see title.

a little bit about myself. i am on travel most of time and i have driven pretty much every car/suv/van in AVIS selection. this time, i happen to have Ford Edge limited with AWD.

so it was a nice SUV, and i really liked it. thinking about recommend it to my parents as their next SUV of choice. i went online and here is what i saw under the spec:

3.5V 285 HP...

while there is nothing wrong with the car and the spec looks very nice, i happen to drive cars with that engine spec. the 3.5V 286 HP Acura TL-S. and this ford is in no way, shape or form deliver the acceleration of that J35. in fact, the edge accelerate felt less than VM passet, which has only 170 HP.

this has inspired me to look for more cars i have driven from AVIS, and the patten is obvious: most of American new cars (just because most of AVIS rental cars are american brand) all came with very nice looking numbers but they seriously felt slow for the number they claim. i am not sure this is because those rental cars has something added to the system to limit amount of power they can produce? or the industry has found someway to trick people.. anyways. i just want to say that you really cannot wave out certain vehicles just because their HP is low on the spec, because apparently some HP is less than others.

 

Don't forget about gearing. Transmissions differ.

Power delivery is never equal. Especially when you're comparing an American SUV with a Japanese/German sports sedan.

 

you forgot two very important things: weight and torque.

 

Consumer Reports pretty much slammed Ford's Ecoboost engines, not as quick or as good MPG as some NA counterparts.


Also - I had a friend that dumped one of these after 1 year because they couldn't stand the Sync/MyTouch crap.

 

i would normally agree with the weight/transmission thing, except... i have driven so many car/suvs and some of the cars i had, like this one, just cannot live up to the claim.

for example.. the FX35, which weights more than ford edge, feels much faster. yes it is 17 hp more than this edge, but the difference is night and day... my recent rental car volvo S60 T5, been only 250 HP, kicks more *** than Chrysler 300C which i had few month ago.

one thing i noticed that a lot of american cars (and toyota rentals) that i had, just doesn't like to rev up, and they also perform quite underwhelming even if you rev near the peak. the engine note is just horrible and feels it is going to self destruct.

 

it is not just power... look at MPG ratings from Ford (turbos and hybrids), they are gaming the system.

TTAC tested Ford Escape and noticed something about space listed for the seats - it was nowhere to be found, while Ford has been advertising it as biggest rear seat... what happened to it? They found out that Ford measured it with front seats up :-).

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...cape-titanium/

 

This is not the least bit scientific and I have all sorts of problems with the generalizations being made, but I think you might have a point. I had a rental Chevy Impala with the 3.6L 300hp V6 (I checked), and it didn't feel anything like 300hp. My BMW 335i, the heaviest possible E93 convertible weighing 4000lbs, felt way faster than that car did and it weighs more than the Impala does too.

A couple of things. Gearing felt a lot longer in the Impala, the Germans under-rate their power, and there's way more torque in turbocharged engines. The "Crapala" didn't sound the least bit refined either. I know the engine is - I think all of the unpleasant sounds were coming from engine accessories. I did have a Ford F-150 rental truck once with the 3.7L V6, and I thought it moved that big heavy truck around just fine for the most part, and that it sounded pretty good and sporty too.

As for your TL-S vs Edge comparison, yes the Edge does weigh a lot more, it also has AWD which will suck away power too, and gearing once again. If you're "testing" to higher speeds, the Edge and any SUV will have a whole lot more aerodynamic drag that will come into play also.

Thanks to EPA regulations, a lot of cars drive like crap these days with their stupid transmission programming. They'll lug like crazy and try to maintain the highest overall gear until you're pretty much floored, at which point THEN they'll kickdown a gear or three and go like crazy, which makes it very difficult to get "medium rate" acceleration. Had the same issue in my RAV4 V6 which I owned and eventually got tired of and sold. Have you had a Dodge Journey? Good God that thing was horrific. Couldn't stand it and had to drive it with the transmission in manual mode.

That's the general theme these days. The big powerful cars have to have their transmission programming dumbed down like crazy to meet EPA goals. My BMW 335i is no different, but fortunately it has regular and sport mode, and full manual so I'm happy.

 

Yeah no this thread is really funny. Just because you have similar specs does not mean similar performance. One's an AWD CUV and the other a FWD sedan. Weight is your biggest factor, the other being gearing as others have mentioned.

 

The rental places usually have base engine or midline engine, my friends sister has a fully loaded Limited with the 3.7L V6 AWD, considering it's weight it can get off the line faster then a V6 Camry, mostly due to the AWD but once 30-40 hits and the Camry hits its sweet spot and leaves the EDGE behind.

My friends 2 sister both have EDGEs one was traded for a Murano after it had over 120k, nothing but oil changes and tires, if it was somewhat maintained it would probably be around but the lack of maintenance made a ton of small things get worse and worse, the 2nd one is having issue but once again just oil changes, everything else is factory.

Excellent vehicle for the mileage they got out of them with no maintenance

 

I previously owned a 2012 Ford Edge Sport AWD. It was equipped with the 305 horsepower 3.7 liter V6. Other Edge models are equipped with the 285 horsepower 3.5 liter V6. I never felt the Edge was underpowered versus its competition. It's a fairly heavy vehicle; my Sport model weighed nearly 4,400 lbs. I drove a Mustang with the same 3.7 liter V6 and it was obviously much faster than the Edge, as is my 2013 Lexus GS 350 AWD, which has surprisingly similar horsepower and torque figures to that Ford V6 (torque output is lower).

The 3.5 liter V6 equipped Edge models weigh less than the Sport models, so acceleration times are almost identical. If you are comparing a previous generation Acura TL Type-S (3,500 lbs.) to a Ford Edge, you're looking at a vehicle which weighs nearly 500 lbs. less than an AWD non-Sport Edge (4,000 lbs.), so I'd expect it to be faster. As to the Infiniti JX35 seeming to be faster, that could be due to the CVT droning. In reality, it is likely a slower vehicle than a given Edge model:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...dge-sport-test
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...er-test-review

The Passat, equipped with the 2.5 liter I5, isn't even in the same league (acceleration-wise) as any of the previously-mentioned V6 vehicles.