Brake pads

Pads every 40k, disks every 2 sets of pads, front tyres 15k for me. I do a fair few motorway miles though.

OK, how about a Rover 600 series and a Rover P4 100, or a BMC Cambridge/Oxford and a Focus of *equivalent* equipment spec?

FFS you need to lean how to drive, you should be getting twice that if most of your mileage is motorways...

Any more examples? How about:

Mk3 Escort 870kg, 2007 Focus 1208kg Mk1 Fiesta 785kg, 2007 Fiesta 1165kg Mk1 Astra 790kg, 2007 Astra 1240kg Mk1 Cavalier 925kg, 2007 Vectra 1501kg Mk1 Golf 750kg, 2007 Golf 1328kg

etc.

TBH mine seems fairly firm, but it is an "S" spec, which may be S for the sake of S, or S for sport. It doesn't seem over soft, and is capable of pulling your eyeballs out in braking - I had the G-meter out today and it clocked .95G as maximum braking force. However I do reckon it needs new TCAs, which may go some way to tidying up the cornering.

Exactly. The Ka pads and tyres lasted around 6k because it had small unvented disks and they soon got very hot. Same thing with the tyres, small tyres, soon got scrubbed to bits. That and the fact that I went everywhere as fast as possible...

That's kind of my point.

And pad material, and if the brakes a big enough for the job etc. What surprises me is that people write into magazines which what I would consider to be perfectly reasonable mileages to a set of pads, absolutely outraged that they've worn out.

What about comparing it to a rover 75 a rover 90 is 220kg lighter than a present day rover 75, so you have failed once again to prove your point. The rover 90 was famous for its lightweight aluminium body panels. in the days of heavy iron engines We are also talking of over 40 years of development.

Modern cars are much heavier than old equivalents.

Show me a proper major manufacturer of a present day 4 seater around the

Do you have any knowledge at all?

Leaning is usually only for motorbikes. When do they let you out?

We didn't have a Maccys car park back then. How do you know he's not just better than you :-) ?

Two times half the length.

Next.

Car weights won't get that light again, but Mazda are on a weight reduction exercise, corporate policy and all that, the new Mazda 2 is about 100kg lighter than competitors' cars.

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:31:33 GMT, I waved a wand and this message magically appears in front of Mrcheerful:

Question: Are today's cars a lot more fuel-efficient than yesteryear's cars?

No.

My 2L Ford Capri returns a bit more than my 2L Mondeo did.

BUt the Mondeo's rather closer to a Granada Coupe.

yes, but nothing like as good as they should be

I'd say Sierra. And my Sierra returned exactly the same as my Mondeo.

Cavalier does the same as the Vectra.

E34 BMWs are the same as the new ones..

Only thing that has dropped is the emissions.

On a per tonne and power basis though, they are more economical as weights and BHP/litre have gone up.

Conor gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

_Some_ emissions.

X amount of fuel and Y amount of air goes in, X+Y comes out the tailpipe. It's just the mix of stuff in that exhaust gas that's changed.