Personally I think the Hyundai and Kia product is as Good as or better than rebadged Holden branded Daewoo or Opel stuff of recent times. Still probably not the equal of Mazda or Subaru but still decent cars. 7 year warranty is good, but after 10 years they will be throwaway cars like 10yo Astras and other similar stuff, so at least you have 7 years of coverage. Mitsubishi used to offer 5 years car and 10 years driveline warranty. There are still some of these cars getting around still with new car warranty after 8-9 years. Not sure how Mitsubishi warrant say s catastrophic auto Pajero gearbox failure off a near to 10 year old car that has an obsolete transmission and the car is probably only worth $10k.
Have a look at Hyundai Genesis too. They are only V6 here but are 5.0 L V8 in LHD. They are the new choice for Limo companies.

I disagree Terry. One look at and drive of a Craptiva of recent times compared to an ix35 or Sportage or Tucson and the difference is clear. In 2012 the only cars in that class or around it that were worth having were these. We ended up with the demo RX350 Lexus at an incredible buy but if not that car the Hyundai was the go.
Totally agree that the cheaper Mazda/Subaru/Toyota are not great, but some of their product is superior, like the Kluger for example. Hard to go past an i30 though for value.

A used 2006-7 Astra with higher kM is a throwaway car. Once they hit high kM they are a $2500-$5000 car private and dealer. One major mechanical fault and off to the wreckers!

Go search Carsales for 2006-2007 Astras, and sort high km to low km. Plenty of them between $2500 to $5000. I didn't mention a year, I said 10yo, 2006 plates would still be sold new in 2007.

Edit, search 2006-2007 and sort by price low to high. They start at $1450!

Edited by user Friday, 29 September 2017 11:38:52 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Should be a good little car to drive and cars like that will only give the name KIA a helping hand to be seen to become a company of some worth on the stage, so it's just not seen as grubby transport that only sod's and dim wits only drive.

None of that changes the throwaway car tag though. All car types in the recent past (back to say 2000) have good, well looked after examples that are OK. But anything worth around $4000 or so registered is really a throwaway proposition if it suffers major mechanical failure like an auto trans failure or engine failure. Or buy one, not look after it for 2 years and it is junk that ends up at the wreckers or if a bit older left by the side of the road. My original point was these current crop of Hyundai and especially Kia at 7 years are at least warranted until they are not far off that 10 year mark when they become disposable very quickly, just like other imported cheaper stuff. I pointed at the Astra as this is a Holden forum and being a Holden does not quarantine it from becoming junk very quickly. Just look at how cheap high km VE are now, even as late as 2010 you can buy for under $3000 registered. Any of these would be throwaway cars if you fried a transmission and had to pay someone to fix it, just hand in the rego and sell it to a wrecker. This fact doesn't mean there aren't really good low km well looked after examples worth more.

Because it is a Holden branded import, and often GMH/Holden fans are often quick to criticise SouthEast Asian cars but in reality they are, within a margin anyway, no worse or better than stuff Holden branded. In fact they come with superior warranty in some cases. In some cases the Holden branded stuff when compared to what it is selling against is junk, hence my comparison of the 2012 Craptiva against an ix35 or Sportage. Today does anyone selling a car in Australia have anything that even compares to an i30 on quality and price combined? Also taking into account spare parts and servicing cost?

I do agree that we actually agree!

Which further re-enforces my point about the current Kia/Hyundai after 10 years or so. If those today are the equivalent that the AH Astra was against its peers, then when the Kia or Hyundai of today hits 10 years of age they too become disposable/throwaway. Buy, treat badly for a few years and scrap.

I still reckon the budget Hyundai cars from the Excel onwards weren't that bad for what you paid for them. My Mrs bought a new Excel in 1999, they were $11,999 driveaway, manual with A/C IIRC. She had it until early 2006 and about 90,000km when I replaced it with a low km V2 CV8. Sold it for IIRC $5700 cash approx. 2 hours after the Saturday Papers would have been delivered. It was a great little car for what it cost, nothing ever went wrong with it. Not a world beating car to drive but then again anything else sold by Ford and Holden at the time for more $ was no better of a car, the Spanish Barinas were at least $15k plus on roads and the Festivas a bit cheaper but still more than the Excel Sprint. The Japanese made Corollas were from memory about $24k plus on roads, similarly priced to the Holden Astras.

They were on special at the time, IIRC it was $10990 for manual any colour and $1000 extra for A/C. It was this exact car with these wheel trims that are on the red and green cars in the link:

http://www.redbook.com.a...-manual/SPOT-ITM-236720

Hers was the dark blue metallic (Potomac I think). May have been runouts of the 1999MY at the time.

My brother bought a new great wall, when they came out with the diesel, people bag them like you would not believe, the first petrol type were rubbish, but value for the money the GW was good but for resale was crap and warranty was totally worthless my brother said, from what I remember was fuel filler broke in 3 months, turbo broke a hose clamp and starter motor buggered up and 4x4 would not lock in at times and auto door locking went spastic. but not bad thing to drive apart from taking off the line was gutless but apart form that it was much better luxury than the average Holden Rodeo at the time because it was like a Premier to the Holden being a Belmont and has a great 6sp box and performed well for a 4x4 and I drive them Rodeo's at times and they have a bit more power but drive just the same.
Brother just traded it for a new Colorado auto and got $3000 trade for the GW, I would of bought it for that, I think it was 5 years old with around 180,000km up, driven on Fraser island at least 2 times every year and no rust.

I think that the China made rubbish will only get better as has the KIA and Hyundai rubbish became much better than most people think but They will never be as great like the Holden or Falcon V8's but as far as buss boxes go well well well.
One of the best buss boxes I can think of was the 1999 Peugeot 306 GTI6 normal 306 best riding small car ever by far and if you slam on the brakes the arse does not jump up in the air like all the other rubbish do, it acutely goes down to hugging the ground it's just magic.