1.22 euro per litre here in Ireland

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

The smaller car might be safer, but it doesn't have the road presence of a large car. People react differently to you if you're in a big saloon than they do if you're in a super mini, and that presence alone makes you slightly less likely of being hit. Spend a week driving around in an executive saloon (in my case a Vauxhall Omega), then spend a week in a small car (in my case a Kia Pride), people cut me up more, pull out in front of me and generally pulled off a lot of stunts around me they never did in the Omega.

you cant compare an opel especially an omega to any other car in terms of how people react to it
everybody who sees one naturally assumes that youre 95 years old more or less blind and completely oblivious to anything happening around you ... of course theyll make plenty of room for you

and speaking of the presence a small car has ... nothing beats the reaction of someone in a much larger car who fell asleep at a red light and got left standing by you in your 60hp hatch

Quote from Shotglass :

you cant compare an opel especially an omega to any other car in terms of how people react to it
everybody who sees one naturally assumes that youre 95 years old more or less blind and completely oblivious to anything happening around you ... of course theyll make plenty of room for you

Or it could be that the 3.0 V6 Omega was for a few years the regular car of choice for traffic police in the UK, although they've all long since gone from police fleets.

Quote from Shotglass :

you cant compare an opel especially an omega to any other car in terms of how people react to it
everybody who sees one naturally assumes that youre 95 years old more or less blind and completely oblivious to anything happening around you ... of course theyll make plenty of room for you

and speaking of the presence a small car has ... nothing beats the reaction of someone in a much larger car who fell asleep at a red light and got left standing by you in your 60hp hatch

Over here a lot of police forces still use them as unmarked cars. That is why they have such road presence.

Yeah, never had that happen, had a lot of little boy racers in their 1.1s try and beat me at the lights (several of which have stalled trying), but never missed the lights change, so I just tootle off down the road laughing like an arse hole as they are stuck behind me.

Quote from STROBE :

Or it could be that the 3.0 V6 Omega was for a few years the regular car of choice for traffic police in the UK, although they've all long since gone from police fleets.

Many still use them. Though not for much longer.

[edit: well I say many, I know of 5 forces for sure who still use them, not sure about the rest of the country.]

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Over here a lot of police forces still use them as unmarked cars. That is why they have such road presence.

ah well different in the uk then

Quote :

Yeah, never had that happen, had a lot of little boy racers in their 1.1s try and beat me at the lights (several of which have stalled trying), but never missed the lights change, so I just tootle off down the road laughing like an arse hole as they are stuck behind me.

today i had a fun run in with some guy in a largeish audi
completely left him standing without even trying (short shifting in a 60 hp fiat is not a good idea if you want to be fast off the line) just by reacting fast
i hadnt even realised that i left someone standing at the previous redlight until i heard his engine rev up and saw him take off with his wheels spinning at the next one
couldnt stop laughing for the next 5 minutes

Quote from ajp71 :

You talk of having to get through the snow yet one of your cars (the Nissan) is just an everyday saloon.

Believe me, if I had not had a premature problem with my truck, I would not be driving it. I had to get rid of the truck and we got something reliable (read new) that is better in the snow we get for the wife to run with the kids. I'm just stuck with the car now until the new one is paid off. I haven't driven a non-4x4 for 15 years and I'm not having a good time with it.

I had a big reply typed out, but it for some reason didn't go through. Don't feel like trying to remember what it all was, so....

Quote :

There were certainly a large number driving around California, probably more Hummers alone than Chelsea tractors in the UK. Even the dreaded Range Rover Sport looks acceptable next to an H2 with double the fuel economy.

California is in a world all on it's own over there. I don't understand how the economy is so expensive, houses are outrageous, yet everything I've researched resulted in the average salaries being about the same as where I am. But then again, when you think of California, you think immediately of Los Angeles, San Franscisco, etc and like the opinion that the US is a "rich" country, it is much broader than what you initially think about and those areas are merely a fraction of the whole. California is more than just Los Angeles, just like the US is more than just New York City.

