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Automotive News & Views 0-60 is so yesterday!
154 messages, Last post on Oct 09, 2007 at 10:40 PM
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Zero to Sixty to me is a representation of the entire package of a vehicle. The most representative 0-60 would of course be from idle, with no clutch drop or any other fancy tricks. Otherwise, this just puts car magazines in the same category of misrepresentation that they have accused the EPA of being in. Realisitically, the dyno curves of a vehicle, showing torque and rpm (hp comes right out of these), acts only as an evaluation of the engine. The gearing differences between vehicles such as transmission and rear axle gearing are not included in such an evaluation. Neither are factors such as a suspension and tire's ability to put the power to the pavement. A 0-60 run (or 0-100 or whatever) do give an idea of such information. My personal preference is for 0-60 due to the fact that typically I don't drive much over 70 anyway (legal limits and all). Also, some cars will not go above or at least very far above 100 mph, and will suffer accordingly at the high end. Think especially of some of the subcompacts coming out of europe and asia. It is very possible to gear a vehicle such that it will have an extremely fast acceleration at low and mid speeds (under 80mph), but will bog down at higher speed. Because of this, I feel it is best to look at a range of 0-x times, similar to what was posted previously, where you have 0-30 0-40 0-50 0-60 etc This will give a much better view of the overall acceleration performance of a vehicle. However, that being said, I feel that most consumers prefer to look at simple statistics without having a deeper understanding of the meaning behind them. For your average consumer, I feel that a 0-60 time (again, with no clutch dump) is a very good evaluation tool. Your average driver, after all, spends 90% or more of their acceleration time at speeds less than 60 mph. And even more of their "hard" acceleration at lower speeds. So, just because 0-60 isn't the best way to evaluate the performance of a vehicle, that doesn't make it an invalid way of making a comparrison.
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Replying to: heffling (Jan 29, 2007 11:09 am) Automotive reviewers need to consider more realistic situations, including 0-60, by throwing in test scenarios involving rolling acceleration. Sometimes I just find it funny to see 0-20 or 0-30 acceleration time. And then, there are some reviewers that go beyond 0-60 and do include something more meaningful (5-60) and mess up elsewhere (30-50 and 50-70 in top gear only if manual transmission). Be it Edmunds, R&T, C&D… they are all guilty. CR does one of the few things well, and it happens to be this. And I liked what I saw in an Autoweek review. They published, not only 0-60 times, but also 20-40, 40-60 and 60-80 mph acceleration runs. However, even after all that, the only one of these that gets mentioned is 0-60. Oh well… |
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| Well the one catch to not trying to avoid high RPM clutch drops with manually transmissions to help with the 0-60 times is that, you have to rev it a little to keep it from stalling. So you can't entirely avoid some reving before the clutch pedal is let out. Although I do agree that it should be something more reasonable to the average driver rather than some of the clutch smoking runs that the magazines do. | |
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I would say that the following would be the most useful: 0-80 0-100 15-50 (for those times you're in a slow moving lane and need to get up to speed in another lane) 50-80 In all cases the car should be warmed up and on level ground. For the 0 MPH starts, the driver should release the brake pedal and floor the accelerator (for an auto). Also would like to see how smoothly the car does it. For the tests that are not at 0, the car should be cruising at that speed for at least long enough for the car to settle into the highest gear the car will allow. Most often I find that I need to go 0-80, 15-50 or 50-80. If the car is quick and smooth, that would be nice to know. My Vibe for example, at 15 MPH, if you floor it it takes some time for it to downshift, so those would be nice things to know. |
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Replying to: robertsmx (Jan 27, 2007 7:34 pm) The Honda should win from 5 to 60 assuming the transmission isn't already in 2nd. The Audi should win from 0-60. I think we agree. Honda's are slow from 0 to 10, but once that VTEC kicks in and you get to that 240 HP curve, you're flying. But the 2.0L Turbo is an amazing engine too. |
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Replying to: andres3 (Jan 29, 2007 11:17 pm) Yes it is. |
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Replying to: andres3 (Jan 29, 2007 11:17 pm) As far as your Honda/Audi comparison goes, here are numbers from C&D for 2004 Honda Accord Coupe V6 and 2006 Audi A3 2.0T. The curb weight is almost identical (3299 lb and 3246 lb respectively), and both cars were equipped with 6MT: 0-60: 5.9s (Accord V6), 6.5s (A3 2.0 Turbo) 5-60: 6.3s (Accord V6), 7.1s (A3 2.0 Turbo) Remember, at identical speeds, the car with better power/weight ratio wins. Torque is rendered useless (only as good as the HP it translates to), a reason you don't even see it mentioned in racing cars. |
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Replying to: wale_bate1 (Jan 27, 2007 1:29 pm)  ).
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Replying to: robertsmx (Jan 30, 2007 8:16 am) I've heard that back in the old days, like in the 50's and 60's, one of the quickest cars around from 0-10 was the VW Bug! Ironically, it was also one of the slowest when it came to 0-60, so yeah, 0-10 isn't necessarily the best indication of a car's overall performance. I do remember VW proclaiming in their ads that the Bug could reach its top speed considerably quicker than most other manufacturers' cars could reach theirs! 
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Replying to: kirstie_h (Jan 30, 2007 9:11 am) I'll replug it tonight. BTW, I thought my spelling lesson in EVO was extremely beneficial... 
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