That's an interesting history! Personally I'm addicted to good MT so it's hard to imagine the jump from Z's to various AT vehicles. As for the Imp it's such a broad badge it's hard for me to make any judgement. I'm honestly glad they separated the Impreza badge from the WRX STI in the newest generation.
Do yourself a favour and check out a manual BRZ the next time you have a whim to look. Customizable, maintainable, reasonably priced and intensely satisfying.
With all the troubles you report on the A8 I think that would make an excellent episode of RCR!
I actually had to call my mechanic anyway because a plate on my right front damper keeps coming loose and I'd rather not tighten it myself without a lift and all. He's a Subaru specialist, also does Toyota. I asked him about ball joint replacements and his response basically amounted to "for most models they wouldn't be easy to replace yourself without tools and lift, but they're not that big of a deal to replace". Granted this is a guy who worked on the Subaru world rally team so his definition of "not a big deal" is probably a bit different - but I don't get the impression they're machined into the frame in such a way as they are impossible to replace.
As for Toyota using combined and unitized parts that's just how the whole industry is going. Sure you can't just turn a wrench to tighten something up but conversely this is what has enabled electronic tuning and quite a bit of sophisticated cross component integration. It also seems like a natural evolution into electric and hybrid systems - though I'm sure you're with me when I say you'll be prying the shift knob to my mechanical transmission from my cold, dead hands.
Changing fluids, transmission included, is a regular service for any car - or any machine for that matter. As for parts you can't replace... I hate to tell you that but that's sort of a staple of German cars. It's practically a running joke that you can buy an older M series BMW for peanuts, then have to sell an organ to get it in running order.
Look at cars like the GT86/BRZ - practically every part on that car has at least one 3rd party manufacturer replacement. In fact Toyota/Subaru literally have specification documents they released with the specifications for different parts of the car so 3rd party manufacturers could make customized parts. Same goes for the Mazda Roadster (Miata), Honda Civic, Toyota Hilux, Subaru Impreza/WRX STI, Lexus RF-C, Mitsubishi Lancer, etc. etc.. Having 3rd party parts available and long-going active communities around the car make maintenance a much more accessible task.
I've got an early model MR-S that's been treated like trash, thrown around, and generally treated poorly. I've only had to replace a few parts on it but all were purchased new out of parts catalogues almost 17 years after the car was made. And this is a car that is notorious for requiring a lot of maintenance for a Toyota. Definitely no headaches in the maintenance department for me.
If you haven't yet you should check out "Regular Car Reviews" on YouTube. It's hilarious but he also goes into a lot of history on cars, explains the reasons behind different defects and quirks, etc. No review for the older A8 but there is one for the A4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Actually by regulating fuel entering the chamber alone you reduce the amount of unburnt fuel in the chamber (assuming adequate intake). Dynamically reducing the amount of fuel sprayed in the chamber based on a variety of factors such as total available intake, engine temperature, etc. inhibits available output but can dramatically decrease fuel consumption rates. By further dynamically calculating driving conditions and dynamically "curving" throttle response for more drawn out acceleration you can further increase efficiency all just from electronic regulation. The result however is making the car less powerful and responsive. The EPA however doesn't care how the car feels - thus the cheat worked.
Also emissions requirements are much more complex than you make them out to be. Only the most lenient of emissions tests would test for percentage of some element per litre of exhaust. Particulate counts, chemical composition, burn ration, trace chemicals (additives, depletion from lines and lining, oil, etc.), moisture, etc. are all measured under a variety of conditions such as cold start, sustained high load, reduced oxygen levels (high altitude), high humidity in intake, etc. For a car to be able to maintain high efficiency in all of these situations requires at the least extremely complex control systems and sophisticated software. If on top of that you have sophisticated energy reclamation systems, filtering and conversion technologies, well designed intake and exhaust systems, hybrid systems, etc. etc. you can achieve some very high efficiency numbers *without cheating*.
