STIG

My RSX gets worse MPG than my Is350 with my driving style. Those high revving motors are good for MPG if you drive like a grandma but gets really bad MPG if you like to reeevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv and feel the VTEC.

Koma

iTrader: (3)

The IS250 sells like hotcakes, mainly the AWD version.

Koma

iTrader: (3)

Well I guess it's better than saying "super handling."
They should at least change it to say something more like superb handling. Super? you couldn't find a better adjective?

SteVTEC

A 280hp V6 Accord was scooped out back in 2005 when a member at my Accord site posted a marketing survey from Honda, and that they were looking into exactly that. (link). With a 268hp Camry and a 270hp Altima, a 280hp Accord makes perfect sense. They also mentioned looking into a "performance" 4-cylinder with 240hp, but that wouldn't have made much sense in a heavier car like the Accord. An 8000rpm S2000 engine in a 3200lb sedan? uh... no. The 200hp 4-banger sounds like the TSX engine which is not bad with a 6MT, but a dog in 5AT form with the horribly tall gearing that Honda puts in it.


In the bigger picture, I COMPLETELY agree with thetopdog in post #31 & 34 that these power wars are getting out of hand. Ever since my Nissan hit 150k miles it's turned into a piece of crap, so I'm once again borrowing one of my parent's extra Camrys (98/4-cyl/auto/133hp) while it's getting worked on, and you know what? It's just fine, and my Maxima is over 3 seconds faster to 60 mph. Do you know how often I actually get to take advantage of performance like that? Almost NEVER. My Maxima will pull straight up fairly steep hills in 5th gear at 40 mph. The Camry just downshifts from 4th to 3rd. Big deal. My Maxima has no problem accelerating hard up a highway grade from 60 to 80+ in 5th gear and 3000rpm. The Camry just drops from 4th down to 3rd and hits 4000 rpm to do the same. Again, big deal. The vast majority of the time the extra performance of my Maxima goes completely to waste and I have NO ROOM to enjoy it with traffic, low speed limits, and lots of cops. But I can have fun using 80-90% of the Camry's much lower level of performance on a daily basis while not doing anything illegal. I calculated that my peak power demands on a week to week basis never really exceed about 150hp in both my Maxima AND in our Highlander. It's truly rare to ever need more than that, which is why most manufacturers have their 4-cylinder engines targeted for peak power in the 140-160hp range. Most of the time you don't need more than 100-120hp even when merging onto a highway uphill, so a 150-160hp engine gives you that with a little in reserve.


Nail, meet head.

Could not agree more. 200hp? Ok fine. 240-250hp? In this class of cars you will never ever "NEED" that sort of power, and if you're using it on the street it's pretty much a guarantee that you're driving like a complete idiot, but ok whatever. This morning going up an UPHILL highway ramp I had the choice between braking down to 60 mph and getting behind a truck, or punching it up to 70-80 to get in front of it before the merge lane ended. I took option B and hit it, and that's in my borrowed 133HP CAMRY, lol. Excessive power is just for ego boosting and serves little purpose in street driven cars. If I drive this Camry at 90% it's really nothing out of the ordinary. Drive even a 240hp Accord at 90% and you seriously need to look the F out because they're driving stupidly. And now the Accord will have 280hp?? Wonderful... As if Honda/Acura drivers don't already drive stupidly enough as it is. (aside: Last Thursday and Friday I had a total of 4 near-misses on the road, ALL of which involved Hondas and Acuras. And usually everytime I have a near miss it's either a Honda or Acura driver, almost without fail). I can't wait for all the dumb kids to flood onto our Accord site and start wrecking 280hp Accords and start complaining about how the car just wouldn't turn and they smacked that curb, or how the brakes "didn't work" and the rear-ended the frick out of somebody. It's going to be "2003" all over again.


