regfootball

while we're on the subject of gas. My cobalt is netting 27 mpg right now with this $h!ty cold weather. I want to note also that gas is over 3.20 here now. A few weeks ago my cobalt cost 25 bucks to fill. now its 35 or more. ANYWAYS. Also, the government tells me or requires actually that the gas I buy is ethanol blend. a blend of 10% ethanol. Curiously, when I put non oxygenated, non ethanol, small engine gas in the car, i get 10-15% better mileage. I spend a little more. in any case. I use 10% more gas for the same miles driven. Which is the same percentage as the ethanol. So in essence, I am forced to spend an extra 10% on fuel to buy the ethanol i didn't want to go the same miles. I am forced by the government to buy ethanol each time but it has no benefit to me, only cost.

could be a generational thing. over time, the newer masses have been conditioned to believe that government intervention is required for the world to be whole. That its needed in every aspect of life. To some degree we can thank the educational elite and the media for a lot of this. If it (constant presence of govt) were absent, the Kumbaya state of the numb minds would no longer exist and people would be left to think with common sense and with a sense of looking out for themselves. thus, it guarantees not only the 'worth' of government and need for it to remain, but the masses believe it needs to grow. so really, these new gas cans / caps are socialism and government oppression in its finest form. "You need these gas cans!!!!!!" Not only do we have the need for government to continually show up at the party and continually tell us they need to be omnipresent, we also have an increasing frequency of the State of California being a PMS attention whore narcissist Diva, too. It's kind of like a union, over time, they brow beat you into thinking you can't live or function without them.

didn't wanna uck with it considering when you want to cut your lawn, just fill the damn tank, and get going. the good old fashioned spout and vent worked fine. after that, i had no desire to try to play around with it. The fact that the spout is not flexible is a major hassle. When i pour gas into my mower and blower, i love the flexible spout because i don't have to tip the can much, and i can use the flexible spout to direct it nicely and still be able to see into the tank. Not having the flexible spout is not something i want so i chose not to bother with it. Especially on my 4 cycle weed trimmer. the tank is small and in order to fill it you have to be very careful in balancing the trimmer when you set it down so the tank and opening are at the exact right angle so gas flows in, does not overflow, and you can visually see how fast you fill it. It is absolutely imperative that you have great flexibility with being able to tip the gas can as little as possible, since it will literally fill up in a few seconds even with a trickle flow.

wife ran out of gas a mile from home one cold ass night last winter. she was forced to buy a gas can at the gas station by the offramp which she stalled since the copper helped her. a new, 10 dollar, 2.5 gallon gas can I didn't want or need. little did i know, this summer, the first time i used it, I try to get gas to pour out of the fhiopjo[pjoinouuuuuucking spout and DAMMIT how the f@#k does this piece of $h! work? Still haven't been able to figure it out. Whenever I need to pour gas from it, i take the flex spout off my other gas can. I pour the gas, I put that stupid piece of $h! back on. It's actually a f@#king hazard to try to pour gas with that new piece of $h!. Camino, I completely feel your angst on this one.

yeah but at two litres, anything that stifles maximizing the effects of your combustion........

i think the coupe should have gotten its own unique dash too, myself.

gm committed big bucks to expand equinox production. plus, they have huge sticker prices. they did not want the chance of this stealing sales from the nox, at lower prices and less profit. cut off a hand to save an arm.........

just a note.....there was a link about this topic on the front page of -the other site- for a brief scant few minutes....and then it was gone......lol

plastic.....and then word gets around and they wonder why it didn't sell. perhaps they should have engineered it right before on sale date.

that still does not address the decade of 2000 on where altimas, accords, maximas, etc. cleaned GM's clock while the models that GM most badly needed to have comparable powertrains, the Impala, the Grand Prix, etc. GM refused to put a real motor under the hood as an option to compete. Whether it was cheapness, ineptness, or plain the desire to see their bread and butter products fail (to move people up to higher priced stuff), GM took a huge hit in customer equity. Brands like Pontiac which once had several cars in the top 20 died because GM did not put a motor in that made it attractive. Aside from to fleets. GM only had 4 speed trannies too. How many Altimas did Nissan gain in share because people even preferred their four cylinders to GM's v6 'stalwarts' (emphasis on wart). People chose to drive Camry's and Accords because their 4's were better than GM's 6's. Is that koolaid in an IV there plugged into you? You flat out deny that cars like the Impala and Grand Prix and such were not horrendously damaged and basically ruined GM? GM refused to build what people would have rather had (the REST of the market) and sold it at a competitive price. Part of the reason Pontiac died is because they refused to give it powertrains people wanted. You cite a 91 Lumina but its so ridiculous to use that because a-- it was only on the Z34, and it was rare and expensive. That's like saying people don't want turbos because the Ford Focus ST will only sell few because of its insane price.

this is one of those rare times where i say the car really needs a footbrake. also, without the wood, dare i say, it definitely goes down a notch. I'm am rarely fond of gray or silver anyways. cornsilk beige here i come. is that leather-ette? (sorry just re-read your post, answer is yes) is the steering wheel a larger diameter than the Jetta? that NAV rides pretty low.

