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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell
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Well, you already know my opinion on the CT6... I'd have one in an instant if I could. I still think it is one of the most handsome designs to come out of GM in a generation. My point was aside from those... the Denali, the Escalade, the CT6, possibly Enclave.... there is nothing at GM that lights my fire. They're either mediocre (the rest of the Cadillac/Buick lineup) or they're UGLY (half the Silverado lineup, all of the Chevy/GMC full-size SUVs). I had a Terrain Denali 2.0T last year as a tester and it's a perfectly competent vehicle, but the outside is just so homely.... I would pick the Pilot, Cherokee, or CX5 over it based on looks alone. The Acadia looks like someone grafted a Sierra front clip onto the earlier version of the crossover and it just doesn't work. Is there a more "bar of soap" crossover out there than the Equinox? Three way tie with the new Escape and the Model-Y for that title? The Blazer isn't too bad from the front, but they used all of the styling budget up there and had none left for the rear. The Corvette is cool I guess, but so far out of my wheelhouse as to not register as a real car.
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My comments like above should always be prefaced with the "If life allowed". I'm not buying a Denali because I can't afford one. I'm not buying a CT6 because it high centers on my driveway. A large three-row could conceivably be in my future, but I can name a few I would buy before the Enclave. I liked the ELR as a potential commuter for Albert, but without AWD and with having the haul his parents, it's a no-go. What I was saying was those vehicles are the only GMs on the list that would even get the attention from me to buy if I was in the position to do so.
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I'm with @A Horse With No Name, the only things at GM I really like are the Sierra Denali and the Escalade. The rest of Cadillac's lineup is lost on me now that the CT6 is dead. I think the new Suburban/Tahoe/Yukons are fuuuu-gly. The GMC crossovers are terrible. I suppose I could do an Enclave if I had to, but there are other options from other manufacturers I'd pick first.
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I like the Chevys as long as they're not overloaded with chrome. So the RST and the High Country work for me. The opposite is true at GMC.... Denali all the way baby, although the Elevations and AT4s are great looking too.
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I KNOW! THAT'S WHY I SAID YOU'RE A BAD INFLUENCE! I love my truck, but I can't help looking.
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You're a bad influence @balthazar !! I should NOT be on Chevy's website... Crewcab standard bed RST with the 6.2 liter and 10-speed - $52,310 I wish it was a bluer blue though.
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Just came back from a night time test drive with them. So much better than oem so I’m going to order a set for the Encore also. But I definitely need to do the fogs as well. Don’t like the differing light color.
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When I was in the Philly area last weekend and driving around at night, I was noticing my headlights were pretty dim. Since halogens can dim with age and these are most likely the originals, I decided to upgrade to LED. One set in. Both in
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Someone in dispatched effd up. That's not the engineer's fault.
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It's okay, I'm filling up with corn.
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So it occurred to me that I never told you guys about my new job. If you hadn't been watching last season, I lost my job with Direct Energy in 2019, my last day was December 18th. I was told at the beginning of November that it was coming, just didn't have an exact date. Direct Energy paid me a healthy severance of 7 months of salary, plus bonus, plus a medical stipend. After 13 years, I was ready to go and I can't be mad at them for laying me off. In the ensuing months, Direct Energy laid off another 6,000 in June and then another 7,000 in August. They've also been sold out to a competitor. So I think I got out just in time. My initial plan when I found out I was being laid off was that I would take January and February off just to recuperate from 13 years of burn-out. Well, you know what happened at the end of February. But I had already started job hunting and was starting to get calls for interviews. At the beginning of March, I was hearing about this weird virus and places like Italy were shutting down. I decided that since I hadn't seen my parents in 18 months, I should make a trip down. I jumped on National's app and got a car for the next day and drove down to Miami the next day. I stayed with them for a week and every day I was getting 5 to 6 calls a day and setting up interviews for my return. By the end of the week all hell was breaking loose, NYC was shutting down. By the time I got home to Pittsburgh, all of my interviews had been canceled. I got back and we hunkered down for the next few months, but I kept applying to places. Thankfully, I was also getting unemployment and the extra $600 during this time. End of May, I got a call about a project manager job for a local municipality. After a few rounds of video interviews I got the job as Acting Director of I.T. and Project Manager for the Municipality of Bethel Park PA. My job is to update and bring they Municipality up to date and move their technology into the cloud. I'm enjoying it and they're keeping me quite busy. They never really had an I.T. presence prior to me and there is a lot of fixing that needs to happen. I finally get to build an I.T. department the way I think it should be built. Right now the position is a contract to hire (hence the "Acting" part of my title) and I have a strong reason to believe they will make me full time in January. So yeah, things are pretty secure for me now.
