I don't know much about cars at all, all I do know is that I have an 11 year old automatic Rover (that has just passed it's MOT yet AGAIN!!) that can leave cars that are 4 times as big and powerful and less than a year old standing at traffic lights. It just leaves everything standing!! While they are messing about with stupid gears I am half a mile up the road.
It just leaves everything standing!! While they are messing about with stupid gears I am half a mile up the road.
That's nothing to do with automatic or manual gearboxes, but everything to do with driver competence. Which driver is the competent one is left as an exercise for the reader :-)
Never met so many people who cant drive as i have on computer forums. Thought it was every 17 year olds dream to save up their money and have lessons !QUOTE]
I am another proud non driver, had a few lessons about 20 years ago and hated it, I have managed without driving very well thank you. If I ever needed a car I would have to hire a driver, simple as, but that will never happen !
Unless I get a Graz car, jump in and it drives you anywhere ! Now where are my travel sickness pills ?
Every time I read that the oldest person in the world has died, I have to do a quick check to see it isn't ME..........
I nearly broke the column shift gear lever on my Lincoln town car in US. Took me a full five minutes to work out you had to depress the brake pedal to adjust it into D gear..who knew.
I was in a car park at work hhm 2 / 3 weeks ago... bloke was there with a 2 year old merc , top of the range one... he just bought it , he couldn't get it into reverse..
so I said, new car.. you got the manual also? so he pulls it out of the glove box..so even with a license some people can't drive..
(you had to push the thing diagonally)
not even a thanks , ungrateful twerp
a few friends had to learn to drive with their wives being pregnant for that 3am hospital run..
so many didn't till late that I knew.. used to think i was the designated driver (i.e. no booze)
I like to drive automatic.
By working with the pedal, I can somehow control how the gears shifts.
I use this method to get a powerful accelleration:
Floor it from halt, then quickly and shortly release it 2/3 when the speed increases to make it shift up, then push it halfway down again to continue accellerating by keeping the RPM within the range of max torque.
Don't floor it again or else it will shift back down.
(This may work best with a diesel engine)
The real reason why the UK is full of manual cars? Everyone buys second hand so they're stuck with the old ones. :p
Manual setting off from a red light... foot on accelerator, accelerate to 5 mph, up a gear, 10 mph, up a gear, 15 mph, up a gear, 20 mph, up a gear, 30 mph - target reached.
/QUOTE]
Are you mad? Why would you use 5 gears to reach 30mph?
I always wind up people who drive an automatic with an automatic license..
say oh you got a mickey mouse license then ;)
Yeah, there is this strange macho thing associated with it in this country. I don't see anyone complaining about a lack of a manual choke in their car...
I would never have an automatic personally. It's not just the time it takes to shift (not much on a DSG granted) but the lack of gears (often only 4) and the crap ratio's in them. That's why an automatic will generally be quite a few miles an hour off the vmax, slower to 60 and at least 5mpg worse on economy.
Mind you, I would never drive a diesel either! Or any car made after 1999.
Yeah, there is this strange macho thing associated with it in this country. I don't see anyone complaining about a lack of a manual choke in their car...
it's not a macho thing , just curious how people can't do it.. like the odd time I get a women asking me to park their small car.. yet they know the size of things..hehe
ya know it has its advantages..e.g. adjusting it to pass ya MOT ;)
ECM / ECU etc. over complicate emissions etc
my first 2 cars had a choke (well 1 did IRC)
Mind you, I would never drive a diesel either! Or any car made after 1999.
Ehhh ?
Why wouldnt you drive a diesel ? I've never had one and my mates havent but as we've got older a few friends now are going diesel as they seem to say they get more miles.
But why a car not made after 1999 ? Much prefer newer cars, just seem to run better, not have so many problems. Obviously theres no problems with rust either (To be fair that stopped in the early 90's). How come youre so anti diesel or newer cars ? Used to work with a lot of technicians (super mechanics) who always praise modern cars nowadays and constantly said 'you dont have to worry about buying a car with 60 or 70k miles' like you might have previously.
