[geeks] electric cars

[Dan Duncan]

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006, velociraptor wrote:
> We had a Subaru Forrester (iirc, it was an '02).  I liked it well
> enough but the husband-unit did not, though he never really explained
> what he didn't like about it.  The AWD was pretty solid from what I
> could tell (I haven't driven any other AWD).  While we were in Tahoe,
> he found a snow-covered empty parking lot and played around with it,
> and found it satisfactory.  Note that he grew up in northern Alberta,
> so has plenty of snow/ice driving experience, and has driven other AWD
> vehicles.

I drive an 03 Forester (manual) and like it quite a bit.  It has
plenty of power (in 04 they introduced the turbo.  Vroooooom!)
and handles quite well.  I've never had such a great winter
car.  The rear window defrosting elements make several passes
under the rear wiper to de-ice it.  (Why don't ALL cars with
rear wipers do this?  It would cost virtually nothing.)  There
are defrosting elements where the front wiper sits as well.
(I don't relish replacing that windshield...)

When I bought mine in 2003, Subaru had 3 different AWD systems.
The manual used a 50/50 split by default which would then
adjust front/rear between 80/20 and 20/80.  It used a viscous
fluid that heated up.  There were no electronic parts.  The
automatics had two different varieties that used electronic
clutches.  The cheaper one (the only one available in the Forester
automatic) ran with a 90/10 power split by default and could then
vary from 90/10 to 10/90.  The more advanced one was quicker,
more reliable, only available in some models, more expensive,
and ran at something like 60/40 by default.

> As far as the transmission/linkage itself went, it was one of the
> "between years" when Subaru stopped using the hill-holder clutch
> (which received so many complaints that they put it back in
> apparently).  Ours was a PITA to get off an incline with the nose low
> using reverse.  The clutch would immediately started heating up from
> slippage in that situation. I don't know if this was just a problem
> with our vehicle, or a broader issue.  It was a rare enough occurence
> that we never had it checked out.

They did a clutch redesign or update or somesuch the next year because
of the slipping clutch.  They also put the hill-holder feature back
in because my 2003 has it.

> Doesn't VW offer the Passat in a manual/AWD model anymore?  We
> contemplated that for the one we owned prior to the Forrester.

I couldn't find ANYTHING from VW that was both manual and AWD when I looked
in 2003.  They were mutually exclusive.

> (I hate automatics, too.  It's another thing making the search for a
> diesel Golf more difficult.)

It supposedly has to do with the CAFE laws.  Each engine and tranny
combination has to be certified on a particular MODEL of a car and
supposedly the demand for manuals isn't worth the effort.

This also happens on particular packages with some manufacturers,
including Subaru.  I considered the Subaru Baja but the manual transmission
and the SUNROOF were mutually exclusive.  WTF?

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I
# have got so much more of it.    -- Mark Twain