Family car?

[James]

People used to say similar things to that in the 90's about traction control now just take it for granted.

DSC/DTC can be turned off when I want to have some fun. I'm grateful for the electric starter though. It'd be a b!tch to hand-crank a modern high-compression six-pot.

If involved driving experience means pushing a pedal and moving a lever thats your choice please enjoy.

Modern cars offer the choice of lane departure warning, radar-guided cruise-control, parking assistant and a whole host of convenience options. I didn't bother with them either.

 

[Dan K]

I would say buy my 40,000 mile almost virginal E46 330D Auto Touring. I really don't need it or even like it that much, however there appears to be nothing decent to drive and not Ford for 8k ish.

 

[Dan K]

I'm given to understand diesel engines are particularly hard on DMFs due to their peakier pulses of power. If the diesel is a four cylinder, then those pulses are further spaced, which does the DMF no favours. I think petrol engines, particularly 6 cylinders variants, can be quite kind to DMFs. Well, I hope so anyway.

Straight and flat 6's are perfectly balanced, so unless the gearbox is doing something odd then a DMF is not necessary. V6 not so

 

[martin clark]

Can be perfectly balanced, yes, but also prone to some nasty flexural effects given the length of the crank. Hence the move to DMFs even on straight-6s (as well as the traditional harmonic balancer at the pulley end)

 

[linnfomaniac83]

There are many a reasons why car makers have added Dual mass Flywheels (DMF) and were first introduced by BMW in 1985 to their six cylinder diesels.

Main job of the DMF is to damp out vibrations to the gearbox at low resonance speeds.

What may kill a DMF?

1) poor starting,misfires, uneven running anything that causes uneven running will cause extra vibration which the DMF will absorb. This will cause undue additional wear.

2)Overloading a vehicle of towing too much will push the DMF beyond its designed limits causing exta wear.

3)Poor driving habits; driving in the wrong gear, allowing the engine to labour which is common in town driving and the most common reason for DMF failure.

So when the car has an early DMF failure best look in the mirror first.

Solid flywheel conversions are much cheaper to buy as a replacement for DMF. Valeo make some good replacements very close in weight to the original flywheel weight and do work very well.

Why people still bother with manual transmission with clutches and DMF replacement at £800 is beyond me. A modern auto box allows you to shift manually if you desire or full auto without any worry of a big DMF bill.

I do prefer driving manuals generally but that said, I'm tempted to go for a DSG box in my next motor.

I failed to mention that I actually fitted a solid flywheel to my Audi, there were no real ill effects other than a very slight detectable judder at very low revs in first. It drove great and still is doing with a shed load more miles on it, I no longer own it but my friend who is a prestige car dealer has it (that's who I traded it in with), he uses it as a staff pool car and it gets driven all over the uk and sometimes beyond when collecting cars he has purchased to sell.