I have 2 motors, 1 22 years old and another 31 years old. If *anything* goes wrong on them I can fix it at home. I rebuilt the engine on one and the suspension on both. With hand tools.
Try doing that with 2000+ car. You need a laptop, tons of specialist tools and more patience that I could ever have.
I don't like diesels because of the way they drive - short shifting, boosty and blowing smoke. Plus they don't work out much cheaper than small-ish petrol engine, especially when front tyre wear is taken into consideration.
Granted if you don't want to get your hands dirty - buy something modern and budget for the repairs.
Never met so many people who cant drive as i have on computer forums. Thought it was every 17 year olds dream to save up their money and have lessons !
Not a dig at ewgf just surprised how many blokes cant drive. Other forums i'm on it seems 99% of people can drive. Just seems to be a connection between computers and non-drivers ?
Deciding not to drive was probably the best, most sensible decision I've ever made (seriously, all joking apart). I took lessons but realised that I was one of the (not a few) people who shouldn't ever be given a license. Don't get me wrong, I was OK at driving (although this was always on relatively quiet roads and with the instructor beside me), but I am easily distracted when I have things on my mind, and I knew that sooner or later I'd be distracted momentarily by a sudden thought or other and I couldn't take that chance, as a car is a very deadly weapon and I could easily clip a cyclist, or hit someone who had stepped out (sensibly or otherwise) in the road in-front of me, when for a second I tuned out of reality.
Most of the adults I know can drive, but I know a few people, including perhaps a surprising number of males (driving is still seen as "male" task, to some degree, I think) who can't drive for one reason or another. And I know a fair few people (again of either gender) who for one reason or another shouldn't be allowed to drive. I've been driven by people who pay less (sometimes alarmingly less) attention to the road and the vehicles ahead and behind than they should, and I know people who change drastically for the worse, temper-wise, when behind the wheel, and I've been in cars with drivers who seem to have little understanding about driving customs and the meaning of road markings and signs.
Being unable to drive has harmed my career (if you can call a succession of agency IT jobs a career :-() as it's a definite disadvantage in most prospective employers eyes, especially when you are applying for a job you'd have to commute to, and it doesn't exactly impress women (though thankfully most of them can drive nowadays), but on the plus side it gives me some exercise, and most of my mates drive so I can always get a lift if I need one. I didn't much enjoy being behind the wheel, from what I remember (this was over twenty years ago :-o) as I prefer to let my thoughts wander, but I do regret not having the freedom that a vehicle brings. But it's not worth the risk; if it was just my body and life I was risking then maybe I'd get a car, I don't know, but every time I drove I'd be putting at risking potentially everyone I went near, and it only takes one child to run into the road, or for me to fail to brake a second or so earlier in an emergency, and that's a mistake you can never take back.
I do wish that Britain had much better cycling facilities, though. Biking in a city is often perilous at best, due to too much traffic as any idiot can get a driving license (probably even me if I hadn't had that rare flash of common sense), and the lack of cycling lanes, and the sky high theft rate of bicycles. Cycling is a healthy method of transport, non-polluting, and massively eases up both traffic and wear on tear on the roads, but the government do so little to make it safe or practical as they get so much money from petrol tax. And speaking as someone who has to use both cars and buses to get to and from work, our very poor and far too expensive public transport system seems designed almost to get people into cars.
But no, as much as I'd like a car (well, I'd like the convenience of having a car, the actual car itself wouldn't interest me, I've never been interested in vehicles in themselves) it wouldn't be safe me owning one. Maybe I'd be lucky and be alright for months, maybe years, perhaps decades. But sooner or later I'd mentally drift at just the wrong time, just for a second or two, and cause something I could never take back.
Deciding not to drive was probably the best, most sensible decision I've ever made (seriously, all joking apart). I took lessons but realised that I was one of the (not a few) people who shouldn't ever be given a license.
