It's not just engines and mechanical components that are affected.
A car must be fitted with tyres that are capable of handling the car's top speed - even if the car will never be used anywhere near that speed. This may force compromises that you would not readily accept - especially in terms of price or longevity.
I disagree with the idea that a faster running engine is necessarily nosier or vibrates more or 'feels' worse.
It will depend upon design.
There are many engines that will rev very happily indeed and have long life. The best example perhaps is the pre-VTEC Honda VFR 800 motorcycle engine.
I do feel that many cars are engineered (and bought) as autobahn cruisers, and yet never go any where near an autobahn; which is just as silly as having a 4x4 in Chelsea really.
As for slower = cheaper, that's certainly true to a point, but buying something that is common, or common technology may also be cheaper.
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It is actually the buying public that insist! If we didn't want them these fast cars would still be sat on dealer forecourts and old airfields. 4x4 is the same issue. All the makers do is offer us what we want!
I'm not sure that they do, actually.
One factor is the power of marketing: all those SUVs marketed with television pictures of them roaring across deserts and through jungles is about as relevant to the average SUV-buyer as the vehicle's performance on the moon. Most of those vehicles spend more time in supermarket car parks than off-road, and the advertsing explicitly targets people's fantasies (though the same goes for other consumer products, of course).
Another factor to bear in mind is that the UK car market is haevily distorted by the high proportion of sales to company car fleets, rather than to private buyers. That leads, for example, to cars with a lot more electrical toys than are found in many other markets, because private buyers are less keen to pay lots extra for gadgets which will be expensive to maintain.
In markets where private buyers are parting with their own cash (e.g. Ireland and the Netherlands), cars are not only lower-specced, theiy are mre likely to be Japanese. When the public are doing the buying rather than having someone else buy for them, they put a much higher value on reliability.
Engine sizes also tend to be smaller in the Irish market. That may partly be because there aren't so many motorways and road tax is more heavily weighted by engine size, but it's possibily also because people are less keen to spend their own money on performance that they will never use.
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Engine sizes also tend to be smaller in the Irish market. That may partly be because there aren't so many motorways and road tax is more heavily weighted by engine size, but it's possibily also because people are less keen to spend their own money on performance that they will never use.
I think it's largely down to the absolutely exorbitant insurance costs over there.
I would also say that your points about marketing might explain the reason why the punters demand these things, but they don't mean it isn't the case.
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I did some work with DoELG in Shannon on their road tax applications software and was staggered at the prices I saw.
Top band road tax (>3000cc) costs ?1300 per annum, and a typical 2.0 family car is over ?500.
Cheers
DP
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Doesn't this issue show up when electric cars are mentioned? The biggest drawback according to most is the limited range of say 50-80 miles. But how may motorists do far less than this everyday? There are other problems and drawbacks but if everyone that could practically use a electric car had one I reckon they'd be awful lot of them on the roads.
Steve.
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Xantia HDi.
Buy a Citroen and get to know the local GSF staff better...
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Very interesting replies, one of my thoughts when making the original post was whether the 'high speed capability" issue might be tied up in a progress for the sake of progress situation.
When one poster mentions the need to accelerate out of a situation I thought yes, but would I need 130 mph capability? In the few seconds of oomph my car needs is it going to use its capacity?
In the tree falling scenario, if I'd been going slower from the time I left home the tree might already be on the ground before I arrive! Alternatively, I might alrady be at my destination before it falls.
The 'manufacturers only give us what we want' argument is an old one - how do we know what we want until they give us what is possible?
What is the advantage in anybody having a car capable of more than the speed limit + 50% (just for emergencies!)
Is there any reason/point in engine manufacturers developing any faster engines at all unless and this is a big unless - the extra speed capability is an unavoidable by-product of a more-efficent/greener/cheaper engine?
I'm wondering if it's a bit like that myth of the USA spending squillions developing pens for use in space while the Russias just used pencils - like - why bother?
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how do we know what we want untilthey give us what is possible? What is the advantage in Is there any reason/point in I'm wondering if it's a bit like that myth
They make cars that can't be legally used to the full in most countries because people think they want them like that, and are willing to pay for them.
But really it's just the way the automobile and its attendant industries have evolved.
I don't really like this kind of thread. I am terrified some ghastly monkey in power will read them and get ideas.
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Ha ha - true!
It probably comes down most to what you want from the car - doesn't everything - perhaps?
