Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

ab348 · February 2021

Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.

explorerx4 · February 2021

...unless you are provided with professional courtesy.

driver100 · February 2021

ab348 said:
Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.

I have about as much interest in driving over 80 mph as I do going on a roller coaster......why would I bother? The risk of getting caught or of causing an accident are for greater than any pleasure I would get from doing it.
It doesn't even take that much skill, just press your foot down on the gas pedal....I have better things to do like pickleball

stickguy · February 2021

tjc78 said:

qbrozen said:

stickguy said:

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.
oh, there are some nice straight stretches on I195 where you can max it out. Just hope you don't pass a trooper. Or hit a deer.

but that is why I never concerned myself with a governor, since they were always well above any speed I was ever going to risk on a public road. And I never had a car that would be out on a track.
My top on an empty public highway is 125. As you said, you have to be concerned about what could happen out there. I certainly won’t do it with other cars around because you can’t trust them. So between other cars, potential deer crossings, and Smoky hiding spots, it is just impossible.
295 south of 42 and north of the Commodore Barry bridge in the very early morning is where you can hit some serious speed.

Also 6 lanes wide.

driver100 · February 2021

I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.

graphicguy · February 2021

Had my ‘98 Cobra with summer tires up to 120 MPH once. While it did “OK” at that speed, it’s very apparent what the differences are between late ‘90s cars (muscle car) and today’s sports (sporty?) sedan/coupes can do.

125+ MPH in the Stinger was stable, sure tracking, and easy to drive. ‘98 Cobra...the steering was light, the body flexed (attribute that to it being a convertible), and it was “twitchy”. As long as I was in a straight line (which I was), everything was good. But, it had a solid rear axle and I had to be very aware of road surface irregularities.

The Stinger doesn’t much care about road irregularities. The suspension tracks with ease at speed.

Before everybody gets their panties in a bunch, the above was done on abandoned stretches of 275 going from OH through IN to KY. Once past the Ohio River going south until the airport, there’s little traffic, particularly at dawn.

imidazol97 · February 2021

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.

An example of data that doesn't mean anything. The 20,000 parts (really? there are that many? I frankly don't believe that number, but then who am I to count.) in an ICE engine doesn't mean that most of them are at risk of failure. Indeed, the environment "damage" or cost to make an ICE is much less than that of an electric motor.

jmonroe1 · February 2021

snakeweasel said:

stickguy said:

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.
oh, there are some nice straight stretches on I195 where you can max it out. Just hope you don't pass a trooper. Or hit a deer.

but that is why I never concerned myself with a governor, since they were always well above any speed I was ever going to risk on a public road. And I never had a car that would be out on a track.
Living here in Illinois where there is a lot of flat farmland there are a lot of nice long two lane roads that are straight and relatively flat. I can think of a few straight and flat stretches that are two miles or more long, lightly traveled with no obstacles. Get there early in the growing season or after the harvest and you have virtually unlimited sight lines to see any officer or oncoming cross traffic miles away.

Are you trying to make me feel bad? :@ In Southwestern PA, I don’t think you could get a full 2 miles of straight flat roads if you cut out those sections of roads from all of the roads around here and glued them together. Not the best place to see your top-end speed.

jmonroe

cdnpinhead · February 2021

imidazol97 said:
Indeed, the environment "damage" or cost to make an ICE is much less than that of an electric motor.

Then there's the battery thing, with significant environmental cost as well, and lithium is at least as hard to gather and refine as oil.

tjc78 · February 2021

graphicguy said:
Had my ‘98 Cobra with summer tires up to 120 MPH once. While it did “OK” at that speed, it’s very apparent what the differences are between late ‘90s cars (muscle car) and today’s sports (sporty?) sedan/coupes can do.

125+ MPH in the Stinger was stable, sure tracking, and easy to drive. ‘98 Cobra...the steering was light, the body flexed (attribute that to it being a convertible), and it was “twitchy”. As long as I was in a straight line (which I was), everything was good. But, it had a solid rear axle and I had to be very aware of road surface irregularities.

