marauder307
11-25-2006, 01:04 PM
(munching on breakfast) Y'know, I dunno if this has been covered in another thread, but here goes anyway...admins, stop me if you heard this one before...
I got a spontaneous brainstorm the other day...why don't we here on MM.net conduct our own Mythbusting experiment?
Here's the deal: With the meteoric rise in gas prices over the last few years, econoboxes are making a big comeback. The Toyota Prius is supposedly the hottest thing there is. Gas mileage forever! and all that *****.....
The way I see it though...the econoboxes may get 40 miles to the gallon, but the #@#$@ fuel tank only holds 10 gallons. Consequently, you won't get any durn farther with a Prius than you would with a Marauder, and you'll be vastly more uncomfortable in the Prius on the trip.
We should see if we can find (a) a bone-stock Marauder (THIS will be a challenge) and (b) a standard-issue Prius, and conduct our own run-off between the two.
A few rules to hold ourselves to:
1) No drag races. Told ya it was going to be a challenge...but the fact is that the Prius would obviously lose, and as we're attempting a bit more scientific approach, this would invalidate the test.
2) Some sort of basic highway speed should be agreed upon for the fuel endurance test. I don't think the Prius can maintain more than about 60 (and I'm guessing high) so the MM driver's going to be rather bored. Cruise control should be set throughout the cruising portions of the test, i.e. any part of the test on the interstate. Obviously you can't have the cruise set while accelerating up to cruise speed on the on-ramp, or decelerating down the off-ramp.
3) I should think this one would be obvious, but I'll state it anyway: Cars should be run in identical states of trim---you can't put a load in the Prius to weigh it down, and no cutting the rear seats out of the MM to lighten it up. Drivers should also weigh in within a few pounds of each other...sorry if that hurts anybody's vanity, but we are attempting to be scientific here. One part of the test that may be hard to manage is that both cars should have identical gas---I don't know if we can actually do that one though. The MM demands high-test, and I think the Prius is dialed-down to regular.
So...anybody game to give this one a shot? Any other ideas?
I got a spontaneous brainstorm the other day...why don't we here on MM.net conduct our own Mythbusting experiment?
Here's the deal: With the meteoric rise in gas prices over the last few years, econoboxes are making a big comeback. The Toyota Prius is supposedly the hottest thing there is. Gas mileage forever! and all that *****.....
The way I see it though...the econoboxes may get 40 miles to the gallon, but the #@#$@ fuel tank only holds 10 gallons. Consequently, you won't get any durn farther with a Prius than you would with a Marauder, and you'll be vastly more uncomfortable in the Prius on the trip.
We should see if we can find (a) a bone-stock Marauder (THIS will be a challenge) and (b) a standard-issue Prius, and conduct our own run-off between the two.
A few rules to hold ourselves to:
1) No drag races. Told ya it was going to be a challenge...but the fact is that the Prius would obviously lose, and as we're attempting a bit more scientific approach, this would invalidate the test.
2) Some sort of basic highway speed should be agreed upon for the fuel endurance test. I don't think the Prius can maintain more than about 60 (and I'm guessing high) so the MM driver's going to be rather bored. Cruise control should be set throughout the cruising portions of the test, i.e. any part of the test on the interstate. Obviously you can't have the cruise set while accelerating up to cruise speed on the on-ramp, or decelerating down the off-ramp.
3) I should think this one would be obvious, but I'll state it anyway: Cars should be run in identical states of trim---you can't put a load in the Prius to weigh it down, and no cutting the rear seats out of the MM to lighten it up. Drivers should also weigh in within a few pounds of each other...sorry if that hurts anybody's vanity, but we are attempting to be scientific here. One part of the test that may be hard to manage is that both cars should have identical gas---I don't know if we can actually do that one though. The MM demands high-test, and I think the Prius is dialed-down to regular.
So...anybody game to give this one a shot? Any other ideas?