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Once I did get going the snow tires definitely made a difference with stopping and starting even, believe it or not, on ice. These new tire compounds that are used in snow tires really seem to grab on ice. But you are right nothing can replace a bit of well placed caution. Speaking of which, what is it about people with white cars that makes them insist on driving in white out conditions with no lights on.
My personal favorite are people who drive mobile igloos. You know the type. They come out of the house and don't bother removing the snow from their car. They put the wipers on and take off. No lights on, all the windows covered up (with the exception of the two windshield wiper outlines on the front), snow flying all over the place, while talking on the cell phone.
Malibu's note reminds me of the time I was in the lane next to this dizzy women in a mini van who was alternating between yakking into the cell phone and turning to scream at her kids in the back. After the second time she almost side swiped me a honked loud and long. This scared the bejeesus out of her and she dropped the phone. Did this deter her in anyway. Nope. She just kept on driving while feeling around on the floor for the phone with one hand and shaking her fist at me with other.
I mean, it's a line. I've been ahead of her all the way around the building, and it's not like the line was moving at the time. Guess she just figured she could really zoom on through if she just got another 12" ahead to pay her 3 bucks and change into that window, ya know. Of course, I was only 8" ahead. Idiot. IDIOT.
Cougar V6 - Automatic Trans:
0-60mph = 7.8 Seconds
60-0mph Braking Distance = 125 Feet
2.5L V6
170hp @ 6250rpm
165 lbs of Torque @ 4250rpm
Weight = 2892 Pounds
"The Cougar V6 with a 5 speed manual runs about 7.1 seconds in the 0-60mph sprint, and this option truly makes the car a Sports Coupe."
Do you remember where you found this data? You had said that it was according to Edmunds; I poured through edmunds and couldn't find these stats anywhere.
7.8 seconds 0-60 would be an excellant time for an ATX Cougar. Most reviews I read put the manual transmission around 7.8. Supposedly Motortrend squeezed out a 7.5 in a Sep. 98 review. Most reviews of the auto put the 0-60 in the 9 or 10 range.
So far, the only Cougar I've testdriven was an auto V6. I was a little dissapointed, but I look forward to trying out a manual. (I also look forward to learning how to drive manual first...)
Thanks.
2) I would not service my Cougar at a Mazda dealership
3) It's cold here in Southern Cal - about 60 degrees. Brrrrrrr I don't regret moving from the midwest especially when you get 12 inches of snow.
Christmas pickles?
All:
I will not be putting my throttle hang mod back on my Cougar. I don't know if it caused the damage to my throttle body, but I don't want to take any chances.
Badulah:
The throttle body didn't actually crack, just some of the linkage that connects to hit. I guess they couldn't replace only the linkage and just replaced the whole thing.
Malibu:
I have only been to to (actually through) the Central Coast once. I rode through while returning from training at Fort Ord. All I could think of while driving through was Bugs Bunny saying in one of his cartoons, "Pismo beach with all the clams we can eat."
Burnsy: I think all those suggestions might leave your Cat cleaner and less stinky than than it is right now, although I have pictures in my head of you driving around with a shop-vac in the trunk, hastily wired into the electrical with the nozzle constantly sucking the remaining liquid and baking soda from the floorboards of your Cougar. It's not such a bad thing, and is recoverable. Let us know what you end up doing, or combination of things so that if we ever have a similar situation, we'll have a heads-up on what works. Thanks!
Advice for everyone:
I found out this morning that no matter how hard you try, the Cougar (especially with CRAPROCK tires) cannot beat an S2000. Just can't do it! LOL! This yahoo came up behind me at a light, three lanes wide. I was in the middle lane, someone had just pulled up on the left and the right was *almost* clear. I see three lanes worth of headlights approaching from the rear, but one set hastily jerks through the others and ends up on my right side on the line. Guess who? It was a silver S2000 and the guy must've been in a hurry. I thought I'd give him a story to tell his coworkers when he got in, and when the light turned green -- well, let's just say that he pulled ahead of me and didn't have to stop until a bonehead in (get this) a white car with no lights on pulled out from a side street and wasn't going quite as fast as we were. :^)
Anyhoo, I'm quite dissappointed with the tires. The only response I got out of them was a squeal, and that's with traction control AND the limited slip differential! I'm sooooooooo done with these damn things. Have I mentioned that I'm putting air in them every single week now, just to keep them stuck to the road?
