Take your example and look at it again, are you not already moving when you enter the on-ramp? So how does 0-60 matter in that scenario.

 

Powerband and torque are what will get the lambda driver to it's cruising speed, not the 0-60. Max acceleration on a fit = never under 4000rpm. Normal acceleration = never over 4000rpm. That's why turbo diesel in Europe are so popular (with the fuel economy obviously).

 

Occam, I can see where you are coming from... Spending most of the 80s driving in Dallas traffic in a heavily loaded VW pickup, I learned to stay on the power band in 2nd gear and with enough distance between me and the car in front so I was able to accelerate to speed without putting an excessive load on the drive train.... Even if a person that is in front of me stops I maintain the distance needed to accelerate to the speed of moving traffic or faster once I am moving.... People in Dallas are insane, especially the ones in SUVs and big pickups and there are a lot of them.

 

OK... so, just for you guys, here is why I believe 0--60 times are important:

Onramp #1
Onramp #2

On both of these onramps, I've got the pedal to the floor, and it's just me in the car. If I regularly had a full load of passengers, safely getting up to the speed of traffic before merging would be nigh impossible. Of course, 0-60 times as reported by magazines don't address the effect of hills (these are uphill ramps) or extra weight in the car, but knowing you have a bit of extra oomph if necessary is good.

And no, California doesn't believe in acceleration lanes.

 

Your videos just proved though that 0 - 60 means jack. You were already moving upon entering the on-ramp at probably 20+mph. A better number for real-world driving would be a 10-70 as it can be related to the everyday scenario.

 

0-60 is a good benchmark though, as it's easy to set the low-end speed. 20-70 would be better, since almost all cars will jump from a start, and higher performance cars require a bit of babying to keep from spinning the tires.

I don't spend much time driving in circles on a 600 foot skid track, running exactly 1/4 mile, or swerving between cones, but these are all indicative of the level of performance a car will offer in the real world. 70-0 braking is interesting, but braking in a straight line? I have ABS so that I can brake and swerve at the same time. They should offer that in the tests as well.

These are all performance benchmarks - you may not do the exact test, but you can easily compare the results since they are tested against a standard. 20-70 would be more applicable perhaps, but I can't imagine that 10 cars ranked by 0-60 would be very disordered on 10-70 or 20-70.

 

The simple explanation for the euro love of diesels is that they generally fill the void where a V6 option would be in the states. Gas is too damn expensive, and cars are often taxed based on displacement. They also never had the Olds Diesel to kill diesel in the minds of consumers for a generation, much as shoulda-been-aborted cars like the Pinto, Chevette, Omni, and Pacer nearly killed the hatchback.

I'd love to have a diesel Jeep Wrangler. I'd love to have another Wrangler period, and with gas at only $3, it wouldn't be too expensive to run: if I cared about saving gas, I wouldn't take 200+ mile weekend motorcycle trips. But, I know if I bought it and gas shot back up to $5+, I'd be kicking myself. This baby is my hedge against future gasoline spikes.

 

I'll do 10 or 20 to whatever speed you like but 0 to 30 even is abusively damaging to tires and drive train.... I need new engine mounts already.... I suppose if you are talking about a Fit with an automatic transmission 0 to 60s wouldn't be all that destructive since the torque converter smooths things out.