C5 X7 acceleration times

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vborovic
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C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by vborovic »

I made use of a nice & sunny day today to finally complete some test runs on a closed course, using Torque Pro (Android) and BT OBD II reader, to record the car acceleration, compare it to theoretical values and compare the 3 possible 6-speed auto gearbox (AM6) modes, that is: Normal, Sport & Snow ... what I've found really came as a surprise, because it seems my gearbox is either not working as it should (can't compare to anything else to be certain) or it doesn't care for different modes whatsoever ... the results are visible in the table provided below ... the time is in seconds, of course:

Image

I've made 3 runs for each setting, and the 4th run with ESP turned off (made no difference, but I expected that ... remember that it kicks back on after passing 50 km/h) ... the test results are very similar to those that are available from various sources, I'll list just one as a reading material:

http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/2 ... matic.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Any comments? I'd expect the Sport mode to either accelerate faster, or to be able to reach higher top speed at 1/4 mile. The test runs were done on good summer tires, the wheels never spun while doing the standing start, the gas pedal was kicked down fully, and never released until the 1/4 mile was completed. I don't expect the car to do drag times (it's a Citroen after all), but as it is now, I fail to see the Sport mode existence, or, maybe it is somehow faulty on my car, that I wasn't even aware of.
Last edited by vborovic on 21 Mar 2015, 18:45, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by Stickyfinger »

To me that's a typical High Torque 2ltr, I don't see much use for the sports mode anyway as I prefer to kick it if I need to so these figures just confirm that.
I use the torque more that any revs it gives as a style of driving an oilier.........and personally I find the sport mode just lets it go off the power curve. (and it seems it does)
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by osx »

At what gear did you reach 100 with each mode? An extra gear change in sport mode can make a difference
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by Jodyone »

Sport mode should mean later changes, surely..? So if anything, fewer changes before a given threshold, not more.

I use "Sport" occasionally because it seems to kick down earlier, but if I want a lower gear for overtaking etc, I'm more likely to just select gears manually.

"Sport" is a silly marketing term for cars like this, which are about as unsporting as modern motoring gets. Low-range torque is a given with modern diesels, but the mechanical advantage of lower gears shouldn't be forgotten either. Finding maximal performance is a delicate balancing act of these and other variables; the Aisin-Warner gearbox in our cars is an off-the-shelf component used by lots of different cars with different engines, I'm not surprised if its general normal/sport settings don't get the best out of every configuration.
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by myglaren »

Followed a Renault Traffic "Sport" van through Birtley yesterday :roll:
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by Northern_Mike »

0-100 times are drivel anyway, and pointless in the real world, done only for marketing reasons? I mean, does anyone really drive like that, ever?

I'd suggest going back to the track, and doing the same for 40-120km/h times. I expect you'll find Sport mode is a bit quicker then.
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by bxzx16v »

The in gear acceleration of my old Laguna 3 with the 2.0 dci was very impressive, it would leave my 406 V6 for dead, but then it did have 295ftlbs of torque on tap .

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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by vborovic »

I see I've opened up an interesting debate ... :D ...

@ osx - I didn't have the time to note the exact gear on 100 km/h, I'll need a co-driver for that, from memory, I think it was mostly the 3rd one

@ Jody - that's what I expected as well, but apart from the bit longer 1st, no major changes ... I do sometimes use Sport mode during driving, but to be honest, no difference that the regular, it maybe drops one gear lower than usual, but that's all, and I notice that when doing 60-70 kmh in normal in 5th, the Sport mode would drop it to 4th

@ Mike - Like I've said, I'm not interested in drag racing, but just for the sake of argument, at least I didn't find such an "experiment" available anywhere, so far, that's why I wanted to check for myself ... I know the car is smart, but I fail to see the Snow mode useability, since it accelerates to 100 exactly the same as both Normal & Sport modes ... it starts with the 3rd gear rather than 1st (at least on display), how can it achieve the same values?
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by osx »

Jodyone wrote:Sport mode should mean later changes, surely..? So if anything, fewer changes before a given threshold, not more.

I use "Sport" occasionally because it seems to kick down earlier, but if I want a lower gear for overtaking etc, I'm more likely to just select gears manually.
You are right it should be fewer changes in Sport mode.
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by Richard_C »

Surely the mode on the auto box is irrelevant if you just floor the accelerator, it changes down and holds each gear as long as it can. My C5 is a manual, but my last SAAB was an auto. There the sport mode meant it changed down earlier and held each gear longer on part throttle opening, so it felt quicker, but on full throttle opening it just got on with things whichever mode you we're in.

To compare modes, maybe the answer is to accelerate with the pedal part way down, my C5 has a distinct point you can feel, in each mode and see what the times are.

As far as I know that distinct point, on the manual, is the point beyond which you over ride the speed limiter if set, and it maybe the point at which the ac compressor temporarily disengages. Don't know if cars do that any more, but certainly my old Granada thought "hey, he wants max power, so I'll turn off the ac compressor". You could hear it disengage.

I wonder how manufacturers get the official figures, I bet it's nothing you would want to do to a car you own.

I concur with an earlier comment, in real life it's all a bit irrelevant. In days of steam locos one important thing for journey times was what they called "recovery time", so if a train scheduled to run at 120kph had to slow down for any reason how long did it take to "recover" to scheduled speed with the 22 coaches the loco was dragging along. That's why a King was better than a Castle from Bristol to Paddington, but their top speeds were very similar.

In cars thats all about torque and well chosen gear ratios. If I'm on a motorway and have to slow to 80kph, my 2.0 160 recovers my armchair to cruising speed very nicely, in 5th if I can be bothered, 4th if a chav in a Beemer is hassling me, or in 6th if I am lazy. That and holding a relaxed high speed cruise is what makes for good journey times on a long trip.
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by Stickyfinger »

Did you get RMP at change ?
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Re: C5 X7 acceleration times

Post by vborovic »

@ Richard - I've thought about that, but first I need to figure out the options with Torque app, because introducing manual methods (stopwatch etc) won't provide useable data ... I remember seeing the app has acceleration modes, i.e. 60-120 (mph or kmh, not sure at this point), so I could easily do that, fix the car speed just below that via cruise control, and then test the 3 modes with in-drive acceleration and see how it goes ... and will the values be any different from one another that from the standing start ... keep the comments coming, also, if you think I'd need to note something else (like max RPM, gear upon max value, etc), feel free to let me know, I could spare time to do some extra runs and see how it goes
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