The Stinger doesn’t much care about road irregularities. The suspension tracks with ease at speed.

Before everybody gets their panties in a bunch, the above was done on abandoned stretches of 275 going from OH through IN to KY. Once past the Ohio River going south until the airport, there’s little traffic, particularly at dawn.

I’m sure the Stinger is very good at speed. That is one thing I could say about my 09 Genesis, that car loved the highway.

kyfdx · February 2021

oldfarmer50 said:

imidazol97 said:

fintail said:
I'm always skeptical of high speed claims
The Stinger with 3.3 L supposedly reaches 167 mph. There were no data points given for the 2.0 L engine
in a Stinger.

The fastest I’ve ever driven a car is a little over 130 mph done in a 1967 Plymouth Fury ex-Trooper pursuit car with a 440 4 barrel. As I recall it was pretty stable at that speed which still surprises me given the aerodynamics of those cars.

I still remember the dotted lines becoming solid.

I was in the back seat of one of those in the '70s. Driver was showing off a bit, and hit 120, just between two exits on I-75

kyfdx · February 2021

fintail said:
155 is a common governed limit for performance cars, I think. My old E55 was governed at that.

oldfarmer50 said:

My 2008 Eclipse was electronically limited to about 130 but my Mustang claims 155. I’m too old now to risk either.

250 KPH is why

ab348 · February 2021

explorerx4 said:
...unless you are provided with professional courtesy.

That's not going to happen. The kind of violation I described (30mph+ over) is classified as "stunting" (such a dumb name) in our legislation and the police agencies not only like writing those tickets but all of them here make a big deal out of publicizing each and every one of them with news releases and social media posts. It's almost like they won the lottery. Maybe they receive a piece of the revenue directly, I don't know.

jmonroe1 · February 2021

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.
I have about as much interest in driving over 80 mph as I do going on a roller coaster......why would I bother? The risk of getting caught or of causing an accident are for greater than any pleasure I would get from doing it.
It doesn't even take that much skill, just press your foot down on the gas pedal....I have better things to do like pickleball

Don’t tell me you’re afraid of roller coasters. Around here there’s no point in going to Kennywood if you don’t ride the roller coaster.

jmonroe

tjc78 · February 2021

ab348 said:

explorerx4 said:
...unless you are provided with professional courtesy.
That's not going to happen. The kind of violation I described (30mph+ over) is classified as "stunting" (such a dumb name) in our legislation and the police agencies not only like writing those tickets but all of them here make a big deal out of publicizing each and every one of them with news releases and social media posts. It's almost like they won the lottery. Maybe they receive a piece of the revenue directly, I don't know.

That’s only the ones they publish. How many of them were taken down to lesser tickets? Most officers if they pull over someone who has a clean record and doesn’t act like a jerk get some sort of break.

tjc78 · February 2021

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.
I have about as much interest in driving over 80 mph as I do going on a roller coaster......why would I bother? The risk of getting caught or of causing an accident are for greater than any pleasure I would get from doing it.
It doesn't even take that much skill, just press your foot down on the gas pedal....I have better things to do like pickleball

Depends where you are driving. I was in Idaho a few years back with 80 MPH speed limits. I put the cruise on 89 the whole way.

jmonroe1 · February 2021

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.

And all the money you save on oil changes can be spent on more DIY power tools. My kinda car.

jmonroe

driver100 · February 2021

imidazol97 said:

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.
An example of data that doesn't mean anything. The 20,000 parts (really? there are that many? I frankly don't believe that number, but then who am I to count.) in an ICE engine doesn't mean that most of them are at risk of failure. Indeed, the environment "damage" or cost to make an ICE is much less than that of an electric motor.