Quote :

But why do you need a stonking great V8 in your pickup truck a second hand Defender or Hilux would do the trick if you wanted a second vehicle that was indestructible and far better at doing the said activities/winter days whilst you could still have a normal car for daily use hardly noticing the small amount you'd spend on a vehicle that you kept for longer. Or if you insist on driving a pick up on a daily basis why does it have to be a big V8 something like the Hilux or L200 would do the job equally well and the 3.0 litre diesel Hilux produces 171bhp and returns 34mpg. Please tell me that 0-60 in 12 seconds is fast enough for your pickup truck

Who cares about fast. It will be a struggle pulling 7 ton of horses in the trailer up Emlenton hill (a particular steep hill where I live). It will be a struggle hauling 4 ton of equipment or gravel or logs out of the woods or whatever in the back of a Hilux. And, we don't have diesels available to us except for in the big work trucks. It runs about 50/50 with folks around here that have the big "stonking" V8 vs. the diesels in full size trucks.

Quote :

Sorry I don't see what's so wrong in that video, it's a pretty simple demonstration of what happens if you drive two cars into each other.

Haven't watched the video yet. Can't be as bad as the Dateline report on TV quite a few years ago (Dateline is/was an exploitation news television show). The show was on SUVs and safety and they crashed a small car first with another small car, then with the SUV. It was very clear from the front end dive that they braked at the last minute to slightly minimize the impact of car to car, but ran the SUV into it on power. What it seemed to illustrate was not "wow, I don't want those SUVs on the road with me", but illustrated more "wow, I'd much rather be in that SUV that was barely scratched than that car that now has the rear seat sitting up ontop of the dashboard."

Quote from JTbo :

Driving licenses should allow only automatic gears by default, then one could go to harder test to get manual.

It is because with automatic gears, average person has lot more patience, drives more relaxed and overall better than with manual gearbox.

I can't agree with you here. I think that first of course for over here, there should be actual driving training, not just training to teach the road laws and how to operate a car. Training on how to actually control a car. Learning how to operate and learning how to control a car are completely different things.

Second, I think if you can't drive a manual, you shouldn't be able to get a license. Of course, that puts probably 90% of the population here out of a license. You can't learn how to control a car if a processor does it all for you. As it is now, a processor decides when to shift, when the brakes might lock up, when the car no longer has traction and adjusts according to it's limited knowledge. All this automatic crap is worthless and is why no one knows how to drive and control a car.

My wife's Tribute unfortunately has "automatic 4wd". It runs in FWD until it senses slip. That's when it engages the rear differential. Hmmm, if it doesn't engage until it senses slip, doesn't that mean that it has already slipped? IMO, it's too late, you've already slipped. Seems pretty simple to me.

Quote from Shotglass :

today i had a fun run in with some guy in a largeish audi
completely left him standing without even trying (short shifting in a 60 hp fiat is not a good idea if you want to be fast off the line) just by reacting fast
i hadnt even realised that i left someone standing at the previous redlight until i heard his engine rev up and saw him take off with his wheels spinning at the next one
couldnt stop laughing for the next 5 minutes

Something that always made me laugh in college is people who'd say stuff like "Oh yeah, I took on a [insert car name here], I beat him on the throttle and if my car had more power I'd have thrashed him." Such stupidity.

But I think too many people here try too hard to beat people in big cars, so end up not really moving, as I rarely try to race them, and pretty much just shift like I would pulling away from my house.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Many still use them. Though not for much longer.

[edit: well I say many, I know of 5 forces for sure who still use them, not sure about the rest of the country.]

I'd be staggered if they did. Given the intergalatic mileage that police cars clock up, and the fact that the Omega hasn't been produced since 2003 (leaving any current cars in use at nearly five years old), the cost of maintaining them would be prohibitive. And 5 out of 52 forces is hardly "many".

Quote from shotglass :

today i had a fun run in with some guy in a largeish audi
completely left him standing without even trying (short shifting in a 60 hp fiat is not a good idea if you want to be fast off the line) just by reacting fast
i hadnt even realised that i left someone standing at the previous redlight until i heard his engine rev up and saw him take off with his wheels spinning at the next one
couldnt stop laughing for the next 5 minutes

There's a set of lights on my way to work that everyone seems so slow to react to. Unfortunately when I go that way in the mornings, I've only driven 500m from my flat so the engine is still stone cold and I don't want to cane it just to beat the dozy bastards who don't even let the handbrake off until the green light has shown for a second or two.

