Drew Dowdell

It isn't for general consumer consumption. It is 98% fleet.

What has Ed Whitacre actually done at GM? What Ed did was let each person work with his gifts and then stand back and let the people who knew their stuff do their thing let the car guy be car guys and the accountants be accountants. Dan Ackerson is an accountant and is why the Malibu is the way it is today. He's not a car guy, he should not have made that call...... and they really need to keep the guy away from a microphone.

I doubt it... The 3.6 engines have a bore center spacing of 103 mm and a bore diameter of 94mm. This means that the cylinder walls are 9 mm thick. Getting to 4.0 liters by enlarging the bore will require enlarging the bore to 99 mm. This leaves 4mm of metal between the cylinders which is ridiculously thin. To put the numbers into context, the 2.5 liter four has has 8mm of wall thickness, the 2.0T has 10mm, the 3.0 V6 has 14 mm and the 6.2 V8 has 8.5 mm. Enlarging the bore also entails a lot more additional changes than simply using thinner tron sleeves. Putting bigger slugs in there doesn't do any good unless you also put bigger valves in there. Putting bigger valves means a head with bigger intake and exhaust passages. These in turn require a new intake manifold and exhaust collector. If GM is looking for more than 323 hp, the answer is already in the works. It's called the LF3. A Bi-turbo version of the 3.0 V6. This can make between 300 and 400 hp using reasonably levels of boost, with about 360 being what I'll expect for applications like the Silverado, Acadia or XTS. Well ok, couldn't some of the increase in displacement come from stroke? I am certain that the max displacement on the block is 4.0 somehow.

Well it's not like it isn't reversible. If we don't like it or it becomes too much of a bear to moderate, we can shut it back off.

That is the whole thrust of the lawsuit. Spyker alleges that the deal with Youngman was structured in such a way that GM no longer had the right to interfere.

I still maintain that GM's woes in Europe are not directly capacity related but distribution related. Their dealer network there, across all of the brands they sell in Europe, is woefully inadequate compared to the natives. If anyone has a source of dealership numbers to confirm, I'd love to see it, but my feel is that Opel dealers are outnumbered by VW 4 to 1 in Germany and twice that outside of Germany. In France, Citroen, Peugot, and Renault dominate (of course) but I don't recall seeing a single Opel dealership in the week I was traveling around Paris while I saw multiple installations of the French brands.... and this was one of two Chevrolet dealers I spotted. While I love the vintage Olds, shouldn't there be a new Cruze in the window?

Why? I bet he can charge 25% more or more for one of his mowers that goes through his restore process. If he is making money on it (hope he's turning a good profit) then he's smart, not sick!

We haven't allowed unregistered guest posting for as long as I can remember, so at this point it is just an experiment and have no idea what the results would be. I would only allow it in the brand forums and reviews where MudMonster does most of his posting and we do most of our promoting, not anything like Lounge.

the idea is to encourage more people to post, we have 1,200 visitors a day or more, yet only a small handful of those post anything and most aren't even registered.

they are either deleted or just remain hidden to the general public.

I'm toying with the idea of allowing unregistered users to post to certain forums. The posts would not be visible till after a moderator approves the post. What do you think of the idea?

Thanks for the advice. I did already rebuild the carb. None of the gaskets were able to be reused as they came off in chunks. Internally, the carb looked to be in good shape and clean. I haven't reinstalled the carb on the car yet, that happens tonight.

The choice is obvious... obviously. You want a personal luxury coupe and you're a successful salesman pulling in lots of commission, BUT ostentatious displays of wealth are an easy way to turn off potential customers. You can't get the Eldorado because you would turn off those customers. Get all of the luxury with plenty of subtlety in the Oldsmobile Toronado. I'm not so sure the Fury and Matador belong on the list....are they really luxury coupes?

... or CNG

Daft.

Didn't I read a while back that the 3.6 could be enlarged up to 4.0 by swapping out cylinder sleeves? Chevy could have the 3.6, Buick could have a 3.8 for historical reasons, Caddy could get a 4.0. Boom! The impression of unique engines with minimal cost.

It's only a matter of time.

Isn't the 2.0t putting out roughly the same power as the V8 the last Town Car had though? Running it through a 6-speed auto instead, it should feel roughly the same in power as the outgoing sedan.

Saying that they are the same is akinned to saying the the Toyota Tundra DOHC V8 is the same as the IS-F or LS460 DOHC V8 just because they share the same valvetrain configuration. Why would anyone want to buy a Lexus LS460 or IS-F when the Tundra Pickup uses a DOHC V8?

You know... the real news here is that they are calling the thing a Town Car.....

Cadillac needs to bring back the name "Northstar" even if has nothing at all in common with the Northstars of old. There is name recognition out there for it. It's just like Chrysler using the Hemi name again.

Caliber is dead already

Get a cat.

I have a Dodge Caliber as my rental for a few days with 40k miles on it. It is an absolute pile... the best thing Dodge could have done is take it out back and shoot it. But that got me thinking, even just since the Caliber, the quality of vehicles has improved dramatically. So sound off, what are the worst new cars in production and on sale today?

that requires comments only appropriate for the politics forum.