No such Thing as a slow car

[lewishollings]

Alex@POD said:

An extreme example of this can be seen at most F1 races, how hard does the safety car driver have to work to keep in front of the field, when most drivers are getting bored of going so slowly?

I've driven cars that are too slow. I don't even need to quote 0-60 times, in gear times, etc. Some of them can't keep to 70 when getting to a hill on a motorway...

I had a 1.0 litre, 3 cylinder Corsa C that was an absolute nightmare at times on a motorway, slip roads were an absolute joy... Not.

Like you said you would get to a slight incline trying to overtake with your foot flat to the floor but you're still losing speed. Poor thing.

[996TT02]

I think that there may not be a slow car but there certainly is a slow thread.

With the OP responding once every 3 months or so... we may have closure in 2035.

[Alex@POD]

996TT02 said:

I think that there may not be a slow car but there certainly is a slow thread.

With the OP responding once every 3 months or so... we may have closure in 2035.

I doubt it, since the OP ignores any answer that fully agrees with his only point "all cars can reach the speed limit", but expands into why that's not the definition of a car that is "not slow".

[rsbmw]

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

He's been quite clear on that point, he considers that as all cars sold in the UK can travel at 70mph, he would not consider them slow. I'm inclined to agree, however long it takes an object to reach 70mph, an object travelling at 70mph would not be considered 'slow'.

[rsbmw]

Whilst I would love to get into a pathetic internet argument with you, I will simply point out that his definition of slow is clearly something south of 70mph, your question is just silly.

[catso]

chaz1234 said:

And as far as I am aware all cars sold in uk will do 70mph.

I took my Son's 1.2L Polo for a test drive the other day and it struggled to 70, could maybe get to 80 given enough road - I'd say it's a slow car, even an F1 driver would be slow in it.

[Sa Calobra]

I've driven everything from Subaru's to a 65bhp C1. Never have I had an issue using sliproads' to get onto the motorway nor anywhere else.

You need to look at your driving ability if you struggle. It simply takes driving craft and understanding gears to the engine, drop an extra gear, learn to carry revs.

[J4CKO]

Sa Calobra said:

I've driven everything from Subaru's to a 65bhp C1. Never have I had an issue using sliproads' to get onto the motorway nor anywhere else.

You need to look at your driving ability if you struggle. It simply takes driving craft and understanding gears to the engine, drop an extra gear, learn to carry revs.

C1's arent that slow, in the scheme of things, especially with what people had to deal with back in the earlier days of motoring, a C1 would be a sports car level of performance in the fifties, perhaps even faster, an Austin Healey only did sixty in like 11 seconds.

We are used to having plenty of performance at our disposal nowadays, your average 2 litre diesel is a fast car, drove a 170 VAG diesel for a week or two, it felt pretty rapid, 7/8 seconds to sixty and in gear acceleration that would have boggled the mind of rep int he seventies, eighties or even nineties.

There are different levels, mostly its overkill and to an extent depends on what you are used to but really, we are so lucky. I cant think of a car you can buy now that is "too slow", depends on too slow for what, for enjoyment, for not being frustrated ? that is different to too slow to use on the roads which is actually a pretty low bar, people still drive 2CV's, old Fiat 500s (had two, they are pretty slow) and various vintage cars that are even slower.


I think too slow is when you hold up other traffic and cant really keep up, a 1 litre Corsa is crap, slow and frustrating but it will do the job, it is not "too slow" to use, we would just rather not, I think they demand more from our driving as you dont have that big blob of torque to call on.

I managed to do 20 miles on my bike on Saturday, average maybe 15 mph or less, did it feel too slow, not really, as a car it would be as makes it difficult to get past but other than that, wasnt in a mad hurry, very pleasant.

[KevinCamaroSS]

I would define my Skoda Citigo as slow. It can only just maintain 54 mph up the Air Balloon hill here in Gloucestershire. 60 bhp and 875 kg kerb weight.

[GhostWKD]

Followed a Peel P50 with 2 people in it up a hill after a car meet the other day. There definitely is such a thing as a slow car and there was no way carrying speed (if you could call it that) would make up for the fact.

[66mpg]

KevinCamaroSS said:

I would define my Skoda Citigo as slow. It can only just maintain 54 mph up the Air Balloon hill here in Gloucestershire. 60 bhp and 875 kg kerb weight.

In which gear?

[TooMany2cvs]

Shiv_P said:

You can fk off

I drive a Fiesta 1.25 with 75bhp, and driving down A46/A6 which are fast dual carriageways this is TOO SLOW

Yes it is TOO SLOW


TOO

SLOW

<chuckle> Bless.

[Halmyre]

Fiat 500L diesel.

"L...large", said the lady at the car rental desk.

No, signora; L...lethargic.

[Sa Calobra]

KevinCamaroSS said:

I would define my Skoda Citigo as slow. It can only just maintain 54 mph up the Air Balloon hill here in Gloucestershire. 60 bhp and 875 kg kerb weight.

