Why are new cars so lardy?
 

Just come back from the post office, walked past what I thought was a revamped Focus, it's a new Fiesta. FFS, it's EASILY as big as the first Focus was.

So I did a bit of checking: the new KA is bigger than the original Fiesta, the Focus is bigger than the first Sierras, and the Mundano is as big as the Scorpio.:cuckoo:

What's going on? Are the public demanding bigger cars, or is it a plot to up prices? Or something else?

TBH, I'd have thought that SMALLER more fuel efficeient cars would be what joe Public wants at the mo.........:wonder:

I actually really don't understand the new Ford Ka myself at all. it doesn't make sense as its big on the outside and small on the inside. Absolute rubbish

Something to do with ENCAP, then?

Safety and people are getting bigger.

Cos the EU decide on new safety rules every year to make out they are doing something!


Have you noticed most new cars look low and ugly from the front?

Thats cos of pedestrian safety laws which state the front end of a car must be pedestrian friendly in the event of a collision between the two!


We need to be out of the eu asap!

That wouldnt help though as we dont make any cars anymore :lol1: All the manufacturers need their cars to meet EU regs to allow them to be sold there, so there's nothing we can do about it.

That's why cars like the new Focus RS weigh 1500kg. The Focus is one big car now.

For years manufacturers have said the new (insert car name) has improved passenger leg room. Why can't they say "buy a Fiesta. If that's to small for you, buy a Focus. If that's to small....."

Audi I think are the worst. The new A4 is as large as the last generation A6. The new A6 is fcuking huge. Probably bigger than the last A8.

For reference, a Focus RS is FWD and weighs 1500kg.
The B4 Audi S4 (with it's heavy 4WD system and heavy V6 engine) weighed 1500kg

Progress? No.

Exactly. New cars these days have to cater for the increased girth of the population.

Have you ever seen a fat woman getting into a Fiat Uno? She may get in but she's going to need Firemans Jaws to get out :D

I have an r53 cooeper s and that weighs 1240kg its dam hatch back it should weigh that much its a lard arse.
I get between 20-25 mpg 30 if i try very hard, maybe that becuase of the weight or just the cars crap.

The minimum spec we expect these days drives the weight up: electric windows, central locking, air con, cd player, electric mirrors. Long gon are the days where the base spec came with windy-up windows, the L came with electric fronts, the GL with electric rears and a digital clock. Add to that the airbags, side impact beams, crash structures etc. etc. etc. Just look how much space there is between to front of a new Ka and the front wheel, it's all for impact protection.

Seems to be the same with the new Polo and older Golf's, although it's quite large, it appears to be lighter than most.

Come on, a Fiesta, even the new one isnt that lardy, Lardy is a Range Rover Sport, Cayenne and pointless things like that, three tonnes to transport an 10 stone driver and a 3 stone kid to school is overkill, hweras a Fiesta weighs what 1200 kilos, the original probably 800, so its not the models changing weight as people moving into much heavier vehicles due to fashion that have increased the average weight.

People have got bigger but not proportionate to how big cars have gone even at the small end, also it doesnt always follow that bigger is heavier, look at the first seventies fiesta and all its subsequent iterations including the new one then choose the one you would like to crash in, an accident in the new one where you end up shaken but otherwise ok would have probably have meant death or serious injury in the first model.

Also, the spec, even boggo cars come with air con and electric windows, the structure of new cars is infintely stronger than the old ones, ever seen that video of a little Renault Modus hitting a Volvo 940 Estate and obliterating it ?

It does make me laugh sometimes, safety sells but not to everyone, I spoke to a bloke that had spent his life welding plates on to his Escort van with an Arc welder who genuinely beleived it was safer than any modern car, there you have it, a mad old duffer with an Arc welder outwits the best automotive brains out there. Also I spoke to our neighbour who asked about our Fiat 500, they have an 85 Merc E class that they wont change as its so much safer than the new ones !! much stronger, better built the new ones are built from tim foil and fold in an accident, I couldnt be bothered arguing the toss.

Cars will get lighter again, through the use of materials other than steel, steel is cheap hence why its used and cars are hevaier, they tend to use different grades and thicknesses now along with Aluminium, the drive for economy and the electronics is enabling them to start going back the other way, as is the move to smaller turbocharged engines rather than big multi cyclinder jobs.

That's a good point J4CKO, watch some of the early crash test films and you see the 40's saloons crashing with not much damage. Of course, they passed all the forces of the crash to the passengers but you could buy the car from the deceased's estate and repair it quite easily. These days, modern cars look like they've crashed through a brick wall at 500mph after a low speed shunt but everyone is in a fit enough state afterwards to fill in an insurance claim for whiplash.

Show him this !

YouTube - Fifth Gear Crash-test Volvo 940 estate vs Renault Modus

This is a good example of the "crumple" effect of new cars, my thread form a while ago...
https://www.scoobynet.com/non-scooby...ly-decent.html

My little 900kg car took one scratch/dent to the plastic tailgate panel, where as the lardy new car behind up my trumpet needs a new bonnet and front bumper crossmember/impact bars. :freak3:

Perhap's they think that bigger cars look more imposing or manly. Maybe thats why so many buy large 4x4s, all the better for one person to go shopping with and to use even more parking room.

Les

I think my wife may have had a car crash and not told me :Suspiciou:D

Glad Your OH escaped relatively unscathed.

