147 & other Alfa owners

Well yeah, if you will insist on running 20yo diesel engine designs,
expect them to behave like 20yo designs. Spent sunday helping a friend
work on a F250 with a 7.3l powerstroke diesel. That engine design was
older than the 1.9 diesel a friend had in his 93 Ford fiesta company
van

When you start getting modern Diesel fuel, you'll get modern diesel
engines.

 

BBC's top gear did a review of an F150 in the UK a few months back.
Actually it was the F150 lightning, but still. Anyway

Pro - 2/3 seats, qualified for commercial vehicle rates, large load
area, car-like driving position
cons - huge reletively unpowerfull engine, handles like shit, load
area open.

There are *some* pickups, but they're not common, mainly rangers and
hi-lux (a downloadable clip on bbc.co.uk/topgear/ does show them
trying to destroy a hi-lux pickup - a must watch) but the drop-side
transit is far more popular. Its not hard to see why either. The load
capacity is greater, the engine more efficient, and, you can drop the
sides, makes it more of a flat-bed with fencing. For everyday work,
you've got a range of vans, of variosu sizes, from car-based ones
capable of taking a full pallet with a car front-end, to long
wheelbase hi-cube vans with a 3.5ton GMVW. Did i mention that these
are enclosed, so hearer to steal from, and also more efficient, since
you've not got the bed's door acting like a 'chute. They're not even
that slow - a standard road legal Diesel transit can manage the
nurenburg ring in just over 10 minutes.


In short, pickups are too over-engined for family use (engines detuned
for those damned slush-boxes) fuel inefficient, don't drive very
nicely (poor handling and turning circles) and leave anything carried
easily stealable.

 

You should think about what you're saying. Height is not the be all
and end all, neither is mass. Build a 10ft tall car made of lead. Fact
is, high cars tend to kill people in the OTHER car. a frontal-colision
(aka a dual front-on collision) is not the most common either - no
idea where you got that preosterous notion from. Maybe a lack of
research

The safer cars are ones with an integrated safety system wih full
energy dissipation. I always come back to the last major accident i
was in - a brand new VR6 golf hit the rear of my Volvo340 in september
2000 at the end of a british motorway. The golf was scrap, mine needed
minor repairs only.

There was also a demonstrative video i saw a few months back. Showed a
4x4 hitting a regular car. a Shogun, and a civic iirc. in a side
impact. Well, the high front on the shogun oblitirated the passenger
compartment of the civic, then the height of the shogun rode OVER the
civic, and rolled over itself. Typical of car-SUV crashes in fact
(except a rear-ender). This is how nice tall vehicles roll over.

Next time, if you're going to critisize soeone saying they've not done
any research, try actually doing some yourself first.

 

The 7.3 is a fairly decent engine. International built.

 

You can choose to believe whatever you wish, you are entitled to you own
opinion, I'm not going to debate someones opinion. I am a retired
automotive engineer, with a degree is metallurgy. The facts concerning
crash dynamics I posted where not an opinion, they are based on my
experience in automobile crash dynamics gained during my thirty years as an
automotive design engineer involved with body structure. I helped design
those crumple zones and SRS systems. The larger the vehicle the more
efficiently they do the job for which they are designed, that is to reduce
the terminal speed at which ones organs strike one skeleton, referred to as
the 'third collision.' The second being when ones body strikes their belt
and SRS system restraints. One can not defy the laws of physics. In nine
out of ten collisions the larger the vehicle the less likely proper belted
passengers will be injured or killed, period. Those that hate SUVs and do
not want others to drive them like to distort the facts about accidents to
favor their cause. I don't own an SUV, I drive only larger RWD vehicles.
From what I know I will never ride in a small FWD car just to save a few
hundred dollar a year on fuel.

mike

 

Hmmmm....my boss had a Lightening and I asked for a 'ride', he said "Key's
in it" didn't have to tell ME twice.

I thought it was a pretty damn good truck for a '68 Corvette!
The fact that it handled that well and that fast amazed me.

