Removing all the torque is not a suitable engineering solution to torque steer...

Tote · 22-08-2006, 04:40 PM

Gidday,
Some thoughts today from an Aussie perspective on the US auto industry. I never thought that I would say that I enjoy driving a Kia Sorrento more than a Ford but it has happened. I did about 1000 miles in the Ford Taurus last week and I am amazed that Ford actually sell any of these things. Imagine the uproar if they tried to market a vehicle with the performance of a 4 cylinder Commodore, an interior circa 1980 and drum brakes in Australia!
It is truly an awful vehicle, no ABS either and front wheel drive 3.0 litre V6 as well.
I guess you can't expect miracles from petrol with an octane rating of 86 but it seems to be perfectly acceptable to market a vehicle that has such poor performance that if you floor it at 80 km/h the noise just gets louder and nothing happens. The last time I drove vehicles that performed as badly as this it was after the introduction of unleaded on aus and I was driving an alloy head 3.3 XE van.
This week in the Hertz lottery I scored a Kia Sorrento which apart from needing a decent set of shocks is a surprisingly competent vehicle. The other bloke I am over here with got a V8 Lincoln, leather everything and a V8 but still pretty low on poke, I reckon a BF six would give it a fair run for it's money. Besides, seats that are cooled can't possibly be good for you, its a strange feeling to have the seat get cold while you sit on them.
I've long held a fantasy of winning lotto and bringing my old ute over here to tour around in, I think a better fantasy is to bring over a typhoon and show them what performance really is. The only problem is that bloody 86 octane fuel....
Links for the interested:http://www.lincoln.com/lincolnls/pho...y_exterior.asp
It seems that they have finally killed off the taurus as it's not on the web site so here's a link to a pic of the one I had. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...6/IMG_0377.jpg
regards,
Tote

svo347 · 22-08-2006, 04:48 PM

I could never tell the front end/back end of a taurus, if it wasnt for how the driver was sitting ahahah

Fairlane · 22-08-2006, 05:07 PM

Taurus is a Fleet car only now. It is thankfully not sold to the public anymore- It was a POS and 1000 times worse than the Mercury Sable (badged as Taurus) that we got

Bossxr8 · 22-08-2006, 05:54 PM

Taurus is just about to wind up production. It has already been replaced by either the 500 or Fusion. Not sure which.

Fairlane · 22-08-2006, 06:19 PM

https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/...icleType=Sedan

T_Terror · 22-08-2006, 06:43 PM

US RON rating is different to Australias, the fuel RON is supposedly pretty similar to our 91 stuff.

BPXR6T · 22-08-2006, 07:22 PM

Funny, there was a story tonight on the channel 10 5pm Sydney news of a women driving her Taurus into a garage at speed and the front went straight under the holden astra already in the garage. It pushed the astra up through the roof of the garage. They had to remove the garage roof and get a crane to get the astra out. One less Taurus and astra on the road, good news day thankyou.

M14A-Mclaren · 22-08-2006, 07:38 PM

In America the octane rating is the average of the RON and the MON, in Australia, NZ and Europe it is just the RON rating and since MON ratings are usually lower it brings the average down. I could be wrong but that how I thought it worked.

XR Martin · 22-08-2006, 07:43 PM

You want to show them what a performance car is? You do realise the amount of Mustangs, Camaros, Vipers, Corvettes, Supras with massive HP they have over there?
You can get a FWD V8 Chevy Lumina thats as quick as an XR6T.

Ruger · 22-08-2006, 08:40 PM

yes but we have the luxury of having a very nice well built rwd familly car in v8 guise also. that they dont have. of course theres alot of big hp cars there. have you seen how many we got here too?
the only cars i like over their are their corvettes and vipers. the stangs still leave something to be desired in my books.
our base model car is rwd, 190kw, 6 speed auto optioned (bf2), comfortably seats 5 adults the list goes on and thats our base model xt :| cant complain about that.

XR Martin · 22-08-2006, 08:54 PM

They have the Chrysler 300C and Dodge Charger

chevypower · 22-08-2006, 10:37 PM

Rear Wheel Drive is nice to have, but i would rather a nice FWD than a crappy RWD - Astra diesel has no noticable torque steer, i gave that thing all that it had, found it much nicer to drive than my old VT

Tote · 23-08-2006, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XR6 Martin

You want to show them what a performance car is? You do realise the amount of Mustangs, Camaros, Vipers, Corvettes, Supras with massive HP they have over there?
You can get a FWD V8 Chevy Lumina thats as quick as an XR6T.

If it's as bad as the Impala I drove the other day they can keep it. I'm not seeing very many performance vehicles here, in fact proportionally I think you would see more hot Holdens and Fords at home than I'm seeing on the roads here. I've seen only two Mustang Cobras, a few corvettes and quite a few hotted up diesel F250 /350s (think exhaust emissions like a day at the truck races )
I haven't driven the lumina but the Impala was pretty atrocious to drive and it is also available with the V8. The suspension tune is just so soft and the front wheel drive is nothing like the hot hatches we have in OZ.
Don't forget I'm only driving rental cars too so it's not like I'm getting performance cars but I'd put a BF Falcon in stock trim against anything that I've driven over here including the V8 RWD Lincoln mentioned above.

Regards,
Tote

Steffo · 23-08-2006, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T_Terror

US RON rating is different to Australias, the fuel RON is supposedly pretty similar to our 91 stuff.

That's because they don't measure in RON at all. RON = Research Octane.

The US forumla for petrol is RON + MON / 2. MON = Motor Octane.

I did the calculations a while ago but basically... Aussie 91 RON = 86.75 octane by US standards, and our 98 RON is 92.25 octane by US standards.