Cars can be replaced - legs / Arms, lives etc are a little trickier.

:thumb: I should have said she was heard talking utter bollócks by 3 female witnesses, a female officer and 2 female paramedics. I can never hear it for some reason. :D

You are probably looking at her boobies :D

The waffle is the shock is it not. When I wrote off my first car after 2 months of driving, I said allsorts of crap in the Ambulance, things like how many rotations do the blue lights make or what was the rev limit on the ambulance :freak3: :lol1:

What I hate about modern cars is their height; They just get taller and taller.

It started with the Ford Focus (when compared to an Escort), and cars progressively become taller and taller ever since. With high driving positions that generally feels like one is sitting in posh transit van. I can't even reach the middle of the roof on my MKV Golf to clean it! This is the first car I've owned that I've come across this issue and being a R32 its lower than a normal Golf too.

I blame manufacturers trying to succumb to Joe average's every wish; they all want to drive the automotive equivalent of the Tardis; Women want something small so they can park it (or big and rugged so they can bash other cars and romp over curbs whilst parking without fear of much damage ;) ). Men want a large boot to dump all their shyte in. And families want space for kids and granny - who needs good access as she's a bit frail.

The result is cramming everything into a short wheelbase by raising the roof line, and making the driver and passengers sit more upright , yet still providing a boot and space for crumple zones. This is the cause of the "Bangle Butt" BMW's way of raising the roof line of a saloon without it looking "odd" ( fail? ;) ), Merc followed suit, Jaguar gave up and went for a psuedo-hatchback.

Even so all these cars are heavily slab sided - an extreme examples are the new Dodge Challenger and the Mini - compare them to the originals to see how low the originals were (the challenger was still huge a car, but nowhere near as tall or slab-sided : http://www.rpmcollection.com/images/...s/DSC02821.jpg )

It wasonly yesterday I was driving the old XJ-S and whilst its lowness is nothing new to me, after driving modern cars its become more and more noticeable. And it makes me think; how many new cars are out there where the driver actually sits BELOW the tops of the sills. Excluding silly stuff plus the likes of VX220s/Elise/Exige etc most cars have your derrière perched nearly 1ft above the sill tops (which are pretty chunky as it is), and I bet even higher on cars with height adjustment or made to appeal the target market of "Urban SUVs".

Which makes me wonder; how high is the centre of gravity of modern cars? As I bet some are getting close to that of true 4x4s (Merc A-class is a case in point example, the consequences of such are well documented).

And don't start me on weight, yes cars are stronger than ever; The MCC Smart is pure proof of how impressive its safety vs. size is (see the youtube vid of it crashing into an S-class vs a Mk1 Corsa doing the same). But its getting ridiculous - yes its safer, but I for one think modern cars are so detached from reality to drive it puts driver in a state where they are more likely to crash by teh driver inadvertantly/ignorantly pushing the car beyond its limits in adverse conditions (just look at what happens when it snows or we have heavy rain); a heavy car with higher COG is alot harder to control once it goes into a slide or loses stability, by putting feather-light steering with no true real world weighting, ridiculously disproportionate brake servo assistance and NVH dampening that means 140mph feels no different to 70mph (R32's party piece :nono: ) and the result is cars going too fast for the conditions with the driver unable to to feel, realise or know how to react when things do go awry. By making cars "better" it has made drivers worse.

Its also killed the true hot-hatch; the last one I'll be bold to say is the Clio 172/182, cars since have needed to be more powerful and over-turbo'd to haul their heavy arses at any pace. All of which tend to be over assisted in the brake and steering departments and all seem to have the same transit-styled "sit up and beg" driving positions carried over from their normal lower powered models. :(

That's very true, Ali. My Skyline is very low, the wife's Civic feels tall compared to that and my Mito feels very tall. I can't adjust the seat very low because then I can't see out of the windscreen and I'm 6ft!

I remember and old documentary about car safety saying that psycholigically, if you put 2 drivers in identical cars and tell 1 that the car is the safest ever built, it has so many airbags and crumple zones that he could not possibly be injured, and the other you tell that the design is so poor that even in a low speed shunt it was likely to explode and kill him, the standard of driving in the "unsafe" car would be far higher than the "safe" one. What this means is that the accident rate overall for safer cars goes up, although hopefully this is balanced out by improved survivability.

I'm of this opinion also. The only *safety* aid I insist on having is ABS. As no matter how much driving you've done, and skid-pans you've been on, you will just slam the brakes on when about to have a head-on. There will be NO cadence braking.

Glad your other half's OK BTW. :thumb: The car's a mess - how was the tree??

Dave

Thanks. The tree was totally unmarked. I think it was more like a firm hug.

Due to whatever happened she never braked at all and actually accelerated. :cuckoo:

the number of arguments I had on the Cliosport website with owners of 172Cups who claimed they didn't need ABS....

I too wouldn't drive a road car without ABS but also airbags, crumple zones etc.

Steve

Ali, what you say is very true about driver position. Going from a MY96 sport to a MY09 WRXD, there is a noticable difference in seating height, the MY09 is much higher. The sport had a feeling of falling into it, the MY09 feels like I'm just sliding my butt in.

I will have to check how much higher above the sills I am now. I've always had a fairly upright driving position and do sit fairly close to the wheel (I have ducks disease), but always chose to sit low down. In the MY09 I have the seat as low as it will go an still feel slightly to high.