replicant

Just a thought but isn't the Bosch DSC calibrated for rotor friction? And a non genuine part may have a different rotor friction affecting the algorithm for the activation thereof...

Of all the ornery and thankless tasks... is spending the early evening underneath your front bumper removing the wind deflector, reaching inside and wrestling to get the @#$%& of a thing (fog lamp assembly) out without removing all of the skin off your knuckles, breathing as you grimace from the road dust falling off the underside of the front cross member into your eyes, detaching the deutsche clip, cursing the fiendish sadism of the Ford engineers who put the things on as afterthoughts as you disassemble the lamp assembly with a screwdriver on the retaining clip, remove the rear boot with a screwdriver... swearing as your realise the screwdriver head has scratched the reflective paint on the back of the bulb, dropping the fiddly screw clip onto the floor of the workshop, scrabbling around on the floor looking for the blasted thing... trying to open the blister pack without touching the glass surface of the new bulb, fitting the first spade fitting, reassembling the assembly with the boot, threading the little cable through the rubber sleeve and reattaching the other spade fitting, and the lamp assembly holder and then shoving the thing back into the dark crevices of the bumper and grinding more road dust into your raw knuckles... attaching the deutsche fitting, testing the unit and then reassembling the wind deflector... and then after all the effort and smiling at the triumph of guile and bloodymindness wriggling around underneath the front bar so not to pay some half baked ford techo $$$s to replace it - the missus asks why have you taken so long to change over a simple light bulb. I love her dearly... the girl not the car (at least not today anyhow...)

Nope that's the new Ford Mondeo which should arrive in Australia some time this year... it's powered by the 2.0 litre Duratec HE 4 pot out of the Focus, a 2.5 litre version of the Duratec VE V6 which was in the Cougar (and the Mazda Tribute/Ford Escape have a 3.0 litre version of the engine). There's a bunch of turbo diesels and the prospect of the 2.5 litre in line 5 cylinder engine from the XR5 Turbo also being available (the engine is from the Volvo Cross Country)

Though I still prefer the XR6T for practicality and fun - although I'm wondering what the boss is going to think about the tyre wear one day.

The Mazda 3 MPS is indeed a hatch and FWD - the Mazda 6 MPS is a sedan and AWD. Also you don't get 190kW and full boost in first and second gear in the 3 - the ECM scrubs off some of the torque to help the drivetrain cope although it does have a trick LSD up front. However, short shift in third gear and give it WOT and the front wheels will scrabble, it will torque steer although the ESP tries to mask it - does a reasonable job. Fine on dry tarmac but in slippery conditions you'd want to exercise some finesse with the right foot toe curl. Personally, I prefer the XR5T - it doesn't have the trick LSD or as much power but it was more fun. The MPS seems very similar to the SP23 and looks it too. The Recaro seats, different handling package and looks of the XR5T make it feel different from a standard Zetec. No question that the Mazda felt quicker in a straight line but I'd prefer the Ford on a windy road. There's something about the Ford that was well more chuckable and the pedals seemed to suit heel and toeing better (although like most Fords there's no left footrest). The Ford has adjustable power steering assist too which I played around with for about five minutes before leaving it in standard. One thing, I'd go for an AWD Mazda 6 if it was raining but given the days that it rains in NSW these days it's not that relevant... ;-)

Great Ocean Road... gogo gave a good summary - drove it two years ago before the F1 AGP. Went and did the Yarra Valley last year (ate a lot of cheese and tasted wine for a change) and avoided GP this year due to the bad timing of event. Watch for the odd radar equipped police car... Vic Police don't seem to have much of a sense of humour. The Treetops Walk is worth it. If it's wet/misty... watch those gum tree leaves on the blacktop thru Otway National Park - they can get really slippery...esp with a high powered RWD with early throttle out of corners (ie a T)... alternatively it's not fun to find out with a rental car that you assumed would have had ABS and hasn't... (maybe they should have warning stickers on the dash for cars WITHOUT it because you assume nearly every new car does). No harm done in my case but not a good thing to find out when you have planted the middle pedal and then have to react as the bows are understeering off the roads into the mulga. Been to Cape Otway - it's nice interlude and a place to have a quick break from driving and a good breeze to refresh straight off Bass Strait. Twelve Apostles is a highlight scenic wise. Worth a trip in the whirly-gig and a few snapshots. I went early in the morning before the tourist buses as they are a pain to be behind. OTOH they do stop and pull over regularly - the real pains in the arse are the folk who don't drive quick enough thru the twisty bits and then floor WOT on any straight. It's probably easier as gogo suggests as a there and back with an overnighter somewhere. Meant I had the dawnbreaker run back - prefer that to driving back in the evening and night to Melbourne.

