So the other day, I was driving down the motorway, and the lorry beside 
me casually drifted into my lane. As you can perhaps imagine, when two 
vehicles travelling at 70 MPH touch each other, this is a fairly 
traumatic experience. That said, all that happened is that one side of 
my car is now slightly melted, and has half an inch of tire rubber on 
it. (Let's face it, a lorry tire is bigger than my entire car...)

Turns out the only word of English that the driver knows is "sorry". It 
also turns out that the truck is registered in the Netherlands, the 
driver's name sounds Polish, and his insurers are in Russia... but I 
digress.

After an unreasonable number of delays and phone calls, my insurers 
*finally* took my car away to be repaired, leaving me with a curtsey car 
until they finish fixing mine.

Now, needless to say, they aren't exactly going to lend you a Ferrari 
911 for a few months. I understand that. But I was expecting to get a 
car which can actually reach 70 MPH. I don't think that's an 
unreasonable expectation. My first car was an utterly shagged old Ford 
Fiesta that had been back to zero *twice*, and that managed to get to 
70. (Just!)

The car I've been given is a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 litre. I'm not sure 
whether it's petrol or diesel; ridiculously, none of the documentation 
mentions this fact. (There's a space in the handbook where you're 
supposed to fill in the details; it's blank.) Given the complete 
inability to accelerate or to handle high revs, I had assumed it was 
diesel. However, yesterday I filled it up with petrol, and it hasn't 
stopped working yet, so apparently it's actually petrol after all.

When it was delivered to me, it had slightly less than 2,000 miles on 
the clock. So at least you can say it's brand-new. That being the case, 
it's abysmal performance is even more surprising.

Let's take it from the top. Here's a list of things I dislike about the car:

- It does not appear to be possible to adjust the seats. I've never seen 
that in any car, ever. (You can move the seats forwards and backwards, 
but you apparently cannot adjust the back.)

- The rear-view mirror distorts distances, making objects appear 
drastically further away than they actually are. When you consider that 
THE ENTIRE PURPOSE of this mirror is exactly to allow you to determine 
precisely how far away other traffic is, this is a major failure.

- The rear-view mirror is tinted black in a further attempt to prevent 
you using it.

- The steering wheel is aligned so as to EXACTLY obscure the dashboard.

- The steering wheel has several knobs and dials placed on it, 
positioned exactly where you want to put your hands to hold on to the wheel.

- The dashboard has two identical dials on it. Obviously one is engine 
speed and the other is road speed. There is no way to determine which is 
which, except that the right-hand dial has a second scale printed on it, 
marked "kph" in almost illegibly tiny writing.

- There is no temperature gage. Arguably you don't need one, but it 
would be nice to know when my hands are going to stop freezing.

- It is not possible to turn the lights off. You can have sidelights, 
sidelights + headlights, or just headlights. But you cannot have no 
lights at all. Even if you're driving through Death Valley at high noon, 
you have to have your lights on, so you look like a complete tosser.

- The suspension seems overly "bouncy". It's not that it's too hard or 
too soft, but more that it doesn't seem to be damped very much. Go over 
a bump and the car bounces up and down for what seems like an awfully 
long time afterwards.

(The suspension also makes a rather alarming crunching noise as I drive 
around the work car park. But that's probably because of the 
ridiculously brutal speed ramps they insist on having here...)

- The steering seems surprisingly heavy. I'm presuming it just lacks 
power steering; all the cars I've driven recently had that.

The big, big issue, of course, is performance. Or rather, the utter 
absence of anything resembling it.

Now obviously a 1.2 litre engine is never ever going to perform like the 
2 lire fuel-injected engine I'm used to. It's just not gonna happen. On 
the other hand, when you drive down the road and lorries, buses and dump 
trucks are overtaking you, something isn't quite right there. :-P

The car has 5 gears. I eventually realised that when you get to a 
certain speed, a little light comes on warning you to change up a gear 
before you break the engine. And my god, the engine seems to struggle 
*constantly*! You know that sound an engine makes if you try to do 45 
MPH in first gear? This car sounds like that ALL THE TIME!! I don't 
*care* if the rev counter says it's only doing "20" and the engine 
red-lines at "70"; it STILL sounds like it's about to explode!

(One might ask "20 what?" Usually a rev counter will say "x 100 RPM" or 
similar, but this one says nothing. Since the engine idles at about "8", 
I'm guessing this is "hundred RPM". It doesn't actually *say* so 
anywhere though...)

According to the warning light on the dashboard, you need to change up 
to top gear if you exceed about 35 MPH. Yes, you heard. There are FIVE 
GEARS to get from 0 to 35, and just ONE GEAR to get from 35 to 70.

