TOP GEAR 26JAN08 subie Diesel featured

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:52 pm

Twenty four hours have elapsed and no one has mentioned TOP GEAR broadcast on Monday night on SBS. The given task was to drive an approx route of 750 miles in a car to be chosen by each Top Gear dude. The task was partly time based but also limited by no refills so it could not just be a Hans Tholstrupp style economy drive as they were to arrive [if they could ] at the finish line to perform a civic deed. Clarkson chose a twin turb V6 Jaguar and played the I don't wanna be part of this so I'll try hard to finish empty early close to home bad boy. James May picked a Dieeesl (as it sounds as Clarkson says it) Subaru Legacy. And Richard Hammond got some sort of 1.3l car. All fitted out with trip computers and camera of course.

Surprisingly ,they all covered their 750 odd miles [ 1207 kms ! ] with no distance left on the trip computers - for the last thirty miles or so , and we did not get true milage afterwards. What it was nice to hear was a Subie giving 50MPG. 1 mile is 1.60935km. 1 gallon is 4.546 litres in this case.

What was a little disappointing was Clarksons hand demo of how a boxer engine worked ( and not happy with the engine in question) he gesticulated with his fists of two pistons smacking crown to crown as his interpretation . He can sure drive, talk and do massive burnouts mid flight but he disappointed me a little here in his presentation. An afterthought is maybe I did not understand his demo and his elbows were the pistons and his fists the big ends ??

I think most of us would be happy to get half that distance out of a tank !

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:58 pm

no one tuned in because i hope we were all outside having a BBQ and a few drinks. good to hear the subie doing well tho, they should do a repeat of the ep.

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:11 pm

Problem is they didnt say a thing about how the car drives

They didnt even say if the legacy finished or not

amuck · Post by **amuck** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:12 pm

Clarkson did say that it was the only diesel he had ever driven with no torque. Rev the hell out of it in first then it would die when you put it in second. I have read a few reviews that are less than glowing about the diesel. I'd still like one in my wagon.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:53 am

I'll have to download that one and take a look. It's been said before....the trouble with Clarkson is, while he is one great and popular presenter, he just doesn't know anything about cars or engines!

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:25 am

110 kW and 350 N·m

There is a fair bit of torque there for a 2L engine. It biggest problem is the large car it has to move along

Apparently the EE20D is similar in construction to the EZ30 (bore/stroke/timing chain)

Imagine if subaru made a 3L Twin Turbo diesel with similar power to BMW's 3L Diesel found in the X5 series

Phizinza · Post by **Phizinza** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:18 am

I was wondering how long it would take for this to pop up.

My view:
TG is not a car show. Its a comedy show. They say anything that would seem funny, weather it be true or weather they know it or not. They all aren't very car knowledgeable but if they were just imagine what the show would be like...? Anyone seen that car show on ch9 in the middle of the day? Its bloooooody boring (probably not on anymore).
Hamsters car was a VW Polo with a 1.4 3 cylinder diesel. As some of you may know the VW company has been making INCREDIBLY high MPG cars since the 80's. even back in the 70's the diesel Golf was amazing. And I've read stories about them getting over 100mpg (American).

If your worried about people taking this show seriously and basing their next car choice on it, stop worrying. Because even if there are people out there like this you don't have to have anything to do with them. And if they try and quote something from TG seriously, just laugh

On the Subaru diesel. I have heard it is pretty bad things about the Subaru's diesel. But its probably much like toyota diesels. You drive them like a petrol not a diesel, and they love you for it.

Willie · Post by **Willie** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:46 am

Subafury wrote:no one tuned in because i hope we were all outside having a BBQ and a few drinks. good to hear the subie doing well tho, they should do a repeat of the ep.

Yes - we were having a BBQ at home, as Aust. Day is also my birthday (I get a public holiday for my b'day every year!).

Whenever I was asked what I wanted for my birthday (as most of my family hadn't got me anything by the day), I kept answering "to watch Top Gear in piece." And I got it!

As others have said, it's not to get up to date technical information from - it's just good entertainment. I get a good laugh out of it each episode.

However, I do think they could have said more about all three cars driven on this economy run though. Mostly because I am toying with the idea of a TD powered car in the near future - then again, I'm toying with the idea of many cars (always day-dreaming). And I have to sell the XR8 first!

Cheers,

thatsgoodsquishy · Post by **thatsgoodsquishy** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 2:47 pm

The trouble is the episodes shown on sbs are the "chopped down" international version, ya lose a bit of content. They talked a bit more about how the cars performed in the uk version of the ep when they were back in the studio at the end of the story. I think they said they did several more miles (50plus from memory) in the jag afterwards before it ran out, pretty impressive.

PS Obviously i saw the uk edition of the episode in a completely legitimate way;-)