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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    Say bye to the Beetle
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Why would raising MSRP be a bad thing?
  3. Drew Dowdell
    A correction for the correction is needed. Lincoln sold 90,367 vehicles....so far, not for the year. Lincoln is also at around +9% for the year...so far. Thanks What happened to Buick. Wow. Big hit. No need to be pedantic. We all knew that he meant "so far this year". We will report full year percentages in January. Buick's sedans are all at the end of their cycles and are being replaced.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    Typically when you see one of these large one-off 1 months drops is that the same month in the prior year had some unusually high sales activity. In this case, the Sierra seems to be returning to norm after some large sale going on in November 2014 (Think both GM and RAM pulled out all the stops on incentives at the end of the year last year to kick the F-150 while it was first being released) Nov 2012 - 11,726 Nov 2013 - 14,362 Nov 2014 - 22,554 Nov 2015 - 16,527 and sales are up over 4% for the year on Sierra. The long term growth trend is still positive.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Very handsome! I like it
  6. Drew Dowdell
    I can't bring up the article, those are the routes being tested? It sounded like they were inside the city routes.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    That's actually pretty good! 23 miles is probably double the length of a inner-metro bus route, so put a charging station at each end of the route and it should be fine.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    I don't mind at all Lincoln correcting the naming snafu. I just have to sit and wait till Johan retires before they'll fix the same thing at Cadillac
  9. Drew Dowdell
    I guess I've just been curious for awhile now on what it costs to build one Silverado, one Sierra, and two F150's and two Rams. I ask because obviously there are pieces on the GM twins that are and are not shared(cosmetic). And seeing 1,000,000 sales of the GM twins split across two vehicles has to cost more for those extra pieces made but I have absolutely no clue how much it costs to reengineer and produce mostly just cosmetic pieces. The split for GM is more than just Silverado and Sierra though, there's the Suburban, Tahoe, Yukon, Yukon XL, and Escalade also. The trim pieces are largely superficial to the rest of the vehicle between Chevy and GMC, though GMC is using more upscale materials on the higher end models. But all of the mechanical bits that you don't see can get shared. master cylinders, power steering pumps, door switch actuators, drive shafts and rear differentials... by being on the same platforms, the GM can share a lot of that stuff that doesn't matter if it is the same. At the moment, Ford doesn't have that advantage due to not sharing as many parts with the SUVs, nor do they have the sales volumes in the SUV side of things.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    uh... you've said it yourself that product planning is years if not decades out. Mark has been at the helm since July 1, 2014... or almost 18 months. He's barely warmed his chair up much less made any substantial product changes that we'll see in the next 2 years. Everything you mentioned would have needed to be at least in the works before he got to the corner office.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    The Mustang is the new 2.3 Ecoboost, not the 3.5 It's mostly about avoiding PI and knock. Compression ratio is a big factor too in how much retarding happens. A 2.3L is about 11:1 CR if I recall, whereas a 3.5L is only 9.7:1 CR, and minimum retarding is needed. I don't remember, is the Mustang 2.3 EB a flex fuel vehicle? If so, it should do really well on E85... enough to make a difference. Negative. No FF. Although there exists conversion kits for other engines, I imagine somebody thought to include the I4, amongst the many other upgrades. Or is FF considered a downgrade. That's a shame... had they built it to handle E85, they probably could have put an E85 tune into it and gotten over 350 hp. SAAB was working on engines like that before they died the first time. Engines that produced a lot more horsepower and better fuel economy running on E85 and then would dial it back to more conventional levels of HP when running on 87. I think it was a 310hp 2.0T on E85 back in 2006 or something.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    Per unit costs are likely the lowest for GM at the moment because they have more vehicles to spread the costs over. Ram doesn't have any SUV to share the truck parts with and the Ford F-150 is quite different from the SUVs at the moment, so component cost sharing there would be lower. This could very well change in the future as the FoMoCo SUVs switch over because they have fewer brands to maintain, but I imagine the additional parts cost (not the marketing cost) of producing a GMC is very very low.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    The Mustang is the new 2.3 Ecoboost, not the 3.5 It's mostly about avoiding PI and knock. Compression ratio is a big factor too in how much retarding happens. A 2.3L is about 11:1 CR if I recall, whereas a 3.5L is only 9.7:1 CR, and minimum retarding is needed. I don't remember, is the Mustang 2.3 EB a flex fuel vehicle? If so, it should do really well on E85... enough to make a difference.