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Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 4:39 am
by Tonray's Ghost
Somebody is picking up a new car on Christmas day...


Suzuki Swift.. My first car in Thailand
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Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:23 am
by sabasgr68
Hey, HNCD!

How´s the cockpit?

Steering wheel is on the left, or is it brit style?

Enjoy your ride, and give mrs. Tonray a nice road trip!

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:45 am
by mickey
I did sorta the opposite this year, I gave my brother a car I wasn't using enough to warrant having it.
His wife & her best friend flew up from Orlando & picked it up the other day.
I think they had less travel time returning than they did coming up here!
I told them "The Cruise Control" is your friend because it will keep the blue lights out of your mirrors!
The car will cruise all day long at 100mph+ :D

Jag01.JPG

HNCD @Tonray Suzuki's have long been a favorite of mine. :)

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:28 am
by Tonray's Ghost
sabasgr68 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:23 am Hey, HNCD!

How´s the cockpit?

Steering wheel is on the left, or is it brit style?

Enjoy your ride, and give mrs. Tonray a nice road trip!
British rules (at least left side of road) Thai rules for all else which means extreme defensive driving mandatory.Thai roads are a somewhat dangerous endeavor with motorcycles darting every which way (even going the wrong way to beat traffic is routine here!)

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:34 am
by Tonray's Ghost
mickey wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:45 am I did sorta the opposite this year, I gave my brother a car I wasn't using enough to warrant having it.
His wife & her best friend flew up from Orlando & picked it up the other day.
I think they had less travel time returning than they did coming up here!
I told them "The Cruise Control" is your friend because it will keep the blue lights out of your mirrors!
The car will cruise all day long at 100mph+ :D


Jag01.JPG


HNCD @Tonray Suzuki's have long been a favorite of mine. :)
I really wanted the Mini Cooper but because theyre not locally manufactured/assembled they start around $70 grand due to tariffs..ouch.. Maybe next go round

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:50 am
by mickey
Tonray's Ghost wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:34 am
mickey wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:45 am I did sorta the opposite this year, I gave my brother a car I wasn't using enough to warrant having it.
His wife & her best friend flew up from Orlando & picked it up the other day.
I think they had less travel time returning than they did coming up here!
I told them "The Cruise Control" is your friend because it will keep the blue lights out of your mirrors!
The car will cruise all day long at 100mph+ :D


Jag01.JPG


HNCD @Tonray Suzuki's have long been a favorite of mine. :)
I really wanted the Mini Cooper but because theyre not locally manufactured/assembled they start around $70 grand due to tariffs..ouch.. Maybe next go round
Several years ago I was looking for a Mini Cooper here for my wife but it was about $10,000 more than comparable cars from Nissan, Honda or Mazda.
Plus the Mini's do NOT have a good reputation for reliability (the others do.) I would have bought a Suzuki but they had withdrawn from the U.S. market.
All my experience with Suzuki's was with the 2 wheel kind & I love them! :D

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:18 am
by tlarson58
I half expected to see this...
Screenshot 2021-12-24 081603.jpg


P.S. Not a stereotype. I grabbed it off a Thailand travel site.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:18 am
by uwmcscott
HNCD, looks sporty and practical all at once. I don’t know much about Suzukis but a close friend of mine had a Mini Cooper for a couple years and it was a turd. Slow, oft in the shop and started burning oil very prematurely. It looked cool but that was about the only positive.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:27 am
by Tonray's Ghost
tlarson58 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:18 am I half expected to see this...

Screenshot 2021-12-24 081603.jpg



P.S. Not a stereotype. I grabbed it off a Thailand travel site.
Yeah plenty of those in Bangkok for sure. BTW, that pic is Yaowarat road which is the main drag in Bangkok's Chinatown. They will scalp you on fares down there (only tourists use these for the most part).

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2021 6:15 am
by Tonray's Ghost
New edition to the Family
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Drives nice and smooth, engine peppy for its size and steering very responsive. Has a sport mode button with shortens up the transmission shift points for a bit more pep when passing at highway speeds or pulling into on ramp. All in all quit satisfied with my purchase.

The 8 inch information screen is great but my old weak phone doesn't have enough memory to run Android auto fully and fire up Google maps. Time for a new phone anyway as my screen has been spider cracked for months.

Merry Christmas everyone... It's still OK to say that right ?

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2021 10:02 am
by Chocol8
Tonray's Ghost wrote: Sat Dec 25, 2021 6:15 am Merry Christmas everyone... It's still OK to say that right ?
As a non-Christian, I still say Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends. If that’s not OK, someone has a serious problem.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:22 pm
by PoodlesAgain
May be one of these 3-cylinder engines, I bet?

These powerplants are all over the small cars in Europe, under all kinds of different badges, Peugeot, Opel, etc. I drive my sister's when visiting. Zippy hatchbacks, quite handy. Oh wait, these are diesels... hmm.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2021 7:26 pm
by Tonray's Ghost
PoodlesAgain wrote: Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:22 pm May be one of these 3-cylinder engines, I bet?