> unless he is in the pattern. Sounds like a good enough reason to me?
But more realistically we're talking about organizations like the FAA, who can basically say "there is a.01% chance that one day maybe we will need this, so we'll just mark it off" and they can make that decision without any complaint - and they basically don't need to yield to or listen to the complaints of any private sector entity.
I was in an aircraft that ate a goose during takeoff. The plane turned around and landed no problem, but we still had to change aircraft because they wanted to do a full check of the engine. Not a "meh, looks good to me" scenario.
You realize some consumer drones are huge and can actually carry cargo, right? There's a reason for the ceiling and there is a reason there are no-fly zones around airports. I'm pretty sure we don't need testing to know that an aircraft slamming into an 8 rotor drone with an aluminium body carrying a camera, a bunch of batteries, and a delivery package would not be a good scenario.
And yet nations regulate human activity, even on the oceans, and together can make treaties and courts.
You mean they try to.
Japan is violating International Law while pretending to follow it.
What international law, specifically, are you talking about?
In effect, they are going back on their word, betraying their commitment, undermining the legitimacy of every international agreement they make.
Where and when did they say this? What agreements, specifically, are you referencing?
Look, I'm personally against most whaling but according to the scientific data I've seen Japanese whaling isn't a problem. The fact of the matter is the minke is not an endangered species. In fact their population appears to be growing and apparently they're pretty aggressive to the point population control has actually been suggested in the past to try and allow for recovery of other whale populations where the minke are sharing territory.
For a service car this is a pretty spectacular accident. By comparison the Shinkansen [Bullet Train] equivalent Dr. Yellow has never had such an accident.
Wait, there was a crackdown on adblockers on Android? I didn't even know about this. As I mentioned I don't browse on my mobile so much I've ever felt the need to block advertisements -- but when you think about it Google makes a lot of money off Android specifically through advertisements and advertising related activities... so it would make sense they would have tried to ban them. Though the existence of that ABP browser on Android seems to indicate they've maybe given up on that?
Either way FF is my choice of browsers on mobile as it is more responsive than mobile Chrome and has a lot more "desktop" features than mobile Chrome does. Specifically the fact that it's more responsive is what I like about it as I tend to search, check maybe one or two pages, and then toggle back and fourth to some app - and when you toggle with mobile Chrome the browser seems to re-load each time you switch back whereas FF is a little more aggressive about stay active. There's also the fact that as much flack as Mozilla gets FF is still a more "free" browser than most.
As for tracking etc. I keep a very private environment on my computers that aggressively blocks tracking etc - but I welcome it on my my mobile. I use my mobile to search for place to eat our discounts etc. anyway, so having Google Now recommend them to me is actually pretty nice. If I had the option of a full system ad-blocker I don't think I'd actually opt for it. On the other hand if I were to be using my phone for more personal matters I think I would be much more concerned about privacy options and about how Google is making it difficult to have said privacy like you are pointing out. Thanks for the heads up - more people should be aware of this.
You're free to download it and check yourself. FF extensions are set up so they can easily be multi-platform, so there's a variety of them available on mobile. Personally I don't use a mobile browser enough to have found the need to install one, I only have a few addons installed.
I've only seen it in the add-on listing, I've never actually used it. Why would they even list it for mobile (you set what mozilla clients you support in your extension information file) if it's this much of a pain to use?
There are a few other ad-blockers and privacy extensions available for FF mobile though, so even if ABP doesn't work there appear to be other options.
I'm actually proof of what you're saying. I own two cars: a hybrid Vellfire with eco tires and a manual 86 with sports suspension and inch-upped wheels with ZII tires. The Vellfire we take on long trips (lots of highway) and I drive it very carefully (eco-starts, very gradual breaking) and the 86 use for short drives for work and motorsports and I don't drive it so eco-consiouscly. Despite the 86 being in the exceptional range of gas milage for sports cars, the massive battery-filled rolling living room full of kids and baggage Vellfire puts it to shame getting +9km/l over the 86 last I checked. Granted driving style is of course part of the equation here... but if you're buying a V8 sedan it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to be a pedal heavy bastard on the road. Still, if I drove them both the same I'm certain the Vellfire would still run cleaner than the 86 - the margin is just too great.
