Impressions after road trip

[fumanchu1]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

I don't hit 40 very frequently; only twice so far.. once on this one and one on a five hour trip. Typically, I'm at about the same as you are "around town." I live in a semi-rural area so I've always got at least a few highway miles before actually being in a town to pad the mileage. My worst tank so far has been 29, and 32-33 is the norm unless I'm on long hauls w/out lights, traffic, and towns. Mine's a manual, but these days I don't think that affects mpg very much. If anything, I think AT's have gotten so efficient that many cars do BETTER with them.

so has cruise control, it's actually more efficient than I am about 75% of the time...

[joe strummer]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

Hey, all..
Barry

Thank you for the write-up. I enjoyed reading it. Great job.

[NOHOME]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

But I hear that London, Ont is a pretty nice place to visit?

London is a nice place to "Be From".

Left London after graduating Western in 82 and recall uttering on the drive out of town on my way to SD..."Glad I will never see this place again". Only to end up re-immigrating to Canada from Nigeria 10 years later and settled in London.

Never say never cause you never know!

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by NOHOME

London is a nice place to "Be From".

Left London after graduating Western in 82 and recall uttering on the drive out of town on my way to SD..."Glad I will never see this place again".........

So, you left London and were looking forward to going to South Dakota .......????? .

I've never been to London, Ontario, but I did spend a week in South Dakota one weekend .........


humfrz

[MuseChaser]

Originally Posted by humfrz

...

I've never been to London, Ontario, but I did spend a week in South Dakota one weekend .........
humfrz

I rode my bike from Massena, NY to London, ON and back in one day to look at a Fiat Spider. Put a deposit on it, only to discover it was just about impossible to get across the border. Sigh. That was a lot of VERY cold bike miles in one day for nothing. Didn't get to see much of London.

On the other hand, I did spend an entire month in NYC one weekend. Ewwww. I'm not a big city guy. How do you folks sleep?!?!?

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

................
On the other hand, I did spend an entire month in NYC one weekend. Ewwww. I'm not a big city guy. How do you folks sleep?!?!?

Funny, I was born and raised on a farm (quiet), was living out in the country in Missouri (quiet), took a job where I spent most weeks in a 12th floor hotel room in downtown Chicago (much city noise).

When I would go back to the country on weekends, I would have a hard time sleeping ..... because it was too quiet .......


humfrz

[daiheadjai]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

LOL at all the kazoo posts. Yeah, good point, but I'm not talking about engine exhaust sound; I've had that thing plugged up since I bought the car. Piping engine noise intentionally into the cockpit seemed about as dumb a thing as I'd ever heard, so I nixed it right away.

It's so hard to describe sounds. What I'm talking about seems to be more transmission-related; you hear it when each gear engages and you accelerate. It's not a grinding noise or anything that sounds like something's wrong, just sort of an aggressive "OK, GEARS.. we're MESHED and we've got WORK to do" kind of thing. FR-S tranny sound is to BMW tranny sound as Skilsaw sound is to aquarium pump sound, sort of?

I think I know what you mean - like if you let out the clutch "wrong" (maybe too fast?) it makes a sort of "zzzzt!!" sound?
I wonder if it's the clutch delay valve?

[chaoskaze]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

3. Mechanical "Hash" Sound. Not sure how to describe this. The car just sounds somehow more "raw" than the last rash of cars I've owned or currently own (BMW 325i, MB ml430, ml500, 560sl, Audi 80, Volvo 240). On most of those other cars, you heard the rpms change but that's about it. I love the FR-S engine and transmission; plenty of pull from the engine for the kind of driving I do, and the transmission behaves predictably, consistently, and very precisely. Having said that, there's a very distinctive mechanical sound, sort of like some excited frat boy saying "arrrrggggghhhhh" through clenched teeth while lifting a keg, as each gear is engaged and you accelerate towards the next gear. Maybe it's just the ol' "because race car" thing. I don't mind it, but it ain't real refined sounding. Grainy brown as opposed to Grey Poupon.


Barry

Have you take out the stock sound tube or just plug it up from within the cabin? The car's stock tube has this resonance @ highway speed. 65-80

[NOHOME]

Originally Posted by humfrz

So, you left London and were looking forward to going to South Dakota .......????? .

