Any aspies into cars?

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wish i could afford even a used lexus. but the premium gas would eat my wallet for lunch and want 2nds. but the lexus rides more smoothly over broken pavement than the cressida ever did, and is far quieter and smoother in general. and it could be said that all luxury cars are expensive and built to stay that way.
somebody needs to make a regular guy car that rides over rough pavement smoothly just like a mercedes.

i simulated a dodge viper at maximum throttle against a 737 at full thrust along a runway to see who would win the contest to reach the end of the runway.

sorry this is a grainy and low quality video, but it is accurate.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L_zF-ijzCE[/youtube]

i agree with aunt blabby that older mercedes cars are very smooth. they are not as smooth as old cadillacs which have a boulevarde ride.

older american limousines have an extremely smooth boulevarde type of ride, but as soon as they get onto uneven roads they buck and heave and do not behave well.

i have a mercedes 560 sel w126 and it is very smooth, but it is also very solid. the independent pneumatic suspension ensures that the car is not fazed by ruts and grooves and irregular undulations, and they pass by under the car unfelt.

i very much like my car and i will maintain it until it is no longer viable (another 250000 km i guess).

it is not admired by yobbo's in their hotted up american muscle cars, but it is just as lusty off the mark, and at higher speeds it leaves most of them for dead.

here is a video of a lazy 160 kmh (100 mph) run on a local freeway. the camera i placed on the dashboard rattles a bit and makes it seem bumpier than it really is. also, the aspect ratio is not correct and it makes the vision seem slightly squashed and it detracts from the sensation of speed. also, the camera microphone amplified every bump because it was sitting on the dashboard. it is much quieter than that in reality.


at no time did i floor it, and when i leave the toll booth, i accelerate rapidly (but not fully) for a small while to merge with the traffic that is going 100 kmh. then i tap the pedal a bit to roll up to 160 and it is totally effortless.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD_yqCWgLYc[/youtube]

"yeah what a w*k" you may say and you may be right, but i just want to recommend anyone (not in america) who is thinking of acquiring a 560 sel to test drive one. in america they are detuned and governed so they are only 270 hp there. a raw european one is an excellent alternative to a muscle car.

here is a video of me driving in the australian countryside it starts at 170kph and ends at 230 kph.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ6wQuXAgAY[/youtube]

here is a clip of me driving a holden calais. it is quite odd but it does show the full acceleration effort of the car about a 1/3rd of the way through the clip.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USnlEPulSLw[/youtube]

sorry that most of what i say is illegible.


i am quite affected by my condition tonight so i have little restraint in showing stuff that most would be embarrassed to show.

whatever.

b9, I like the fact that you not only named the specific car, but also the generational model number W126 as it denotes the specific time that the car was produced The 560 SEL means the long wheelbase model, I presume. It's neat that you have one with unbridled, unrestrained POWER to BLAST along the highway!

It'd be interesting to know just how much faster yours is versus the American version! I know the US versions are governed to 155 mph on CURRENT models!

Really premium gas isn't that bad. Premium fuel used to be like 20 cents more than gasoline in the 90s and now that gas is 2-3x that price premium is like 37 cents more which makes it a better deal now than ever. Premium fuel allows for higher compression ratios and higher fuel economy as a result. You could afford an older Lexus though if you look at reviews the Avalon rates higher than anything but the LS in any years you could afford. That's where you lose your gas money, a V8 and 3700-4300lbs of car to push.

And the V8 Toyota uses in the Lexus LS/GS gets better fuel economy than their German counterparts - heck they can embarass Honda V6s on the freeway! I've hit 26mpg one time on a day trip to Tahoe.

26mpg really isn't that impressive, especially since the gas guzzler tax of 1978 made it so that manufacturers are fined for averaging any less than 22.5mpg average which coincidentally is about 20city/25highway which is almost exactly what mid sized sedans have been making ever since. With a .26 drag coefficient like the LS has I'd certainly hope for better.

Well, we had a Mercedes 420SEL and it got around 13mpg. Our neighbor's Honda Pilot with displacement on demand(Honda calls it VCM - Variable Cylinder Management) ekes out about 18-20mpg on the freeway - our Toyota Sienna bests it at 22mpg highway WITHOUT DoD. Honda's one of the most hypocritical car companies out here IMO.

I'm getting crappy MPG since I changed my tires, my car did great on Michelin Pilot Exalto A/S - those were a low rolling resistance Radial XSE tire built off most of the same technologies introduced with the Energy MXV4 but it wasn't labeled a Green X tire. I have Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Positions on it now, nice tire but I saw a 10% hit on MPG. I'm sticking to Michelin or Goodyear.