Most sites say 30000 parts if you count every screw etc.;
https://standridgeauto.com/how-many-parts-does-the-average-car-have/
https://www.toyota.co.jp/en/kids/faq/d/01/04/#:~:text=A single car has about,materials and different manufacturing processes.
On this site it says 1800 parts, but they count the engine as one part and they make it clear there are thousands of parts in the engine alone;
The average car is made up of about 1,800 separate parts. This includes some large components, such as the engine, which is inserted as a unit during the car-making process but contains thousands of individual pieces itself.
https://www.reference.com/world-view/many-parts-average-car-84981ee597c85b91
btw, that site says there are 4500 to 4800 welds and each weld has a part.

driver100 · February 2021

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.
And all the money you save on oil changes can be spent on more DIY power tools. My kinda car.

jmonroe

You would really save on oil changes but we won't go there

driver100 · February 2021

tjc78 said:

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.
I have about as much interest in driving over 80 mph as I do going on a roller coaster......why would I bother? The risk of getting caught or of causing an accident are for greater than any pleasure I would get from doing it.
It doesn't even take that much skill, just press your foot down on the gas pedal....I have better things to do like pickleball
Depends where you are driving. I was in Idaho a few years back with 80 MPH speed limits. I put the cruise on 89 the whole way.

I haven't driven on a highway with an 80 mph speed limit. I think they allow you about 10% over in most cases so I would have no problem going 90 if the speed limit is 80. I'd probably go more on the Autobahn or something like that if it was legal.
Speeding tickets here have big penalties like Ab said, it is called Stunt Driving. Confiscate your car, insurance goes way up, big fine....and chance of injuring me or someone else.....just not worth it. It isn't the speed itself necessarily, but it is the penalty and what could happen. I also think most drivers probably can't handle speeds of over 80 or 90 mph....not saying posters here necessarily, I mean John Q Public. And many who think they can are the ones who will get into trouble....like the ones in their SUV's who put them into a ditch at the first minor snowfall.

snakeweasel · February 2021

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.

I don't trust lifetime guarantees, the fine print on them will kill you plus the dirt little secret about warrantees. As for the 10 minutes, I seriously doubt that it can be done that fast, accessing the motor would likely take that long or longer.

snakeweasel · February 2021

imidazol97 said:

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.
An example of data that doesn't mean anything. The 20,000 parts (really? there are that many? I frankly don't believe that number, but then who am I to count.) in an ICE engine doesn't mean that most of them are at risk of failure. Indeed, the environment "damage" or cost to make an ICE is much less than that of an electric motor.

If you count each individual nut and bolt, seal and what not you might get close to that number. IIRC a valve train alone can have over 75 pieces per cylinder.

snakeweasel · February 2021

jmonroe1 said:

snakeweasel said:

stickguy said:

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.
oh, there are some nice straight stretches on I195 where you can max it out. Just hope you don't pass a trooper. Or hit a deer.

but that is why I never concerned myself with a governor, since they were always well above any speed I was ever going to risk on a public road. And I never had a car that would be out on a track.
Living here in Illinois where there is a lot of flat farmland there are a lot of nice long two lane roads that are straight and relatively flat. I can think of a few straight and flat stretches that are two miles or more long, lightly traveled with no obstacles. Get there early in the growing season or after the harvest and you have virtually unlimited sight lines to see any officer or oncoming cross traffic miles away.
Are you trying to make me feel bad? :@ In Southwestern PA, I don’t think you could get a full 2 miles of straight flat roads if you cut out those sections of roads from all of the roads around here and glued them together. Not the best place to see your top-end speed.

jmonroe

I know one spot where the road is almost perfectly straight and is as flat as you can find that is over 12 miles between stop signs with nothing along the road except the very occasional farm building. This is in a part of a road that is 45 miles between towns and is almost straight with only 3 or 4 stop signs along the way.

snakeweasel · February 2021

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.
I have about as much interest in driving over 80 mph as I do going on a roller coaster......why would I bother? The risk of getting caught or of causing an accident are for greater than any pleasure I would get from doing it.
It doesn't even take that much skill, just press your foot down on the gas pedal....I have better things to do like pickleball

