Max Auto Updates - 05/10/2009

New car sales continue slide

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South Africa total industry new vehicle sales declined by 19.5% year-on-year to 35 931 units in September, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers (Naamsa) said on Friday.

When stripping out sales from Associated Motor Holdings and Amalgamated Automobile Distributors - which report separately - sales fell by 22.4% to 31 726 units compared with September last year, Naamsa said.

Vehicle sales remain weak, having been in decline for more than two years, knocked by soft domestic demand, although the rate of decline is slowing, while a global downturn has slashed exports.

Exports were down 49.3% in September at 13 974 vehicles.

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Fuel price relief

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The retail price of petrol will drop next week, the Energy Department said on Friday.

Petrol 93 ULP and LRP will decrease in price by 39c a litre and the price of Petrol 95 ULP and LRP will drop by 40c a litre.

The wholesale price of diesel with a 0.05% sulphur content will drop by 32.5c a litre.

Diesel with a 0.005% sulphur content will fall by 33.5c a litre.

The wholesale price of illuminating paraffin will drop by 27.5c a litre and the single maximum national retail price for illuminating paraffin will decrease by 37c a litre.

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Volkswagen Golf GTI Treated with 186kW



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Brit tuner APS has a power boosting upgrade for the Golf GTI that will take the iconic hot-hatch up to 186 kW

APS, based in Brackley, Northamptonshire in the U.K., calls the performance boost Stage One, perhaps hinting at higher power levels to come. The standard VW Golf GTI's 2.0 liter, turbocharged engine comes with 155 kW and 280 Nm. APS takes those number up to 186 kW, at 5800 rpm, and 395 Nm at 2650 rpm.

That makes the Stage One GTI go from 0 to 100km/h in 6.2 seconds, a substantial 0.7 seconds quicker than the factory version. Top speed also get a bump up to 250km/h from the production 240km/h.

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Roads may kill more than Aids

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South Africa's roads could claim more lives than HIV/Aids and malaria combined by 2020, if accidents are not prevented, Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele said on Sunday. He was speaking at the funeral, in Queenstown, of six people who died in a taxi accident on the N6 freeway last week. "The continent of Africa has the most dangerous roads in the world," said Ndebele. "Unless we do something about it today, soon we will find that in 2020 roads will kill more people than those who die from HIV and malaria put together," he said. In South Africa road crashes claimed the lives of more than 16 000 people a year - half of them pedestrians - and cost the country more than R14bn a year. Ndebele questioned whether the Arrive Alive campaign was working as people continue to die. "Is it because we have too many cars on our roads that we have so many accidents? Can we afford these deaths? No. Is this something we must do something about? Yes," said Ndebele. South Africa had more than seven million licensed drivers and eight million registered vehicles, increasing six percent a year. Ndelebele said factors which contributed to road accidents were excessive speed, drinking and driving, and not wearing seatbelts. Cars, light delivery vehicles and minibuses were the top three vehicle types likely to be involved in a crash. "The police must show no mercy. We are certain of this and we owe it to the people we are burying today (Sunday) that their lives must spur us towards safer roads. We are certain of this," said Ndebele.

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Hijackers give woman taxi fare

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A duo of "thoughtful" robbers gave a woman R10 from her bag for minibus taxi fare in order to get home after hijacking her over the weekend.

Police spokesperson Joey Jeevan told The Witness that Chantel Holgate parked her car near a shopping centre in Pietermaritzburg's Victoria Road area at around 10:15 on Saturday when two men approached her vehicle.

Jeevan said the men threatened to shoot Holgate, although they did not produce firearms.

One of the men forced his way into the driver’s seat.

They then left the city and eventually stopped at Thornville, where they took Holgate’s bag, money and other possessions.

She said the hijackers gave Holgate R10 in order to “take a minibus taxi” to get home, before fleeing in her blue Ford Laser.