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Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    My interactions with Lincoln's PR department have been..... less than positive. In fact, one time it was insinuated that I was trying to steal an MKC at an event where journalists are invited to drive cars from all participating manufacturers (of which, Lincoln was one) and my badge was more than clear.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    GM, in a sense, opened the can and set the precedent themselves when they recalled the 2007/8 Police Impalas for the faulty spindle rods, then shun the civilian models of the same yrs claiming GM has no responsibility as those cars where built by old GM. Fleet contracts supersede that (hence the reason for the recall) and make it completely unrelated to civilian models. Apples to oranges. I'd be interested in seeing the clause in a fleet contract that supersedes GM's bankruptcy. The GM of '07/'08 no longer legally exists, so any contract someone may hold with that company would be null and void.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    Johan, will you be re-doing the Cadillac dealerships in Europe so they aren't being operated out of the back of an old Esso station or in some dark corner of an Opel dealer?
  4. Drew Dowdell
    Loans don't counteract continuous losses per unit. They simply delay the inevitable. GM of all companies should know that.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    I'm gutting two of my apartments. I've owned the buildings they are in since 2007, but the neighborhood back then could best be described as "troubled". They have always been low to medium income housing. The market has changed rapidly in the last two years and suddenly there is a large influx of hipster tech workers nearby looking for housing. So I'm completely redoing them in a more "hip" fashion so that I can up the rents and increase the value of the property. The one I'm cutting up now, I'm completely reconfiguring the room layouts. I'm changing it from a standard floorplan 2 bedroom (the bedrooms are tiny) to an open floor plan 1 bedroom. Going to leave one wall in the living room with exposed brick... and electrical conduit on the walls for the electrical outlets.... it's like hipster crack. I'll be able to increase the rents by 50% - 75% over what I was getting before. Then once the leases run out on the remaining two units, I'll term those leases and start on those to apartments in the spring.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    Actually, the article points out that there are very few benefits to a flat plane crank. Slightly lower rotating mass is about it. The performance that Ford gained in the 5.2 mostly came from excellent engineering at the other side of the engine... .the valvetrain. Sorry I can only read what Balthy copied and pasted in as I can't get to Linkedin from my work computer. Well, when you get home... you can read why all the fuss over a flat-plane crank in a V8 is just marketing fluff. It's confusing why Ford decided to promote that rather than the real engineering feats in the valvetrain. Probably simpler.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    This sounds like mostly a China mandate... but still, with the size of the car, I'm sure there is plenty of room for batteries if they go all-electric.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    Actually, the article points out that there are very few benefits to a flat plane crank. Slightly lower rotating mass is about it. The performance that Ford gained in the 5.2 mostly came from excellent engineering at the other side of the engine... .the valvetrain.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    Sounds good on paper. Cheers for the availability of a manual to go with the sport. I wish GM would bring their 1.6T over from Europe in more than just the Cascada, it gets rave reviews over there and has about the same spec as this Hyundai unit.... though 10 more lb-ft of torque in top tune.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    An interesting way to try and explain away the kit car feeling of build quality the originals had. Still, a beautiful car to look at and got a lot of attention on the road. I hope they make the Karma Atlantic some day.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    No place to put the batteries for that kind of range really.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    I can't argue with the 3 being in 1st place, but the Cruze should have taken 2nd over the Civic.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    Happiness is a fresh sawzall blade and a few charged up batteries.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    I don't hate Uber... and as I've explained above, I think it can work if you've got the right car and financial setup.. in the right city.... but the idea that you'll be making boatloads of cash being a jitney driver just doesn't make sense for me.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    I've had an Uber in a used Chevy Volt. Talked to the guy for a while about it. We made it from my house to the airport on Electric alone. He says he usually parks on one of the local college campuses and plugs in at one of the free chargers until he gets a ping. He's gotta have the lowest fuel costs of any uber driver out there.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    See, I don't think a lot of the drivers are thinking about the maintenance/value of their car. They just see a quick 20-60 bucks. The two drivers I talked to(granted..minute sample size) this was a second "job" on the side. They enjoyed it and it was just extra spending money. They both drove Kias so they probably didn't give a crap about their cars like us. My biggest worry would be people flopping around getting in or out. If they scratched or scuffed anything I'd be really pissed but I couldn't do anything about it either. It certainly wasn't worth it with my car, but if you pick up a low mileage, used Pruis, for cheap... maybe on a rebuilt title... that you don't care about and intend to run it till it heads to the crusher, then I could see it working out financially. I see people Ubering with expensive trucks and BMWs and Benzes and I shake my head. The absolute worst vehicle to Uber with is something new that depreciates rapidly.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    Yeah I have a gym membership, but lately my workouts are coming from swinging a sledge hammer. I have two apartments that I am gentrifying renovating from low-middle income housing into something nicer. There is a Google campus less than 5 minutes away from these places and rental prices for nicer apartments have skyrocketed.
  18. Drew Dowdell
    I use Uber a lot to get myself to and from the airport here in Pittsburgh. I much prefer it over taxis. I signed up to drive for Uber last year and I did it a a couple days a week for a few weeks with the Encore. After running the numbers, I'm not sure how anyone is making enough money from it in Pittsburgh unless they are pulling 12 hour days. It's simply not worth it unless there is surge pricing going on. It might be different in a bigger city. If the rates are too low, all you're really doing is trading your vehicle's equity for cash... you're not "making" anything.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    The only number to pay attention to is body fat percentage. You can be 5'10" 300lbs, but if your body fat percentage is <15% you're fine.
  20. Drew Dowdell
  21. Drew Dowdell
    I did look at that too... I like them.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    erm... no
  23. Drew Dowdell
    It's called "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday"... it's about as old a mantra as the automobile itself. Does that mean that I should visit my Ford dealership and buy myself the Mustang? A GT perhaps?...hell, the ecoboost version will do! After all, the ecoboost won the race! Sounds like a sound plan to me !!!! That's the association Ford is hoping you, and many others, will make.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    It's called "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday"... it's about as old a mantra as the automobile itself.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    In other news: Mitsubishi has $480 million to set aside.
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