aaaantoine

I only saw a June thread and I spotted a doozy, so here goes.

Well they are all pretty damn expensive.

Pretty sure A is Olds. I don't recognize any of the other faces.

That... Is fantastic. What scale is that?

I think I'm safer on foot than I was in the Venture.

Well, I am in a city of some of the worst drivers in America... That said, there's really only one corridor of my commute that I consider high risk, and it's a half mile stretch of US 1 with a 40 mph speed limit and tight lanes divided by a simple double yellow line. I figure that could result in a net 90 mph offset crash. The rest are either low speed 2 lane roads, well spaced out, or well divided, so I can expect most collision scenarios would be same direction. Maybe I'm expressing a great deal of hubris to justify my purchase, but I'm of the opinion that people should only drive as much car as they need. Also, one of my former cars was a Chevy Venture. I'd consider this a step in the right direction from that.

Yeah, I certainly didn't think the ignition was at fault at the time.

At some point I gotta get this and the van together for a photo shoot. They make a cute couple. Edit: forgot how to emote.

My cousin has been following the news on these and is anxious to buy one. She's interested in it for the safety angle, I think.

I know it's been a while, but didn't GM pay good money to NOT buy out Fiat about a decade ago?

I actually had the ignition switch thing happen to me in my 06 Cobalt. The GPS lost its suction and fell off the window, hitting the key on the way down and shutting off the car. At highway speeds. Fortunately I figured out that I could restart the car if I shifted into neutral before anything bad happened.

I had seen the IIHS Smart vs C-Class test but not this. Thanks. Something else that helped me feel a bit better about safety was someone that compiled statistics showing the car has fewer fatalities per mile than whatever the average is. I'd link that info here except I'm on mobile right now. Maybe later.

I have the misfortune of having birds pretty much living over my driveway. Maybe because of that mulberry tree which is also hanging over my driveway. So I'm probably going to invest in car covers... But on topic, I washed berry-colored poop off of my cars today.

I had no idea these were still being built -- wasn't the GL supposed to replace this? I guess as long as people demand it, they will continue to build it.

I actually don't think it looks that bad. I've become desensitized to Nissan design language after the Cube apparently. That sticker price, though...

Last time I came around here, I was driving a 2005 Grand Prix. In Oct 2011, I got a new job which forced me to relocate. I moved from Central New York to my new job site in Maryland, while -- due to an unfortunate technicality -- my wife and children stayed behind. Since I would need a car of my own to get around, my parents and sister were gracious enough to let me "borrow" her 1997 Saturn SL to get around in. I found out in Nov/Dec 2011 that we were expecting a third child. The wife and I agreed that the back seat of the GP wasn't big enough for 3 car seats, so in March 2012 we traded the car for a minivan -- a 2009 Volkswagen Routan. I still have to update my signature. My nuclear family, now +1, rejoined me in August 2012, since the conditions of the technicality had expired. I should probably add to the mix that between 3 kids, almost 10k in credit card debt, a car loan (Routan, rolled over from Grand Prix, rolled over from 2006 Cobalt), 2 student loans, and 2 mortgages, we were in dire financial straits. After "borrowing" my sister's car for over 3 years, pressure was building somewhat to legitmize the Saturn and transfer it to my name. So I took a break from paying off debt to scrape together cash for the task. After she signed it over to me as a gift, and after a rigorous Maryland State vehicle safety inspection (for those unfamiliar, it's a very thorough one-time inspection done upon transfer of the vehicle to a new owner), I took ownership of the Saturn in February 2015. Then on April 30, it was rear-ended by an Escalade. I was unhurt. The Saturn, however, suffered frame damage, and was declared a total loss. It was a good car -- at just over 160,000 miles, it was still getting me to work and back -- but I couldn't justify salvaging it. May its parts be put to good use. I was somewhat content to drive the Routan to work until I could save enough money for a good replacement car, but this would have left the wife stranded in case she needed the car for an appointment or emergency. I considered alternative methods of transportation, but this too would leave her stranded in terms of more time away from home. She didn't want me to seek out private sales due to her family's awful experience with them. For her sake, I honored her suggestion to buy a car from Carmax. So I bought a Mercedes. I wanted to buy the smallest and cheapest car I could find. I ended up taking this to its logical conclusion and left the dealership this week with a 2009 smart Fortwo Passion, at about $6700 after tax, title, and registration. I did my fair share of research on the car to make sure I knew what I was getting in to. I was not prepared at first for the lurching granny shifting and the scary brake pedal action, but I got over the brake pedal rather easily. I'm still getting used to the transmission, and have come to understand why it behaves the way it does. Speaking as a guy who once aspired to own a Pontiac Solstice, I gotta say, I really like this car. <rant> It represents a really nagging philosophical itch I've always wanted to scratch. The roads are congested, every day, with SUVs and large passenger vehicles containing only a driver commuting to and from work. When I visited the Smart USA mobile site and saw a section saying that "288,675,000 empty seats commute daily", I just about shed a tear. People have expressed concern about safety. Yes, I know; physics do not bode well in the Smart's favor. But I will not be one of those people who says "I need a bigger car so my family and I can be safer. I'm buying an SUV!"* Also, it's safer than a motorcycle. * Honestly, after fitting 3 booster seats into the back of a 2014 Impala rental, my wife and I have entertained the thought of replacing our Routan with a large sedan down the line. </rant> But, yeah. It's actually a fun little car, and during this honeymoon phase, I look forward to my daily commute.

In addition to what Oldsmoboi said, I think the app exists so that you can also issue voice commands to control HVAC. I'm sure the hard controls will still be there. Or at least I hope so. As an aside, I hope the Shuffle, Mute, and Bluetooth indicators have corresponding hard buttons. Those seem a little too small to tap precisely, particularly while driving.

That is cool. How long does it take to heat up while on the 120v plug?

So for the cost of a full charge, and considering that the driving distance on the full charge is about equal to a gallon of gas, you can travel up to 3 times further on the same dime if you only use the grid. Now, the Cruze starts at $17,000, and the Volt starts at $33,000, making for a difference of $16,000 between them (yeesh). Assuming $4 per gallon of gas and $1.50 for a full charge, both granting you the same distance -- with a difference of $2.50 between them -- you'd break even after 6400 (16000/2.5) charges. Hmm... So if a charge gets you 40 miles, that's 256,000 miles. This point may be old-hat, but the Volt is definitely not an economy car. Here's hoping future iterations have better returns on them.

North? Nothing exciting this month. I got to see the Cruze in the dealership, but that was last month.

Seems to happen specifically in modern day cab-forward FWD compacts. The designers like change the slope on the roofline, which must annoy the crap out of the engineers. I've spoken out against its appearance before. It's not terrible in the Buick. I think this either because of bias, or because I've gotten used to its appearance elsewhere.

When did they make one of those?

I guess they outsourced the motors for the Volt and the EV1?

Speaking of the curse, one of my tires went flat yesterday while I was driving...

Wait, it was only unveiled last month? Jeez. The concept has gone back years now...