ShadowDog

Not to be outdone by the young whipper-snappers, Grampa Joe pimps his ride with silver racing stripes.

It may be a minor detail, but it's a pretty dumb, Mickey Mouse fix if you ask me. When I painted the calipers on my Monte Carlo, I certainly wouldn't have wanted something as detracting as lead wheel weights on them. Why should an owner of a brand new car? While there's no need to make a case out of this, it's difficult to accept as anything less than buggered engineering.

Handy feature to have... but the light delay feature annoys me. To allow the light feature to run, as convenient they are 1 in every 100 trips I make somewhere in the dark, whenever I park in the city, day or night, it's friggin' annoying almost EVERY time to have a passerby tell me, "You left your lights on!" I really have to control myself from just yelling, "YES GODDAMN IT! I KNOW! THEY WILL SHUT THEMSELVES OFF ON THEIR OWN!" ... Of course, if I did that, I would just seem to be an inconsiderate tool.

Well, I own my Grand Caravan because I wanted to. The difference is there wasn't a want for 'coolness', but for far more practical use than anything but a full-size, ladder-framed SUV (aka truck) could provide. Why Honda chose this route is beyond me. Nobody buys minivans for the aspiration to be cool. I know if I had to choose between my Grand Caravan and, say, a GMC Savana, I'd pick the Caravan. Not that it matters, but for the sake of argument, IMO, full-size ladder-frame box vans are even less cool than minivans.

But that reminds me of the Dodge commercial for the trucks when they state smoother pavement ride than the Tundra. They show two side-by-side cameras with the Tundra on the right bouncing around with a deceptive high-speed playback like its wheels are square. These days, keeping it simple means advertising the way political parties campaign with mud-slinging and half-truths. I'm not for any manufacturer choosing such a route.

Exactly. It's like a home owner with no clue that the contractor had an argument over which type of drywall tape to use. One wants the ease of fabric while the other wants pre-mudded paper and everyone else in the world goes, "..."

I don't mind Comic Sans simply because it's refreshing to utilize something for general notations or memos that doesn't appear as though I have a stick up my ass. All my staff meetings were printed in Comic Sans so that everyone felt more comfortable and at ease with the material. Using Times New Roman for my agendas sometimes appeared as though all points were 'set in stone' and would not be subject to discussion. Even if I indicated, "Subject to discussion"... it still appeared too rigid. Of course, department reports and employee appraisals deserve more appropriate typeface, so a small-font Arial or Times New Roman were the norm. I don't think I could feel comfortable typing these more important documents with a kiddie-font design. It would take a designer mentality to come up with the overly dramatic hate-on for a friggin' font. OMG! The humanity! Kids all around the world will be dropping dead on the spot at the sight of Comic Sans!!! This is what struck me as odd: They offer degrees in type design... MASTER'S degrees no less? Wow... the world would be so devastated without the importance of type design.

CAAASH IIIN THEEE TRAAASH! On that note, yes, my wife picked up a box of ShamWow from, Walmart?, maybe? It works pretty darned good. Not that we've experienced any 2 litre Cola spills with coffee in the exact same spot on the carpet, or anywhere else for that matter; but, we do use it for cleaning. We also put it under the drip rack when drying the oddball dishes when the washer is full. We don't have to use the tray anymore as it catches all the water. Then we pull it out to dry any remaining pot and pans too big for the rack and everything is done. All we do is wring it out and hang it to dry. Miracle towel? Eh... all I can say is that it does a better job drying as compared to a terry-cloth because you can wring it out like a sponge while the cloth is still 'wet' and just smears the water around.

1:44 - "Dingle-arm" :rotflmao:

Vince makes the more subdued pitch while Billy makes like a Carnie-booth operator you want to point the BB gun at.

Everywhere else outside of the U.S. seems to be doing just fine in smaller cars. The U.S. is a victim of its own automotive creation when trucks and SUVs are considered the necessity, causing the public to fear a need for larger vehicles to survive their near-death experience intact. Societies with predominantly smaller vehicles only need small vehicles; all while many people, even in the U.S., simply prefer them altogether. GM is global, so there's no need to impose the needs of one nation's desire for hulking cars on the entire global market.

What I don't understand is why Bumblebee isn't talking normally as he did when he was fixed at the end of the first film? Typical ACDelco parts failure?

I already know her answer and it would be 42... because, like, that's the ultimate and universal answer to, like, everything? ...and, like, because it's always said so on, like, T.V. shows?