That's insane! What is wrong with the American market that they need things like this!? They don't have this where I live. I mean I own a Vellfire and that thing is practically a moving living room - and it's still only 2190kg.
Excellent point - my post only took into consideration instantaneous efficiency but as you point out it's really about sum efficiency. Capacitive breaking / energy reclamation and assisted acceleration, variable throughput, tires, etc. etc. etc. Just looking at the progress that's been made in the last 10 years and seeing the kinds of things being released now (EG: Toyota Mirai, BMW i3) and glimpses of what could be released in the future (Mazda RX-9 hybrid rotary) and considering that even these are things that will be revised and improved upon I have immense trouble with the idea we've hit some sort of physical efficiency limit.
Even if you mean with the same engine model you're wrong. Tuning and precision engineering alone can dramatically increase the efficiency of an engine. A simple example of this would be pistons - precision engineered pistons like those in F1 cars result in significantly smaller energy loss per fuel burned than a consumer grade piston. A heavier vehicle with a precision engineered piston could easily be as efficient as a lighter vehicle with a consumer grade piston.
Even modern engines are massively inefficient things - not even coming close to approaching limits of physical efficiency. And that's just the engine. Power is lost in the drive train, through the wheels, through various vectoring mechanisms and further stolen away by stability control and traction systems. Your argument is invalid.
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Not sure actually. I'd imagine once you get in it's alright, but getting in comfortably may be an issue....
That's an interesting history! Personally I'm addicted to good MT so it's hard to imagine the jump from Z's to various AT vehicles. As for the Imp it's such a broad badge it's hard for me to make any judgement. I'm honestly glad they separated the Impreza badge from the WRX STI in the newest generation.
Do yourself a favour and check out a manual BRZ the next time you have a whim to look. Customizable, maintainable, reasonably priced and intensely satisfying.
With all the troubles you report on the A8 I think that would make an excellent episode of RCR!
I actually had to call my mechanic anyway because a plate on my right front damper keeps coming loose and I'd rather not tighten it myself without a lift and all. He's a Subaru specialist, also does Toyota. I asked him about ball joint replacements and his response basically amounted to "for most models they wouldn't be easy to replace yourself without tools and lift, but they're not that big of a deal to replace". Granted this is a guy who worked on the Subaru world rally team so his definition of "not a big deal" is probably a bit different - but I don't get the impression they're machined into the frame in such a way as they are impossible to replace.
As for Toyota using combined and unitized parts that's just how the whole industry is going. Sure you can't just turn a wrench to tighten something up but conversely this is what has enabled electronic tuning and quite a bit of sophisticated cross component integration. It also seems like a natural evolution into electric and hybrid systems - though I'm sure you're with me when I say you'll be prying the shift knob to my mechanical transmission from my cold, dead hands.
Changing fluids, transmission included, is a regular service for any car - or any machine for that matter. As for parts you can't replace... I hate to tell you that but that's sort of a staple of German cars. It's practically a running joke that you can buy an older M series BMW for peanuts, then have to sell an organ to get it in running order.
Look at cars like the GT86/BRZ - practically every part on that car has at least one 3rd party manufacturer replacement. In fact Toyota/Subaru literally have specification documents they released with the specifications for different parts of the car so 3rd party manufacturers could make customized parts. Same goes for the Mazda Roadster (Miata), Honda Civic, Toyota Hilux, Subaru Impreza/WRX STI, Lexus RF-C, Mitsubishi Lancer, etc. etc.. Having 3rd party parts available and long-going active communities around the car make maintenance a much more accessible task.
