balthazar

>>"June - ATHS Truck Show & Allentown MACK Truck Plant Tour, Macungie, PA"<< I have to get to this one in '08- I've only made 1 show, I think it was 3 years ago. >>"August - Central Jersey Chapter of the Antique Truck Club of America Days of the Past Truck & Tractor show, Washington Crosssing Park, NJ"<< This is a really cool local show- GMTC- we should meet up there. >>"October - AACA Fall Meet, Hershey, PA"<< Anyone who'll sleep in the back seat of his crew cab on a 42-degree night has got to love Hershey. Only hard rain will keep me away in the forseeable future. I'll add my 2 always-attends: Englishtown NJ Spring (April) & Fall (Sept) swap meets, Raceway Park NJ (since '90) Lead East, Parsippany Hilton, Parsippany NJ, Labor Day weekend (since '96)

>>"Consider this the primary, bitches"<< Oh, I see; he's using your catch phrase...

>>"I have dual zone on both of my vehicles and it doesn't make a difference at all when the dials are set differently."<< Both my wife's Pontiac's & my Chevy's dual-zones work fine- major temp differences out of the 2 sides. >>"50 years ago Detroit shunned diesel out of their game as they thought it was stupid to spend research $ on them. Now they are ruing for the chance that they could have had better prospects with it. With the brute force they were in 1970s the laws would have certainly made diesel a place in US. Diesel is now the tour de force in Europe and much of the other world. You and I face the brunt of not having a GOOD DIESEL GM car in US."<< Not in cars, no, but lots of money spent on diesel trucks (and locomotives) AT LEAST 50 years back (GM diesel experience reaches into the WWII years). But the diesel infrastructure in the U.S. was very sparse that long ago (even 30 years ago)- it was primarily the providence of farm country and interstates... not a good supply for diesel cars... and really; who would want one with gas at 30 cents and 2-4 times the power to boot? No point here.

Dec '07 (let's ignore the holidays here) has 21 regular work days. 8 hr/day x 21 days = 168 hours. 106 / 21 = 5.0- so he's working 13 hr/ day assuming he's only working 5 days a week... bump that to 6 and it drops to 12hr/day. Sure doesn't sound like enough to kill a man to me.

The problem is the way modern batteries are designed- there is no longer a warning 'slow-down', where you get the idea the battery is no longer up-to-snuff. Instead, for what reason I have not learned, they perform like Day 1 until Day Last, when they die instantly & without warning. I drove my '94 everyday on the factory battery. One day in the summer of 2001 I drove to work without incident, but 2 hours later when I went out to drive off, it was stone dead (no- no lights or any other accessories left on- it basically has none to speak of). It's a real shortcoming, IMO. I've heard this scenario repeated by others many times- seems the average life is right close to 7 years. I would bet on 1 more year with your battery, but then I would start to think about it if you are particularly worried about getting stranded.

The only changes that could be complained about 'unrealistically' would be the larger mirrors (ie: there is a 'real world' practicality/safety issue involved there). I do not see any other changes as being 'real world vs. fantasy'; some aspects of design are sometimes over-executed on the side of conservatism when the original aspect is entirely livable in 90% of the real world. IMO- sometimes sacrificing that 10% is worth the image and cache in certain products. IE: did ferrari care that the 3.5-foot frontal overhang and it's resulting dismal approach angle in the enzo would keep it out of many Beverly Hills driveways? F-no.

How come I've never read : >>"The new camry is the finest midsize car toyota has produced in three decades."<<

I suppose it's wrong to inherantly distrust & dismiss the automotive-related knowledge of a woman based merely on her gender. This, and I have no idea who Caldwell is.

As far as her claim goes, she was driving a nissan... :wink:

If you didn't, maybe honda will. :wink:

I generally listen to 'financial' radio during the day. Over the past weeks, ever since oil started climbing, it has been a regular topic, with analysts from all walks weighing in on the topic. Increasingly over the last week, more and more analysts have predicted the price of oil to fall to between $70-80/barrel in 2 month's time, as the economic factors that drove the speculation that pushed oil to $98 are no longer in play. It's already fallen about $12/barrel. BTW... the inflation-adjusted high for oil was in Dec 1980 at $198/barrel. I believe, after listening to much more involved individual's takes, that the perception ($90-100/barrel=mongo expensive) is overstated and we will not see great changes in people's habits at $4/gallon or even $5. There was no greater emphasis in '80 WRT consumer shift than there is today, and it was over twice as expensive then.

>>"Chevelle Malibu SS, powered by a 220-horse {283} V-8, achieved 0 to 60 in 9.7 seconds and the quarter mile in 17.4 at 80 mph. "<< Why bother mentioning that there was also a 250 HP and 300 HP 327, and in the identical year of '65, a 375 HP (actual output: 400) 396 in the SS Z-16? Z-16 did 0-60 in 6.0 sec & the 1/4 mile in 14.6 sec @ 100 MPH on utter &#036;h&#33; for tires. Give it modern radials and watch another second fall off the 1/4. How nice to cherry-pick the lowest HP V-8 in an SS reference and then quote it's accel times. >>"No dragstrip diva, "<< No- not that one, but the 396?- yes, yes it was.

