I have a V8 BMW and find that I generally drive it slower on the open road than my previous 2litre car. While it is a luxury car rather than a performance car, it has quite good power available when needed.
The roads in the Far North arent suited to much more than 100Kph anyway.
The reason I drive slower is that it has the power on tap to pass without any drama, and compared to my previous more moderately powered cars which I had to hunt along and look for the decent straight, be in the right gear, and then go. I find I can leave the cruise control on, floor it when neccessary, and be back into cruise control mode on my side of the road without any drama. This results in my average speed for most journeys being higher while observing the speed limit because I am not held up by trucks etc to the same extent. Three to five minutes stuck behind a logging truck or milk tanker does terrible things to the average speed.
The one dilemma in all this is that when passing a semi that is doing, say, 80-85Kph, should I lift off once my car reaches 100Kph and take longer to get back on my side of the road, or should I keep my foot hard down and decelerate down to cruise control legal speed once I am past the slower vehicle?
I have to say when I first got the car I kept my foot hard down and would have been walking if I had been pinged by the law while in the middle of my overtaking manoeuvre.
What say you?
richardmayes,
May 28, 5:13pm
The nice thing about modern CVT transmissions with their very quick response, is that what you describe in the quote above is now also true of an 1800cc Corolla as well.
budgel,
May 28, 5:17pm
You may well be right, care to put it up against a BMW 4.4V8?
intrade,
May 28, 5:21pm
well i blast past untill i am in front technically thats speeding they want you to crawl past it at 99.99999 kph maximum as anything higher is speeding. i brake then to slow back to 100 once a clean and swifte passed , my odometer usually reads 140 plus by the time i am gone passd anything i overtake it takes mere secounds to go to 160 plus if i floor my wee 1.9 tdi vw. overtaking as fast as savely possible is what would make the most sense but has anything that made sense ever been legal in this country i dont know but i doubt it, So i just have to take my risk as i would think a radar detector is still legal in this country and one could use that for knowing when not to overtake and go passt 100.0001kph as that is speeding wohooo you could kill somone by going .00001kp faster acording to the law only in new zealand that will happen as the water also rotates the other way after all.
mark.52,
May 28, 5:25pm
I say that if you have to ask the question, because you're finding it a dilemma, that you probably should be obeying the speed limit and all other road rules.
Only you can decide for yourself which is the safer or more desirable course of action.
Me, I'd use whatever power was necessary to reduce the time spent on the wrong side of the road, all other things being irrelevant.
richardmayes,
May 28, 5:28pm
OBVIOUSLY it's not going to beat your V8 in a race!
I thought we were talking about effortlessly overtaking slow stuff on the open road?!
FFS, BMW people, everything's a competition all the time.
budgel,
May 28, 5:29pm
The reason I asked the question is to see what others think.
budgel,
May 28, 5:36pm
Not at all a competition, but I thought your comparison somewhat absurd by quite a degree of magnitude. It doesnt matter how good ones transmission is if there isnt much power available. I was comparing how long each car would be on the wrong side of the road.
mark.52,
May 28, 5:38pm
Personally, I think most speed limits are quite arbitrary and based around harm minimization and easy policing rather than common sense.
It would be nice if we had autobahns.
But then we'd probably all be speaking Deutsch, and honouring some form of dear leader.
richardmayes,
May 28, 5:46pm
Humblest apologies I was not meaning to take anything away from the magnificence of your 4.4L V8 by mentioning my absurd little 4 cylinder car.
The nice thing about CVTs is, you are always in the right gear.
*Enough* power, plus always being in the right gear, gets you past most slow moving obstacles on NZ roads pretty quickly.
[I make these comments as someone who has driven several of the current generation of 6-cylinder exec cars, as well as one or two very powerful hot rods over the years, so I have some appreciation of the difference between small engines that are all top end, and big engines that are not.]
budgel,
May 28, 6:45pm
Reply #1 I have nothing whatsoever against smaller cars,in fact I like them, but I thought the comparison absurd, not your car. The fact is that compared to other cars I have owned, having (quite a lot) more power has changed my driving style, hence my post on the matter. I dont think a CVT transmission coupled to a lower powered engine would achieve the same results, although I do take your point about not having to find the right gear. Feel got at by all means if it suits you, that was not my intention.
budgel,
May 28, 6:47pm
Reply#2 Apology accepted, it is good to see you lesser mortals know your place!
tamarillo,
May 28, 7:10pm
Overtaking speeds is a hot topic. In UK and many other civilised countries police will show tolerance if it was safe and you dropped speed down quickly. Indeed this is what they teach. But here we have a civil service that treats us as baboons and too many folk get tickets for safe overtakes even when using overtaking lane and little extra speed. It saddens me that we have become so sheep like that we simply allow them to treat us like this.
gazzat22,
May 28, 7:12pm
And to let people know you drive a v8!
gazzat22,
May 28, 7:13pm
Well we already have one of them.!
therafter1,
May 28, 7:48pm
Yep, in many instances there is no replacement for displacement . in saying that amongst my small collection of vehicles I have a 1300 Starlet 3 speed auto, and a 1600 Corolla manual, and I have no trouble passing. The secret to passing large vehicles quickly is to maintain good following difference, anticipate your pass and gather the necessary momentum to make the pass . works a treat on roads that you know, on roads that you do not know you may have to abort the attempt on the odd occasion, but the same principle still applies.
