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Comments
Best of luck
Best to all of the Avalon owners out there.
Mack
Regards-Jamie
BUT as jpm1908 notes - be careful - with these new high speed gas pumps equipped as they are with vapor recovery systems it is very hard any more to get a complete fill. Generally you'll find if the pump shuts itself off at 15.5 gallons (which is typical) simply topping it off (something they don't want you to do these days) will usually allow you to get an extra gallon or even two into the tank. So therefore, it is possible that even though the pump will only let you put in the 15.5 gals when your DTE is at zero, there is also a good chance that you only actually have 2 gallons of fuel left (or less) when your fillup volume would indicate there should have been 3 or more. You likely have less gas left than you think and these new cars don't like being run out of gas much.
The simple fact of not being able to fill the tank 'Up the filler neck' anymore can also create significant variances in FE calculations if you do it manually, because there is no way to know how many of those 18.5 gallons that a specific gas pump actually lets you put in your tank
My experience on filling the gas tank is similar to the above posts. You have a hard time determining how full the tank is. You know what went in but that's about it. This further compounds the problem that the odometer is off by 3% in many Avalons, including mine. But a safe assumption is that you have about 2 gallons left when the low fuel light comes on, forget the mileage readings.
Matter of fact, never use the DTE numbers for anything. Based on a false premise in logic, this is an impossible idea. Looks good, makes no sense. Probably designed in his spare time by the guy who put the compass on the rearview mirror. Enjoy the Avy... Great Cars..
As for the compass in the rear view mirror, that is a stock item from a vendor that many car makers use. My cousin's new Altima has the exact same unit (homelink buttons and all) and Hyundai uses it in the Azera.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
I absolutely love the Avalon. Really only one complaint and it's a cold weather rattle complaint that I hope has been remedied. Guess I'll have to wait til next fall to find out for sure. :-)
Roland
relatively confident they do know - what confuses me, however, is how it can be possible for the odos to be off that 3% but not the speedometer, or the computer calculated FE (factoring in the 3% error). Remembering back in the old days when we had mechanical speedometers/odos, speedos tended to be notoriously optimistic (something like 80mph indicated was maybe 70) but whatever that error as also generally reflected in the odo as well all because it was a mechanical (cable) system.
Leads me to to the conclusion that what we see on speedo/odos/trip computers etc. are now calculated as opposed to measured. Something like the computer in the car deciding that since the engine is turning 1800 rpm in high gear, the car must be traveling at 60mph, and then deriving from that the distance travelled. Small wonder that we have that odo error?
Agree with the poster that DTE is essentially worthless, being nothing more than a fancy quantitative gas gauge and almost as worthless as those cars I've owned with 'instantaneous FE' displays. I own a couple of Nissan vehicles with trip computers and the DTE will actually increase if you happen to be getting better FE than what the computer expects - heck an 80s vintage Ford Aerostar I once owned would do that. Toyota's system won't so, in effect, it is even less realistic. As I posted earlier, I regularly drive my Avalon about 420 miles between fill ups, usually put 16+ gallons of gas or so, but usually see only 370-380 'expected' DTE when it resets on fillup. Only ONCE in 3 years (and 75k miles) has my Av shown 400 mile estimated DTE, and that was immediately after one of those exclusively highway trips where we all might typically see 30mpg and that 500 mile range I'm talking about - with an adequate reserve.
The one advantage to having that trip computer IMO is in encouraging all of us to modify our driving habits to maximize FE - important in these days of $60+ fillups.
regards-jamie
You must do similar driving to me as I float between 21 - 22 consistently, that is almost all city and/or gridlock highway.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
You may very well be right about that. It probably all ties into the VSC/trac/drive by wire system. If I get a chance to grab my mother's 09 Camry (4cyl) I will check the odo just to see if its off too. I would be willing to bet it is.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
Thanks
Roland
Captian.... don't tease me like that! FWIW I read somewhere redesign is stretched out to 2011.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
Mack
I think you were implying that it would be a good thing for the next Avalon model to be RWD. I am curious as to why. I'm old enough to remember when the changeover to FWD occurred and was all the rage for its advantages in traction and increased rear leg room. Now, many people are urging a switch back to RWD for most cars, presumably because the improved weight distribution yields better performance handling. I admit to the advantages and disadvantages of both systems, but what I don't understand is why any (non-racing) large sedan owner would want RWD. Educate me please. Right now I'm darned happy with my Avalon's traction in snow and the ability to haul five people comfortably.