Good you're so honest. I know some people who just shouldnt be on the road, the second theres some traffic or theyre on the motorway they just seem to turn to jelly, just very dangerous.
I cant wait for the mother in law to stop driving, the northern roads will be so so so much safer
Yeah, there is this strange macho thing associated with it in this country. I don't see anyone complaining about a lack of a manual choke in their car...
You have an automatic choke? Pah!
you want a proper car like mine, none of this computer malarkey you have to know how to drive properly :p
it's not a macho thing , just curious how people can't do it.. like the odd time I get a women asking me to park their small car.. yet they know the size of things..hehe
ya know it has its advantages..e.g. adjusting it to pass ya MOT ;)
ECM / ECU etc. over complicate emissions etc
my first 2 cars had a choke (well 1 did IRC)
just get a car that's old enough that it passes the test on the nod cause half the checks it's exempted :)
Why wouldnt you drive a diesel ? I've never had one and my mates havent but as we've got older a few friends now are going diesel as they seem to say they get more miles.
oddly (since I learnt in a diesel mostly) I don't like my dad's big diesel since I've got used to my smaller petrol car.
I think it's the delay between giving it some welly and the car taking off that gets on my nerves (also the power steering, but that's another complaint, I suppose it all adds up...) I just don't feel as in control as I do in my car.
Yeah, there is this strange macho thing associated with it in this country. I don't see anyone complaining about a lack of a manual choke in their car...
Modern cars don't have chokes at all, that's why there is no control for it (automatic or otherwise). All modern cars are fuel injected, and EFI engines never have had chokes. The nearest a FI engine has for a choke is an extra injector that runs for the first few seconds to make the mixture extra rich for an easy start (on old mechanical fuel injections). Most EFIs just have a "fast idle" speed for when the engine has just started (you'll notice your car has a faster idle speed for the first few minutes after starting).
On older vehicles (or boats) with carburettors rather than EFI, automatic chokes were HORRIBLE, and yes, I certainly do complain about them and so does anyone else who has the misfortune to have one on their engine. (A friend an I converted his Cortina to have a manual choke, the Weber automatic chokes were disasters). The problem with automatic chokes is they almost never work right, and the car is difficult to start, or difficult to start when the engine has been stopped for 10 minutes (because parts of the engine cool at different rates, the choke is either not on when it should be, or on when it shouldn't be making the car hard to start or rough running), or they shut off far too early meaning each time you come to a junction or a traffic light and stop, the engine quits. Even when new, automatic chokes sucked. The very worst automatic choke was the one I had on the old Dodge truck I had in Texas. This truck also had automatic transmission, and there was an uncomfortable spot every day when the engine hadn't really warmed up but the useless automatic choke had shut itself off, every time I went to slow down - remember an automatic transmission will NOT turn the engine - the engine would quit. When this happened, the power steering would stop working, and so would the brake servo, so the vehicle became very difficult to steer and to stop (it was quite heavy). For the first five minutes of driving I had to do an awkward juggle between blipping the throttle to keep the engine from dying and braking, whenever I needed to slow down. (Eventually I adopted two foot driving so I could just keep the throttle slightly open, while braking with the left foot, until the engine was properly warmed up).
My Dad's boat has an automatic choke. While it's easy to start cold, if it's run for a while, then been shut down 20 minutes, it becomes very hard to get running again because the choke should be on and it isn't. It's not so bad with a boat because the hand throttle controls stay where you put them, so you can leave the throttle open enough to make 1000 rpm until it's warmed back up. Automatic chokes are an abortion that should never have been allowed to survive.
Brings back memories the choke does though. My first crappy car was a very very cheap Renault, had to use the choke on that (plus the fuel indicator didnt work, that caused a few problems !). Happy i never had a choke in my other cars i've had (9 of em)
Still not keen on the engine management system, a few times the light has appeared, the garage charges me a fortune to plug their laptop into it, tell me theres nothing wrong, the light appeared for no reason and click one button and its cancelled and i'm 90 quid down !
