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I can't figure out how a company like Mahindra stays in business...although they've managed to maintain exposure by bungling just about every step in their US launch. Maybe it was intentional?
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Feb 5, 2011 03:31
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el topo posted:I swear they're now actively trying to make them as ugly as possible. Even Chris Bangle must think "drat, that's an ugly car". And that's the guy who thought it would be a good idea to screw up the kidney grille on the 3-series. I've heard the inspiration was 'Angry Birds'
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Jun 7, 2011 00:35
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Ugh...the new Honda CR-V is not doing anything for me. The best way to describe it -- take a Kia SUV, throw on the Accord Crosstour grille, and pump up the rear quarter and make the rear quarter glass taper downward while the roofline bubbles upward and outward. It, like the Civic has become a jumble of styling gimmicks thrown onto a aged existing design.
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Jul 28, 2011 03:27
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Drove a Cadillac ATS this morning. It was the 2.5 automatic; they haven't started production on the 2.0s yet. Was completely blown away at how good it was even in the worst configuration. The interior is best in class hands down. The only thing I didn't warm up to was the instrument cluster. I wish they had put the huge info screen between two defined pods of gages like Audi is doing. The CUE system worked surprisingly well and intuitively. The 2.5 is okay but not great. Certainly no worse than the base 4 in the MB C class, which is equally un engaging. Handling and ride are arguably better than the 3 series. Definitely more road feel and just as balanced. I may just buy a 2.0 manual next year...
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Sep 20, 2012 20:18
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A well done touchscreen is a good complement to proper knobs for temperature, fan, volume, and tuner. In my opinion, Honda's recent fascination with buttons for everything is only slightly less frustrating than a bad touchscreen interface.
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Oct 30, 2012 19:20
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Weinertron posted:Can someone catch me up with what's so wrong with the VAG 5 cylinder? I know 2.0 bad 1.8T good, but what's wrong with the 2.5? I had a Jetta rental last week and almost took it back for something else. The 2.5 and automatic was arguably the worst part of the car, followed by the artless, hard plastic dashboard. The 2.5 is somewhat coarse when pushed, makes unpleasant noises, and isn't particularly responsive. There was also significant hesitation off the line. And the gas mileage wasn't particularly good. I think the 2.5 is the 2.slow with an extra cylinder. It sure feels and sounds that way. The seats were pretty good, and it had a decent ride. Handling wasn't as good as previous generation Jettas. The stereo was pretty nice though, but the gages screamed "cheap". Personally, I'd rather pay an extra $2500 or $3000 for the 1.8 and a nicer interior than the decontented Jetta.
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Nov 10, 2012 18:45
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Q_res posted:Please, give a detailed reasoning of your experience with the MkZ and why you feel it is inferior to the Lexus ES. My biggest beef with Lincoln is their naming convention. Is the MKZ the big one or the small one or the SUV? Wait, they have two SUVs. I think. Also their styling has not particularly cohesive.
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Feb 3, 2013 22:10
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I'm with KozmoNaut... I consistently get better than EPA city and highway on all of my cars. And I don't granny them. It's about reading traffic. It kills me to watch people accelerate to a red light then jam on the brakes.
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Feb 5, 2013 18:17
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leica posted:Didn't we just go over this CR poo poo a few pages ago? Except when they do? I have a 12 Cruze Eco manual and have been getting 33 city/46 highway/36 combined. Most of my driving is city.
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Feb 7, 2013 17:58
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I pretty much get to the highest gear that doesn't bog the engine and downshift only when I need to accelerate. Having owned several Miatas and a motorcycle, I've learned to watch traffic and anticipate what is going on around me. It's not rocket science, but demands more concentration than most drivers are willing to expend towards driving. drat cup holders, kids, sat nav systems, cell phones and DVD systems. 
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Feb 7, 2013 19:06
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I would be interested to see them repeat the small offset test 3 times on the same model vehicle. I'm willing to wager they would get 3 significantly different outcomes. In the videos it appears that the behavior of the wheel/tire influences the amount of intrusion, the positioning of the airbag, and how the energy is dissipated through the body.
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Mar 9, 2013 14:30
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Throatwarbler posted:Autoblog has done a fairly in-depth shootout between the Buick Verano and the Acura ILX. Manual transmission Cruze owner here. It's not Honda smooth or MX-5 accurate, but I have no complaints (or praises). It does its job, would buy again.
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Mar 13, 2013 00:36
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Oooh... I have a story about buying a stripper...car.  The local Toyota dealer was advertising a Tacoma for $9999 (this was 2004ish). I needed a cheap truck (temporarily) and this fit the bill. It had A/C and a CD player, nothing else. Sticker was $14000ish. I found out quickly they absolutely did not want to sell this truck. They finally relented, and I drove the truck for a month on temporary tags. Sold it to Carmax for $12500, at a $1500 profit.
