Dangerous lack of torque

[Joey Ramone]

Been riding motorbikes most of my life but bit the bullet late last year,took my car test and bought a lovely mint Toyota Celica GT 190. The one with the massive spoiler that makes it look like it should belong to a teenage boy rather than a 41 yr old man.

All well and good. Car looks great, handles great and is rather a lovely place to be in terms of comfort. Plasticky dash, but lovely low slung seating position. And seeing as I'm a pretty chilled out driver, it goes great too. Certainly quick enough for me 95% of the time. It's just the other 5% I'm getting worried about.

If there's one thing that is fundamentally important to a biker, particularly those who prefer to ride litre-plus bikes like mine (Blackbird), it's the knowledge that a quick yank on the laughing cables in any gear will result in some pretty profound acceleration. Even in 6th. Add to that some epic amounts of engine braking and overtaking becomes second nature: sit in 5th, quick turn of the wrist, catapult forwards and then let the engine slow you down as you slot back into position. Rinse and repeat. Like riding a massive scooter.

Imagine my surprise when trying to work out how this bloody Toyota's engine works. It must be the car equivalent of one of those two-stroke 250cc bikes with a powerband 10 revs wide. Had it a few days and found myself sat behind some creeping Jesus on a fast straight dual carriageway. I was in fifth at about 60 so swung out and floored it. And basically went backwards. Unreal. And confusing. And frightening.

Anyway, I don't use the car much as I only live half a mile from work and tend to cycle in but last week the wife and I drove down to Swanage (from Oxford way). Which meant 100 odd miles of predominantly single lane twisty A roads on the way to Wareham via Salisbury. fk me that car caught me out a few times. Wrong gear for overtaking predominantly,i.e. one higher than necessary resulting in dangerously sluggish acceleration and a few very choice words from the wife. Happened a few times. Was actually a bit morose by the time we got to Monkey World due to my ineptitude (and the fact that the effing monkeys appeared to have decided, en masse, to stay in bed, thus causing me to spend 25 sovs in order to look at some empty cages).

Don't want to get rid of the car, as I love it in every other way. But I'm definitely a bit wary of it. I think I just need to recalibrate my acceleration 'expectations'. Or just not ever drive lengthy single lane country A roads populated almost exclusively by OAP's, tractors and 44 tonners.

Anyone else been caught out by the fact that their pride and joy couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding?

Edited by Joey Ramone on Monday 22 September 18:47

[Joey Ramone]

TheEnd said:

All I can see as a problem is you not knowing the capabilities of the car and trying overtakes when you shouldn't.

There's a lot of smaller cars out there that aren't dangerous.

The issue wasn't a question of overtaking with too little room to spare. It was a question of overtaking with plenty of room to spare but the car essentially crawling forward. And no, I wasn't in top gear.

And yes, of course I knew the engine was peaky. The missus owned a Civic EP 3 which has similar characteristics. But this engine is far weaker at certain points. I would have expected the theoretical 190hp to make their presence felt in anything other than very narrow circumstances

The point I was trying to make, if rather ineffectually obviously, was not that cars accelerate more slowly than bikes, but that this particular car allows no real latitude for error. Unlike other cars.

And yes I did own a 600 and yes I danced around on the year lever and yes, that's what I do with this car.

Bit of a surprise, that's all.

[Joey Ramone]

Driver101 said:

Does a lack of torque make it dangerous?

It seems to me that drivers of cars like this seem to manage fine without killing themselves.

Very much sounds like the driver is to blame.

Of course it's my fault you dullard. Re-read the bit in my original post where I admit my own ineptitude.

Although I can pretty much put money on the fact that someone has killed themselves in a Celica somewhere at some point.

[Joey Ramone]

T0MMY said:

I don't quite understand this issue...do you find the same problem when you go for overtakes on your bicycle? Try to go from 20-50 as quick as you can and are astonished to find a sudden lack of power?

I don't recall ever suddenly discovering how slow my car or motorbike was during an overtake after several months of ownership. You calibrate instantly...I split my time between a very fast car and a very slow one and don't totally misjudge overtakes in the latter as a result.

Seems to me this thread was created solely to point out how fast your blackbird is.

Well done, you've seen straight through me. This is in fact a bike v car thread in disguise, engineered to prove that the former are better than the latter.

BTW the overtakes weren't 'totally' misjudged or I wouldn't be typing this now. They would, however, have justified criticism. As I admit.

[Joey Ramone]

castex said:

I don't know about ineptitude, just take the time to adapt. I recently changed from a BMW 330D to a Honda Accord 2.0 vtec and the difference is marked - it will shift, but you really have to cane these things!

This is it. Absolutely. I don't cane the bike. And I never have. But do need to learn to thrash the car.

