September Rains
18 September 2006, 67,004
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fter a hot and humid July, a cool and humid August some might take it as
no surprise that we’ve had a hot, humid and rainy September. Personally, I dislike the heat, I detest the
humidity but I don’t mind the rain. Not
that I’m grumpy about it...
I’m not at the point whereby I leave the 9-3’s automatic air conditioning system in Automatic mode most of the
time. I’ll occasionally change the
temperature or put it into Econ mode but I’m used to the system sufficient that
I don’t need to play about with it. It’s
behaviour is dependent on the ambient light and temperature levels and may also
compensate for humidity: it behaves differently when it’s 16°C and foggy
compared to 16°C and clear (it puts more
warm air to the windscreen when it’s foggy, presumably to keep the glass clear
of condensation). On those warm,
muggy mornings after we’ve been to the gym and we get into the car, should the
glass mist up the system clears it very quickly indeed.
Chef’s lack of power above 3,000 rpm is becoming more and more
obvious. I removed the tuning module to
see what the car was like just to remove a potential culprit causing running
issues. It went right back on as the
engine appears to hit the governor at 3,000 rpm in third gear and upwards. It depends on the weather, but for the most
part, you’re limited to 3,000 rpm in the higher gears. This amounts to just under fifty in third and
around sixty five in fourth. In top,
it’s fractionally below the limiter speed for the majority of Smart ForTwos out
there…
To this end I’m going to buy a replacement air mass meter, which I’ll
have to cover later.
Meanwhile I’m gradually building up my confidence in the TiD and
experimenting with the handling. It goes around corners exactly as you would
expect from something with a heavy diesel engine at the front, front wheel
drive and based on the Cavalier. Under
load it understeers. Accelerate firmly through 2,000 rpm in third
gear (around 30 mph) on a damp road
and it’ll wriggle, squirm and understeer. In the dry it doesn’t wriggle or squirm as
much, the tyres wail their protest and it still understeers.
Lifting off makes nose tuck in but the engine management does not shut
the power down immediately, there’s a gradual fade out: dumping the clutch to
change up, at the moment because I’ve run out of power at 3,000 rpm, has bought
on an oversteery wriggle. The car works well on multilane roads but it
is less responsive on a back road. I can
certainly understand why the higher powered 9-3 models have a reputation for
being unruly.