Living in London - my use of a car is never going to be to get somewhere faster - train or tube will alwasy do that - sometimes even a bus
But - if you want a pleasant, leisurely trip, with no angst about spitting chavs and so on - you've got to use the car -
It actually wouldn't matter if it took me twice as long as a bus to get to the shops - it'll always be ten times more pleasant - unfortunate but true
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I live in London too. It's true that the way they have the place set up these days it can take for ever to do what used to be a 12 or 15 minute journey. The traffic has been and is being deliberately obstructed in a number of ways.Of course there's also a lot of it. I can't imagine why everyone stands for it. Looks to me like politicians taking brutal advantage of the British citizen's endemic guilt and diffidence, for purposes that remain obscure. Heavens we're well-trained. Not sheep, more like performing sealions.
However the tube and bus aren't necessarily any quicker although of course they are for simple straight-line journeys during rush hour. I can think of several regular crosstown journeys I do more quickly in the car than by public transport, even at busy times. And as you say, it's far more pleasant. You can mutter, snarl and scream with laughter without being stared at, listen to the radio without having to wear earphones and smoke cigarettes if that is your thing.
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My wife yesterday accompanied one of our grandchildren from one place in London to another, Like a total idiot she chose to do it by public transport. The result was that she took two hours to do a one-hour journey. Although I am sorry for her, the journey she chose to do by public transport was so downright irrational that I have a damn good mind to refer to her as SWMBO, something I have never done before. If she does anything so mad again I will.
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I believe my car will do 126 mph. I have no intention of ever checking this, whether or not it's legal, I wouldn't want to pay for the fuel!!
However, I like having a car powerful enough to do this, as it means that I can safely overtake on the average A or B road. I spend a lot of time at the weekends heading for Wales to go to the mountains, and being able to get safely past caravans and other slow moving vehicles was a factor for me. My 2.2 diesel is very rapid from 40-70, that was a big factor in my buying decision. I don't give a monkeys about the top speed. :-).
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It's about getting the balance right, suppose a 1.4 or 1.6 between 70 and 100bhp is sufficient for most needs and to accelerate safely up to and just beyond the speed limit to around 90. Over 100mph a lot of effort is wasted due to the increased drag of air against the car and I suppose there are graphs to show how much effort is required to increase up to and beyond 100mph against the wind resistance. I have noticed this on films of high performance cars inching their way towards 150mph fighting the wind resistance.
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Yes, drag force is given by
F = 0.5 * ro * Cd * A * V^2
with;
F - the aerodynamic drag force (Newtons)
ro - the density of air (approx 1.225 kg/m^3)
Cd - the drag co-efficient of the car (dimensionless)
A - the frontal area of the car (square metres)
A vehicle reaches its maximum speed when the tractive effort is equal to the total drag force (aerodynamic drag plus rolling resistance plus gradient load).``As the vehicle nears this speed, the surplus force (tractive effort - drag) becomes very small, and so the vehicle's acceleration diminishes likewise.
If you wished to be more philosophical about a vehicle's top speed, you might take the view that the vehicle never actually reaches the theoretical speed I mention in the above paragraph, it only approaches it assymptotically - another way of saying this is that a vehicle's top speed can only be reached after infinite time has elapsed (I suspect the petrol tank would be empty far before then!).
Another way to view aerodynaic drag is that the power required is proportional to V^3, and so, other things being equal, the mass flow rate of fuel into the engine at higher vehicle speeds, where aerodynamic drag is dominant, is proportional to V^3.
Number_Cruncher
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**************** ***************
God how boring.
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Thanks Number Cruncher for the technical explanation, as you say a vehicle cannot reach it's theoretical maximum velocity due to drag, diminishing returns.
Acceleration is the thing, feels better than outright top speed.
I remember at school in the physics lesson they had a model wooden truck on a sloping ramp attached to a ticker tape timer to measure the relationship between distance, velocity and time but that is as far as I got, I defer to your greater knowledge.
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>>God how boring.
Please accept my most humble apology!
Perhaps I should put my post into context. Approximately, how much extra power do you need to go at 125 mph instead of 100?
extra_power=(125/100)^3
extra_power =
1.9531
So, if you begin with a car capable of 100mph, you effectively need to bolt another engine in to get to 125!
This partly explains why when one power unit of an inter-city 125 fails , you still get reasonable performance, about 100mph, the train doesn't slow to 62.5 mph! (The rest of the explanation is that with both power units running, 125s are actually capable of closer to 150mph, but, for many reasons, they are governed down to about 128mph)
Number_Cruncher
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