PurdueGuy

bought a black interior for my SC2 last week (front & rear seats, carpet, door panels, trim around doors, entire dash, floormats) for $265. Got an engine & trans a couple weeks ago for about $160, and a bunch of other stuff for cheap. Half price day at the pick-n-pull FTW. Having to drive 2.5hrs to get there, not so much win.

Or more likely, create a sped-up version of the process so that we don't have to wait for it to happen naturally. Kinda like some of the newer ethanol production processes...

[statingtheobvious]If the market keeps doing what it's doing, I think we can expect the market to get really boring no matter what happens. No one is going to have money for fancy cars.[/statingtheobvious]

Yup, Jeep is the only brand I can see having value for GM, though how much value is questionable, as the media makes SUVs "evil". GM could still make Hummer into a real jeep competitor, but it's obvious they won't (and their money is better spent elsewhere anyway). Yeah... if this goes through, I'm sure we can look forward to several brands being axed.

Let's see... They're catching up by modifying existing vehicles instead of designing a ground-up electric... They know more than other manufacturers because they make fancy golf carts... Their Ace up their sleeve is an apparently non-existent battery technology... at least GM is just learning to scale and refine existing battery tech. It's not a bad move by Chrysler, but it's far from impressive IMO. It's a quick catch-up game, and it shows.

One option is a combination of solar (or wind, or whatever) and hydro. Use excess electricity to pump water back upstream into a reservoir, release it as needed to regain electricity. It's scalable and low-tech (reliable and relatively cheap to build). What I don't know is how efficient it is overall. If you're only getting 10% of the electricity back, then it's probably a lousy plan. If it's 50 or above, it might be reasonable. Overall, though, fluctuating power generation sources like wind & solar are better used as supplemental energy sources, with something with a directly controllable energy output like nuclear filling the difference in demand.

Saturn is (or should be) no haggle as far as the price of the car. Dealerships often find ways to work with a customer on accessories, though. In the week or so I was a salesman at Saturn, I heard/saw no method of haggling down the price of a car. The only things that could be negotiated were accessories and financing.

I'm personally of the opinion that we shouldn't be drilling everywhere, but keeping those reserves until oil is more like 4x more expensive than it is now (after adjusting for inflation). The focus needs to be on alternatives.

interesting... I learn something every day.

If they weren't on an SS/SC or SS turbo, they were 4x100. The SC & turbo are the only 5 lugs AFAIK.

He never indicated that he let the other guy know he was going to race. The other guy may have been driving like an idiot, but that doesn't mean he was ready to actually race. "Hanging back" may have even given the opposite impression that lining up would have.

so you're excited that you won a race when the other guy didn't know you were racing him? Not to be a jerk, but it sounds like it wasn't really a race...

Don't let your vomit hit the Tundra, it will probably dent, and rust shortly thereafter.

Oooh, there's a good point - it'd be fun to modify a car called the Manhattan & get to call it the "Manhattan Project". I could forsee that being overdone to the point of being sickening, though, and a buncha people running around with radiation symbols on their cars (and almost as many mis-labelling theirs with biohazard labels. lol)

That's funny - it made me think of food. (Turkey Manhattan)

I'm already seeing Cruze misspelled a lot by regular people... "Cruize, Cruse" etc. That's the problem with taking a real word, and purposely misspelling it to try to make it cool. It's not cool, it's misspelled. It's not really a big deal, but they could certainly pick a better name. Nova seems good. If not for the overlap with the Cobalt, and an apparently higher price, I'd say they should stick with that name. I'll have to think of more...

For most people, the idea is a fuel efficient commuter car that requires as little investment, maintenance, and repair as possible. It's not about your obsessions with certain vehicle characteristics - that's saved for their OTHER vehicle, which they can more readily afford (and keep nice longer) because of how little cost/much abuse their 4cyl econobox provides. Show me a BOF, RWD, no b-pillar car that gets over 30mpg in mixed driving and almost 40 on the highway, and looks almost still new after 12 years (not even a door ding ) without having been babied constantly. The Saturn S-Series isn't a glamorous car, it's not a sporty car, but it's one heck of a great commuter/beater. And if it's been even halfway well taken care of, still has 50-100k miles left in it with a few small repairs at 150k miles on the odometer.

I roll my eyes at you sir.

Keep in mind that this new one doesn't have the leaf spring rear suspension... good for the ride/handling, how it affects durability/longevity we'll have to see.

3 currently. I had purchased a '94 SL2 that had a misfire that I'd hoped was just from the leaky valve cover gasket, but it turned out to be a bad valve seal. I pulled the engine & sold the body for the same money as I bought the car for. The current one actually has quite a few performance parts in it. It's a '96 SL2 in nice shape, built engine, short shifter, performance clutch, and I got a buncha other goodies on the side. I'm returning the car to stock (including swapping the engine) and will sell it for a profit. On top of that, I'll have the performance parts to put in my '99 SC2. The 3rd S is my wife's '99 SC1. They've been nothing but reliable, efficient, and easy to work on.

I just picked up another S-Series in very nice shape for $700...

pretty cool, even if it's not exactly a highway cruiser.

I like the detail of the Italian flag colors on picture 9 (I think it was picture 9, too lazy to go back & make sure. lol)

I might, since Saturn's supposed to get it, but I've given up on caring too much about what Saturn does & doesn't get. Funny, I think that's the same feeling that most brand-specific GM enthusiasts are feeling...

There will certainly need to be action taken regarding 6's. I would expect a great number of them to be replaced by large displacement and/or turbo 4's. Of course, some vehicles will need more power than that, so not everything can become a 4. At that point, the question becomes whether the remaining needs are better filled by 6's, 8's, or some of both. That's where there seem to be the two theories: a) 6's can put out the power that 8's did not long ago easily & reliably, so why bother with 8's b) 8's can put out the power of 6's and more From there, a logical look at the situation would look at the advantages/disadvantages of both: 6's) should be able to get marginally better fuel economy, lighter, fewer parts, should be cheaper to build & maintain 8's) more potential hp/torque, easier to design to be naturally balanced So... how much power do vehicles need? If the needed power of trucks means a need for 8's, then maybe GM SHOULD look into polarizing their engine lineup into 4's and 8's, make the 8's standard in full size trucks, and sometimes slip 8's into large & enthusiast focused cars. If 6's can easily give all the power that GM's trucks need (keep in mind, they're selling/have sold their commercial truck biz), then it might be more logical (if less appealing to enthusiasts) for GM to focus on 4's and 6's? I personally like the idea of owning an 8cyl sports car, but I'm trying to approach this from a logical standpoint.