Seriously, as a non-driver I don't know why cars have gears. A mate of mine is buying a car and is thinking of getting an automatic, and he asked me why some cars still have gears if others work without them, and I couldn't answer. As far as I'm aware, automatics have been around for decades anyway, but since people still buy cars with gears then there must be a reason for them. Does the user controlled gear system allow the car to run more economically with petrol, or to provide more power to the wheels (can't see why), or what?
You've been on a 5 speed bike yes?
Think about peddling in 1st gear and being limited on your speed....then changing through the gears you go faster and if you change at the right time/speed the effort required to peddle remains fairly constant.
Now think about starting peddling the bike in 5th gear from a standing start...wasn't fun was it.
So you have gears for smooth and efficient transmission of energy.
My first car was a Mark II Astra, and it wouldn't pass the MOT without the (automatic choke) carbourettor being replaced. Anyway, I picked it up and drove it back to work to find the engine roaring away in idle. I phoned the garage who asked if I'd pushed the choke in. I responded 'What choke?', after which they admitted they probably should have told me they'd fitted a manual one and where the lever was... :-o
Automatic choke was nuisance for fuel consumption too,bringing back memories of the bangers,who remembers "easy start" spray?,apparently if you kept using it you destroy the lining walls in the engine block lol,diesel is popular for another reason,for those less law abiding often people will use the marked diesel.
Automatic choke was nuisance for fuel consumption too,bringing back memories of the bangers,who remembers "easy start" spray?,apparently if you kept using it you destroy the lining walls in the engine block lol,diesel is popular for another reason,for those less law abiding often people will use the marked diesel.
aaaargh, don't mention those words. That stuff is crack cocaine for diesel engines. Hopefully when I've rebuilt my tractor's engine it can kick the habit and stay on the wagon
Automatic choke was nuisance for fuel consumption too,bringing back memories of the bangers,who remembers "easy start" spray?
It still exists.
And yes, diesels get "addicted" to Easy Start. One glider club we went to three or four years ago had a bus they used for their launch control point vehicle. The bus was so hopelessly addicted to Easy Start the engine air intake was actually in the cab so the driver could squirt the Easy Start in while cranking the engine.
Generally it'd be best to fix the problem with the diesel that's meaning it needs easy start rather than using Easy Start!
Comments
That's nothing to do with automatic or manual gearboxes, but everything to do with driver competence. Which driver is the competent one is left as an exercise for the reader :-)
if my little niece is in the car I say "what does green mean?" and she shouts "GO!" :-)
so I said, new car.. you got the manual also? so he pulls it out of the glove box..so even with a license some people can't drive..
(you had to push the thing diagonally)
not even a thanks , ungrateful twerp
a few friends had to learn to drive with their wives being pregnant for that 3am hospital run..
so many didn't till late that I knew.. used to think i was the designated driver (i.e. no booze)
By working with the pedal, I can somehow control how the gears shifts.
I use this method to get a powerful accelleration:
Floor it from halt, then quickly and shortly release it 2/3 when the speed increases to make it shift up, then push it halfway down again to continue accellerating by keeping the RPM within the range of max torque.
Don't floor it again or else it will shift back down.
(This may work best with a diesel engine)
say oh you got a mickey mouse license then ;)
Oops... ok, added one too many gear changes there. Been a while!
Yeah, there is this strange macho thing associated with it in this country. I don't see anyone complaining about a lack of a manual choke in their car...
Mind you, I would never drive a diesel either! Or any car made after 1999.
it's not a macho thing , just curious how people can't do it.. like the odd time I get a women asking me to park their small car.. yet they know the size of things..hehe
ya know it has its advantages..e.g. adjusting it to pass ya MOT ;)
ECM / ECU etc. over complicate emissions etc
my first 2 cars had a choke (well 1 did IRC)
to let the dumb-dumbs know that they are no longer in the bumpers.