Many of the newer F/AWD systems engage drive torque to all four wheels for quick acceleration, getting up and going initially, but the remove most, or all, drive from the front once underway.
Look at the way the new Acura SH-AWD system works...the best of the best for F/AWD systems.
All great things for a family sedan. However, RWD just "feels" better IMO . There is the added benefit of better weight distribution as you noted. One other point is if you want to put more power under the hood there is a limit to what FWD drive can handle. Our Avalons deal with 268 HP pretty well, with virtually no torque steer. Would it handle 325+? Its all probably a moot point anyway, I don't see the Avalon going RWD anytime soon. If it did it wouldn't share parts with its little brother Camry and certainly would raise the price north of 40K. OTOH if they want to put the direct injected 2gr-FSE from the IS350 in and make it RWD and keep the price where it is... where do I sign?
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
Geez, Mr. West, during the past 20 winters of driving FWD cars, I've never felt that I was in a seriously hazardous situation, but then I never let my 1963 Corvair swap ends like Ralph Nader warned that it would either. Perhaps I'm not driving fast enough.
Yes, with DBW throttle control and TC, of even without TC, you probably NEVER get WOT in any low gear or in a tight accelerating turn.
That's how cadillac "moderated" the adverse effects of the torquey NorthStar engine in the now obsolete FWD Cadillac models.
Now FWD is "history" for Cadillac as is the V8 engine.
Yes, you and ~99% of FWD or F/AWD owners NEVER encountered handling involving safety issues, especially those south of the snow belt. But on the flip side 99.99% of RWD owners never encountered these issues.
And then throw in the bias that many drivers within the snow belt are well aware of the safety hazards of FWD and F/AWD and simply do not purchase them and then you have an equation that is inadvertently skewed toward 50/50.
We have a Razr v3m and paired it no problem. Some other issues though are:
1. When I try to send the phonebook from the Razr, the phone displays BT link busy.
2. Is there a way to input names to display on the MFD when a call comes in?
Thanks for your help.
Mack
The slight incline at the main MS campus entrance was fully blocked, "choked" with Porsches, BMWs, and MBs.
And then just this last winter I had to show a BMW driver how to disable the TC system and then tried to quickly educate him on how to "feather" the throttle just up to the point of almost losing traction. Didn't work.
But at least neither of them got up and going initially and THEN discovered the poor traction conditions like so many FWD vehicles in '90 scattered heither and theither all over SR520.
yes I was, but the reasons for why are not the same sort of 'unsafe at any speed' comments you might see from wwest.
Torque steer and engine braking are undoubtedly becoming conditions of these high power FWD cars we drive. The manufacturers, thru reengineering suspension geometries as well as throttle and tranny control programming, are largely minimizing the effects of things like this. What they haven't been able to change however is the natural weight imbalance of the FWD car - certainly an enemy to a well handling vehicle of any sort. BMWs, for example, are what they are because of a whole lot more than just the RWD - they are almost without exception evenly weight distributed and are further engineered to do specifically what they do (or don't do).
FWD has been with us now for many many years and is an inherently safer and easier car to drive specifically for today's drivers because of the better traction and more prevalent understeer conditions you mention- like that BMW driver that wwest talks about that can't get up a snow covered road because nobody ever taught him to 'feather' a throttle. In fact, I would contend that it is drivers like this that make things like traction and stabililty control systems MORE necessary on RWD cars than FWD ones.
Will Toyota join Chrysler and/or Pontiac and produce a RWD Avalon? Not if the marketing folks (or Lexus) has anything to say about it. Are the Avalons that both you and I drive unsafe? Hell no - cars are safer now then they've ever been!
"Specifically for today's drivers.."
I couldn't agree more...!