I've got an early model MR-S that's been treated like trash, thrown around, and generally treated poorly. I've only had to replace a few parts on it but all were purchased new out of parts catalogues almost 17 years after the car was made. And this is a car that is notorious for requiring a lot of maintenance for a Toyota. Definitely no headaches in the maintenance department for me.
If you haven't yet you should check out "Regular Car Reviews" on YouTube. It's hilarious but he also goes into a lot of history on cars, explains the reasons behind different defects and quirks, etc. No review for the older A8 but there is one for the A4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Actually by regulating fuel entering the chamber alone you reduce the amount of unburnt fuel in the chamber (assuming adequate intake). Dynamically reducing the amount of fuel sprayed in the chamber based on a variety of factors such as total available intake, engine temperature, etc. inhibits available output but can dramatically decrease fuel consumption rates. By further dynamically calculating driving conditions and dynamically "curving" throttle response for more drawn out acceleration you can further increase efficiency all just from electronic regulation. The result however is making the car less powerful and responsive. The EPA however doesn't care how the car feels - thus the cheat worked.
Also emissions requirements are much more complex than you make them out to be. Only the most lenient of emissions tests would test for percentage of some element per litre of exhaust. Particulate counts, chemical composition, burn ration, trace chemicals (additives, depletion from lines and lining, oil, etc.), moisture, etc. are all measured under a variety of conditions such as cold start, sustained high load, reduced oxygen levels (high altitude), high humidity in intake, etc. For a car to be able to maintain high efficiency in all of these situations requires at the least extremely complex control systems and sophisticated software. If on top of that you have sophisticated energy reclamation systems, filtering and conversion technologies, well designed intake and exhaust systems, hybrid systems, etc. etc. you can achieve some very high efficiency numbers *without cheating*.
Sounds like you either haven't owned a well built car or you suck at maintenance.
> if they are really good at understanding risks
I think they are good at "assuming" risks. That is to say, "assuming" != "understanding".
> unless he is in the pattern.
Sounds like a good enough reason to me?
But more realistically we're talking about organizations like the FAA, who can basically say "there is a .01% chance that one day maybe we will need this, so we'll just mark it off" and they can make that decision without any complaint - and they basically don't need to yield to or listen to the complaints of any private sector entity.
I was in an aircraft that ate a goose during takeoff. The plane turned around and landed no problem, but we still had to change aircraft because they wanted to do a full check of the engine. Not a "meh, looks good to me" scenario.
You realize some consumer drones are huge and can actually carry cargo, right? There's a reason for the ceiling and there is a reason there are no-fly zones around airports. I'm pretty sure we don't need testing to know that an aircraft slamming into an 8 rotor drone with an aluminium body carrying a camera, a bunch of batteries, and a delivery package would not be a good scenario.
Choose one, not both.
Granted it's more of a decoration at this point, but I have an Octane we still use occasionally. It's just a little over 18 years old now.
Fail. There is no 'v' in Japanese. Had you written 'belly' or 'welly' it would have been semi-accurate. Regardless, fuck you.
And yet nations regulate human activity, even on the oceans, and together can make treaties and courts.
You mean they try to.
Japan is violating International Law while pretending to follow it.
What international law, specifically, are you talking about?
In effect, they are going back on their word, betraying their commitment, undermining the legitimacy of every international agreement they make.
Where and when did they say this? What agreements, specifically, are you referencing?
Look, I'm personally against most whaling but according to the scientific data I've seen Japanese whaling isn't a problem. The fact of the matter is the minke is not an endangered species. In fact their population appears to be growing and apparently they're pretty aggressive to the point population control has actually been suggested in the past to try and allow for recovery of other whale populations where the minke are sharing territory.
For a service car this is a pretty spectacular accident. By comparison the Shinkansen [Bullet Train] equivalent Dr. Yellow has never had such an accident.
