[Mim]

Actually quite an interesting thread. Over the years I've read many posts on our forum where people kept complaining about their car feeling slow and that anything from a kid on a pushbike with training wheels (I might have slightly exaggerated) to Prius and Camry's out accelerating or passing them on freeway's.

Over the past year of ownership I've never really had that issue, but then the speed limits I live around are (compared to the US) comparatively quite low being mostly 50 and 60kph zones. As a result I generally puttered around in 2nd and 3rd gear and I never understood why people thought the car was slow and underpowered until I took it on a stretch of freeway and found, when I tried accelerating from say 80kph up, the car was really struggling >.<

Going off the OP's comment, I honestly never really viewed the lower speed limits as being much of a problem as our car rides so low and (as mentioned) the complete lack of sound deadening seems to amplify the sense of speed.

We also have a Nissan Maxima 3.5L in the family. That car is so insulated, with a strong engine and smooth CVT that you easily end up speeding if you purely rely on just the sense of speed. I think that's kinda the problem now as people have more powerful and refined cars these days, that the sense of road speed is so far higher up the speed limits that they just feel like the car is numb unless doing stupid speeds while driving.

TL;DR version... being a 10/10ths car, its fine in any speed zones due to having higher accessible performance at lower actual road speed.