My Ford Focus is the base three-door with a 5-speed manual transmission and, it is said, 136 BHP at 6000 RPM. I wouldn’t know since it lacks a tachometer and I generally drive like an old lady. That’s okay. The only car I’ve owned with a tach is my Buick Roadmonster with an LT-1, but why? It has an automatic. On the tree. And is a wagon. Anyway, I shift the Focus by ear and I like keeping it in the lower end of its rev range. If it starts thrashing at all I upshift because why make it work when I can save gas. The upshift idiot light is more of a senile grannie than I and when I’m loafing along at the low end of fourth’s comfort range it’s already flashing for an upshift. At 31 MPH. Of course, if I were dumb enough to obey it the engine would bog and I’d have to feather the clutch until it gets above 35, but Ford has to sell new clutches somehow.
But now the nature of my complaint. I know the speed limit on the fastest roads in a built-up area in the Land of the Free is 55, but several MPH before that in fifth/top gear the engine is already thrashing away at two or even three thousand RPM and I naturally try to upshift so it can go back to sleep, but this shitbox insists on not having a sixth gear, substituting a useless gear it calls “R,” which does nothing at all to make this car go forward as Henry, Our Father who art in Dearborn, intended, and which makes loud complaining noises if I try to shift into it at speed. Quite discomfiting, and it reduces my confidence that the car could reach the 110 I estimate it capable of, given its power, weight, and aerodynamics, if it were properly geared.
I realize that I should be happy it wasn’t built in 1980, when American cars were designed and built for driving no faster than 55, so that they were deathtraps that fell apart if you went any faster. And I know such speeds should only be sought under emergency war power, but this thing doesn’t need a shot of nitrous oxide. It just needs more gears. Or ones more broadly spaced. No, more gears.
This is a problem on first-generation Miatas, too. On the freeway at 65, the engine is buzzing away like crazy. It really needs a sixth gear.
On the next generation, I understand they added a sixth gear, but then they fiddled with the rear axle ratio so it’s still buzzing away like crazy on the highway :smack:
I realize that this is just taking what you’re talking about to an extreme, but as someone who’s had to drive a truck with fifteen gears, with which you don’t even start moving until third or fourth: shut up.
I’ve always wondered: why the hell don’t trucks have automatic gearboxes? Watching the Top Gear truck episode* made it look like 10 minutes’ work just to get the fucking things off the line.
*which involved European-market trucks with 9-12 liter engines, which are presumably easier to drive than a US-market truck.
I have an NC 6-speed manual and I don’t find it to be buzzy at highway speeds, so either they fixed the problem for the 3rd generation or it’s just being drowned out by the podcasts blaring through my earbuds.
This site seems to show that the Torsen differentiall’ed versions of the first generation 1.8 liter, which I have (NA8A) and the second generation (NB8A 10th anniversary) have very similar RPMs/mph. But the conventional-differential NB has significantly lower RPM, so yes, it’d be less buzzy.
I tell my friends that Miatas are noisy, cramped, rough-riding, and not especially fast–and that’s what’s so wonderful about them. But a taller rear axle would be a wonderful thing…
Most modern 4 cylinder engines require high revs to be in their powerband. You see this as a flaw, I do not. I enjoy shifting and keeping the revs in the right range. First gen Miata, BTW. A gearbox that is a joy to use.
So really you’re pitting your own bad purchase decision then. I referred to your Focus as an “econo-Focus” earlier not out of some bias against the car/brand. The Focus is, in my opinion, a darn fine car, but you have one with no tach. Which mean you bought the stripped down model. Fine for what it is, which is basic point A to point B transportation, but why come here and pit it? You knew you weren’t buying a sports car, right?
And where is its seventh gear? Or eighth? I first complained about a lack of two more gears on a trip to Arizona in a 1973 Plymouth Duster Slant Six/3-speed that didn’t have fourth or fifth and later had a 1984 Dodge Colt 1400/4-speed that didn’t have fifth or sixth. That one gave me 48 MPG with two large adults, two toddlers, a little kid, and luggage for all, but who knows how much better it could be if it had more gears? I do–not much, since it had only 70 BHP. Lousy on the road but a rorty little bastard downtown, where I could take on taxis and win. Second and third were perfectly matched to its power band when pressed.
Only fifteen? If you are like me you’ve experienced this: A vast choice, but none of them is ever Just Right. I’d complain about the limitations of fifteen.
I know where this car’s powerband is and I’m not afraid to use it if the situation calls for it. I just feel like 55 is way too slow for this engine to sound like it’s working. Well, 55 in fifth. At 55 in third it’s starting to sound magnificent. Bastard’s got a lot of pep for an econobox. Too bad it’s bright yellow and Oldest put it on the police radar everywhere in the tri-county area.
She hopes to have her license back in a couple weeks.
YOU tell it it’s not a sports car. Cars keep getting better and sportier. Hell, I used to wonder what year would have been the last that POS base Colt could have won LeMans outright. With its speed, as it was, handling, economy, and reliability I figured it would have been a contender into the '30s. This base Focus has twice the horse power and half again the tires. The Triumphs and MGs of my youth were dogs by comparison.
Fastest I’ve ever personally driven a car on normal roads was a Ford Focus @ about 140 mph for about 20 minutes. Granted, it was an early Euro 2.0 liter performance version of it, but Focuses can be quite zippy.
Why would I need one? I have ears. I prefer to keep my eyes on the road because no matter how yellow this thing is it still seems invisible. I mean, does Stirling Moss (yeah, I’m that old) need to watch the rev counter to know when to shift? For good drivers a tach is only useful the first time they drive a car, so they can learn to associate the sound with the RPMs. Shouldn’t be needed then, either, because they should be able to tell what the car is doing and how happy it is from feel as well as sound.
but then they fiddled with the rear axle ratio so it’s still buzzing away like crazy on the highway :smack:
But a taller rear axle would be a wonderful thing… 