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Apr 27, 2013 19:41
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Throatwarbler posted:
I personally think the interior is the worst looking part of the car. Way too many shapes, cutlines, materials. I'm also not a fan of the blacked out gaping maw front bumper styling. The Euro-Corolla has a better looking (if not slightly bland) front end. 
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Jun 9, 2013 00:51
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Franco Caution posted:Has anyone messed around with Cadillac CUE? I've driven an XTS and an ATS with CUE. It worked better than I thought it would. The screens are well organized and logical, and the screen elements are sized well. The voice control is hands down (  ) the best in the industry. No need to memorize vocabulary words, just tell it what you want it to do. I liked the feature where the menu provided more detail as your hand hovered over each icon, but some people would like to turn it off, I'm sure. The haptic response helps tremendously, but also highlights the biggest problem. It's too slow to respond. So you end up doing what you wanted, and something extra because it didn't respond as quickly as it should have. It also means you're probably on a different screen than the one you wanted. I think with some refinement, CUE has tremendous potential. Especially for secondary controls. For primarys (volume, tune, temp, fan) give me knobs, please. Goober Peas fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 03:36
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Snowdens Secret posted:The companies with electric car models can't even agree on a standard plug. Frankly we should consider ourselves lucky there's a fairly standardized gasoline fill port. Not true -- everyone but Daimler have aligned with J1772 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772
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Jul 13, 2013 03:39
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In college I rode to New Orleans in the back of an 82 911sc. I don't recommend this.
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Jul 29, 2013 17:02
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I still like the Infiniti SUV that looks like a bionic cheetah. Hell if I know what they're called now, probably starts with Q.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:22
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Hog Obituary posted:Well according to that image on the previous page it's going to be called the qx70? Hell if I know... Their new naming convention really is confusing. Lincoln's is just as bad. I can't remember which one is the big one and which one is the smaller one.
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Aug 22, 2013 18:00
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I've read somewhere that next year's Chevy Spark will have a Franken-transmission that is a combo automatic and CVT. I'm on my phone and not finding the article at the moment, but it has the potential of being the best of both, the worst of both, the most awesome thing ever, or the worst thing ever.
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Oct 7, 2013 00:50
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Acura is dead in the next 10 years unless the go back to the basics. If they had spent as much effort developing the RWD platform the market has demanded for the past 15 years as they have on gadgets and technology no one uses, they'd have knocked one out of the park.
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Dec 14, 2013 20:16
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KillHour posted:Think about the kind of people that have 6 figures to buy a car with, and still decide to buy a Lexus. The ultimate blanding machine.
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Dec 15, 2013 19:58
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Good God throatwarbler, just post the link. We can click and read, ya know. 
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Feb 10, 2014 03:25
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:If you're not laughing at how ridiculous that commercial is you're doing it wrong. And if a TV ad is really making you angry, I'm laughing at how ridiculous you are. 
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Mar 4, 2014 18:47
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Xguard86 posted:
Can't argue with this 
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Mar 4, 2014 18:53
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Hog Obituary posted:I think its 8 years and unlimited miles Unlimited miles = the first mile after 2922 days
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Aug 16, 2014 02:35
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Fayez Butts posted:It's been 15 minutes, let the Agreed...the taillights are the weakest part of the package, visually. That says a lot. I'm totally gaga over the contouring in the profile, the hood, and the rear deck.
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Sep 4, 2014 02:43
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Some serious butthurt going on in this thread. Could be solved if everyone drove a Miata.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:26
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Xguard86 posted:ya although usually rolling starts measure that and the ATS still loses. It was probably the base 2.5 which is rubbish in the ATS. I've driven a 2.0T auto and manual ATS and both were comparable to the German and Japanese equivalent with the exception of the ATS being slightly more coarse. The manual (like the one in my Cruze Eco) was geared too low in 1st and 2nd, requiring a shift into 3rd at about 58 mph. I had a rental Impala a couple of weeks ago in Chicago and it really is that good. The only thing remotely negative I could mention is the rear visibility is bad, and the dashboard was a little busy visually. If only the Malibu were that good.