More philosophical ranting later...

r4z0r3ck

well i think the main reason being the price, but i think the RWD version outsell the AWD version.

regardless i think with the 280 hp increase well in up going into TL's territory. if the TL gets SH-AWD then the accord will.

i just dont like seeing accords and camry's keeping up with cars 2x their price. it is an ego thing but it's also the fact that they need to keep the stereotype of accords being slow. hell i had an 89 accord and that thing was slow compared to the rest of the vehicles on the road, but now the 06 is in the middle of the pack when it comes to performance nowadays.

marshmallo

I agree, it sucks to get smoked by V6 Altimas, but even my
"underpowered" 3800lb GS300 with 245HP is perfectly fine for
everyday use (especially in power mode with the more aggressive
gearing). The car has plenty of power.

The poster who brought ego up got it exactly right. When my ego
can no longer take getting humiliated by 15K econoboxes I will upgrade
to a GS460 and help to further destroy the environment for future
generations

SteVTEC

Koma

iTrader: (3)

I have no idea on the real figures, I'm guessing at how many IS250 AWDs I see everyday versus RWD IS250s.
The ego thing is true but hey don't let it bother you. My 94 SC400 is awfully slow but I don't care because I'm not streetlight racing people. If they want to waste their gas and mash the gas at the turn of the light and endanger themselves go for it. I'm gonna hang back and try to sip as much as I can.

LexFather

Another fantastic post dude.
Off the top of my head, I'm going to list ratings and see what happened
Accord didn't even HAVE a V-6 until 1995 I think, when they shoved a 2.5 in there good for 170hp, but it stretched the front bumper to fit.
Altima didn't HAVE a V-6 either. Just a 150/155hp I-4
Camry had a 182hp V-6 since 1992 (185 then 188 in the 2ES)
Accord redesign has a 200hp V-6 option
Maxima (a slight class higher) gets a 222hp V-6
Camry when it gets redesign gets a 200hp V-6
Altima still has an I-4 only.
Maxima gets new 3.5 VQ with 255hp
Altima redesign gets first V-6, 240hp
Accord redesign comes 240hp V-6
Camry gets 3.3 liter fro 230hp
Altima SE-R gets 255hp
Camry redesign (before the Accord this time) gets 268hp V-6
Altima now has 270hp V-6
Next Accord 280 hp???

All the other players get hp bumps too, Galant, Domestics, everyone.

SteVTEC

the long philosophical rant....


The point of a V-6 in a family sedan class of car is to give the thing a little more punch if you want it, and to be able to maintain performance especially when you have a full load of passengers and luggage. This 133HP Camry I'm borrowing while my Max is getting worked on yet again is fine with just me in it, but yeah it does get weak in 90F summers with passengers and the A/C running full blast. That's what the V-6 is for, if you care, and if you're willing to pay for it. They're not meant for out-running sports cars, do not move like sports cars anyways, do not handle, do not brake, etc. The Japanese have turned their family sedans into American "lead sleds" that go fast in a straight line but do almost nothing else well. Where the frick is another 1992 Maxima SE "4 door sports car" with some balance and handling? Nobody makes them anymore.

The unintended consequence of these horsepower wars is that you can actually make the cars LESS fun to drive when they're so massively overpowered. That 1992 Maxima SE had a trick little 190hp 3.0L engine which was powerful enough to scoot you along pretty good, but not so overly powered that you couldn't break 3000-4000 rpm without getting yourself into heaps of trouble or driving like a friggin moron. With these 3.5L class engines you're already making 150hp at only 3000rpm and by the time you hit 4000rpm you're already making 200hp. I could never find a place to legally and safely wind one of these puppies out without getting up to truly stupid speeds.