A friend had one of these in his house hold and described it as fun
What gear are you in? Petrol 3 cyl's love revs

[Ron99]

Sa Calobra said:

...Petrol 3 cyl's love revs....

Indeed they do.
But in most small 1-litre cars 30-50mph in 2nd is about 3500-6000rpm which gets tiresome and still needs an upshift to reach 60mph, plus is awful for NVH and makes you look and sound ridiculous as you leave a 30mph zone.

Such modestly-powered cars might have been fine when roads where quieter and there was room for traffic to move over on dual carriageways to let you in. But nowadays 1-litre cars are out of their depth on roads such as the A11 which has a number of short, curved, uphill slip roads or T-junction joining points.

Try joining the A11 (dual carriageway) North-East-bound from the B1106 Elvedon junction. In a 1-litre town car in 2nd gear you'll be lucky to reach 50mph by the time you have to merge due to the short slip road that's very curved and uphill, made worse because a large hill gives only short visibility of what's coming.
And at busy times, if you have to stop and wait at the junction, even with good launch and gearshift skill and maximum acceleration it'll take about 15s to be going fast enough to stay out of the way of lorries and about 25s to get up to the flowing speed of the cars.

[Kawasicki]

slow is 20+ seconds to hit 60 mph

I once drove a vw jetta with a 1.6 na diesel, 54 bhp if I remember correctly. It was quick enough for me...something like a 75 bhp fiesta woukd have been a rocketship to me at that time.

[Ron99]

Kawasicki said:

.....I once drove a vw jetta with a 1.6 na diesel, 54 bhp if I remember correctly. It was quick enough for me....

Was that a long time ago when there was plenty of space on the roads and most other cars were slow?

Around town very slow cars are fine because it takes very little power to reach 30mph. However I wonder how many you annoyed because you pulled out of a junction on a NSL single or dual carriageway and forced them to brake.
Or were the fastest vehicles in your area tractors and horses?

Edited by Ron99 on Tuesday 22 August 22:31

[Sa Calobra]

Ron99 said:

Indeed they do.
But in most small 1-litre cars 30-50mph in 2nd is about 3500-6000rpm which gets tiresome and still needs an upshift to reach 60mph, plus is awful for NVH and makes you look and sound ridiculous as you leave a 30mph zone.

Such modestly-powered cars might have been fine when roads where quieter and there was room for traffic to move over on dual carriageways to let you in. But nowadays 1-litre cars are out of their depth on roads such as the A11 which has a number of short, curved, uphill slip roads or T-junction joining points.

Try joining the A11 (dual carriageway) North-East-bound from the B1106 Elvedon junction. In a 1-litre town car in 2nd gear you'll be lucky to reach 50mph by the time you have to merge due to the short slip road that's very curved and uphill, made worse because a large hill gives only short visibility of what's coming.
And at busy times, if you have to stop and wait at the junction, even with good launch and gearshift skill and maximum acceleration it'll take about 15s to be going fast enough to stay out of the way of lorries and about 25s to get up to the flowing speed of the cars.

In 2007 I drove an Aygo from Manchester to Germany. I regularly drove a C1 up and down Snake pass and various A and B roads throughout Yorkshire. Yes it has a piddle of torque however I didn't find myself scared in them.

I maintain carry speed, learn how to get the best out of your gearbox and engine; what works best at what revs in which gear. If you've built up your revs enough you can easily be in 3rd then 4th just don't drop the revs whilst changing up.

It's alot easier in a 2.0TDI VAG but then there's a reason why long distance drivers/salesmen and taxi drivers use these type of cars. Torque makes it less tiring day in day out. I maintain though no car is slow. Just some are faster than others. You can use your talent to drive any car fast.

[TooMany2cvs]

Kawasicki said:

slow is 20+ seconds to hit 60 mph

You're in something that can hit 60? That's still faster than a lot of the stuff on motorways...

[Ron99]

TooMany2cvs said:

You're in something that can hit 60? That's still faster than a lot of the stuff on motorways...

But if there's a long convoy of lorries in lane 1 and you have to contend with a short, uphill, sharply bent slip road (or a T-junction to join a dual carriageway from a standing start in heavy traffic) it can be difficult to get a low-powered car to build enough speed to slot into the sparse gaps between the lorries. The lorries won't move or slow down to make a gap for you to slot in and even if they wanted to they often can't because of the stream of cars flowing past in the next lane.
The above is not unusual on the M11, A14 and A11 in the Huntingdon, Cambridge, Thetford and Bishop's Stortford areas.

I drive a small 1-litre town runabout on those roads regularly (I do about 10k per year in a town runabout and 15k in larger faster cars) but joining those fast busy roads is often a chore.
B-roads however are fantastic fun in a small car - power is a distant second to agility on B roads - and I often choose such minor routes when I'm in the town runabout. Ironically I would prefer not to take a larger car on such minor roads because there's often barely enough room to squeeze past oncoming cars - I find that a chore too; creeping past another big car at 5-10mph isn't much fun when a little car could pass a big car without either needing to slow.