I've never been to London, Ontario, but I did spend a week in South Dakota one weekend .........


humfrz

Yeah...I did not know what I was getting into

Long story, but I did get an electrical engineering degree out of the move and learned to love the state and the people that live there. Both have served me well for 30 years.

[NOHOME]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

I rode my bike from Massena, NY to London, ON and back in one day to look at a Fiat Spider. Put a deposit on it, only to discover it was just about impossible to get across the border. Sigh. That was a lot of VERY cold bike miles in one day for nothing. Didn't get to see much of London.

On the other hand, I did spend an entire month in NYC one weekend. Ewwww. I'm not a big city guy. How do you folks sleep?!?!?

Not much to see. Best part of London is the 401 makes it easy to get out of town if you ever want to do something.

[PabloN]

Back to the OP's post, I agree with everything said about taking this car on long road trips. For my somewhat stately anatomy (5'11", 185 lbs) I'd rather drive the FR-S on a long trip than any other car I've owned. I have one of the earlier models (#11,111 off the assembly line) that did not come with the underbody panels that I've heard are standard on ROW models (and on more recent US models), so the first thing I did was add those. I don't have decibel measurements for backup, but I'd swear the road noise is noticeably reduced. Plus there's some protection of the underbody, and I suppose even a little aerodynamic gain.

[krayzie]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOftafUqRqQ"]TOYOTA 86　テレビ番組　『å³*[TOUGE]ã€�volume 157 - YouTube[/ame]

[MuseChaser]

Thanks for posting that; some beautiful scenery, although some truly snoozeworthy driving

I almost always turn down my sound when viewing videos because the music chosen for the soundtracks usually grates on my nerves. I'm an admitted music snob; I want to hear music played by musicians, not programmed by engineers and created on a computer. I don't want to hear singers that are completely dependent upon studio equipment to sing in tune, or who whine, croak, scream, or otherwise inject false emotion into otherwise meaningless or trite lyrics. Melody, interesting harmonic progressions, and human-created groove, baby, or I'm out. What a pleasant surprise to hear the soundtrack on this video.. a jazz group playing a tune based on the chord changes (albeit slightly simplified... I'll explain further if anyone asks..) to John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." That's about the last thing I would have expected to hear in a car promo. Maybe I should move to Japan!

Wish I could read Japanese.. curious as to what the captions were saying. Locations? Features? Anyone here able to translate, at least roughly?

Thanks again. I laughed at the spot where they drove on the beach. Down on the outerbanks, NC, I've helped folks get their 4wd trucks un-stuck (mostly first-timers who didn't realize they didn't have their 4wd engaged, or hadn't aired down their tires), and teasingly suggested to my wife that we should take the FR-S out on the sand. It would have made it about a foot, and stayed there for the rest of its life.

Barry

[krayzie]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

Thanks for posting that; some beautiful scenery, although some truly snoozeworthy driving

I almost always turn down my sound when viewing videos because the music chosen for the soundtracks usually grates on my nerves. I'm an admitted music snob; I want to hear music played by musicians, not programmed by engineers and created on a computer. I don't want to hear singers that are completely dependent upon studio equipment to sing in tune, or who whine, croak, scream, or otherwise inject false emotion into otherwise meaningless or trite lyrics. Melody, interesting harmonic progressions, and human-created groove, baby, or I'm out. What a pleasant surprise to hear the soundtrack on this video.. a jazz group playing a tune based on the chord changes (albeit slightly simplified... I'll explain further if anyone asks..) to John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." That's about the last thing I would have expected to hear in a car promo. Maybe I should move to Japan!

Wish I could read Japanese.. curious as to what the captions were saying. Locations? Features? Anyone here able to translate, at least roughly?

Thanks again. I laughed at the spot where they drove on the beach. Down on the outerbanks, NC, I've helped folks get their 4wd trucks un-stuck (mostly first-timers who didn't realize they didn't have their 4wd engaged, or hadn't aired down their tires), and teasingly suggested to my wife that we should take the FR-S out on the sand. It would have made it about a foot, and stayed there for the rest of its life.

Barry

Toyota actually made 157 episodes in total of these 5 minute short segments that were shown on BS Nippon Japanese Satellite TV every Sunday night at five mins to ten. They started in July 2012 and covered some 50,000km of mountain passes with the 86 all over Japan.

Here is the list to all of the videos:

youtube.com/watch?v=QikEwnELTIQ&list=PLB6038F8C74CFCDD7

I wonder if they would do this all over again with the facelift.