Honda is just stupid period. They made the NSX and Legend with a 90 degree V6 which is just plain STUPID. In the mean time Nissan, Mazda, Ford and Toyota are selling proper 60 degree V6s. GM is selling hackjob 90 degree V6s (4.3s) just like Honda but they actually have a half assed good reason for it, they chop 2 cylinders off their V8 design to make them rather than actually spending the money to make a 60 degree engine.

VTEC is awesome though, as is SOHC with 4 valves per cylinder (especially on an inline motor).

The 90-degree C-series V6 made its way onto the Accord before the then-new J-series 60-degree V6 replaced it on the 6th gen Accord in 1998. GM has actually done an OK job on the 3.8L and 4.3L V6s - just as long as you replace the lower intake manifold gaskets and flush out every trace of Death-Cool from the cooling system and use plain old green/Zerex G-05 coolant instead.

And in the usual Honda habit, there's 2 different flavors of VTEC and 4 different flavors of i-VTEC. There's DOHC VTEC, VTEC-E which is the SOHC version. And there's DOHC i-VTEC with variable cam timing on both cams used in the RSX Type-S and the Civic Si, another version with i-VTEC/VCT on the intake cam only used on the Accord/CR-V/Element, SOHC i-VTEC used on the non-Si Civics/Fit/Insight, and i-VTEC VCM on the V6s which is basically SOHC VTEC-E with DoD. Honda can't build an automatic tranny to save their lives - they should buy them from Nissan(Jatco), Toyota(Aisin-AW) or GM instead.

Nissan can't build an automatic worth a s**t either. Yes I've been beating the hell out of one for 30K miles without any problems but that's not good enough, tranny was rebuilt before I got my hands on it. GM is where it's at for automagics. I'd take a 4L80 (or a lesser variation) over just about anything (maybe not an Allison 1000)....and I'm not the only one either judging from wikipedia.

# 1992–1998 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit/Spur II, III, IV
# 1991–1992 Bentley Eight
# 1991–1997 Bentley Turbo R
# 1991–2002 Bentley Continental R/S/T
# 1999–2002 Bentley Arnage Red Label
# 1993–1996 Jaguar XJS
# 1994–1997 Jaguar XJR
# 1993–1997 Jaguar XJ12 / Daimler Double Six
# 1996–1999 Aston Martin DB7

Our beater Quest has 234K on it's original Jatco tranny. My Lexus has 243K on its original Aisin-AW A341E with nothing but regular fluid changes with OEM Toyota Type T-IV fluid. My neighbor had the OEM tranny in her old Odyssey give out at 60K, when she called AAA for a tow to the local Honda dealer both front wheels were locked out so it had to be dragged out of the garage like a cat hooking its claws in carpet.

Wrong, they could have easily put something under the wheels...like a rubbermaid container lid.

The Jatco automatics did get reinforced I believe, there was a newer revision than the one I've got in the 92-94SE but it doesn't bolt up to a VG30E. For that reason all the 3rd gen Maxima guys have 90 nicknames for automatic transmissions including but not limited to: autofail, autotragic, suicidal transmission, slushbox, and POS. The fastest Maximas are auto but none of them have a pre-95 transmission. So I will give them credit for being capable of building a few good autos. GM automatics have almost always been good on the other hand, just look at the following the Powerglide has.

my first car was a 1965 corvette that i bought after leaving the military. used almost everything i had saved.....lust is lust. 300hp wide ratio 4speed 3.08 rear end. 14.00 et/100mph 1/4 mile......5000rpm in third gear. after learning to drive i began autocrossing with it. great fun but very expensive. had two 3rd place finishes in scca national run-offs.

run ins with macho guys led to me giving up racing. wish i had known about a.s. then. got another corvette, boulevard cruiser. lots of crap happens and now i have a honda civic. oh the shame. after corvettes, it's stunning how reliable the honda is. great for hauling dogs/cats/birds/lizards cause who cares what it looks like.

when i win a lottery, i'll try for a ferrari 458 for special occasions, a carerra gt for everyday, and a maybach for hauling around dogs/cats/birds/lizards. have to have dreams.

The Civic's a good car. I'm not impressed with the hybrid version though - Honda blew it big time there. FWIW, my parents have a Prius and my neighbor's kid has a Civic Hybrid. Except for looks and serviceablity(the Honda calls for Mobil 1 or Honda 0W-20 oil and it's more "friendly" under the hood - the Prius can use regular 5W-30 oil but it's a tightly packaged engine bay with some deadly voltage running through it, somethings like bleeding the brakes requires the Toyota TIS Techstream to perform), our Prius blows it out of the water for gas mileage and technology.

I had the Prius for a little less than a month and I got 54mpg out of it - even driving like a nut on the freeway.

The last Civic I somewhat liked was the 2000 model, after that they just got too bloated and soulless.

It's more than that - Honda switched over to MacPherson strut suspension in the front and multi-link in the back. Before that, the Civics all use double wishbone front and back.