High tech/high MPG vehicles are great for the well-to-do, fashionably green who can let the dealer maintain their car regardless of thecosts but for the poor folk who are depending on those gas savings to put cash back in their pocket nothing beats to low tech approach. I actually wish the Mirage was available without power windows and without power steering.
MightyMirageMpg (06-16-2016)
I was also waiting on the Elio but it's been a long time. I can't wait anymore.
Well, you can disable the power steering yourself if you like.
But it's an electric motor - not going to have the reliability issues of a hydraulic pump & hoses.
In Canada, the base Mirage has manual rear windows, but the front ones are power. Also, no A/C. (But in central Texas, I don't think you'd want to give up that piece of tech!)
__________________________________________
View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 62.4 mpg (US) ... 26.5 km/L ... 3.8 L/100 km ... 74.9 mpg (Imp)
You are right about the AC, we need that here. As for the rest I would have to disagree. In the 30 years that I've worked on my own cars I've had far more electric motors(starters, window motors, blower motors) go bad than hydraulic steering parts. No matter though, I'd rather have manual steering and the least amount of electric motors as possible.
The steering motor supposedly, per the manual, is "adjusted to draw approximately 40amps" I'm not exactly sure how you adjust an electric motor except through a variable freq drive, or a pwm but either way 40 amps is a TON of electrical load. That's a 1/2hp motor at 14v. Suckers got to be heavy (6-10lbs not to mention the gearbox) there might be a bit too gainn, more than I thought initially. Maybe Doax and metro are onto something, or maybe I'm misunderstand the manual lol
I would've bought the 1.0 ALLLLLL day!
__________________________________________
View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 automatic: 36.9 mpg (US) ... 15.7 km/L ... 6.4 L/100 km ... 44.3 mpg (Imp)
__________________________________________
View my fuel log 2015 Mirage DE 1.2 manual: 46.4 mpg (US) ... 19.7 km/L ... 5.1 L/100 km ... 55.7 mpg (Imp)
inuvik (06-17-2016)
__________________________________________
View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 automatic: 40.5 mpg (US) ... 17.2 km/L ... 5.8 L/100 km ... 48.6 mpg (Imp)