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El Kabong

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Everything posted by El Kabong

  1. El Kabong
    Here's the link to a glowing plug (ahem) for an awesome truck. http://m.caranddriver.com/reviews/2016-chevrolet-colorado-diesel-first-drive-review
  2. El Kabong
    Your count looks pretty steady to me. In the meantime, I wouldn't be too concerned about how the votes are tallied or allotted. Just read the comments themselves, and it quickly becomes apparent that everyone still knows what's what.
  3. El Kabong
    I'll be honest: for the money customers are shelling out for a Rolls they should probably be getting a carbon-fibre tub. But then you'd be doing something efficiently, and is luxury all about efficiency? So you'd market it as a strength/safety thing. Typing on the fly is fun. Who's got smores?
  4. El Kabong
    If I am squeezed into a minicar, you can be fairly comfortable knowing it wasn't my choice regardless of which one it was. Anything smaller than a Sonic doesn't really do much for me.
  5. El Kabong
    400 dollars, times 2.8 million vehicles in Germany alone. We're talking billion dollar-range fraud. Capitalism, like any other endeavour, must be performed ethically in order to work right. It is not inherently good.
  6. El Kabong
    Beyond the immediate issues of range and charge time/facilities, my issues with electric cars at this point are twofold: the materials involved with making the batteries on an industrial scale may be hard to come by (this also applies to the motors, to a lesser extent), and the intellectual dishonesty involved in calling electricity "green" when it is still largely generated by coal.
  7. El Kabong
    ...so, yeah-you never accept that first offer.
  8. El Kabong
    Besides, the Canyonados are doing fine, diesel or no. I strongly suspect the small Duramax is on the up and up so this will only make things better.
  9. El Kabong
    Be cool man. Remain cool, man.
  10. El Kabong
    The trick here is to quell any potential PR backlash over diesels in general. It may even require a public service announcement-style ad from a company CEO. But you have to make good and sure that it's only VW that gets tarred with the proverbial brush.
  11. El Kabong
    "And yeah...because I also feel that diesels in passenger cars really dont have anything to offer, in my opinion, just in case somebody else feels sensitive today, I also feel that diesel passenger cars aint worth the hassle in producing, buying and selling them..." Where's the hassle in producing, buying, and selling them? Everyone besides VW is able to do it, apparently. You're entitled to your opinion, of course. But an opinion based primarily on emotion is not sound. And defending such an argument, as we all have doubtless seen in forums over the years, is setting yourself up for failure.
  12. El Kabong
    If you break the rules, you are in the wrong. And profit margins on smaller cars are low enough that an extra 400 bucks saved is enormous. It was all greed.
  13. El Kabong
    As long as they play by the rules, I agree.
  14. El Kabong
    Perhaps you also missed the "global" part. In any event, I'm quite sure my theoretical ban would include trucks, because passenger vehicles. I suppose there are semantics to be argued if you wish. However, we should be realists.
  15. El Kabong
    Yup. No more diesel pickups. No more diesel passenger cars. You DO realize that globally, Ford would probably be hit the hardest by this proposed ban, right?
  16. El Kabong
    But eliminating people's freedom of choice is not cool, if there is no sound underlying logic behind it. In the western world, nuclear reactors have been safely built. It's running them where you can have issues. Even Fukushima survived the earthquake, it was the tsunami that did in their fail safe mode.
  17. El Kabong
    If passenger car diesels are regulated so closely (and they are, supposedly), then they are just low-hanging fruit to be eliminated while the real battles remain unfought. Nuclear reactors, when properly constructed and run, are how you get electricity when you don't have rivers to dam. There is no two ways about that if you're concerned primarily about air quality and Al Gore-ism. Turbines are useless. Solar is costly, inefficient, and those cells aren't exactly made of pixie dust and unicorn farts. But those are inconvenient truths, to steal a phrase from a man with a pretty massive carbon footprint.
  18. El Kabong
    Blaming VW for lung cancer is roughly the same as blaming Fort Mcmurray for "global warming." Although I will at least acknowledge that lung cancer is a thing. If VW had played by the rules we would not be having this discussion. And the reason why we would not be having this discussion is because nobody wants to deal with the real elephant in the room: if sooty particulates and NOx are bad for you, then you'd better take care of coal-burning power stations and road/rail freight first. Yeah. Good luck with that. Barack Obama has been THE advocate for "clean coal" for his presidency. There is a time and a place to pick on VW, because they did break the rules. Then there is a time to deal with real issues, that require real effort. Eliminating passenger-car diesels is not a real issue.
  19. El Kabong
    I wouldn't say that at all. I think his claims can be backed up pretty strongly. The biggest issue I have with GM trucks is that they don't really push the envelope with small diesels and suspension tech like Ram does. And the Canyonados are even beginning to address that situation. Put it this way: I won't be writing off GM the next time I'm looking for a truck.
  20. El Kabong
    ...and it turns out to be pretty effective, especially at lower revs. Less surprising but also interesting: VW's claimed hp and torque numbers are with the defeat device inactive. This would go a long way to explaining why the engines always felt relavively torquey, which in turn would help boost observed FE to well above the EPA's numbers. Read more about it at the link: http://m.motortrend.com/wot/volkswagen-jetta-tdi-dyno-reveals-lower-power-in-test-mode-wvideo.html
  21. El Kabong
    The problem need never have happened in the first place. The tech was there to utilize. VW never utilized it. I believe the email from Bosch to VW is enough to absolve them of any culpability. They advised VW to use the software for dyno tests only and that any other use would be tantamount to fraud. Bosch couldn't have been any clearer than that in their warning. After that it's all up to the customer to use or abuse the product the vendor supplies them.
  22. El Kabong
    You could see it coming, but you just shrug your shoulders and get on with it. In reality, the CTS and ATS are probably just past the halfway point of Cadillac's product Renaissance: they have proven that they can be as fast and as unflappable as any luxury sedan in the world, and to be fair they probably have done it while sacrificing a wee bit of luxury, at least in V trim. The next step is the battle of the bling: continue to refine CUE, bring in a simplified interior design language like the Ciel, and work a bit on interior quality and durability with stuff like better, possibly bespoke, switchgear. They have hit the target they were aiming for. Now it's time for bullseyes.
  23. El Kabong
    First rule of contract negotiations: never accept the first offer, especially if your employer was/is on a roll while the last one was in effect. Sergio may be panicking now, but the bottom line is still healthy enough to prod for something more. It may not even be money per se.
  24. El Kabong
    I dunno why Chevy sent such a beaten-on Z06 to this comparo. But they did. It's nice to know that the car can deliver the goods thanks to things like the Lightning Lap, but Chevy has to take these things a bit more seriously.
  25. El Kabong
    No no, not you. You're long-winded and squirrelly. Big difference
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