Erm, by 150k and certainly 200k miles, it's not likely to be my problem. That's if it ever becomes a problem.
My B5 was on the original turbo at 180k miles, and I had no reason to suspect it was going to 'let go' at any point - but that's all about how you treat it.
I have been worried about the common rail pumps playing up at high miles, but increasingly that's a problem shared with modern petrol engines anyway. However, it's not a guaranteed problem, either.
As I recall, your experiences of LPG have hardly been flawless, and isn't it slightly disappointing in terms of overall consumption - as in, it's not better than a diesel to the extent that it would be a worthwhilt conversion for most people?
No... keeping a car for 150 to 200k miles is very pikey.
I've no intention of keeping mine that long, but even if I did have, I'm not exactly sure where the evidence is that it'll blow itself apart by those sorts of miles if looked after, is.
You shouldn't have been. About £2K will get you a good one, less than £1K is probably buying trouble. And for less than £1K it will be a ghastly XLT version with the mega-chromee and the dodgy plastic widget that damages the timing chain. Late model North Face versions with the "Euro" styling are the ones to go for.
But avoid the vile combination of "Jungle Green" paint and the supposedly tan but looks more like pink leather.
Then again, but one for £895 and you won't mind running it down green lanes and into drystone walls. Fit a suspension lift kit and it will go anywhere a Defender goes and do it in more comfort.
*Please* can we have a UKRCM trackday or something soon - I'll bring the Passat and demonstrate to all the non-believers what can be achieved with a half decent in the first place TDI, when it's mapped. :-)
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Yea why not, aside from the Locost dudey, and Mr John Sylva - as I have NO idea what performance these things have or what they're like on track hehe - my shopping trolley Clio would lap quicker than any of you lots motors, probably by a fair way :-p
I bet I've forgotton someone with something good...
Oh no, my most favourite subject o]in the whooooooooooooooollllllle world :-)
0-60 in under 6 for the Locost zetec. That's tony's car.
0-60 in a bit over 4, or maybe with a bit of luck a bit under for mine.
Cornering forces, dependent on road surface. On a rough bit of badly maintained public tarmac, we wouldn't see where you or someone in a well driven Passat had gone. Yes, really. Our cars are not happy here. On mirror smooth race track or well maintained public road and with the exception of something like your clio with its tricky diff, the rest wouldn't see where we had gone.
See here for some distinctly non diesel perfromance. You'll probably have seen both of these before, but it's worth remembering what a se7en type car can do.
The late great Lawrence Hoy at Doune
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The late great Lawrence Hoy at Forrestburn
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And finally same track, different drive / car engine. Andy Thoirs in his MK Indy ZX12R. This one has flat shifter, paddle shift and runs on Avon ACB10s. The driver is a pilot with a very well known airline, so he's quite good too :-)
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Anyway, diesels may be great for lazy road driving and for torquing about the place, but can we please stop saying that for true performance driving like the above that they're even on the same planet.
That's amusing. When I worked for Ian Skellys we gave David James a car to smoke around in - a purpley blue diesel Passat of all things (The B4). When it came back off loan it was destroyed.
Straight lines are out then for the Sylva, I can probably hang onto the Locost - Evo had mine timed at 0-60 in 6.4, which seems to tally with results people get on Cliosport from going 'on the strip' etc. Renault's official time is 6.9 - that's two up, with half a tank of fuel on normal tyres.
It's the Megane with the tricky diff :-) The Clio doesn't need one really, it has 197bhp and 160lbs/ft and awesome front end grip. I've certainly never had a problem with the inside wheel spinning up or anything. 5th gear did a shoot-out in the last series - 197 Cup (mine has the Cup chassis, so, the same as mine) vs Mini Cooper S JCW - the new turbo'd one. Anyway, Plato drove the 197, Tiff drove the MCS and they passengered with each other during their drives. They mentioned that on one corner Tiff had to feather the throttle as the inside was spinning up but Plato could keep it pinned - and they went on comment on how much grip it had and how good the chassis was.
