Brake fluid in power steering?

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

Says the prick, with a degree, who drives a 17 year old shed as he can't afford a better car.

[rbowman]

Trade it in on a Fiat 500... like the New Beetle and the Mini-Cooper Fiat seems to have taken what was a cheap little car and turned it into an expensive little car. My Yaris is closer to the original idea of the Cooper than the nostalgia version.

[Clare Snyder]

Parked the 600D beside a "new mini" the other day and the mini looked lioke a cadillac!!

[Commander Kinsey]

You're an idiot paying for depreciation. Oh and my "shed" will go 120.

[Commander Kinsey]

I did some measurements in my Golf TDI auto. Anything up to 55mph was equally efficient, after that I lost 5mpg per 10mph. And of course trying to keep at a constant speed without braking and accelerating a lot helps massively. The odd result that contradicts what most people say is that it was just as efficient driving slowly (eg 20mph in a built up area - as long as it was a continuous 20 and not lots of junctions to stop at - might have been the auto gearbox that helped with that, modern autos have a torque convertor so it's always in the optimum gear, sometimes inbetween gears).

I don't understand why they don't make cars with a better range, just add a bigger tank! Even in the UK I find it irritating that I have to refuel quite often. When I had a car that ran on LPG it was very annoying as there were hardly any stations with it. Wait till we all have electric cars that only go just over 100 miles before needing a half hour charge, everybody's going to be sat around a lot, we'll need more cafes....

I just refuel every time I spot it down to a quarter full. Obviously if I was somewhere with a lack of fuelling stations, I'd fill up at half full.

[blt_1qQn]

Presumably you have to push it off a cliff first though?

[blt_8dlu4jcv6w]

Autos have always had torque converters. Its only since dual clutch systems became common in the last 15 years that they've moved away from them.

A bigger tank requires more space and there's the issue of crash resistance. Most cars can do 400 miles on a tank which means even at a steady 70mph you'll only be filling up once every 5-6 hours or so. Is that so onorous?

LPG = mobile bomb. Most of the conversions leak gas. Utterly dangerous technology, god knows why they were allowed on the road.

Most electric cars can do over 200 miles on a charge even today.

Where do you drive, the sahara desert?

[rbowman]

As long as your definition of 'always' is 70 years. Fluid couplings had been used earlier but afaik the Dynaflow was the first to use a torque converter. In that era there were some real Frankensteins. I had a '49 Chrysler that has both a fluid coupling and a clutch in front of a two speed transmission with overdrive for four speeds forward.

Most of them sucked. Chevrolet's version of the Dynaflow, Powerglide, was called Powerslide by those who appreciated the snappy performance of a two speed tranny and a torque converter.

Chrysler was a late bloomer but the Torqueflite three speed from the '60s was the first AT that showed promise.

[Commander Kinsey]

No, the old ones used to just jump from one gear to the next. My Golf (1998) would not change gear at all up to 40mph if you were accelerating gently. The revs would stay at precisely 2000 as the convertor adjusted gradually. Old cars (and my neighbour's 2004 Rover) can't do that, they change gear like a learner driver - last time I drove it, I was driving with very slight acceleration in town up to 30 or 40mph, and every so often it would change gear and jolt me and the passenger. When I told her it was shit, she said she didn't realise other autos were better as she'd always had a Rover.

Actually most cars do about 250 unless you're one of those high mile club folk and drive like Miss Daisy.

Pansy.

Utter bullshit. There are very few electric cars invented yet. Most are in the low 100s.

I was referring to what rbowman had said, that there are places in the USA without many filling stations.

[Commander Kinsey]

What people are you referring to? Myself and most people I know will drive in the highest gear they can without the engine struggling. Perhaps if you're in a situation where you'd have to change every 10 seconds, you wouldn't bother and the auto would.

I don't believe you. An engine is less efficient if you place a higher demand on it.

[Commander Kinsey]

No, I just use the pedal everyone seems to have forgotten about, it's called an accelerator. Nowadays everyone sits waiting at junctions for a gap the size of a bus so they can pull out slowly.

[blt_VtI]

A torque converter is a fluid coupling.

[blt_0r7_7zfGz]

Umm yes, "jumping from one gear to the next" is generally how old style auto boxes worked. They generally don't go straight from 1st to 5th.

Bollocks. Just because some old nail is jerky doesn't mean it doesn't have a torque converter you doughnut.

The heaps of crap you drive might only manage 250, probably because you nail the throttle until you hit its top speed of 85mph, but most modern cars will get 400 out of the tank at motorway speeds.

I'm sorry, have you just arrived in a Tardis from 2009?

[Commander Kinsey]

With a torque convertor, there is no jumping. It's like a manual gearbox with a lot of clutch slippage.

They've had it from new and it's always been that way.

Define "motorway speed". I do 100.

Have a look around you, how many cars are electric (and don't include hybrids). Here I'd say it was 1 in 300 at the most. They cost more to buy, you have a huge £5000 cost when the battery needs replacing every 5 years, there are f*ck all places to charge them, and it takes forever to fill them up. They just aren't yet a viable means of transport.

[blt_boOe4yx8]

Rubbish. It depends how its built. You can have very slippy fluid couplings and you can have ones that feel like there's a solid connection.

Nuff said.

Not yet, but go back to 1819 and try to fill up a petrol or diesel car. Coal from the local railway wouldn't do you much good.

[Commander Kinsey]

I guess Rover made theirs shit. My VW, Honda, and Range Rover could often change gear with the only way I could tell being the rev counter and the engine pitch. I was physically not jerked at all.

So you're one of those retards with the slow brains that grind the country to a halt. Just get out of my way.

I'll get an electric car when it will travel as far as a petrol car, costs me no more to run, and will fill up as fast.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

With electric cars, my idea would be battery exchange. That could be done quickly.

I do that too.

BTW, I remember going on trips in the early seventies, when there were

1-3 fuelling stations on most corners along a major street.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I got about 370 miles between fillups once (nearly all of that was highway driving). Usually, I don't let it get that low.

[snip]

[TMS320]

That's what I meant.

Don't believe it if you don't want to. That is your nature.

That would create the impossible condition of having highest efficiency with no demand at all. And a low gear would be better than a high gear.

Remember my mention of 3kW/1000rpm internal friction? If you ask for 1kW out, the engine has to produce 4kW. Ask for 3kW and it only has to produce 6kW.

Have a look at:-

[Commander Kinsey]

Only lazy folk drive like that. I change up a gear whenever possible. Unless I need power, I keep the revs below 1500.

Everybody knows it's more economical to drive at a constant speed, and not to stress the engine. You're a cyclist, right? Which do you find easier, a nice steady even pace, or pedalling as hard as you can then freewheeling?

No, I never said there was no lower limit. I find the most economical revs is 1000-1500, which is what an auto does.

No, spinning the engine at 6000rpm is less economical.

This is in agreement with what I'm thinking, that you waste fuel per revs. So it's best to always run the engine at low revs. Your idea of it being more economical to drive on narrow, undulating West Country road doesn't make sense, that's going to require gear changing and revving all the time.