Quote:
Originally Posted by darek_dade
They are close together, but I think it's done on purpose of city driving. 3rd gear is good for economic drive in 40-50 speed limit and 4th gear is good for 60-70. Sometimes I appreciate the 5th gear being as it is because I don't have to downshift whenever I want to accelerate from say 100 to 120 since rpms are high and power is there.
New Astra? Quite a nice car, but I honestly like the exterior of the current Astra more. New Astra could have a Hyundai or Kia badge and no one would be surprised. Current Astra? You don't see anything looking like this car on American roads. And how do you know that Astra 2010 will be coming to US anytime soon?
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I agree that on the highway, it's nice having that 4000 RPM torque at 70mph to give you that good acceleration, but I'd still prefer a lower gear ratio, as I'd rather just downshift for that extra power once a month or so I actually use it and save 1 mpg highway ALL the time.
New Astra probably won't be here until 2011 CY and a Buick at that, so count on it starting >$20k MSRP. I paid $15.5K USA for mine, so I have no reserves about waiting. Now if it was coming over in CY 2010 as a Saturn ~$17k base price, then I would have waited.