I'm with you, not much interested in going much over 80. There was one time though I hit 92 on the bike. I was cruising down RT 66 one day way south of here. This part of 66 runs right next to the railroad and the signs on the cross streets at the railroad tracks warn that trains exceed 80 MPH. Well one day on a nice long straight section of this road with the tracks right next to it I noticed an Amtrak train approaching and I just wanted to see just how fast those trains travel. So I accelerated and paced the train for a quarter mile or so and the speedo hit 92.

driver100 · February 2021

Mrs D just showed me her cell phone activity for January. It lists how many miles she walked, how many she drove, which stores she visited, what towns she has been in, how much time she spent walking or in a car, and a bunch of other stuff. Now that is scary!

snakeweasel · February 2021

driver100 said:
Mrs D just showed me her cell phone activity for January. It lists how many miles she walked, how many she drove, which stores she visited, what towns she has been in, how much time she spent walking or in a car, and a bunch of other stuff. Now that is scary!

Simple solution, turn off your phone if you don't need it, or you can get a faraday bag and put it in there. Actually a Faraday bag is a good place to keep credit cards and car fobs while not in use as it blocks signals.

jmonroe1 · February 2021

With all this speed talk I hope you guys realize we’re going to get a blitz of posts from @andres3.

jmonroe

andres3 · February 2021

ab348 said:
I had one of those Sony rear-projection LCD TVs. It had a great picture at first but over time problems developed. Aside from needing a new $100 bulb along the way, the "light engine" developed problems. After a couple of years, you could see a shadow when you watched a HD picture on either side of the screen where the black bars would appear while watching a SD channel (back then the majority of signals were still in SD). Then later I started to get prism-like rainbow effects at the bottom of the screen. Sony refused to do anything about it. These had a design flaw related to excess heat from the bulb but they wouldn't stand behind their product, so out the door it went. This was the first of several bad Sony products I've had.

Sony Canada must have been more frugal than Sony USA. I got traction for my after warranty claims. Lastly, Sony did have a big office/warehouse in San Diego.

stickguy · February 2021

85 is nothing. The RDX if I don’t pay attention, will sneak up there and barely feel like you are moving, and tach around 2k. I’ve never tried but I suspect it would feel quite composed at 100.

jmonroe1 · February 2021

snakeweasel said:

jmonroe1 said:

snakeweasel said:

stickguy said:

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.
oh, there are some nice straight stretches on I195 where you can max it out. Just hope you don't pass a trooper. Or hit a deer.

but that is why I never concerned myself with a governor, since they were always well above any speed I was ever going to risk on a public road. And I never had a car that would be out on a track.
Living here in Illinois where there is a lot of flat farmland there are a lot of nice long two lane roads that are straight and relatively flat. I can think of a few straight and flat stretches that are two miles or more long, lightly traveled with no obstacles. Get there early in the growing season or after the harvest and you have virtually unlimited sight lines to see any officer or oncoming cross traffic miles away.
Are you trying to make me feel bad? :@ In Southwestern PA, I don’t think you could get a full 2 miles of straight flat roads if you cut out those sections of roads from all of the roads around here and glued them together. Not the best place to see your top-end speed.

jmonroe
I know one spot where the road is almost perfectly straight and is as flat as you can find that is over 12 miles between stop signs with nothing along the road except the very occasional farm building. This is in a part of a road that is 45 miles between towns and is almost straight with only 3 or 4 stop signs along the way.

Back in the late ‘70s I spent 2 weeks on business in Tempe AZ. One weekend me and a few guys decided to go visit Old Tucson AZ. I don’t remember now what road we took but I never saw a road so flat and straight in my life. You could look down the road clear to the horizon and the road was perfectly flat and straight. I think the only reason they had a slight bend in the road every now and then was because just because. The road builder couldn’t do anything about the flat road though.

jmonroe

bwia · February 2021

It was about time.
I just received an invitation to a new digital publication State of Charge. And it is free. And if Edmunds will permit me, here is the link. https://link.autoweek.com/join/6gx/stateofcharge?source=nl&utm_source=nl_cdb&utm_medium=email&date=020521&utm_campaign=nl22721225&utm_term=AAA -- High Minus Dormant and 90 Day Non Openers

snakeweasel · February 2021

stickguy said:
85 is nothing. The RDX if I don’t pay attention, will sneak up there and barely feel like you are moving, and tach around 2k. I’ve never tried but I suspect it would feel quite composed at 100.