But I like to think, continue to think/believe, that somewhere in the near future we will have driving simulators designed along the same line as today's flight training simulators. These will be used to train new drivers, even high school students, how to "handle" differently configured, FWD/RWD/F-AWD/R-AWD/4WD/4X4/etc, road going vehicles in climatically different roadbed conditions.
I suspect that only then, with EVERYONE having learned how to correct for (RWD) overstear, and the fact that (FWD) understear/plowing, is beyond the driver's ability to correct (just hang on a PRAY..!!) will these patently UNSAFE FWD and F/AWD vehicles disappear, TOTALLY disappear, from the marketplace.
Maybe replaced with systems such as the Acura SH-AWD, F/AWD with a difference, a VERY significant difference, FWD torque biasing when appropriate, RWD torque biasing, leading or lagging, otherwise.
it would be assertions like this that I have the problem with. The proper correction for an oversteer condition is counterintuitive - meaning adding power to relieve the condition as opposed to (quite naturally) releasing the accelerator, the usual remedy for that understeering monster. Recognizing this - well engineered cars will almost always understeer at the limit, even those German 'sports sedans'. Such things (nailing the accelerator when you get in trouble) are beyond the ability for things like simulators to train into any of us - you and me included. Our first (and natural) reaction will always be to release the accelerator and hit the brakes.
Lastly, even though FWD (or FW biased) vehicles have accounted for the vast of majority cars sold in the last 30 years or so, accident and death rates (per vehicle mile) continue to decline - must be because they are 'patently UNSAFE'???? :confuse:
You have seemed intent on ragging on FWD's failings and not recognizing what advantages it does offer. Mass retraining is not a viable option, and I don't think that a whole bunch of folks stuck in your cold parking lot somewhere because their car is 'too smart' to move is terribly realistic either.
"..are beyond the ability for things like simulators to train into any of us..."
Wrong, that's is exactly what flight simulators are used for, through repetitive simulation runs our intuitive actions are overcome in favor of making the corrective actions, EVERY time, for the situations at hand.
"Mass retraining is not a viable option.."
But correct, corrective, training right at the "beginning" is, say driver training in High School.
"bunch of folks stuck.." "car is too smart to move.." "is terribly realistic either.."
Believe it or not people are SMART. Just a few minutes stuck in the cold parking lot and most people would be out adding traction, chains, etc. Wouldn't it be really nice if the car somehow knew that current conditions along the selected route were unsafe for the available traction and simply wouldn't start moving...??
Wintertime accident, injury, deaths, reduction would be nothing less than phenominal.
Firstly, when starting off at the lights and the car in front first brakes then accelerates again, causing you to 'off and on' the accelerator. I big thud/jolt goes thru the car. Like the tranmission jumps into gear.
Then on the last day I felt the same sort of thing that I have felt in the 2005 at slow speed. When traveling at about 50kmph (30mph) in continuous traffic, on a very slight incline, when applying a very slight gentle accelerator pressure, the car shuddered very lightly for about 2 seconds. Just as if you are rolling over very small cloes together bumper strips. (the strips placed on the road designed to slow you down) this happened a couple of times. This issue was evident in my 2005 on day one, but then the shuddering was very much stronger.
But of course these issues are completely unpredictable and intermittent so can not be repeated for the dealer. Hence they have done nothing aboput fixing the 2005.
My conclusion is that the new 6 speed transmission is a big improvement but still has at least two of the underlying problems of the 2005. Even with a "generous" trade-in offered for my 2005 I will not change to the 2008. After feeling the same things happening, even if lesser, who knows if all the other issues I have encountered with the 2005 will appear over time.... "why throw good money after bad"... my advise to you do NOT buy a new Avalon....
cheers doobre
I like the looks of the '08 better (both inside and outside). The '08 also is "tighter" in its driving and handling.
I would very much recommend buying a 2008 Avalon.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
On the 2005 when you get to the red line the engine is controlled by a sort of miss firing where everything starts to hiccup as if three cylinders are not getting a spark, but in the 2008 the gear changes up automatically to the next gear... much nicer IMO...
What's the point of having the manual control then? You have to really not be paying attention to the car to bounce it off the rev limiter. IMO if you do this on a regular basis leave in auto.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
A bit of humor...?