SAmadei

'85 was the last year. All the FWD replacements are '86s... except the year late Bonneville... but that was on the G-body at the time.

This tells me that GM's secret safety procedures are insufficient so far... and yeah, this is really not the time GM needs to give ammunition to the anti-GM press and enthusiasts.

I agree that GM needs to take the Volt platform and spread it to other cars, but I really wish GM would put the power to the rear wheels. IMHO, Tesla and Fisker have the right idea, and Cadillac should be shooting for this, not the Prius/Leaf/Volt. Obviously, it would take some rejiggering of things to get the right weight balance, but IIUC, the Volt has empty space between the rear wheels, where the electric motor and transaxle could be fitted. Is it a lot of engineering? Yes, but its work that can be applied to future enthusiast vehicles. 'Volt'-based Alpha Camaro, anyone?

Nice car, but I hated these fullsizers with amber tail lamps. Just clashed with the idea of traditional American automobiles. Worse, I've seen too many people put the amber lenses on cars that didn't have them... resulting in the ambers lighting every time the driver hits the brakes.

I applaud the Lambo owner for not being a fair weather only enthusiast.

And, unfortunately, GM has passed on vague info in those statements. Now that GM has 5000+ Volts wandering around, I contend more specific info needs to be spread to the public. The same goes for other Li-Ion based electric cars. The battery will also go below 30% if you run out of gas. It will kick back to electric to get you to a gas station. It is limited but will still work. I think it is something like 7-10 Miles depending on the conditions based on what I have read on those who have tried it. 30% and 40% is the optimum state to preserve longer battery life. You can go below but it will shorten the life of the battery. Also if you store a Litium Ion say in other items they recomend a cool place with 40 % charge will help preserve the battery while in storage. And my point really is not that 30% is a hard limit, but that the closer to 0% the battery is discharged to, the worse it is for the battery pack. If you are on GM's Volt emergency team, you are not going to be able to ensure that a battery pack is undamaged unless you remove it from the vehicle... hardly something that can be done on the side of the road... so do they discharge all batteries to a point where the life is compromised or abruptly ended, just to be safe? According to Wiki, deep discharge of Li Ion batteries may short-circuit the cell, in which case recharging would be unsafe... resulting in the thermal runaway that discharging the battery was meant to avoid. Lithium batteries have been around for over 30 years. The pros and cons are pretty well known, and barring a major discovery, will be around for some time. This is one thing we do agree on, but GM is the holder of this info, and needs to be more transparent with it. I'm not expecting a white paper on the exact Lithium chemistry being used, but I do expect there will be enough info to understand what will happen to the batteries throughout its lifetime, which could be quite long once the DIYer's start getting their hands on them.

I'd like to know what kind of tallies GM has for V6s or 4 cyls.

With your description? A Green book with the word 'Volt' in it? Great description... that covers about 3000 books. Turns out that book is marketing fluff... and I'm not paying for it. I already wasted my money on the Lutz book, which was super low on detail and high on fluff. Same old nothing. I have these. I've had them for months. I READ THEM. Where is the discharge procedure? All these guides have the same clip art and copy, basically saying 'cut here', 'cut here', 'don't cut here', 'here is the master shut off'. There is nothing else in there about the discharge procedure. GM: "Trust us, we have plans in place". Yet, the discharge procedure is apparently a huge secret. Do we really trust GM to visit EVERY Volt accident for in perpetuity? The MSD does not DISCHARGE THE BATTERY. The Huffpo article does not document the process. A phone call to a friend with a salvage yard does not know what you are talking about. They plan on stacking up Volts just like every other smashed up GM car. If you are not knowledgeable enough in the Volt to know the discharge procedure, you shouldn't write that "it just needs to be unplugged" or "just discharge it". And posting links to basically the same PDF file that does not include the procedure does not help your cause. Yeah, there is lots of good info on the internet. A search of "How to discharge the volt battery pack" comes up with 14.4 million hits, and a small percentage of those articles that call for a procedure for discharging the battery... but I haven't eye balled every article, and I have yet to find one article describing the procedure. One last thing I was thinking about... the Volt battery pack never discharges below 30 percent in normal usage, as discharging the battery pack below that point results in permanent damage to the pack. A battery pack with a 30% charge is still a lot of energy. If every Volt accident results in GM engineers, lawyers and PR folks being dispatched to discharge the pack, these packs are going to all be severely damaged... perhaps to the point where GM can't even use them for the fabled "storage batteries" plan. This sounds like a situation where every Onstar triggering accident leads to the vehicle being totaled.

Not only tiny wheels and steelies, but the trucks don't even get flush mounted headlights... they get those cheapie sealed beam squares with a super cheap looking grey bezel. Must be fleet-only options.

