Would you buy a discounted Holden?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

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Had it loaded up today with three skids, some time behind the wheel with weight on it and empty.

You can notice the weight on it with the brakes obviously, you need a bit more pedal to pull it up but it still moves along nicely.

Something I don't like about it is the way the throttle is mapped, it's like if you just use light throttle from a dead stop at the lights, it barely responds but if you give it a bit more pedal it starts hustling off the mark quite nicely, it's not turbo lag it's the way it's mapped which is a bit annoying.

Had a lot more time with the stereo, Bluetooth functionality is good and the stereo isn't bad once you get the volumes up to around 50-75% maximum volume, it's got a fair bit of bass.

I seemed to be averaging around 7.5L/100km across 30km or so with my driving style, mostly highway at 100km/h with a few kilometres of suburban stop start either side.

NVH sorta sucks you can notice the bonnet shaking at idle and you still feel those vibrations through the seat at idle at the lights.

Something else that's on my ****list that I just remembered was the performance of the fan in the HVAC system, on fan speed 3 out of 4 with the air directed at face and feet with recirculation on there isn't much forced air coming out the center vents on the dash, it's about the equivalent of my Focus on its first fan speed with the same face and feet vents.

The AC in the Colorado was quite cold but it was only low 20s today in Melbourne, the real test comes in with the mid 30s and low 40s, that's where the Euros fall over.

Summed up it goes well with a load on it but the throttle mapping isn't to my taste (minor issue, could be tuned out) the infotainment system is basic but it works well, stereo isn't bad, there's some NVH issues and it's pretty good on fuel but it's a light commercial vehicle, not a 'passenger vehicle', the biggest reminder is the clattery diesel noise and it's vague car park steering (do these have recirculating ball steering rather than rack and pinion?)

Probably wouldn't take it on an interstate trip as the ride is a bit halal - and that's coming from someone whose done Melbourne to Adelaide 6x in a Fiesta ST avoiding most of the Western Highway.

I am rather interested in what it would do with an FMIC, DPF delete, 3" turbo back exhaust, set of high flow injectors and a tune, I feel like it'd wake up very nicely and make up for some of the short falls.

Street Quick Performance in WA seems to have some good results out of these:

No mechanical mods, just tuning.



Also interestingly this section:

In the calibration above, factory power was 109rwkw...torque peaked at the factory rated 500nm. Baseline 2.8L Duramax automatic. Through careful calibration SQP are able to lift this rating by 30% with NO MECHANICAL MODS. Standard exhaust and standard air box!

We have a range of calibration options from a one shot fix for the throttle lag and torque response issue commonly exhibited in standard calibrations though to our 135rwkw responsive calibration that is an excellent 25% gain aimed at the long distance tow guys. Matched with automatic controller recalibration, this thing just runs down the road eating up miles. Contact SQP today for further details.

The bold part is what I am talking about with the throttle mapping.

http://www.streetquick.com.au/diesel...rds-ecu-tuning