E400d to E63

[davymead]

As said before no black smoke whatsoever, and torque is more influential than horse power in my book.
If you’ve not driven a 350CDI perhaps you ought to, you might be surprised how powerful they are.

 

[ALFAitalia]

Torque is more important in the real word and is what makes a car feel quick and flexible in the real world away from drag strips and engines at peak revs....and why I don't like high revving torque free engines like Honda VTecs. When you push your foot down torque is what you feel....not power. Power is only a measurement of how fast the torque is developed. My friend has the same ALFA as mine but with the 3.2 V6...against my 2.0 derv!.....Put us side by side in top at 50....I will pull away from him like he's stood still. Only when using all his revs/gears is he quicker. That's the difference between his 322nm at a peaky 3800rpm and my 360nm at a lowly 1750 rpm.
As they used to say....power dictates how fast you will hit the wall....torque dictates how far you will push it AFTER you hit it!!
Off course the best of both worlds is a big torquey petrol lump (Like an M157 for example).....lots of high up power AND low down torque.
No black smoke on mine either.....same as any modern diesel if its running right....in fact any degree of visible smoke under load on a modernish diesel is now an MOT failure anyway.....so you should not see many smoky vehicles that are not commercial vehicles if they are running right.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

As said before no black smoke whatsoever, and torque is more influential than horse power in my book.
If you’ve not driven a 350CDI perhaps you ought to, you might be surprised how powerful they are.

"and torque is more influential than horse power in my book.” Of course you would think that yet HP and 0-60 performance is what everyone talks about when talking about the power of a car.

Not saying your car is bad. You said it is better because it has more torque !

My son’s wife has a Q8 50TDI which I've travelled in a few times and it goes extremely well.

Driven loads of tractors diesels in my day. Even had a Landcruiser 200 series with a twin turbo 4.5 L V8 diesel (650Nm ) and my wife’s current car is a diesel.

 

[ALFAitalia]

and 0-60 performance is what everyone talks about when talking about the power of a car.

Its just the easiest way to compare.....of course doing a 0 to 60 you are using the peak revs power in every gear rather than the torque. Its pretty meaningless in the real world....when was the last time most of us went 0 to 60 flat out. I have too much mechanical sympathy to do that! A more realist and useful measure is the 40 to 80 time in top or a pre determined gear (not easy in an auto of course).....but then of course the results would be skewed by gearing choices and tyre sizes etc.....but far more of us go between 40 and 70 or 80 quickly than ever do a SS...

 

[Deleted member 126251]

Torque is more important in the real word and is what makes a car feel quick and flexible in the real world away from drag strips and engines at peak revs....and why I don't like high revving torque free engines like Honda VTecs. When you push your foot down torque is what you feel....not power. Power is only a measurement of how fast the torque is developed. My friend has the same ALFA as mine but with the 3.2 V6...against my 2.0 derv!.....Put us side by side in top at 50....I will pull away from him like he's stood still. Only when using all his revs/gears is he quicker. That's the difference between his 322nm at a peaky 3800rpm and my 360nm at a lowly 1750 rpm.
As they used to say....power dictates how fast you will hit the wall....torque dictates how far you will push it AFTER you hit it!!
Off course the best of both worlds is a big torquey petrol lump (Like an M157 for example).....lots of high up power AND low down torque.
No black smoke on mine either.....same as any modern diesel if its running right....in fact any degree of visible smoke under load on a modernish diesel is now an MOT failure anyway.....so you should not see many smoky vehicles that are not commercial vehicles if they are running right.

My 3.0L V6 hits max torque (500Nm) at under 2000 RPM and holds it to just about max revs in a flat line. You’d be surprised how responsive that V6 is.

Black smoke is just me taking the p1$$. It was a standing joke when I worked in Irian Jaya (12,000’ above sea level) where we could always tell if a Landcruiser (diesel) was being poorly driven. They spewed smoke when in too high a gear and were labouring or when too low a gear and being over revved.