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Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    The RX7 is one car I've always wanted to drive but have never had the chance.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Really? Like what? The only thing I bought there, a car wash brush hose attachment, broke after 3 uses. Did you take it back for return or exchange? Costco has a great return program and while the say 90 days, I have seen them take stuff back that was far older. They are the Nordstroms of Big Warehouses. Awesome customer service. 90 days is only for electronics. Everything else has no pre-determined time limit.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    Agenda: 1. Win the powerball 2. Build a 1983 Buick Electra coupe with the above powertrain.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    Really? Like what? The only thing I bought there, a car wash brush hose attachment, broke after 3 uses.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    It seems like they're going for a Low-Ash diesel spec and the Mobile-1 I listed above has that
  6. Drew Dowdell
    Find out the spec, and as long as you get an oil with a matching spec, you should be fine. A quick googling says that "Mobil 1 5W-30 ESP Formula" is an acceptable substitute.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Which truck is this and what specific formula is required? Never heard of a truck that requires only a specific kind, usually if synthetic, you can use any synthetic as long as it is the right 5w30 as an example. I believe he has the Ram Ecodiesel V6
  8. Drew Dowdell
    By the description of what SuperCruise does, it would have to be fully autonomous capable. It sounds like it is the legal department holding things up. SuperCruise can drive for you in heavy traffic situations and can drive for you on an open highway. To do either of those things, all the hardware that fully autonomous requires would need to be already in place .
  9. Drew Dowdell
    No, not completely different at all, in fact it is quite similar. It is a bit unnerving at first to have the car accelerate and decelerate in response to traffic. If a car pulls into your lane and slows down, your natural reaction is to go for the brake, but that's no longer needed, the ACC has got it for you... and when that jack-ass gets back into the slow lane, your car automatically gets back up to the proper speed. It takes a good many miles to get used to.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    Like with active cruise control, I'm sure it will take getting used to. I like Adaptive Cruise Control now that I'm used to it... and in at least one bad weather situation, it was safer to use the ACC than for me to try to drive. I just locked on to the F-150 in front of me that I could barely see and let the ACC do the work.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    Ah, but the Parktronic, which will certainly be required for DriveTronic, is another $950 and also requires a $4,000 navigation package.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    $100 Costco Giftcard for snow tires.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    Thanks a lot! Found a way to get it back.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    I think they still have further to fall in terms of price.... another month or two and the used prices will probably hit bottom if there are no additional scandals.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    You're saying that swapping out the drive unit is a big deal. I'm saying it's not and that it is likely not even necessary in many cases, but Tesla is doing it anyway to maintain top consumer satisfaction..... a warranty policy that other companies should consider emulating. But again, nearly everyone here reading this knows you have an agenda against electric vehicles and Tesla in particular.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    You're old skool. You're thinking in terms of catastrophic engine failure, generally one of the only reasons a big legacy manufacturer would replace an engine under warranty. They'll only do engine swap outs if the entire engine is toast. That's not what is happening with these Teslas. Some of them just have the petrol equivalent of a check engine light on, but are still otherwise functioning. GM, for a number of years now, has been dealing with timing chain issues on the early versions of the 3.6 and 3.6 DI. This covers the engine in the current Lambdas too. The timing chains will stretch, cause very poor running conditions, and generally F-up the VVT. Initially GM's response was to recall the unaffected cars and reprogram the Oil Life Monitor to go off at 5k - 8k instead of 10k -12k, but all that does is push the inevitable to outside the warranty time limit. GM did this because they were doing frequent timing chain replacements on vehicles with under 30k miles. Imagine having to get your timing chain replaced on your Colorado next year.... how upset would you be? To use your own language; "If GM can't get a timing chain right, technology that has been around for 100+ years, Good lord! What else will go wrong?!" What Tesla is doing is swapping out the entire engine instead of replacing the timing chain because it is faster to just swap out the whole unit. Do you get the distinction yet?
  17. Drew Dowdell
    Sorry OCN, I deleted your post instead of quoting it. There is no "are you sure?" On the mobile version. My reply was going to be,"Damn autocorrect!!! "
  18. Drew Dowdell
    Because a lot of times, it is just the service advisor saying "We're just going to swap out the drive unit, it will be back to you on Thursday." Simple, friendly, direct, exceptional customer service. And while you might find it a big deal, I don't find swapping out a drive unit in a Tesla under warranty to be a big deal. It's a few wire harness clips and a dozen or so bolts. But I work in technology... I understand that electronics are designed to be easily swappable. As long as the parts are replaced with equal or greater performance, it is no different than swapping out a dead hard drive on a $2,000 laptop.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    And still read it again. Tesla took some of those motors to study them. Not because they needed full motor swaps. It skews the results of the CR survey, but the owner got a new drive unit that they might not have actually needed so Tesla can make further adjustments to their design. Tesla does rolling upgrades to their cars without waiting till the next model year, so as they find fixes to make, they go into production quickly. It's a different and more nimble business model than the traditional car companies.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    I'd name that Tornado Kermit
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Read it again.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    I'll shovel the stuff under 6 inches, but more than that and I run into trouble due to the elevation change on my driveway
  23. Drew Dowdell
    German/English translation error? It may only cost Benz that much to add to the car, but you better believe they're going to extract a bunch of profit from you at the dealership. Besides, Drivers Assist and Parktronic is priced at $3,500 today and requires $4,000 of other packages as well.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    A number of the early motor replacements likely weren't even needed, Tesla just wanted the parts back to study potential failures to avoid them in future. An engine replacement in a petrol car is a big deal. Swapping the motor out of a Tesla is simple, relative to a petrol car. However, on a CR survey, it sounds pretty bad.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Another Pittsburgh plug. The optical tech that allows a car to see like a human in order to judge distance and relative speed for self driving cars was largely conceptualized and developed here. This is different from the laser/radar based cruise control systems and is a crucial piece to the SDC puzzle.
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