EvanR wrote:MrChaos wrote: And the Fit spanks most of themIf only it wasn't running 4k RPM @ 80MPH, I'd have bought one by now. It sounds so pained on the freeway.
That's the revs my VW ran at 70, and it was a much larger engine that was all stroke. Let small engines sing, don't lug 'em.
miatas, neons, and most 4cl cars scream on the freeway.... its just part of owing one.
Knurled wrote:EvanR wrote:That's the revs my VW ran at 70, and it was a much larger engine that was all stroke. Let small engines sing, don't lug 'em.MrChaos wrote: And the Fit spanks most of themIf only it wasn't running 4k RPM @ 80MPH, I'd have bought one by now. It sounds so pained on the freeway.
It's mechanically fine to spin a small engine to the moon on the highway, although some cars spin them higher than necessary and trade fuel economy for responsiveness and less need to downshift on hills.
However, when you've got the thing buzzing along at 4k rpm, if the manufacturer doesn't do a good job of isolating the engine from the cabin, it can make the car an unpleasant place to be after a while at high speeds.
LanEvo wrote: But in the USA? Most of my driving here is plodding along in dense traffic in a straight line on multi-lane interstate highways at 55-75 mph. Forget about having fun on the ramps: there's an army of SUV drones driving 15 mph around each of them. If you're not on the highway, you're in town with a strict 25 mph limit and a traffic cop hiding every 2 blocks waiting to ticket you for going 5 mph over. What's the point of a true, European-style hot hatch in that setting?
I guess I need to be thankful for where I live and hope it stays that way a little longer. We have a Fiesta, two Miatas and a Mazda3. I sold off my Impreza because it was annoyingly large, slow and not-nimble for the roads around here. It did gobble up highway miles the best of the bunch though.
In reply to John Welsh :
Trax is currently selling at 6-7000 units/month. Not great sales, but I think it's the same platform as that gawky little Buick, so the combined sales are probably enough to keep it going.
It's a shame that small, competent hatches don't sell well in America, but substituting a hatch on stilts isn't going to get my dollars when the time comes. I'll keep the MINI going for a few more years.
In reply to DeadSkunk:
Yeah, but you cant talk sense into the general public.
All the companies now have a small, medium and large crossover SUV.
Honda: HRV, CRV, Pilot
Toyota: New ABC car, Rav4, Highlander
Chevy: Trax, Equinox, Traverse
Sedans are about dead.
My wife's best friend took a new job that will result in about 30k per year. She asked my advice on a new/used car. This car would be in addition to her '14 Jeep Wrangler 2 door which uses a lot of gas and loud/rough on the hyw.
She did not like what I had to say like an Gen2 130k Prius (which she perceived as to old (read as unreliable) and unsafe (read as too small and low to the ground.)
Instead, I just learned she is moving forward on a 75k mile Jeep Patriot
The Buick Encore is Buick's best-selling vehicle worldwide, so its not going anywhere soon.
Nissan also still sells the Versa Note, which is a subcompact, although only available with a yucky CVT.
But like Hyundai/Kia, you can still get a pizza-delivery spec Versa Sedan with a 5 speed manual.
MrChaos wrote: http://www.leftlanenews.com/ford-says-fiesta-wont-return-for-the-2018-model-year-97094.html RIP Fiesta and FiST. IIRC that leaves just the Fit, Yaris, and Spark since chevy is killing the sonic, Mazda dropped the 2 and Mitsubishi is circling the drain like always.
Nissan will make the versa as long as they can get 17% interest on it.
drdisque wrote: Nissan also still sells the Versa Note, which is a subcompact, although only available with a yucky CVT. But like Hyundai/Kia, you can still get a pizza-delivery spec Versa Sedan with a 5 speed manual.
I'm sitting in one right now has a weird stick in the middle and 3 pedals.
The Focus costs only $2k more, has way more usable room, can actually get out of its own way, has a back seat that can actually fit adults, and only gets 1 MPG less in both city and highway. Why the heck would you even consider a Fiesta?
EDIT: Yes, I know about the transmission problems. But that transmission is in both the Fiesta and the Focus. Also, you can learn to "drive around" the transmission problems, generally by putting your foot into it instead of creeping forward at idle all the time.
Aargh - finally, they build a car that fits me and they discontinue it before I can even buy one?
Was looking at rhe Sonic or Fiesta as a replacement for when my Cobalt dies.
Guess I will just have to throw a reman engine in the Cobalt when the time comes.
Only thing I disnt like about the 3cyl Fiesta was having to drop two gears to get the same pickup my Cobalt would get by dropping one.
Still have much want for a Fiesta ST with Recarros.
Bummer. I have always been a small car guy. I started with Escorts in '82 which evolved into the Fiesta. Ford has not really discontinued it. Just jack it up and call it a SUV with a different name.
Didn't the Fiesta evolve from the Fiesta? I thought it was an unbroken line of Fiestas dating back to the 1970s.
The Escort turned into the Focus. Almost no car gets smaller with successive generations....
Knurled wrote: Didn't the Fiesta evolve from the Fiesta? I thought it was an unbroken line of Fiestas dating back to the 1970s. The Escort turned into the Focus. Almost no car gets smaller with successive generations....
