Boneheads have run out of juice

cisco

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"Family car's run out of juice"

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16822467-28793,00.html

"HIGH petrol prices have slammed the automotive industry, with six-cyclinder family car sales slumping by 30 per cent last month."

"The corolla's killing performance came as petrol prices prompted a 38 per cent jump in demand for small cars."

Great to see some of the meatheads who don't need the huge barges are *starting to* wake up simply because they are running out of money which might prompt their brains to have a bit of a think. All the soccer mums etc running around in massive 2+ ton prados just to cart 2 kids around in etc. And all the generic SS commodore lunatics suffering at the bowsers. Yeehah. So many of them actually truly believe that bigger cars handle better because the "extra weight holds the car to the ground" - bahahaha - morons.

You can feel so proud and almost laugh at people thesedays when you stand at a bowser filling up. Drive your micras proudly! Because you have been smart all along since 1995 way back in advance before the fuel prices hit the fan.

And also some great news for Nissan Aus:
"Other strong performances in September came from Nissan, which outsold both Mazda and Mitsubishi with 5402." That's fantastic.
 

CMF_White Knight

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Right on Cisco.
I see Nissan are thinking very hard about bringing in the K12. I think its the top end model re power and one model is a convertable!!
How long before we see the end of of those v8 "supercars" ( what a joke calling them supercars), and the rise of a premier motor car racing series open to all makes and models wherein races also set criteria for the amount of fuel that can be used.
That the public to a degree has been brainwashed by the yanks idea of a motor car is evident along with all those adds showing all those 4 wheel drives tearing up the country side where 90% of them never leave the suburbs plus never mention what damage they do when they hit a normal car and how easily they roll due to their high centre of gravity. Most of the publuc think they are safer.
The day of the Micra has arrived.
FIRE EM UP !!!

 

CMF_Sean

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A funny story...

I pulled up into a BP servo for some petrol... Next to me a SS was filling up and I noticed he was eyeing my brakes. He looked over and said "Its a shame about the fuel prices" So i started rattling off that my car (thankfully) uses half the amount... Then the guy said "But it doesn't go as fast"

Bahaha it just so happened that we pulled out at the same time and there was a red light just up ahead

To cut a long story short...

I backed off at 120km/hr (not wanting to tempt fate too much) and only then did he get in front of me...

The guy was astonished and gave the thumbs up and we were playing all the way home

I'd seriously consider buying a K12 if it came out here. Wide guards and some flares would look awesome on it

Sean
 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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feeding an SR20 is worth it though...

I havent driven any car under $30,000 which can rev its tits off day after day like an SR20 powered car.

Matty's micra actually tops it - however his car is special. I havent seen any other cg13 rev like matty's does...
 

CMF_White Knight

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Matty who?? Used to have a bit to say on the site but like the sunset has faded.
Has he a girlfriend who has taken over his mind or what??
What RPM are you putting out Matty? Have I missed something.
 

cisco

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Nice story Sean. haha.

Well bluey off the road for a bit lately, I've got some fixing up to do, so I'll be back soon and will blow some large car losers away then.
 

CMF_White Knight

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Ah!! All these little forced shopping trollys zooming around on the sniff of a petrol rag blowing away gas guzzlers.
Now with the pretend Bathurst race this weekend I just wonder what the fuel consumption would be like??
Would they win say against more fuel efficient, lighter, better handling cars?? How good are they?? How can you judge with just 2 makes with are just about identical racing each other.
Bring back the old days with an outright catagory and different catagories based on capacity.
I lost interest the day the Aussie made cars spat the dummy and said no other makes allowed.

 

cisco

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Yeah spot on.

So typical for Australians. I loved it when the GTRs blew our crap cars away. Teach stupid Australians a lesson I say. Get smarter. Evolve or die.

But instead they banned them from racing. Bah.

Any wonder we have a reputation around the globe as being pretty stupid on average. Somewhere like Japan would challenge our cars to join in and then they would make sure they blew us away. They would take it as a challenge to get smarter, not ban us. Bah!
 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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meanwhile the monaro is still much loved overseas and is considered to be quite a remarkable car...

Heck even I love the monaro. I'd pay for the fuel consumption of an LS1 ANYDAY.

After the LS1edit, they're not too bad on fuel if you drive sensibly. Even when you drive them hard they're still pretty good on fuel.

What? Someone's gotta stick up for them. But its only to a certain extent. :p
 

cisco

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Absolute garbage! Sorry but honestly.
Every single review I've ever read about any GEN-iii powered holden bags out the fuel economy.

Including the brand new ones. The fords have better consumption now, because the latest model ford engines are more high tech.

