What feature in your car could you not live without?

[Bombastinator]

15 hours ago, TomvanWijnen said:

Funny you say that, as I actually prefer diesel, because in my experience they're much more responsive and faster at the same HP level.

More responsive?!  
 

The biggest issue with diesel vs gasoline is diesel can’t accelerate nearly as quickly, even with their additional torque. (Diesel engines have more torque.  Frequently a lot more) Its a fundamental of the way they work.  Wheelspin? Sure.  Pull away from a standing stop? Sure.  Responsive? I’m not getting that bit.

 

This is why the electric cars have those mad zero to 60 times. Torque and acceleration together.

[Bombastinator]

16 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

This:

 

An ash tray?

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

An ash tray?

The gated shifter and secondary to that, the reverse shift layout.

 

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

The gated shifter and secondary to that, the reverse shift layout.

 

Ive heard gated shifters are something of an acquired taste.  Mine was for more or less the opposite.  Willowy cable shifters on rear engine cars.  I guess it’s what one gets used to. 

[Loote]

The lever in my grandpa's car is so loose, you can move it 20cm right and left when in gear, I've no idea how it is possible to still use it, but it's actually not a problem at all.

 

The most basic features:
-audio with aux
-remote lock

-a/c

-cruise control

Further than that I don't really care for other features, they're nice but not crucial.

[TomvanWijnen]

10 hours ago, Parideboy said:

I'm referring to the response of the engine itself, not the speed of the car. Even in neutral, I feel a slight delay in diesel cars when hitting the throttle, very similar to the lag produced by turbos.

I have never noticed any delay in the response of my diesel engine, it's always - as far as I can tell - instant, especially in low gears. I don't know whether that's also the case when in neutral, as I don't hit the throttle when in neutral, because there's no point in doing so.

 

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

More responsive?!  
 

The biggest issue with diesel vs gasoline is diesel can’t accelerate nearly as quickly, even with their additional torque. (Diesel engines have more torque.  Frequently a lot more) Its a fundamental of the way they work.  Wheelspin? Sure.  Pull away from a standing stop? Sure.  Responsive? I’m not getting that bit.

 

This is why the electric cars have those mad zero to 60 times. Torque and acceleration together.

I've driven in a 150 HP petrol car (less than a year old) and a 151 HP diesel van (nearly 20 years old), and the van always feels much faster than that car did. In the car, I was literally told by my driving instructor (it's their car) that the best way to get up to highway speed is to stay in 3rd or 4th gear and put the pedal to the floor. It always took ages to get up to speed. Compare this to the van I drive, in which I don't even come close to max throttle and already am much faster than that car.

 

The same goes with my aunts car. It's only 94 HP petrol, but about half the weight of the van, and of course with much less air resistance. It feels sooooo slow compared to the van.

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, TomvanWijnen said:

I have never noticed any delay in the response of my diesel engine, it's always - as far as I can tell - instant, especially in low gears. I don't know whether that's also the case when in neutral, as I don't hit the throttle when in neutral, because there's no point in doing so.

 

I've driven in a 150 HP petrol car (less than a year old) and a 151 HP diesel van (nearly 20 years old), and the van always feels much faster than that car did. In the car, I was literally told by my driving instructor (it's their car) that the best way to get up to highway speed is to stay in 3rd or 4th gear and put the pedal to the floor. It always took ages to get up to speed. Compare this to the van I drive, in which I don't even come close to max throttle and already am much faster than that car.

 

The same goes with my aunts car. It's only 94 HP petrol, but about half the weight of the van, and of course with much less air resistance. It feels sooooo slow compared to the van.

I grew up driving diesel vehicles.  The fun part of driving an old diesel isn't acceleration because everything can out accelerate you.  It’s that acceleration creates gigantic amounts of unburned fuel which comes out the tailpipe as heavy black smoke and smells terrible.  You’re basically a skunk.  *Honk*  “Oh, you want me to hit the gas and go faster?  You really really sure?” *honk* “OK.....now don’t you wish I hadn’t done that?”