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Over Labor Day weekend I went to Deep Creek Maryland and rented a cottage on a farm away from the main resort area. Had a nice restful vacation with some hiking and a lot of sleeping in. But we also went to the nearby town of Oakland which has a small transportation museum in it.
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Interactive Review: 2020 Hyundai Sonata Limited 1.6T
Drew Dowdell replied to William Maley's topic in Reviews
I like the new Genesis steering wheel too.... very retro.- 77 replies
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Just did it.
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Change the Dexcool yesterday and every 5 years. Get the pink/orange stuff, not the piss yellow “It works in everything!!” Prestone. Unless you have proof that the intake manifold gasket has been done recently, budget for the gasket replacement. Other than that, it’s an unremarkable engine and will probably outlast the car if he keeps up on oil changes. Not that simple unfortunately. The prior owner tried that and it ran like garbage and it cost me a lot of time/money to put it back to factory. These cars are designed to run the way they were designed to run and don't take well to people fiddling with the factory settings. The only thing I've looked into is a drop in EFI replacement for the E-Quadrajet. It's like $1200 just for the parts and comes with a completely new computer controller.
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Interactive Review: 2020 Hyundai Sonata Limited 1.6T
Drew Dowdell replied to William Maley's topic in Reviews
Trailblazer - South Korea EcoSport - India, on a European platform Renegade - Italy, on a European platform In fact, there isn't a single subcompact crossover built in the U.S. by any manufacturer. The closest you can get is the CX-30 (edit: and HR-V) which are built in Mexico. The smallest crossovers built in the U.S. are the CR-V/RDX and Escape/Corsair.- 77 replies
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I'm not sure what you're saying was false... but here's what I know about these engines. The 3800 basic design goes way back '78 (though it had relatives from before then), but it technically did not become what we know of as the 3800 until 1988. Various sensors had been added and changed over the years to make it more efficient. The series 1 and series II made other minor changes to the block, but it was largely the same design. It was a cast-iron block rather than the aluminum 3.6 liter. The Optispark distributor system was excellent in concept, but had a design flaw that allowed moisture to build up inside. Later versions and aftermarket replacements included drain hole to allow moisture to escape. People bitch and moan about Optispark because at the time they were used to the distributor sitting at the top of the engine and being easy to access. Optispark removed the necessity to access it as frequently as an old-style distributor, but it was moved under the water pump meaning that changing the distributor meant draining the radiator (!!) and doing a water pump gasket. It was just a convenience thing for the old-school guys. But I bet every single one of those guys would take Optispark over a timing belt driven Honda which was common at the time. A timing belt job on them ALSO included doing a water pump swap. @A Horse With No Name - The GM 3.6 issue are largely around the timing chain and service intervals. GM tried to extend oil change intervals on the earlier ones, but old oil would cause the motors to stretch out the timing chains to the point that the VVT couldn't compensate. Multiple manufacturers (Ford and Honda that I know of) have dealt with similar problems, so it's not a situation unique to GM. GM addressed it by strengthening the chain and shortening the service interval. Other than that, the 3.6 has been fairly reliable by my knowledge. Electric motors have fewer moving parts if that's what you mean by simpler design, however the electronics in them are more sophisticated and complex. There's also (usually) no multi-gear transmission to worry about. I've actually been to seminars on this subject. Car manufacturer are already aware and working on it. More and more manufacturers are going to go with hardened versions of mobile device software to run their cars. Let Google or Apple or Blackberry sort out the operating system level stuff and the manufacturer will handle the car running parts.
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This has been my jam the past week
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I’ll be canceling XM as soon as my trial membership is up. The stations I like are too repetitive and the others don’t interest me.
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Item: 2013 Chevrolet Avalanche LTZ Black Diamond
Drew Dowdell replied to Drew Dowdell's topic in Member's Rides Showcase
I’ve only owned it a little over a month and I’ve had it on trips 4 weekends out of 6. I brought back a small U-Haul trailer full of furniture from my grandmother’s last night and just dropped the trailer off. Going to give him the week off from commuter duty and let the Toronado fill that role the rest of this week.