Reading, Berkshire - All Hallows Eve is traditionally the night when the spirits of the dead walk the earth, reminding us of our mortality.
Cars, it would seem have their own evil spirits, as do aircraft, named gremlins by Royal Air Force ground crew in the 1920s. And some cars have nastier gremlins than others.
Now, before this becomes a replay of the Roald Dahl's 1942 children's book, British extended-cover company Warranty Direct has used its vast database of 50 000 live policies to determine what goes wrong most often on which models and create the ultimate 'horror car', the Horrific H-OWL3R.
This Frankenstein's monster of the automotive world has been assembled from the car components that fail most often, to give owners nightmares all year round, breaking down every other month and costing an average of about R10 000 a time to repair.
The engine comes from the Mitsubishi Outlander - 48.3 percent of the time, when an Outlander less than five years old won't start, the problem is in the engine - and it's expensive.
FEELING THE GREMLINS’ WRATH
Gearbox and steering are borrowed from Chevrolet's Korean-built Tacuma compact MPV, which is not sold in South Africa. Maybe that's just as well, because one in every three Tacumas sold in Britain since 2005 has experienced a gearbox failure during its lifetime and an equal number (although not always the same ones) has also suffered a steering failure.
The H-OWL3R gets its rear axle and suspension from the Mazda5 - almost 75 percent of Maxda5s sold in Britain during the past decade have suffered from gremlins in their rear axle or suspension.
The brakes are lifted from Mazda's MX-5 sports two-seater. The world's best-selling roadster is actually phenomenally reliable, but when they do give trouble, almost half the time it's a braking problem.
Passengers will also feel the gremlins' wrath but via its temperamental electrics and ventilation system. The complex electrics of a Lexus GS luxury sedan will cause regular headaches with a 67 percent failure rate over the past decade, while the wheezing air conditioning system of a Honda CR-V will bring unpredictable temperatures and a lamentable failure rate of 18.4 percent over five years.
The jury is still out as to whether mechanical gremlins actually exist but, thankfully, the H-OWL3R is pure fiction - although some of the bigger numbers might give me pause for thought before buying that particular model.
In the near future we're going to use the same database to check out the most reliable components, and assemble the ultimate 'unbreakable car' - and if it doesn't work out you can blame the gremlins in our computer system!
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