Yeah I know what you mean, on the 4 series speed can sneak up on you pretty fast. It is bound to get me in trouble sometime soon as going 80 seems as smooth as 40.

andres3 · February 2021

jmonroe1 said:
With all this speed talk I hope you guys realize we’re going to get a blitz of posts from @andres3.

jmonroe

But I can keep it short. Just a few quick points:

1) The same drivers @driver100 says can't handle going 80 or 90 safely are the exact same people that can't handle driving 55 MPH, or even 15 MPH for that matter. In the famous words of a wise man "UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED!"

2) Canada has gone off the deep end already; part of the mission of motorists rights in the USA is not to go the way of Canada on that. Canada doesn't have a great track record doing what they do on vehicle safety anyway. If there is a Safety CSAR nanny Country to hold up as an example, it's the UK. For some reason the UK is successful at bringing the fatality per mile rate down consistently and noticeably. Safety nannies can use them as an example while motorists can point to Germany as the right way to do things.

3) Canadian Insurance and government interests have been shown to "twist and contort figures and data" as excellently shown in two You Tube movies, but most recently this one aptly subtitled "Lying with Statistics" (which takes away Canada's credibility for the low speed limits):

https://youtu.be/wzmVCSfRR38

snakeweasel · February 2021

jmonroe1 said:
With all this speed talk I hope you guys realize we’re going to get a blitz of posts from @andres3.

jmonroe

You had to go and mention his name, it's not like Beetlejuice where you have to say it three times.

andres3 · February 2021

omarman said:
@driver100 I was just wondering if that 80% was an apples to apples comparison with the percentage in the Justice Dept quote. Whenever I hear my nephew vent his frustration with math statistics I remember the way Lewis Carroll described the four branches of arithmetic as "ambition, distraction, uglification and derision."

@dino001 The Bobby cop history is significant right down to the blue uniform chosen so that people could easily tell police apart from soldiers. But now we see more troop deployment to police civil unrest on both sides of the pond.

And on the topic of statistics, NHTSA won't have the full numbers until later in the year but traffic deaths went up despite covid lockdowns in 2020. Hmm. Empty highways. Less enforcement.

In Ohio, state troopers have issued 2,200 tickets since April [2020] for driving more than 100 mph, a 61% increase over the same time period a year ago. The highest ticketed speed was 147 mph in the Cincinnati area.

YOU HAVE to be VERY CAREFUL with the NHTSA. They are good data gatherers, but then they do back flips and cartwheels in summarizing the data with the propaganda they send out to the public.

Take this website of the NHTSA: https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding

Click on the 2nd round dot in the blue box. So 48% of the fatalities they blame on speed were REALLY truthfully caused by "failure to wear a seatbelt idiots."

Unless you believe 48% of the driving public at all times is not wearing a seat belt; you have to see my point here.

I'm shocked they still have this up on the front page of their speed risks web site. I've been educating all who will listen on this for a while now. They did take down the high percentage of drunks that speed that cause fatalities. They didn't stop counting them to blame speed, but they took drunks out of the blue box (was around 37%).

Lastly, who's saying deaths went up in 2020? I wasn't able to find anything on that yet, only that 2019 was again, another safer year than the past, which has been the trend almost every year for decades now.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2019-fatality-data-traffic-deaths-2020-q2-projections

andres3 · February 2021

tjc78 said:

qbrozen said:

stickguy said:

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.
oh, there are some nice straight stretches on I195 where you can max it out. Just hope you don't pass a trooper. Or hit a deer.

but that is why I never concerned myself with a governor, since they were always well above any speed I was ever going to risk on a public road. And I never had a car that would be out on a track.
My top on an empty public highway is 125. As you said, you have to be concerned about what could happen out there. I certainly won’t do it with other cars around because you can’t trust them. So between other cars, potential deer crossings, and Smoky hiding spots, it is just impossible.
295 south of 42 and north of the Commodore Barry bridge in the very early morning is where you can hit some serious speed.

