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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    Silverado mirrors are huge and the 'bent line' covers the same amount of square millimeters. Maybe it's simply an indicator how interesting a Fiat rebadge of a Mazda is.
  2. balthazar
    Arrow doesn't 'waste space'; it's a straight line bent in the middle. But I agree- it's on the left, it means turning left.
  3. balthazar
    Perhaps there'll be a sport version of the lexus: the 'S' UX.
  4. balthazar
    LOT of knee-slappers in the last handful of posts...
  5. balthazar
    I could agree with the current Escalade, yes.
  6. balthazar
    An early Mustang is a cheap car, it lacked a lot of features others had at the same time. Tho Ford did do an excellent job, it's roots could not be eradicated. And it was never very comfortable to begin with (friend had a '64.5 and a '66). Even the buckets were pretty flat. Get into a period Pontiac big car with buckets and they are very comfortable. Cadillac came out with tilt & telescopic in '64, my '64 GP has tilt (but not TS- wasn't available yet @ PMD). An easy car to get comfortable in, IMO. But unfortunately for me, I can never adjust the claustrophobic interiors of most modern cars farther away from me. I like to be able to adjust MYSELF more so than the things I'm interfacing with.
  7. balthazar
    When have you ever seen a 'stunning' SUV??
  8. balthazar
    Am I being a 'mean girl' if I say Lacey is not aging well? 22 yrs old on L, 35 on R :
  9. balthazar
    Interesting. I find the huge columns, thick wheels, obtrusive consoles and the over-wraught seating to be less comfortable. I need to be able to shift myself around inside frequently, and modern cars are just too tight inside. The notably poor outward visibility doesn't help the impression, either.
  10. balthazar
    (^ tin foil hatter ) Most old cars don't have X-frames. My historical fleet of 23 vehicles averages 1966, and only 1 has been an X-frame. Steering columns being fixed in a full-size car is mitigated by the enormous crumple zones they have. Hit a full grown deer in a '64 at 100 MPH with no seat belt- not even a scratch (on me- deer didn't come out of it well). I'd rather drive a '60s vehicle daily (like I used to) than a new car. Would be cool to get a clean vintage full-size, do some minor updates, and drive the wheels off of it.
  11. balthazar
    Of course; being old, much less safe cars; everyone was killed int he above accidents, right?
  12. balthazar
    The madness of the medical / insurance incestual relationship : single doctor visit: blood test (well visit). Bill shows 15 line item tests. • Cost of blood test(s) : $1985 • Insurance company "adjustment" : drop total by $1703 • Insurance "paid" : $241 • Balance due on $1985 blood test : $40
  13. balthazar
  14. balthazar
    Of course volume shouldn't be a metric for a luxury- in fact the opposite is actually the case. SRX was definitely slowing in sales toward the end of it's run. Personally I don't care for the vehicle- haven't driven one but I can't get past the huge snout on it. But the XT5 is finding way more buyers than the SRX did. Cadillac got this one right on the money. RE the X5/GLE - quite frankly I believe the whole 'cross-shopping' thing is vastly overrated. I don't think many consumers approach buying a vehicle by objectively compiling a list of all features, then going out & doing instrumented testing of a field of possibles like the magazines do. XT5 doesn't have to compete with this wheel drive ( the majority are AWD anyway) or that 0-60 as long as it hits the major points that's driving the luxury CUV/SUV segment. Clearly, it does. The average Brand X buyer is not going to seriously consider the Brand Q on average- that works both ways. But all this weight on 'Ooo- it can't corner as hard as an ABC XYZ so it's not as good' is a lot of wishful thinking. No one drives CUVs/SUVs that way.
  15. balthazar
    I see Car Gurus is advertising $16,000 OFF the 2018 mercedes S560 4matic sedan. No one pays MSRP, but for some strange reason, it gets undue focus when talking about GM vehicles.
  16. balthazar
    How could it have been in the top 10; the XT5 wasn't on sale the whole year in 2016. April 2016 sales were 304, and the thru-Nov 2016 sales were 32,049. November 2017 XT5 sales were 5,623 and thru Nov 2017 the total is running 61,424. Basically 200% of 2016. Guess where the MDX is at in 2017 thru Nov : 43,469. Isn't the XT5 currently running in the #2 spot? Any other new lux SUV move that quickly up the sales chart? Bet Mercedes would like to be banking profit on their mid-range CUV on that kind of volume.
  17. balthazar
    ^ Good point. For the money/tier, it should've had something more extreme, like the Navigator concept's single gullwing 'doors'.
  18. balthazar
    They need to purge the catalog & get serious about their EVs if they ever want to challenge toyota's volume level.
  19. balthazar
    Yep, too many sedans.
  20. balthazar
    Maserati sold 1000/mnth all last year, they're pretty stable, volume-wise. Not a lot of volume, but stable. I still see them nearly daily in central NJ.
  21. balthazar
    I know you have an ongoing mower interest/hobby. I picked up a vintage mower ; a circa '55 Jacobsen Model 77 Rotary Disc. 2-stroke, aluminum deck, front corner discharge, 1.8HP. I'd like to sell it, any interest?
  22. balthazar
    ^ The existing fleet of 270 million vehicles is ample numeric evidence that any of these 'sweeping changes' in automobiles, IE: autonomous cars, 'community pods' or EVs, are going to take decades to become commonplace. At 13 million new vehicle sales/year, it'd take 22 years to replace all the existing (except of course it wouldn't) - and that's at 100% production of said configuration. This is why I've been saying it'll take 50 years for any of the above to truly become 'commonplace'.
  23. balthazar
    From a post on FB from some friends : Guy 1 : 175K miles on I believe an Ford Explorer. Me : 175K on '04 Silverado 2500 HD. Guy 3 : 268K on '98 Expedition Guy 4 : 241 K on F-150.
  24. balthazar
    brand fans maybe wouldn't but I'm talking the average car consumer. I didn't say they were identical, but they're so close it's very tough to differentiate individually, coming toward you on the road. I see these all the time here and I need to see the rest of the car / its size before I know if it's 'cheap or expensive'.
  25. balthazar
    Same grille texture, same fog-light-less holes in the lower corners, same slight ridges in the hoods. Without having them side-by-side, it's really hard to differentiate one from the other; you have to see the size and the rest of the car to tell, coming at you. Not, I would think, the desired 'announcement' if you just spent $65K. It's weak, MB needs to incorporate more stylistic differences between their price tiers.
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