I should check the documentation that came with my car to see what, exactly, the warranty is on the stupidROCKS, although I think they'll have a hard time replacing them under any kind of warranty. It's amazing how the next generation of a tire can be so much worse compared to the first ... I used to have the first gen on a previous vehicle and they were AWESOME!
Note to Firestone:
It's not FMC products, it's your crappy tires!
Bad drivers, gotta love 'em!!
coolchick:
I would have been really pissed!!! Something like that happened to me while in line for a drive up ATM back in 1992. Although my car wasn't anything to look at, I still went bezerk on the guy.
gambit293:
To be very honest with you, I don't remember off hand where I found those stats, but I will go back through all my Cougar info and dig it out. Also, when did I post that? Being able to go from 0-60mph rather quickly does NOT make any car a true sports coupe. I have gained a lot of knowledge over the years here in Edmunds about the different classifications of vehicles. There are a lot more things that attribute to the sport coupe classification of the Cougar.
MWS0520:
So why wouldn't you service your Cat at a Mazda dealership? Is it because they are worse than FMC/LM dealerships, or because they won't service it at all?
Saw two good examples this AM. Under our current conditions, a cleared road is not necessarily a dry road. Therefore, traction is not normal.
However, two people either tried to make a driveway too late, or, in the other case, had to panic stop before goosing another car, and wound up on the 2-3' berm on the roadside. Front wheels up in the air, balanced on the bumper. And, as they were both FWD, no chance of pulling off without a wrecker.
MWS: Good to hear from you again. Let us know how well you can handle the spring rains & mudslides.
Is it true that you use the earthquakes to measure the spring and shock rates for our new cars? ;-)
Skip G
We have an official time and date for our first chat session here in Edmunds. We will be meeting on Tuesday January 9th, 2001 from 7:00pm - 8:00pm eastern standard time. We are currently trying to schedule guest speakers for several of the sessions, but for the fist session we thought it would be best for us to meet without one. The event will be hosted by yours truly and I hope to see all of you there!!
PS - If you have any suggestions for a guest speaker, please let us know.
Got to use all that cargo space last night, I went xmas shopping at Circuit City, bought 2 stereo systems for the kids, the guy shook his head and said there was no way it would fit in that little car, I just smiled and said watch...evertything fit just fine with a little room to spare...which of course I had to fill up with stocking stuffers! The kid just stood there and smiled, he said that he has loaded alot of stuff in cars, but never that much in such a little car. Just another reason to Love our Kittys!
I think 0-60 is one stat that is a good overall reflection of a car's straight line performance (speed), which is one of the main factors in judging a sport coupe. The other big one is handling, which is very difficult to "measure" since it's so subjective.
Most car magazines seem a little confused about what genre the Cougar falls into. It seems to be labeled as too performance-watered-down in the sport coupe class against Integras, Preludes, Celicas etc. And yet it seems to be labeled as too sporty in the family coupe class against Accords, Aleros, Solaras etc.
Actually that's one thing I do like about it. I think this "hybridization" makes the Cougar pretty unique functionally. It's faster and more stylish than your average family coupe, yet its backseats are bigger than most sport coupes.
(My formula for calculating which car I should buy is VERY complicated and pretty subjective... though the Cougar does quite well in it.)
How about a little warning next time, Edmunds? When cars get an update, there's always a lot of build-up for the new look before it shows up.
Oh, I found a ding from where the BK-Idiot bumped me. It's below the rear license plate, a little circle about the size of a medium-largish screw head. Damn!
Can't we get all the Cougar topics organized in a group.....preferably at the top of the list!?!
And the display in these message boxes while typing is mighty itty-bitty. It's hard to catch typos.
Since C (for Cougar) comes before many letters, all the cougar groups will be right near the top.
...Pritesh
I just updated my ISP software at the same time this Edmunds change came about, and I'm overloaded with trying to get used to all the new stuff everywhere I turn.
It's a plot, I tell ya, a PLOT!!!
no probs..
I know what you mean. Change is good, but not when it all happens at once! ;-)
...Pritesh
Bonnier:
Is it possible to move those messages over to the new board.