I saw a TV review in the UK of them comparing some new (recent) HSV model to a few of their cars, and they kept on saying how raw and low-tech the HSV was. Big grunty raw engine, very large heavy raw basic car, but massive engine and big brakes. Simple!
 

cisco

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Sorry, I'm not saying your opinion is rubbish. I'm saying that the comment "they're not too bad on fuel if you drive sensibly" is rubbish.

My mate has a GEN-iii and always whinges about the fuel bill. And he came from an SR20 SSS pulsar. He also bags out the GEN-iii's handling! :) Its a recent model Berlina or some bomb.
 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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Haha no worries, nice to have a constructive convo every now and again!

First lets look at the handling comment. A Gen-III is not a car. That's the engine. Basic physics tells us that a big fat heavy car isnt going to respond to driver input like a lighter car. For the record, the Gen 3 is one of the llighter V8's out there. Monaro is loved all over the world for its big engine and very neutral handling. It is literally one of the best in its class. Good work Holden!

Fuel consumption. Has your mate had the LS1 Edit with a mafless tune done? Not only does this usually free the old oil burning Chev donk up to an easy 300 flywheel kW with a good exhaust BUT it also is proven to improve fuel efficiency.

I know alot of people with Gen 3 powered commos and they are quite capable of averaging 12L/100km in daily use. Think about that sort of fuel consumption in such a LARGE car and with so much power sitting on tap...

If you can't see what constantly has me in awe of the 5.7L LS1/Gen3 V8 then you're really not looking at it with an opn mind. :)

I still give them hell about burning oil though. hehe :D
 

CMF_White Knight

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Agree with Cisco. Lumps of iron and if the Australian motor car industry was dominated say by the Japanese what sort of cars would the average Aussie be driving around in.
State of the art fours and sixes,with a list of options a mile long.
Both Ford and Holden have done very little to look at building lighter more compact fuel efficent cars running state of the art fours and sixes.
You want power buy a V8 that is their thinking.
Anyway to each his own and be sad if we all had the same likes, dislikes.
I know what gives me the biggest buzz. Fast small cars and the closer your bum is to the ground the better coupled with a car that is responsive and talks to you via handling, brakes and your gas pedal.I enjoy driving but guess to a lot of people its just a means to get from point A to B.How boring.

 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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I agree totally on the point that Holden and Ford australia have done pretty much nothing in the way of developing a large and efficient family car. Its downright outrageous to put it in nice language.

Until fuel is more expensive than an average beer the reality is that they're not going to change their ways.

Its safe to say that the only reason ford and holden are spending large amounts of money on a revised alloytec and barra is to make them pass new Euro 3 emissions standards in australia.

This probably won't make them any more fuel efficient either.

Still baffles me as to why a large FAMILY sedan needs close to 200kW available though.
 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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True, however there's always going to be the market for a large 'family' car. That's never going to change.

I agree though, why should the majority of the average australian families need more than a Corolla/Pulsar/Camry sized car?

We're very quickly coming up to severe space problems - large 4x4's are going to be targeted first which is only a good thing to get the soccor mums off the roads.

Next 5 years is going to be the crunch for holden and ford making cars in australia. All their smaller car alternatives are sourced from overseas. That aint gonna be good when sales of the falcon and commodore drop to the point where its actually cheaper to make them overseas and import. Yeh. Major problems for aussie economy/jobs in the next 5 to 10 years for the automotive industry.
 

cisco

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Yep. They need to evolve of they will die.

They should start to make smaller/smarter cars now while they still have time. Make them here, get ideas from the japs.

12L/100km in daily use for a Gen-iii rubbish! :) Not stop-start city driving. Absolute rubbish. Maybe if you idled down the street and turned the engine straight off again.

Yeah you know what I mean when I say "gen-iii's handle bad". I mean gen-iii powered vehicles are all heavy barges, therefore they don't handle as good as smaller cars. Now many reviews have praised some of the HSV cars for excellent handling (for a large car). I'm just comparing to decent handling smaller cars.

I would love nothing more than to be able to buy an Australian made smart small turbocharged/vvt/irs/feature-packed efficient car from our own guys here. You would be proud that they are smart and onto it. Then we wouldn't need to import so many cars from Japan. When you look at how many cars we import from Japan, there has to be a market for someone to start making them here instead.

Ford's latest engine in the BA is very high tec, just that its large capacity and the cars weigh so much as to why they burn fuel.

Well, the reason they need almost 200kw in a family car is because they now weight close to 2 tonnes. Power keeps going up, but so does the weight, they aren't getting any faster. More power, equals burning more fuel, equals poorer consumption. The engines gets a bit more efficient every model, but the weight goes up again bah!