In solemn truth, the car *will* get to 70 eventually. It just takes an 
absurd amount of time. And the engine becomes *extremely* loud. Like 
this is something the car really isn't designed to do; you're actually 
exceeding the design limits of the car. Which is frankly ludicrous.

Also absurd is the way that as soon as you get to any kind of hill or 
slight incline, the car begins to slow down, and nothing you can do 
prevents this. Even with my foot flat to the floor, the engine literally 
cannot handle a slight hill. Hell, even if you're only doing 30 through 
a city center you have to start changing down gears because the car WILL 
NOT stay at a constant speed. That's just pathetic.

As I drove home last night, I noticed that the distance between 
consecutive junctions was insufficient space for the car to reach 60. I 
just looked on Google Earth, and those junctions are about 1000 meters 
apart. (Roughly half a mile.) So even with a rolling start, when I come 
off a roundabout at 25 MPH or so, HALF A MILE still isn't enough of a 
run-up to reach 60. Unless it's downhill.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

The first car I owned was a heap. But the second one was a 1.1 Peugeot 
205. Despite the puny engine, it was wicked-fast off the curb. (It was a 
little more lumbering at high speed, but you could quite easily get up 
to 90 MPH by mistake.) You would have thought a brand new car with a 
bigger engine would be even faster... and, apparently, you would be wrong.

My previous car was a 1.8 petrol, and that used to get 45 miles to the 
gallon. The hire car gets only a piffling 37 MPG, despite an engine 
that's 33% smaller. Hell, my *current* car manages 36 MPH, and that's a 
2 litre monster!

In summary, this car has a tiny engine but still drinks fuel, yet 
manages to be slower (and louder) than cars with an even smaller engine.

I completely recommend that you buy this car!

Post a reply to this message

On 17/10/2011 04:13 PM, Invisible wrote:

> - The dashboard has two identical dials on it. Obviously one is engine
> speed and the other is road speed. There is no way to determine which is
> which, except that the right-hand dial has a second scale printed on it,
> marked "kph" in almost illegibly tiny writing.

Did I mention that the dial only includes even numbers? If you're in a 
30 zone, you're supposed to just *guess* where half way between 20 and 
40 is. Isn't that wonderful?

It's not as if the dial isn't huge enough to fit some more numbers, or 
at least a tick mark or *something* to indicate where 30 is. Sheesh...

> The big, big issue, of course, is performance. Or rather, the utter
> absence of anything resembling it.

On the plus side, the brakes seem to work quite well, and the car 
doesn't feel like it's going to tip over going around corners. (Then 
again, at 20 MPH, it *shouldn't* tip over...)

> In summary, this car has a tiny engine but still drinks fuel, yet
> manages to be slower (and louder) than cars with an even smaller engine.
>
> I completely recommend that you buy this car!

Apparently it got awarded Car Of The Year. (Or so claims Wikipedia...) 
Go figure.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Now, needless to say, they aren't exactly going to lend you a Ferrari 
> 911 for a few months.

  I think you are confusing car manufacturers and models.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 17/10/2011 04:31 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Now, needless to say, they aren't exactly going to lend you a Ferrari
>> 911 for a few months.
>
>    I think you are confusing car manufacturers and models.

...OK, they are *definitely* not going to lend you a Ferarri 911... o_O

Post a reply to this message

Le 17/10/2011 17:13, Invisible a écrit :
> 
> - It does not appear to be possible to adjust the seats. I've never seen
> that in any car, ever. (You can move the seats forwards and backwards,
> but you apparently cannot adjust the back.)

On Opel Corsa (as Vauxhall is a sister-company in GM of Opel), you can
adjust the back with a knob (not a lever), on only one side of the seat.
And that knob (which has the size of a big hand) is usually hard as hell
to turn. (memory of Opel Corsa 1.7D... D for Gasoil/Diesel)

> - The dashboard has two identical dials on it. Obviously one is engine
> speed and the other is road speed. There is no way to determine which is
> which, except that the right-hand dial has a second scale printed on it,
> marked "kph" in almost illegibly tiny writing.

So at least you know it's the second one for the speed...

> 
> - There is no temperature gage. Arguably you don't need one, but it
> would be nice to know when my hands are going to stop freezing.

Is there at least a heating air system ? And is it set correctly ?
Are the traps opened ?

> 
> - It is not possible to turn the lights off. You can have sidelights,
> sidelights + headlights, or just headlights. But you cannot have no
> lights at all. Even if you're driving through Death Valley at high noon,
> you have to have your lights on, so you look like a complete tosser.

just thanks the laws...