Personal experience, or you saw someone else going "serious speed?"

omarman · February 2021

Mazda hyped the moving parts advantage over piston engines back in the 70s. "The Wankel two-rotor rotary engine has three moving parts. Two rotors and an output shaft..." But with other problems.

Mazda sales have fallen below the 10,000 level in all but one month since the E.P.A. issued its first test results last May. Tests for the 1974 models released in September indicated that the rotary engine was an inefficient power plant in comparison with the traditional piston engine. Three Mazdas tested by the E.P.A. got 10.6, 110.7 and 10.8 miles a gallon. NYT February 12, 1974, Page 43

If the typical EV becomes another typical electrical appliance that we're accustomed to now, then I expect that there will be very few expensive "repairs." But maybe we'll have one more throw away electric appliance. Only bigger and more expensive.

andres3 · February 2021

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.

Same here in the TTS, 140 MPH and as soon as I saw 140 I wanted to slow down as at that speed the slight bend of the Oval at Fontana Speedway doesn't seem so slight at all.

Therefore, in the USA, I'm OK with the 155 MPH speed limit, or limiter I should say.

oldfarmer50 · February 2021

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.

I can see the end of indie shops already with so many proprietary tools and software codes. But with only 20 parts how will the dealers screw you over or upsell you useless garbage?

jmonroe1 · February 2021

I TOLD YA.

jmonroe

snakeweasel · February 2021

andres3 said:

omarman said:
@driver100 I was just wondering if that 80% was an apples to apples comparison with the percentage in the Justice Dept quote. Whenever I hear my nephew vent his frustration with math statistics I remember the way Lewis Carroll described the four branches of arithmetic as "ambition, distraction, uglification and derision."

@dino001 The Bobby cop history is significant right down to the blue uniform chosen so that people could easily tell police apart from soldiers. But now we see more troop deployment to police civil unrest on both sides of the pond.

And on the topic of statistics, NHTSA won't have the full numbers until later in the year but traffic deaths went up despite covid lockdowns in 2020. Hmm. Empty highways. Less enforcement.

In Ohio, state troopers have issued 2,200 tickets since April [2020] for driving more than 100 mph, a 61% increase over the same time period a year ago. The highest ticketed speed was 147 mph in the Cincinnati area.
YOU HAVE to be VERY CAREFUL with the NHTSA. They are good data gatherers, but then they do back flips and cartwheels in summarizing the data with the propaganda they send out to the public.

Take this website of the NHTSA: https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding

Click on the 2nd round dot in the blue box. So 48% of the fatalities they blame on speed were REALLY truthfully caused by "failure to wear a seatbelt idiots."

Unless you believe 48% of the driving public at all times is not wearing a seat belt; you have to see my point here.

I'm shocked they still have this up on the front page of their speed risks web site. I've been educating all who will listen on this for a while now. They did take down the high percentage of drunks that speed that cause fatalities. They didn't stop counting them to blame speed, but they took drunks out of the blue box (was around 37%).

Lastly, who's saying deaths went up in 2020? I wasn't able to find anything on that yet, only that 2019 was again, another safer year than the past, which has been the trend almost every year for decades now.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2019-fatality-data-traffic-deaths-2020-q2-projections

Sorry that's not what it says, it says "speeding drivers in fatal crashes in 2018 who were not wearing seatbelts", it does not state that 48% of speed deaths were really caused by not wearing seatbelts. It gives no indication of if those deaths were not caused by, or partially caused by, or fully caused by not wearing seatbelts. Please don't play fast and loose with the facts while claiming others are.

