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Old 11-16-2010, 12:54 AM   #31 (permalink)
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Wait for the conclusion. It is the sad truth. Now if we just get everyone to drive a micro, and we are on to something.

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Old 11-16-2010, 01:06 AM   #32 (permalink)
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I'll worry about it, oh, in the year 8000- sooner if I'm in the Microbus tho'! Good thing in the last 33 years of Microbussing I've not so much as touched the front bumper against anything.
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Old 11-16-2010, 02:50 AM   #33 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee View Post
Cars have NOT gotten smaller. Almost without exception, models grow with every successive redesign.
Among the same model, perhaps. See my '90 Accord vs. '10 Civic for the debunking on that one.

Quote:
Cars have NOT gotten lighter. IIRC, in that '59 vs '09 Impala crash, the '09 is the HEAVIER car. Edit: '59 vs '09 Impala: 3625 lbs "shipping weight" (whatever that is) vs. 3555 curb weight.
So they're about the same size, weigh almost exactly the same, yet the wimpy Impala crushed (pun intended) the Bel Air, while protecting its occupants at the same time. How can that be anything but case closed?

Quote:
Roads have NOT gotten worse. There are more of them and more safety hazards have been mitigated.
That's news to me. Around here, the busiest freeways are under construction, have confusing or no lines, and are ridden with potholes, expansion joints and grooves.

Quote:
This thing was started by GM bragging about some piddling "weight reduction" on the Cruze- a small car that weighs half a Ton more than mine.
This just in: cars larger than yours are larger than yours. And that's 1/4 ton more, not 1/2 ton. The Cruze beats the '90 Crown Vic in every dimension except rear legroom and cargo volume, and weighs 700 pounds less than the Vic.

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Then I said my old 5 passenger car does have good safety features, including air bag- more than adequate in my book- so it is odd to think that if we want better performance including fe performance, we are saddled with an extra 1,000 It was 3500 lbs or so right? Oh- it was 32xx then the engineering miracles took about 200 out.
3,100 according to the Chevy website, but hey, let's call it 4,000, right?

Quote:
The point wasn't primarily about Tempos, it's primarily about new cars being excessively heavy. Regardless, just about everything sub-compact and up weighs 3000 or more these days.
I just looked up every subcompact offered in the 2010 model year, and guess how many were over 3,000 pounds? None. Not a single one.

Look, I get that you like to drive your older car. I drive a Honda Accord of the same vintage, despite the fact that I would in fact be a lot safer in a better car on my particular commute. But don't pretend that it's in any way better than any modern vehicle, or that people who might want to trade in that 1990 vintage vehicle for an equivalent 2006 vintage vehicle are somehow throwing something away or getting more than they need.
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Old 11-16-2010, 02:50 AM   #34 (permalink)
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Come on, Frank You've got your agenda, but you're flying too loose with the facts. The Cruze weighs about 3009 lbs. Edmunds listed the '94 Tempo at 2511 to 2569 lbs, half of your "half ton" weight difference claim. My 1G xB weighs about 2200 lbs, a couple of hundred lighter than yours. A 2009 Yaris, 2293 lbs. A 2010 Fit, the same as your Tempo. So much for your weight argument.

As far as roads go, CA roads are far worse than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The state puts off maintenance, and every highway and street seems to have potholes and cracks.
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Old 11-16-2010, 03:04 AM   #35 (permalink)
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Guess I shoulda looked up more numbers for yall. Doesn't change the fact that new cars are burdened by junk that makes 'em heavy. Doesn't change the fact that new cars aren't smaller. Doesn't change the fact that new cars aren't lighter either.
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Old 11-16-2010, 03:34 AM   #36 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee View Post
Guess I shoulda looked up more numbers for yall. Doesn't change the fact that new cars are burdened by junk that makes 'em heavy. Doesn't change the fact that new cars aren't smaller. Doesn't change the fact that new cars aren't lighter either.
I guess you'll need to look up some more numbers, since you haven't given any that substantiate your claims. Find me a car that's the same SIZE as yours, and we'll see what the weight difference is.

