We desperately need smaller vehicles to counter the behemoth light trucks that are in the road today. Everything about these kei truck bans just scream corruption and incompetence from politicians to domestic auto manufacturers.
They stopped making Honda Fits (in North America) because there was no demand.
This is true, yet I see a lot of them on the road and speaking for my circle of people I know plenty of people who want them. It’s a shame really as I was only left with the civic and that’s the same size as my old accord.
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Ford and Hyundai have tried to bring service to that market with the Maverick and Santa Cruz, respectively. My folks have one and love it, but I’ve found most people still complain because they “don’t need that big if a truck” but then you mention towing/hauling capacity and they say “well why can’t it just tow something small like an F150 does? I’m not trying to get a dually but if I didn’t want to do X then I’d just get a car!” I suspect most people’s “truck needs” would be accommodated but fomo and marketing leads buyers astray even when they already know what they want. Or they’re fickle and just need something to complain about.
What do you find people want to tow? I’m often at a loss when people bring this up because I’ve never once had a moment in my life where I was disappointed by the lack of towing capacity of my small car
Note that Americans basically all drive automatic transmissions, those have a thing called a torque converter. Unless that part is actively cooled it’s going to overheat when asked to do high-torque stuff over prolonged durations and as that active cooling needs space and weight it generally only comes with truck-sized vehicles.
In short: The reason Americans don’t haul caravans and horses and boats with cars is because they can’t drive stick.
?
Every automatic transmission car sold since the 1970’s and probably earlier has had a transmission cooler, right there alongside or in front of the radiator.
Also all of them have locking torque converters so there is no energy loss at constant speed. Also also, unless going upward at an incline. Most of the power requirements come from aerodynamic drag, not rolling friction of the trailer.
You can’t lock the converter when accelerating because
that’s not a constant speedyou’ll stall the motor under the torque load, and to accelerate you need to overcome momentum. Neither drag nor rolling friction are anywhere close to high torque.And I have no idea what the previous poster meant with a transmission cooler, I guess it’s a different thing because a torque converter very much is not a transmission, if you want to compare it to anything then to a clutch. In any case I’ve got that explanation from an actual American actual car mechanic and random lemmings aren’t going to change my mind especially while making no mechanical sense.
Wow. The remaining 7,950,999,999 people on this planet now have something to be thankful for, because none of them are as wrong as you.
You clearly did not actually understand what your mechanic told you.
A transmission cooler is exactly what it sounds like. It is built exactly like a radiator and works the same way. It is mounted in front of or next to the radiator for the engine. On a lot of newer cars it is actually part of the main radiator. Transmission fluid flows through it and excess heat is dumped into the air. On many vehicles it’s also served by the radiator fan, i.e. for situations where the vehicle is not getting airflow because it’s not moving.
The torque converter is part of your automatic transmission literally operates by moving the transmission fluid. There is no separation between the transmission fluid used in the torque converter and the rest of the transmission where the hydraulic valves use it to actuate the clutch bands, etc. to shift gears. The same bath of transmission fluid is circulated through the torque converter, the rest of the transmission, and the transmission cooler.
This is not a truck thing. Even my dinkum Saturn SL I had when I was a teenager that was so pathetic it was literally made of plastic and did not crack 100 horsepower had a transmission cooler – as designed from the factory. The vast majority of passenger vehicles made in the last half century or more with automatic transmissions have transmission coolers built in. It has nothing to do with towing, either.
Your torque converter absolutely can be locked under acceleration and in fact, nearly all vehicles equipped with a locking torque converter do so as part of their normal shifting pattern when moving up through their gears. This is observable from the driver’s seat if you know what’s happening. The locking and unlocking of the torque converter feels like an “extra gear” in between the gears. Some Japanese cars from the 80’s have a “TC Locked” light on a dash that illuminates when the converter is locked and you can watch this happen in real time. The usual pattern is 1st gear, shift to 2nd gear, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 3rd, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 4th, etc. A traditional automatic transmission only has 4 gear ratios, but it will feel like it has seven. Guess why.