> 
> - The steering seems surprisingly heavy. I'm presuming it just lacks
> power steering; all the cars I've driven recently had that.
> 

Guess what, a 1.2L is not going to have any assisted steering. That
would not be economic.

> The big, big issue, of course, is performance. Or rather, the utter
> absence of anything resembling it.

1.2L corsa is a petrol engine. As such, it's best performance is
probably in the 3000 to 6000 rpm zone. It has nearly no tork at lower
speed.
Such small price make no room for sound isolation, so it's noisy.

> 
> Now obviously a 1.2 litre engine is never ever going to perform like the
> 2 lire fuel-injected engine I'm used to. It's just not gonna happen. On
> the other hand, when you drive down the road and lorries, buses and dump
> trucks are overtaking you, something isn't quite right there. :-P

the tests of 1.2 Corsa (old or twinport) says; 0 to 60mph in 12s or
11.8s. You have to learn the gearbox to stay in the power zone of the
engine. The fifth gear is a cruise gear, on flat ground. you might need
to go back to fourth to get some reactivity.

In deed, web search told me: the engine has 80 hp at 5600 rpm, and
11.2mKg torque at 4000 rpm.

You need to push that engine so that the next gear start at least at
3000 rpm.



> 
> The car has 5 gears. I eventually realised that when you get to a
> certain speed, a little light comes on warning you to change up a gear
> before you break the engine. And my god, the engine seems to struggle
> *constantly*! You know that sound an engine makes if you try to do 45
> MPH in first gear? This car sounds like that ALL THE TIME!! I don't
> *care* if the rev counter says it's only doing "20" and the engine
> red-lines at "70"; it STILL sounds like it's about to explode!

When the light blinks, you are already too far.
And as a petrol engine, it is exploding... half the rpm speed per cylinder!

-- 
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase <br/>
a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.<br/><br/>

Benjamin Franklin

Post a reply to this message

>> - It does not appear to be possible to adjust the seats. I've never seen
>> that in any car, ever. (You can move the seats forwards and backwards,
>> but you apparently cannot adjust the back.)
>
> On Opel Corsa (as Vauxhall is a sister-company in GM of Opel), you can
> adjust the back with a knob (not a lever), on only one side of the seat.
> And that knob (which has the size of a big hand) is usually hard as hell
> to turn. (memory of Opel Corsa 1.7D... D for Gasoil/Diesel)

Isn't that how *all* cars adjust the seat back?

>> - The dashboard has two identical dials on it. Obviously one is engine
>> speed and the other is road speed. There is no way to determine which is
>> which, except that the right-hand dial has a second scale printed on it,
>> marked "kph" in almost illegibly tiny writing.
>
> So at least you know it's the second one for the speed...

Yeah, when you eventually spot the tiny writing.

>> - There is no temperature gage. Arguably you don't need one, but it
>> would be nice to know when my hands are going to stop freezing.
>
> Is there at least a heating air system ? And is it set correctly ?
> Are the traps opened ?

The heating system uses heat from the engine to warm the air. It doesn't 
work until the engine is hot. Most cars have a temperature gage, so you 
can tell when this has happened. (OTOH, usually you drive a few miles 
before the needle lifts off zero.) Not critical, just irritating.

>> - It is not possible to turn the lights off. You can have sidelights,
>> sidelights + headlights, or just headlights. But you cannot have no
>> lights at all. Even if you're driving through Death Valley at high noon,
>> you have to have your lights on, so you look like a complete tosser.
>
> just thanks the laws...

I'm not aware of any law that you have to have your lights on.

I've seen cars that turn the lights on automatically when it gets dark. 
But I've never seen a car where you just cannot turn them off.

> the tests of 1.2 Corsa (old or twinport) says; 0 to 60mph in 12s or
> 11.8s. You have to learn the gearbox to stay in the power zone of the
> engine. The fifth gear is a cruise gear, on flat ground. you might need
> to go back to fourth to get some reactivity.

I did manage to get to 60 in less than 90 seconds on time... :-P

I tried staying in 4th gear, but the car stops accelerating when it 
reaches 50. The only way to make it go any faster is to change into top 
gear. Then it will, reluctantly, accelerate to higher speeds.

> You need to push that engine so that the next gear start at least at
> 3000 rpm.

Assuming that "30" on the dial corresponds to 3000 RPM, the engine seems 
very reluctant to go that fast, and sounds like it's going to die at any 
second while revving that high.

>> The car has 5 gears. I eventually realised that when you get to a
>> certain speed, a little light comes on warning you to change up a gear
>> before you break the engine.
>
> When the light blinks, you are already too far.

