Great ad. I about hit the floor when he said "improved handling capabilities" What handling capabilities? The car has body lean from hell. Of course I am comparing to current standards. He said the transmission shifts like liquid velvet. What exactly IS liquid velvet? The engine stats aren't too bad, 360 HP is pretty good even for today's standards, however the 480 foot lbs of torque is quite impressive, no wonder your wagon has been built up for towing. My favorite line of all was about the braking though. He said "Heat buildup was fantastic" like that is a selling point. He even mentions brake fade, again as a selling point. Now if you mention brake fade people start looking at a different car.
It was kind of hilarious seeing the car taking a sharp turn, tire almost tucked under it and the driver's side 4" above the passenger side and the guy is talking about improved handling. That's like talking about the nutritional value of a Twinkie. I do remember cruising the Avenues in my '69 back in high school and having the brakes heat up so bad I pulled over to let them cool off, and then cruised a more level area of the city. One nice thing about never cars is they don't even know the meaning of brake fade.
Okay, excuse the ignorance here, but is "brake fade" the tendency of mechanical brakes to get weaker and weaker until you had nothing left and were forced to (in my case) get them adjusted? Or is it something else?
Brake fade was a lot more common when most cars had drum brakes. [www.srossi.net/2010/06/drum.jpg] Both the metal drum and brake pads would heat up, which would diminish the friction between the two, making them less effective. Most cars today have disc brakes on all 4 wheels. [www.srossi.net/2010/06/disc.jpg] The area where the brake pads make contact with the metal is a lot smaller than the non-contact area where the metal cools (probably 5 or 6:1), whereas the drum brakes the heating to cooling ratio is almost 1:1. That's why cars today virtually never have any brake fade. Hope that answers your question, and without a whole bunch of extra information to confuse things more.
With brake fade, you usually don't need to get them adjusted, you just let them cool off and they regain their friction. And it's something that happens in a relatively short period of time, like a half hour or so, from excessive use or riding of the brakes. I think what you were thinking of happened because a lot of older cars did not have self-adjusting brakes. As the brake pads wear down you need to have them tightened so they will grab. This is another benefit of disk brakes, just by the nature of their design they are self-adjusting. Sorry, I was afraid that I had blabbed on beyond the point of clarity.
6 comments:
Great ad. I about hit the floor when he said "improved handling capabilities" What handling capabilities? The car has body lean from hell. Of course I am comparing to current standards. He said the transmission shifts like liquid velvet. What exactly IS liquid velvet?
The engine stats aren't too bad, 360 HP is pretty good even for today's standards, however the 480 foot lbs of torque is quite impressive, no wonder your wagon has been built up for towing.
My favorite line of all was about the braking though. He said "Heat buildup was fantastic" like that is a selling point. He even mentions brake fade, again as a selling point. Now if you mention brake fade people start looking at a different car.
-Mr.
It was kind of hilarious seeing the car taking a sharp turn, tire almost tucked under it and the driver's side 4" above the passenger side and the guy is talking about improved handling. That's like talking about the nutritional value of a Twinkie.
I do remember cruising the Avenues in my '69 back in high school and having the brakes heat up so bad I pulled over to let them cool off, and then cruised a more level area of the city. One nice thing about never cars is they don't even know the meaning of brake fade.
Okay, excuse the ignorance here, but is "brake fade" the tendency of mechanical brakes to get weaker and weaker until you had nothing left and were forced to (in my case) get them adjusted? Or is it something else?
Brake fade was a lot more common when most cars had drum brakes.
[www.srossi.net/2010/06/drum.jpg]
Both the metal drum and brake pads would heat up, which would diminish the friction between the two, making them less effective.
Most cars today have disc brakes on all 4 wheels.
[www.srossi.net/2010/06/disc.jpg]
The area where the brake pads make contact with the metal is a lot smaller than the non-contact area where the metal cools (probably 5 or 6:1), whereas the drum brakes the heating to cooling ratio is almost 1:1. That's why cars today virtually never have any brake fade.
Hope that answers your question, and without a whole bunch of extra information to confuse things more.
So, it is what I thought it was. Thanks.
With brake fade, you usually don't need to get them adjusted, you just let them cool off and they regain their friction. And it's something that happens in a relatively short period of time, like a half hour or so, from excessive use or riding of the brakes.
I think what you were thinking of happened because a lot of older cars did not have self-adjusting brakes. As the brake pads wear down you need to have them tightened so they will grab.
This is another benefit of disk brakes, just by the nature of their design they are self-adjusting.
Sorry, I was afraid that I had blabbed on beyond the point of clarity.
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