Miller cycle

[wuvvum]

Today I did something I really hate doing. I drove in London. And I mean properly in London - I crossed the river at Tower Bridge. The reason I hate driving in London is that I always manage to get lost, even with the sat nav - partly because some of the junctions are so fugging complicated that I can't always tell which turning I should take, and partly because in the City the buildings are so tall that the nav often loses its signal. Fortunately, following a wrong turn and then an attempt to remedy that wrong turn being thwarted by roadworks, I found myself on Crutched Friars - I know EC3 reasonably well due to having worked there in the past, so I was able to get onto Aldgate and thence down to Whitechapel and the A11.

 

Anyway, the reason I put myself through all this was to pick up this slightly battered beastie.

 

 

It's a Xedos 9, with the 2.3-litre Miller cycle V6 engine, and it's a car that's been on my list for some time. Of course it came up at a time when I have absolutely nowhere to put it, but as these don't come up for sale very often I decided to go for it anyway.

 

The Miller cycle differs slightly from the Otto cycle in that it hold the exhaust valve open for a significant portion of what would normally be the compression stroke. This reduces the loss of momentum that the piston suffers due to being slowed by the compressed air. To make up for the reduced amount of compression that the engine would otherwise suffer from, a supercharger is fitted. It's yet another of those wonderful engineering dead ends that Mazda were the only manufacturer daft enough to put into mass production.

 

So what's it like? "Underwhelming" would be the way I would describe it - both the engine and the whole car. The engine sounds nice enough - a standard V6 soundtrack overlaid with the whine from the supercharger - but for something that's supposed to be producing 220bhp it ain't got a lot of go. I thought there was something wrong with the car, but having checked the road test figures when I got home, 0-60 is supposed to take 9.2 seconds, which is a) about what it felt like the car was doing and crap for a 220 horsepower saloon. It also has a low-rev missfire, probably down to being overdue a plug change - the rear bank is such an arse to get to that they've probably never been changed in the lifetime of the car. It's smooth enough at higher revs though, and the gearbox does its thing OK, although it's far from a sporty effort and the kickdown isn't the most responsive I've ever come across either. It feels a lot quicker at motorway speeds than it does off the line to be fair - I managed to leave a tailgating TT behind on the A11.

 

The rest of the car is a bit of a mixed bag too. The seats are nicely trimmed in leather, but they're rather flat and shapeless and quite firm - almost German-feeling, in fact. The rest of the interior doesn't really feel like a luxury car either - it's well enough equipped, with electric windows and roof, climate control, cruise control, TCS, twin airbags etc, and there's a bit of token wood on the centre console and round the window switches, but it doesn't feel special in any way. Also, there's no sign of any kind of trip computer, which I would have thought would have been something of an oversight in an executive car by 2000. The bonnet is another example - you have to heave it up by hand and then prop it up with a metal rod, instead of the gas-assisted struts I would have expected to find on a car in this category.

 

The ride is quite firm too, although the flip side is that it corners nice and flat, and it seems to handle well enough, although the steering is somewhat vague. Turning circle is crap too.

 

One bonus is that it has quite an expensive-looking JVC DAB radio / CD player, which sounds rather nice. The sunroof is a nice touch too - especially as the temperature knob on the climate control doesn't seem to do anything so the temperature is stuck at 22 degrees.

 

Overall I'm slightly disappointed really. I don't regret buying the car because it was cheap enough and it's also scratched a long-standing itch, but I don't think it's going to work in its intended role as a performance car to replace the Stagea. I'm going to treat it to a set of plugs and see if that improves matters, but if not I think it may be punted on fairly quickly...

[cort16]

Great right up wuvvum I've always really fancied one of these myself. I think Mazda won the engine of the year award for it when it came out as its quite a clever setup. It must be really heavy to be that slow. That kind of bhp normally gets sub 8 seconds 0-60.

 

Do you think Mazda are the king of the odd engine? This , the wankel and the 1.8 v6 in the mx3.

[Shep Shepherd]

Looks like a pretty reasonable car

[garethj]

 

I'm glad there are automotive dead-ends like this, although I'd probably feel different if I'd forked out for an executive car in 2001 and nobody knew wtf the engine was about 3 years later.

 

Ford were deeply into "lean burn" in the late 1980s, it looked like a clever way of reducing emissions while keeping power up. Unfortunately catalytic converters became mandatory a few years later and Ford had to put all that research in the bin.

 

wuv, you are the hero of cars that nobody else has heard of, let alone has owned

[Spiny Norman]

There were a few for sale up here when I was looking for a barge a while back and I went and had a look at one but I've got to say I wasn't tempted.

There must be some engine characteristic than makes them feel so slow, it's got about the same power as my E320 Benz and weighs couple of fat bastards less but I thought it was pretty gutless too. Also didn't like the supercharger noise, never have.

 

Still, a nice rare old barge and a change from the tatty old Lexus GSs you see from the same period.

[vulgalour]

The very definition of interesting, possibly with a *.

[phil_lihp]

Well bought! I always thought these were very handsome cars and they have the added bonus that you're always likely to be the only one in the street who owns one. That's a good colour too, although the metallic beige I've seen these in before would be better still.

 

Despite the quirky engine, presumably it should have the usual jap reliability? A quick polish and it'll be a classy cheap barge to waft around in, forget the lack of power and cruise instead

[cort16]

I think the previous model Xedos is a better looking car. It looks more like an mx-6 and this looks a bit more like the 626, which is a bit plainer.

 

[Lacquer Peel]

That's a Xedos 6, wuvvum's is a Xedos 9.

I like the 1990s era Mazdas, they were trying to be different. Supercharged diesel anyone?