American Car hate club
- Thread starter merlin
- Start date
on the subject of crap american V8s
what was it that Hammond Said
If this doesnt move you, its your problem not the cars
Agree, its total BS. If anything the high efficiency 4 cylinder diesels popular in Europe are more suited to US driving, as they can achieve super efficiency at constant highway speeds over long distances, rather than the stop-start we get in congested urban Europe.
The reason they have big lazy V8s is that they were cheap to build and gasoline used to be so cheap it was almost free.
Caporegime
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Thats much lower than expected, driving on the freeway for mile after mile is much better with a big engine than a small one, whats the major service interval on something like a Mercedes V8, i was under the impression on the newer American stuff its almost 100k.
I think you have a misconception of how driving in the US is tbh
I work with Americans a fair bit, they generally do not drive long distances and are always in amazement at the distances i/we drive in the UK. One woman i call regularly as part of my job literally gawps at >100mile drives, she's never done that distance in a car in her life.
Intercity they will fly, and rent a car locally. Driving for miles on end as you imagine happens very little with the average US motorist.
On the contrary to those service intervals, the Americans actually service their cars more than us. Using a snapshot of people on the american Mercedes forum i frequent, most of the US people tend to perform an oil service every 4-5k (on advice of MBUSA!) on their W220 S-class'.
Over here we tend to stick to the standard variable servicing standards, which is as much as 18-20k between oil services. I service mine anywhere between 15-20k, which is absolutely unheard of over there and i am constantly told by them that i am damaging my car, and that i am mad etc.
What confuses me is the recommended servicing in the manuals is different for the same cars. For example my civic said change oil every 3k miles or 6 months. Which I did. I did beat the hell out of the car though and oil is really cheap. I would get a 5 quart jug of mobil 1 full synthetic from wallmart for around 16 or 18 dollars.
I'm not sure what the recommended oil change interval is for EG civics here but I think it's more than 3k.
Also how much you drive depends on where you live. I lived in the country and put a good 18-21k per year on my car starting from when I was 16. I think a lot of people who haven't been to America don't understand how large it is....I lived in California most of my life which is only the 3rd largest state (Texas is almost twice as large, Alaska is 4 times as large), yet by area Cali is larger than the UK by around 75%
I'm not sure what the recommended oil change interval is for EG civics here but I think it's more than 3k.
Also how much you drive depends on where you live. I lived in the country and put a good 18-21k per year on my car starting from when I was 16. I think a lot of people who haven't been to America don't understand how large it is....I lived in California most of my life which is only the 3rd largest state (Texas is almost twice as large, Alaska is 4 times as large), yet by area Cali is larger than the UK by around 75%
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O RLY?
and learn to spell Lamborghini pls thx
and regarding that Lancia Y, it's just a Punto in drag.
but it's nothing compared to the Thesis
i think the problem with american cars is the cart springs, wallowy ride, huge capacity engines with no power and the awful build quality and materials
they want wafty wallowy crap, we want high quality products
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Caporegime
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I think you have a misconception of how driving in the US is tbh
I work with Americans a fair bit, they generally do not drive long distances and are always in amazement at the distances i/we drive in the UK. One woman i call regularly as part of my job literally gawps at >100mile drives, she's never done that distance in a car in her life.
Intercity they will fly, and rent a car locally. Driving for miles on end as you imagine happens very little with the average US motorist.
On the contrary to those service intervals, the Americans actually service their cars more than us. Using a snapshot of people on the american Mercedes forum i frequent, most of the US people tend to perform an oil service every 4-5k (on advice of MBUSA!) on their W220 S-class'.
Over here we tend to stick to the standard variable servicing standards, which is as much as 18-20k between oil services. I service mine anywhere between 15-20k, which is absolutely unheard of over there and i am constantly told by them that i am damaging my car, and that i am mad etc.
Cheers, suppose i'm looking at it from a holiday driving point of view rather than actually living and working in the USA
From a US forum post, relating to the W220 S-class M113 V8-series.
We dont even have the 7.5k service, and US people tend to change it even more than this. Seems madness to me. They also change things like the tranny fluids massively often, as detailed above. We dont do any of this here.
Pointless post really but it shows that the reason for their Lazy V8's is definitely not service intervals or high mileage requirements.
Cheers, suppose i'm looking at it from a holiday driving point of view rather than actually living and working in the USA
Yeah, people imagine huge open roads with american's driving 5000 miles to get to their nearest gas station.
Its really not like that, they never leave their home cities unless its by air
Caporegime
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Last visit i did want to drive from Philadelphia to Orlando but everyone else insisted on getting on a plane, boring sods.
But thinking about it you're quite right local flights instead of long car trips.
But thinking about it you're quite right local flights instead of long car trips.