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Automotive News & Views What is "wrong" with these new subcompacts?
8653 messages, Last post on Nov 27, 2009 at 6:22 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: andre1969 (May 19, 2009 6:06 am) If you suffer a side impact while riding a donkey your leg is the crumple zone, though. Back in college I had a 48hp Chevy Sprint so I know what it's like driving a slow car. Plan ahead, basically, for everything. It was actually not awful around town, though, keeping up with the flow fairly well (I had a manual, the autos were probably a lot slower). Depends on the weight, I suppose. Thing is, that car was, what 1800 lbs? To meet today's safety standards a similar car would weigh 2500 lbs and then the engine would not be enough.
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Replying to: ateixeira (May 19, 2009 7:33 am) On a separate note, the Ford Fiesta looks very promising! It shares a platform and many components with the Mazda2, which I'd love to see offered here, too.
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Replying to: ateixeira (May 19, 2009 7:33 am) I have an old Consumer Guide from 1985 that tested a Chevy Sprint. They didn't do their own 0-60 testing, but in the text it mentioned that GM estimated it could do 0-60 in about 12 seconds with the stick shift. If you didn't get air conditioning. Seriously, that's probably more than adequate for most driving. Heck, my two '79 New Yorkers, '76 LeMans, and '85 Silverado all take around 11-12 seconds to hit 60, and even so, it's not that often that I have to run them flat-out to get them to do what I need them to. And even merging onto highways, often it's pointless to run them flat-out, because then I'd be entering the highway faster than the flow of traffic, and only have to slow down.
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Replying to: igozoomzoom (May 19, 2009 9:12 am) I dropped her off at the air port one time and drove it home for her. It didn't feel slow at all, but again that was an 1800 lb car. Hers was probably a later model, I think it had 62hp. I looked at those in 1991, but ended up in an Escort GT with 127hp. I guess I was tired of not being able to go up hills with the A/C on.  I recall looking at the price, and the HF was $300 cheaper than the LX or DX, IIRC, but those made 92hp. Then I thought...$30 per horse is a bargain. Didn't buy either, but I do remember shopping for them. I don't think the problem today is a lack of horsepower, when even the cheapest cars break 100hp. It's weight. It's scary how many fairly basic cars weigh over 3000 lbs. |
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Replying to: andre1969 (May 19, 2009 9:47 am) It is, a while back we timed ourselves in normal traffic. Typical 0-40mph times was between 12-15 seconds for a line of traffic coming off a stop light.
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Replying to: snakeweasel (May 19, 2009 1:53 pm)
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (May 18, 2009 4:11 pm) |
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Replying to: fezo (May 19, 2009 2:02 pm)
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Replying to: snakeweasel (May 19, 2009 5:15 pm) |
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LOL 
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