Well, that happens at "25", which is presumably 2500 RPM. And you say 
it's supposed to reach 3000 RPM before you change gear?

Post a reply to this message

Le 27/10/2011 11:13, Invisible a écrit :
>>
>> On Opel Corsa (as Vauxhall is a sister-company in GM of Opel), you can
>> adjust the back with a knob (not a lever), on only one side of the seat.
>> And that knob (which has the size of a big hand) is usually hard as hell
>> to turn. (memory of Opel Corsa 1.7D... D for Gasoil/Diesel)
> 
> Isn't that how *all* cars adjust the seat back?


Not all cars. My current one as a lever to allow moving the back.
Pull the level, adjust the back, release the lever, done!

>>> - It is not possible to turn the lights off. You can have sidelights,
>>> sidelights + headlights, or just headlights. But you cannot have no
>>> lights at all. Even if you're driving through Death Valley at high noon,
>>> you have to have your lights on, so you look like a complete tosser.
>>
>> just thanks the laws...
> 
> I'm not aware of any law that you have to have your lights on.
> 
> I've seen cars that turn the lights on automatically when it gets dark. But I've
never seen a car where you just cannot turn them off. 

European Union Directive 2008/89/EC for all new cars after 7 February
2011 ( August 2012 for bus and truck).
UK had a regulations for new cars after 1 April 1987 to have dim-dip or
dedicated daytime running lamps, (with exception... ); Prosecuted in
1988, dim-dip is no more mandatory for UK, but many new cars from UK
have that functionality. It's no more mandatory, for the moment.. (in
1990+... and see now the European directive.)

Post a reply to this message

On 10/27/2011 2:13, Invisible wrote:
> The heating system uses heat from the engine to warm the air. It doesn't
> work until the engine is hot.

The heater in my car won't even blow air until the engine is warmed up. It's 
nice, because you can set the temp, and when the engine warms up, the heater 
turns on, and you don't have to think about it.

>> just thanks the laws...
>
> I'm not aware of any law that you have to have your lights on.

In the USA, they did studies and figured out it made a surprisingly large 
difference in head-on collisions, so they made it a law you have "daytime 
running lights."

Crossing death valley, you want to pass the truck, and you see a car way 
down the road in the lane that handles oncoming traffic. Is that car coming 
towards you, or is that car someone going the same direction passing someone 
else?

> I've seen cars that turn the lights on automatically when it gets dark. But
> I've never seen a car where you just cannot turn them off.

Look at any car less than about 10 or 15 years old shipped to the USA.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011-10-27 06:01, Le_Forgeron a écrit :
> Le 27/10/2011 11:13, Invisible a écrit :
>>>> - It is not possible to turn the lights off. You can have sidelights,
>>>> sidelights + headlights, or just headlights. But you cannot have no
>>>> lights at all. Even if you're driving through Death Valley at high noon,
>>>> you have to have your lights on, so you look like a complete tosser.
>>>
>>> just thanks the laws...
>>
>> I'm not aware of any law that you have to have your lights on.
>>
>> I've seen cars that turn the lights on automatically when it gets dark. But I've
never seen a car where you just cannot turn them off.
>
> European Union Directive 2008/89/EC for all new cars after 7 February
> 2011 ( August 2012 for bus and truck).
> UK had a regulations for new cars after 1 April 1987 to have dim-dip or
> dedicated daytime running lamps, (with exception... ); Prosecuted in
> 1988, dim-dip is no more mandatory for UK, but many new cars from UK
> have that functionality. It's no more mandatory, for the moment.. (in
> 1990+... and see now the European directive.)
>

It's been like that since 1991 in Canada.  It DOES make other cars more 
visible, even at high noon in the middle of Death Valley.

-- 
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> just thanks the laws...
> >
> > I'm not aware of any law that you have to have your lights on.

> In the USA, they did studies and figured out it made a surprisingly large 
> difference in head-on collisions, so they made it a law you have "daytime 
> running lights."

> Crossing death valley, you want to pass the truck, and you see a car way 
> down the road in the lane that handles oncoming traffic. Is that car coming 
> towards you, or is that car someone going the same direction passing someone 
> else?

  In countries where there's no such law (such as was the case in Spain at
least years ago) it seems that for some reason there's a natural aversion
to having a car's headlights on during daylight. If you drive with the
lights on, almost every single other car that you pass by in the other
direction will flash their lights at you.

  I don't really understand why. What exactly is the problem in keeping the
lights on? They don't burn out all that often even when they are always on,
and even when they do, it's not really a huge monetary investment. The safety
that it introduces is much more important.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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