Ehhh ?
Why wouldnt you drive a diesel ? I've never had one and my mates havent but as we've got older a few friends now are going diesel as they seem to say they get more miles.
But why a car not made after 1999 ? Much prefer newer cars, just seem to run better, not have so many problems. Obviously theres no problems with rust either (To be fair that stopped in the early 90's). How come youre so anti diesel or newer cars ? Used to work with a lot of technicians (super mechanics) who always praise modern cars nowadays and constantly said 'you dont have to worry about buying a car with 60 or 70k miles' like you might have previously.
Try doing that with 2000+ car. You need a laptop, tons of specialist tools and more patience that I could ever have.
I don't like diesels because of the way they drive - short shifting, boosty and blowing smoke. Plus they don't work out much cheaper than small-ish petrol engine, especially when front tyre wear is taken into consideration.
Granted if you don't want to get your hands dirty - buy something modern and budget for the repairs.
Deciding not to drive was probably the best, most sensible decision I've ever made (seriously, all joking apart). I took lessons but realised that I was one of the (not a few) people who shouldn't ever be given a license. Don't get me wrong, I was OK at driving (although this was always on relatively quiet roads and with the instructor beside me), but I am easily distracted when I have things on my mind, and I knew that sooner or later I'd be distracted momentarily by a sudden thought or other and I couldn't take that chance, as a car is a very deadly weapon and I could easily clip a cyclist, or hit someone who had stepped out (sensibly or otherwise) in the road in-front of me, when for a second I tuned out of reality.
Most of the adults I know can drive, but I know a few people, including perhaps a surprising number of males (driving is still seen as "male" task, to some degree, I think) who can't drive for one reason or another. And I know a fair few people (again of either gender) who for one reason or another shouldn't be allowed to drive. I've been driven by people who pay less (sometimes alarmingly less) attention to the road and the vehicles ahead and behind than they should, and I know people who change drastically for the worse, temper-wise, when behind the wheel, and I've been in cars with drivers who seem to have little understanding about driving customs and the meaning of road markings and signs.
Being unable to drive has harmed my career (if you can call a succession of agency IT jobs a career :-() as it's a definite disadvantage in most prospective employers eyes, especially when you are applying for a job you'd have to commute to, and it doesn't exactly impress women (though thankfully most of them can drive nowadays), but on the plus side it gives me some exercise, and most of my mates drive so I can always get a lift if I need one. I didn't much enjoy being behind the wheel, from what I remember (this was over twenty years ago :-o) as I prefer to let my thoughts wander, but I do regret not having the freedom that a vehicle brings. But it's not worth the risk; if it was just my body and life I was risking then maybe I'd get a car, I don't know, but every time I drove I'd be putting at risking potentially everyone I went near, and it only takes one child to run into the road, or for me to fail to brake a second or so earlier in an emergency, and that's a mistake you can never take back.
I do wish that Britain had much better cycling facilities, though. Biking in a city is often perilous at best, due to too much traffic as any idiot can get a driving license (probably even me if I hadn't had that rare flash of common sense), and the lack of cycling lanes, and the sky high theft rate of bicycles. Cycling is a healthy method of transport, non-polluting, and massively eases up both traffic and wear on tear on the roads, but the government do so little to make it safe or practical as they get so much money from petrol tax. And speaking as someone who has to use both cars and buses to get to and from work, our very poor and far too expensive public transport system seems designed almost to get people into cars.
But no, as much as I'd like a car (well, I'd like the convenience of having a car, the actual car itself wouldn't interest me, I've never been interested in vehicles in themselves) it wouldn't be safe me owning one. Maybe I'd be lucky and be alright for months, maybe years, perhaps decades. But sooner or later I'd mentally drift at just the wrong time, just for a second or two, and cause something I could never take back.
Good you're so honest. I know some people who just shouldnt be on the road, the second theres some traffic or theyre on the motorway they just seem to turn to jelly, just very dangerous.
