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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    '04 Silverado 2500HD is @ 165K at the moment.
  2. balthazar
    Why would you need a reverse camera in a pickup?
  3. balthazar
    Generator commutator after being dressed & cleaned : You can see the black scunge on the commutator is gone & the grooves are back. It's been bench tested and the generator is back online- yet another decades-old piece that still works. Tho the dual pulley / fan-mounted-to generator is specific to the Cab Over, the guts could've been changed out at some point- who knows. If they were, it appears to have still been a good 40 years ago or more. Generator also tested fine in the truck, as it's been reinstalled & the cooling system re-filled. However, the battery still isn't charging, so we did a few tests on the voltage regulator. This component controls & switches the flow of power; into the battery when it's depleted, and to run the truck when the battery is full. I have an old Filko unit on my truck, which the faint lettering shows 'Chicago' with a zip code, which means post 1963. The manual tries to make a voltage regulator sound simple, but it's pretty delicate in that you can't adjust it with it's cover off, as it has thermo-coils inside and the cover helps retain the heat generated by electrical flown the coils, affecting when points open & close. And the manual want setting specific to one-tenth of a volt. On the other side, during this testing this past weekend, the truck was started 7 or 8 times, and twice it was revved pretty high (well; for this engine - HP is rated at only 3800), it popped to life very willingly and ran very smooth.
  4. balthazar
    Does seem to have found it's niche, but it's almost the polar opposite of the HMMWV.
  5. balthazar
    'Based on', IMO, means someone took an E-Series and modified it. It appears the MV-1 (or whatever it's called) merely uses a number of components that the E-Series uses, but not the chassis or body. A clear distinction in my book; akin to a Shelby Cobra not being a 'Ford'.
  6. balthazar
    '58-60 F-100 in a trailer park.
  7. balthazar
    ^ That's hilarious!! BMW thinks slicing their pizza into thinner pieces is going to stop the sliding sales? FORTY?? They desperately need a new design direction, and need to focus on their core models, not build endless slightly-different/sized variants. That's some inept management over there.
  8. balthazar
    Of course it does! The b-class, for example, has to be certified and tested for the U.S. market, it has to be physically shipped from Germany and advertised. Maybe if Daimler cut the price to a more reasonable $25K, they would sell here and they could make it worth while and get some volume moving. They can't be making a profit on the b-class at these numbers. Chevy is waxing mercedes EV ass with the Bolt : 56 units vs. 952, and the Bolt is still ramping up and they're basically the same MSRP.
  9. balthazar
    Not in the U.S.! Here, it's another mercedes flop. If MB can't make a compelling EV for CA, they're in trouble here. But perhaps it's not the 87-mile range EV-aspect, but the car as a whole; a gruesomely cheap car trying to pass itself off as an entry-level 'luxury' car.
  10. balthazar
    smart is reported on mercedes sales reports, it only lacks the badge (which I'm frankly SHOCKED they didn't glue one on). b-class is a flop in the land of the Wistful Dreamer, the EV CUV isn't likely to do much better. And there aren't any "fans" if all you can move is 280 units/mnth. Merceds said their 70-some model catalog is out of control & they are going to cut models. Good- makes sense, no one can figure out what alphanumeric goes where (might as well revamp the naming system again while they're at it). No doubt they are going to kill drop-inna-bucket sales models first, esp since most aren't sharing with another vehicle. They need to offer more, with less, a lesson they haven't learned yet.
  11. balthazar
    February numbers : b-class : 56 slc : 268 sl : 230 amggt : 93 g-class : 288 smart : 348 Special mention : s-class : 1002 cla : 1526 Even the cargo vans are outselling the cal now, which is down 37% Y-T-Y.
  12. balthazar
    M-B, with their Job One goal over ever-increasing sales, should drop every model LINE that moves less than 1000 unit/month and redouble efforts on the core volume models. That'd cut 6 lines right off the bat, and improve ROI. Better watch it tho if the above is implemented; the S-class was only 2 cars over 1000 last month (and down 36% over Feb 2016)!
  13. balthazar
    For who?? Last I checked, the X4 and X6 sell like 10% of what the X3 and X5 do. He's got it ass-backwards. And I've said here for many years -and it's the worst ever @ MB now- that the ever-so-slight variations on every model, and lines that are a mere 6" longer than the one below it, are ridiculous. I think MB has like 65 models right now.
  14. balthazar
    ^ 'drag strips patrons'.
  15. balthazar
    Costco by me, which is less than 2 yrs old, merely stuffs a single vehicle in the 'vestibule' where the shopping carts dock.
  16. balthazar
    Red Bull, 8.4 oz cans, retails @ $2.39-2.59 ea in convenience stores. Costco RB 8.4 oz case is $32.79, or $1.37/can. There definitely are deals to be had, but like ANY retail entity, there's going to be junk/Chinese junk also.
  17. balthazar
    'Kirkland Cousin', repackaged Sonic, both bodies, only sold in red, white or blue, but you have to buy 6 at once; they come blister-packed.
  18. balthazar
    No; "Kirkland"-for a vehicle- sounds awful. It SOUNDS like a discount name, and I'm not saying that because of Costco. I once had a 'Portland' 13-in TV; anything '–land' doesn't work for me.
  19. balthazar
    First off, change the name. Second, perhaps a revisit of the 1964 General Motors concept, the Runabout: Makes mad sense here (car comes with it's own cart).
  20. balthazar
    Not very lucky for those shopping today tho, is it?? It's 2017, and MB is putting a $30K interior into a $70K flagship SUV like it's 1990. We've heard it over & over & over: 'Mercedes is going to fix their SUVs in the next generation', yet they're still cutting corners like mad. Look at the CLA front fascia; cut & pasted onto the S'coupe. SO cheap, so lazy… but it they can sell a few hundred more that way, why not?
  21. balthazar
    Here's what smk sees. Get's "Silverado feel" from Escalade interior : Thinks GLS interior ($67K) is unique, modern and doesn't AT ALL "feel" like a $32K GLA interior :
  22. balthazar
  23. balthazar
    Wife asked me today 'Does mercedes have some sort of partnership with Tesla?' I told her no, none, why do you ask? She said she saw a mercedes, a small hatchbacky thing, really clean, but the lettering across the back said "TESLA POWERED". I assume it was one of those C230 shitboxes.
  24. balthazar
    ^ Also not 'priced for the masses'.
  25. balthazar
    Oh, you most definitely do.
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