[Julian]

I've had the Captur for two weeks now, a TCE 120 EDC, it's replacing a Nissan Note DCI 90.<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />
A word about the DCI 90 powering the Note, which is relevant here as it is basically the same engine powering the Captur : very pleasant at low revs, you can easily start in second gear and quite nippy around town; also pleasant when cruising on M roads although a sixth gear clearly wouldn't go amiss; the main drawback is lack of punch when required to overtake on highways for instance. Note (no pun intended) that although Nissan does not use the latest version of this engine (still 200 against 220 Nm of torque for Renault @ 1750 rpm), acceleration figures given by Nissan are always better than Renault's , different weights, gear ratios, engine tuning ""¦ ?
Now why Petrol ?
Well I thought it was time to switch to petrol for several reasons :
Fuel price difference in France is increasingly irrelevant when you consider the extra money you have to shell out for a diesel engine, not to mention maintenance cost which can be heavy on these increasingly complex engines. Consequently the mileage required to recoup your investment is becoming critical.
Diesel engines are increasingly complex owing to ever tightening emission regulations, i.e. the requirement for particle filters, soon NOx traps and what next ?... As it is, a modern diesel car with particle filter is becoming practically unfit for strict urban use, owing to regeneration requirement. It can be costly if regen does not occur automatically.
Modern downsized petrol engines, lighter, turbo charged to give higher torque at lower rpm, are now demonstrating that they're on a par with their diesel counterparts and will gradually overthrow the latters' domination in Europe. If you look at the latest statistics, this trend has already started.
And last but not least, the engine noise issue, which I hadn't disregarded but nottaken into account much, the Note's DCI 90 being a very civilised engine and rather unobtrusive. How wrong I was became obvious when I got into the TCE 120 : ""¦ silence ""¦ you can hardly hear the engine, such comfort !

 

[Ythsie]

Julian, you are absolutely right! The TCE 120 is a dream! The right engine and gearbox for the Captur...and not a lot of them around!!
The right car for town running and a relaxed cruiser, should you wish to go further.

 

[Julian]

Ythsie, we're on the same wave length, here is another reason for my choice :



Why automatic ?

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I travelled a good part of the world extensively, lived in a few countries, and I always enjoyed using automatic cars wherever it was readily available.
I've always been a bit peeved by the fact that in Europe, at least until recently, automatic cars were confidential and expensive, mainly owing to the fact that there was no market, people preferring to stick to changing gears (or to changing gear sticks for that matter). Well to be fair, it's true that due to poor efficiency, conventional automatic gearboxes required big engines and therefore the cars were on the expensive side.
And believe me, I have been a fan of rock & roll driving, I spent my teenage years in mountain country and that's where I did my apprenticeship. I used to race souped up cars through multiple hairpin bends and skid drive using heel point and double clutch. Of course sometimes the results weren't so good, my skid driving was not always controlled and I even tumble crashed once (triple roll over). Looking back, I must say I was very lucky but that's another story.
An old friend of mine who's only had automatic cars (he got his driving license in the US and is cleared to drive automatics only) always says : ""why bother with manual gear change ? What would you think of having to fire manually your combustion chambers at every engine revolution ? We found the way to do this automatically at a very early stage, it's just taken a bit longer to find out how to do it with the gear change, that's all""�.
The advent of modern automatic double clutch gearboxes which can be used on small engines makes for a very interesting proposition now and I believe that it will lead more and more people to think like my old friend so that at last we can get rid of those antediluvian manual gearboxes. There again the statistics show that, at least in France, although traditionally very much backward as regards automatic gearbox among other things, the trend is starting to change and apparently, the Captur EDC would not be alien to this reversal.