To be fair the 380 isn't a ground up design - they got stuck with the US developed platform and had some styling and engineering input - US folk don't care about handling and prefer FWD because on their roads it doesn't matter which end is driven esp if you end up on an interstate for 4 hours without a corner or commuting in heavy Californian traffic. Anyone driven a caddy or a buick lately? In terms of subsidies, SA could do with not only the factory but also the related employment with suppliers and logistics. None of the car companies, even Toyota could survive in Australia, without tariffs or subsidies for what is a tiny market by world standards. The fact that we have cars largely designed and built on fairly unique platforms by Ford and Expensive Daewoo for our own tastes reflects this... otherwise we'll get stuck with 380s, Camrys, Aurions and Nissan Maximas because that's what they make everywhere else... instead of Falcons, Commodores, Territory and others...

Great another behemoth to be driven by another bunch of folk who believe that have 'god syndrome' ie they own the road, you should make way and indicators and courtesy are for mere plebs... generally having a bad attitude and expectations of their own skills far beyond their actual ability... I was at a venue watching drivers of a certain related marque on a track day and one of the 'heads went to light up the rears in pit lane and nose to tailed the car waiting for the green flag at the pit exit. The H3 Hummer is based on a US Chevy Blazer platform and has very little to do with the humvees that the US armed forces drive around in. It just looks like a humvee and you be sure that with its superior aerodynamics it will have the fuel consumption rivalling that of a 'Cruiser or a Dunnydore towing a box caravan... Next someone will decide to pimp one out and then there will be a vehicle that will have even less offroad ability and be essentially a fashion statement - a bit like a mini convertible.... neither would I touch with a barge pole...

Samples can be done with a radar equipped marked police car, traffic counters (those hoses run across the road) or even a hidden camera and a radar gun.

My little brother borrowed the Territory AWD for a trip to the ski fields with a bunch of his mates... he rang me up on the way complaining about the chime and the S symbol flashing - he said it was going on and off all the time on the trip and was getting really annoying. When he asked me how to turn it off, I told him it was the 'overspeed' warning and I'd set it about 10 km/h above the legal limit... and asked why was he driving it so fast? For some reason the call abruptly was disconnected... damn hills and pesky reception...

I think the ad is supposed to show women are more intelligent to get around the exploitation thing... several recent ad campaigns portray men as dumb or easily lead by more intelligent and attractive women - which apparently makes an ad with eye candy less likely to offend women if it suggests that they are superior (or so I'm told). Me I'm just enjoying the creativity... and the fact she's hot...

This one's from Argentina - so it's a little risque so don't go crying to your Mum if you are a little offended... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0mUTdOH06Y She's definitely hot...

The DSC setup in the BF is a Bosch 8 unit. The circumference of the wheel and tyre combo is one of the variables for the DSC... why because the DSC uses the ABS sensors in each wheel to determine the rotation speed and based on the circumference knows the wheel speed as a variable to determining whether to intervene, it will also affect the duration and severity of the intervention... The DSC will initially brake individual wheels to correct the yaw (under/oversteer) movement past what it considers appropriate and may intervene at the engine ECU level by retarding ignition to reduce power (generally it won't change the throttle position or injector duty as this will alter the response once the yaw is corrected). The DSC is pretty sensitive to calibration - brake pad friction is one of the factors in the DSC programming to assist in deciding how long and how hard to apply the brakes to a wheel and it isn't a simple backyard operation to calibrate either. The calibration for most of the BF DSC equipped Fords relies on having the 'premium' brake system out of the V8 equipped and Barra 245T cars, the 17 inch wheel/tyre combo, ZF six speed auto as well as the 'sports suspension' package (which is the ESP option in the BF2 for Barra N/A cars). There is a separate DSC calibration for the Ghia with Barra N/A and 230kW SOHC V8 Ghias in BF although I'm wondering if this has been changed for BF2 as my drive impression was that it intervened way too early for most enthusiast drivers in BF (actually given who orders a Ghia vs an I-Design Luxury pack in a XR6T or an XR8 maybe the DSC calibration should stay as is!). The intervention in the Barra 245T and Boss 270 engine XR cars is very different in calibration to the Ghia calibration. I'm wondering if the ESP cars get the Ghia Calibration or one based on the XR series... Anyway, the DSC operates in split seconds - if you change the wheel/tyre combo, the brake pads or rotors, potentially the engine tune, it won't work in the way it was intended to do by the folk who calibrated the software. However, if the variables don't change significantly then remember this is a Ford Falcon not an F1 car then the change should not affect the car too much. However, just remember if you have a plus 2 wheel fitment then it's likely that it will have more mechanical grip from a larger contact pad. So it's entirely possible that when the unwanted yaw movement occurs then you are going to be going faster than in regularly shod car and that the intervention of the DSC is going to have be faster and more decisive than was originally intended with the original fitment. In other words, with better wheels and rubber hoops when the moment comes, the DSC is going to have make it's mind up a lot faster and work harder to correct things and you going to be going faster and therefore more inertia and energy is involved... and as one of my colleagues who worked in road safety once told me, more energy means harder impacts and importantly greater deceleration on the relatively brittle parts of the human body. Maybe some exploration in a controlled environment say a track day in wet conditions may yield some clues about the limits and behaviour of your car and the DSC with the different wheel/tyre that would be useful long term, perhaps?

