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Mazda should have never offered the RX-8 with an automatic. This isn't just manual transmission snobbery; I actually think that decision did a lot of harm to the public image of rotary engines.
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Oct 12, 2011 04:51
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Throatwarbler posted:Jesus Christ you are a terrible poster. I'll remember that the next time I drive square into an immovable wall at 35mph. Edit: I applaud the good side impact ratings though. I hear these also have good side impact ratings with similar visibility: 
Previa_fun fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Nov 15, 2011 |
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Nov 15, 2011 02:52
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SouthLAnd posted:I've always like the Flex. It's just such a drat weird box. The new face makes me like it even more. That's really nice looking and I've always had a soft spit for the flex but the "FLEX" lettering on the front needs to go.
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Apr 17, 2012 16:33
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thesurlyspringKAA posted:You people are all crazy for liking the 05 model over the recent one. Straight up crazy. I thought this was the general consensus but maybe not. The new ones are far better looking in my opinion though. The powder blue is a beautiful color and there's no shame in liking it. 
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May 22, 2012 05:38
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Get ready for even thinker pillars and higher belt-lines: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr081412.html
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Aug 15, 2012 00:10
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bull3964 posted:You can't really fault IIHS. Every single time they invent a test, 10 years later all cars score perfect on it so they have to make something new to justify their existence. Meanwhile the NHTSA keeps ramming cars at a perfect 90 degree angle into a perfectly flat wall at 35mph. That said, I've always heard (and have probably posted something like this before) that the IIHS tests are designed to test the vehicle's safety structure, while the NHTSA tests are designed to make sure the restraints are up to federal code.
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Aug 15, 2012 10:10
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Cream_Filling posted:It really does sound like something from either alibaba.com or else a really gross locally made candy from a hippie health food co-op. Or a  strain.After seeing most of what Honda has been churning out in the past year I'm sort of relieved they went for a no  redesign of the Civic.
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Sep 6, 2012 22:25
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grover posted:The first car company that can make a desirable sporty minivan will make a fortune. 
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Sep 8, 2012 17:40
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This aside reminded me of this post that showed up on my Facebook feed a few days ago:  She's really smart and gets to travel the world doing biochem things, but she just needs to buy a slightly used Corolla and call it a day. "Price per miles left in the vehicle." 
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Sep 17, 2012 11:40
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cynic posted:I've heard worse methods of choosing a car (I'm thinking of my wifes method of 'Do I like the colour and is it a hideously ugly brick?'). At least she will get a feel for what is reliable or not, and can choose from a far wider set of cars compared to if she just did what some people do and go for the first car they find that is $3,000, less then 5 years old and under 60,000 miles (for example). Yeah, in theory the idea is good. In phrasing it comes out a little bit too  but hey this is AI after all.
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Sep 17, 2012 12:54
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ZippySLC posted:pussy shrapnel Thanks for the band name, Yummers.
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Oct 3, 2012 00:19
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Throatwarbler posted:Chrysler's system is exactly like that. What is a "performance font?" Is this typography jargon or marketing jargon?
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Oct 30, 2012 21:55
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Thanks. It still seems like strange wording though. Yo dogg I got dat comic sans stage three performance edition. And that's just for emails. Don't wanna gently caress with my shitposting font. 
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Oct 30, 2012 22:01
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IMO Honda had the best dash font (that one they used on everything) but I don't know what their gauge clusters look like now. I think a lot of blue and green and trees and stuff.
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Oct 30, 2012 22:40
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rscott posted:I prefer my fonts sans serif for extra aerodynamic efficiency. Heh. It's easy to tell who's been to the track and who hasn't. Those serifs are for downforce.
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Nov 1, 2012 03:25
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Those are very attractive gauges, in my opinion. At the same time, that is how I imagine the "80s retro" motif looking in a few years.
