I’m not sure I want to ignite the petrol/diesel, manual 6-speed/auto debate again but I had an experience this afternoon that made me even more unsure I want to be trapped into an oiler, regardless of the economics.
I was in the poor old Prelude behind a nearly new Astra coupe with (according to badging) the Alfa 150hp diesel, which has a 6-speed manual gearbox, when we both had to slow to a crawl behind one of the 50-year-old tractors that are a feature of the local landscape. When the road cleared for a long way ahead we both pulled out, with the Astra in - apparently - first gear and me in second (of four) using the sequential shift. For a hundred metres the Astra pulled away but I saw him change up three times and he appeared to be running out of steam again as I then left him for dead, still in second, the V-tech just kicked in at 5,200 and 3,000 rpm left to play with.
By then, of course, we had passed the 90kph limit and common sense took over.
Yes I know the Prelude has another 40 (ageing) bhp over the Astra, but isn’t that a more sensible way that power should be applied? And I know that, even driven like that, it is still doing 35mpg.
Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
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In a decent diesel (Cannot comment on the one mentioned) you'd expect to go along at a crawl in second (maybe third) and when floored it will accelerate. If the muppet driving the Astra really went into first then the driver is to blame.
The Astra won't have gone very quickly in first gear! And I know my car will go a lot faster than 90kpm in third and accelerates well in that gear. If the Astra really was in first and changed up three times that put him in fourth. Now if he was in 2nd and changed up three times he'd be in fifth - maybe he was happy to accelerate more slowly than you and used a lot less fuel?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sun 24 Jun 12 at 23:05
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Mike, if you're over in the UK sometime you can have a side by side drive of the 3 series (petrol) and the V50 (diesel) and see which one's quicker, ultimately the BMW will be and it delivers the power a lot more smoothly without any fwd scrabble....but I reckon the V50 feels quicker in the real world.
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Nah, he was flooring it. People, especially young people, always react that way to the Prelude - even now. It's me who is normally the mimser these days, but it's OK because almost all the roads I mims along are virtually empty. I only wind the old stager up now and again to make sure the Vtec is still working...
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>> Nah, he was flooring it.
If I floor mine in first I'll get to just over 30mph before I hit the rev limiter. And second will get me over 60mph. So why he changed three times is a mystery to me.
Maybe there was something wrong with the car... or driver :-)
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Reminds me (in a way) of when I had a traffic light gran prix with a couple of spades* in a Rover 2000 TC manual box.
We both hit the loud pedal but when he changed into 2nd my Dolomite Sprint auto was still going like rocket in 1st gear and chummy had to throw in the towel.
*How many gongs is that worth then :)
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I doubt few on ere will realise wot a spade is.
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...I doubt few on ere will realise wot a spade is...
Hand grenade, lemonade, egg and spoon, macaroon.
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>>I doubt few on ere will realise wot a spade is<<
They'd probably think a Dolomite Sprint is a quick dash up a mountain.
:}
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>>We both hit the loud pedal but when he changed into 2nd my Dolomite Sprint auto was still going like rocket in 1st gear and chummy had to throw in the towel.
My old KIA's got a trick like that up its sleeve. It'll rev to over 7K which is gnat's whisker off an indicated 30MPH in first. Most other people aren't prepared to rev their engines and they lose it as they change up. Now that's block changing, 1st to 5th in a 30 limit.
Anyone else practise full throttle up changes? Easy in a diesel, but a little more fraught in a petrol bouncing off the rev limiter.
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Good little engine then bathtub your Kia, its a Mazda 121 if my brain cells serve me well, how many miles she on now?
And does e'e change the oil fairy regularly??
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>>Good little engine then bathtub your Kia
Yep, Mazda B series. Seems to be the same basic engine as MX5, but mines got a carb and single OHC. MX5 owners get upset when I tell them. ;>)
Later Prides were injected and I understand the Mazda 1.6 (323 ?)bolts straight in. That would make a Q car.
It's only got 80K on it, although the last five years have seen some serious thrashing. It's road legal and used on a daily basis although it's only clocking up around 4K a year. It gets oil changes on a much lower mileage than any other car I know.
