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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    Paired with an engine that actually has torque, it's not bad at all after they reflashed it. Behind the 2.4, the 9speed hunts for torque it will never find.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Yeah, that. And you misspelled "dumpster".
  3. Drew Dowdell
    It's the way of the future I guess, but even the nicest of OLED screens can't compete with an actual physical set of gauges that is well done. It just won't have the depth. 2d v. 3d
  4. Drew Dowdell
    Very nice ride!
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Specifics... screenshots.... what exactly is too much info? Edit: Keep in mind @Suaviloquent that as a moderator, you see more than the normal visitor
  6. Drew Dowdell
    Bureaucratic Negligence verses Malice and Hubris is the difference here.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Nissan's issues are further forward than the transmission.... that awful 2.4 liter 4-cylinder they have is very low on refinement. Really... give me an old Ecotech 2.4 that never had an oil change and it would be about the same as a new Nissan 2.4. The CVT is fine in the VQ powered vehicles... I actually really like it. But paired with the 2.4, it brings out the worst of that engine. The primary redeeming quality of the hybrid is that it would lower the workload of the 4-cylinder, making it more tolerable to drive.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    The engine might be, but the rest of the car won't survive 500k miles of Pittsburgh winters....
  9. Drew Dowdell
    Other diesel manufacturers followed the rules. VW didn't. VW got busted and tarnished the image of diesel as being a very dirty technology when in fact it can be clean. Why did they do this? They did this to further their quest to be the largest auto maker on the planet and save themselves $350 per car. If TDI buyers are that loyal, they certainly could have stomached an extra $350 for the emissions control equipment. I know I wouldn't even have blinked at that amount and I doubt you would have either. This was greed and hubris on VW's part....... plain and simple.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    Trucks are a different matter and the Ram EcoDiesel is the only truck in the segment to carry a light duty diesel at the moment. Truck buyers are generally different than SUV drivers. Of course I'd like to see the diesel being offered in lower trims; I'd like to see the hemi being offered in lower trims too.... but that 'taint the way it is. Any Jeep you can get with an EcoDiesel you can get for $4500 less without the diesel.... and for an SUV buyer, it is likely as not to be less important when there is only a 5mpg difference highway between the Ecodiesel and the Pentastar. Unless you plan to be towing 7500lbs, there is no economic point to the Ecodiesel.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    Yeah, the story last week about the mainstream mid-size sedan segment shrinking in terms of total sales is what spurred him to make this thread.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    False. Lithium comes from some of the deadest places on earth. In fact there is a whole meme circulating about how destructive lithium mining is... but guess what? It's a lie. How dead are the areas where lithium extraction (note the change in terms... it's not mining) takes place? They sent space probes to test the salt flats in Boliva where the lithium extraction is done and..... Lithium extraction is just giant pools of water that get evaporated in the desert...... nothing like tar sands mining that really rapes mother earth...
  13. Drew Dowdell
    You're telling me! recently I've noticed my tolerance for alcohol dropping,
  14. Drew Dowdell
    I think he's going for mainstream brands, so no Benzes or BMWs would qualify, at least as far as mid-sizers go.... both brands are moving into the mainstream in compacts.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    I honestly couldn't render more than a guess until I experience it. That said, the Benz 7-speed starts off in 2nd when not in sport mode. The Chrysler 9-speed will too in varying situations. The new Benz 9-speed will skip gears I believe while the GM 8-speed RWD will walk you through all of them, even 1st. Interestingly, even though it has more gears, the gear ratio spread between 1st and 10th is actually smaller than the 9-speed unit from ZF that Chrysler, Acura, and Land Rover use, it is also smaller than the 8-speed in Porsche's PDK (this is important from a Camaro and Mustang perspective as both will be using the 10-speed). Reading up on it, it appears that GM has made the claim that the 10-speed in the Camaro ZL-1 can do large jump downshifts... (10th - 5th for example), so I would expect the same unit in an F-150 would be capable of the same, though it depends on how Ford programs their version, for example, you probably wouldn't want to do a 9-4 down shift while towing something, that's a good way to snap something in the powertrain... I'm not reading anything talking about skip-shift going up a gear, which the new Benz 9-speed can do, however, from the way the design is described, I don't see a physical reason it couldn't perform that move, it may be that Ford and GM don't want to do it for feel and refinement issues.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    He "faces" up to 5 years in prison... but I'm sure his plea bargain spells out some amnesty for turning in the names of other people.... if it doesn't, then he's dumb
  17. Drew Dowdell
    Talk about the trucks, not about each other.
  18. Drew Dowdell
    Sure, because it is a good discussion about the F-150 10-speed.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    Good reminder to leave MT drama at MT... but we're still free to talk about the F-150 review at MT.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    Dominos is giving people what they want.... fast pizza delivery service.... who cares if they break the speed limit or health codes in the process.... Down with government regulation!
  21. Drew Dowdell
    It came down to cost. The check-box for the hybrid SUVs cost $10,000 and people just wouldn't spend that kind of money even for what was at the time the most advanced hybrid system in production. (The Pruis system, for all the hype it gets, it ridiculously simple in concept). The technology wasn't wasted though... even though the CT6 PHEV's transmission is a clean-sheet design, it borrows heavily from the original 2-mode hybrid playbook but instead uses the Volt's upgraded battery design. The trucks on the other hand, were a different deal. They gave it the interesting option of a 110v outlet that actually had some amperage to it (if I tried to run a power saw off the 110v outlet in my Encore, I'd probably blow a fuse), but then reduced the payload and towing capacities. It could have been a good truck for contractors, but only if they didn't need the full payload capacity of a regular Silverado.... plus... cost. If you had a business where you needed to put a lot of miles on the truck, needed a bed outlet, but didn't haul heavy loads, the Silverado Hybrid was probably the truck for you. Cost is the same reason you don't see very many Grand Cherokee Eco-Diesels out there. It's a $4500 upgrade and only available once you've already stepped up to the $37k Limited model.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    If you could pick up a loaded 200C for like $27k, that would be a very satisfying and comfortable way to spend that kind of money. Torquey V6, AWD, UConnect, heated and cooled seats, active cruise control..... You're not going to get all that at Honda, Toyota, or even Chevy.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    Perfectly usable as a commuter car. Co-workers of mine (husband and wife who both work in the same office) have two cars. They got a Jetta TDI for commuting in to work each day and they have a newish Sedona for hauling around their 4 kids. An Electric with a 200 mile range would be more than enough.... and if they are smart about it, they would almost never need to even pay to charge it as we have free charging stations in two of the garages at work. Charge it at work, don't charge it at home. Take the Sedona for long trips. It would be virtually no different than their setup today.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    The government has very little to do with it other than prosecuting the offenders. Many of the people who bought TDIs did so thinking they were clean burners. A lot of those buyers are justifiably mad at being misled by VW. Diesel in Europe has been starting to taper off over the past few years anyway... now with the VW scandal, I expect a rapid drop in diesel sales simply because customers don't trust the technology anymore (justifiably or not). GM got the blame for killing diesels in the US for 30 years and it tarnished GM's image. VW will get the blame for killing them globally because they've tarnished the image of diesel technology as a whole.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    1. I've driven the 3.6TT in multiple (every?) application and it is not at all unrefined.... I can't imagine the smaller displacement version would be less refined than the big one used in V-Series and V-Sports. There is simply less moving mass in there. Even in the ATS-V, I would almost call the 3.6TT too refined for that application.... but that is mostly exhaust tuning. 2. Nearly no one pays $70,000 for a 2-year old full size luxury car because they can't lease them. This is the crowd that leases everything because then they can write it off their taxes.
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