Does anyone drive a 1.4 diesel car on motorways?

Lum

Lots of people drive 1.4 diesels on motorways...

They are often found in the middle lane doing 60!


As for the why is it a struggle comment, it's nothing to do with not being able to exceed the speed limit and everything to do with people pulling in front of you. If you drive a car that takes 10 minutes to get up to 70, and are finally overtaking that MLM that you've been stuck behind, only to have the Audi driver behind undertake you and cut in front, then brake when they realise there's someone in front of you, causing you to end up braking back to 60; that is annoying.

On a long trip events like this happen again and again. It gets old really fast.

In the old days where everyone had cars like that, it was less of an issue, I presume.

Weird_Nev

Lum wrote: »

Lots of people drive 1.4 diesels on motorways...

They are often found in the middle lane doing 60!

That's twaddle Lum. Cars don't even advertise their engine sizes (in many cases) so how do you know?

The 1.4's I've had have been driven hard (hence my 70Mph*) in the previous post. They pull up to, and beyond, the legal limit cleanly in all cases, only running out of puff at 90mph ish when the gearing pulls them out of the torque band of a small capacity diesel engine.

People choosing to do 60 in the middle lane is bad driving, pure and simple, rahter than anything to do with the engine fitted to the car.

I'd far rather do a motorway slog in a 1.4 Tdi than in a 1.0-1.2 petrol and there are literally millions of those cars on the road.

DigForVictory

Test drive & make it clear to the garage that you want a motorway section on that test.

If you find it difficult to overtake, consider asking the garage bod to drive it for a bit, and see if they have the same issues.

Different folk have different driving styles & for a cheap to run & insure car, I'd certainly consider modifying how I drive!

Bongles

Interesting that everyone's thinking in terms of cruising or overtaking. The first thing that occurred to me about taking a relatively lower powered car on to the motorway was achieving the appropriate joining speed in the length of the slip road. Which will be no problem whatsoever as long as you're open to the idea, when necessary, of using large throttle movements and venturing above 2000 rpm. A lot of people seem to have an irrational fear of that sort of thing and hence, even in vehicles considerably more powerful than the OP is talking about, make a right nuisance of themselves depositing themselves in everybody else's way when they join too slowly.

OP - as long as you're prepared to use your right foot properly when necessary I can't see you having any insurmountable problems at all.

interstellaflyer

Have agree with weird nev, lots of modern cars don't advertise engine size so how would you know. Like I've said, I've owned a couple of small(er) diesel cars, never had any issue with performance both the Astra 1.3 CDTi and the Qashqai dci will/would get up to 70 mph fast enough for modern driving conditions and are/were more than capable of exceeding the speed limit by 25-30mph, on the other hand, our company Micra 1.2 pure drive gets to 50 quick enough but takes for ever to get from 50-70, same thing with the new shape Corsa 1.2 SXi I had as a courtesy car last year, it was pants.

Lum

Weird_Nev wrote: »

That's twaddle Lum. Cars don't even advertise their engine sizes (in many cases) so how do you know?

The 1.4's I've had have been driven hard (hence my 70Mph*) in the previous post. They pull up to, and beyond, the legal limit cleanly in all cases, only running out of puff at 90mph ish when the gearing pulls them out of the torque band of a small capacity diesel engine.

People choosing to do 60 in the middle lane is bad driving, pure and simple, rahter than anything to do with the engine fitted to the car.

Sense of humour bypass today Nev?

Although if you do wish to take it seriously then: As you say, there are millions of these cars on the road, and there are millions of MLMs on the road. Therefore there is going to be a significant subset of MLMs driving 1.4 diesels and so your chances of encountering one of them on any decent length motorway slog is pretty high.

It did lead into a more serious point, but it bears repeating/clarifying. Chances are they're stuck at 60 because they're stuck behind a queue of other people stuck at 60, and they can't get up to 70 fast enough to safely enter the outside lane and get past.

I'd far rather do a motorway slog in a 1.4 Tdi than in a 1.0-1.2 petrol and there are literally millions of those cars on the road.

Agree with that, worst motorway car I ever had was a C reg 1.3 Corolla with a 3 speed auto that I paid £125 for back in 2006 when I'd fallen on hard times, but still needed to get to customer sites. There is a certain kind of skill and driving style needed to make good progress in a crap car, and it certainly isn't fuel efficient.