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= = = > It gets oil changes on a much lower mileage than any other car I know < = = =
Ah, well, that explains it then ... the life blood of any engine!
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>>50-year-old tractors that are a
>> feature of the local landscape.
>>
>>
That's the interesting bit. What make, which engine, petrol or TVO?
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Grey Fergies, Massey Ferguson 35/65, McCormick/International, Farmall Cub, Massey Harris, lots of Renaults, also Fendt, John Deere, Deutz, Lanz Bulldog and, very occasionally, an SFV - France's take on the Field Marshall. I guess some of them (as used to be the case in the UK when I was a kid) are the relics of post-WW2 American lease/lend or the Marshall Plan.
There's also at least one Bolens, a Swiss make that my pal, an Oxford University lecturer and writer on the history of farm machinery, tells me eventually became the BM as in Volvo BM, and one Allgaier, an Austrian device with a single-cylinder engine made by Porsche.
Later machines I have seen in this area include at least one Lamborghini and a Russian machine I couldn't identify because all its badging was in Cyrillic!
The great thing is that, although many local agribusinesses use gigantic modern 4WD machines, all the above are working tractors. The 'peasant' farmers in this part of the world are very busy haymaking at the moment and you'd be amazed what you can spot pulling swathe turners and the like.
My neighbour down the road hauls logs around his propriete with an MF35 that has a Renault 5 steering wheel bodged onto it!
Phew, don't get me started...
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Mon 25 Jun 12 at 13:58
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>> My neighbour down the road hauls logs around his propriete with an MF35 that has
>> a Renault 5 steering wheel bodged onto it!
I used to drive these in my old job. Lovely old things.
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Ah, you remind of a rather amusing story, told to me by an American colleague.
He grew up on a farm in the midwest of America. Before he was around, his grandfather owned the farm, this was at the height of the Communism "witch hunts" after WW2 and he ran a Russian tractor.
The local John Deere rep took it personally that someone on his patch had a commie tractor and used to turn up whenever possible to try to get the 'ornery old SOB to buy one of his.
The main sticking point, apart from a rather significant price difference, was that the Russian tractor never went wrong and never grew old, so he didn't need a replacement.
What was actually going on was that if anything ever did go wrong with it, a low loader would turn up that night to take it away for repairs and leave a "courtesy model" in its stead. The courtesy tractor would be a new one and they never, ever turned up to swap 'em back. The soviet tractor collective were delighted to have a customer in the USA for propaganda purposes and weren't going to give him any excuse to leave. John Deere couldn't match the service and so the situation persisted as the years passed.
Roll on several years, my colleague is now around as a child, One day his grandfather expires and his father inherits the farm. The current John Deere rep is round with indecent haste at the opportunity presented and is upset to find...........a brand, spanking new example of the latest model Soviet tractor already sat there, purchased the day before by the new farm owner.
Mr John Deere had no chance competing against 40 years of his dad telling him what a ruddy bargain the russian ones were......
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>> Yes I know the Prelude has another 40 (ageing) bhp over the Astra,
I suspect your Prelude is also lighter than the Astra, as well as more powerful. It was always going to leave a diesel Astra for dead, especially once up in the VTEC zone. And being a Honda, your car probably has almost all of the power it left the factory with.
But anyone who starts an overtake in a modern diesel in first clearly doesn't have a clue how to drive it either. I actually struggle with petrol engines now. All that downchanging and keeping them on the boil business. So tedious. ;-)
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>> But anyone who starts an overtake in a modern diesel in first clearly doesn't have
>> a clue how to drive it either. I actually struggle with petrol engines now. All
>> that downchanging and keeping them on the boil business. So tedious. ;-)
Unless it's big capacity and normally aspirated (Something like the Chevy LS1). Then you have the best of both worlds. As long as you can afford the fuel.
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>>I actually struggle with petrol engines now. All
>> that downchanging and keeping them on the boil business. So tedious. ;-)
You don't haaaaave to do it yourself.
2nd November this year is the 30th anniversary of me seeing the light...
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A comparative experience - rtj70
