A driving thread

[thehairyone]

2011 Ford Fiesta.

Neat, that generation is where they stopped looking like hairdressers cars - the Ka took that position.

The current shape Fiesta is on my list of replacement cars for next year. Sweet machine to drive. With the turbo engine as well...

[Jim]

EcoBoost engines are the first decent bit of engineering Ford have done since the Cossie engines, from what I've been hearing.

Tiny displacement, 3 pot bangers with a turbo pushing out 120bhp? The thing would fly! And yet they still have 2L, 4 cylinder engines with the same turbo & fuel saving tech firing out over 200bhp. Time will tell for reliability though. A turbo means another moving part that needs oiling, and usually an intercooler to increase airflow efficiency. More parts that can go wrong.

[Turbo]

^ You should be an advisor for Citroen.

[Jim]

Never actually driven a Citroen, funnily enough.

[thehairyone]

EcoBoost engines are the first decent bit of engineering Ford have done since the Cossie engines, from what I've been hearing.

Tiny displacement, 3 pot bangers with a turbo pushing out 120bhp? The thing would fly! And yet they still have 2L, 4 cylinder engines with the same turbo & fuel saving tech firing out over 200bhp. Time will tell for reliability though. A turbo means another moving part that needs oiling, and usually an intercooler to increase airflow efficiency. More parts that can go wrong.

Add in the incredibly tight engineering that gets the head block down the same size as a sheet of A4, and I can forsee some issues. One of the reasons I want to see next year is purely reliability - hopefully after a couple of years any issues should be starting to appear. I have driven the same engine in the Focus and it goes like stink - little turbo lag and it feels like a normal 1.6.

[Turbo]

Never actually driven a Citroen, funnily enough.

You've missed nothing aside from a tonne of gadgets that will inevitably go wrong.

[Jim]

Never actually driven a Citroen, funnily enough.

You've missed nothing aside from a tonne of gadgets that will inevitably go wrong.

The only toys mine has are cruise control and a touch screen radio/CD player. Not even DAB, or buttons on the steering wheel. Hell, it even lacks a turbo. Thing should last centuries!

[Turbo]

No car should lack me.

[Tet]

A turbo means another moving part that needs oiling, and usually an intercooler to increase airflow efficiency.

An intercooler doesn't increase airflow efficiency. The flow is still largely the same. What it does is cool the charge to make it more dense, thus increasing the amount of oxygen in the combustion chamber.

[Jim]

A turbo means another moving part that needs oiling, and usually an intercooler to increase airflow efficiency.

An intercooler doesn't increase airflow efficiency. The flow is still largely the same. What it does is cool the charge to make it more dense, thus increasing the amount of oxygen in the combustion chamber.

Yeah that's what I meant, but not quite in as elegant terms. Basically as the air is more dense, it's feeding air in more efficiently (by volume) than if the air was still hot, is what I meant.

[Turbo]

I think from September ill be contributing to this thread alot as it will be my job. I think mainly ill be driving transits around but I might get the odd gem here and there. Though my dad gets rather excited about the VW Up so I am guessing that there are times where he drives nothing but Vauxhalls around.

[Andy (Dr Sin)]

Just picked the Fiesta up, love it.

[sugarmouse]

Aw glad to see the thread I began is still going-really need to spend more time on here.

Even though I love driving, I have never really been interested in cars or vehicles. Always just as long as it worked, fine nevermind what it looks like.
However recently due to good fortune I have been driving much 'nicer' cars and have become a bit of a speed freak, will feel crap when I go back to my olde banger!

I remember when I passed my test, EVERYONE expected me to fail!I passed first time, either 3 or 4 minor faults can't remember.

[Turbo]

Yeah my knowledge of the working of cars could be loaded on a fart. My car breaks, ill ring the breakdown Gestapo. I can change wheels, check the oil, change the lightbulbs, and replace the windscreen wipers but if anything significant goes wrong with the car, ill ring the pro's in.



There are cars I would like (and many I wouldn't entertain), but its not important to me to have any of them. My little shitbox isn't broken, yet, and it's not worth anything so I am not in any dire need to replace it to get a decent part ex. I want a house more.

[Jim]

I can do most car servicing provided it doesn't need specialist lifting equipment (other than a trolley jack).

And for my current car that means something like changing the spark plugs means dropping the engine - good job that's not due for 60k miles.

Actually since owning new cars I've not needed to get a spanner dirty for a couple of years!