I remember someone saying something about the Cougar being in the "touring class" of cars. (was it stageleft?) I think the posting vanished in the new board transition. Anyway, what is the touring class (whether in racing terms or road terms or whatever) and what are some examples of other cars in the touring class?
Ugh, I kinda don't like the new look of the board. Also, I can't figure out how to get more than 20 posts to show up at once. Anyone know how to do this? It's really a big pain when trying to read old threads now. I used to select "show all messages," then save the entire page to my harddrive to read it offline. No can do now.
Why does it seem like car websites are always removing good functionality? Yahoo's auto site used to be the only one where you could do side by side comparisons of as many cars as you want. Not anymore. Now you can only do four, just like every other car site out there.
Ok, now I'm blindly ranting. I'll stop now. Have a nice day.
This new format is going to take a while to get used to. Personally, I find it too cluttered. They need some way to alternate the background colors between posts so that it is easier to differentiate between them. Too bad they couldn't make it look more like http://forums.fastcougar.com or http://forums.anandtech.com
But yeah.. I guess once we get used to this one, it'll be aight!
...Pritesh
As I said earlier, i'm not really fond of the new format either, but I have been in constant contact with the Edmunds staff for most of the day. They are working VERY hard to get the bugs out and improve the board. It's going to take some time, but i'm sure they will continue to improve things. I believe the main reason for this change was because the old board was posted on third party software ("Well Engaged"). StageLeft and I originally looked in to this software for the CSG home page, but after reviewing the costs associated with it (Fee for the software and for the hosting service), we decided to leave the boards on the Edmunds site, and we are glad we made that decision.
gambit293:
I was the one who put the Cougar in the Touring Class. Another Touring Class vehicle would be the BMW 323. The Cougar and the 323 are designed to be a true driver's car. They both have characteristics that show up in several different classes of cars. They have the smooth ride, roomieness, and storage of a sedan, but hold the road and perform very much like a sports coupe.
First, one of my messages is missing. Secondly, I have no way of determining which one, because I have no placemarks. Third, it's hard to pick out pickle messages from real messages.
Fix it. Also interpreted as go back and try again. Please.
Grumpily,
burnsmr
Why can't CSG, and NECO/FastCougar merge together into one big group?
...Pritesh
I believe that one of the original guys who helped to set up NECO decided he didn't like how they were running the site and decided to split and make his own page, hence FastCougar.com. In your opinion, why should we merge with these groups?
narcua:
I have forwarded your email to my contacts at Ford Motor Company. I also sent you an email with the details of this transaction.
I have NEVER heard of anyone having this problem with their Cougar or any other LM vehicle. Hopefully my contacts at FMC will be able to help you out.
KarenS
Owner's Clubs host
Too bad this discussion board is monitored for dirty words...
Anyone interested in a fully-modded '91 Mitsubishi 300 hp rally car that is absolutely totally a cherry mint creampuff? $9500. I know da man.
And shouldn't NECO and FastCougar be clamoring to join us??? I mean, we are THE select and premiere Cougar organization!
If you have autologin enabled, disable it. Then clear your browser cache/history. Then log in manually and reset autologin, if you were using it before.
Your username should appear at the top of the page with (preferences) next to it. You can set the discussion list in the order you prefer. This will affect all the conferences.
The Subscribe feature is just above the "breadcrumb" text, which is just above the post box.
I know this is incredibly frustrating. Please give us some time to work out all the bugs.
KarenS
Owner's Club host
Well, I'm gonna try and post again and see what happens.
I would like to hear everyone's opinion about joining with other Cougar enthusiast groups such as NECO & Fast Cougar. What are the pros and cons to this idea.
I would like as much feedback as possible.
Their format vs the Edmunds format, or their format vs the CSG site's format?
This site and NECOs message board have totally different "personalities". I like the differences.
Although both are rabid Cougar fans and enjoy our cars, the NECO gang is more into heavy modifications and alterations.
Although I'm registered in both groups, (and have been from the early days), I mostly monitor the boards on egroups by subscribing to the digest versions (email).
While we have the same basic goals, the two groups do have a different flavor, and I enjoy both.
It's still snowing, I'm still driving without problems on my factory Goodrich T/A's.
Snow tires? We don't need no stinking snowtires!!!! ;-)
Skip G.