cp-the-nerd

I still hate the naming scheme, too. It doesn't help that they chose not to refresh the ATS or CTS with new names, but the CT/XT naming scheme is so clumsy to say off the tongue.

$60k Luxury sedan with 316 hp/295tq walks away from $35k sedan with 290 hp/253tq. Can't say you're really making a game changing point here. If Volvo's top engine couldn't move the car, they'd be up sh!t's creek.

As long as we eliminate the subsidies for ethanol and electric cars, I'm all for it.

I think it's absolutely hilarious when people prop up government regulations and try to tout "savings" or "reduced cost" in the same breath. That. Is. Delusional. Civilization prospered LONG before government got involved. There's a reason you can't buy a halfway decent compact car for under $20k. It's because of two things: over-complicated powertrains and over-engineered safety standards. Both R&D and the technology cost are passed on to the consumer. Where does a struggling lower/middle class family recoup $5,000 in airbags and fuel economy technology? The 2-3 mpg they *supposedly* gained? Not if they end up spending money out of pocket maintaining the turbocharged GDI engine or 7-10 speed transmission. "But they can buy used," you say. Then how the hell do car manufacturers stay afloat when sales plummet because their new car prices are mandated into the stratosphere with regulations? There's a solution! Get the government out of the equation as much as possible. Manufacturers will compete in a way that advances fuel economy/safety AND maintains or lowers cost. That's how the free market has worked for centuries of technological advancement without authoritarian, massive government. Environmental impact is a strawman argument when you realize the cost vs reward.

I've seen their 4-cylinder powertrains get panned for refinement as well. 6-cylinders are still the current benchmark for luxury refinement, and V8s are still preferable to those. When people talk about intangibles of credible luxury cars, the feel of larger displacement, 6+ cylinder engines is high on that list.

It's going to be this with a different grille:

I hate that official pronunciation of TourX is "Tour Cross," so it's like the Honda Crosstour with the words flipped.

GM has the strangest stubborn streak about certain things. They've doubled down on the useless +/– button on top of the shifter and they refuse to put a Start/Stop cancel button on the interior of many vehicles with the option. Both of these things were universally disliked by owners and reviewers on the previous generation Malibu (and every other Chevy/GM car with those features), yet here they are on a ground-up new car for 2016. I will say that on the Malibu forum, there's a lot of enthusiasm from the new owners. The Premier 2.0T in particular really has a lot of people smitten. It's a legitimately quick car and people are getting mid-30s mpg on the highway. Even people with the 300 horsepower trifecta tune are exceeding the EPA rating. For a low $30k family car (for Premier 2.0T), it's kind of impressive that you can push high 13s with an intake and an aggressive tune.

Thanks all, we've been together for 8 years as of this month. Marriage was only held up by life and finances. It was a beautiful wedding followed by a week in Jamaica (couples resort in Negril). As far as the Q50, it's shocking to me Infiniti built this car as it is. They need to throw out the steering system, scrap every bit of the infotainment system, throw about 20 lbs of sound deadening into the wheel wells, and switch to acoustic laminated glass like so many other manufacturers are using. This car has multiple deal breakers, and it's a ground up new car just a few years old with a refresh under its belt. There were tons of Q50 rentals in the Florida Keys. I know that's anecdotal, but I do wonder if that's a symptom of retail sales issues.