Firstly, definitions the 85th percentile is a statistical term and it represents in this case the speed that 85% of the sample were under - it other words only 15% of drivers observed in the sample exceeded the 85th percentile speed. There are few important things to note the first is the veracity of the sample to the population - the 85th percentile applies to all vehicles and it is a sample at a certain place, certain time and with certain factors present. If you took the sample during peak hour during a long weekend on the Spit Bridge with a number of marked police cars present on the side of the road, then you are likely to get a different result than at say 2am on a Tuesday morning with a hidden camera. Secondly, this assumes that road users are rational folk who take into account all factors such as the speed limit, traffic, surface conditions, weather, visibility and are a homogenous bunch in terms of skills, vehicles and concentration levels. Generally, they aren't and as noted in earlier posts, you have to take into account the lowest common denominator in terms of driver and vehicle. Most folk consider the speeds noted in an advisory sign as being way too low, but if you have a fully laden truck these speeds are fairly reasonable. Likewise, if the current variety of road users including trucks, towing vehicles, learners, cyclists, P-Platers, SUV drivers and pedestrians are all going to share the road then something sensible has to be in place. Speed differentials are really important. Following distances are generally poor in Australia and unless folk really have Schuey-esque reaction times (and judging by the number of accidents every morning they don't) then really everyone ought to slow down. I've driven in unrestricted speed limit highways in Europe and you need to have concentration, skill at all times due to the mixture of vehicles including car carriers loping along at 160km/h in the middle lane... but you have the ability to cover 400km in little more than a couple of hours. Generally, the driving skills are superior but you have to be aware that a campervan pulling out of a slip road which is doing about 80km/h in the right lane is closing at over 30 metres per second if you are doing 200km/h in the middle lane - and you'll be upon it and past it like it was chained to a post and you were driving down the M7 in Western Sydney. Also lane discipline is much better in Europe too... As for the auto/manual conundrum... I'm actually an advocate of teaching folk to drive in an automatic first... get them understanding and concentrating on the road, potential hazards and traffic rather than car handling initially. Then teach them in a controlled environment, correct braking and vehicle handling techniques to avoid accidents. Then teach them to drive a manual... I spent a lot of time in my early years driving in a Torana, with the permission of the landowners, in wet grass paddocks or gravel car parks learning the limits and beyond of adhesion of cross-ply tyres on a low grip surface, recovery techiques, cadence braking and the use of opposite lock where necessary. I learnt about weight transfer under acceleration, braking and cornering - and that you can control a car thru both hands and feet as well as the seat of your pants. I've been fortunate to be able to fund cars that handle a lot better than the LC Torana and have better safety features but I still think that apprenticeship (as well as karting) meant I've been fortunate to possess certain skills that have proved useful. I also think I'm a pretty crap driver too - I often drive in the 15th percentile above the 85th, at times I am overly aggressive, corner too hard on public roads for the sheer enjoyment (Mr Plod would be unhappy at the four wheel drift I do a couple of occasions in my daily commute) and probably one of those folk that holiday drivers curse as I'll ignore a freight train of cars, pick them off and get to the front of the queue and then disappear into thin air. I regularly drive recreationally and enjoy putting my car at its limits but I choose an appropriate venue and situation...

P Zero's prefer to run without any camber (which is why the EB GT had some geometry tweaks to accomodate them) and take a while to warm up. They are also relatively expensive and the P Zero Nero is classified in Europe as a 'Summer' Tyre and is not intended for use at very cold temperatures or on snow or ice. DOT Ratings for this tyre are Treadwear in 245 35 YR19 is 220 with AA for Traction and A for Temperature with a 91 Load Factor. The Dunlop Sport Maxx in 245 35 19 is a Y Rated Tyre with 240 treadwear, and the same AA for traction and A for temperature and has a 93 Load Factor. Again a Euro Summer tyre - which should be okay unless you are up in the mountains a lot. I don't have specs for the Toyos or that particular Goodyear tyre. I confess that I have a preference for Yokos and Bridgestones generally and Continental or Michelin depending on the car... However, this is one of those purchases that you have to rely on trust... and I know happy Toyo shod owners, Pirelli owners and Bridgestone owners... look for someone who pedals similar to you and ask them I guess.