If I wasn't clear- I was referring to the historical cumulative totals, which is how I read it. The figures I stated reflect that. Why would it matter if 'any one of us was around then'- have you absolutely no use or appreciation for history ??

smk4565+ >>"I made a mistake about the Model T, it was Ford total was 90% not just the Model T. From Wikipedia... "...by the time Henry made his 10 millionth car, 9 out of 10 of all cars in the entire world were Fords."<< 90% of the WORLD's cars produced by 1923/24 were Fords? Impossible. T was roughly 90% of Ford's production thru '24, and T only reached 52% of U.S. cars by that year. You CANNOT rely on wikipedia for hyperbole like the above. But if you insist, give me a head's up and the Ford entry will read differently in about 2 minutes... :wink:

>>"Pontiac has the most potential now."<< Have to agree vs. the others mentioned above; saab is crippled by a rigid heritage that does not allow 'reinventing' the brand without angering all 200 loyal buyers worldwide. Pontiac sells nearly 4 times saab's volume based on the '04 # above yet has a progressive-enough history that they are not locked into design reguritation for 25 years. Saab will never be any more than it is right now, only way it can go is down. >>"FYI: 2006 (US? NA?) sales #s: GMC: 480k"<< This must be a partial year figure (thru October??); in 2004 GMC sold 598K. I don't recall anything that could be responsible for a 100K loss...

I've worked 80-hr weeks and 30 days out of 31 before, and I'm still kicking, but I'm an old-world iron horse.

In looking at the pics in the threads 'over there'- it's clear that the tailgate skin is merely crimped onto the rest of the tailgate. Now, I can't say offhand without going out into the snow to check, if Chevy spot-welds or merely crimps their tailgates together, but both Ford & Chevy tailgates are rock solid. The weight I've had on mine- wow: a 1958 GE Combination refridgerator/freezer, paver stones, walk-behind snowblower, my 200-lbs frame jumping around like an enraged monkey, etc, etc. IMO, its seems likely a combination of too-thin sheetmetal and an insufficiently engineered and/or tested crimping job results in a shockingly low-stress failure. I have NEVER heard of this happening on any other make truck in my life. Many of the owners there sure don't seem to have the common sense most 'real' truck owners have ('take your tailgate off every time you want to load something- that's why it's made to come off!' - WTF?

No,no; I am asking if there is any grassroots-level talk of reducing shipping pollution by consumer self-restricting the purchase of imported vehicles. This is akin to a 'double-dose': burning huge amounts of fossil fuels to get.... huge amounts of fossil-fuel burning vehicles here. As we all know- these numbers (imported vehicles) grow yearly, and some companies (honda, for one) have been steadily & quietly increasing the percentage of their imports AND thusly, their corporate CO2 emissions. Eliminate the shipping vessels and what would the CO2 savings be worldwide?? What portion of the U.S.'s CO2 emissions are caused by all the ships belching into our ports 24/7- I'd surely enjoy hard numbers here. Wait; lemmee guess- no one has bothered to check into this because it 'hits home' too painfully. No more priuses? OMGNO!

Some fascinating reading over there: 'misaligned bed and a blown trans, OTHERWISE IT"S BEEN PERFECT!!' If only these major problems caused the tundra owners to proclaim 'I'll never buy japanese again'...

>>"people are advocating incremental policy changes that encourage and allow people the option to live closer to their workplace, use the most suitable form of transport, buy local (aka American) when possible, and ultimately reduce their carbon and pollutant footprint."<< Would this not, also, include buying domestic automobiles vs. those shipped acorss the Atlantic or Pacific?? Do these people ALSO advocate that 'policy change', or are they looking the other way here?

>>"Interesting...never heard of filling the trans via the dipstick."<< You forgot the jokey smurf smilie...

I dunno- the 'blogs' pics just look dated to me; mersedes generally does much better at regurgitating the same design cues over & over (isn't that sport grille spot-on for one from circa 1990?) than bmw, but the interior looks dated and drab: airbag-obvious buldge in an all-plastic steering wheel, ergonomically-questionable HVA/C location -couldn't be any lower, riveting cutline around the NAV door... this is a "cheap" mercedes, right? High 20Ks?

>>"IMO the fact that one nation's automobiles are responsible for *five percent* of the world's net CO2 is staggering. "<< Curious: what percentage of the world's automobiles are in the U.S.?

>>"Again, the sensitivities of some posters is unbelievable...you can't win. GM gets the best enthusiast press in years for product excellence and the English Professors here come out of the woodwork to pronounce their concerns."<< Oh, I'm sorry, missed the memo; I did not realize we (General Motors) were done and it was time to sit back and relax. After all, the collective ingrained perceptions will disappear like cigarette smoke in a stiff breeze after but a few months of good reviews on 5 models. Halleluia and Yay- we made it !!! It's the '65 Comeback Tour !!! FOG & CARBIZ see the bigger picture, but a bunch of you other people seem to think 'good is good enough (now let's get back to our monthly allotment of 'interesting' BMW road tests)'.

>>"The lambdas get a great review in general. Why? Because all three are great vehicles. But no, we don't like that they are all lauded in the same paragraph, so let's argue about the semantics of the journalist's choice in the terms he uses for his article along with how it should have been written. Apparently, unless it reads like it came out of the mouth of a robot it isn't a credible review."<< This approach by journalists is all you've ever read, so why question it, right? A pat on the head and everything's fine. The writer's credibility is not under attack, only his methodology. These are subtleties & subliminals, but they DO have an effect on the reader and they are inclusive in GM's fight to change public & media perception. It's NOT merely the product that needs to work 100% here, there's more to it than that. There are still people that have sworn off domestics in general because their aunt's '79 Fairmont was a ran like crap, and having cars like the CTS & Enclave will not change that because generalities like these still persist, regardless of their validity. >>"As far as ES and Camry, the Lexus occupies a different segment and price from the Toyota"<< Just because toyota prices them farther apart, does not change the physicality of their 'twinness'. If the Lambdas were the same degree apart in pricing, you would not be arguing with me. Didn't the previous altima & maxima share the exact same platforms & powertrains, ala the Lambdas? I remember reading a few comments that the altima pretty much rendered the maxima redundant.