Author Topic: What Kind of Car do you Drive?  (Read 33146 times)

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Offline Sindobook

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Re: What Kind of Car do you Drive?
« Reply #15 on: September 15, 2004, 06:07:21 am »
Solid state may be inherently more reliable than the older mechanical systems, but cost reduction and further miniaturization often hurts reliability... systems are made to last between 60,000 - 100,000 miles and will fail (vibration, voltage spikes, etc.) shortly after that.  You many not hear about those failures because for most owners, 60,000 miles is the end of the car's life and time to get a new car.  

And most of the rest of the message just complements what I am saying.  The performance, by just about any criterion, of both vehicles sold to the common person and vehicles sold to enthusiasts has gone down, not up.  Even the occasional engine 'upgrade' is more than offset by weight increases and other performance hindarences.  The only real and measurable improvements to vehicles in modern-day has been up-to-date styling and higher profit margins.  

Sketch

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Re: What Kind of Car do you Drive?
« Reply #16 on: September 15, 2004, 06:54:15 am »
Quote
Solid state may be inherently more reliable than the older mechanical systems, but cost reduction and further miniaturization often hurts reliability... systems are made to last between 60,000 - 100,000 miles and will fail (vibration, voltage spikes, etc.) shortly after that.  You many not hear about those failures because for most owners, 60,000 miles is the end of the car's life and time to get a new car..


Where on Earth are you getting these numbers from?  Most of the Toyota club I'm part of have cars with well over 250,000km on them, most of these cars frequent lapping days and/or AutoX. I've seen people starve their engines of oil during high speed corners and throw a con rod through the side of their block.  I've seen spun bearings, broken transmissions, differentials turned into shrapnel, but I've never once seen an ECU fail.  Hell people will replace damned near every mechanical component on the car without ever touching the ECU.  Vibration doesn't hurt IC's and  Voltage spikes are a non issue thanks to those fancy $2 plastic blades known as fuses.  


Quote
And most of the rest of the message just complements what I am saying.  The performance, by just about any criterion, of both vehicles sold to the common person and vehicles sold to enthusiasts has gone down, not up.  Even the occasional engine 'upgrade' is more than offset by weight increases and other performance hindarences.  The only real and measurable improvements to vehicles in modern-day has been up-to-date styling and higher profit margins.  


Econoboxes are more powerful now than they ever were, just look at the lineage of the Civic if you think otherwise.  A 1972 Civic 1200CVCC vs. a 2004 Civic Si. The 2004 will accellerate faster, brake harder, pollute less, get better mileage, have a lower drag coefficent, has more interior space, is safer and has a higher Top Speed than any Civic before it.  The same goes for performance cars, while I love the Classic Z cars, pit one up against a 350Z on a track and watch what happens, the 350Z will walk all over it. Same goes for the Chevy Corvette, Porsche 911, Nissan Skyline GT-R and pretty much any other performance marque in the world.  Sure the older ones may be lighter more and more tossable, but when it comes to real world performance, they are simply no match for their modern counterparts.

The only exception to this rule would be the massive V8s that were common in Yank cars of the 60's, but keep in mind that they were heavier than ANY modern car due to the fact that they had Full Frames rather than monocoque (unibody) chassis.  Ever driven a classic Mustang or Camaro?  They were relitavely lightweight compared to their muscle car bretheren, yet they have brakes that are practically unusable after two or three hard stops, little to no torsenal ridgidity, and horrible suspension (steel leaf springs).   They were really only good at going fast in a straight line.

Anyhow, like I said, whoever is feeding you these 'facts' should really brush up and open their eyes.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2004, 06:54:33 am by Sketch »

Supra_Saiyan

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Re: What Kind of Car do you Drive?
« Reply #17 on: September 15, 2004, 12:14:33 pm »
non "gay american" spec toyota supra

KillJoy

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Re: What Kind of Car do you Drive?
« Reply #18 on: September 20, 2004, 09:56:35 am »
I drive a Nissan 1997 240sx 5 speed.  Rear wheel drive. Doggy on power due to being a still non-supercharged 2.4L, but I love it.

My last car was a 86 300ZX was my P.O.S.  Honestly it rusted where it wasn't dented.  I had been on car fax with 5 pervious wrecks. I bought it when it was in pieces and hadn't been touched in year.  It was the only car I have ever been able to consistantly rev past 8000rpm (where the RPM stopped reading) before shifting even though it red lined at 6500.

If you want to talk about built to last that motor had 150,000 miles when I got it. I let go of it after 2 years with 230,000+ on it.  It wouldn't die.  The only reason I gave up on it was it broke a tie rod while going around a corner one day and I figured it might be rusting faster than I cared to repair.  I should have kept the motor though since it was running stronger than anything I've ever seen.  And as for car cost. At 400 dollars it cost me more to put tires on it than buying it.  

If anyone can tell me what the top end of the mid 80s non turbo 300zx is I would love to know, because it stopped registering at 145 while I was still in 4th.

I would like to point out I only abused the 300zx because I wanted to get a 240sx and couldn't justify it till the 300zx was deemed unsafe.