We don't have the RS, but the ST has 250hp (at the wheel it's less). A reflash of the computer adds 20hp! Haven't done it yet, but I plan to. The reflash brings it up to 242HP and 332ft-lbs max (@2,250 rpm!).
View attachment 6108 I built this 32 Ford roadster in High School with the two friends you see in this photo. It had a Olds 455 engine. Those were the days when Hot Rods were Kings!
I usually drove with the top down but I wanted a picture with the top up so this is what you see me in it when I wasn't driving around but just sitting still for a little while. Convertables were the best of both worlds so that you can go topless or when it rains just pull up the top so you won't get wet inside the car.
Three years ago my friend bought a Volvo with 300,000 miles on the original engine. It's still running fine and he has had no major repair bills. We have a 1978 Mercedes 240D (diesel) that we bought new. It has 200,000 miles and still runs like new, although the fuel consumption is a little higher.
My first car (a Datsun 610) ran until the body rusted out - 280,000 miles. Which is about the distance from the earth to the moon. Since then I seem to average about 100,000 miles on a car before it gets sold/donated/traded in.
That seems to be the standard for Japanese cars. The engines and running gear last forever, but the bodies are not built to the same standard. Even a ten year-old Honda or Toyota looks like crap and after five more years it might not even be weatherproof anymore. I burned out the engine in a 1987 Toyota Supra (not the car's fault, poor maintenance by the previous owner). I took it to a well-regarded mechanic to see if it was worth overhauling. He said hell no. The laws in Japan are crafted to support the auto industry, so once a car is ten years old it becomes prohibitively expensive to renew the registration. Therefore Japanese junkyards are overflowing with cars that don't look so good but have engines that are still in almost perfect condition. A cottage industry sprang up to ship those engines to the USA to rescue guys like me. Replacing my engine would have cost about half as much as rebuilding it! I dithered and eventually decided to let the car go, and that was one of the stupidest decisions I ever made. I've never had a car that I liked as much as that Supra. It's the only car I ever had which I could never get the tires to break loose, even when going through a turn at aviation speed. Worse yet, I "traded up" to a Porsche 928. Now that was the worst car I've ever owned. It had 90K miles and apparently they only built them to go 100K. I paid $11K for it, put in $8K in repairs, and it still wouldn't run so I had to sell it for parts and got $4K for it. I had it for 2 years and only got to drive it for about six months of that time. When it crapped out in 2004 my wife shipped our 1980 Mercedes 300SD diesel, with 190,000 miles, from California. (Yes we had two diesel Benzes, love those cars.) I put another 30K miles on it over five years and it still ran great. But the heater core conked out, which meant no heater, no A/C and no defroster. As my mechanic put it, this model was Daimler-Benz's attempt to build a Jaguar, and they succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. Sure, I could get an old heater core out of a junker for a couple hundred bucks. But the only way to get it out and in was through the cabin, which means removing the dashboard. That's a 6-hour job to get it out of the clunker and a 12 hour job to take mine out and put the new one in! Wow, that's no better than we were doing in the 1950s! Buy a 2 year-old German or Swedish car (so you don't have to suck up all the depreciation), and I'm sure you'll get 150-200K additional miles out of it. I'm the first to admit that Mercedes aren't what they used to be. In my '05 ML I've had to replace the A/C compressor, the pollution control air pump, and a few things whose purpose I don't even understand. And the single-disc CD deck in the dashboard crapped out so I can only use the 6-disc changer in the back because I refuse to pay $1100 to replace the stupid overpriced Bose deck. But the running gear will hold out. It's already got 140K miles and barely burns a quart of oil between 10K-mile changes. Pick up a late 1970s small-body Mercedes diesel. (240D or 300D, not 300SD.) Those things will still be running at the Apocalypse and the body integrity is legendary. Aside from a few little things that won't last forever on any car, like the alternator, water pump and master cylinder, the only real money we've had to put into our 35 year-old 240D was a paint job. You should be able to pick up one in very good condition for about $4K. Or maybe not, since the bio-diesel fanatics are snapping them up and running them on McDonalds' used oil, so their exhaust smells like french fries. (Not kidding about that.)
Other than the Datsun, every car I have gotten rid of had plenty of life left. Honda CRX with 130,000 miles on it was doing fine but got somewhat trashed in a move across the country so I traded it in. Mazda MX-3 got hit after I'd had it for six weeks. Engine ran fine after that but the car was never the same - doors didn't close without a lot of effort, couldn't align the front end etc so I got rid of that one pretty quickly. Had a Toyota Previa that I lived in for a while. Put 110K miles on it, then a friend of mine who volunteered in an orphanage in Tijuana mentioned they really needed a van to get kids around. That was a good excuse to get a new car (and to force me to get a place to live) so I donated the van to them and bought a Honda Civic hybrid. Put 90K on that one before we bought the Leaf. Etc etc.
I bought a Datsun pickup with a camper shell in 1970. Kept it for 11 years, put about 120K miles on it. It wasn't exactly low maintenance, I had to have the engine rebuilt. There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't the kind of vehicle I wanted anymore. We got a tent, which was considerably more comfortable on a camping trip. Always had to unlatch the back door at night and let it hang in the breeze, because I was longer than the truck bed. That's when Mrs. Fraggle bought me the Trans Am.
Many apologies kjk, those were mpg figures for the UK car market, I naively didn't realise there was a differnce. Also from what I could find, when looking for the US prices of these vehicles, was that the Hyundai model I referenced isn't actually available on the American market. So please ignore my ill thought out post.
I think an 80mpg car is a great car (if the price is right). Seems like it would be a big seller, so why hasn't it been released in the States (anybody)?
We had one; the Honda Insight (2000-2006). Got very close to that (70mpg? 72mpg?) but didn't sell well.
You didn't say what you paid for it, and you didn't venture an opinion about why it didn't sell well. But sense I never heard of it, I'd probably think the marketing wasn't what it should have been.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Came across this site: http://editorial.autos.msn.com/listarticle.aspx?cp-documentid=745437 Shame that the fiesta isn't going to US market though.
So Ford makes a car that can't be sold in the US. I always thought the diesel problem was the fuel itself and that it had been cleaned up. I'm sure many of us can remember a time when driving behind a city bus was a very unpleasant experience. In any event it seems the current laws about diesel engine cars is more about stifling competition than protecting the public from diesel fumes IMO.
Most of those old city buses had 2 stroke Detroit Diesels in them. Big difference between a 2 stroke and a 4 stroke diesel.
I was living in Tucson AZ at the time when they made the city start buying the more expensive better diesel fuel for there bus fleet. The difference was like night and day.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yeah it does kind of take the mick, any road I've had a look and found a few of the cheaper cars with good mpg available on the US market for you to have a look at, the links give you all the details for each car price, mpg, etc.... http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Ford_Fiesta/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Honda_Insight/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Hyundai_Elantra/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Ford_Fusion-Hybrid/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Ford_C-Max-Hybrid/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Toyota_Prius-c/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Kia_Optima-Hybrid/ http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Honda_Civic/ BTW the Ford_Fusion-Hybrid looks like a pretty nice car, but not the cheapest.
We almost never get the best diesel engines. But the new Jeep Cherokee is available with a diesel 6! Give me the Fiesta ST anyway, which is coming here.
The Ford Fiesta does look good for the price, but not as good as the diesel version. Also the Ford Fusion-Hybrid listed here does look good but a bit high on the price and also is not the rechargeable model which is even more expensive. Why does the rechargeable feature make it cost so much more?
