G. David Felt

5 hours ago, ocnblu said:

Car sales people prey on old ladies. 

And old men, salespeople are sleeze in that regards of praying on the easily manipulated. 

Did something happen to your mom? 

4 hours ago, ocnblu said:

I am totally afraid the GMC Sierra will have boomerang lights and that would be a travesty.

Afraid of the Aussie Aussie Aussie's are we?  

48 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

Doubt it..Silverado Hybrid sales were very, very low...

Low True, but talk to those that bought them and they love them and the 110 outlets in the bed.

Change is hard especially for the blue collar work force and when then price it high, as the price drops, I can see the conversion easily happen. Less Maintenance, lower cost to fuel, easily a change over that companies that use plenty of pickup trucks would love.

Nice Update, I like the looks even more than the initial version on release.

Still ugly as ever. 

2 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

That's definitely a custom, there were no factory Lincoln wagons that I know of..interesting..

The station wagon he bought new in southern california before moving up to washington so maybe it was a custom job as they did allot of stuff like that in California.

@ocnblu @Cubical-aka-Moltar @balthazar

I will have to go to my parents to dig out some photo's and scan them in. My dad always said it was a rare auto, he had it painted tan, so not sure what the original color was but it was an early to mid 60's Lincoln Station wagon that looked like this one I found online.

I could be wrong since I was a small kid growing up till it was replaced with the Olds 98 station wagon.

I have included our master of all things old to help me out, but I do remember the long rear glass and the suicide doors, so pretty sure it was a Lincoln.

37 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Uhhh; no.
- - - - -
My house was built in '92 (tho I designed it). I did park my 'Escalade ESV' inside; '65 Bonneville : 222" x 80".

I have a bunch of '50-60s house plan books, and the few garages with 'work bench space' were never full-width, just 'notches' you couldn't push a car nose into, width-wise. I think via those books and direct observation, the 24-ft deep garage only exists on purpose rather than by default. You're lucky to get a true 20-footer at random.

EDIT: just checked my house garage : 19'10" deep from door to block, 18'8" wide due to 2 steps down into garage. I could have gone larger, but I was putting up a 24x48 shop at the same time.

Weird, Maybe this is a west versus East thing as I just measured my garage as my Split Level house was built in 1952, 2 car garage and the inside dimensions from the Garage door to the foundation on the other side is 29', 30 feet if I go foundation to foundation in the garage, but the auto cannot take advantage of that last foot as the garage door is recessed.

So having never lived in a house on the east coast maybe this is just a difference in type of homes built. 

1 hour ago, smk4565 said:

Mercedes sell flaming bags of dog poo as they have a 3-point star on them.  

Good to know you finally admit what MB really is, a badge on dog poo! 

Be interesting to see who they use as a battery supplier and what they bring that is different than the competition.

Plenty of Tesla X on Autotrader with decent mileage and decent pricing.

Totally makes sense and is understandable. I am very interested in their CUV/SUV plans along with EVs.

19 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

Actually, the biggest wagons of the 60s-70s were only about 19.x feet long. (a '71 Pontiac Grand Safari was 230.x long, which is just over 19 feet, for example).   22 feet would be longer than a Cadillac 75 ambulance/hearse.  20 feet is 240 inches, don't think any regular production non-limo was that long back then. 

I need to measure my garage inside or check and see if the dimensions are somewhere in the paperwork. 

Your probably right as I remember my parents Lincoln Station wagon and the last one they owned as a 1977 Olds 98 station wagon and I just remember my dad always saying station wagons were right up there with suburbans for 22 foot long auto's, he just liked being lower compared to me liking being taller.

Now to go and find out just how long that 98 really was.

Found it, 231.8" as it was the longest of it's day before they down sized with the Oil Embargo. OK, so my dad was off as this is just 20 feet long. Still a long big auto.  

3 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

Isn't the whole electric turbocharger there to get rid of lag completely? 

Incorporating all of those has nothing to do with selling an EV. Not sure if you're just trying to plug EVs into everything but that has nothing to do with this vehicle. 