No my mate's car is definately a Berlina, its not the latest model though, that might explain it, its pretty recent though. It was an option to have the gen-iii on his particular model in the berlina. But it has no LSD fitted, so it just does burnouts. He can't floor it off the line because it just digs a hole through one wheel. so much torque haha.
 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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BA's also suffer from build quality issues. I know of quite a few BA's which happily chew 20L/100km constantly. hehehehe

But yeh, I saw an LS1 w/edit use 12L/100km on a cruise. With my own eyes. I was sitting in the back seat! So believe what you will, I know its possible because i saw it with my own eyes. It actually used less fuel on this cruise than 3 other ecotec v6 commodores which came along.

I just think its a little naive to say that big motors are ineffiecient and evil/etc (if thats what you're implying of course)
 

CMF_White Knight

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No not saying that big motors are evil but my issue is that why do Ford and GMH keep building cars around 2 tonnes that need massive motors to haul em around.
Very little thought has gone into producing a small/ mid size car say powered by a range of 4,s which have excellent braking, handling and fuel economy.
A lot of people are going to loose their jobs in Australia as imports of such cars increase and the Ford/GMH dinosaurs
rust away as no one wants em.
Price you pay by having a car industry dominated by American companies who have no concept at all about fuel economy, small cars.

 

CMF_2

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NSW government keep building and funding better,longer,faster,expensive highway system and ask us to pay the expensive toll everytime we use them,but what about the train system,there's a "no" to a very reliable,fast,safe and comfort train system in australia.And quality for education is low as well,rude kids are everywhere.

Now the australian government is working like its big brother in the west now.Dont want to imagine what it will be like in 20 years....see what the American did to the world with the oil by killing innocent in the middle east.We should learn from them and not follow them.

Why did the electrical vehicles took so long to put them on the road in australia here,is it because australia signed an 100 years oil bulk buy agreement with the amercia so they keep their relationship close...????

 

cisco

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I agree with some of your points 2.

But didn't want this to extend out into a full blown political debate. The middle east for example, its another whole issue.
 

CMF_Micra_King

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Now guys im a 4WD and big car hater but be honest all you turbo micra owners and tell us what sort of fuel consumption your all getting :) Im thinking your getting crap consumption :) My micra is ok on fuel even with my lead foot but still aint the best for such a tiny car.
 

cisco

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7.2 litres per 100 km on the highway including some boosting when overtaking etc.

Burn the juice when you want to (when you're getting up it), pretty efficient when you don't.

7.2 is still a lot worse than a factory micra on the highway which is about 4.5 or whatever, but considering a bit of boosting and the power/speed that the car achieves, its pretty awesome.

If I ditched the microtech and put in something like an autronic and setup the lean cruise stuff really well, that figure would come down a decent amount, very close to factory highway consumption. Its all about the engine management.
 

CMF_mipcar

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A speaking of "boneheads", I was reading this article the other day. The attitudes of some aussie motor "fans" is just unbelievable but not surprising.
This guy now owns the Nissan GTR that blew all the local stuff away at Bathurst.He's restored it to original racing colors.
Anyway whenever he displays it he has to fence it off or protect it with a perspex sheild as these morons that call them themselves enthusists (but only if it's Ford or Holden) will spit on his car or worse throw cans and crap at it, all because Nissan made a better winning car then the local market dinosaurs.

Mychael
 

cisco

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Yeah its not bad - I was impressed when I measured it too. That's on highway remember.

I can most certainly floor it all day long and suck up a bucket load more juice than that. But like I said, all comes down to the power when you need it, and not wasting the fuel when you don't. A 1.7 tonne car is burning a bit of fuel all the time just to be able to move even when you aren't on the gas very hard.
 

cisco

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Nothing but sad that story mipcar. Bloody disgusting.
Those germs should be locked up. Anyone who doesn't respect someone else's property should be dealt with accordingly.
 

CMF_flip

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hi all,
ok i havent read every single post on this thread, but did anyone consider that maybe they build large family cars in order to be able to tow heavy things, such as boats. imagine a 2.4L 4 cyl camry trying to tow a good sized boat over a hill during a holiday with the kids. i just think the commodore or falcon would be able to do it better.
oh, and no one better start mentioning power figures from other jap cars, such as a subaru forester, coz the average aussie family doesnt have that much money to waste. hence, they buy more affordable commodores, falcons, magnas...

sold my micra slx not long ago in search for a super s...didnt find one...so settled for limited edition daihatsu charade f2, which i got cheap.

anyway, thats my 2 cents...
 

CMF_Sean

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Fuel consumption: Don't ask

My family has a new GQ Patrol.. Yes its huge and yes it is a daily driver that doesn't see much off road action at all...

However we need it for towing... When you're towing something that weighs 2tonne+ you want something that can handle it no problem... And we tow our boat every second weekend..

Some people actually have some uses for these kinds of cars albeit you don't see it everyday. Hey, they could be saying the same thing about our turbo Micra's and how dangerous they are etc...