snakeweasel · February 2021

andres3 said:

tjc78 said:

qbrozen said:

stickguy said:

qbrozen said:
I don't even know where you can go that fast. On the longest straightaway at NJ Motorsports, hitting the entry perfect and pushing the braking zone later than I should, I hit MAYBE 142, if the speedo was to be believed, in my tuned 135i. I very nearly didn't make the turn at the end and had to trail brake a slide a bit to avoid going off. So, really, south of 140 was the safe max. I would need one of those max-speed tracks or closed airport to do anything more.
oh, there are some nice straight stretches on I195 where you can max it out. Just hope you don't pass a trooper. Or hit a deer.

but that is why I never concerned myself with a governor, since they were always well above any speed I was ever going to risk on a public road. And I never had a car that would be out on a track.
My top on an empty public highway is 125. As you said, you have to be concerned about what could happen out there. I certainly won’t do it with other cars around because you can’t trust them. So between other cars, potential deer crossings, and Smoky hiding spots, it is just impossible.
295 south of 42 and north of the Commodore Barry bridge in the very early morning is where you can hit some serious speed.
Personal experience, or you saw someone else going "serious speed?"

Do you need personal experience or witness it to conclude that it can be done?

jmonroe1 · February 2021

oldfarmer50 said:

driver100 said:
I got an email with all of these things about what the future will be like......
Basic auto repair shops will disappear. A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has only 20 parts. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

20 parts to break down instead of 20,000....something to think about.
I can see the end of indie shops already with so many proprietary tools and software codes. But with only 20 parts how will the dealers screw you over or upset you useless garbage?

Give em time. They’ll figure it out. This is relatively new to them too.

jmonroe

dino001 · February 2021

andres3 said:

Therefore, in the USA, I'm OK with the 155 MPH speed limit, or limiter I should say.

Glad you're OK with something. Such a relief...

snakeweasel · February 2021

omarman said:
Mazda hyped the moving parts advantage over piston engines back in the 70s. "The Wankel two-rotor rotary engine has three moving parts. Two rotors and an output shaft..." But with other problems.

Mazda sales have fallen below the 10,000 level in all but one month since the E.P.A. issued its first test results last May. Tests for the 1974 models released in September indicated that the rotary engine was an inefficient power plant in comparison with the traditional piston engine. Three Mazdas tested by the E.P.A. got 10.6, 110.7 and 10.8 miles a gallon. NYT February 12, 1974, Page 43

If the typical EV becomes another typical electrical appliance that we're accustomed to now, then I expect that there will be very few expensive "repairs." But maybe we'll have one more throw away electric appliance. Only bigger and more expensive.

The rotary engine was superior in the fact that it had fewer parts so it was easier and less expensive to repair and it put out more power per displacement. However it had poorer fuel economy than cars with equal power, burned oil (by design it had to) and had very bad emissions.

andres3 · February 2021

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Nowadays up here if you get caught doing more than 30mph over the posted limit you get you vehicle seized for a week and a $2500 fine, plus a trip to driving school and (I think) 6 points charged to your license, which means your car insurance skyrockets. I believe that it also comes with a license suspension of some length. Not worth it.
I have about as much interest in driving over 80 mph as I do going on a roller coaster......why would I bother? The risk of getting caught or of causing an accident are for greater than any pleasure I would get from doing it.
It doesn't even take that much skill, just press your foot down on the gas pedal....I have better things to do like pickleball

In CA, 80+ is a daily occurrence on 125, 94, 52, I15, 805, and I5. I like to think it takes at least 90 MPH to get the CHP's attention now.

omarman · February 2021

@andres3
Lastly, who's saying deaths went up in 2020? I wasn't able to find anything on that yet, only that 2019 was again, another safer year than the past, which has been the trend almost every year for decades now.

I probably should have emphasized the part of my post stating, NHTSA won't have the full numbers until later in the year but traffic deaths went up despite covid lockdowns in 2020.