Ah... the Green Book So Memorable That You Don't Remember the Name. Since you apparently have access to this book (I do not), just riddle me this: What is the the procedure for discharging an internally shorted battery pack one the emergency techs have cut all the recommended leads. You stated its as easy as unplugging... then as easy as discharging it. If its so easy, tell us how to do it without damaging the vehicle or battery pack further or endangering personal safety. I'm not too worried about that car... I understand the Volt was cleared as being the direct cause. I'm more concerned with the NHTSA self-immolated Volt.

The difference here is that cars DO get into minor accidents and drive home. Cars DO run over sharp debris. I had some debris slash open the floor of my car without my knowledge. If you think this is on par with aliens shooting your battery with ray guns, then you are less bound to reality than SMK. And where is this written? And how? After the fire department gets done hacking apart every fat power cable on your $40K Volt, how do you discharge the battery? This has nothing to do with anything. I still see people doing inadvertent welding while attempting to jump start cars and not one fuse or electrical component is worse for wear. Sure, we take precautions... the lawyers have preordained that... but 90% of a jump start, brake job or tire rotation is the same as it was 25 years ago. Nothing is letting them off the hook. I would question if the Tesla system is quite as liable to go into thermal runaway due to the segmentation of the batteries, but I have insufficient information to make an guess on that. Being proactive? I read the safety crew documentation. Where does it say to discharge the battery. Is this a secret that you only get if you go to the seminar? Unless GM is going to buy the packs back at a premium, the junkyards are going to sell them to the highest bidders. Battery packs are going to be the hottest thing since junkyards got into the platinum and electronics businesses. Nobody but you would even suggest that a battery pack would go to the crusher. I'm believe GM's storage battery story when I see it... GM knows that lithium recovery will be a huge business. _IF_ electric cars prove to be as popular as people here seem to think, those battery packs are going to be dismantled for lithium to make new battery packs for whatever is selling the best.

Oh, really? Please explain how you can unplug a battery pack that is internally shorted and going into thermal runaway? You're also making a major assumption that one has to have an accident to have the battery pack damaged. What about the person who runs over a board with some nails in just the right way... or some steel shrapnel on the highway... people run this over and if the car doesn't immediately stop working, they forget about it... or even someone looking for revenge with a screwdriver and a hammer? Sure, gas tanks have been slashed open... and its an immediate, obvious danger... taking a spike or a piece of rebar to the battery pack and the driver may never know. Overall, I still think the danger is fairly low to Volt owners, but its not something that can be simply dismissed as easily as "just unplug it". And I think the dangers to impound yards, bodyshops and junkyards is much greater, since damaged Volts will be parked there awaiting repair, lawsuits and/or dismantling. Junkyard fires are no joke, and I'm sure that GM's program of giving loaner cars will help no junkyard owner sleep at night.

I imagine you interior material snobs are kind of like the guy in the Yaris ads... "Mmmmm... soft touch..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPzFCIKZa3c&feature=related When driving, the only time I expect to be touching the door panels is when someone T-bones me.

I actually agree. Chrysler should have a wagon. A real luxury wagon, not a sportwagon like the Magnum. The whole me-too attitude is what gets us products like the Blackwood and Aztek... and some products just don't translate into luxury products... like minivans. Mercedes can't seem to pull it off. Granted, Chrysler is not truly a luxury brand anymore... but having one of its better selling products a near clone of the Dodge minivan ain't helping that status.

Looked to me like he hammered the gas to gun it down the straight and only one wheel hooked up, then he stabbed the brakes after he realized it was going wrong. You can definitely hear him get on the engine. I imagine the suspension is way less forgiving than stock. Very strange to watch the video. A different angle would likely make more sense out of what happened.

Of course... the law was MEANT for arresting people who cannot afford a lawyer.

I already posted that one Actually, you didn't, BP. You posted the Holden Efijy, not the Buick Blackhawk. Both purple and great designs, any of us could have done the same thing before our morning caffeine. ;-)

Yeah, I stick to online generally, too. I only go live to Black Friday sales when I feel to need to chuck stranglers around a store. Its not pretty when the Yeti (me) shows up for the sale.

Very true, but it always seems hard to find them.

Just for testing, I would undo the Y pipe at the headers to allow the pressure out and see if it can run the RPMs up to the expected redline.

AWS is a gimick I would not expect to see repeated soon on any car. Apparently, your sarcasm detector is not working today.

You're description makes me think its leaning out. I would continue looking at the fuel system, but I would also double check there is no vacuum leak or mixed up vacuum lines.

Very interesting, and it confirms much of how I feel about these small SUVs. I bet quite a few large SUVs would fail this, as well.

A lifter wipes out a lobe... and you're running on 7 and half cylinders or worse. Over time, all of the cam lobes wear down... some more than others.

I'm not sure why you would put hi-per struts on all 4 corners though. The technology is about killing torque steer. There's no need for that on the rear wheels that I see. Maybe its getting all wheel drive AND all wheel steering.