Around here, Pontiac is on the same level as Chevrolet. There's a ways to go before they could begin to appear mid-lux. The only Pontiac that's worth keeping is one with NO badge engineered models. I know you all would like that; however, the Pontiac dealerships don't want to be anything different. They want to cater to the same clients as Chevrolet. They don't want to miss out on those sales because they flippin' need them. Until they accept the changes in order to provide a clear strategy to market towards the niche market buyers, GM will continue to be watered down with the same issues and lack-lustre public perception. If Pontiac is to make its mark as a competitor to the European manufacturers, they'll have to let go of their 'me too' cars and leave them to Chevrolet. To me, this is the only way to remove the perception that consumers could have about Pontiac; i.e.: 'Nice G8... but what's it doing next to that Aveo...er G3?' I get it, you get it, GM would 'appear' to get it, but Pontiac dealers keep pissing and moaning and end up selling a Chevrolet because they think they need to.

Link Fiat CEO warns Chrysler unions: cut costs or we walk REUTERS April 15, 2009 By Gilles Castonguay MILAN (Reuters) - Fiat SpA's chief executive, facing a two-week deadline to work out a partnership with Chrysler LLC, warned the troubled U.S. carmaker's unions he would ditch the idea unless they agreed to cut labor costs. In a clear message to U.S. and Canadian unions, Sergio Marchionne told Wednesday's Globe and Mail newspaper a deal on the partnership had only a 50-50 chance of succeeding because of lack of progress in talks with union leaders. "Absolutely we are prepared to walk. There is no doubt in my mind," Marchionne said in an interview posted on the Toronto newspaper's website. The Chrysler unions had to agree to match the lower labor costs of plants run by Japanese and German carmakers in the United States and Canada, he said, adding that Canadian unions were especially resistant to the idea. Nomura analyst Michael Tyndall said Marchionne was probably not bluffing in talking tough with the unions. "He's playing hardball," he said, adding that the unions' position would make the deal too costly for Fiat. "We want them (Fiat) to walk away ... I don't see any benefits in this deal." Under the latest version of the proposed partnership, first announced in January, Fiat would take an initial 20 percent stake in Chrysler in exchange for the technology to make small cars and access to foreign markets. The two carmakers are under pressure to reach a deal on the proposal with Chrysler's unions and bondholders before an April 30 deadline set by the U.S. government. Chrysler has been warned by Washington that it would go into bankruptcy if it fails to complete the deal, designed to save the smallest of Detroit's Big Three car makers. But its lenders have so far refused efforts to eliminate most -- if not all -- of the $7 billion owed to them. If a deal is reached, Chrysler would get at least $6 billion in extra government funding, having received $4 billion so far. Fiat would get access to the U.S. market and gain the scale it needs to survive the worst industry crisis in decades. It would bring to North America its popular Cinquecento (500) car next year, while its premium Alfa Romeo brand would make cars in Canada or the United States, Marchionne said.

I blame Pontiac. Why were they crying out for a 'me-too' model? It's obvious they didn't need it, especially in the U.S. - I mean, really, the U.S. is practically the only place in the world where the small car isn't popular.

The public simply won't see the common sense results as an "I told you so." Nor will they accept the fact that a final result is the lesser many possible evils. They won't take the time to understand the cause-and-effect; rather, they will only dredge up the past and say things like: "If GM only built better cars that people wanted, they wouldn't have required government money or bankruptcy protection." "All these people lost their jobs because GM was incompetent." In a situation like this, just as any argument, people tend to dig deeper for their idea of facts to support their opinions long before they concede to common sense... if ever.

Wouldn't it make more sense to compare the numbers of a Trans Am or Firebird to the Camaro rather than the Corvette? I only say this because the 'Vette is rather world-class while the TA and Firebird are largely a North American entity. Also, Scion was to pander to the wants and desires of the youth. I wonder how many youth are attached to Pontiac's image as compared to those merely hanging-on to their youth?

I'm never surprised by the stupidity of the masses these days: The mob cannot be reasoned with. Society needs to design bad news in order to vent; otherwise, they'll asplode!

Seriously... with all those cars wrecked, your family could (should?) hire a driver. Yeah, I kid. That's a whole lot of wrecking with, I hope, no tragedy.

It rained here over the last two days and was quite chilly today. I just didn't feel like being in the office today so I cleaned and swapped on the summer wheels and power washed the engine bay. That was the most fun I've had in months... retraining my muscle memory with the grippy tires so as not to oversteer around corners.

Not sure whether all dealership shops operate this way, but where my wife worked, the service advisors received commissions by the companies providing the products for particular service tasks. Transmission fluid changes were one of them.

I certainly didn't expect it to go any other way. It was never a matter of 'if', but 'when'. The only thing left to do is continue to fill topics with discussion and argument on which brands are deemed "unwanted" as the report suggests. Apparently, they're ALL 'wanted'.

It appears to me that his articles are more of an editorial piece than a news report. Yes, it's overly dramatic, but it gets the point across... eventually. I actually appreciated the context of his piece this time.

Agreed.