I cant wait for the mother in law to stop driving, the northern roads will be so so so much safer
You have an automatic choke? Pah!
you want a proper car like mine, none of this computer malarkey you have to know how to drive properly :p
just get a car that's old enough that it passes the test on the nod cause half the checks it's exempted :)
oddly (since I learnt in a diesel mostly) I don't like my dad's big diesel since I've got used to my smaller petrol car.
I think it's the delay between giving it some welly and the car taking off that gets on my nerves (also the power steering, but that's another complaint, I suppose it all adds up...) I just don't feel as in control as I do in my car.
There's plenty who aren't... They do it anyway of course, and if they get stopped they pretend they're Estonian :p
Modern cars don't have chokes at all, that's why there is no control for it (automatic or otherwise). All modern cars are fuel injected, and EFI engines never have had chokes. The nearest a FI engine has for a choke is an extra injector that runs for the first few seconds to make the mixture extra rich for an easy start (on old mechanical fuel injections). Most EFIs just have a "fast idle" speed for when the engine has just started (you'll notice your car has a faster idle speed for the first few minutes after starting).
On older vehicles (or boats) with carburettors rather than EFI, automatic chokes were HORRIBLE, and yes, I certainly do complain about them and so does anyone else who has the misfortune to have one on their engine. (A friend an I converted his Cortina to have a manual choke, the Weber automatic chokes were disasters). The problem with automatic chokes is they almost never work right, and the car is difficult to start, or difficult to start when the engine has been stopped for 10 minutes (because parts of the engine cool at different rates, the choke is either not on when it should be, or on when it shouldn't be making the car hard to start or rough running), or they shut off far too early meaning each time you come to a junction or a traffic light and stop, the engine quits. Even when new, automatic chokes sucked. The very worst automatic choke was the one I had on the old Dodge truck I had in Texas. This truck also had automatic transmission, and there was an uncomfortable spot every day when the engine hadn't really warmed up but the useless automatic choke had shut itself off, every time I went to slow down - remember an automatic transmission will NOT turn the engine - the engine would quit. When this happened, the power steering would stop working, and so would the brake servo, so the vehicle became very difficult to steer and to stop (it was quite heavy). For the first five minutes of driving I had to do an awkward juggle between blipping the throttle to keep the engine from dying and braking, whenever I needed to slow down. (Eventually I adopted two foot driving so I could just keep the throttle slightly open, while braking with the left foot, until the engine was properly warmed up).
My Dad's boat has an automatic choke. While it's easy to start cold, if it's run for a while, then been shut down 20 minutes, it becomes very hard to get running again because the choke should be on and it isn't. It's not so bad with a boat because the hand throttle controls stay where you put them, so you can leave the throttle open enough to make 1000 rpm until it's warmed back up. Automatic chokes are an abortion that should never have been allowed to survive.
Still not keen on the engine management system, a few times the light has appeared, the garage charges me a fortune to plug their laptop into it, tell me theres nothing wrong, the light appeared for no reason and click one button and its cancelled and i'm 90 quid down !
You've been on a 5 speed bike yes?
Think about peddling in 1st gear and being limited on your speed....then changing through the gears you go faster and if you change at the right time/speed the effort required to peddle remains fairly constant.
Now think about starting peddling the bike in 5th gear from a standing start...wasn't fun was it.
So you have gears for smooth and efficient transmission of energy.
(Shorter versions are better).
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
aaaargh, don't mention those words. That stuff is crack cocaine for diesel engines. Hopefully when I've rebuilt my tractor's engine it can kick the habit and stay on the wagon
It still exists.
And yes, diesels get "addicted" to Easy Start. One glider club we went to three or four years ago had a bus they used for their launch control point vehicle. The bus was so hopelessly addicted to Easy Start the engine air intake was actually in the cab so the driver could squirt the Easy Start in while cranking the engine.
Generally it'd be best to fix the problem with the diesel that's meaning it needs easy start rather than using Easy Start!