Do you just not like Inline 6's? Because it isn't the same solution as there hasn't been one engine with all of the technology wrapped into one package. Yes, as Drew has said none of it is brand new stuff but it is new to incorporate it into one engine. 

Love Inline 6 engines, fell in love with them with the Jeep Eliminator Pickup that I always wanted.

In regards to Electric Turbo, when not needed the Turbo's impeller spins at 10,000 rpm for minimal hesitation or lag in engine response from pumping air/fuel mixture into the engine. This way you minimize the lag when the driver presses the accelerator. Yet unlike a supercharger that is always pumping in gas/air mixture, the turbo still has lag, though minimal to most people that cannot tell the difference.

The point I am making is SMK talks about HP/Torque, new 48 volt electrical system and comes across as if it is the holy grail of auto powertrains.

Yet we have seen all this tech for a while now in various forms that get it done without having every single one of them on a single engine. Granted MB is the first that I know of to have them all on one engine.

Does that make it better or best? No not necessarily and why I pointed to the fact that their compliance EV auto not only sells terrible but is now a dead product. If they build the best, then why have they not offered a true competitor to Tesla like GM did?

If the Inline 6 was so superior, then why did they dump it for a V6 and why are they now like a chef that really does not know how to cook dumping everything into the pot with what clearly to me and others seems to be overkill on a powertrain with only equaling their current engine output rather than beating it soundly.

I can get from a business standpoint the simplification of all V engines or all Inline engines to minimize cost of tooling and building when you just have to drop 2 or 4 cylinders so you have inline 4, 6, 8 engines.

I get this, but SMK knocks everyone else when they use a family of engines across product lines and then ignores or as has been stated moves the goalposts in regards to MB doing the exact same thing across their product lines.

End result is I hope MB continues their success, but this is not a ground breaking engine or superior to what others are doing and one does have to question this over complication of a powertrain or as I have stated, the cook throwing everything into the pot and hoping something good comes out.

So far, it seems on par with everyone else out there that is building a much simpler engine and for MB, many expect more.

23 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

For a suburban tract house built in 1967, my two car garage is rather small.... my Jeep fits in, I haven't tried getting my sister's Trax in also...probably would have to fold up the mirrors on both.   When I think 1967 suburbia, I think Country Squire wagons and other full size cars of the day, but this builder must have been thinking two Beetles in the garage. 

Yea, that does seem weirdly small considering that we had 22ft long station wagons then.

10 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

As far as the new Chevy, I guess I want to see more trims before I can make an opinion of it..I don't care for blackout or body color trim, so I'm curious what a regular version with chrome front trim look like..an LTZ maybe. It's hard to tell the how the light clusters wrap the corners from that photo..are they flat or rounded? 

The color tabs rounding into the front under the new LED headlights, Not a fan of this Roman or is it greek warrior helmet look. Never cared for it even when they did it big using the bumper. Just looks weird to me.

Agree, need to see this in more trims, but unlike your like of Chrome, I like my auto's to be monochromatic. Less Chrome is more. Leave chrome for the center grill and rims in my opinion.

4 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

It's a Texas thing, I guess..kind of it's own world down there...State Fairs seem like something the rural folk go to.   I know over the last 10 years or so, lots of new pickups and concepts have been revealed at the Texas State Fair.... 

Yes, I would agree with you.

In regards to this new Chevy, totally on the fence as the front end I honestly do not like. I hope and have high expectations for the GMC version.

On 12/16/2017 at 12:05 PM, smk4565 said:

Well that bi-tubo V6 goes back to 2014 model year in 329 hp guise, the E43 396 hp version came out for 2016.  The business case is that it is cheaper to make I-6 engines because they make hundreds of thousands of I-4 engines and 75% of the parts are the same, so they can buy in bulk and build on the same line, etc.  Economies of scale are better.  

And sure they have to meet emission laws, but that is good, they have an engine that emits less C02, uses less gas and makes more power.  Road & Track from the Euro-market S-class with this engine, it made 435 hp 0-60 in 4.7 seconds and they said it can shut the engine off during coasting not just stop lights, and the start stop is unnoticeable, zero shake or vibration.   They were very impressed by it.  