Quote from STROBE :

I'd be staggered if they did. Given the intergalatic mileage that police cars clock up, and the fact that the Omega hasn't been produced since 2003 (leaving any current cars in use at nearly five years old), the cost of maintaining them would be prohibitive. And 5 out of 52 forces is hardly "many".

Yeah I know many is the wrong word, but I know several forces down south still use Omegas as marked cars as they are on the news a lot. But going by the handbook of a few ex-police Omegas I was looking at, once the Engines reach 100,000miles they do a full engine/transmission replacement. Again this was only 9 or 10 cars, so it is a generalisation.

But like I said, those that do still use them wont be for much longer, I know the Police here are going to replace their Omegas next year, and the only reason they haven't been yet is because they spent too much money on marked cars and doing good work (they have the crime rate here at a record low, but the gov have decided it costs too much to keep crime rates low, so they are sacking about 200 officers) they didn't have the budget to do it sooner.

60-70% of drivers on roads here should not be driving, maybe some of them could with auto gears, but generally it would be best if that percent of those passengers on driver's seat would be removed from our roads.

Auto gear enforcement would be just soft solution to situation, well not solution, but making it bit better.

Gas prices actually have dropped, well, they wen't back up for the holiday season of course, but they dropped a good 20 cents since they hit well into the $3 range.

Diesel on the other hand hasn't moved in a while, it's up at around $3.50ish here in Georgia, and has been in that range everywhere I've been (meaning from Valdosta Georgia, the very south, up to Kentucky and back), and prices were relatively same.

Gas prices from the Valdosta to Atlanta to Dahlonega area vary from 2.83ish to around 2.97 for the low octane.

Automatics aren't the way forward, you completely remove any attachment of skill from driving. Whilst drivers in California away from the big cities seemed far more courteous nobody, even truck drivers, seemed to be able to just stick in a lane without wandering all over the place. On one taxi ride had the guy just happily drove along the cats eyes between lanes without even noticing he was doing it. Whilst drivers were generally polite and tried to be sensible their judgment was appalling, everytime there was a car on the hard shoulder the trucks would all just move into the middle lane without check to see if it was clear. The funniest bit was watching people trying to park, they just couldn't we found it hilarious that we were the only car that had backed into a space in the entire Walmart car park and even funnier was peoples insistence on parallel parking (really badly and slowly) when there was a massive gap they could just have driven straight into.

The UK has a bit of a road rage problem but I'd far rather occasionally getting pissed of by arrogant drivers (the worst offenders seem to be in big automatic cars now anyway) who whilst they're annoying don't kill people the same way that clueless people do behind the wheel.

Here problem seem to be 'I go first' and general 'me me me' attitude.

Also from traffic lights it takes several seconds to first one to find gear, etc.

I'm pretty sure I have read from study how automatic gears make drivers to drive more relaxed and how they loose big part of road rage, but of course can't find it now

But idiot is idiot, no matter what you give and do to him, so of course it would not solve anything.

Quote from ajp71 :

Automatics aren't the way forward, you completely remove any attachment of skill from driving. Whilst drivers in California away from the big cities seemed far more courteous nobody, even truck drivers, seemed to be able to just stick in a lane without wandering all over the place. On one taxi ride had the guy just happily drove along the cats eyes between lanes without even noticing he was doing it. Whilst drivers were generally polite and tried to be sensible their judgment was appalling, everytime there was a car on the hard shoulder the trucks would all just move into the middle lane without check to see if it was clear. The funniest bit was watching people trying to park, they just couldn't we found it hilarious that we were the only car that had backed into a space in the entire Walmart car park and even funnier was peoples insistence on parallel parking (really badly and slowly) when there was a massive gap they could just have driven straight into.

The UK has a bit of a road rage problem but I'd far rather occasionally getting pissed of by arrogant drivers (the worst offenders seem to be in big automatic cars now anyway) who whilst they're annoying don't kill people the same way that clueless people do behind the wheel.

sorry to tell you this but automatics will be the way forward. at some point in the future the petrol engine will be gone and it will be hydrogen fuel cell (or some other fancy source of power) and it will be more like driving a golf buggy than a car

It seems a silly question but why do americans call petrol gas?

