Jump to content
Create New...

occupant

Members
  • Posts

    85
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About occupant

  • Birthday 07/18/1978

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://mybeaterworld.com
  • Skype
    occupantiliedindustries

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Wichita Falls, TX
  • Interests
    Cars, cars, eggs, cars, bacon, hash browns, and cars

occupant's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

  • Week One Done Rare
  • One Month Later Rare
  • One Year In Rare

Recent Badges

1

Reputation

  1. The adaptive cruise in my last Corolla (17 LE, no options, Uber lease) was pretty good at slowing down when cut off, getting back up to speed after the road clears, and holding speeds as low as 28mph. The most irritating issue with it was driving along city streets with cars parked on both sides and the slight curve when the car would get very upset. Also, in cold weather, the windshield might fog or ice over the sensor up top lighting up the dashboard like a Christmas tree and disabling the systems. Has the new system improved over the old one? I was able to get 34-36mpg in mixed mostly rideshare driving with the old CVT, and about 38 in straight highway driving at 60-65. Does the fixed first gear improved the city mileage much? I imagine it won't affect the highway numbers at all, though.
  2. Yeah, uh, dude... You just lost all possible credibility with me after that statement. I won't be commenting further, but I might send a friend of mine in here to sort you out.
  3. Don't touch my OCD self or I'll rearrange the clothes in your closet. Alphabetically By Color. Ooh, that says A-B-C, see how I did that?!! NO TOUCH!!!
  4. I've owned 9 Oldsmobiles since 1994. 1975 Cutlass Supreme sedan, blue on blue, 350/350, paid $100 for it, sold for $250 1985 Delta 88 Royale Brougham coupe, gray on maroon, 307/200C, paid $500 for it, traded for $1200 towards a 1993 Dynasty in 1996 1984 Ninety-Eight Regency sedan, blue on blue, 307/200-4R, paid $400 for it, scrapped due to transmission failure 1989 Cutlass Ciera S sedan, white on maroon, 2.5/125C, paid $177.50 for it, scrapped due to oil pump failure 1979 Delta 88 Royale coupe, white on blue, 350/350, paid $450 for it, sold for $500 1979 Delta 88 Royale sedan, green on green, 301/350, paid $500 for it, sold for $700 1990 Cutlass Ciera SL sedan, blue on blue, 3.3/125C, paid $225 for it, scrapped due to frame/cradle damage 1998 Silhouette GLS minivan, gray on gray, 3.4/4T60E, paid $300 for it, still have 1995 Cutlass Ciera SL sedan, white on blue, 3.1/4T60E, inherited from grandmother, picking up end of July 2012 Here's the van and the '95 Ciera:
  5. Didn't meet reserve at $2810. I have a 1979 Consumer Guide review book with pricing and this thing was probably double that when new. If I had cash I'd give about $3000 for it myself. Drive it until the engine/trans croak. Then drop in a nice strong 455/4-speed. Then it'd be a killer.
  6. There is a guy on 4btswaps with a 1995 Explorer Sport 4x4 who put in a 3.3 liter Cummins B3.3 engine and he averages 34mpg in the thing. Another guy put the 3.9 liter 4BT and an NV4500 into his 4x4 Durango and it was also getting 30+mpg. And then there's the guy with an early 80s Chevy pickup, half ton, put in the 4BT backed by an A833 4-speed with overdrive and 3.08 gearing. He gets 37mpg in his truck. All US measure, not Imperial. It's seriously good but the biggest hurdles are getting power brakes working (you need a vacuum pump and reservoir) and putting on your power steering pump, AC compressor, and alternator. It's easiest on Dodges because the brackets already exist from Ram pickups for the Chrysler PS pumps/compressors/alternators. If you have a 4x4 your front differential will be in the way of the oil pan. So you have to cut it up and weld it into a funky shape to keep enough oil in there (you need at least 2 gallons preferably 3 gallons capacity). And then you've got to make the trans/throttle linkages and modify the engine mounts and hope you clear the firewall. Then there's hood clearance issues because the intake is straight down on top of the engine. My personal opinion is for an SUV or pickup, the 3.3 or 3.9 Cummins are great. But for a car, I'd lean towards the 6.2L/6.5L GM truck diesels for a GM car, and the Mercedes OM616/OM617 for a Chrysler or Ford product. If I ever put a diesel in my Gran Torino it'll probably be a Mercedes unit. They have adapters for the Ford AOD so I'm covered there. The oil pan and engine mounts will be the biggest problems for me.
  7. I could do much better with the cruise OFF in the Cruze 2LT I rented for NYE. You got 32mpg over 40 miles, I got 38mpg over 120 miles, with a stiff 20mph headwind 55mi one way, lesser 10mph tailwind the 55mi trip home, and about 10 miles in town to/from the hotel and the restaurant and the casino. This was in cold weather, high 20s, no snow/ice. I was VERY impressed with the little turbo 1.4 and 6-speed automatic. I also drove a 1.8L Cruze LS once and felt it was missing something. The turbocharger is exactly what that base model car was missing. I have yet to drive a manual Cruze but honestly the automatic gets it right. Now if only the General would offer that turbo 1.4L as a crate engine with a standalone PCM so I can shoehorn it into something older, lighter, and ridiculous. Like a 1988 Chevy Spectrum...