I've actually seen that on US telly and on the web.

but the drop-side

 

since you bring up the subject of distortion;
http://www.bridger.us/2002/12/16/CrashTestingMINICooperVsFordF150

didn't work for ford did you?

 

I agree, SUVs may appear to be safer, and if they are involved with a
smaller vehicle in a crash they will be less affected, however, after the
initial crash, the spinning and barrel rolling will ultimately kill and
maim. In our state, the vehicles with the highest injury rate are SUVs and
motorcylces.

 

I disagree - the facts show the higher center of gravity, the worse off you
are. I watched an Explorer barrel roll with 5 kids in it after changing
lanes at 50 MPH - probably because the air pressure in the tires was to
high. I also watched a Jeep Grand Cherokee make a panic stop at 55 MPH with
it's rear end hopping all over and eventually rolling on its side. The next
time you see a Jeep pass you on the highway at 80, just know that if it
makes a panic stop, the family inside is s__t out of luck.

 

Ibiza Tdi (Have seen 130hp Tdis for just over £7k)

For performance against fuel and insurance cost I really don't think you can
beat these.

goto www.seatcupra.net/forums for more info

 

I swore I wasn't going to add to the fire... but...

I agree on the not being able to defy the laws of physics.

However... so you're postulating a "mine is bigger than yours" strategy?
What if you neighbor now gets a Hummer? Will you get a yet bigger vehicle?
Then he gets an 18-wheeler? Then what?

This is an escalation that does not make sense. As others have pointed out,
all that large vehicles do is endanger the smaller ones. As hard as it may
seem, one has to think not only egoistically (because that will get all of
us killed), but also consider what's around you.

I just shudder everytime I see one of those ridiculously *huge* SUVs, with
one *tiny* person sitting in it, mostly on the cell phone (not paying
attention to the traffic, thereby greatly increasing the risk of accidents).
How dumb is that? It's not about the few hundred dollars a year of gas you
save, it's about the insanity of just blowing away a finite resource that
your children, and your grandchildren, and their kids will want to use, just
to "make you feel safe" (Jim Beam has already touched on the "feel safe" vs.
"be safe" points)

But you *would* run over those wimpy folks in their Civics, wouldn't you?
The main thing is you survive?

 

Oh they are.

Chryslers have come on in leaps and bounds, so much that Chrysler/Dodge
and probably soon Plymouth brands will be seen on UK streets as normal.
The Neon and PT cruiser are badged Chrysler here, but the 300 Sedan is a
Dodge.

It is just that Mercedes got the rough end of the stick. Chrysler
improves, mercedes gets weakened.

 

Mayu handle well in the US for a US vehicle, but, UK roads are narrower
and we have corners and twisty roads. It doesn't quite have the
precission needed for a vehicle that is so big compared to the road it
needs to be driven on over here.

 

Fuel costs. Makes the difference.
The difference between £35 a week in the Celica, and £28 in the Saab.
Also, the celica is losing/burning oil. Not enough to kill it, but
enough for it to need almost weekly/200 mile topups.
The Saab was totally rebuilt and is completley oil tight on full
synthetic.

Actually considering selling both now (or advertising both), drive the
one that doesn't sell, keep advertising that one, and when it goes get
something, silly, small, old, cheap, diesel, and run it on vegetable oil
mix or bio diesel.

 

I think mine was from changing shocks on a car (crawling on the floor),
and driving it with motorsport bucket seats in.

Got better after I got my first Saab. Has slowly crept back since owning
the Celica and having the suspension put right. the more I improved the
handling, the worse my back got.

Guess I need a Bentley or something else with air suspension "honestly
dear, for health reasons"

 

Don't they build Combines?

 

Ya, dot too....

 

One thing about Euro (esp Swedish) cars is that they ARE comfortable!

Right. "Honey, I need to unass $275,000US for a Bentley cause of my bad
back..."

 

Drove it on an old US (two lane...they were just marking the Brand New
pavement (uh, that's NOT a sidewalk for those of you from Yirrup...)
and then on the Interstate. Pretty good to me.

Uh, he had made some 'mods', like exhaust and chipping the thing. Est. 425
HP...

 

Please explain how you 'chip' a '68 Corvette.