Gasoline... why do you guys call it Petrol ?!
Ahah, found the answer:
gasoline

noun
a volatile flammable mixture of hydrocarbons (hexane and heptane and octane etc.) derived from petroleum; used mainly as a fuel in internal-combustion engines
- dictionary.reference.com

here is some more of where the name came from:
coined 1865 as gasolene, from gas (q.v.) + chemical suffix -ine/-ene. current spelling is 1871; shortened form gas first recorded Amer.Eng. 1905. Gas station first recorded 1932.

And more! From wikipedia:
Etymology

The word "gasolene" was coined in 1865 from the word gas and the chemical suffix -ine/-ene. The modern spelling was first used in 1871. The shortened form "gas" was first recorded in American English in 1905.[1] Gasoline originally referred to any liquid used as the fuel for a gasoline-powered engine, other than diesel fuel or liquefied gas; methanol racing fuel would have been classed as a type of gasoline.[2]

The word "petrol" was first used in reference to the refined substance as early as 1892 (it was previously used to refer to unrefined petroleum), and was registered as a trade name by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard at the suggestion of Frederick Richard Simms[3]. Although it was never officially registered as a trademark, Carless's competitors used the term "Motor Spirit" until the 1930s.[4] It has also been suggested that the word was coined by Edward Butler in 1887[5]

yes but you call a liquid (petrol) : gas, it dont make sense

Quote from andybarsblade :

yes but you call a liquid (petrol) : gas, it dont make sense

But there is liquid gas, but it is called propane and they sell lot of propane accessories there too

It is actually quite nice that there are different kind of english, as language itself has not much words that mean several things, you can have bit of fun with us/uk differences

Quote from JTbo :

But there is liquid gas, but it is called propane and they sell lot of propane accessories there too

It is actually quite nice that there are different kind of english, as language itself has not much words that mean several things, you can have bit of fun with us/uk differences

but were not talking about propane. so my statment stands

Quote from JTbo :

But there is liquid gas, but it is called propane and they sell lot of propane accessories there too

It is actually quite nice that there are different kind of english, as language itself has not much words that mean several things, you can have bit of fun with us/uk differences

Propane is only liquid when compressed though. Turn the taps on a bottle of it and it turns into the gassy type of gas.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Propane is only liquid when compressed though. Turn the taps on a bottle of it and it turns into the gassy type of gas.

Yes it does, but put petrol to open bottle and leave it be, it will be gone quite soon too

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Propane is only liquid when compressed though.

Petrol is only liquid when compressed though!

no by compressing propane all your doing is raising the boiling point, same with water, lower the pressure the easier it boils, think we've gone alittle off topic here

Quote from XCNuse :

Gasoline... why do you guys call it Petrol ?!
Ahah, found the answer:
gasoline

noun
a volatile flammable mixture of hydrocarbons (hexane and heptane and octane etc.) derived from petroleum; used mainly as a fuel in internal-combustion engines
- dictionary.reference.com

here is some more of where the name came from:
coined 1865 as gasolene, from gas (q.v.) + chemical suffix -ine/-ene. current spelling is 1871; shortened form gas first recorded Amer.Eng. 1905. Gas station first recorded 1932.

And more! From wikipedia:
Etymology

The word "gasolene" was coined in 1865 from the word gas and the chemical suffix -ine/-ene. The modern spelling was first used in 1871. The shortened form "gas" was first recorded in American English in 1905.[1] Gasoline originally referred to any liquid used as the fuel for a gasoline-powered engine, other than diesel fuel or liquefied gas; methanol racing fuel would have been classed as a type of gasoline.[2]

The word "petrol" was first used in reference to the refined substance as early as 1892 (it was previously used to refer to unrefined petroleum), and was registered as a trade name by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard at the suggestion of Frederick Richard Simms[3]. Although it was never officially registered as a trademark, Carless's competitors used the term "Motor Spirit" until the 1930s.[4] It has also been suggested that the word was coined by Edward Butler in 1887[5]

I completely forgot the word gasoline existed.

But as someone else said it is a liquid.

Why not liquidoline?

Quote from JO53PHS :

Why not liquidoline?

That would not define what kind of liquid or liquidoline it is, names need to define it bit more, that is why gas'o line