Wait, there was a crackdown on adblockers on Android? I didn't even know about this. As I mentioned I don't browse on my mobile so much I've ever felt the need to block advertisements -- but when you think about it Google makes a lot of money off Android specifically through advertisements and advertising related activities... so it would make sense they would have tried to ban them. Though the existence of that ABP browser on Android seems to indicate they've maybe given up on that?
Either way FF is my choice of browsers on mobile as it is more responsive than mobile Chrome and has a lot more "desktop" features than mobile Chrome does. Specifically the fact that it's more responsive is what I like about it as I tend to search, check maybe one or two pages, and then toggle back and fourth to some app - and when you toggle with mobile Chrome the browser seems to re-load each time you switch back whereas FF is a little more aggressive about stay active. There's also the fact that as much flack as Mozilla gets FF is still a more "free" browser than most.
As for tracking etc. I keep a very private environment on my computers that aggressively blocks tracking etc - but I welcome it on my my mobile. I use my mobile to search for place to eat our discounts etc. anyway, so having Google Now recommend them to me is actually pretty nice. If I had the option of a full system ad-blocker I don't think I'd actually opt for it. On the other hand if I were to be using my phone for more personal matters I think I would be much more concerned about privacy options and about how Google is making it difficult to have said privacy like you are pointing out. Thanks for the heads up - more people should be aware of this.
I'm not accusing you of being an idiot; I think you just assumed I knew what I was talking about - which I certainly do not :P
You're free to download it and check yourself. FF extensions are set up so they can easily be multi-platform, so there's a variety of them available on mobile. Personally I don't use a mobile browser enough to have found the need to install one, I only have a few addons installed.
I've only seen it in the add-on listing, I've never actually used it. Why would they even list it for mobile (you set what mozilla clients you support in your extension information file) if it's this much of a pain to use?
There are a few other ad-blockers and privacy extensions available for FF mobile though, so even if ABP doesn't work there appear to be other options.
FF on Android supports quite a few addons, including ABP.
I'm actually proof of what you're saying. I own two cars: a hybrid Vellfire with eco tires and a manual 86 with sports suspension and inch-upped wheels with ZII tires. The Vellfire we take on long trips (lots of highway) and I drive it very carefully (eco-starts, very gradual breaking) and the 86 use for short drives for work and motorsports and I don't drive it so eco-consiouscly. Despite the 86 being in the exceptional range of gas milage for sports cars, the massive battery-filled rolling living room full of kids and baggage Vellfire puts it to shame getting +9km/l over the 86 last I checked. Granted driving style is of course part of the equation here... but if you're buying a V8 sedan it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to be a pedal heavy bastard on the road. Still, if I drove them both the same I'm certain the Vellfire would still run cleaner than the 86 - the margin is just too great.
That's insane! What is wrong with the American market that they need things like this!? They don't have this where I live. I mean I own a Vellfire and that thing is practically a moving living room - and it's still only 2190kg.
Excellent point - my post only took into consideration instantaneous efficiency but as you point out it's really about sum efficiency. Capacitive breaking / energy reclamation and assisted acceleration, variable throughput, tires, etc. etc. etc. Just looking at the progress that's been made in the last 10 years and seeing the kinds of things being released now (EG: Toyota Mirai, BMW i3) and glimpses of what could be released in the future (Mazda RX-9 hybrid rotary) and considering that even these are things that will be revised and improved upon I have immense trouble with the idea we've hit some sort of physical efficiency limit.
Even if you mean with the same engine model you're wrong. Tuning and precision engineering alone can dramatically increase the efficiency of an engine. A simple example of this would be pistons - precision engineered pistons like those in F1 cars result in significantly smaller energy loss per fuel burned than a consumer grade piston. A heavier vehicle with a precision engineered piston could easily be as efficient as a lighter vehicle with a consumer grade piston.
Even modern engines are massively inefficient things - not even coming close to approaching limits of physical efficiency. And that's just the engine. Power is lost in the drive train, through the wheels, through various vectoring mechanisms and further stolen away by stability control and traction systems. Your argument is invalid.