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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    The engine might be, but the rest of the car won't survive 500k miles of Pittsburgh winters....
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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...
  6. Drew Dowdell
    You're telling me! recently I've noticed my tolerance for alcohol dropping,
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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
  10. Drew Dowdell
    Talk about the trucks, not about each other.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    Sure, because it is a good discussion about the F-150 10-speed.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    Good reminder to leave MT drama at MT... but we're still free to talk about the F-150 review at MT.
  13. 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!
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    I like your idea of the Passat W8 4motion wagon and I'd swap my Subaru out for it as a family hauler if those VWs weren't such maintenance nightmares. Another one where I wasn't sure of the rules. The Charger/Magnum is a large car by EPA standards, and also is at the top of the Dodge food chain, however it regularly sells at prices similar to any other mid-size car out there...... Would that count or no? The reason that gets confusing is that the Accord, which is a mid-size by nearly every measure, is EPA large car in some configurations and sits at the top of the Honda ladder.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    You don't even have that Lacrosse anymore...
  21. Drew Dowdell
    The sound of silence? We're not talking about Camaros or Mustangs here... these are posh and quiet luxury cars. How the power is delivered is more important than a sound the manufacturer will try hard to suppress in the first place.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    2009 Buick Lacrosse Super 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme International Sedan, 3.4 DOHC with 5-speed manual (SE model pictured) - Such a sleeper with this setup, all the power and torque of a Taurus SHO in a lighter body. 1990-92 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 2017 Subaru Legacy Outback H6 1983 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale (What? In 1983, that was squarely Mid-size... the Ninety-Eight and Custom Cruiser were the full-size.) If my last pick doesn't count, then I'll just sub in a Final 500 Oldsmobile Intrigue as my collectors car.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    The 9-speed auto is the FWD transmission that GM and Ford are going to share. Ford did the work on the RWD 10-speed, GM did the work on the FWD 9-speed, and they're sharing the tech of both with each other. Seems like a pretty fair swap. Ford has used GM FWD 6-speeds for a number of years.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    Well, it's not really going to be a 1 to 1 comparison anyway. In addition to the new 10-speed, Ford has changed the 3.5 Ecoboost for more power and more torque. Even if they had left the 6-speed in there, I would expect better performance from the engine alone anyway.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    General Motors today announced a recall of 4.3 million vehicles globally with 3.64 million of those vehicles located in the US. The recall involves a software bug in the sensing and diagnostic module that could prevent the deployment of the front airbags in certain circumstances preceded by a specific series of events. Most of the vehicles involved are GM's recent trucks and large SUVs. The repair for this recall requires a software update and no physical parts are required for most vehicles. The following vehicles are affected by this recall: 2014 - 2016 Chevrolet SS, Spark EV / Buick Lacrosse 2014 - 2017 Chevrolet Corvette, Trax, Caprice, and Silverado 1500 / Buick Encore / GMC Sierra 1500 2015 - 2017 Chevrolet Tahoe, Suburban, Suburban HD / GMC Yukon, Yukon XL / Cadillac Escalade, Escalade ESV GM stated that it was originally made aware of the problem in May 2016 via an internal Speak Up program that encourages employees to report potential safety issues in its vehicles. GM received a report that a 2014 Silverado involved in a crash did not deploy its front airbags or seat-belt pretensioners. The investigation started on June 7th and GM spent the next several weeks working with Delphi, the supplier of the part, and investigating other possible incidents with similarities to the original report. Owners of the above vehicles can check their VIN in the NHTSA Database or on the GM Website. Source: GM Media and Automotive News View full article
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