Oh yeah, as soon as they bumped it up to 290hp with the vvti it became the fastest luxury car until the W220 came along with the 5.0 and even then it was close.

1998 LS400 was fast and everyone noticed....

As for 9 seconds, as long as the car has decent torque it's enough.

 

Maybe that is just where you and I differ. I don't find 9 seconds slow at all. I look more for comfort and versatility in a vehicle than speed, although I'll admit that some vehicles offer both.

Having said that, however, I did own an AWD non-turbo 2006 2.5L Outback, with the 4-speed automatic, that was rather slow even by my conservative standards. It was rated around 11 seconds or do to 60....and took its time getting up to speed. I liked Subaru's simple and efficient Symmetrical AWD system, but it just didn't have enough torque to overcome the added drag. The addition of the more-efficient CVT to Outbacks several years later dropped the 0-60 times a little...at the cost of transmission longevity / durability.

 

I agree, that is all that is technically needed but I would require something that slow to have a larger/high TQ engine so I am not constantly spinning it out to just move normally. 3k rpm max, a diesel would be best actually.....

Cars of this class with good TQ like my Jeep or other larger engine heavy SUVs feel fine to drive but can be annoying to live with on interstates etc or when you need to pass/anything that requires power. You are forced to plan very far ahead and you do not have ability to react dynamically to much if at all, it's okay for a simple drive/commute but if you commonly deal with higher speed interchanges etc a 6 sec or so car is much much better since it will allow you to dictate position in traffic better etc. Cars of that level with again, high TQ engines are very relaxed to drive and since they don't need much RPM not annoying like econoboxes that you always have to spin out to get moving even reasonably.

 

The issue is the 0-60 time will not necessarily tell you how lethargic a car will feel, it has to do with gearing and ratios in everyday driving. We don't go flat out WOT every time. The car I am thinking is my cousin's Rogue which does 0-60 in 9 seconds and feels extremely lethargic.

 

i'm happy i was able to find this, but in 1999 mercedes conducted an "unbiased" test of the S500 vs LS 400 vs 740i vs XJ8 and what a surprise! mercedes concluded in their test that their car was best


they list the LS's 0-60 time as over 7 seconds and then have the nerve to say that time was "provided by the manufacturer" lol... well we all know what the W220's legacy is now so oh well

 

Mine was about as optioned down as possible. It was a rare one that did not have a sunroof. It had leather and that was it (there was a guy in PNW who had one with cloth interior….cloth). Weight was 3690 lbs. which was heavy for 220 bhp in my opinion. It was never painful to drive. I just had to plan ahead. I do anyway.

 

Mercedes did it's own unbiased test?
Now that's funny. lol

I will check out your video.

 

Try a Yaris with the 1.8l - it's 9.4 to 100kph (so ~9.0 to 60) but it has pleeeeeeeeeeenty of "go".

You don't really mind revs in a manual hatch - that's kind of the point . If it's a luxobarge, that's a different story, but even then it could be that the engine is heavily biased towards low-end grunt.

Why would you need lots of power to pass something on a million lane interstate?

 

This is true also. It's like that stupid turbo CRV loaner my mom had that I drove around. I'm sure it lays down a decent 0-60 time nearly as good or even better than her Enclave but in the real world it was so slow she felt in danger driving it, and I couldn't live with it either because the lag was so bad. Enclave is hardly an X5M but the GM 3.6 is potent and delivers strong torque, Enclave has good "pickup" even if it's not some dragster, she was thrilled to get it back. Hit the gas and immediately there's power. And it's different with different cars also just power delivery, get into an old 3800 which was about 8-9 seconds (NA) and they felt good.

5-60 is actually a better test of real world pickup. And NA cars beat the you know what out of the turbos.

Yeah you can't ever trust manufacturers' tests, that's hilarious. All those cars have strengths but LS400 had the least amount of weaknesses.

3600lbs actually isn't that heavy IMO, but it or gearing or both were the reason it was slower. Also for example, just back then an ES300 would beat the GS which was significantly more expensive. Not that the GS wasn't a proper Lexus.

 

i read an article that bmw is done with stick and dual clutch transmissions for good (except for what they already sell).
good ol' auto is faster than the dct and hardly anyone wants a stick.
this also allows bmw to focus on ev's.
some may not like it, but things change.

 

And some stay the same. These EVs aren’t selling around here minus Teslas which are cult vehicles. EVs stacked on MB lots even with discounts in the windows. I haven’t seen one EV MB on the road. I’ve seen one Lightning. I have not seen one EV BMW yet.

 

On another note, we’ve talked about this before but Mercedes brake dust is a real thing and it’s annoying. After just one drive there’s dust. I just washed it yesterday and this already.

 

There are lower dust but still well-performing pads available. In the BMW community iSweep 1500 and 2000 are very popular, they might be made for your application. 1500 is supposed to be OE performance with almost zero dust, and 2000 more bite than stock with very little dust. Akebono is another great option. They were stock on my wife's Q7 and had very little dust, I replaced them with what I thought were the only OEM pads--made by Textar--and they dust horribly.

 

I had 2 3IS F Sports and the brake dust with factory pads was terrible. In both cars, I replaced the brake pads with Sumitomo pads, which bite a bit less and dust a LOT less. If it was a braking performance downgrade, it wasn’t significant enough to notice in a daily driver.

 

Oh the brakes work fantastically.... including from 120MPH back down to 85 quickly and effortlessly.

But damn if you can't take it around the block without those pretty wheels getting dust on them!