My favorite little econo-box was either my 1989 Nissan Sentra or my 1986 Ford Escort. Mechanically, the Nissan was a better built car, but I beat the living piss out of that Escort (I was 16) and never broke it. My friends all totalled their cars doing stupid **** like getting it airborne over a set of railroad tracks with 5 or 6 people in it, or taking them down trails meant for dirt bikes. Not mine. I did the same kind of stuff, never even knocked the front end alignment out.
The Nissan Sentra (3 spd auto) had excellent traction in snow due to the fact that the half-shafts were designed better. On front wheel drive cars, one half-shaft is always longer than the other because the transaxle is always on one side or the other. This causes the longer one to "twist up" a little when you're on the gas. Even when you're taking it easy in snow, the shorter half-shaft always gets all the power delivered to it. But not on the 89 Nissan Sentra. The longer half-shaft was thicker, it was just thick enough that it had the same torsional strength as the shorter side, so it would never get that left-right pulling effect you get with other front wheel drive cars. I once had that thing off road, in 6" of snow, on jeep trails, going up steep hills, never got stuck. Of course, I was taking it slow, not trying to beat on the suspension. I'm just talking about it's traction. It was excellent. Good car for snow.
In my Escort (4 speed stick), I would take corners at 35 mph (even right turns) and it would just simply turn the corner, never slid. (dry pavement) One time I even took one at around 45 because somebody ran a red light.
My friend Tim was one of those ADHD guys in the behavior disorder classes. He had a 1984 Escort stick-shift, and beat the piss out of it WAY more than I ever even imagined possible. He would have 5 or 6 people in it, plus one more in the hatchback area, and suddenly swerve off the road, go through the ditch and floor it through the fields. Other times he would have it in 1st gear and make the car "dance" by alternating between full throttle and the brakes. This was EXTREMELY abusive on the driveline components, but it never broke. What eventually killed his Escort was when he was grounded from his car, and was trying to drive home backwards to take the miles off the odometer because his mom was keeping track, and he lost control going like 35 mph backwards and spun around and nailed a telephone pole with the passenger side.
What killed MY Escort was the clutch throwout bearing had gone out, and I was attempting to pull the trans to fix it and I pulled one of the half-shafts out of the transaxle and all the gears fell down, now the trans would have to come apart. I said F this and called the junk yard.
I also had a 1988 Yugo but that was strictly a field car. I got it free, welded some bars in as a roll cage, knocked out all the glass and thought that because it was so small, it would be a nice little off-road toy. Nope. Just going 10 mph down a trail that was smooth enough to run at full throttle with my dirtbike was too much for it. One little bump and both front wheels were pointed towards each other. We dragged it out with a pickup truck, and hauled it to the junkyard. They didn't even want it, wouldn't even accept it without a title, but we just left it in their parking lot and took off.
Van Wyk Inc.
Discussion in 'Motor Carrier Questions - The Inside Scoop' started by Mattaponi Guard, Jun 28, 2010.
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