Built like a Mercedes (?)

Remember the FORDS of the same vintage?? A friend's 3 year old Montego had the seat mounts rust/pull right out of the floor in 3 years. And Torinos that the mirrors fell off, complete with a large patch of metal in 2 years, or the door handles fell out, and there was nothing left to fasten them to??????? And Pintos that rusted through the firewall where the inner fenders fastened? Wasn't just the Japs and Brits and Fiats that rusted away in no time back then.But they did seem to rust faster for a longer period of time. They were not designed to handle the salt on the roads in "middle America"

I DO like American iron in many ways, but dollar for dollar I'll take a Toyota, or a Honda over most of what "America" has to offer today.And most of them will be built closer to my home than most of the socalled "American" models.

If I want a BIG car, I'd buy a DC product made in Brampton. Or possibly a Crown Vic from Tilbury. If I want a small car, a Corolla from Cambridge or a Honda from Alliston. For a small sport Ute, I'd consider the new (mostly Suzuki based) stuff coming out of CAMI down at Ingersol with the GM badge, or the Matrix from Cambridge. But right now I'm not in the market - the "Mercury Mistake" clone of the Mondeo only has a bit over 100,000km on it at 10 years of age, and will likely last the wife another 5 years - and it doesn't get much long highway driving. The 12 year old Trans Sport has 333,000 plus KM on it and will likely do me for another few years too unless a deal comes up that is "too good to pass up". Regardless, my next car will be another used one - whatever seams to stand up reasonably well and is cheap.

But bigger engines, not worked as hard, tend not to overheat as easily. A lot of the smaller "american" and european engines do suffer from heat on long hard runs. Even some of the Jap stuff has problems with "coking" and sticking rings, as well as lubrication breakdown (running that thin 5W20 oil). Lots of head gasket and intake manifold problems, even on some "american" engines due to heat (and poor design) With the "world market" lots of our "American" engines are euro, asian, south American, or Aussi in design. And lots of our "American" small cars are asian designed , and even asian built (Daewoo is GM in Korea - and sold here with a "bow tie")

Lots of these problems show up here, while the cars are the model of reliability in europe and elsewhere. Our conditions CAN be severe. They ARE different than most of the rest of the world.

Get over it.

And if you drive down the 401 (major highway across Ontario) at less than 130Kph you almost get pushed off the road. Talk about a "universally ignored" speed limit. I've personally shot across large expanses of the American Mid-West at well over 100MPH (160KPH), and it didn't take an $80,000 dollar car to do it.

Generally true.

Agreed. Yet DC is building big American Barges and making money doing it. Ford and GM can't seem to build decent small cars, except for their euro/asian influenced/designed stuff. Chrysler has had a reputation for not standing up too well over time, mostly little stuff like shedding cheap trim etc - but the old "K" cars just don't quit. Lately GM can't seem to fix ANY of their design problems - the 3.8 problems continued for years, and now the 3.4s as well.

Try west African roads - paved roads with potholes big enough for a pig to dissapear into. Make that 2 pigs. 2 BIG pigs Or east african roads where you could lose a VW beatle in the rainy season.

Pensylvania highways are BAD, but not that bad.

Not true here in Canada. The parts for my GM and Ford cost more than the same parts for Toyota and Honda - and are needed more often. And Hyundai parts are even less expensive and they come farther.

Ever see a Dodge MegaCab? Pickup truck with a bigger cab than most large sedans. 2 door pickups are becoming the minority over here.

An F150 with a cap or toneau gets as good mileage, if not better, on the highway, than a Ford Taurus.

And the surprising thing is they generally do. Unlike many Euro cars that can not be ignored (and some that just keep on going like the energizer bunny)

Or REALLY on the rocks. A new car every 15 years would not keep the factories going at capacity.

Many do. But you don't want to see what oil looks like after a hard run from Toronto to Calgary and back in the dead of winter (42 hours virtually non-stop) --. You would not want to do that 2 or 3 times on a change. Not in a Mercedes or a Vauxhaul or a Toyota or a Dodge.

And the oils are different too.

Try the back country of west virginia or the coal country of Pensylvania, or the hills of New York. Try to get through the hills and hollers of outback kentuky or tennesee. Try the mountain passes of idaho. Or try running across kansas and oklahoma in august. Drive through the upper peninsula of Michigan, or Wisconsin, or north Dakota in the winter.Or try death valley. Or drive from bakersfield to Vegas in August.

If you want to REALLY see America, do Route 66 - end to end.. Try out the Alcan highway, or any of the many other highways in Alaska. At ANY time of the year.

Or come on up to Canada. I'll show you roads and driving conditions from the best you'll see in Europe to as bad as you will find in Africa or India, and everything in between.

Yes, on the whole African roads are MUCH worse, I've driven MANY miles on them - both main roads and back trails. But the RANGE of roads and conditions in North America covers just about the full range, particularly if you include Mexico.

I know, I know. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Budd won't have the guts or the maturity to admit he's wrong. Just like every other two-bit usenet blowhard.

E.P.