The other thing that the Japanese are doing with these big engines just drives me up the wall. They give you this massively powerful engine which looks great on paper, is great for advertising, runs insanely fast times in the magazines, boosts the egos of those that buy them, but then what do they do in "normal" driving? They dumb the sucker down and cripple them with ridiculously conservative tranny shift mapping so that you have to try extremely hard to get the engine to make more than 150-200hp anyways. They're no fun to drive. I've seen more than a few 268hp Camry owners complaining that their cars just don't "feel" very powerful or fast. Why? Because unless you're at full throttle, the engine management is trying its hardest to keep the engine below 3000rpm at all times for fuel economy anyways, which gives you a constant "lugging" feel and dull responsiveness. It's stupid IMHO. Our Highlander is like this and so are a lot of Toyota V6's. You can be at 75% throttle and it'll still upshift below 4000 rpm. Yes, if you floor it it'll move, but otherwise it feels dull. My inlaw's 2004 ML350 is technically a lot slower flat out, but because the Germans don't dumb down their engines like this it's actually a TON more responsive and fun to drive than our Highlander is. When you suddenly hit 50% throttle it knows you want to move a little and drops a gear or two and you move whereas our Highlander will just lug away in the existing gear. The current Honda Accord V6 is similar. Yeah it makes 240hp, but good luck actually getting the engine to make that because the tranny shift mapping ensures the engine is as crippled as possible and in as efficient of a state as possible at all times.



I would rather have a less powerful engine that's free of restrictions like this and "liberated" rather than a more powerful one that's dumbed down. If I want to move I'd rather have a less powerful engine drop a gear and let me make 200hp @ 5000 rpm and see and feel and hear the engine wind out (especially a GOOD sounding engine) rather than some mammoth of an engine hit merely 3000rpm and make the same 200hp. I have lots of fun flinging the Camry up to 5000 rpm but can hardly find anyplace to break even 3-4k in my Maxima.

Japanese car owners are often surprised at how powerful German cars with way less rated power feel to drive and how fun they are. Gee, I wonder why this is? Part of it is due to the fact that Germans don't overrate their engines like the Japanese have, but a big other part is that Germans don't believe in the Japanese philosophy of giving you a lot of power just to dumb it down so that you can never have access to that power unless you're really really really REALLY sure.

I thought the 245hp 3GR GS300 was just perfect. 0-60 in 6.8s is more than enough, and it's extremely efficient. If you want power, just put it in the sport mode and have fun winding the puppy out a little bit and heaving the engine actually WORK, lol. The GS350 is now yet another 300+hp massively overpowered car that you'd be lucky to get past 3000 rpm in most driving situations.

So the Japanese have left me out in the cold. It's either all or nothing these days. A 4-cylinder would almost suit my needs except that they don't have enough reserve power, and it's just not very fun to wind out a large displacement 4-banger with their noisy sound and vibrations. The V-6's are all the nearly or over 300hp variety these days which you can't wind out at all because they have so much power. What happened to the middle ground? It hasn't gone away - the Japanese are just underserving it. I too would love to see an "IS300", the GS300 come back, or heck even an Infiniti "G30" or "M30" to choose from. I have zero interest in a Nissan V6 that makes 300hp that's more than I could ever use or have fun with that also barely manages 25 mpg highway on a good day. More moderately powered smaller displacement 6-cyl engines give me all the power I need, sound good when you wind them up, and will give you more like 30 mpg. Perfect.

Eventually, Japanese manufacturers are going to have to figure out how to sell cars in other ways besides just cranking up the power. It's already excessive as it is and getting really played out, fuel prices keep getting higher, and huge engines can for real be "less fun". The Germans already have this mastered. Even the BMW 525i gets "invigorating" and "sporty" comments in the press with regards to the powertrain, and its whopping 215hp. Probably because it'll actually let you make 215hp whenever you want (which is plenty) and sound and feel damn good while doing it, as opposed to the similar power in our Highlander which is constantly dumbed down and won't let you make more than about 150hp unless you really really want to due to the fact that it never lets you past 4000rpm unless you're at full throttle. This is a big reason why 200-ish hp Japanese engines can feel weak and dull, but 200-ish hp German engines are "invigorating and sporty."

