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expositor -> RE: Hating my AWD right now (7/22/2006 2:28:41 AM)
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we all share your frustration, even those of us with the manual trans, though being able to exercise more control over engine and roadspeed does make manual outlander driving just that little bit more palatable....i hate to sound like a broken record, (if you young guys
know what that is, or should i say was!) the new 2.4 mivec just doesn't seem have the same pull through the rev-range the older 2.4 had, and forget about shifting smoothly with a throttle that won't close when you back off the accelerator to shift gears. double-clutching doesn't seem to work too well either as that results in a loss of too much roadspeed, thus defeating its aim to smooth the shift so to speak. don't get me wrong, i'd rather put up with those idiosyncrasies, even in that traffic we here in the northeast share (though i believe yours to be worse) with you in southern ca, than drive an automatic, but that's just my preferance. you don't know how many raised eyebrows i got at car dealers whenever i mentioned i wanted a manual trans car. i guess a few years of banging gears in a truck certainly mimimises the perceived inconvenience of driving a manual trans car in heavy traffic, though alot of that truck shifting, well maybe just about all of it other than low and reverse, can be done without the clutch; something i do not do with my rice burners, but often easily did with american cars. sorry, got a little bit off the track....having driven the much-touted, and over-rated, naturally aspirated subaru's, we have a more tractable engine under load than theirs. i guess in living here, i consider the awd a necessity, where just one foot of snow, or foot of floodwater makes it worthwhile, and much easier to forgive the fact that we don't have an evo....really, what you've done with your outlander is great, and if you look past the power-band, hopefully you'll find as much joy in driving it as the pride you rightly take in it! even though the awd increases the parasitic loss of power, doesn't it give you that extra confidence in wet weather? that's got to count for something in addition to its practicality. that same compromise you made was also made by those of us who chose that awd-wagon price and practicality over pure performance....boy, how some people here ramble on....all i have to do is remember my subaru test drives and then i enjoy what performance i do have; and that with my air conditioner blasting....
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