trinacriabob

The first two are very brochure like. Very nice. I love larger GM coupes...the best motoring experience out there. IIRC, I like how the dash leaned away from the driver. I saw a 1992 Riv yesterday. Is that in the Atlanta area? It looks like it.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I also got frequent flyer credit for the rental.

tomato sauce (meatloaf is nothing unless swimming in a tasty, tangy tomato-based sauce)

souvlaki

Yesterday, with over a quarter of a million miles, I put the 4th serpertine belt at a blended GM dealership a little further out since they had a good parts and labor price (about $90). I had a great experience visiting that service department. This is actually the third such experience. a) At a Costco in California, I went in there for a tire rotation. There was this real weird guy who (a) wouldn't rotate my tires front to back as I had requested because he wanted to do the diagonal rotation, but did so after I kept arguing with him, and (b) while talking to him, told me that frequent oil changes (even 3,000 miles) hurt the car more than changing the oil infrequently. I then went to another nearby Costco about 4 months later to get new tires altogether. I told the salesman about this pushy loser at another one of the stores. He told me that this guy had irritated some customers, that he was no longer there, and I got the new tires FOR FREE. b) I was getting a trans fluid change and filter at a GM dealership in Portland that I had used before. They did the job but noticed that the gasket the last time wasn't of the variety that should have been in there, though it had never leaked. He did NOT charge me for the service he did that day...about $ 129. I then used them for other service items (tune-ups, LOFs, etc.) c) Yesterday, I was happy with the price for my serpentine belt and asked about trans fluid changes. He told me that I should only consider the cheaper drop/drain/refill, rather than the recirculating flush, for the car since it is older and is high mileage. I told him "bingo" and that 2 other service advisors over the last 5 or so years had told me the same thing. I've also been to 2 dealerships where they indicated they like to do the pressurized flush and I told them "later, maybe in another life." So, he was right. Yesterday's guy was more interested in giving me good advice rather than get an extra $40 when I came back in the spring for a trans. service. Any good / pro-customer experiences you've had while getting service?

geek

I was in NC and had rented a compact car for 4 days. I was hoping for a Cobalt or a Focus. No such luck...they were going to put me in an HHR or PT Cruiser. I told them I needed an 'effing trunk (I was firm, not rude). So I got a Yaris sedan. This is a short review. There is little that is inspiring to say about this car. It is the noisiest new car I've ever driven. It is a lawn-mower with a passenger car shell dropped onto it. To say that going from this car back into a 17 year old Regal with over a quarter of a million miles and feeling like one went from backpack cloth to velvet would about describe it. Shifts are rough, especially when throttled. The interior does not have many options for seat adjustments, which weren't comfortable to begin with, and the speedometer and indicators are in the MIDDLE of the dashboard... and NOT even angled toward the driver. Crazy. Especially on the freeway in rural areas, it was hard to monitor one's speed. The only good things were: decent enough seating position and visibility and excellent gas mileage with the 1.5 liter (freeway mileage appeared to be 42 or 43 - that's on par with a Smart Car, and this is more usable). The price I rented this car for was almost a "mistake." Therefore, I was able to drive hundreds of miles for 4 days for what a cab fare from downtown LA to LAX would have cost. So, I can't complain much. I wish I would have spent 4 days in a Focus instead. Oh well.

Mind "mens agitat molem" - the motto of the nasty Univ. of Oregon

Hey guys: Thanks for all the tips. I had a great time. Was in Charlotte from Fri, 2/13 through most of Sun, 2/15. Got to see very little, if anything, of Raleigh. First and foremost, I took up the food suggestions. Went to Hugo's Diner for the Beltbuster breakfast. I had it after lunchtime, actually. It was a boatload of food and, if a person had that daily, they would need cardiac intervention. Went to the Landmark Diner later that night. I thought it would be in the shadow of downtown, but it is quite a ways out. However, the tall creamy New York cheesecake was fantastic, which is all I had, along with some decaf. They seemed to have an extensive menu. Also stumbled onto an Italian place called Villa Francesca - not bad. There were many eating choices. The best way I can do the analysis is to do a compare/contrast with Atlanta, which is a city I lived in for 2 years and loved immensely. Similarities: 1. The basic lay-out with freeway spokes into a central hub and a freeway ring road around it. 2. Nice new downtown with a similar business feel 3. They don't skimp on the brick, do they? We don't do as much brick on offices and strip malls out West because it "doesn't pencil" and because a seismic event will put cracks in it 4. Condo and townhome craze has materialized on the edge of the CBD Dissimilarities: 1. The first one that stuck out is I was expecting a city in a pine forest and the houses to be more hidden in the tree canopy. There were more deciduous trees than there were evergreen. 2. Not as much traffic...that's a good thing 3. The city does not have "edge city" satellite downtowns at its belt freeway...in ATL, many of the secondary downtowns are out there (Cumberland, Perimeter/Dunwoody)...in fact, Charlotte really thins out, population wise, once you're at the belt freeway, particularly in the east and the south 4. People seem to be more mannered and genuinely nicer...again, it doesn't have 5 million people living there like ATL...I also went to church at the Catholic church near "the Green" (Tryon) and, for a downtown church, the people seemed much more relaxed than they ever would have been in a Catholic church in Buckhead/Lenox. The areas I liked best were (a) the Sharon/Fairview area where they have a...drum roll...nice Barnes and Noble and Borders, and (2) the north areas up toward the lake (went to Northlake Mall for lunch). That's what struck me. I didn't bother to head toward the Smokies or Appalachians since, with many of the leaves fallen, I wouldn't have gotten the effect I was looking for. I also heard the beaches are worth visiting.