Chrysler is going to get hammered. Daimler is reportedly putting them up for sale, and shareholder are already being asked to vote in favor of changing the name back to Daimler-Benz so the writing is on the wall. Chrysler's HEMI engine led the charge in the horsepower race, and it was incredibly efficient for what it was, but besides that what fun to drive cars does Chrysler have? None. When gas prices surge again they're toast, as if they aren't already. Infiniti is next. All of their cars get **** poor mileage. The M35x barely avoids the gas guzzler tax and it's just a V6! A 300+hp G35, and a 330hp G37 coupe? Good grief.


I'm planning to replace my Nissan either late this year or early next with an '08 BMW 528i, with a whole 230hp/200tq. 0-60 in 7.1s with the automatic. wuuuhuuuu! Yes a Camry and Accord and so many other cars that you can't list them all will smoke me, but I'll have way more fun driving the "liberated and free" 528i than I would in the "dumbed down" Camry or Accord anyday. The Germans are the only ones that are providing the balance that I'm looking for right now. And with 230hp, the engine isn't so excessively powerful that I won't be able to hear that sexy Inline-6 engine sing. Euro Delivery pricing FTW too. Won't cost any more and might actually be less than a comparable GS300/350, M35, etc. Can't wait!

Fun to drive and putting grins on your face does not correlate with just adding power. Look at Mazda. They've never ever been a leader in power, but their cars are near universally praised as being more fun to drive than their competition, even when they have way less power. The new Miata has been praised for staying true to its roots and not giving in to the power race. Keeps the car pure and its soul alive. You can have fun flinging that little 4-banger up to 7000 rpm rather than short-shifting a massively overpowered one at 3-4k which would kill the soul of the car. And fresh in my mind is my experience driving in Germany with that wimpy little 105hp Seat rental a year or two ago. Never had more fun driving, winding that thing out, banging gears, etc. It still did almost 120 mph on the autobahn before I ran out of gears and it was banging off the rev-limiter in 5th, lol. My Maxima has twice the power, but is only half the fun. Hmmmm... That taught me a very important lesson, and is also when I first started to get interested in European/German cars.

The hi-po market will crash eventually. What goes up must eventually come down, and a lot of analysts are already predicting this. With the Japanese all hell bent and committed to hi-po powertrains for the US, I'll be curious to see what eventually happens to them. Infiniti has the highest risk since their entire marketing strategy and vehicle lineup is based on high power. They have nothing economical in their entire lineup. Similar deal with Chrysler, which I predicted over a year ago. Their house of cards is already crashing.



/long philosophical rant

ff_

[rant]
That's exactly how our ES330 is. If I'm stuck with an automatic transmission in this thing, I would at least appreciate some shift paddles so that I can choose which gear I'm in. We just got back from a road trip to/from Minneapolis, and I found myself reaching for the imaginary shift lever on almost every hill. The thing just refuses to shift down until you lay heavily into the throttle. By the time it finally cooperates and shifts gears, you're so far into the gas pedal that the entire driveline takes a massive *thunk* as the torque converter catches up to the revs. Then you have to stay into the gas, or it immediately shifts back into 5th and locks up. Frustrating.

I would understand the desire to have the car in top gear all the time, if the gas mileage were good. But the car returned an average of only 25.5 MPG across the whole 3500 mile trip, with an average speed of 65-70 MPH. The car gets neither good mileage, nor returns good performance. Someone at lexus was sleeping behind the wheel when they chose power delivery, gearing, and transmission shift mappings. It's still a great car, but it could be even better with a more cooperative drivetrain.
[/rant]

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

That was a great read! Nothing was left out

SteVTEC

My hat is off to the Japanese on some truly brilliant marketing though, even if it might have been an unintended consequence.

They give you these big powerful engines, but then dumb them down and cripple them in other ways so that they don't "feel" like they should, or feel a lot slower than the power ratings suggest, which then keeps up your demand for more and more powerful cars. Toyota does this by ridiculously conservative shift mapping and sloggy throttle response. Honda does this by the shift mapping trick, but also by giving them crappy powerbands and limited torque. Our Highlander has the 3.0L and doesn't need the 3.3L. It just needs to be "unleashed" without all this retarded nannying on it so that it can truly "run" and make the power that it's supposed to with ease.