  8. If the Versa is a complete pile then how come it outsells every other subcompact car out there? http://www.subcompactculture.com/2012/03/february-2012-subcompact-sales.html I rented a 2009 Versa a few months ago. My wife hated it. I liked it and thought it had potential, but with automatic I would not want it as a daily driver. It's too spartan, and needs a manual transmisson to keep me interested. On the same page I rented a 2007 Toyota Corolla a few years ago and again I would have to have a standard transmission to actually own one. But on the other hand, the 2007 Chevy Cobalt I rented the same year (and kept for about 2 months as it was a very awesome little car) would be fine with automatic. I would love to see plain basic transportation in the US courtesy of Datsun. Feel free to bring back the rear-drive 210, the front-drive 310, the rear-drive midsize 510, and the 200SX coupe and hatchback. Datsun in 1979-1982 was doing it right. Then they swapped out the 210 for the Sentra, the 310 for the Pulsar and promptly dropped the hatchbacks (stupid stupid) and the 510 gave way to the Stanza. Remember those? Neither do most people. The 510 had character. The Stanza had...um...I forget.
  9. I like the poly 318 in the big cars. The Polara and Fury in this era had that big speedometer and steering wheel and it just works.
  10. $5600, the bid price as of this writing, is about all the money for it. Just think, 200K of smooth daily driver motoring awaits...and yes, I WOULD paint it a darker color. The Dark Otter Metallic (charcoal gray) from my Silhouette would be a period correct color.
  11. My opinion is the way to introduce a diesel is to do so as a hybrid. A diesel would be a better power source for an electric generator anyway. The problem is the American public still views diesel fuel as a fuel for dirty semi truck drivers, filthy, sooty, gets your hands and clothes smelly and slippery, and it brings to mind lot lizards and 2-liter bottles of urine on the side of the road. I'm sure in California they have special diesel pumps for the TDI and BlueTec owners that use rainforest-safe recycled post-industrial content wipes to self-clean their contoured ergonomic handles, play beautiful bird calls in the background with a light string quartet belting out Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as you fill, and spritz gluten-free raspberry-pomegranate hand sanitizer on you when you hang up the nozzle. You can also thank GM for not including a water filter on the 350 Olds diesel until it was too late. An rpm/speed governor would have helped, too. Ford had some terrific diesel cars in the mid-80s. Remember the BMW turbodiesel in the Continental and Mark VII? No? How about the 2.0L Mazda diesel in the Escort and Tempo? No? Well, I can't blame you. They only sold a few hundred of each, if that. They were introduced too late and couldn't overcome GM's blunder. VW and Mercedes did fine with their diesels because they were German. I believe other cars like Nissan Maxima and Toyota Cressida/Camry could have diesels. Mazda's second gen 626 also had a turbodiesel available as well as a 4-door hatchback model. Good luck finding those these days, however.
  12. I'm pretty impressed with the write-ups in CD and MT and I do want to see one of these in person, touch it, feel it, sit in it, drive it, breathe it, etc... I'm a cheap person and I would only consider a 2.0L model, probably with a manual. At $15,995 I think I would be hard pressed to find a better value.
  13. That's fairly disgusting. $17,000 for the base base model with a stick and no cruise. $19,500 to get cruise on an LT1. $21,000 for the LT2 with cruise standard. I'll take a 3-year-old Cobalt instead. Thanks but no thanks.
  14. It is garbage to me. I never had a problem getting at or above EPA ratings on any car I owned. And I did look them up in the library. You know, that place with all the books that existed before the internet? 1986 Mercury Lynx original rating 30/39 I got up to 42. 1995 Geo Metro original rating 30/34 I got exactly 30/34. 1993 Dodge Dynasty 3.0L original rating 20/28 I got more like 22/28. 1995 Buick Century original rating 25/32 I got exactly 25/32. I can only think of ONE VEHICLE that never got the mileage stated on the EPA rating back in the day, and that would be the 1991 Ford Aerostar minivan. I could never crack 16mpg in that, was always 15.something, and it was rated 17/23 or something. Couldn't do it no matter how I drove or how much I tuned it or cleaned it up. At this point I ignore the "new" EPA ratings. I wish there was a cookie on the fueleconomy.gov website where I could turn off the new rating and have it display the old.
  15. The Solus KR21 is an excellent tire. There is a newer model out called the KR22 and it is low rolling resistance, has a higher treadwear rating, and still costs the same as the KR21. Neither, however, is available in H or higher speed ratings. A Kumho tire that is also excellent and offers higher speed ratings for the same money is the Ecsta LX Platinum. If I were to ever purchase new tires for any of my vehicles (excepting the Durango) it would be the Ecsta LX Platinum. But seeing as I'm a used tire kinda guy... Go read the reviews and survey results for all three on TireRack. Then compare that to the $100-$150 tires in the same sizes from the other tire companies. The name brand isn't worth the premium price to me.
×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search

Change privacy settings