[TomvanWijnen]

26 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I grew up driving diesel vehicles.  The fun part of driving an old diesel isn't acceleration because everything can out accelerate you.  It’s that acceleration creates gigantic amounts of unburned fuel which comes out the tailpipe as heavy black smoke and smells terrible.  You’re basically a skunk.  *Honk*  “Oh, you want me to hit the gas and go faster?  You really really sure?” *honk* “OK.....now don’t you wish I hadn’t done that?”

I still stand by my point that I've never found acceleration be lacking, especially comparing it to other cars I've driven.

The exhaust fumes always smell terrible, I don't have to step on the accelerator for that.  I've never seen black smoke, but sometimes when really pushing it (which is almost never, because it's almost never necessary to be so fast) it produces some nice white smoke.

[Orange1]

Some people couldnt live without their car, even if they had a transit system in their city.

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, Orange1 said:

Some people couldnt live without their car, even if they had a transit system in their city.

“Live” has become a thing in this I’m not sure is accurate.  “Live” appears to mean “not be unhappy and whiney”.  

[Orange1]

Give them a manual transmission vehicle and see how it goes.

So live without, probably automatic transmission is top of the list.

Then maybe GPS, power windows.

[Parideboy]

1 hour ago, TomvanWijnen said:

I don't know whether that's also the case when in neutral, as I don't hit the throttle when in neutral, because there's no point in doing so.

Yeah I don't do it regurarly myself, I tried it just for the scope of testing to eliminate all variables such has the weight of the vehicles.

1 hour ago, TomvanWijnen said:

In the car, I was literally told by my driving instructor (it's their car) that the best way to get up to highway speed is to stay in 3rd or 4th gear and put the pedal to the floor.

This is bad advice, in general. Gears don't matter at all, rpm do. Engines produce power based on their rpm, not gears. Gears change ratios, but torque and power curves stay mostly unchanged. In diesel engines you can floor it basically whenever you want, they pick up torque, and "the car moves".

If you try to do the same thing at low rpm with a gasoline engine it's going to take much more time because they weren't meant to operate in that range, not efficiently anyways.

 

Practical example. Let's assume 2 cars with the same HP, both @1500 rpm. We want to accelerate.

 

Diesel: you floor it. The car picks up rpm and starts accelerating. All good.
Gasoline: you can't floor it, the rpm is low. You'll have to downshift a gear (even 2 depending on the engine and the rpm you want to reach, just make sure to rev match) and then floor it. You'll most likely be faster than the diesel. As dangerous as it sounds, this is what automatic transmissions do, even on diesel engines if the rpm is too low.

 

If we take the graphs I posted earlier as a reference, @1500 rpm the gasoline engine produces less than a third of the torque generated by the diesel engine. This is why diesel engines don't need to downshift to accelerate decently. Diesel and gasoline engines don't drive the same, as they produce their power in entirely different ways.

 

The best way (if by best he meant fastest) is to keep the rpm in the range of maximum torque and shift when the power curve drops (it's way more complicated than that in reality). Since we're not in a race track, this is not feasible, but there's a middle ground.
TLDR: the higher the rpm the better, within reason.

[Loote]

4 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

Diesel: you floor it. The car picks up rpm and starts accelerating. All good.

Gasoline: you can't floor it, the rpm is low. You'll have to downshift a gear (even 2 depending on the engine and the rpm you want to reach, just make sure to rev match) and then floor it. You'll most likely be faster than the diesel. As dangerous as it sounds, this is what automatic transmissions do, even on diesel engines if the rpm is too low.

There are diesels that do high rpm and gas engines which have high torque and low max rpm, the maps you attached in the previous post show a general idea, but there's more and more things like that:

 

From my experiences with diesels, if anything, the zone where you get the full power is much shorter, what I mean is switching a bit too fast or too slow would make much bigger difference and flooring it in a high gear took even more time to accelerate than the gasoline ones.

