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Midsize Sedans Comparison Thread
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And before you engine theorists get too upset, I do understand that it doesn't exactly work this way - but, I'll contend if you put the real masters of the 4 cylinder engine (they probably work at Honda/Toyota) - something that can be done.
yet another review refutes this issue:
www.familycar.com
I kept trying to induce torque steer with little success. Backing away from a front-wheel drive car because of torque steer is no longer a valid excuse. On the twisting mountain roads, I had to keep reminding myself that this was FWD. Unless I pushed the Altima to its limits, I simply couldn't tell. Cornering was flat and controlled without a major impact on ride quality.
The point of having our 4-cylinders is lower price and better FE. If the car needs to rev up to merge, so what? I rarely top 3,500 RPM when I merge on my daily commute (uphill ramp, merge in a 70 MPH zone), and I have 130 hp Accord as well as a 166 hp Accord. The 166 hp car is so smooth at 6,000 RPMs, and not particularly loud, that I struggle to see the fault in winding these smooth engines up every once in a while.
By buying the 4-cylinder version, I didn't overbuy on the engine. I bought something that I plan to use fully, and have some power reserve left on tap for extreme emergencies (never had to floor the 166 hp car in its life). If I had bought a V6, I'd have more engine that I could ever use. I don't have the need to hit 60 in 8 or so seconds, which my car is capable of, much less 6 seconds. I'm just not aggressive enough to need more horsepower than a late-model Mustang (260 hp), or to run a 14 sec quarter mile. I just can't use that in metro Birmingham.
about a year ago, cruising along on the highway left lane at 65 or so. Notice an idiot trying to merge from my right - he is doing maybe 40 and decides not only to cut the guy off in the right lane but also continue his merge into my lane. My reaction was to accelerate hard while swerving into the breakdown lane on my left - cleared him by maybe 10 feet and by the time I got off the gas I was probably at 90 or 100 mph. Ended up being a 5 car accident that I likely avoided because I happened to be in a car with 'too much' engine. Admittedly something that may never happen again, guess you never can tell when you 'never need to use it'?
And the point of the story - within some constraints, a more powerful car is also a safer car.
2. The Honda Accord's 4 cylinder engine is phenomenal, most 4 cylinders aren't as good as that one.
3. Every engine has it's trade offs, it's just more noticeable due to the lack of power in a 4 cylinders.
4. Torque is most directly related to displacement, which is related to fuel economey. Making a bigger 4 to flatten out the torque curve or increase HP, you might as well get a 6 IMO.
5. "High tech" engine technology doesn't necessarily make a better engine. Examples are Nascar or the HEMI engine.
-while it is certainly true that bigger engines do usually eat nore gas then how do you explain the Toyota 2GR engine - a 15% increase in displacement, a 30& increase in HP/T, and 10% increase in FE.
Sure some of those differences are due to the relative age of the 3.0 it replaced but is also similarily more efficient than the other engines in this class. Because of obviously technology that, at least to this point, has proven extaordnarily reliable.
My question was if they can do this with the 6 then why not with the 4. If I was a betting man - expect such a thing from both Honda and Toyota within the next few years. The 'US' mfgrs. have neither the money or the expertise to develop such a thing. Don't think the preference for 4 cylinder engines in cars this class is going anywhere anytime soon, even if idiots like me can't understand why
I didn't say that Toyota couldn't do a dual VVTi in their 4 cylinder engine, because I am sure they can. However, gas consumption also largely has to do with gearing as well. The new Camry has a 6 speed tranny (opposed to the 4 speed it replaced), which puts the engine as it's happiest state more often (i.e, low rpms). Also, the more often the torque converter can lock, the less the drivetrain loss and more efficiency akin to what manual transmissions are accustomed too. It is the torque converter that steals that steals more of the power from the motor and that's why in general, automatics get worse mpg than manuals.
The Accord engine IMO is a better engine than the Camry 4 cyclinder. The Accord has i-Vtec which can not only vary the duration of the valve lift ( the "i" part), but it can also vary the lift (the "vtec" part). The Accord I4 also can vary the intake and exhaust timings which are found in the DOHC models (unlike the SOHC model in the V6). Of course, the Camry could make a comparable engine as they have dual VVTL-i, which does the same thing (lift and duration), however they just don't have an engine in America that does now.
AFAIK, no Big Three company has an engine that can vary the lift, just the duration (variable valve timing). However, that doesn't necessarily mean their engines are inferior. There is an Ecotec NA engine that puts over 172 HP....
