Lack of power?

[iburgess]

I have the base Vibe, FWD, 5spd. Is it just me, or does this car's power suck on the highway? I have to gear down on every hill, sometimes into 3rd on large long hills. And even with that, my foot is to the floor just to maintain speed. And God help me if I'm fighting a strong head wind. I practically have to keep the pedal to the floor in this situation too. Do you all have similar experiences?I sure hope the Super Charger that's sceduled to come out will help to over come this. I bet it will even save fuel, as you won't have to floor it all the time.Let me know if I'm crazy here or if you all are finding the same.

[Sub-Vibe-R]

Mine is fine. I do not have to downshift every time I climb a hill. For long or gib hill, I usaully put the trans. in 4th gear and it is ok. BTW, how many km do you have on your Vibe. While brake in, the power is less and increased km after km until the engine totally brake in.

[NovaResource]

I have an base/automatic and I don't have that problem. It's no rocketship in the "stoplight Gand Prix" but I have no problems on the highway. How high are you revving the engine? You know the power really starts at 3000-rpm and above with the base engine. Also, how many miles on the engine? It does get more power as the engine loosens-up and breaks-in.

[iburgess]

I have about 6500 km's on right now (I'm in Canada). At highway speeds, in 5th gear, I'm holding less than 3000 RPM's. I find when I hit a hill, if I didn't gear down in anticipation of the hill, then the engine bogs down and my speed slows. I can gear down to 4th at this point and I can maintain speed. But if I want to get back up to the speed where I was, I need to gear down to 3rd to get some acceleration. If I have the cruise control on, which is reactive to hills rather than proactive, this is even worse. I should clarifiy that small hills, even if they're long ones, are no trouble. This happens when I hit a hill with a decent incline to it. My other car is a Honda Accord 4 cylinder 2.2 litre engine. I just leave that thing on cruise control and any hill is no trouble. The Vibe really gets bogged down though and I'm flooring it a lot. Just want to know if I this is normal.

[KSNeptune]

Well, the vibe is no probe ( a ford probe has the lowest wind resistance of any consumer car built), has a high profile facing the wind, has a 130 horse engine that was intended to be "OK" in a Corolla, and has an engine optimized to have more torque at higher RPMs. If you are light weight, and carry no passengers or load/luggage, then you'll probably zip up and down hills "OK", with only a little downshifting needed to keep RPMs higher when going uphill. The 130hp engine is just barely up to that task. Add more weight, open the windows or moonroof, put a bike on top, and any/all those things mean your Vibe will have to work harder (faster in a lower gear) to go uphill.It's the same in my Vibe w/auto, except that the auto does the downshifting for me. There are only a few monster long hills around me that have made my auto tranny drop TWO gears, but most of the time a single downshift happens if the hill is challenging.What to do? Get the supercharger. Or trade up to a GT. Just realize that the GT has 6 speeds, which mean you're still gonna be down shifting.KSNeptune

[iburgess]

Thanks - guess i'm not crazy after all. The super charger has certainly got my interest. Can't wait until it comes out, assuming I can aford it.CHEERS!

[Chris]

I've got a base Vibe too... it's a fine little car but you do have to 'work it' a bit more than others. Remember, many cars, even 2.0 or 2.2L are optimized for low down torque.. torque peak below 3000 rpm. Our vibe peaks somewhere after that. Don't be afraid to work the gears and rev the car when you drive! Remember, its fun!Seriously, though, when merging and such, I'm often shifting around 6,000 rpm... then I toodle around at 2000 or 2500 on the flats at low speeds. Our little cars need the revs to make power.

[MadBill]

Remember too, the base Vibe is geared for economy. 4th and 5th are both sort of cruise gears. You can do 150 KPH (93 MPH) in third gear at redline. Try that in a Honda!

[Faultline]

Yeah, I dont want to spoil your life if you are a real cruiser, but 3rd gear will get you over 85mph, at over 6000rpms! I always use it on hills and enjoy acceleration even on some good and steep grades! 4th and 5th gear are both over drive gears---less than 1:1 ratio-- and boy , they feel like that too. 5th gear is pretty gutless. I cant wait to see wht the SC will do for those two gears

[ourvibe]

Lucky you don't have the AWD 123 HP, more weight and an automatic. On some hills in the Rockies I have had it right to the floor downshifted as far as it would go (like 5000+ rpm) and still lose speed. But give me a 6 inches of snow I will kick anyones A..

[Lorin]

In defense of the AWD, 123 hp engine - when I was shopping I drove one over Blue Mountain here in PA. I thought it had plenty of power to go as fast as the road allows (no more than 40 mph). Now, this is no Pikes Peak - max elevation of maybe 1.500 feet, so its basically sea level. But, by comparison, it really taxed my 98 hp Mazda to cross the mountain, and my 270 hp 5.7 liter Vortec V8 in my fill size conversion van is happiest at about 25 mph. I agree with everyone - the power happens much higher in the revs than what most of us are used to - just look at some of the dyno charts posted elsewhere - at 2K you have what, maybe 50 hp on tap!

[QUIKAG]

These are low displacement motors that make their power higher up the band. They're designed to run at higher rpms for as long as necessary. Don't be afraid to downshift it. It's actually better for the motor than lugging it at lower rpm. They just don't make that much torque, so you need to spin it up the band to get the most out of it. That said, for the size of the motor, it actually makes some pretty good power.If you want to torque up a hill without downshifting and going to higher rpms, you're going to need a larger displacement six or eight cylinder. My Vette will torque up any hill, but it makes 300lb/ft of torque at 1000rpm, yes, one thousand.