Anyways, around the time turbos in gasoline engines started getting popular is also when it stopped being easy to tell what kind of fuel the car is using, there will be a bigger difference between top of the line turbo gasoline engine and some old one with classical characteristics than with top of the line diesel.

[TomvanWijnen]

48 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

Yeah I don't do it regurarly myself, I tried it just for the scope of testing to eliminate all variables such has the weight of the vehicles.

Ah, I see. If I remember, and can find a spot where I can try without looking stupid, I'll try it in our van this Saturday.

 

49 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

This is bad advice, in general. Gears don't matter at all, rpm do. Engines produce power based on their rpm, not gears. Gears change ratios, but torque and power curves stay mostly unchanged. In diesel engines you can floor it basically whenever you want, they pick up torque, and "the car moves".

If you try to do the same thing at low rpm with a gasoline engine it's going to take much more time because they weren't meant to operate in that range, not efficiently anyways.

That's honestly what I thought as well. Though, I think I can understand the reasoning behind it. I said 3rd or 4th gear - it was generally 3rd gear, in a car with 6 gears. Of course, I'd first start in gear 1 (if standing still), move to 2, and then to 3, and keep it there until 100 or 120 km/h, and then immediately go to 6th gear. I actually felt like it accelerated better towards the end.

 

In our diesel car I do go from gear 1 to 5, not skipping over any along the way.

 

54 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

Practical example. Let's assume 2 cars with the same HP, both @1500 rpm. We want to accelerate.

 

Diesel: you floor it. The car picks up rpm and starts accelerating. All good.
Gasoline: you can't floor it, the rpm is low. You'll have to downshift a gear (even 2 depending on the engine and the rpm you want to reach, just make sure to rev match) and then floor it. You'll most likely be faster than the diesel. As dangerous as it sounds, this is what automatic transmissions do, even on diesel engines if the rpm is too low.

 

If we take the graphs I posted earlier as a reference, @1500 rpm the gasoline engine produces less than a third of the torque generated by the diesel engine. This is why diesel engines don't need to downshift to accelerate decently. Diesel and gasoline engines don't drive the same, as they produce their power in entirely different ways.

Oh on our diesel car I can definitely also notice it when the rpm is too low. In 3rd gear or higher it should be above approximately 1800 rpm for the most power, under that it often feels held back, as the rpm is just too low. Moving up a gear (excluding 1 to 2) is done at approximately 3000 rpm, for 2 to 3 sometimes a bit later, for 3 to 4 and 4 to 5 sometimes a bit earlier. It can go to 4000 rpm or even much higher just fine, but actually shifting up would generally be better.

 

42 minutes ago, Loote said:

From my experiences with diesels, if anything, the zone where you get the full power is much shorter, what I mean is switching a bit too fast or too slow would make much bigger difference and flooring it in a high gear took even more time to accelerate than the gasoline ones.

Exactly. Changing gears too early or too late makes it significantly slower than it would be otherwise.

[CommanderAlex]

Most likely Anti-Lock Brakes, FM radio, and electric windows (especially in the summer on the highway). 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, TomvanWijnen said:

I still stand by my point that I've never found acceleration be lacking, especially comparing it to other cars I've driven.

The exhaust fumes always smell terrible, I don't have to step on the accelerator for that.  I've never seen black smoke, but sometimes when really pushing it (which is almost never, because it's almost never necessary to be so fast) it produces some nice white smoke.

You’re not under heavy acceleration then.   They make diesel dragsters.  They look like this.