This is specifically the point. Fusion may be exactly as good as the Camry/Accord but if Ford Corporate decides that it needs to move more with huge rebates and needs to supply huge quantities to rental companies/fleets then the actual market price of the vehicle on resale will suffer.
This has nothing to do with the vehicle it has everything to do with Corporate.
What is going to replace the 100K+ units of revenue that the Taurus generated? Is Ford just going to walk away from $1.5 Billion in sales ( Taurus )?
This is exactly the case. It's this dynamic that determines what the day-to-day buying price of any given trade-in is at any dealer. Noone at any time ever looks at the ALG residual values when assessing a trade. EVER!
The primary criteria is 'at what price level can the vehicle be turned into cash the very next day'. That's the true value of any trade in vehicle, not the residual, not the potential resale value, not the NADA value. The ACV is the only valid price, beyond this value you always have to add something else, financing, clean up, inspections, repair, commissions, profit etc. etc.
Anything above ACV is subjective and extremely variable.
Until the recent months most estimations were that used Ford products had to be 'bought' at $1000 - $3000 'behind book', meaning the auction values. With Ford's new vehicle sales policies being what they were there was no good way to guess what the Used vehicle sales price should be.
For indications.. a 2006 V6 SE Fusion, no leather, no roof is worth about $14000 on trade ( Mannheim and Black Book ).
You people just don't pay attention. Ford has already publicly said that it would "walk away" from the Taurus fleet volumes. They aren't going to chase market share with rental fleet sales that yield little profit and lower resale value.
They're already selling almost all the Fusions they can build right now - they don't have a lot of excess inventory to move by dumping into rental fleets or offering huge incentives. And they're keeping it that way.
now if diesels can be made to run cleaner, perhaps we have something. good low end torque that is great for driving in town, and great fuel efficiency. Honda hasn't released the specs on their new diesel that they have said they will release in the US market in a couple years, but this is one technology that is not entirely high tech, but adresses the issue of keeping a 3400 pound car motivated. I, for one, can't wait! I just hope they don't find a way to charge through the nose for this...
I agree that supply and demand AT THE DEALER LOT will determine the retail pricing, which will in turn affect the auction prices. Every residual value is an estimate because nobody knows for sure what the future will hold.
If ALG says the residual value for a 2007 Fusion SE is 49% after 3 years that means the lease company expects to be able to sell that car at auction after 3 years for 49% of the selling price. That's how a lease works.
Some cars run so smoothly at high RPM, that it is easy to inadvertently hit the rev limiters (RX8 etc.)
On other cars, you need earplugs at 4,000 rpm.
in some respects, I am agreeing with el capitan in that a 6 cylinder has hp and torque #'s that are much more useable in day to day driving. at 4500 rpm, you're looking at about 60% of peak HP in a honda 4 cylinder engine and at 6k rpm, 70%. now some, including me, might find buzzing around at 5k rpm all the time fun, but most people would, I think, find this tiring and likely irritating. in normal driving though in a typical 4 cylinder engine in this class, a pound to hp ratio of 30:1 seems a bit high.
But this has nothing to do with real world values at the aution 3 years later. And that's the point. The ALG residuals are only estimates, not guarantees. The price fetched at auctions is determined by a number factors having nothing to do with the ALG residual.
Plus.. Ford can only build 300,000 total Fusion/Milan/Zeph out of the Hemi plant. This is REALLY good. I hope Ford keeps it this way. This will keep quality/fit/finish up.
Plus, on the way home from work today. I saw 2 brand new Fusions and 1 new Milan. This is in a 22 mile trip. Had me wondering if people are reading about how good these cars are. :shades:
I would concur, I would expect the Accord to go first, but not across the whole model line. They have an Accord Hybrid, they can have an Accord OilBurner...then maybe the minivan (torque is nice in a minivan).
How about in the Ridgeline and Pilot? That would make sense. (Do they have a bigger one than the 2.2L though?)
The 2.2L in the CR-V would be awesome.
This remains to be seen. Any company that says it's going to walk away from $1.5 Billion in real sales is a little suspect as far as I'm concerned.
This is a lot different than closing 100,000 units of excess production. The 100K units of rental/fleet sales definitely have buyers.
When the bean counters see that revenues will drop by $1.5 Billion there is likely to be some rethinking in Dearborn. I'll believe it when I see it.