These powerplants are all over the small cars in Europe, under all kinds of different badges, Peugeot, Opel, etc. I drive my sister's when visiting. Zippy hatchbacks, quite handy. Oh wait, these are diesels... hmm.
Nope...this one is a four cyclinder....they have a smaller model called the Celerio with 3 cyls

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:57 am
by mickey
I've never understood why we don't see more 3 cylinder engines.
My lawn mower is a Kubota 3 cylinder diesel and it is smooth as silk.

Long ago and far, far away in a distant galaxy, I drove a SAAB 3 cylinder car & it was smooth as silk too. :D

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:02 pm
by Tonray's Ghost
mickey wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:57 am I've never understood why we don't see more 3 cylinder engines.
My lawn mower is a Kubota 3 cylinder diesel and it is smooth as silk.

Long ago and far, far away in a distant galaxy, I drove a SAAB 3 cylinder car & it was smooth as silk too. :D
With Xeriscaping in mind, I'll never understand why we don't see less lawns

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:09 pm
by mickey
Tonray's Ghost wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:02 pm
With Xeriscaping in mind, I'll never understand why we don't see less lawns
Why on earth would anyone in Floriduh need to irrigate???

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:33 pm
by PoodlesAgain
@mickey the Saab was a hot car in the day, won world championship rallyes and such.

Two-stroke? Some were.
All aluminum? A number of cars were at the time. NSU's as an example.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 3:50 pm
by mickey
I believe that all three cylinder SAAB's were 2 stroke engines..
I've no clue what metal the engines were made from.
Never bought it, just took a test drive. But about 20 years later I did buy a SAAB 900
which was a twin cam 16 valve fuel injected engine. Not bad for 1985. :)

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:17 pm
by mozz
mickey wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:57 am I've never understood why we don't see more 3 cylinder engines.
My lawn mower is a Kubota 3 cylinder diesel and it is smooth as silk.

Long ago and far, far away in a distant galaxy, I drove a SAAB 3 cylinder car & it was smooth as silk too. :D
We are talking late 60's early 70's? I was 10 in 1972, we had the big Agnes flood up here in PA. Rain and more rain. I remember a guy (vietnam vet) about 1/2 block from where i grew up, he had a 2 stroke Saab. We would be playing basketball or riding bikes, he would always be in his garage working on these cars, he may have had 2 of them. I do think he had them fully running at 1 point. After so many years, a lot of engines, trans, and other parts were all put outside of the garage for the garbage men to take away. I think he also rode a "trials" motorcycle. The garage may have had a pit, where you change your oil.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:27 pm
by mickey
That would have been like 1965 or 66. SAAB stopped selling the 2 stroke cars when the U.S. emissions regs kicked it.
Could be wrong but I think that was either 67 or 68.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:20 pm
by andrewsrea
mickey wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:27 pm That would have been like 1965 or 66. SAAB stopped selling the 2 stroke cars when the U.S. emissions regs kicked it.
Could be wrong but I think that was either 67 or 68.
My neighbor had a 2-cycle SAAB. You could hear him and see him coming a mile away - blue fog!

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:52 pm
by PoodlesAgain
Anecdote: The writer Kurt Vonnegut was very fond of Saabs and decided to become a dealer.... on Cape Cod!
Did not work out too well.
Building is still there on Route 6A, now a gallery or such.
Spouse ran into a lady who was a public school teacher to his kids, and said he was a bit of a d7ck!

Too bad it is hard to run a two-stroke clean. They can be quite interesting. There was a British whole cottage industry in high performance tuning. Japanese motorcycle makers came up with all kinds of intake designs, reeds, rotary, etc.. Also, it is not difficult to start a two-stroke rotating the wrong way by accident, seen it (Husqvarna motocross bike), sort of funny.

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2021 5:54 am
by mickey
PoodlesAgain wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:52 pm
Too bad it is hard to run a two-stroke clean. They can be quite interesting. There was a British whole cottage industry in high performance tuning. Japanese motorcycle makers came up with all kinds of intake designs, reeds, rotary, etc.. Also, it is not difficult to start a two-stroke rotating the wrong way by accident, seen it (Husqvarna motocross bike), sort of funny.
Also too bad because they make a lot more power than a 4 stroke engine of the same physical size & weight.
Oh, and they also suck down fuel like a Wankel engine! :D

Re: Xmas New Car Day

Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2021 11:16 pm
by honyock
mickey wrote:
PoodlesAgain wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:52 pm
Too bad it is hard to run a two-stroke clean. They can be quite interesting. There was a British whole cottage industry in high performance tuning. Japanese motorcycle makers came up with all kinds of intake designs, reeds, rotary, etc.. Also, it is not difficult to start a two-stroke rotating the wrong way by accident, seen it (Husqvarna motocross bike), sort of funny.
Also too bad because they make a lot more power than a 4 stroke engine of the same physical size & weight.
Oh, and they also suck down fuel like a Wankel engine! :D
the smell of 2 stroke fuel burning is one of my favorite motorsports smells, specifically Golden Spectro for some reason it always smelled better.

2 stroke tech with direct injection in a series hybrid like a train or ship would make sense as it would be could operate at the ideal rpm to generate electricity. Would fix the issues of dirty power with the fuel being added after the valves close. Would need some sort of super charger ala the Screamming Jimmy 2 stroke diesels though to get enough air in the cylinder, but they would be super efficient since it would have twice the combustion events so the parasitic loss is reduced.



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