Sean
 

cisco

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I've always agreed with that. My parents always drive falcons, currently an EF and looking to buy a BA soon. They tow a caravan and a trailer. They like to tour around in Australia every coupld of years in their caravan. They've don it twice so far.

Of course for towing etc you have to have a large car, its unavoidable. So I totally agree. I would like to see the large gets become much more efficient though. You know like really efficient 2litre turbo's producing excellent torque instead of simple 4 and 5 litre engines. That's my main gripe. But yes it goes back to what the average person can afford and is prepared to pay. But ford did some amazing things on their latest engines, i.e. XRT6urbo, I can't see why it couldn't have been a 2 litre engine etc. They are capable of it. But the reaction from the aussies if falcons had a 2 litre turbo would be furious! heh. "only milk and juice comes in 2 litres!".

I like large cars also. So comfortable and stable/cushy. But I much prefer a camry with a smarter 3.0l vvt engine and lighter car than the big ford/holden engines. Camry's are great. Just don't think that everyone automatically needs a large car. So many people just by one by default without really thinking, what is it that I really need. YOu know, like for a lot of people in Australia, its just the standard decision to get a large car.
 

cisco

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Hehe.

I love the aussie big bangers for what they are, they certainly some up Australia and the whole massive raw grunt type of approach, but just annoy me how inefficient they are etc.

The race is on today, have watched smidgens of it for the last 15 minutes or so. Its still interesting to watch, but my heart isn't in it, I would much rather see a whole mixed bag of cars like the old days in there, BMW 3 series, cosworth sierra's etc. Used to be a lot more interesting.
The commodres and falcons are virtually identical, so its just a race about driver skill.

Bring back George Fury in his turbo bluebird with the crazy qualifying engine that ran 40psi boost or whatever it was!
 

CMF_Micra_King

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mighty if your family is that rich they can own a huge boat then maybe they should keep it at the marina and not tow it all the time :) The money it costs them to own a 4wd and running costs and the money they lose on it when they sell would more than pay for it to be left at the marina and you could just drive there and take off in the boat....easy.
 

CMF_White Knight

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Agree Cisco, Be great to see a real mix of 4's, 6's, 8's, 12's, rotaries etc all hammering away in the one race.
LIghtweigh screamers v big iron grunters.Then such issues as handling , brakes, fuel economy would be thrown into the mix.
Bring back the old days!!!!!

 

CMF_Tony

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The best and the only touring car racing i could watch was the British Touring cars, They where great bumping and grinding.

Rallying is also the most amazing to watch with different suroundings all the time, I don't no what it is about the V8s i try to enjoy them but just have no interest.

The GTP class with Lambos S15s Falcons hondas Mitsubishis Nissans and Commodores and pretty much everything else you can think off is the most accurate form of motor racing if you ask me in real terms, Very limited mods and you can see how something like a Micra or Swift can compete against the aussie 6 and 8's around a race track.
 

CMF_Tony

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Also i was having a chat the other day with a couple of work mates about the cost of fuel and consumtion per week.

One guy drives a WRX and seems to do ok with around 50ish $ a week while the other guy that has a XR6 turbo and drives it after work and on weekends, while his wife drives it to work daily said that they go threw between $150 and $180 aweek in fuel.

I started pissing my self and could not stop while he said "I don't think that is very bad"

I said to him your car go's allright but that is just stupid, Then tryed to explain that the Japs had the right idea with performance and light weight.

With even the 6 banger Falcons and Commodores they now have about 200 kw and they still don't go great, If a jap has 200kw it with almost always go like a shower of ****.

BUT HE STILL DISAGREES AND STILL GOS THREW $150-$180 AWEEK IN FUEL...
 

CMF_NotAnotherSSS

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Micra King - keeping a boat at a marina is NOT a cheap thing to do. It is actually cheaper (when the boat is trailer-able) to buy a $60,000 turbo diesel 4x4 and just haul it to the water when you want to use it. Besides, when unlaiden the 3.0L patrol is a beautiful mix of technology to create efficiency. Big 2.5t patrol uses less diesel per 100km than a brand spanker V6 alloytec commodore.

Oh and in the right hands a large 4x4 such as the patrol poses no more of hazard to other road users than a camry with a full family in the back (seat).

Besides, last i checked there wasnt any sea near the ACT. Unless they're hiding something!
 

CMF_White Knight

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Until they smash into a normal sedan and chances are its a female in a massive 4 wheel drive bought by hubby to drive the kids to and from school and do the shopping in.
He bought it for her as it is "safe" and stuff what carnage it will do to other road users in normal sedans.
I have no beef against people who buy them for the right reasons but when they are for just hacking around suburbia thats another issue.
I am not anti female drivers at all but well when I see one in a massive 4x4 with the kids in tow I tend to be extra careful.
I never park next to one in a shopping centre either !!!
 
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