Look! The current Chevy Cruze is 1,000 pounds lighter than a 1991 Country Squire! That means that ALL current cars are lighter than ALL past cars!
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Old 11-16-2010, 04:14 AM   #37 (permalink)
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http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420r08015.pdf

Quote:
Average vehicle weight and performance had increased steadily from the mid-1980s through 2004.
Quote:
Each of these marketing groups has lower average fuel economy today than in 1988, with the exception of BMW.
Quote:
...Figures 8 and 9 are similar to Figures 6 and 7, but show the trends in weight and laboratory fuel economy and show that the era of weight reductions that took place for both cars and trucks between 1975 and the early 1980s has been followed by an era of weight increases until 2005.
Quote:
Table 1 showed that for the past several years trucks have accounted for about 50 percent of the lightduty vehicles produced each year. MY2004 was the peak year for trucks with 52 percent market share, and trucks have been between 47 and 50 percent since. Considering the five classes: cars, wagons, sports utility vehicles (SUVs), vans, and pickups, since 1975 the biggest overall increase in market share has been for SUVs, up from less than two percent in 1975 to just under 30 percent this year (see Figure 10 and Table 3). The biggest overall decrease has been for cars, down from over 70 percent of the fleet in 1975 to 52 percent. By comparison the sales fraction for pickup trucks has remained constant at 13-15 percent of the market. Figures 11 to 15 compare sales fractions by vehicle type and size with the fleet again stratified into five vehicle types: cars (i.e., coupes, sedans, and hatchbacks), station wagons, vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks; and three vehicle sizes: small, midsize, and large. As shown in Figure 11, large cars accounted for about 20 percent of all car sales in the late 1970s, but their share of the car market dropped in the early 1980s to about 12 percent of the market where it remained for about two decades, but has since increased back to about 20 percent. Within the car segment, the market share for small cars peaked in the late 1980s at about 65 percent and is now lower than at anytime since 1975.
Quote:
Figures 16 through 20 show trends in performance, weight, and adjusted fuel economy for cars, wagons, vans, SUVs, and pickups. For all five vehicle types, there has been a clear long term trend towards increased weight, moderating since 2005 for wagons, vans, and SUVs.
Quote:
Since 1988, average fuel economy has decreased for small cars, all wagons, small SUVs, and midsize pickups and the largest improvements in average mpg has been over 20 percent for midsize and large SUVs, respectively.
Quote:
Cars and light trucks with conventional drivetrains have a fuel consumption and weight relationship which is well known and is shown on Figures 21 and 22. Fuel consumption increases linearly with weight.
Quote:
Obtaining increased power to weight in a time when weight is trending upwards implies that horsepower is increasing.
Yes, obviously these are cherry-picked quotes (the paper has 96 pages). No, I am not going to research and compile another list of models and weights. Anyhow, the paper is an interesting source for gobs of data folks like us love.
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Last edited by Frank Lee; 11-16-2010 at 04:53 AM..
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Old 11-16-2010, 10:56 AM   #38 (permalink)
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Frank, it's not that we can't go back, or you can't go forward if we want to. Your rosy-tinted glasses have you convinced that hand-cranked windows and evil handling and no side impact air bags/stiffener bars are the cat's meow. I happen to prefer the safety features that Big Brother forced onto the auto mfrs to save 10,000 lives/year since the glory years of the Tempo/Topaz. Your initial thrust was that your car isn't a deathtrap. The Impala/Impala crash results say you're way off base.
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Old 11-16-2010, 11:42 AM   #39 (permalink)
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A '59 Impala is not a Tempo. Geesh, and ya razzed me for inaccuracy.

BTW I wintered last year in the Bay Area and thought the condition of the roads to be more than adequate.
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Old 11-16-2010, 12:22 PM   #40 (permalink)
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Speaking of statistics, this appears to be a gold mine!

Good News! The value of your life has gone up, from $5.6M in 1980 to $11.95M in 2008 (2010 dollars).


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Last edited by dennyt; 11-16-2010 at 12:26 PM.. Reason: Typo in 1985 cost of ownership, was 2xxx, now 3xxx
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