I recently flew to the Florida Keys to get married, and our "premium sedan" rental turned out to be a 2017 Infiniti Q50 3.0T (RWD) with under 1,000 miles. At first, I was pleasantly surprised to have the sport sedan because the rental preview online was a Buick Lacrosse, but my enthusiasm faded during the 100 mile drive from Fort Lauderdale to Islamorada. I'll try to keep my impressions fairly brief and I can answer any questions in detail. Exterior: 7/10 - I find the Q50 completely forgettable. Infiniti has made much better looking cars, this design has some clean lines, but I think the front looks kind of melty and the rear is too generic. Interior Fit/Finish: 8/10 - Slick design and nice materials. Nothing mind blowing, but looked and felt appropriately luxurious. Comfort/NVH: 7/10 - The seats were good and highly adjustable with usable back seats, but the car had pretty bad road and wind noise. It wasn't a particularly good highway companion. Technology: 5/10 - Sitting in the car, you're greeted with a mess of controls and screens. There are two large screens right on top of each other in the center stack that serve separate functions, plus the gauge cluster display, all with their own controls strewn about, and none of them are intuitive. The stereo system left no lasting impression and pairing a new android phone was a pain in the ass. Powertrain: 8/10 - The 3.0T is the lower output version rated 300 horsepower. It made great power (albeit with noticeable turbo lag) and the 7-speed automatic was very responsive. I managed 26+ mpg on the drive pretty easily, I'd say this is par for the course. I actually think this engine is underrated to make the 400 horsepower version look better on paper. The sound at heavy/full throttle was underwhelming for an Infiniti V6, too appliance-like with practically no turbo noise. Steering/Handling: 4/10 - The car handled securely enough, but the EPS is simply awful. Way, way too light and completely numb with a large dead spot in the middle. I was constantly working to center the car in the lane. Sadly, I'm pretty sure this car did not have the widely panned steer-by-wire system, so I can only imagine how bad that must be. Brakes: 8/10 - Great pedal feel with linear response, but it was a tad touchy at the top of the pedal travel for my taste. Conclusion: I ended up wishing we had the Lacrosse shown on the rental website. The only major redeeming quality about this car was the powertrain, which I didn't get to play around with all that much. There's no way in hell I'd opt for this car again as a rental or recommend anyone buy one of them. Infinity needs to rediscover driving dynamics because the Q50 makes a case against investing in RWD if this is what they do with it.

Oh see I'm talking under the assumption that the dipstick is the correct size, like it's been checked after factory to be correct at some point. Besides, if there's a question at the dealership about the dipstick itself, then check it with one from another Malibu on the lot. There are so many reasons a car shouldn't get off a dealership lot with the oil reading incorrectly. Check the oil quantity and filter number against the 2016 Malibu Classic 2.5L (or any 2013-15 Malibu 2.5L). That's what we found to be the issue in one case on the forum.

The dipstick, no question. If the dipstick is incorrect, then there's an underlying problem with the car. That's your primary source of oil level, fundamentally engineered to be fairly precise. At the very least, you should be questioning a significantly overfilled dipstick reading before driving the car or letting a customer take it.

Small world, the link you posted from the Chevy Malibu Forum has some of my posts in it. I'm a mod over there. I would recommend ANY car owner check their dipstick after an oil change, but especially the new Malibu, because GM's policy of selling "Classic" models side by side with new cars for a year seems to be f@#king with mechanics trying to research fluid capacity and maintenance. You would THINK that even idiot mechanics are capable of following a dipstick, but you'd be wrong. Some dealerships are even lying on behalf of their shop.

Absolutely brutal month for sedan sales, holy sh!t. Also, can we get a new sales sheet attachment? This one is very hard to read even at full res.

Entry level luxury coupe/sedan to compete with Audi A3... why do I get the sinking feeling this is going to be FWD.

I'm talking about the way they didn't even make a new grille for the Holden emblem. They punched out GMC and just filled it with chrome.

That GMC is the laziest rebadge job since GM built their last minivan for 4 different brands. All they had to do was give the holden version its own grille, but they were like "No, solid chrome rectangle is fine."

VW got themselves burned by selling diesels without urea treatment. The only magic way around that was cheating. The ecodiesels and cummins trucks have all the required equipment to be legal. I think the final verdict will be much less dramatic than the initial report implies.

Great interior, great new powertrains, honest attention to driving dynamics, but Toyota/Lexus can't design the front of a car to save their lives. Your choices are XSE with a Lexus-style predator grille or the standard model with a gigantic front-spanning grille like an Avalon cranked up to 12.

For me, GMC design has jumped the shark. I was on the fence about the front end on the new Acadia, but this is just completely off the wall. I don't know what GMC's design language is supposed to be anymore. I will say that I love the interior, though.

