Today I Am Driving . . .

Hmm . . . I suppose you need to practice working on your brake pedal action, too! :)

Although modern cars are harder to drive smoothly, it merely makes it more of a challenge! I recall I drove Tim Kemp's Volvo, and we happened across a traffic jam at some speed. I went for the brake pedal, and whilst I didn't quite activate the ABS, we kinda lost speed quite quickly. I only did it the once, but once was enough! :)

Some are better than others. The Golf is predictable, if dire. The Fiesta wasn't predictable, really, since it's jerkiness was caused by the air conditioning compressor cycling off and on. The Mondeo was always predictable! :) It takes a little bit of time, but I can usually adjust to most things.

Have you tried a Duratec one?

Abysmal? Perhaps it was the one you had, although not rapid, I find it adequate for overtaking manoeuvres. I had to before we agreed to get one!

Where's the limiter then?! lol. Not sure what the Focus will do in 3rd, but its over 75mph and the limiter is over 6500rpm somewhere, seeing as its my own car I dont punish it that much!

Tim..

No, I didn't realise there was any engine options other than the HCS.

Well, I was comparing it to the Escort TD at the time (which the rr showed to be 102bhp and 146lbft after tweaking). It was good for a 1.3 petrol car, but just didn't quite cut the mustard against the numerous coffin dodgers who slow to 25mph at the slightest hint of a bend then accellerate to 50 or so as you try to overtake them down the short straights. In general there are trees and hedges obstructing the view on bends, so I have to make use of the few short straight bits for overtaking. A slightly exagerated version of the potentially pant-soiling run-up method was nearly always required in the ka.

Also, the courtesy ka I had was only on about 2000 miles, so it was probably still a bit tight (although the tappets sounded loose enough!). I'm not knocking the Ka, it's just not what I require.

The Dervboy.

I had a focus 1.8 on hire once. The rev limiter didn't seem to work, and it kept going until the needle was off the scale, lol! There wasn't much acelleration left beyond the end of the red though!

Another example of the same car had a hard limit at 6700rpm. Most odd that two identical cars were so different.

The Dervboy

Yes; I know the type!

And I see where you're coming from, too.

85% or so of our driving is either on a multilaner, or in the city, where we don't need power, and I can live with the balance!

Dunno, the tacho goes up to 7,000 rpm! :)

Peak power is quoted as being produced at 5,200 rpm, but it pulls very sweety until about 6,500 rpm.

Don't those 1.25 engined Fiestas actually not have the red line marked on the tacho?

IIRC the 2 my brother's had as company cars (one Mk4 V reg, one Mk5 02 Reg) haven't.

Peter

Go on insult the peugeot XUD (diesel engine) I dare you

Michael

Its mother was a hamster and its father smelt of elderberries...

That'll be in the 306(b), will it?

-- JackH

Okay, how about: "PSA Group HDi engine?"

Again an excellent engine but still prefer the ECU'd non HDi 1.9 turbo engine.

In other news just heard that the jaguar diesel engine may be used in high end peugeots as it was jointly developed with PSA, do you think its true?

Cheers Michael

Good god man, you've lost it :)

Of course it's true - it's a Peugeot engine :) The new Ford diesel lumps were all co-developed with Pug.

It's even better than the XUD.

Hmmmm - do you EVER have full power selected for "ten seconds or more" ? This would result in loonatic speeds in the TI ! Even with a miniature, underpowered, tin-box car, you'd surely hit the limiter in whatever gear, within 10 seconds ?

in 5th from 20mph?

-- Dan

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Exactly! That was my point, I was insulting the XUD by telling it the name of a superior!