Huge amounts of salt being spread on British roads as well. I think it was the high price of steel at that time that made it attractive to recycle scrap iron which resulted in poor quality bodies. I hope standards are kept high today as the price of steel over the past twelve months has been just as high historically speaking.

American models apart from Jeep have never sold well in Europe. In the UK Chrysler is now marketting their rather nice looking 300C and might well sell it well. The specification, looks and the drive is good and the availability of the superb V6 diesel engine [Which NA and Canada might not get] is a big plus point.

From your email address I thought *you* were the wife. LOL

Surely not in Canada. Many posters on the Toyota and Honda group from Florida and all over the USA. Never heard of an issue with overheating. Big engines are just as prone to overheat as it is just a symptom of an inadequate or defective cooling system, nothing more.

Even some of the Jap stuff has problems

Well there you go.

With the "world market" lots of our "American" engines are

They have a lot of heat in those countries. Daewoo is now rebranded as Chevrolet in most of Europe today. LOL

My friends in Canada have no problem with Summer heat but do mention Winter cold.

No it doesn't. Almost any small family car can cruise indeffinately at over

There's more money to be made from big cars and the consumer is a fickle creature. One minute he wants big cars and bigger SUV's then when the inevitable fuel price increase occurs he wants to downsize. The car manufacturers cannot win in that situation unless they mainly target smaller car markets to start with.

Ford and GM can't seem to build decent small cars, except for

The Ford Focus and Mondeo they produce over here are really top class cars. They have given up trying to sell Ford brand cars any bigger and they have bought premium brands to fill this sector.

Chrysler has had a

Their European cars are OK and that's it. A few Corsa are sold to private owners but most Astra and Vectra go to fleets. Their drivetrains are pretty good but apart from one or two models they are not 'desireable' cars. Their latest diesel engines are built to Fiat design.

Huw

The oil would variously be hardly used. Only two cold starts and running at operating temperature for long distance. No problem. Do you think an engine tires and needs a rest stop? No. It is not flesh and blood. You are likely talking of no more than 4500 miles for that journey.

You would not want to do that 2 or 3 times on

I really don't see why not.

API SL is API SL whether you are in Canada or Europe or even America.

Huw

It is increasingly common to ignore European cars for 15000 to 30,000 miles at a time.

Huw

Dave, alternate history discussions get even better with some beer :-)

cheers, guenter

ps Canadian ... not german

Then you didn't see the core of America where our systems get raked over the coals continually. We criticize ourselves enough, we need no help from armchair politicians.

Btw, one right we do have is the right to be offended . . . .by those that decide they know our system better than we do. You don't live here so all your knowledge is from hearsay, not experience.

Budd

The Allison V-1710 was (and is) an excellent engine. What the Merlin had that the Allison never did was a superior mechanical supercharger and aftercooler. Credit for that goes to ONE British engineer- "Doc" Hooker, who later played a key role in the design of numerous Bristol and then Rolls-Royce turbine engines including teh Olympus (Concorde, Vulcan) and RB.211 (TriStar, 747, 757, 777, etc.) The Merlin supercharger is about two times the size (physically) and far more advanced in turbin/stator design than the Allison unit. The Allison did fine when its mechanical supercharger was augmented by a turbocharger, as in the P-38 Lightning. But the availability of turbochargers at the time was very limited. All the B-17s and B-24s HAD to have them, and the P-38 and P-47 were already getting them, and production was maxed out. When the Mustang came along, it was arbitrarily decided that it would NOT be turbocharged because of the limited availability of turbochargers, so it had to limp along with essentially the same powerplant configuration as the much older P-40.

The Allison actually has a number of design advantages over the Merlin when it comes down to strictly the piston engine part of the design. The Allison has much stronger connecting rods, a stronger crankshaft, and a more rigid crankcase. Its also got much simpler accessory drives more like the Rolls Royce Griffon than like the Merlin, which was something of a kludge with drives hanging off all sorts of strange places- some off the supercharger gear case, some of the cam drives, etc.

In recent years, the most successful "Merlins" in air racing are actually hybrids built from post-war "transport" Merlin blocks, Allison connecting rods with custom bearings, and -9 Merlin superchargers.

I should have said 'poor performance' of the Allison engine.

Thanks for your interesting post.

Graham

What makes you think that all Nazi slave labourers spoke German ?

Graham

I don't think it's confined to Europeans. There are dickheads on both sides of the pond. Fortunately, it usually isn't too difficult to work out who is worth reading and who isn't.

Were it not for America, Europe would probably be made up of Soviet Republics and god knows what would have happened post European War.

Were it not for America and the Battle of Britain, Germany would have had the Atomic bomb 18 months before America, and the Third Reich would currently be looking at the new millennia with renewed confidence.

Were it not for Europe, America would still be almost entirely populated by indigenous Indians.

Anyone can play this game.

They have finally figured out how to re-smelt steel instead of just heating it up and re-rolling it, which , from the results, appears to be about all they did in the seventies. Todays quality steels can contain large proportions of remelted scrap.