Removing all the torque is not a suitable engineering solution to torque steer...

[Tote]

Gidday,
Some thoughts today from an Aussie perspective on the US auto industry. I never thought that I would say that I enjoy driving a Kia Sorrento more than a Ford but it has happened. I did about 1000 miles in the Ford Taurus last week and I am amazed that Ford actually sell any of these things. Imagine the uproar if they tried to market a vehicle with the performance of a 4 cylinder Commodore, an interior circa 1980 and drum brakes in Australia!
It is truly an awful vehicle, no ABS either and front wheel drive 3.0 litre V6 as well.
I guess you can't expect miracles from petrol with an octane rating of 86 but it seems to be perfectly acceptable to market a vehicle that has such poor performance that if you floor it at 80 km/h the noise just gets louder and nothing happens. The last time I drove vehicles that performed as badly as this it was after the introduction of unleaded on aus and I was driving an alloy head 3.3 XE van.
This week in the Hertz lottery I scored a Kia Sorrento which apart from needing a decent set of shocks is a surprisingly competent vehicle. The other bloke I am over here with got a V8 Lincoln, leather everything and a V8 but still pretty low on poke, I reckon a BF six would give it a fair run for it's money. Besides, seats that are cooled can't possibly be good for you, its a strange feeling to have the seat get cold while you sit on them.
I've long held a fantasy of winning lotto and bringing my old ute over here to tour around in, I think a better fantasy is to bring over a typhoon and show them what performance really is. The only problem is that bloody 86 octane fuel....
Links for the interested:http://www.lincoln.com/lincolnls/pho...y_exterior.asp
It seems that they have finally killed off the taurus as it's not on the web site so here's a link to a pic of the one I had. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...6/IMG_0377.jpg
regards,
Tote