conheco, conheco, but it has a damn chain-link fence around it, so you can't get that close...and there's a tacky souvenir shop next to the fence Response to thread: toungue

granola

Where the hell is this guy? He comes and goes. He also lives, or has lived, in both and

throat (the "Garganta del Diablo" is the most formidable of the 250+ cascades at Iguazu Falls)

Thanks, ponch, I agree with everything you wrote. I, too, read the "inventory" of changes from Series II to Series III and thought they were changes that made a great engine even better. I wouldn't have minded having an accelerator cable, so I would imagine the ETC module may go, especially in the earlier models (04 GP, 05 LaX)...maybe later, they figured this out. Plus, there's a weird split-second "flat spot" when you inch up an inclined driveway, or are stopped on an incline and need to accelerate again. Yes, the bolder grille pushed me to buy. I thought the 05-07 grille was too 00 LeSabre. I had only wished for a Glacier Blue. That's it. I do not like the 2010 LaCrosse. With the exception of the dashboard and frontal seating arrangement, it just doesn't do it for me. At all.

The easiest question I've ever been asked. Two reasons: (1) 253,000 miles on the Regal Series I 3800 without having a wrench taken to it, without burning a drop of oil between oil changes, and without even darkening the oil by the next oil change (2) base CXs are inexpensive and worth every cent - low 20s versus high 20s to have a 3.6 or a V8 - and I don't experiment with newer powertrains I've been super happy with the decision to buy this car.

cross

periodontitis

stand-up comedian (from Lisbon, no less)

breath strips (they are always handy - nah, it's because of my motto: say NO to kids)

miniature

It was my Dad's assessment ... and he was street-smart beyond belief. I happened to note later in my life that many of his calls were pretty good...even though he and I were too similar to get along effectively.

You need to get out more, PCS, and see more of the world...

No, those older cars were great. I never warmed up to the rigid angularity of the rear quarter window versus the better flow of the backlite on that Eldo. It seems like the early 90s Rivs and Toros had worked in better looking greenhouses. Exactly, you all know I was lukewarm on the G8, largely because the last GP should have picked up more user-friendly styling cues in the front end and its roofline and then sold like hot cakes (like Taurus when first released). However, they missed the boat on more sales for 04-08 GP for these faux pas, so yes, the G8 is a showcase of good, timeless, proportionate, user-friendly styling and packaging. The proportions of hood/greenhouse/rear deck are excellent.

nudist colony

I almost NEVER agree with YOU, but there's a lot of truth in what you say,...I grew up in a fairly nice area 3 or 4 miles south of UCLA, and there is a real PROBLEM with that on the West Side. Meaning, the "loser" who waits on tables trying to be spotted (David Hasselhoff was one of the few that broke through that way) taking a class at Santa Monica College or an artsy extension class at UCLA has a surliness that is based on "coolness." In other words, I'm too cool and everything about me has to be calculated and effected, so this is all you get. Surliness in a lower class area (the "flip" answer from people belonging to marginalized minority groups) seems to be more based on an "I don't want to talk to you, whitey (or gringo)." I agree, in the Midwest, you may get "more info than you need" because there isn't that "pressure." Also, since I did grad school in the Midwest, there is a "canyon" between North Shore Chicago folks and those from anywhere else in the regional "cachement area" for that particular university. Meaning, the Chicago North Shore folks tended to be jerks and the others were super nice, and rarely of the TMI variety. Also, there are plenty of regular folks in SoCal, and they are usually eclectic (transplants, have lived in different areas, are from another country), who don't want to be in THE INDUSTRY, and aspire to have regular jobs in companies, firms, school districts or have small businesses.