Lieutenant Scott wrote
Rod Speed wrote
John Williamson wrote

but Australian cars are engineered and expected to take neglect and
abuse.
;-)

It's a kraut car, Golf.

That'll be why it lasts through your abuse. The Germans do things
properly.

It isnt abuse when it uses something like the oil you'd put in
it with scheduled oil changes given that the scheduled oil
changes are for the worst likely conditions the car is used in.

And I never skimped on the oil I did put in it, good quality brand name oil.

I only stopped using that car because I was stupid enough
to not bother to fix the windscreen seal leak. I knew it could
get a wet floor after very heavy rain and it eventually rusted
a hole in the corner of the floor and I was too lazy to fix that
given that it had given 35+ years of service fine.

I get a new windscreen every year or two. My car seems to attract
stones flicked up by other vehicles.

You drive too close to the vehicle in front.

None of mine have ever come from the vehicle in
front, always from a vehicle coming the other way.

I suppose driving fast might exacerbate the problem.

Yeah, it certainly does help to slow down when passing
coming in the other direction on a dirt road with lots of
stones on it. And we don't see huge volumes of traffic
on those roads, so it doesn't affect the trip time much.

I've only had one windscreen damaged by a stone in the last 300,000
miles, and that one fell off a lorry that I was overtaking.

You have much better roads than we do.

Do you still have many non-metalled roads when going long distance?

Yeah, heaps. And ****ing horribly corrugated as well.