Traffic deaths rose 0.6% during the first-quarter of 2020, but they fell 1.1% in the second quarter as coronavirus lockdowns restricted movement. Fatalities spiked 13.1% from July through September, the agency said. Risky driving: US traffic deaths up despite virus lockdowns. link to AP January 13, 2021

andres3 · February 2021

snakeweasel said:

andres3 said:

omarman said:
@driver100 I was just wondering if that 80% was an apples to apples comparison with the percentage in the Justice Dept quote. Whenever I hear my nephew vent his frustration with math statistics I remember the way Lewis Carroll described the four branches of arithmetic as "ambition, distraction, uglification and derision."

@dino001 The Bobby cop history is significant right down to the blue uniform chosen so that people could easily tell police apart from soldiers. But now we see more troop deployment to police civil unrest on both sides of the pond.

And on the topic of statistics, NHTSA won't have the full numbers until later in the year but traffic deaths went up despite covid lockdowns in 2020. Hmm. Empty highways. Less enforcement.

In Ohio, state troopers have issued 2,200 tickets since April [2020] for driving more than 100 mph, a 61% increase over the same time period a year ago. The highest ticketed speed was 147 mph in the Cincinnati area.
YOU HAVE to be VERY CAREFUL with the NHTSA. They are good data gatherers, but then they do back flips and cartwheels in summarizing the data with the propaganda they send out to the public.

Take this website of the NHTSA: https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding

Click on the 2nd round dot in the blue box. So 48% of the fatalities they blame on speed were REALLY truthfully caused by "failure to wear a seatbelt idiots."

Unless you believe 48% of the driving public at all times is not wearing a seat belt; you have to see my point here.

I'm shocked they still have this up on the front page of their speed risks web site. I've been educating all who will listen on this for a while now. They did take down the high percentage of drunks that speed that cause fatalities. They didn't stop counting them to blame speed, but they took drunks out of the blue box (was around 37%).

Lastly, who's saying deaths went up in 2020? I wasn't able to find anything on that yet, only that 2019 was again, another safer year than the past, which has been the trend almost every year for decades now.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2019-fatality-data-traffic-deaths-2020-q2-projections
Sorry that's not what it says, it says "speeding drivers in fatal crashes in 2018 who were not wearing seatbelts", it does not state that 48% of speed deaths were really caused by not wearing seatbelts. It gives no indication of if those deaths were not caused by, or partially caused by, or fully caused by not wearing seatbelts. Please don't play fast and loose with the facts while claiming others are.

You are the only one playing fast and loose with the facts here.

In CA I know we have over a 97% compliance rate with seat belt laws. Knowing that, I know the NHTSA's claim that 48% of deaths is caused by speeding (where they just so happened to not be wearing a seat belt) to be bogus. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if 3% of the sample is creating 48% of the deaths, there is a strong causal correlation to that identifying factor, and it isn't the "OTHER" factor that has been shown to have NO CORRELATION at all.

Any unbiased person here sees the absurdity of the NHTSA here.

The other lesson here is that seat belts save lives. Buckle up for safety!

oldfarmer50 · February 2021

kyfdx said:

oldfarmer50 said:

imidazol97 said:

fintail said:
I'm always skeptical of high speed claims
The Stinger with 3.3 L supposedly reaches 167 mph. There were no data points given for the 2.0 L engine
in a Stinger.

The fastest I’ve ever driven a car is a little over 130 mph done in a 1967 Plymouth Fury ex-Trooper pursuit car with a 440 4 barrel. As I recall it was pretty stable at that speed which still surprises me given the aerodynamics of those cars.

I still remember the dotted lines becoming solid.
I was in the back seat of one of those in the '70s. Driver was showing off a bit, and hit 120, just between two exits on I-75

Back seat of a police car? Oh my!

dino001 · February 2021

The fastest I went was around 135 mph . It was a German Autobahn, so it was actually legal, Sunday morning, pretty empty. I slowed down when got to a bend. I drove on German Autobahns for a couple of weeks. I was generally comfortable and fairly relaxed up to 90-95 mph, after which my body started tightening up. At 100-110 mph it was getting exhausting in a hurry. I wasn't able to go like that for hours, too much tension.

Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

Comments

Helpful Tools

Most popular vehicles

Your Privacy