There was a Pew Research Poll of Muslims around the world and in the US. When asked if suicide bombings and other violence against civilians can be justified, only 86% of AMERICAN Muslims answered rarely/never. There are over 3 million Muslims in the US. I want you to contemplate that there are over 40,000 Muslims in the United States that believe suicide bombing and violence (i.e. terrorism) is justifiable. The numbers are far worse elsewhere in the world. Islam is a dangerous ideology that is not like other religions. Until it undergoes a major reformation like Christianity and Judaism did hundreds of years ago, extremism will continue to be part of their mainstream culture.

They're going to replace the ATS entirely in the next 2 years. Hopefully it'll use the exterior design language from the Escala concept. GM has taken a really weird approach to Cadillac refreshes all the way back to the first gen CTS. There has never been a significant midcycle revision to design or interior even though those are the biggest impact on sales, it's always mundane tweaks like changing the grille. The 2017 CTS is supposedly "refreshed." It has a new grille design and new dual exhaust appearance, but it's barely noticeable even if you're looking for it.

To be fair, that kind of video is not allowed on Facebook, period. That's not to say you don't have a point. It's more how the media downplayed the kidnapping and torture, despite the entirety of the video going viral and eliciting bipartisan disgust and outrage. Major liberal pundits and black apologists tried to call the criminals "troubled" or "kids being stupid." In CNN's original coverage and Chicago's first press conference, the words "racism" and "hate crime" were not even used. NOT. EVEN. USED. The media had been able to largely sidestep the reality of Islamic terrorism with emotional appeal and gun control, but where they usually break the news and establish the desired "narrative" from scratch, the media outlets were two steps behind the public reaction and put forth a narrative that was blatantly at odds with the bandwagon emotional response. It's hilarious to me how the media started 2017 by sticking their hand in a bear trap. Even die hard liberals saw the headlines and said to themselves "Not racist? What would happen if four white guys tortured a disabled black man while making racial slurs?"

Your debate skills speak for themselves. I pointed out your empty arguments and your response is semantics and minutia. Trump wasn't president elect when he was making international deals to benefit his corporate profits. The argument is flimsy at best. Take issue if/when Trump doesn't move his manufacturing stateside in the coming months, his proposed tariffs will affect him, too, afterall. I suppose we should be mad he takes completely legal tax breaks, too? "And just because you disagree with someone's view does NOT make their argument a straw argument but rather shows how the OP wants to validate themselves only so they can remain "special"." Trying to dispel a strawman accusation while perpetuating one in the same sentence... If you can't see the logical fallacy then we're clearly at an impasse. A strawman means you're setting up an easy target by twisting facts or simply making something up. This whole "GOP is blocking rights so they remain special" argument is completely hollow. You're making vague generalizations to sound morally superior without addressing any specific platform or argument. By the way, the equivalent to Bernie supporters voting for Hillary isn't Cruz/Carson supporters voting for Trump. It would be if the GOP stole the candidacy from Trump and gave it to Jeb Bush–the establishment favorite–then got caught red handed and still had vast majority support. THAT is insanity.

You're arguing in platitudes and straw men. "It was NOT the Democrats as a whole as most of us REALLY disagreed with the way sanders was done." Voting records say otherwise. Clinton won popular vote because liberal strongholds still voted for her in droves. I live in Maryland, I'm friends with liberals, they bitched about Bernie for a week and then voted Hillary. "Clinton was horrible, but Trump makes her looks like the best candidate ever." You literally said nothing of value with that statement. "Or threatening automakers while shipping your own product in from Mexico?" As a businessman first and foremost, Trump did what was financially sound for his company, just like the automakers and many other companies selling products. As president, he's trying to bring back jobs to benefit the country. The actual negotiations are more like "here's the plan to incentivize local manufacturing with improved corporate tax rates etc, but in the mean time, there's also going to be a tariff to expedite domestic investment." "Have you done ANY actual research that didn't involve Fox News?" More baseless posturing trying to discredit my vote with stereotypes. I follow some of the smartest and most talented journalists in the alternative media, and because of the intellectual free market of the internet, their support is growing exponentially as people grow tired of bullsh!t from CNN, Fox, CNBC, BBC, etc. My podcast subs are FAR from a republican echochamber. "ALL the GOP cares about is themselves and their money in their own pockets." All *politicians* care about is themselves and their money... There I fixed it for you.