AFAIK, this is the case. The US Escort can be traced to the English Escort, but they diverged almost immediately. Then the Escort was influenced by Mazda- so the last US Escort was more Protoge than original Escort.
Then the World Car Reset button was pushed, and we got the Focus.
The Fiesta line has never been broken, as I can tell. The Fiestas we got in the US (if we got them) were the ones from Europe. Granted, it did grow up to be much larger than the original Escort, but every car has done that.
Heck of a car, but for the US market, the Focus is more appropriate. Hence the sales reflect that.
Knurled wrote: The Sonic is NOT a very small car. Pictures hide its bulk well, but in person, yow!
I think the Sonic and Fiesta sedans are about the same size, but not the hatches.
When we were looking at Sonics every GM dealer tried their best to steer us toward a Cruze. Surprisingly at highways speed it cruises at 2k RPM
When I said the Escort evolved into the Fiesta I as speaking of US cars. The Focus replaced the Escort for awhile until it grew. The present Fiesta has almost the same dimensions ,wheel base, track OA length, weight etc. as the last Escort.
Zomby Woof wrote:Knurled wrote: The Sonic is NOT a very small car. Pictures hide its bulk well, but in person, yow!I think the Sonic and Fiesta sedans are about the same size, but not the hatches. When we were looking at Sonics every GM dealer tried their best to steer us toward a Cruze. Surprisingly at highways speed it cruises at 2k RPM
My '89 Golf with the Digifant 8v and AGV (I think) transmission cruised at 2200. I remember driving in third gear at 70-80mph in the winter because the engine couldn't even pull fourth at those speeds with the snow drag. The '86 Quantum that replaced it cruised at 3500 at roughly that speed thanks to 4.11 versus 3.67 final, and a much shallower overdrive (.9 versuis .75 or something?). But that was fine, because the engine was dead and buried much past 4500, and the much larger chassis and the AWD drag meant that you often needed WOT to maintain 70-75mph, so there was no real reason for gearing any taller since you'd never be able to use it. I could never figure out how VWAG could make a five cylinder engine with the same per-cylinder capacity, port structure, etc. as a given four, but have the five make less power than the four did.
It was like my Subaru GL, which had a 5th gear that would cruise 60mph at 2800, except the engine didn't make enough power at 2800 to pull 60, so I just stopped upshifting at 4th, which oddly enough was about the same RPM/speed as that Quantum's 5th.
Two things that kinda shocked me are the time I parked my Volvo next to a Sonic RS and the Sonic was larger in every dimension, and the time I was putzing around on some factsheet website and discovered that apparently the Fiesta ST is heavier than said Volvo. So if I traded up to a FiST it really would be a trade down since I'd be getting into a car that not only is taller but also heavier, and doesn't make all that much more power.
iceracer wrote: When I said the Escort evolved into the Fiesta I as speaking of US cars. The Focus replaced the Escort for awhile until it grew. The present Fiesta has almost the same dimensions ,wheel base, track OA length, weight etc. as the last Escort.
What era are you speaking of?
The First Fiesta in the US pre-dated the Escort, which was the global Escort in about 1979. So the cars were very different then. The Escort replaced the Pinto plus the Fiesta here.
And the recent Fiesta's didn't start being sold in the US until 2011, about 10 years after the last Escort. And that Fiesta was always a line of the Euro one.
The Fiesta has always been a smaller car than the Escort/Focus.
Powertrain wise- the Global Escort came with a pretty new 1.6l, when the Fiesta kept using a Kent version for almost it's entire lifetime.
In reply to alfadriver:
Didn't they use the Kent up into the 1990s? I seem to remember that you could get a Puma with one.
Puma = coupe version of Fiesta, like the Cougar version of the Contour. Actually, it kinda looked like a 3/4 scale Cougar...
It's happening all over. Small and midsize car sales are down, cheap fuel prices. Lordstown Plant (Cruze) is down to two shifts from three IIRC.
GM is considering producing more trucks and SUVs while killing off six slow-selling models produced at underused car plants such as Hamtramck in Michigan and Lordstown in Ohio. It's unclear if the plants will start producing newer, more popular models. GM has cut shifts at several of its U.S. plants as inventories of small and midsized cars grow. If GM stopped producing the six models under consideration, it wouldn't happen until 2020. The models at risk are the Chevrolet Volt, Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Cadillac XTS, Chevrolet Impala and Chevrolet Sonic.
In reply to fasted58:
i understand the volt since it will likely be replaced by the bolt. The impala makes sense since it and the malibu are almost the same at this point. The CT6 and XTS are almost the same thing and get trounced by the CTS since its cheaper. The Buick is just an impala and since they are the only 2 on the platform it makes sense to drop them as well.
I dont understand dripping the sonic but keeping the spark.
In reply to MrChaos:
That was explained upthread... Sonic is made in US for US market, its production is/may be taking up space that could be making more profitable vehicles, while the Spark is just a rebadged Daewoo and there's no loss in continuing to make it. It's just an import off of "someone else's" bottom line so selling it here is more or less just some gravy as far as GM of North America is concerned.
Sonic. I'm a fan.
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