awgamer wrote on 2023-11-01, 00:18:

I thought all Europeans drove Ferraris.

Nah its just all Italians

and everyone lives in castles.

awgamer wrote on 2023-11-01, 00:18:

I thought all Europeans drove Ferraris.

I only take my Testarossa out on special occasions.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-11-01, 20:22:

awgamer wrote on 2023-11-01, 00:18:

I thought all Europeans drove Ferraris.

I only take my Testarossa out on special occasions.

I knew it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbpBRvdBvkQ

I think the mini (think Vauxhall Corsa/Ford Fiesta size) and Super Mini (Fiat 500) are king in Europe now.
Especially after our sanctions on Russia have sent inflation off the scale and fuel prices sky high.

Is that backwards, I thought Fiesta was supermini, and like Ka and 500 were "city car" unless you're getting a smaller Fiesta now than we had.

I dislike 500s though, wish they'd brung the actual space efficient small cars over to North America like the Panda etc. Nissan teased the new Micra at us, but they got so many frigging problems, including a divorce from Renault I think now. IDK.

Not that I'm ever buying a Nissan again after the Versa transmission debacle. ... ... ... though latest on that, still have it here, needed to move it couple of weeks ago, belt burned off the alternator because it locked up, had to drive it on battery only a few blocks.... NO WHINE... did they seriously misdiagnose a failing alternator as transmission whine???? Holy crap if that turns out to be true.... but I'm kinda ticked because now I gotta spend a few hundreds on alternator and battery to find out from a transmission specialist if they can do a targetted repair... (car has to be running properly otherwise) ... but slight chance that problem is gone (for now, these trans are a timebomb anyway) when alt and battery done... ho hum.

Nah, when you guys aren't driving Ferraris I figure it's Vespas all the way zooming around. meep-meep.

awgamer wrote on 2023-11-04, 20:47:

Nah, when you guys aren't driving Ferraris I figure it's Vespas all the way zooming around. meep-meep.

Absolutely.

Ferrari when we leave the estate grounds to go grouse shooting on the moorlands, and the Vespa for zooming around the castle ramparts.

Everyone also has a Range Rover so that Jeeves can ferry the silverware about, ready for a picnic at any time.

Sure if you are nueveux riche, old money have an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Shooting Brake by Mulliner for around the estate and a Bristol 411 for touring.

I was talking to a neighbor earlier, and we were reminiscing about cars we used to have that we miss, and thinking back to my Camaro really made me miss having something with some horsepower. When I mothballed the car, I already had my Bandit 1200 with its sub three second zero to sixty, and later I also had the CBR1000RR, and it was even quicker. And now it's been five years since I lost all of them - five years without anything that can give me a rush of adrenalin. And why is Firefox prompting me to capitalize adrenalin, it isn't a proper noun?

keeping with the original subject, as i haven't read the latest posts, i drive a rather old and simple Volkswagen Gol Diesel 1.6 model 1998
it's the base model, without power steering or anything but it serves its purpose which is to drive me to my home or my work
and since the economics of my country are so flakey, getting a newer or better car is out of the question
is nice to see how some users have such awesome cars

My daily is a 1989, series 3 R31 Skyline (ausdel, Executive)... whiteline bars & brace. k-mac stage2 strut-tops, lovells sports-low springs, torson center BW75 diff with BW78 gears, kitted jacto 4R01 auto trans with custom TCU (can do 'tiptronic' shifting), chipped&tuned NA rb30, R33 front brakes on JDM HR31 struts. As all ausdel R31 Skylines had their odometer fail, you never know exactly how far the car has traveled... my current estimation is closer to 600,000klms than not...still on original engine (but all the 30+ year old rubber seals in it are done, so it needs a rebuild =) Small pic of it from a decade ago when it was running 15" steels, and not the usual TI mags that normally on the car....

