Built like a Mercedes (?)

Well if that is what you meant, fine, but you responded to the above quote in such a way that you SAID something far different.

************************* Dave
Reply to
DTJ
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Or for fucktards that still believe Microsoft is perfect. I like MS. I use a lot of their software. I think most of it is far superior to everything else available for Windows. Yet I also am able to recognize that outhouse express is a fools newsreader. Take a look and you will see all top posters tend to use MS outhouse express.

************************* Dave
Reply to
DTJ

I like to be clear, Dave. How did I resp>>>>>>>>The most densly populated nations tend to be the most prosperous and China

to which I responded:

Boy - someone needs to go to Haiti or Burkina Faso. Quite densely populated compared to the USA, Canada, Europe, or even South Africa, and 2 of the 5 poorest countries in the world.

Pretty clear, I thought, sarcasm not withstanding.

Reply to
clare at snyder.on.ca

You've snipped it out of context.

No evidence was offered that "Americans are harder on our vehicles " whatever. Simply an assertion out of thin air.

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

Well Graham, I guess you missed the part where I stated that I personally had 7,000 lbs on a truck that is sold at 1500lbs capacity, legally restrained to 2500lbs capacity, has axle and tire ratings for 12,000lbs (gross) and (here is the part you deny seeing) with thta load weighed in at

14,000 lbs gross. So your one ton trucks are great. But apparently our 3/4 ton trucks are able to haul in excess of THREE tons.

Now, if putting almost five times the rated capacity on a truck isn't being hard on it, what in your view, IS being hard on it?

Reply to
Max Dodge

Some of us do just fine with OE. It's not the tool, but the skill of the one using the tool that most often makes the difference.

Reply to
Tom Lawrence

Canadian winters?

Was this a trick question?

Reply to
Richard Sexton

Thats not true. More people in general use OE. Thats because it comes free with windows. It's already installed on their computers.

It's ironic that if you are replying to a message in usenet the so called accepted practice is to bottom post. Yet, in the business world when replying to an email the reply goes at top.

Reply to
miles

Its only a trick question if your name is Graham or Huw.

Reply to
Max Dodge

Which shows just how professional some of the whiners are.

Interesting observation Miles, I'd seen what you are saying, but never gave it a second thought.

Reply to
Max Dodge

I'm not sure I agree with your premise. Somebody had to make a start on attacking the problem somewhere, and it was us. Without that start, there'd've been much less impetus for the development of things like "digital" (electronic) fuel injection and other engine management and emission control technologies. Want proof? Go look at a 1990-model Mexican-market Chrysler Spirit. Parked at the curb, it looks almost exactly like its US Dodge Spirit counterpart. But those cars, brand new from the factory in 1990, had carbureted 2.5l engines running on leaded gasoline. Emission/ignition/fuel system that would've been current circa 1971 in the US and Canada (maybe that's overstating the case a little; the '90 Mexican Spirits have electronic control of spark advance, but that's the *only* modern engine management system they have). And that's just one example. How 'bout carbureted Volvos (with manual chokes, even!) clear on up through the late '80s and early '90s in some countries? Sometimes carmakers decided to equip all their worldwide production with the most modern of emission control systems, but often they did not. Somebody had to start the process by writing a law.

Of course, taking up the cause first meant, by definition, that we were the ones to have to cope with the problematic, incomplete results of the early efforts as we moved through the learning curve.

Disagree. Bosch D-Jetronic electronic fuel injection, introduced in

1968 and used through 1976 or so on various German and Swedish cars. Mercedes, Volvo, Saab, VW, etc. The only differences between that system and *scads* of early-mid '90s cars are minor:

-No closed-loop operation with D-Jet (no O2 sensor)

-Component design and construction differences (MAP sensors got smaller, engine position sensors got moved out of the distributor and over to the crank and/or camshaft)

The system's efficacy compared to carburetors was obvious not only in driveability, but also in emissions. In 1972, the Volvo 164's 3-litre inline Six was available either with twin emission-controlled Zenith CD carburetors, or with D-Jetronic. Engine idle spec for tuning: 2.5% exhaust CO with carburetors, 1.0% with D-Jet.

The D-Jet system was copied almost exactly by GM for much-ballyhooed installation on the '77 Cadillac Seville, to the point where several components interchange directly.