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Nov 22, 2012 11:22
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Rhyno posted:Inside Line was the poo poo. I was so pissed when they hosed that up. Their long-term road test blog was actually really interesting too. Because they had the cars for a year at a time and they were driven by a dozen different people it was a good chance to see what reliability and livability would be in real world situations. Of course now they moved it to a page with pop ups and I don't read it anymore. 
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Jan 13, 2013 07:13
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I'd watch the gently caress out of Top Solid Rocket Fuel drag races.
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Jan 18, 2013 01:33
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Drive on roads, not on people.
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Feb 3, 2013 18:35
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Throatwarbler posted:A bunch of new cars now have small overlap test results. It was just the other day I discovered the IIHS YouTube channel and went  watching some of the small overlap videos. It's amazing how safe cars have gotten but I would NOT want to endure an accident like those. The NHTSA 35mph full frontal test looks like a parking lot ding by comparison.
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Mar 9, 2013 06:48
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bull3964 posted:You've never been on a strange road on a dark night and made a mistake? It's the very definition of accident and people don't have to be grossly negligent to be involved in them. Something as simple as understeering on black ice at speeds barely over what you would do in a school zone can replicate exactly what this type of test is doing. Even on an interstate if you're doing 65+ you might only have time (unless you're Tusen Takk) to slow down to 40 or so before impact. It's an interesting test, nonetheless. A deer test would be interesting for sure. I live in an area with a heavy deer population and I've pretty much come to accept that if I hit a deer at interstate speed I'm toast. I'm pretty sure it'd either come through the windshield or demolish the soft top. Previa_fun fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Mar 9, 2013 |
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Mar 9, 2013 19:03
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I see they've worked out the teething problems
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Mar 9, 2013 22:09
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Snowdens Secret posted:I think you'll see engine size shrink for fuel efficiency / weight while maintaining current or almost-current power levels than you'll see regular cars go a whole lot higher on HP. Ford is already going this direction in a big way with the 1.0 three banger in the 2013 Fiesta. I'd be interested in hearing how it drives.
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Mar 13, 2013 21:02
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I'm so glad Ford has moved away from Gillette grille.
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Mar 19, 2013 08:50
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AdmiralViscen posted:The new car market collapsed, leading to a scarcity of used models available on lots, leading to price increases. And Cash For Clunkers happened at the same time so THANKS OBAMA 
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Apr 28, 2013 20:31
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Throatwarbler posted:Available features include: Jesus Christ, Toyota.
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Jun 7, 2013 14:13
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Goddamn is that an ugly car.
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Jun 15, 2013 03:16
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The Mirage is bland ugly but the new Versa looks like a scrunched up Quest. I guess that's what they were going for with the Nissan design language but it has serious pug face.
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Jun 15, 2013 04:24
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dissss posted:The Fiesta is a size up from the Spark. Can't say I'm impressed with the Spark at all compared to just about anything in the next size up bracket. I'm torn because if I were in the market for a new car and wanted something economical I'd love to snatch up a Chevy Sonic with the 1.4 turbo and manual tranny. On the other hand I've had bad experiences with GM products, although only with their late 90s and early 00s cars. That gauge cluster is 
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Jun 15, 2013 14:34
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Friar Zucchini posted:Still a ton better than the current Versa sedan. I really don't understand the appeal of the Versa/Sonic/Fiesta sedans. Is it hatchback phobia or want of a separate trunk? Both?
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Jun 19, 2013 02:40
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Snowdens Secret posted:I never get the pedestrian crash stuff. Is there really an epidemic in Europe of people getting taken out at the knees by low-slung, swoopy cars? It works directly in contradiction to efforts to make cars more fuel-efficient. It's more of a problem in certain European cities because there are more people and more cars sharing a smaller space, so pedestrian collisions happen more frequently. A low speed bump is a lot different if you tumble over the hood vs. getting pushed under the car. I agree it looks terrible a lot of the time, though.
