balthazar

• if the Regal cloth is “sub-Suzuki quality” (which has to be raging hyperbole), then why not get leather and your heated seats? Or is the leather ‘sub-fiat quality’?) • if its frustrating to want a ‘safety package’ on a Cadillac but it’s not available, it’s exactly the same if you DON’T want it and are forced to pay for it on a Brand X because it’s standard.

I bought my ‘94 F-150 new, but it was low on bells & whistles (300 CI, auto, A/C, 2WD, rubber floor mat; $15K), but I may never buy new again. Wife got a ‘16 last year, she’s completely happy w it. As prices continue to tick upward, buying new increasingly looks -not prestigious- but financially foolish.

Buddy & I used to field drive his '68 Sedan deVille in the same conditions- that's not going 'off road'.

So you're not all alone in this thread~ I would NOT buy a vehicle specifically because it had the "safety" package, IE: forward collision warning/ blind spot watcher/ etc etc. Thankfully it's optional on the Silverado & not forced on you. Buddy's wife has some of those features on a mazda cx-5 and he says it's a frightening & invasive suite of controls. Who wants to be repeatedly jarred & on edge as they drive. Hopefully a 'fuse can be pulled' if a future vehicle here has them. Heated seats I can get up on.

So if he bought it new & still owned it 3 years later you’d be impressed? Is this a question you commonly ask people you meet?

Read my post again.

If you buy a brand new car for $100,000 and it retains 50% of it's value in 3 years, that car cost you $50,000 in depreciation. If you buy a brand new car for $75,000 and it retains 42% of it's value in 3 years, that car cost you $43,500 in depreciation. Yet some folk will tell you you got a better deal with the 50% residual car.

What did I state that was factually incorrect?

It's pretty hard to write a check out for 'percentage units'. Mercedes' as a mathematical computation of their generally higher ATPs, cost more in depreciation dollars than the vast majority of cars. You can lose $85,000 in 3 years on some models.

It's one of them. Did you not state that IC is no longer viable and Jay Leno backs you up/realizes that? Why quote him talking about the tremendous air quality improvements in CA if it was IC vehicles that made that improvement, not zero emission ones? [limiting this to just vehicles]. Of course it is; the majority of EVs on the road are tremendously more expensive than IC vehicles.

Are you saying Jay Leno is claiming zero-emission cars (7% of sales by volume in CA if you also include hybrid sales) did all that air quality improvement over 40 years time? What percentage of Jay Leno's vehicles are zero emission again?

^ Oh come on.

Looked at the last 2 links- factual pieces; I approve

Way too busy front end w too many disharmonious elements. Suddenly the Silverado is sleek & clean! This is really bad design, IMO; I can't easily see past it :

Chrysler published an engineering paper on the directional stability & resistance to cross-wind benefits of tail fins in '57. Chryslers had large, vertical fins, and apparently the data was sound. I haven't ever seen this paper, but I've heard that the one detail that was left out is that the cars had to be going over 100 MPH for this benefit to come into play. Not withstanding that the 300-C was a 140+ MPH car, this seems unlikely to be put to the test in any real world scenarios. I imagine a similar circumstance exists for MOST sedan rear spoilers (and by extension: cross-drilled rotors).

• The roof defusers have been there since the 60s on some station wagons; they're functional and not billed as being anything other than that. I was thinking more along the lines of any random decklid spoiler on any random family sedan, instead. • I'm also fine with non-functional scoops (and cross-drilled rotors). Just don't think that I think your cross drilled rotors are providing you with any sort of braking performance improvement.

^ Why is that "awesome'?

[illustrative example]

What do rear spoilers do? Provide downforce?? Not on street cars, yet so many have them.

Rotor size & number of pistons is one (valid) thing. No trucks are seeing the level of hard usage that would require cross-drilling - of no benefit on street-driven vehicles.

Well, styling is highly subjective (outside of certain aerodynamic aids), everything else is about performance, handling, braking, steering when talking sports cars. None of the components that handle those duties ‘care’ what the body looks like.

What's so funny about my above post, Robert Hall? You don't think I was serious? - - - - - How about this; a Hemi-powered Messerschmidt!

^ theoretically/possibly if the car is autocrossed heavily, I guess. Those above- at least that's a possibility. All the 4-banger CUVs tho? Jest bling.

My kind of sports car!