But as with all the RenaultSport cars, they're built with daily driver that can do trackdays at weekends in mind so I reckon your point stands. I mean, your stuff would be loads quicker, but as you say, it'd take longer for you to get away hehe.
I'd suggest no more needs saying after the vids an stuff really :-) I was gonna post the Fifth Gear vids of Tiff driving the 197, saying it was a great successor to the Williams, then saying it's handling was close to hot hatch perfection and just rambling on about how much he loves it hehe! Then the vid vs the MCS JCW where Plato is driving the 197 with Tiff passengering, having already set a lap, and he was worried that Plato was gonna beat his time - "I don't like your chassis being this good..."
...that, and if you've got a decent one, they're good for fast road stuff as well.
true performance driving
I haven't said that, have I?
I've mentioned a trackday as it would, to my mind at least, be a good place to demonstrate what it is, or isn't, capable of, and to finally put the ill considered s**te banded about in here that *all* diesels suffer with ultra narrow powerbands and need constant 'box stirring to make any progress.
No disrespect, but I couldn't give a flying f*ck whether or not you've had the same car in the past either - from what you've said so far, unless I'm mistaken it wasn't mapped, never mind mapped on a dyno.
I've got the printouts somewhere that put that one to bed in terms of how much I've gained by having that done, never mind how it performs in the real world.
If you want to compare like for like, a fairer comparison would be the equivalent Passat petrol, and if you want to wave willies about pure acceleration, maybe you'd like to put the Silva against something like my VFR... :-)
Yea the S2000 is just gay for use on our roads, as you spend your whole time in 2nd gear! And when you go for it, and hit Vtec in 2nd it's just mental fast and before you know it you're so far into 3 figures much quicker than you expected.
The gearing on mine is very short, and you can easily get to the limiter in the first 5 gears (by easily, I mean not down a hill etc). Renault quote the top speed as been 134mph @ 7,074rpm - I can verify it'll go above this as I've done it, and GPS'd it to 135mph when we were on our way to the ring, on what we thought was a unrestricted autobahn - turned out when we got home that actually, we didn't go on a single bit of unrestricted road... Oops :-p. It felt incredibly planted to the road as well, no lightness or anything, and apparently the rear diffuser generates 40kg of downforce at
134mph - is that likely to be what I was feeling? I mean is 40kg enough to be able to tell, as it did feel incredibly composed.
The limiter is at 7,500, max power at 7,250rpm - other people's accounts suggest that you can indeed hit the limiter in top. It's officially
18.94mph / 1000rpm in top - so I reckon about 142mph @ the limter. With it been so short geared it actually pulls reasonably at high speed too, rather than every 1 mph over 120 taking 5 minutes heh.
The box in the new one, was revised to get the revs down a bit at motorway speeds, so it's now 20.36/1000rpm with a new top speed of 139mph @ 6827rpm. But tbh, having driven both, I preferred the pre-oct '07 box as it made it a little perkier, but realistically wasn't gonna use much more fuel, as it wasn't revving much higher - only 300rpm more than the new one at 80mph. Was one of the reasons I chose the particular one I did, as it was a 'short box' one :-)
Twisting course like our hillclimb track ?...........................
But yes, I do take your point that remapped TDIs are much better than the standard ones. The bloke with the old Audis I was referring to the other week has just had his A4 quattro remapped and it now has 295lb/ft of torque.
And for what it's worth, I wouldn't wish that Vectra CDTi I had on anyone - it felt distinctly flat compared to the Passat, even when the Passat was standard.
I somehow doubt getting it mapped would have made it that much better either.
There are some shit diesels out there at the moment... it's just a shame that so many seemingly let a drive of one of those cloud their judgement of other diesels, having tarred them all with the same brush.
I'm only 22lb/ft off of that. :-)
It's reliable at the moment so I'm not so sure I want to go much further than perhaps maybe a front mount.
I'd also like to get my hands on a 2.0 TDI at some stage and see how much you can reliably extract from one of those.
Hmmm... so when exactly is your Passat due to be handed back, SteveH? ;-)
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