HP or Torque

wotzgoingon

Which is better to have more torque or higher HP.
I was reading on another site and somebody said torque gets you there while HP keeps you there.
Take for example a Mitsubishi Mirage Mivec 175PS/ 167NM
Golf TDI 105PS/ 250NM (I know there is faster TDI golfs, just using this one)

Mivec 0-100km 7.4s
Golf 0-100km 11.3

You would think with the golfs higher torque it would have a faster 0-100 time.

Supergurrier

inb4jesus

Ded_Zebra

Very extensive thread on this alreadyif you do a search

CiniO

HP together with car weight, gives you general idea how fast it is.
Torque on it's own tells you absolutely nothing.

colm_mcm

All torque and no action

wotzgoingon

Ded_Zebra wrote: »

Very extensive thread on this alreadyif you do a search

I was thinking that alright, but never bothered to search.

Sitec wrote: »

Why would you think that?

I don't know maybe because I'm no expert on cars.

colm_mcm wrote: »

All torque and no action

Good one.

Jesus.

For everyday driving its Torque all the way, OP. (Despite what everyone else might tell ye )


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=87728750

CiniO

Jesus. wrote: »

For everyday driving its Torque all the way, OP. (Despite what everyone else might tell ye )

My previous car was Mazda 6 2.0 petrol. Current one is Honda Civic 2.2 (diesel).

Both weight similar.
Both have around 140 HP.
But torque on Mazda is 181 Nm, while on Honda 340 Nm.

And you know what - both have quite similar performance, similar acceleration and similar maximum speed.

So please tell me - what does nearly twice bigger torque on my honda give?

hi_im_fil

You don't have to rev as high to make peak power

CiniO

hi_im_fil wrote: »

You don't have to rev as high to make peak power

Is this an advantage or disadvantage, as I'm not sure

My point was, that if I look into car specifications, and I see a car with certain HP and certain weight, I approximately know how fast it is.
When I see just car's torque this doesn't tell me absolutely anything about car's performance.

hi_im_fil

It depends on what the driver wants and what the vehicle is being used for.

For a daily driver you're not going to want to have to rev it to make progress. Whereas for a hot hatch, you may want to be able to use the upper side of the rev range.

I agree about the peak torque / hp stats. Ideally what you want to see is the torque or power curve.

Jesus.

CiniO wrote: »

My previous car was Mazda 6 2.0 petrol. Current one is Honda Civic 2.2 (diesel).Both weight similar.Both have around 140 HP.
But torque on Mazda is 181 Nm, while on Honda 340 Nm.
And you know what - both have quite similar performance, similar acceleration and similar maximum speed.

I'm not sure by your answer that you read where I said "for everyday driving". You're giving the impression that you're talking more like a track scenario or other such situations where you'd be pushing the car to its limits? "Maximum speed"???

CiniO wrote: »

So please tell me - what does nearly twice bigger torque on my honda give?

I'm not talking about specific cars because you're the one that should be telling me how your two cars drive, not the other way around.
But all else being equal, the torquier car would allow for more "effortless" acceleration, IE you don't have to thrash the engine as much. That might not be to your taste but to a lot of people, for everyday driving, that is what they would prefer.

Jesus.

CiniO wrote: »

Is this an advantage or disadvantage, as I'm not sure
My point was, that if I look into car specifications, and I see a car with certain HP and certain weight, I approximately know how fast it is.
When I see just car's torque this doesn't tell me absolutely anything about car's performance.

You're missing the whole thing regarding "everyday driving" mate. If you're simply looking for how "fast" a car is, then fair enough but that would be more suited to a guy who's driving around a race track rather than driving around the roads.

Two different things entirely

CiniO

Jesus. wrote: »

I'm not sure by your answer that you read where I said "for everyday driving". You're giving the impression that you're talking more like a track scenario or other such situations where you'd be pushing the car to its limits? "Maximum speed"???

Anyone looking at HP or Torque figures does it because of interest in car perfomance. Performance is something you use in everyday driving. Not necesserily top speed, but 0-100km/h acceleration - definitely.

I'm not talking about specific cars because you're the one that should be telling me how your two cars drive, not the other way around.
But all else being equal, the torquier car would allow for more "effortless" acceleration,

Sorry, but we can talk about effordless acceleration when I compare riding normal bicycle to electric bicycle. On electric, accelerating is more effordless, and I don't need to pedal so hard.
But when it comes to cars, it's all about pressing the gas pedal and waiting for the car to accelerate.
I see no difference in accelerating in diesel from 1500 - 3000 rpm, or petrol from 3000rpm to 6500rpm. For me it's same thing - just having my right foot down.

IE you don't have to thrash the engine as much.

Engine doesn't get trashed by using high revs.

That might not be to your taste but to a lot of people, for everyday driving, that is what they would prefer.

If people prefer driving on lower rev's - fair play to them.
That's what diesels are for.
But what does it have to do with torque and HP. Those two are measures related to the engine, and only one of it gives approximate idea of car performance, while other one means nothing.
It's not like the higher torque, then lower RPM you will be able to use if you like it, as you seem to be suggesting

Esel

colm_mcm wrote: »

All torque and no action

Torque is cheap.

CiniO

Jesus. wrote: »

You're missing the whole thing regarding "everyday driving" mate. If you're simply looking for how "fast" a car is, then fair enough but that would be more suited to a guy who's driving around a race track rather than driving around the roads.

Two different things entirely

So you are saying, that you would look at torque of an engine, to be able to decide if car will be good in everyday use? Am I right?

Donnelly117

Not again. This was down to death a few weeks back!!!

wotzgoingon

To mods maybe you can lock this thread as somebody linked to the other thread where this was done before. Next time I will use the search function before starting a thread.

colm_mcm

Cool