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    Keep in mind that in some models, the TDi trim was 30% of sales. Jetta, Golf, and Passat were three of the top sellers that sold about that rate in the past and now 30% of that volume is essentially gone. Jetta and Passat are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd best sellers in the VW lineup.... so that is a huge chunk of their biggest sellers.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    Lower octane will have the computer retard the timing a lot.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    I have to beg to differ on the cost of premium fuel. Most places around me at $0.20/gal difference per grade so that's $0.40/gal differece. I've seen places as high as $0.30/gal difference per grade. For my car with a smaller 15 gallon tank(lets say it empties for argument's sake) that's 6 dollars a fillup more. I drive right around 12,000 miles per year. At 24mpg that's 500 gallons at 26mpg that's 461 gallons. Let's just say regular unleaded is $2.00/gallon(it's been hovering right around it for awhile now, here at least). So premium would be $2.40/gallon. 500x2.0= 1000 461x2.4= 1106. You're not actually saving any money using the premium fuel you're just getting better mileage. So it's useless. Exactly! It's just hype and hoopla for the most part. If you're buying the truck for the Eco, you're not doing the planet any favors because FE gains are negligible. If you're buying it because you're a tightwad then you're gonna hate buying 91 Octane. If you're buying it for any other reason then you have no reason not to look elsewhere. Based on my personal experience and circumstances, a small diesel is the best way to be cheap and eco-friendly. Once again. The F-150, with either 2.7EB or 3.5 EB, does not need premium, nor is it the recommended fuel needed. One of the problems is... Every vehicle on the road is tested with premium fuel. I believe 93 octane. "The EPA has a specialized company manufacture small batches of consistent fuel, which is 93 octane (cars running 50-state certifications get a slightly different, 91-octane “California” blend)." http://www.caranddriver.com/features/the-truth-about-epa-city-highway-mpg-estimates It's a problem for believing the EPA certifications certainly.... but most vehicles should lose power/mpg at about the same percentage. When there is a much larger than average drop in power like the Mustang EB is showing, there is cause for concern.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    The Camaro has been winding down substantially over the last few months as they lead into the new model. The first Alpha Camaros just got delivered in the past 2 weeks. I heard the Mustang outran grandpa on his hover round too!!
  18. Drew Dowdell
    And that's with huge increases in incentive spending!
  19. Drew Dowdell
    The age of the Buicks are showing. I think all three sedans get replaced over the next year.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    and with that, I think this thread has completed it's usefulness for now.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Interesting. So they gave the regular tune to Ford and the premium tune to Lincoln. Makes sense..... I wonder if the PCM actually gives you back that horsepower in the Ford if you fill it up with 93.... Interesting. So they gave the regular tune to Ford and the premium tune to Lincoln. Makes sense..... I wonder if the PCM actually gives you back that horsepower in the Ford if you fill it up with 93.... FYI, the Navi is 91 recommended to get the 380/460. And from what I've read, yes the PCM in the F-150 will take advantage of the better fuel - the guys in the F-150 forums say yes. Yes, when you mentioned it, I went and looked up the spec on the Lincoln Media Site. And that is probably at least partially the reason for the jump in fuel economy in the EX EL when I ran 91..... get the power sooner = get off the gas sooner.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    C/D's Lightning Lap Mustang was plagued by engine/power issues. They specifically ragged on it for being overly sensitive to fuel quality. I can only imagine what it would be like in a pickup or whatnot. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the only things I notice between 87 and 91 were a change in engine smoothness and a big change in fuel economy. But I wasn't drag racing any of these vehicles, so I couldn't tell you what 0-60 times were. I don't know what the max acceptable horsepower drop is, but I'd think 35hp is a bit much.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    Interesting. So they gave the regular tune to Ford and the premium tune to Lincoln. Makes sense..... I wonder if the PCM actually gives you back that horsepower in the Ford if you fill it up with 93....
  24. Drew Dowdell
    I wonder about The % drop for the GM 2.0L Turbo I4 Ecotec LTG Engine, since it too recommends Premium Fuel. Putting in 87 will retard timing, hurt power output and MPG. Same with GM's 3.0 and 3.6 turbos. And same thing with the 4.0L turbo V-8 coming too from GM.Hmmm As I said... I'm aware there is a power drop on lower octane fuel on pretty much all decently powered turbo engines (My Encore is 87 octane recommended as is the 1.5T from Ford, so I doubt there is any power drop there). A 9 horsepower drop like in the Fusion 2.0T is fine and well within expectations. The Mustang has a 35 hp drop, that seems fairly severe.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    I'm aware of this and trying to find the answer.... but the drop in the Mustang is rather a surprising amount. the Fusion 2.0T drops from 240 to 231 on 87 octane.... 9 horsepower is expected and acceptable on a turbo engine. The Mustang is dropping 35 hp, that is not insignificant.
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