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Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    Lower to the ground most certainly does effect mpg. There is less wind resistance both above and below the car. It's one of the reasons the Tesla has a height adjustable suspension
  2. Drew Dowdell
    I'm assuming you mean not counting me...
  3. Drew Dowdell
    It's also what Hyundai and Kia did to convince customers to buy their cars.... and it seems to be working out pretty well. Almost every sale is a conquest sale for Tesla.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    I do actually like it... it just isn't a Defender.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Oh, no it is definitely coming to the states. and I bet China will eat it up too.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    Of the all the wretched econoboxes out there, the Versa and Sentra are two of the least horrible. The Fit might be better than the Versa, but it also seems to cost more... and it may not seem like that much better a value for the price.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Very nice car!
  8. Drew Dowdell
    It wasn't a judgement call as to which is better... but I think that if the Viper is going to get more power, it needs to be more successful at putting it on the pavement in a way that doesn't include a high probability of killing the driver.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    The old 200 was sold mostly to fleets and sub-prime customers who got the car on discount but paid high interest rates. The new 200 is sold more to retail shoppers, and though purely anecdotal evidence, most of the ones I've seen on the road near me seem to be very nicely loaded models.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    Audi's growth is mostly one car. Subaru's growth is all but one car.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    The Corvette can be a relaxed friend you just go out for a calm cruise with on a cool fall day or take to the track for some hard-core racing and winning. The Viper needs constant, elevated attention by the driver just to keep things from going bad. This is my impression from driving the stingray and viper back to back.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    These other automakers underestimate the S-class, other than maybe BMW who is looking at carbon fiber to cut 600-700 lbs off the 7-series and to do a 600 hp M7, I think at least they realize they need to step it up, but the others might as well die on the vine. Talk about fixing the wrong problem. The problem is NOT the weight nor the lack of an M7. The problem is the extremely dated looking interior in spite of the up to date tech. 1998: 2014:
  13. Drew Dowdell
    But Mercedes isn't selling S-class taxis in the US, and it clobbers the competition in sales here. Maybe fleet/government/taxi sales help in Europe, but the S-class beats anything else by over 2-1 margin. And in China, Audi is the fleet/government brand of choice, and the S-class outsells the A8 there. Even if 50% of the S-class sales were fleet, they are still outselling anyone else on retail. Bottom line is the S-class is a profit machine for Daimler, it generates more total profit than any other car line, only the Big 3 pickups create more total profit and they need to sell 500-600,000 a year to do that. These other automakers underestimate the S-class, other than maybe BMW who is looking at carbon fiber to cut 600-700 lbs off the 7-series and to do a 600 hp M7, I think at least they realize they need to step it up, but the others might as well die on the vine. It doesn't matter where the taxis are sold as long as they are sold somewhere and bring in the dough to keep the lights on in the factory. If we take away S-Class fleet sales, does the S-class number get cut in half? by 2/3s? Most of the S-Class sales in the world are not full zoot retail US MSRP. So stop comparing the inflated US MSRP and combining it with inflated worldwide taxi sales....
  14. Drew Dowdell
    None of the others sell their cars at taxis at the rate Mercedes does. It's a great way to cover fixed costs and subsidized leasing that Lexus and Jaguar don't stoop to.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    The last thing the viper needs is more power... Maybe a chassis that can put the power on the ground in a non-psychotic way would be a good start...
  16. Drew Dowdell
    It lacks that 3rd-world-country-rebel-militia/national-geographic-expedition look that the current one has.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    I think it is more interesting than the Corolla Coupe Scion tC
  18. Drew Dowdell
    We should have a contest for the first person to take a pic of a B-Class EV in the wild. I do like the S-Class, but I would still take an XJL over the S-class.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    I wouldn't call them dead just yet. They still sold a LOT of vehicles, they just hardly grew any. 27k CR-Vs and 32k Civics is still a lot of metal.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    Remember, a lot of the Trailblazer SS chassis tuning came from the Saab's team when they were preparing the 9-7x. The 9-7x and the TBSS are the two best versions of the GMT-360 platform. The Rainier didn't get the tweaks and is mostly just a reworked Bravada. Nearly every review of the 9-7x looked for ways to trash it... but in the end they usually admitted, through gritted teeth, that it was pretty good.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    I bet it actually beats the EPA rating on the highway.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    The car is rated for 23mpg combined and 28mpg highway. If you were really doing 170 miles at highway speeds, you should have gotten far better than 21mpg. That's why I think something is wrong.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    damnit, now I'll probably need to go to LA this year.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    Yeah, I just considered the 1st and 2nd generations basically the same since they were mostly a refresh rather than an all new car.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    xDrive28i is the trim level.
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