They’re more like monster trucks than race cars.  Notice how he’s got twice as much engine as the guy he’s racing and still loses.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Orange1]

On 10/16/2020 at 11:24 AM, Bombastinator said:

It becomes a question of the definition of feature. The most basic requirement could for example be wheels.  I took it to mean a thing that is added on.  Air con used to be an add on but isn’t anymore for my area.

air conditioning does cost more when originally purchased, the price of a/c is apart of the purchase price. It could technically be a feature, but wheels are not, then you could get into technicalities of steel or aluminum rims as a part of the wheel being a feature, but thats all pretty basic. Like power windows as I mentioned earlier. Leather could be a feature, block heater. I remember when digital speedo first came out I was very impressed with that feature.

[Bombastinator]

27 minutes ago, Orange1 said:

air conditioning does cost more when originally purchased, the price of a/c is apart of the purchase price. It could technically be a feature, but wheels are not, then you could get into technicalities of steel or aluminum rims as a part of the wheel being a feature, but thats all pretty basic. Like power windows as I mentioned earlier. Leather could be a feature, block heater. I remember when digital speedo first came out I was very impressed with that feature.

The thing is if air con is assumed a car can be designed differently.  I haven’t seen a car with wing windows in many years which are almost a requirement in a car with no air con.

 

just googled “wing window car” to get a pic and top hit was “quarter glass” apparently I’m talking about non stationary quarter glass vents

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_glass

Edited October 28, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Orange1]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The thing is if air con is assumed a car can be designed differently.  I haven’t seen a car with wing windows in many years which are almost a requirement in a car with no air con.

You can order whatever you want when you buy new, some people do not use a/c. My friend has a new Nissan, probably a 2015 and he never uses a/c and it pisses me off everytime I'm in his car. Not sure exactly why, but his father is a hoarder and a penny pincher which I believe has rubbed off on him. I'd assume a/c on a new car is about $1k.

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, Orange1 said:

You can order whatever you want when you buy new, some people do not use a/c. My friend has a new Nissan, probably a 2015 and he never uses a/c and it pisses me off everytime I'm in his car. Not sure exactly why, but his father is a hoarder and a penny pincher which I believe has rubbed off on him. I'd assume a/c on a new car is about $1k.

He’ll have trouble selling the thing.  Possible false economy.  Hoarders are known for those.  My car has a 5 speed which I wanted but it reduces its value enough I’ve found the most efficient thing to do is drive it into the ground and sell it for scrap when it’s time comes. (Which it sort of kinda already has) 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Orange1]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

He’ll have trouble selling the thing.  Possible false economy.  Hoarders are known for those.

I agree, having a/c in a car is a positive for selling no matter where you live. Even in Montana on a summers day you will need a/c for 4 or 5 months of the year. a/c using more gas, how much more is unknown to me, one more thing to break I guess, longer belt can break more easy I dunno, longer belt costs more. His reasoning, my friend, is the gas angle. He using the sun roof a lot and uses the power windows. Problem with the feature of a sun roof is the sun blazing down on your head is not fun, even if the glass is tinted like the Nissan. His vehicle is never clean or tidy, his place of residence is quite a mess all the time to. But some people live like that, its no big deal. Not for me to judge even though I just did.

[Parideboy]

9 hours ago, Loote said:

There are diesels that do high rpm and gas engines which have high torque and low max rpm, the maps you attached in the previous post show a general idea, but there's more and more things like that:

Agree. Every engine is different, mine was a generalization based on the concepts behind gasoline and diesel engines.

[TubbyGold]

I have had manual transmission for the last 20 years, this time i went for a automatic. Never going back to manual now. Adaptiv Cruise control is also something i would really miss

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, TubbyGold said:

I have had manual transmission for the last 20 years, this time i went for a automatic. Never going back to manual now. Adaptiv Cruise control is also something i would really miss

Downside of modern automatics is insane complication and very high replacement cost.  If money doesn’t get in the way my next car won’t have any transmission at all.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Bombastinator

[TubbyGold]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Downside of modern automatics is insane complication and very high replacement cost.  If money doesn’t get in the way my next car won’t have any transmission at all.

Very true. Money always gets in the way when buying cars where i live. I think tax on cars here atm is 150% used to be 180%