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Jul 3, 2013 20:18
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Cream_Filling posted:I thought that they were based on the supposition, based on some statistics I'm sure, that people very commonly get hit in the ankles and fall on top of the hood. So then they mandated a minimum distance between the top of the engine and the top of the hood, so when people get knocked onto the hood they dont hit the valve covers or whatever with their heads and break them (the heads). But then that makes the front end so tall that you're going to either fling them into something else or else run them over instead of the thing you've designed around, which is people falling on top of the hood. I read "fling them into something" and was reminded of that old video with the train 
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Jul 3, 2013 20:48
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In theory timing chains are great but it seems impossible for a lot of automakers to make a decent chain tensioner ever.
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Jul 4, 2013 01:35
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Devyl posted:The problem with a switchable battery pack is that we know none of the car manufacturers are going to play ball with each other, and thus Ford's battery pack is going to be different than Chevrolet's battery pack. And different models have different layouts, so even those battery packs may be different than other models from the same company. And when you get design refreshes and re-styling, those layouts may change and the battery pack design might change. Do you see where this is going? Quick-swap stations would (if it happened that way) have to carry hundreds of batteries in their inventory if you wanted to swap and not wait 3-4 hours for a charge. On the other hand the future market for "universal automobile battery quick connect (FITS FORD/CHEVY/CHRYSLER 2021-2025)" adapters is huge. Job creation, dogg. 
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Jul 12, 2013 05:47
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How much did they change the Fit platform between the 2007-2008 and '09+? I had an '08 which I enjoyed a lot but the 09s feel a lot bigger, heavier, and more..."bathtub-y." They're probably not even that much bigger or heavier though. I didn't care for the redesigned Fit's interior either. 
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Jul 20, 2013 09:05
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KozmoNaut posted:Doesn't really matter that it's only 2 valves per cylinder, not all engines are supposed to be high-revving screamers. Of course there's the LS7 with all the down low grunt you could want and a 7000RPM redline for rev-heads like me.  The GM V8s really are great motors.Edit: Wikipedia says 7100 redline and "capable" of 8 grand but it doesn't breathe well enough to make power that high. Previa_fun fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jul 28, 2013 |
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Jul 28, 2013 18:12
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the Dodge Copperhead (I mean Dodge CONCEPT CAR) and Plymouth Pronto sucked in Gran Turismo 2.
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Sep 26, 2013 04:49
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I had a 2014 Silverado as a rental for a day to move some furniture and felt really lukewarm about it. On one had, the interior was very well laid out and looked and felt great. It had all sorts of fun features (even on a rental-spec) and was a nice place to be. On the other hand, however, the throttle response from the DBW system was beyond abysmal. This, coupled with the fact that transmission seemed reluctant to downshift until you pressed the throttle harder and suddenly  two gear downshift. There were also certain situations where you could definitely feel and tell when the engine switched from V4 to V8 mode. The steering and brakes seemed alright, though. The cab was very quiet inside, as well. Spookily so.That said I daily drive a Miata so take my expectations of driving dynamics with a grain of salt. Edit: the rental guy gave me a choice between Chevrolet or Dodge. I would have jumped at an F-150, EcoBoost or no.
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Oct 3, 2013 05:16
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I think pretty much all modern torque-converter automatics lock the TC pretty much immediately in every gear so really unless you're at low speeds or taking off from a dead stop they behave similarly to a DCT box. I've noticed people who are used to "normal" automatics really don't like the new Ford DCTs.
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Oct 6, 2013 18:36
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DropShadow posted:If you want an interesting story about car development, read Car by Mary Walton about the development of the '96 "ovals everywhere" Taurus. I read it after the 2000 redesign (to get rid of the ovals), so it was pretty mindblowing to read about how good they thought its styling looked. Apparently they called it "the catfish" and they still built it. Just a note that this is more of a business oriented book that deals with cars rather than a "car book." That said I read it a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it still.
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Oct 25, 2013 01:13
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