitted the description "POCKET ROCKET" this is that car. 993cc twincam turbo injection - the most powerful 1litre car ever built 99BHP in its standard form makes it very rapid for such a tiny car, but with extras such as performance exhausts, airfilter + a BBR reboost chip, you can get it up to about 140BHP. (F**?*?G FLYING) The Jreg model that i owned myself for 3years was the best car i ever had, pity i had to sell it for a deposit for my house. The best thing about it was the running cost, only group 11 insurance + being less than 1 litre very cheap on fuel. The worst thing was when it brokedown ...  Read the complete review