Simple.

[Joey Ramone]

T0MMY said:

I'm simply astonished that you've only just discovered how well your car pulls at different RPMs after nearly a year of ownership.

I barely drive it, to be honest. A few motorway runs to and from Bristol and Malvern, and much pottering about into town and back. That was the first long drive on those sorts of roads it's done during my ownership. I got a car because I needed the capability to get from A-B occasionally without dressing like a knob. But I travel day to day by bike. Hence the inexperience.

Edited by Joey Ramone on Monday 22 September 19:39

[Joey Ramone]

ging84 said:

if only there was some way to change into another gear
some sort of gear shifter

I did notice some sort of stick poking up between the driver and passenger but have left it alone.

Witchcraft, I tell you.

[Joey Ramone]

USABRZ said:

Downshifting and revving the engine out is part of the charm of these types of cars. The original post sounds odd, because it sounds like you bought a boat and realized "I need to put this thing in water before I can use it?!".

It does indeed. Mea culpa.

[Joey Ramone]

So, just to be clear (my own lack of driving skills accepted) none of you have ever fked up an overtake?

Really?

[Joey Ramone]

TurboHatchback said:

As others have already said, use the gearbox. To accelerate from 60 to overtake you want to be in 3rd, of course 5th is going to be disappointing. If you want instant punch from cruising at 60mph in top without changing gear you need many more litres of displacement, an automatic gearbox or a big diesel engine. A small capacity NA petrol screamer is clearly not going to deliver this.

There is no level of performance which is dangerous, only dangerous drivers.

Let's just clarify something. When I mentioned that I performed an overtake in 5th gear, that was on a dual carriageway with one car in front. No oncoming traffic and therefore no issue with safety. I was just surprised at how sluggish the Toyota felt in comparison to other cars in similar circumstances, that's all.

On the trip down to Dorset the less than stellar overtake that resulted in sharp words from the missus was undertaken in 4th as opposed to 3rd.

[Joey Ramone]

scarble said:

This. Lrn2 drive, save us your drama plsthnx.

Will do thnx

[Joey Ramone]

Dog Star said:

(None of this is any criticism of the OP by the way (who I must say was very Troy Queef-like in his prose at times )

Edited by Dog Star on Tuesday 23 September 08:04

I aim to please.

I also acknowledge that I am certainly no driving god and have bought a car with fairly peculiar characteristics. Up to me to learn how it works best.

[Joey Ramone]

McSam said:

Have you actually hammered it through the rev range yet? Go to the very top of second until you hit the limiter, then the same in third. That's as far as you'll be going on the roads without hitting silly speeds, which should tell you something about the gear selections needed for overtaking!

Then you'll know the correct gear for maximum effect in any overtaking situation, and that the car can actually be plenty quick enough for most situations.

But I wouldn't call a 190bhp Celica being unable to overtake like a Blackbird (either sort) in fifth gear "dangerous"

I have thrashed it through the revs occasionally but it's tricky to keep the engine in lift mode throughout the range, and it feels counterintuitive to have it bouncing off the limiter. I'm so used to not having to change gear to overtake that dropping down 2 gears in order to do so takes some getting used to. It's just recalibration on my part that's required. And it's more the fact that there's not much of a margin for error in getting the engine to properly get going that caught me out than anything else.

Fair points. It's not the car's fault. I accept that and beg forgiveness.

[Joey Ramone]

DrDoofenshmirtz said:

What exactly are you expecting from this thread?

Massive amounts of piss taking. Mission accomplished!

Dunno really. Just pointing out how tricky I found it adjusting to different engine characteristics. Not a bike v car thing by any means. The Blackbird was simply used to illustrate what I was used to, rather than what was 'best'.

[Joey Ramone]

daemon said:

And a 190 is the right tool in the right hands, so we're back to poor workman?

Hey, I put my hands up and acknowledged my lack of skills, after reflection.

It is quite amusing, reading back through the posts. There's the 'Bike different from Car shock horror what did you expect' mob, which is fair enough. Then there's the 'Don't worry, takes a little bit of getting used to but you'll get the hang of it' mob, which makes me feel all warm inside. Then there's the 'You stupid fking . Learn to fking drive like the rest of us and then maybe you won't need to come on here talking absolute fking pissflaps about how dire your fking machine is when we all know you're a spastic who shouldn't be let out on the roads' which I must say is a bracing start to a Tuesday morning.

[Joey Ramone]

It's OK I'm an awesome driver now thnx

[Joey Ramone]

neil1jnr said:

I once had a GT 190 too and I agree the lack of torque was a nightmare. During an engine rebuild I opted for different cams that helped with the torque DIP (yes a dip in torque) just before the cam change at 6200rpm.

Whoohoo! Vindication!