That's an incorrect statement. The residual value is what the leasing company guarantees the value of the vehicle will be to the lessee. It is not what the vehicle will be worth when it's sent to auction. Now the leasing company hopes it will be worth that, or more, but in nearly every case - with normal miles - the auction value is less than the residual. Weird situations can occur. Tacoma's and Corolla's and Civic's last summer come to mind.
The residual is only a best guess 3 years down the road, but it's only a guess. Right now for example the Fusion is at 63% of MSRP after only one year. Do you really think that it will be 49% after 3 years? I won't buy your SE V6, no roof, no leather for $11,000 in 2 yrs. I'm certain that I could buy it for under $10,000. 37% is a huge hit already in the first year alone.
Then... Honda has to educate the American public about the benefits of diesel vehicles; the Ody, MDX and Accord. It remains to be seen how long this education process will take.
Go into any office/living room/kitchen and ask:
'Honey, what do you think about getting a diesel Honda Odyssey?' Huh??? What are you talking about?
The sweet spot for this engine is from about 2500 to redline. That's one of the reasons we ended up getting the 4 instead of a 6. We come from a family that has typically bought V8s, and more recently high performance 6's (300M, Taurus SHO).
My wife and I are both a bit of a leadfoot. No argument, a 6 has more grunt down low, but once you hit 2500, you've got plenty of go power. I'll typically cruise at around 1800-2200, and while it won't burn up the road accelerating from that RPM, it still accelerates well enough for 90% of the time. For the other 10% (or when we we're feeling the need for speed), we'll downshift a gear, and be in the middle of the sweet spot. On an automatic equipped car, that'll happen "automatically" (sorry, bad pun).
And as for high revving, I've made the mistake a couple times of cruising at 60 in 3rd gear. Not thrashy at all.
If this was my daily driver, I'd get a 6, but then again, I'm one of those maniacs who wouldn't mind 300hp in these cars. Probably a bad analogy, but if the 4 is a sirloin steak, the 6 would be a nice rib-eye. A BMW M5, now that would be the filet mignon :shades:
For a good source on the Honda 4, try Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_K_engine
In all truth, the HP numbers for the V6 in the Mazda6 haven't really changed. The drop of 5 HP (from 220 to 215) is most likely from testing using the new SAE standards, as well as driveline refinements. Besides, do you really think 5 HP will make more than a couple tenths change in 0-60 times? I doubt it.
I've got an '04 with V6, and have driven the '05 and '06 a few different times, and I sure can't tell the difference in acceleration, or even overall performance.
A diesel minivan would be nice, but the trick is to make sure the wife remembers to fill the car up with diesel and NOT gasoline. A friend of mine did that to her fathers ol' Rabbit Diesel once... $5K in engine damage later, and she still can't live that down.
The other thing with diesels is that it isn't located at every single corner gas station, at least here in upstate NY. Driving a few miles out of the way just to get diesel won't work for a lot of people, especially when they're surrounded by 18-wheelers and 10-wheeled dump trucks, with that awful stink pouring out of both the trucks and the drivers... :P
If I had to take a guess, this is where the real future is - in diesels and diesel/electric hybrids - for all vehicles
What I'm saying is there are people in the industry whose job is to estimate what a car will be worth when it comes off lease. They look at sales rates, reliability, fleet sales, etc. and they make an estimate. This is an important estimate because if they estimate too high then it costs the lease company a lot of money when the car is turned back in. So they're not going to make it artificially high.
The Fusion's ESTIMATED to retain 49% of it's value after 3 years - higher than Camry at 48% and lower than Honda at 52%. But it's right in the ballpark. As opposed to the Taurus which was probably closer to 40%.
I guess we can come back in 2 years and see who was right.
You act like residual values are just made up numbers that don't mean anything. Leasing companies have millions of dollars riding on the accuracy of residual values.
The problem that Ford/GM/DC have if they want to be fiscally responsible and downsize, is the UAW. Because of those fat contracts that UAW has, they must keep a large portion of those employees paid whether they have cars for them to build or not. There are apparently a lot of autoworkers out there being paid to not work at all. As a result they have a lot of employees to build fewer and fewer cars which, of course, then encourages that employer and employee to make the job fit the time available to do it. Presto! a good way to improve at least initial quality while losing your butt trying to sell cars.
Unfortunately the ultimate fallout from all of this is becoming that the American cars will no longer be made in this country, while the 'Japanese', largely unfettered by those UAW contracts, find out that it really is possible to make good cars with American labor/materials - and make money doing it!
