I’m trying to make a decision about what car to buy and it looks like one of the major deciding factors between the two I like is horsepower. The lesser powered vehicle is around 204 hp, where as for the same price I can get a different brand with 285 hp. So I am wondering what the significance of this difference might be? For what its worth most of my driving will be done in a big city, with a little bit of highway driving and road trips on occasion. So if I have the faster car I can get upto the speed limmit a few seconds faster, which doesn’t seem significant. Aside from that, I am unaware of the practical applications of a faster car, perhaps someone could help me understand?
Merging into traffic is sometimes easier with a more powerful car. How often that is useful to you depends on where you drive and your driving habits. Other than that, what you look for in your driving experience should dictate which performance characteristics you are looking for.
My guess is that you already know the answer to that.
Well, remember that the important thing is that your car has a high AC, either down about -5 by the 2nd edition rules, or well up over 30 by 3rd edition. Also it would be nice if your car had some damage resistance, especially to silver and magic weapons.
You’re talking about the difference between lots of power and huge amounts. Here are just a few points:
Advantages of high horsepower include:
Safer passing on 2-lane roads
Impress your friends (?)
Better towing capability
Disadvantages include:
Worse gas mileage (not certain, but likely)
Higher insurace costs
More expensive tires that wear out sooner (not certain, but likely)
Other things such as engine maintenance costs and resale value are less certain. It has often been the case that a more powerful car commands a better price in the used market, but with gasoline pricies spiking, that may well be changing.
You’ll use less gas with the smaller engine.
The bigger engine will be nice if you tow a trailer. If you live at high altitude, the big engine will provide about the same power as the smaller one at sea level.
Often the bigger engine is part of a performance or deluxe “package” that might include better tires/wheels, ABS, maybe better brakes, aerodynamic (at least looking) body-work, power windows, etc.
Conversely, the one with the smaller engine is more likely to be a “base” model which might not even include a radio.
Don’t forget to include the power to weight ratio in your calculations. If one car is much lighter than the other it can have better acceleration. This will show up in the 0 to 60 time for each car, so you can look at that.
What are the practical applications of this faster acceleration? You could join the SCCA and do some autocross events. For regular driving, not so much…
Keep in mind the “horsepower” figure can be misleading. Read Una’s excellent article on horsepower vs. torque.
If you have to ask, then you don’t need it 
Aren’t posts like this inappropriate for GQ?
One thing to remember is a stated horsepower figure is really the most horsepower an engine will make in the RPM range (usually near the top). A car with a lower peak horespower number may have a ‘broader powerband’ and therefore feel faster in normal driving and possibly be faster overall.
For example-- A car with 210 HP peak may only make 100 HP at 3000 RPM. A car that makes 190 HP peak may make 130 HP at 3000 RPM. Since you spend much more time around 3000 RPM the car with a lower peak number will feel faster in ordinary driving. (Numbers pulled out of my a$$ for illistrative purposes only) Of course weight, gearing and other factors play a big part in how fast a car feels and how fast it really is.
When the difference is 80HP like the two cars you describe chances are the higher HP one is faster and probably significantly faster. However a 205 HP car typically has more than enough power for the average person. If you don’t care about having a fast car the HP difference between these two cars should hardly be a consideration. I would drive both a make sure they have enough acceleration to make you happy.
Well, not necessarily. An undersized engine will waste a lot of gas compared to an appropriately-sized engine. My bought-new Ranger with an I4 used way, way more gas on my daily commute than did my V6 Bonneville at the time, driving the same speed.
Only if the car construction allows it. My front-drive 275hp V8 Lincoln has absolutely no towing capacity at all, according to the manufacturer. Yeah, the trailer hitch people tell me I can pull up to 2500 pounds, but they just wanted to sell me a trailer hitch.
Ah, yes! I absolutely hated my Continental when I got it, compared to the Bonneville that I gave up. Incidently I think the Bonny put out 210hp, and the Continental at 275 really approximates the OP’s situation. The Bonny was excellent for accelleration as long as there weren’t people in the car or going up a hill. I did, finally, learn to love the Continental after taking it on a 5000 mile road trip through Mexico, including lots of hills and mountains. Fully loaded with four adults and their luggage, it behaved like a champion, with hardly any difference between its normal, “empty” configuration. I can only credit the V8 for that.
If the vehicles in question are mid-sized sedans and you don’t drive very aggressively, you’ll only notice the difference in tight highway on-ramp merging situations.
If they’re 4300-lb luxo-barges, then 280 will be slightly more suitable than 200, but 200 is quite serviceable.
I’ll second scr4’s note that the real issue for most people is torque, NOT horsepower. If you keep the RPMs under 4,000 RPM, horsepower as a statistic DOES NOT come into play. I don’t take my car above 4,000 RPM more than twice a week, and I don’t NEED to take my car above 4,000 RPM more than twice a year.
Balthisar, the problem with your Ranger was that it was a truck, not that it was underpowered. I’ve driven the Ranger with the base engine, and you’re right, it’s way underpowered… and I drove a stick.
Look at fuel economy stats. You’ll observe that all SUVs get gas mileage (especially highway gas mileage) inferior to standard-shaped passenger cars of the same weight and horsepower. This difference is primarily attributable to aerodynamics.
A vehicle most of us would consider underpowered for a given weight actually achieves higher efficiency than an overpowered vehicle.
For most modern passenger cars, the amount of “needed” horsepower to cruise at legal USA highway speeds is somewhere between 25 and 65 horsepower. The most efficient operating mode in terms of power per gallon of fuel for an internal combustion gas engine is with the throttle all the way to the floor and the engine turning at its torque peak.
Of course, with a car specced to be just barely able to run 65 MPH at peak torque in top gear, you’d wind up with the gas floored any time you weren’t going downhill or stopping for traffic, but you would save some gas driving that vehicle.
Actually, I’d submit that the original VW Bug nearly meets the description above.
As an aside, because most cars nowadays come with between 120 and 250 horsepower, your choice is typically between “buy a car that has 4 times as much horsepower as I’ll need for most of my drive to work and a car that has 8 times as much”.
Due to the above fact, residual overhead expenses from having an overpowered, oversized engine are relatively small. You literally can’t buy “just the engine I need”. The biggest fuel waste associated with a more powerful engine is typically the added weight of the larger engine versus a smaller engine.
hmm, that makes more sense now, thanks all.