Following D-Jetronic was K-Jetronic released in 1973, which was a wholly mechanical fuel injection system. Feedback control with an O2 sensor was added for '77, and that system stayed in production, eventually gaining fullelectronic control, well into the 1990s.

It's not that EFI wasn't possible, it's that for the most part the US automakers just weren't interested in equipping their cars with it. They considered it too expensive, which was a shortsighted calculation: A new 1975 Volvo 240 with K-Jetronic had near-perfect driveability manners. A new 1975 almost-anything-made-in-the-US could not match the fuel injected cars' Instant starts hot or cold, no stumbles or sags or lean surge or any of the other problems suffered in spades by '70s carbureted systems. How much of the cost "savings" by staying with carburetors two decades too long do you suppose was pissed away in constant warranty comebacks for driveability faults and breakdown of the complex carburetor emission control add-ons, early engine failures due to ragged-edge lean carburetion, and customer goodwill forever lost? (Answer: More than all of it!)

Well...kinda both. There was a great deal of bad engineering coming from all over the world in 1970s cars. A very large proportion of it did come from US automakers. Part of it was simply due to learning curve progress: the task assigned was new! Much of it was indeed due to poorly-conceived and poorly-implemented regulations. Probably the biggest failure of the US Government was its refusal to permit the US automakers to form a consortium for research and development of emission control technology. Such consortiums existed to great universal benefit in Europe and Japan, but the US Feds objected to the idea on grounds it would violate antitrust laws. So, every automaker had to do his own R&D. A great deal of time, money and effort was wasted, and the trip through the learning curve was made considerably slower and more painful by that stupid refusal.

Not only was there this new task (clean up your cars' emissions!) but there were other new tasks (make your cars safer! Make 'em get better mileage, too!) and the old tasks (make 'em appealing so they sell!) hadn't gone away. At the same time, the '70s saw economic downturns that slowed up cashflow for US industry as a whole.

So, a great many factors went into causing the automotive situation we saw in the '70s. These are only a few of them.

False. The only such exemptions were for TRULY tiny cars like the Subaru 360 that idiot Malcolm Bricklin insisted on importing. The mainstream Japanese imports from Honda, Subaru, Toyota and Datsun were all subject to the same safety and emission regulations as everything Ford, GM, Chrysler and AMC sold.

That's true. Same goes for Mexico (they got on the bandwagon in '91).

That's true (Europe & Japan).

DS

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

I'm sure if you think about it for half a minute, you can come up with some concrete and quantifiable ways in which Americans are harder on vehicles than are owners in other parts of the world. I know I can.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

It seems I may indeed have missed that bit but how typical an example are you ?

I agree with your example. I was under the impresion however that many pickups in the US are likely to be more cosmetic in use than practical. A bit like a 'boy's toy' really. A kind of show-off 'life-style' vehicle. In some ways not unlike typical UK usage of 4x4s that almost never go offroad.

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

If anyone's interested, I can really recommend a late V4 version of Netscape ( like 4.9 ) for browsing text newsgroups. It does the job very well. No useless frilly baggage and itsy bitsy cute functions. Just simple plain functionality !

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

There's a simple reason for that. Email can reasonably presume the recipient is familiar with the previous content. Not so with news messages.

Incidentally even with email, a complex mail is often best responded to using the inline method ( the best of all ) .

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

Generally perhaps. Although there seem to be some interesting variables there too. But I was trying to get to some comparison specifically about the typical usage of pick-ups.

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

So not much difference there between the continents.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

I have never seen it available in the UK as a half tonner. Perhaps early

1980's petrol versions were? I should mention that over the last ten years or so, four wheel drive pickups account for over 90% of sales when available. I rarely see a modern 2wd low slung pickup these days.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

You can do the same for many regions. I would say that Finland was similar to Canada with harsh Winters and much forest with seldom graded roads. Sicily and lower Italy would have similar conditions to American desert regions. So in what way are American conditions harsher? Please don't say 'overloading' like some other idiot because that happens all over and most especially in Asia. It's not speed. Its not climate. It's not the quality of roads. So what is it? The people? There are idiots who drive like maniacs everywhere.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

I'll pop in a personal comment here.

When I visited Norway in 1976 I drove on some roads that had been 'trashed' by the previous winter. The pavement had been entirely broken up and it has to be replaced every year.

One day , my car looked like I had rallyed it all day long !

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

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