Yet like flip flopping fish you state this is world best with HP and Torque and now you say we do not know anything. So which is it, world best which seems not to be, marketing BS to just confuse the lemmings buying their products or honestly just pushing the agenda of MB makes best of everything?

10 hours ago, daves87rs said:

Is it like and older garage? My aunt's house has a garage that is pretty low (house built in 1922) and barely fit the minivan she had....

So in other words, a House built for a Model A auto rather than anything after that. Course you just about hit the same problem with homes built in the late 80's and forward where they seem to think in these tight live on top of each other neighbourhoods with 6 feet between homes that all you need is a sub compact. 

I hate that it is hard to find a new modern home that can handle an Escalade ESV or any other full size SUV / Truck in the garage. They just do not want to make them a proper 26 feet deep unless it is a tandem garage.

This is why I like the homes built in the 50 to 60's when they used to build them 24 feet long plus another 6 feet for what was considered normal of having a work bench and space. 

1 hour ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

Interesting...hadn't heard of that concept...I was thinking of something more like an SRT style Ram Hellcat, not off road style. 

Cool Concept Truck, which we never heard of as they revealed it at the Texas State Fair. 

How many people go to state fairs except in narrow minded ultra conservative tell the wife to sit in the back seat state of texas.  Yea Texas can be it's own country.

Ram Rebel TRX Concept is a pretty cool ride! :meatl:

So is this Rebel gonna try to raise the south again? 

6 hours ago, balthazar said:

^ Didn't I see this in Robocop 5?

I do not think so, but it does remind me of the car in the original Mad Max Movie. The pursuit interceptor that Max drove with the supercharger.

These are some of the concepts they came up with and did not use for Robocop: http://www.robertwebb.com/robocop.htm

What the hell are those blue smurf mobiles?

Laugh of the day, I had to go to the Emissions center to have my Escalade tested, passed with flying colors and on the way home, driving past Harrison Ford & Lincoln, I saw a semi loading up a bunch of Mercedes-Benz. Specifically on the truck already was a GLS, GL, CLS and C300. I stopped and asked the guy who was climbing down what was up with all the MB's? He said Harris did not like to deal with them in their used auto lot and each one of them had dash lights on about the engines. So they were being dumped on the Wholesale market, he said that he still had 4 more to go to load up. 

With that, a sales rep was walking by and asked if I was interested in trading my Escalade in and I said no, but told him I was surprised by the amount of MB. He said they were all end of lease with issues and that this time of year seems to be popular to dump them for new rides. Harris does not bother due to cost with reselling them, so they dump them into the Wholesale Channel.

Seems to be common with what I have read in the news about surplus MB auto's coming off lease and expensive fixes required.

6 hours ago, smk4565 said:

We don’t know any specs of this engine or the E53 and CLS53 but we do know horsepower, torque and gas mileage will be better than what is in the C43 and E43 now.  That is why I am excited, the E43 (which has won comparison tests) will have had 2 model years and they will replace with something better.   The CT6 twin turbo V6 came out at the same time as the E43, we the CT6 get an all new engine next year?  Will the 540i?  Is the Lexus GS even going to be in production next year?

Or reality, due to MB own emission issues, they were forced to make a radical change so early on a 2yr old engine to meet European emission laws.

From a business sense, this makes no sense to kill off an engine that is only 2yrs old just because. There is more to this story than just because.

5 hours ago, daves87rs said:

I'm with him...I'd go with a GC as well.....the newer ones are growing on me, and anyone I know with a 2012+ loves theirs.

Funny how I read this and thinking of starting my own SUV thread again....it might be time to put the Cobalt out to pasture at the rate it's going.....

Go for it, the GC right now is one of the best SUVs if not the best for the class. You can get such a great deal. My son loves his and got the rare Rhino color for his GC as it stands out and just looks great. You can see how sharp it looks as I added it to our family album of cars we own or have owned.