The Germans don't play BS games like this which is precisely why when you drive a German car coming from a Japanese one, you're amazed at how powerful they feel and how well they drive even if they have way less power than your Japanese car. If the Germans give you 215hp, it's how 215 hp is supposed to feel, and not a Japanese 240hp engine that's "dumbed down" to 200hp which leaves you wondering how that "less powerful" 215hp engine feels so much better. This is also why manual trannied Japanese cars are always waaaay better "feeling" than their automatic counterparts, because you're bypassing the Japanese trick of dumbing down their engines with mandatory granny shift mapping, thus depriving them of one of their "tricks". It's why I love my old 190hp Nissan with a manual tranny.

It's all mind games, I tell you!

You don't NEED tons and tons and tons of power. Calculate how much you ACTUALLY use and what you realistically would like. I guarantee you it's nowhere close to 280hp for the vast majority of people. Full throttle and 3000rpm in my Maxima is just fine. 4000 rpm is hauling. I almost never need to go to 5000 rpm, and if I am I'm usually driving like an idiot.

(200 lb-ft x 3000 rpm) / 5252 = 114hp
(200 lb-ft x 4000 rpm) / 5252 = 152hp
(200 lb-ft x 5000 rpm) / 5252 = 190hp


Make that 180hp peak which is probably what my car really has after Japanese over-rating, then add 10% for an automatic, and another 10-20% for added weight and what I need to maintain the same "feel" in my new car is about 230-240hp "TRUE POWER" which you can access easily, which is exactly what I plan to buy. With another dumbed down and crippled Japanese engine, after adding in the fudge factor to account for that, by golly I probably would need about 260-280hp to maintain the same "feel" as a 230hp German car, or my old "non-crippled" 190hp Nissan, LOL!

marshmallo

Classic example of dumb is the GS300 default ECT mode. It is an
obscene crippling of 245HP...

For family sedans anything above 250HP exceeds the bounds of good
taste or sensible engineering. If they want to go all out by all means
do, but make it RWD or AWD and charge a premium for it. The FWD
ES350 is a very frustrating car to drive for me

Mr. Jones

Toyota offered two six cylinder engines in the past, which is why one motor feels dumbed down. Both the tranny and engine date back to the early 90's, owners refusal to pump premium isn't helping matters.

I've never had any complaints w/either Accords I've owned.
neither the previous 200hp 3.0L or the 240hp 3.0L. The old 200hp Accord's 4spd was clunky, offered too few gears, but it always downshifted under hard throttle, 4000rpm+ shifts required little throttle inputs. I had no complaints w/the 240hp engine, it was always eager to rev.

As far as BMW is concerned the I6 BMW I drove felt fast off the line, but offered little if any passing power. It's engine/transmission were inferior in operation to my previous 240hp Accord. I have yet to see a BMW on the road being driven in any sporty manner w/the exception of the one I was driving.

The overrated BMW hp figure is nonsense, unless you can find where the 255hp 3.0L BMW which can outmuscle the 268hp Camry. Not going to happen. The only overrated BMW is the 335i.

258hp TL, yup doesn't deliver on power
http://www.caranddriver.com/roadtest...-tl-page3.html

258hp TL vs 325i
http://www.caranddriver.com/comparis...arc-page6.html

BMW's underrated 255hp outsmuscles 3.2L SOCH from Honda w/VTEC

http://www.caranddriver.com/comparis...-acura-tl.html

So what's BMW got when the latest Honda motor gets A-VTEC???
---

As far as power being excessive, I've never considered the 240hp (228hp more accurate figure) Accord remotely fast. I thought the 200hp Accord was slow, it was barely adequate when the gas tank was low w/no passengers. The 4spd automatic made matters worse.

For the upset GS400 owners, you have two options either buy a GS460/IS350 or accept that the latest V6 family sedans pull harder, these days passing the Tundra w/o the owner's permission is out of the question.