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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    First year or 2 the Seville has FI issues but I believe they took some time to manifest. Cadillac addressed it pretty quickly to my recollection, and the available FI on the 500 I never heard a whisper of trouble regarding. My grandmother had a pre-owned '76 and she had issues with it running erratically upon occasion. It may have stranded her a time or two. She traded it on an early '80s Regal 2-dr.
  2. balthazar
    Wow.
  3. balthazar
    Sure that's how it works. Plus, at one point, sedans made $10K profit per and all CUVs lost money. Or not. As usual, discussing automotive trends is nearly impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff.
  4. balthazar
  5. balthazar
    Ask yourself this : When CUV sales were nowhere- did toyoyo/lexus have 50 sedans/coupe to chose from?
  6. balthazar
    • Primed/painted the inside of my heater box assembly & made a new 'flapper door' seal (directs air either to defroster, or heat vents). • Worked on speedo- has a revolving drum and altho the drum turned fine, the port where the speedo cable went into it was locked up. Worked at it and kept lubing it until it freed up & now spins freely. Re-assembled the speedo for now, but also made the decision I'm going to have the housing re-chromed. So starting a 're-chome' list. • Measured out for a 'rear bulkhead' panel to block sound from the trunk. Will cut it out of thin plywood this week.
  7. balthazar
    While in general Bill Porter (the Riv's designer) is a bright spot in this era, I always had some solid reservations on details of the final Riv's design. The 'rear chin spoiler' & the pinched front & rear fascias that undermine the car's dimensions. I think it's 85% of the way there and the general envelope is inspired and fresh, but it needed some more 'bake time' on the details.
  8. balthazar
    Nnnnnnnnnnnope! ? Can't find a square foot of it that's not objectionable. Obviously, this is unsupportable hyperbole. But we get it that you are wildly enthused.
  9. balthazar
  10. balthazar
    But no one is talking about a ban, just an added 'user fee'. You will still be able to buy what you want (and there will still be a bunch of product you cannot)- little different from any other retail/service market. That's what Gov't does best- the implementation and collection of revenue streams. An import tax is a revenue stream... and some of that revenue could go toward the children. "You're not against providing for the children, are you??" ™
  11. balthazar
  12. balthazar
    Benz never "gave" anything to Chrysler; pieces/components were SOLD to ChryCo, and in some instances mandated that they be used to boot. I have seen ex-insiders claim the prices were "full development cost" and royalties were also charged for components MB was moving to the next generation of (were worthless to MB). ChryCo was already moving to the RWD LX platform before the take over; the FWD LH platform was engineered to support RWD. MB also had all their US/Germany conference calls billed to Chrysler. Daimler raped & pillaged Chrysler.
  13. balthazar
    Solid axles generally have higher weight capacities... but that's not really a factor in SUVs. Pickups are unlikely to ever go IRS.
  14. balthazar
    Vehicles come off lease every day- what would explain distinct waves of off-lease product?
  15. balthazar
    Everything will always be worth something. There are 2 restored AMC Gremlins on Hemmings right now; $22.9K and $36.9K. Your mercedes is apparently worth an unrestored '74 Gremlin with a stuck motor; on Hemmings also for $7000... and they didn't even wash it. You still have about $5000 of depreciation coming. Probably a great time to unload it.
  16. balthazar
    I first saw 3-D printing about 30 years ago when a local guy I knew with a small design studio was doing thermal lithography. Like the video said, the auto industry is [close to 150 yrs old] and they've got it down to a science. It just takes time to build a better mousetrap. I'm always interested in a better way, but that better way has to leverage out 150 years of the current way, and that takes decades usually.
  17. balthazar
    So when people say 'American cars are not competitive / horrible!' they're talking about mercedes, bmws and toyodas??? The only way a vehicle tax can work is based on the parent company, not where in 60 minutes a bunch of parts are screwed together.
  18. balthazar
    He didn't say that; that it's cheaper. He said some costs are eliminated, but the bottom lines weren't given. I watched from 8:30 thru almost 15:00. Some take-aways : right now this company can only make something 15" in size max, so major components size-wise aren't yet happening. Also, he stated the piece he showed would take 24 hours to make SIX of them. They can't come CLOSE to mass production yet and they're 22 years into the process. One interesting thing I noted is the printed piece had MUCH smaller footprints where clearly (as a seat mounting bracket) they would be much less stable than the OEM bracket. In that this is not a singular piece identical to the OEM one, we don't know if it meets strength / crash test standards, never mind metallurgy specs for performance. It looks like a salesman sample, not an OEM-approved piece. This is yet another tech that's not yet comparable to existing practices.
  19. balthazar
    Only way a Camry is an American car is if the tooling & rights are sold to an American company. But tell yourself whatever you need to.
  20. balthazar
    what.
  21. balthazar
    ^ That's an hour & 14 minutes long. Hope they can 3-D print a simple bracket quicker than that (which I'm not going to watch).
  22. balthazar
    It's equal parts boring & awkward- that's my opinion. Doesn't bear any Jag stylistic heritage. The i-pace is not ugly, it's just not something that reaches out and says 'me love you long time'. Fanboys will wax poetic all day long, it's like watching 'Runway' and listening to the prattle there. Meaningless. He's a shill, which is fine, but don't expect me to take it objectively. • BY THE WAY- that "sporty 3-spoke steering wheel" with the hollowed out bottom spoke is in ONE HUNDRED other models of all sorts of brands & price tiers. It's completely standard fare, yet listen to him speak of it in an awed tone. • "I've got a ton of legroom, 890 mm, which is a lot..." Gee whizzikers, that the exact same amount of rear legroom in a 'horribly cramped' CTS. Very interesting. • Good thing you can check out all the overhead traffic thru the giant sunroof, because it appears the rear headrests are touching the ceiling of the car- there is zero rearward visibility.
  23. balthazar
    A year older, 117,000 lbs more. And not even a big block!
  24. balthazar
    Pfffft- Chevy full-size truck towed 347,000 lbs in 1973.
  25. balthazar
    EVs will 'take over' the majority of sales well before AD will, and EVs are looking at a 50 year window from now to accomplish that.
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