Those Borg Warner diffs sound interesting. I have an AWD minivan I keep pondering building up to "overland" type duty, just give it a little more dirt road/gravel road ability really, I'll drive it around the rocks, not try to break $10,000 worth of parts on them like the Jeep guys. So currently has open rear diff and viscous coupling in the middle. Thinking something like that BW 75 with limited slip might be nice in the rear, and was previously looking at a Subaru electrically activated coupling. Strangely, the AWD works great in reverse. In forward gears though, first the front left spins then the front right followed by rear right followed by the left rear... lovely, one wheel at a time drive rather than AWD 🤣 The center coupling is annoying too, really have to go hard on the throttle to kick it in... maybe could use new fluid or something as it is. Anyhooooo will have to bear those in mind. Not sure if I'm going ahead with it, it has got rustier than I'd like it to be and I hate bodywork.

Here in AU ...back in the days when this country had car production industry... they all used BW diffs. There's spitting distance between the BW75 & 78 (the latter has a stronger pinion carrier assembly) ~ what Nissan did was fit all the R31 Skylines with bw78 housings, and the base models came with the BW75 carrier, and the feature models came with BW78 carrier, and the 'cone' type friction LSD center. Those LSD centers are a pita, don't keep their positivity long, but the torson centers really never go dull or wear... one of the best mods I've done to it really. There's a few different torson centers out there... the cheaper ones are half the price, but good for NA sort of power and normal road use ~ anything more than that (turbo, off-road) you pay the extra money for the top line units (less likely to crack torson gear casing =)

Really need to fit an LSD to the rear axle on my Escort... It was eager to break traction with 175bhp, and it's now over twice that. Definitely one of the best modifications you can make to a car - certainly anything rear wheel drive anyway.

giantclam wrote on 2023-11-05, 03:05:

and the feature models came with BW78 carrier, and the 'cone' type friction LSD center. Those LSD centers are a pita, don't keep their positivity long, but the torson centers really never go dull or wear... one of the best mods I've done to it really. There's a few different torson centers out there... the cheaper ones are half the price, but good for NA sort of power and normal road use ~ anything more than that (turbo, off-road) you pay the extra money for the top line units (less likely to crack torson gear casing =)

I saw that about wear, but then I'm thinking my rear axles aren't going to have power through them 95% of the time, and just be freewheeling (It was a front wheel drive platform that AWD was developed on) so maybe only loaded when the center coupling active. But then I'm wondering if they are going to wear on cornering, even freewheeling, with outer wheel doing larger radius than inner. Yeah the torsen would make more sense though, and back it up with some piggyback controller to the ABS so wheelspin limited (and maybe wrangle some goodies like hill descent control)

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-04, 23:27:

Sure if you are nueveux riche, old money have an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Shooting Brake by Mulliner for around the estate and a Bristol 411 for touring.

I had a relative who owned on of those.
Hes dead now but i believe he owned it right up to the end. I dont know what condition it was in.
I remember my dad taking it from North Wales, which is where my uncle lived, to Liverpool and back... Not recently, that was back in the early 80s

pete8475 wrote on 2021-05-17, 03:09:

I just bought this, it's a 2010 Chevrolet Malibu.

My 1990 C1500 truck has become very rotten around the cab corners and has developed some serious electrical gremlins this year, so it was time for a change.

Hopefully this thing is a bit more fuel efficient too.

After driving that car for about 2 years or so I bought a brand new 2023 Toyota Camry AWD SE in July of this year. Really liking it so far!

pete8475 wrote on 2023-11-14, 00:33:

After driving that car for about 2 years or so I bought a brand new 2023 Toyota Camry AWD SE in July of this year. Really liking it so far!

A quite nice ride; I absolutely enjoy my 2019 Camry. I have the Hybrid.
I would say though that the main thing that sucks with the Camry are the hinges on the trunk! The trunk is enourmous but I can only have room for 2½ suitcases without braking them because of the enormous hinges going down into the trunk instead of into the body (very old fashioned). Our trim names are a bit different, so I don't know how a H4 compare to an LE/SE/XLE/XSE, and from what I could read it even seems that the American and European trims can't be compared at all.

Got a video from the dealer of it here.

I need a really big van or possibly even a shuttle or short bus, possibly even a step van. I'm in NJ. Suggestions please. I want to keep it under 5k for now.