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Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    The Alpha platform is superbly weighted and balanced, one of the absolute best balanced platforms in the industry. The FWD based CLA does not have that. The Alpha platform does everything that the enthusiast crowd loved about BMWs from 2003 before BMWs got heavy and lost their steering feel. But Pole movers like SMK pulled up the goal and decided that flabby 3-series were the new ideal.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Not for a Serp belt on a BMW X1 it's not. It's just a FWD 2.0 liter 4-cylinder. If it's taking you 2 hours of labor to install the Serp belt on such an engine (not timing or anything like that) just a regular old Serp belt... then it's a bad design. Even on the old GM B-bodies equipped with the towing package, it required removing the first belt, removing the mechanical fan mount, and then removing the second belt, I can do that in under an hour. If it takes more than one wrench to replace the belt, it was designed badly. I can do all 4 V-belts on my Olds with a single adjustable wrench.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    They actually make special Serp belt wrenches. $15 at Harbor Freight and they work great so you don't need baby hands.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    You don't notice it until it's gone.... I'm talking about the 8 horsepower I gain for running E-85. By all accounts I should never notice that difference in power or the few lb-ft I also get. But I use E-85 almost exclusively. This past week however, I had a big build up of fuel points from my local grocery chain and they don't offer E-85, so I just filled up with regular and got my $1.00 a gallon off. What I'm noticing is that while 0-60 is still irrelevant as before, the truck feels less lively and even a bit sluggish off the line. I got another coupon for $10 off a $20 fill-up, but also that station doesn't have E-85... so I'll just live with it for now.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Why is any serp belt replacement EVER $541?? If it takes you more than 20 minutes to replace the belt, it is a bad design.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    I borrow my best friend's dog pretty often, but I might get a photocopy sometime in the summer. Waiting for his Pup Cup at Starbucks...
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Gosh how could I have missed him!? I did meet @A Horse With No Name also many years ago
  8. Drew Dowdell
    I'd be happy to buy you a coffee! And I forgot @Z-06 / Michael. I used to stay with him and his wife for Detroit Auto shows in the early days.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    Oh! I know who I missed! @GMTruckGuy74 That's a great idea! Would others be interested in this?
  10. Drew Dowdell
    I love those seats! The Recaros that came on the second gen CTS were sublime! All they have to do is match that and they're perfect.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    @balthazar @Cory Wolfe @Chris_Doane @ocnblu @Flybrian @Camino LS6 @caddycruiser @knightfan26917 @HoLottaBuicks @William Maley I feel like I'm forgetting someone from the meetup at Camino's way back when.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    She drove one of those 4WD Nissan Sentra Wagon things
  13. Drew Dowdell
    He doesn't seem to keep his cars long enough to require major repairs... and with that mileage, it maybe was a CPO.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    That sounds like a sweet deal on the A8L!
  15. Drew Dowdell
    I had that image on a t-shirt and I got screamed at by my high school bitch of an English teacher. Everyone hated her.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    Nearly no one uses the SAE interior measurements
  17. Drew Dowdell
    @mkaresh has done the research on this. There is no industry standard for measuring interior room. Ford manipulated theirs to the point that he had to just automatically subtract 2 inches from leg room measurements to get something accurate.
  18. Drew Dowdell
    Numbers lie... even Cadillac numbers. The CT5 does not feel as roomy inside as a 5-series. All of this aside here's what Cadillac is doing. I can get into a CT5-V (not Blackwing) for $47,695. With that I get a 350 HP V6 and a nice leather interior while over at Benz I'm stuck in a C300 with plastic seats, measly 255hp turbo 4 for the same price. That is a very easy decision to make.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    As @balthazar likes to point out, people don't go shopping with their tape measures. All it has to do is meet or beat the expected roominess for the price. People pick a price range first and then see what vehicles they can find in that range, they don't pick a wheelbase and work backwards. There's not going to be much, if any, 5-series/CT5 cross shopping with a $20k spread in base price.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    Outside length doesn't tell the whole story. The CT5 doesn't feel as roomy inside as a 5-series and that's intentional. Cadillac is positioning the CT5 more against the 3-series / C-Class and it feels like it inside. It's base price is $36,895 while the base 3-series is $41,250, so think of the CT5 as a much roomier 3-series competitor which can get a V8 while the 3-series can't. The CT4 competes with the A-Class/CLA and 2-series Grand Coupe (stupid stoooopid name) . (Cadillac - $32,995 / A-Class - $37,435 / 2-Series GC - $35,700) and is easily the roomiest and most powerful of all of them. Sadly, Cadillac isn't making a sedan in the 5-series size any longer. They should have kept the CT6 in production.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    I clearly have been away too long and the inmates have been running the asylum. I have absolutely had it with the bickering on this site about political crap and bigotry. My tolerance for such bull crap is down to 2% and the battery light is flashing. I am -->this close<-- to pulling the plug on the whole site because of all of the people who bring non-car dramatic crap onto my car website and can't even show an ounce of human decency towards each other and other human beings. Talk about cars.... that's it! I am watching. To anyone who would bring political or bigoted crap to my website, I have a message from the Romulans for you...
  22. Drew Dowdell
    C/D clearly made a clerical error if they think a vehicle with an extra 1,000 is going 0.1 seconds slower using the same engine/transmission. You are right though about the size. The CT5 is slightly larger than a 3-series, but noticeably smaller than a 5-series... they don't really line up against each other well. The CT4 is meant to compete with the A-Class and the Alpha chassis can easily outhandle the MB and BMW Front Drivers. The ATS-V blew away the CLA45 on the track easily.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    For everyone.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    The Cadillac EVs will likely cost more than Teslas at the start. The first EVs are supposed to be flag ships, there’s not going to be a Model 3 or Model Y competitor right away. I trust Cadillac SuperCruise more than Tesla AutoPilot. It’s safer.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Batteries are getting cheaper, smaller, and lighter too.
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