Newbie question...

[xaw57]

Hey guys!! I'm a newbie around here. I've got my new Protege for a week only now. It's a 2001 ES-GT. Damn I like this car...i use to have a ford Escort LX 1993 before. There's a huge difference between those two cars. Anyway I was wondering something about the motor. When I drive at 120 km/h (about 70mph I guess) my RPM indicates 3500!!?? Isn't high for a 2.0L motor? I mean in my Escort with same speed the motor would run at 2900-3000 and it's a 88hp (this motor sucks though).

So just tell me it's normal for that kind of car please!! ;)

Thanks guys

xaw57

[Aricjm15]

yeah thats normal, the protege is geared kinda funky thats all

[Captain KRM P5]

yes that sounds about right

[kickniteasy]

it's normal, funny thing, I went from a 93 escort hatch to this car and was worried about the same thing....small world.

[Lord_Zath]

completely normal. If you want to have good hwy mileage, I'd recommend setting cruise control around 3k rpm's...

[anarchistchiken]

Just FYI, the size of an engine has absolutely nothing to do with the RPMs at a given speed. If a v-12 had the same gear ratios and wheel size that we did, it would run at the same RPMs.

[Lord_Zath]

That's correct. I was simply saying I've noticed that anything over 65/70 on our cars and gas is guzzled like mad...

[Action Jackson]

We have a close ratio gearbox and what you describe is normal.

Car&Driver did a test including the P5, Matrix, Aerio, etc...

The P5 won in the top gear acceleration test. Trust me it won not b/c it had like 300hp or something....

[anarchistchiken]

Damn skippy. my wallet hates 5th gear, but the car pulls like crazy in top gear for a 130 hp car.