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Sep 15, 2014 23:57
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Throatwarbler posted:Imagine yourself a new car buyer in 1989, after test driving a 1989 Ford Tempo or Chevy Lumina vs a 1989 Honda Accord, tell me with a straight face that you would seriously consider buying the Ford or Chevy? To you or I today with the benefit of hindsight it sounds laughable and yet people continued buying Fords and Chevys over Toyotas and Hondas for 30 years, enough to more or less keep those companies afloat. I was there in 1989, and can say that the allure of cars like the Lumina or Tempo was pricing. Reagan era politics artificially limited the number of imported cars through most of the 80s, which meant most imported cars sold at or near sticker. It also meant dealers tacked on a lot of ridiculous add-ons to milk the most out of each car. The dollar was also weaker than the foreign currencies through most of the 80s, causing imported goods to consistently cost more than domestic made goods. Which is why you saw Nissan, Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen all invest in US plants. Most folks also don't remember during that era a 10% interest rate was considered good -- a 20% price differential between a comparably equipped Accord and a Tempo stretched over the interest rates of that era gave the domestic automakers a significant advantage. Parts and maintenance worked the same way, so even though your Tempo may need more repairs the parts were readily available and cost less. And the Tempo required less costly maintenance. Unless you got a total lemon you still came out ahead financially by a significant margin. I'm not discounting anything you said - just adding some detail and reasoning beyond the typical *hurr American Cars suck* that you tend to throw out there. During that era from a sheer economic standpoint, there was no reason for the US Automakers to invest in higher quality - all they had to do was undercut the imports price and keep the volume up and they could make money hand over fist. We know now that was shortsighted and bit them in the rear end in the 90s and 00s. Goober Peas fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Sep 27, 2014 |
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Sep 27, 2014 04:08
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IOwnCalculus posted:I think that's A Thing on the Chevy Volt as well - I'm guessing they keep the fuel tank extremely well-sealed compared to a regular car since they're trying to make E10/E15 gasoline stay good for up to a year without adding in any stabilizers. 99% of the time, the door is ready on mine by the time I push the button and get to the fuel door.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:48
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fknlo posted:So basically you'll be able to add a 3rd bag of mulch the one time a year you put anything in the bed? You're doing it wrong if you don't overload it *and* driving on tires with separating tread. 
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Sep 30, 2014 23:50
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Still better than BMW, Acura, and Honda's attempts. But that's not saying much.
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Oct 4, 2014 16:18
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ehnus posted:155hp for $30k? Are they purposely aiming to have the ND sell worse than the NC? There's no way they're moving the base price 20 percent. That would be in line with a loaded model, though.
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Oct 5, 2014 18:19
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My personal favorite was the Volt owner that was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler. So she goes to GM-Volt forums, and posts that the car caught on fire after a rear impact, how unsafe the car is, blah blah blah. Someone asks for pictures and eventually she posts some. Car backend is crushed all the way to the drivers seat. So the car was completely demolished, and she was able to walk away with minor injuries. And the car caught fire between the time she got out and the tow truck came to haul it off. They were able to quickly put it out. But the car caught on fire in a rear impact.
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Oct 11, 2014 22:42
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Most of you goobers aren't old enough to have been driving when 0-60 in 10 seconds was fast
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Oct 17, 2014 23:49
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Phone posted:Man, shut the gently caress up. Everyone on mnet is having the wonderful "discussion" of whether or not a Miata is a REAL SPORTS CAR because minivans put down high-6s in the 0-60 dance. Phone's not-so-private obsession 
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Oct 18, 2014 04:42
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eyebeem posted:Some ecoboost talk: I had to do a 120 mile drive to the office today (started a new job, haven't relocated yet, so Mondays and Fridays suck) in the Ecoboost F150. I decided to try for "realistic efficiency," keeping it to 70-75 on the highway and making a concerted effort to drive efficiently. About 100 miles of the 120 was on highway, the other 20 was surface streets. Very little elevation variation. That's in line with what I've experienced on the rentals I've had, driving at the same speeds. When I dialed back to 65, I got 21 MPG.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:43
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Throatwarbler posted:I don't think it's true in any reasonable way. Tacoma completely dominates the small truck market and always had, even back in its heyday the GM and Dodge small trucks never came close to the Tacoma in sales, the Ranger did but the Ranger was a much older vehicle that sold cheaply to fleets while the Tacoma never did. Basically anyone who wasn't a fleet manager bought a Tacoma if they were looking for a small truck. Source? A quick GIS brings back the following numbers: Year Ranger Tacoma Dakota S-10 1999 348,358 132,565 144,148 2000 330,125 147,295 177,395 211,587 http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2002/01/03/034042.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Dakota#U.S._sales_figures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_%28North_America%29 http://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/colorado/history.html I suppose I should expect some jalapeno enema spew?  Goober Peas fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 00:19
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I get a strong Saab vibe from the Optima
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Jan 20, 2015 00:04
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