I consistently see people a car length off the rear end of behemoths in cars with plenty of power attempting to pull out and pass, only to have to abort the pass halfway thru the manoeuvre and brake back in behind the vehicle, simply because they haven't maintained good following distance and planned the pass, then realised 1/2 way thru that they never had as much grunt available to them as they [thought] they had.
tamarillo,
May 28, 9:51pm
And your point is what? Do you think it matters to op to tell people here they drive a v8 when they are anonymous here?
tamarillo,
May 28, 9:54pm
Oh yes! And tailgaters who are so close to large vehicle they cannot see well enough and miss perfectly good passing opportunities. I've been known to pass them and large vehicle quite easily, though I have my finger on the horn in case they don't see me and pull out.
skin1235,
May 28, 10:06pm
they would be the most dangerous idiots on the road, tucked up under the back of a truck, reducd to 55 by the trucks uphill haul, the think they see a gap though the haze so turn right and floor it - don't give a fek if some has already decided to pass both and are now on their backdoor doing 25km faster than they are, bam, your left front corner gets shunted 4 ft across the road, your track is now directly off the road within the next 10 mts and then they want to argue they had the right to turn out in front of you ( cos they were at the front of the line ) plus of course they didn't see you ( cos they didn't check their mirrors - which would only have shown their profile anyway cos thats what mirrors are for - looking at your own magnificent profile as you drive along)
been there done that, now have bullbars - steel ones, mounted to an RSJ which then mounts to the chassis
therafter1,
May 28, 10:09pm
yep, ya gotta take the tailgater and the behemoth, especially after watching them lean right in their seats a couple of times and gingerly poke their noses out to have a look see if anything is coming and they nearly plaster their jocks when it turns out that a behemoth travelling in the opposite direction nearly takes them out because they couldn't see it until they poked their nose out . instant moron alert lol
skin1235,
May 28, 10:12pm
easy to spot though, long before you get to overtake them while behind them look in their mirrors - if you can see his eyes he can see you if you can see across and out the left passengers window ( very common ) hes on a vanity trip watch himself every step of the way or if his interior mirror shows his right hip or darkness, he has absolutely no idea you are behind him
make him aware you are there before even thinking of passing , and tooting the horn is not heard over the 1500W sub thumping away making the boot lid shimmy
melonhead1,
May 28, 10:31pm
Under-powered cars are dangerous on the open road if you're a passer. Cars with power-on-tap are safe. You're out and back in your lane in a flash.
bwg11,
May 28, 11:05pm
CVT's are comparable to modern multi-speed autos and much better than the` previous generation of 3 and 4 speed autos. The CVT's react instantly, there is not the delay while an auto thinks the downshifts. My wife's Swift Sport reacts instantly, if you floor the gas, at say 90 kph, revs shoot up to around 6500, and it starts accelerating hard, or at least as hard as you could expect a 1.6 litre to. Modern 5 speed plus autos kick-down better than previous generations of auto. I remember an old Subaru auto which if you jumped on the gas at around 90 kph, it would (after a 1 - 2 second delay), hook back 2 gears, virtually redline, decide 2 gears was too much, upshift 1 gear, then struggle through the overtaking manoeuvre.
I believe the whole time you are overtaking, you at risk. Some call it TED (Time Exposed to Danger). Anything to reduce your TED has to be a plus. I use full throttle to overtake and whatever terminal speed required. My car computer logs "maximum speed", I would dispute the figure, but no doubt it occurred overtaking. More than once I have had to get onto the brakes heavily when the constabulary are lurking, revenue gathering, at the end of a passing lane. If ticketed, I will defend in court, and their case will have to hole-proof.
The whole conversation hasn't mentioned my pet hate, those who struggle out in 5th or 6th, then once they reach an indicated 100 kph (probably a true 95 or less), taking the whole of a 1 kilometer passing lane to overtake one vehicle. Probably the same beards, cardigans and sandals you overhear at the cafe bragging how their trip computer is showing 5.1 litre/100 for the days drive. Rant over.
stevexc,
May 28, 11:10pm
1.8 Corolla vs 4.4 BMW?
I would drive the corolla faster. The sooner I get there the sooner I can stop driving the damn corolla.
brapbrap8,
May 28, 11:22pm
I had a fast Subaru and only got one minor speeding ticket from a camera van in town, and I always overtook full noise driving that but kept it sensible on main roads where the police like to hang out. Hit the 180k speed limiter more than once while overtaking, looking back now it was quite stupid and I am not proud of driving way too fast and I would never do it again.
These days I mostly drive my diesel ute and am happy to stick to the speed limit, or whatever speed traffic is doing. Losing my licence would be quite an inconvenience living 30km out of town.
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