That's also why they're keeping volume relatively low on the new vehicles (500/Fusion/Edge etc.). Lower volume, higher resales, lower incentives, higher profit.
Ford has repeatedly said this publicly (lower market share, less rental fleet sales). If you don't believe it then we'll just have to wait and see. They're closing plants and giving buyouts to UAW workers - things that have never happened in the past. It's not business as usual any longer.
One comment that was mentioned was that the public needed to be informed about the benefits of a diesel before large scale acceptance would happen... maybe true, but since the technology has been around for quite some time, I doubt it will take long. all a manufacturer would need to do is tell people it is clean burning, has better acceleration at lower rpms, and flash high mpg #'s on the screen. the hardest thing I think is the limited availability of diesel. but I don't hear guys with big diesel pickups complaining that much (if at all) about not being able to find fuel. one argument that may be hard for manufacturers to overcome is the memory of those that bought some of the crappy diesels in cars 20 years ago. but with the reputation of honda and mercedes on the line, I would hope these guys will get it right.
The residual value is only an indicator, a best guesstimate, of the value 3 years hence. If you were in the business in the 90's then you would have seen Camry's and Accords and Taurus' with 3 yr residuals at 60-70%. These were artificially high in order to induce buyers to turnover every 3 yrs or so. But you are right in '99 and 2000 when these massive numbers of lessee's started turning in their vehicles the leasing companies were finding that they were eating up to $5000 per vehicle.
Thus in Aug 2000 all the leasing companies started going to more 'realistic' residuals causing the artifically low lease payments to jump by as much as $100/mo. But even these more realistic residuals are still 'guesstimates' of future value. Now instead of adjusting the residuals to make payments fit into a budget they play with the money factors. Essentially they subvent the interest rate and give up potential income rather than take massive risks on the value of the vehicle in 3 yrs hence.
Whatever the residual is it has no effect on what the real value of the vehicle is when it does come back to the Used market. Just becausse a 2006 SE V6 Fusion has a residual of say $11000 doesn't mean anything in 2009. If the vehicle is worth $14000 today it is not likely to be worth $11000 in 24 months, $8000 or $9000 is more likely. So yes this means that Ford Credit the leasing company is going to have to 'eat' $2000 or so when it's put through the auction line.
I agree with everything you said about the new vehicles matching the demand and it does seem to be working.
However these workers at Chicago Heights and other plants that will no longer make the Taurus are still going to be paid whether 100K or zero Taurus' are sold. I'm only saying that until the new contract is hammered out I'd be surprised if the Taurus doesn't continue. Pure bean counter logic.
This is the education that has to be done. But as Honda and Toyota have identified the primary decision maker in over 70% of their sales is the woman in the picture; wife, fiancee, girlfriend, mother.
This is who has to believe and understand that she isn't going to have a 'stinky schoolbus' in the driveway that can be heard two blocks away. My guess is introduction in 2009 MY but that it will take a full 5 years before large volumes are actually being sold. This is very similar to the 'learning curve' on hybrid technology.
Since most of the volume of affordable vehicles is out of the Japan 'Big 3' and the Koreans, one or more of those mfgrs will likely have to get behind it for it to have a substantial impact.
THIS has me grinning
Wrong again. That's why Ford is offering buyouts to workers to get around the jobs bank until the new contract can be negotiated. The buyouts get the workers out of the jobs bank and off the payroll with a one-time buyout. That's part of the reason Ford's 3rd quarter loss was so huge (as will 4th quarter). But it's a one time charge, not a recurring drain on earnings.
Without the buyouts you would be correct.
Can you imagine how many times a week I hear..
'Let me check in with the boss...'
'My wife keeps the money in order..'
'I never make decisions like this without discussing it with..'
'I've got to check with....( about color, style, safety..)'
'What do you think, Mom?'
This is in addition to all the individual women that buy vehicles on their own. 70% could be on the conservative side. I saw in the CRV forum that for that vehicle it was 80%+.
You think that it will be lower because it has a blue oval on the grill.
Why can't you acknowledge that the Fusion is different than previous Ford cars? It has best in class reliability, is selling well in reasonable volumes with small incentives and isn't being dumped into rental fleets.
The recipe for low resale value is poor reliability, big incentives on new cars and high % of rental fleet sales. Unless something drastic changes I don't see that happening.
It's not 1995 and we're not talking about a Taurus.