Think about it real hard for a minute. A locked torque converter is the same, mechanically, as a fully engaged clutch. If you could not lock the torque converter during acceleration, by the same logic you would not be able to fully release the clutch pedal during acceleration on a manual transmission car, either. It is glaringly obvious that this is not the case.
I am not a “random lemming.” I have four decades of actual real world mechanical experience and have disassembled and rebuilt more transmissions, engines, and vehicles in general than you have probably sat in throughout your entire life.
Camping. Boats. Moving furniture. Gay party floats. The list goes on.
What the heck do you need to tow for camping if you have a pickup truck? I can see boats, but boat people buy the towing capacity they need. Not the size of truck.
Is legal here to tow two trailers if the first is 5th wheel. You can bumper hitch a boat behind your camper. This take a fairly serious truck, and is why I have a 5th wheel trailer that’s only 19 feet.
Kei trucks have the same, if not slightly bigger/smaller, bed size as a modern F-150. But they’re basically the size of Honda Fits.
I’ve wanted one since I worked for USPS and learned to drive on the right side of a vehicle. My state does allow you to register them and drive them on the road, but alas, I cannot afford one. :(
Kei trucks only can carry like 800 pounds. I run a bar and regularly take my pickup truck, a 2500, to its bed capacity of roughly 3000 lbs. I’ve had it sitting low just in empties before. A Kei truck can’t even haul my motorcycle if it breaks down. Now someone who’s a full time contractor, would call that thing useless, a farmer might buy one instead of a John Deere gator or side by side. It’d be suitable for golf course maintenance.
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Yeah, a ranger would be ideal for a run around, could even tow my old camper, thing only weighs 3000 lbs. I’d just have to make more frequent beer runs of lesser amounts. At least a ranger can hold an old harley.
Reminder that due to the chicken tax, these vehicles have to be 25 years old before they can be imported.
The big problem is, these vehicles were built to 30 year old safety standards - no vehicle from the 1990’s (except maybe a SAAB, and even then they’re not strong enough anymore and will fail a small offset frontal) can compete with a modern car in safety requirements.
There is also the fact that these vehicles have been around for 25 years, and have that amount of age and wear on their platform - they won’t be as strong as they originally were off the production line.
I call bs, a motorcycle provides way less protection. And which states are they illegal in? Lobbying and another money grab from corporations in our “free market” society. I would love one of these BTW.
I’m always shocked by this. In a world with seatbelt laws, crumple zones, backup cameras, pinch protection, etc we allow people to ride motorcycles that consistently get injured or killed. How they haven’t gotten banned or stupidly restricted is beyond me. Even with a motorcycle lane, getting in a wreck at 75mph would be seriously bad.
In my state, I’m pretty sure you can ride a motorcycle legally with a helmet and a tshirt on, but get pulled over and fined for not wearing a seatbelt, lol.
The seat belt is to prevent you from being thrown through the glass and body/frame of the vehicle. Because that’s generally what kills unseatbelted people in a wreck. A motorcyclist will be thrown from their vehicle if hit but is much less likely to hit that vehicle at 70mph. That’s why you dress for the slide so to speak. It’s about how you land as much as anything. And when you’re inside a vehicle and being tossed around you are basically a reverse pinata.
no vehicle from the 1990’s (except maybe a SAAB, and even then they’re not strong enough anymore and will fail a small offset frontal) can compete with a modern car in safety requirements.
Americans keep building bigger trucks and raising speed limits, then bemoaning how small vehicles aren’t safe enough to survive an 80mph impact with a 10,000 pound vehicle.
You think these Keis are dangerous? Try riding a bike.
How long until these are banned ?
Regardless of bans, I’ve heard these cars are INCREDIBLY hard to import. Not only is getting permits for them difficult, but many places selling them domestically have gone around the laws regarding them, resulting in people’s Kei trucks being taken by the government and shipped back to Japan on their dime.
It’s not an easy thing to get into.
I’m sorry, why the fuck aren’t these street legal in more than half of the states? The article says something about safety, but these are street legal all over Europe where we have stronger safety regulations.
Also there’s something I can’t put my finger on about the journalist choosing a hero image of the van losing its cargo.
Probably because it’s not safe to drive them around giant pickups who can’t see over their hoods
KIA*
