Most cars in Europe have manual trannies?

In message , Scott Dorsey writes

O.K. Hands up, I'll admit the manual is good, but the others are just cheap innovations to get round paying royalties .

Reply to
Clive
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In Canada there's a female stand-up comedian who had a bit that went something like this;

"You know what I'm talkin' about ladies... what is it about men??!... What's with them??! You know... it's all about WHAM BAM thank you ma'am, and yet they're forever telling you 'never, never, never ever gun a cold engine'!"

Reply to
M.A. Stewart

I understand the appeal of the SMG for people who want to go around feeling like they are F-1 drivers. But personally I just drive to work and back every day and I'll take the manual.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

e :-)

I got it, you like it. Myself, I think i've grown out of the jap tin cans. Of course rattling bolts in subarus helped a lot to cure me. That and the fact that south of the premium class you can hardly find a jap rear wheel driver and there is not much fun in winter with front wheel driver.

Heck, even the 50:50 split on A4 quattro and ESP off leaves me wanting for more rear axle bias. that's probably fixed in the current gen A4.

Reply to
AD

:-)

you need more skillz.

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Reply to
jim beam

D

ressive :-)

Sure, but why do I need to do more work than classic driveline layout allows for intrinsically?

Exactly: i'm old, lazy and i don't want to combat the problems with fwd layout when i don't have to. Which is in 99% of the normal turning around corners. I'm so sick and tired of understeer & co

thanks for the video

Reply to
AD

impressive :-)

these are not "problems". fwd pulls you through corners that rwd can't handle as well - if you know what you're doing. and for "normal" driving, in snow and ice, it gives you traction that rwd can't begin to approach.

sorry to sound like a broken record, but it's a matter of skill and familiarity. as a person that has mostly driven fwd, i'm "old and lazy and don't want to combat the problems of rwd layout". you see what i mean?

there's loads more out there. check out this guy:

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  1. this guy is seriously talented.

  1. i wish we had cars like that over here.

Reply to
jim beam

AD

impressive :-)

No problem, I'm used to hearing nonsense like "any bike is way more than a typical rider can handle". Then you casually mention all the spills that they had when traction limited and once the subject of tires comes up all the cacadu shut up real fast.

No it is not. I took my rear wheel drive beater for a spin today (it was snowing the whole night) and it's completely different ballgame than a quattro based A4, even with ESP out of the way of fun.

A4 quattro is wearing Xi North and rwd beater is on nordman rs (older HKPL RSi essentially).

the tires are not that dissimilar to invalidate my comparison. rear wheel driver is sooo much fun in the snow for an unskilled driver such as myself who does not need front wheel drive crutch any longer.

The only reason fwd exists is to allow newer drivers to drive in the snow without the extra adrenaline of the rear end coming around in the corners a bit quicker than they might have expected.

I'm not disputing that

Z3 or Z4 they are making circles about? You have it in the US.

The crap ford? mazda 2 is sold in the north american market now and is not that severely handicapped in the manual transmission version. You have had an arguably better Fit for years now also.

Or do you mean the shitty malazian built rover the professional dirver is driving in the first video that you provided? I'm sure there is a better, cheaper, easier to maintain clone of that roaming the streets of US of A

Reply to
AD

AD

impressive :-)

A Reno? If it's anything like a pegaout 206 you'd have to disassemble half of the car to replace a headlight bulb. There is a reason frenchies are no longer sold in the states. in addition to the poor reliability (and poor crash results for reno rebadged dacias) they must be a real pain in the neck to maintain. I wonder how does fiat 500 fare cost of ownership and maintenance wise from the US of A point of view. You poked in it yet to comment on the italian econo-borderline-lux engineering?

Reply to
AD

A Reno? If it's anything like a pegaout 206 you'd have to disassemble half of the car to replace a headlight bulb. There is a reason frenchies are no longer sold in the states. in addition to the poor reliability (and poor crash results for reno rebadged dacias) they must be a real pain in the neck to maintain.

******** Both the Peugeot and the Renault are much improved cars over years past. They tend to be smooth and quiet on the road and hold up well.

The reason they are no longer sold here is that, when they tried to get a foothold in the USA, they were not so good, didnt have very good partners here, etc... Just not a well executed venture. They are not here now because they decided not to spend the time and money getting the cars smog approved after a rather poor entry before.

Renault was one of the best in Europe with respect to crash results. You may remember that one family donated the body of their deceased child so that Renault could do some realistic crash tests. It worked, but was understandably not a very popular undertaking.

Reply to
hls

impressive :-)

rwd is easy to drive. but don't forget, the whole reason the rear is hanging out is lack of traction. lack of traction means you're not putting power to the road, and that in turn means you're not getting the speed you could be getting with a configuration that gives /more/ traction. the fwd is harder to drive fast, but when you can, it's blistering.

i don't understand why this is a 4wd comparison - that renault is fwd, not 4wd.

no, fwd exists because of the all-round traction advantages, not just in snow.

i don't know about the fords, but i seriously doubt they're selling a

300hp turbo. the fit barely gets past 110hp - with it's heavy body, that's not doing much for performance. the renault clio turbo in that vid is very powerful and very light. it would be freakin /awesome/ to be able to get one here.

the nearest are the wrx and the evo. but they're both bigger, heavier, and 4wd.

Reply to
jim beam

FWD is easier.

No, it most definitely is not.

but when you can, it's

From dragsters to F1, there are no "real" race cars (or motorcycles) that are FWD.

No, they exist because the drivetrain can be made lighter, they're space saving and cheaper to manufacture.

Reply to
Hoof Hearted

go back and re-read the context dude - rwd is easier to "drift".

uh, we all know that. but fwd has been highly successful on the rally circuit, and offers advantages to the ordinary driver.

and "real race cars" are mid-engine - that's simply not an option for the family sedan.

lighter and space saving, definitely. but cheaper, that's not true. especially if you're comparing to the solid axle garbage we drive over here.

Reply to
jim beam

oh, what the heck - i'm going to post this "not a real race car" one more time.

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Reply to
jim beam

And, in every respect, faster than FWD.

Not real race cars.

No one is disputing that.

More recently, yes, but that's not always been the case.

- that's simply not an option for the

Family sedans and race cars are mutually exclusive concepts.

No, they are cheaper in both materials and manufacturing costs.

Reply to
Hoof Hearted

That is correct, it most assuredly is not.

Reply to
Hoof Hearted

you're clearly not someone capable of analysis so there's no point discussing anything else, but on this point, i'm not letting you propagate an untruth. particularly as it's merely your underinformed opinion.

the truth is, actual manufacturer costs of the components in a fwd configuration vs rwd, rwd is frequently cheaper. this is because driven steering components are more expensive, there are more expensive bearings, more cv joints, more seals, etc.

there are areas of savings, but they're in things like assembly time. but that's marginal. oh, and materials /are/ a manufacturing cost.

Reply to
jim beam

How might anyone possibly dispute such a well delinated and reasoned argument. And thanx for the supercilious pretense.

That is incorrect.

There are many fewer parts and much speedier assemby with a FWD as opposed to a RWG.

There are no marginally insignificant savings in the design and manufacture of literally millions of items.

Reply to
Hoof Hearted

ok, so you don't know what you're talking about - thanks for removing any hint of confusion.

re-read what i said big guy. better yet, read the whole post /before/ shooting from the hip.

that is utterly incoherent.

Reply to
jim beam

Not again thanks, the boorish approach of your feeble rebuttals continue to be totally devoid of any value whatsoever, particularly when combined with such thoroughly unconvincing, abject pretentiousness.

Reply to
Hoof Hearted

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