which Buick, Grand Prix, Grand Am, Bonneville, Monte Carlo, Impala, Malibu, etc. was ever offered with a 24 valve DOHC v6? Its very much a lie to say people were choosing the 3100/3400/3800 when in GM's biggest volume sellers the DOHC was never even offered. In the GP it was maybe offered back in the nineties. What I am referring to mostly is in the late nineties through when the HF was introduced in the CTS to replace the unloved opel 54 degree motor, which was not competitive.

the current passat's interior to me is rather offputting. it's not bad in terms of quality. but it's really a weird mishmash of stuff. not as much the dash and center stack, as the doors and other places. so while the new one's design is definitely more plain, there is more of a sense of order to it to me. i can digest an interior if the design is nice. Or, if the materials are good I can live with some weirdness in the design. If the materials are good inside the Passat it can make up for some blandness in the design. A lot of buyers can't process too much going on inside an interior. the woodgrain is on the higher trim, does the base passat get faux metal or just matte black? VW did a terrible job integrating the handbrake here.

edit- canadiandriver.com says the Orlando gets a 2.4l w 178hp in Canada......

maybe they shouldn't have effed with the concept design.....

lol, um no, how do you figure not. the twin dual cam was a good performer but gained no market traction. didn't help that it was a half assed approach to coming up with a 'new engine'.... the shortstar was in like 3 cars. GM never rolled out decent v6's enmasse until the high feature v6. up until then you were stuck with pushrod motors, or hackjobs like the twin dual cam, or engines that would only put in a couple cars in limited quantity, like the shortstar. by then, Nissan and Honda had spit out hundreds of thousands of highly refined v6's....

maybe i will find the aveo specs and them to that rudimentary matrix.

all they need to do is match the regal in terms of interior. the regal is nice enough. those who have been in the Verano claim its pretty nice. its just how much extra sticker it deserves to ask because of it. there hardly any tech or features in the car that aren't readily available elsewhere.....i.e. no distinguishing features. But for awhile at least if you want any serious go juice under the hood of your GM compact, the Verano is where you will need to go.

no the old jetta is not at all better than the elantra. the verano had better be better inside, it will cost 7 grand or more, more.

A week ago when i was waiting to get my brakes done on the rex, I wrote down the stats on the Cruze, Cobalt, and Sonic I need to post that. edit (Sonic / Cobalt / Cruze) width---------------------68.3 / 67.9 / 70.7 length-------------------173.1 / 180.3 / 181.0 height--------------------59.7 / 57.1 / 58.1 track F-------------------59.4 / 58.7 / 60.7 track R-------------------59.4 / 58.1 / 61.3 WB------------------------99.4 / 103.3 / 105.7 trunk---------------------14 / 14 / 15.4 fuel----------------------12.1 / 13.0 / (either 12.4 or 15.4?) pass vol------------------? / 86 / 94.6 (cough) curb weight---------------MT ? / 2783 / a lot HR front------------------38.7 / 38.5 / 39.3 HR rear-------------------37.8 / 37.7 / 37.9 hip front-----------------51.4 / 49.6 / 53.0 hip rear------------------51.6 / 46.4 / 52.4 leg front-----------------41.8 / 41.8 / 42.3 leg rear------------------34.6 / 33.7 / 35.4 shoulder F----------------53.4 / 53.0 / 54.8 shoulder R----------------51.6 / 51.4 / 53.9 overall i would expect a more comfortable car than the Cobalt, and one that is maybe closer in real comfort to the Cruze than you'd think. For example the rear hip room and leg room are less than one inch off the Cruze. The Sonic is 2 inches taller so the seating positions will probably be more chair like which can sometimes lead to better foot comfort. It will likely be about a quarter ton lighter.

are you saying its got less overhang than the Impala? IMO the Impala is weak in many interior areas. Width, leg room in back in particular. If VW can pull that off with a smaller size and have comparable room to something like my old 500 I will be impressed. Was the trunk space pretty good?

it'd be a nice option to have. But the interior I think needs some work. The biggest issue with the vehicle is it would need a better engine in the US.

what's the size of this thing compared to the Phaeton? will this thing have rear window sunshades, that is critical!

Can't wait to see the finished product. Not diggin the rear side window and the overall blandness, but I like the packaging; lots of room. And it will probably still be a nice drive. I've never really warmed to the Fusion. I like the Regal and LaCrosse, but they get pricey quick. Few, if any of the Japanese in this segment really are a 'want' sort of car. The Kia and Hyundai are decent products, but I'm already sick of them. This works nice for VW because they can gain share with this car and they still have the really nice CC if you want something more luxurious and genuinely German instead of germane. The 5 cylinder should be a nice match for the Passat with either trans, although it would be nice to see them squeeze some extra power out of it. I think a lot of VW fans probably ask why the turbo 2.0 is not an option. That's probably a fair question. Having the TDI available is nice too. I actually think building the Passat here will give people more confidence about the reliability, people may add some value because it is built here compared to other slandered VW's.... now that is legroom.