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Rhyno posted:I just want a turbo AWD sedan with a 6 speed that isn't a Subaru, is that so much to ask? Your local Audi dealer would love to sell you an A4.
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Jul 26, 2012 03:45
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I love driving on a good twisty road, but when I'm just taking the interstate from point A to point B, I would love to be able to turn on the autopilot and do something else. I don't care what car I'm in, I-80 does not deliver driving enjoyment, so why try?
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Dec 20, 2012 17:20
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I keep waiting for someone to build something Volt-like but with a turbine or Stirling engine. Those designs theoretically offer more efficiency than the conventional IC engine but have always been impractical because of other limitations - no power at low RPMs for the turbine, and slow or inefficient startup for the Stirling. Neither would be a problem if the engine was only needed to top off the battery. It's just a question of packaging them for automotive use.
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Jan 23, 2013 17:12
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That's great if true and if they can get the price down. For me somewhere between 350 and 400hp and under $40k would be a much more interesting car. It might even replace the Cayman as my "when my kid finishes college, I will celebrate by buying one" car.
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Feb 26, 2013 22:19
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Maybe the market will wise up and realize the folly of the horsepower wars.
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Feb 26, 2013 23:29
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Your life may be better than mine but I can't see how I'd get more enjoyment out of a 450hp Corvette than a 350hp version. My S4 is quick enough that the real speed limit is my own courage and I'm not upgrading that.
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Feb 27, 2013 00:13
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TheFonz posted:When cars can make 400hp and get 30 mpg and have a 0-60 of 5ish seconds and 19 bajillion airbags and fart unicorn toots I'm not going to call that a case of "my life may be better" I'm going to call that a case of my life is way more loving awesome than yours if you think manufacturers should lower the hp they are making. All other things being equal, I accept that more horsepower == better. All other things are rarely equal, though. I'd rather have a hypothetical 350hp Corvette than a 400hp Mustang at the same price point. If the focus on horsepower uber alles is keeping manufacturers from addressing other things that make cars fun to drive, then the horsepower wars suck.
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Feb 27, 2013 01:33
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TheFonz posted:W-hat? My original remark about the horsepower wars was in this context: Weinertron posted:I really hope this gets made because a 350hp $40k C7 would be awesome, but how on Earth will it sell to the carbuying masses when the V8 Mustang and Camaro are both ~420hp? Poorvette could be more fun to drive than a Mustang GT, and if they can't make it because the market won't see past the GT's 420hp, then to hell with horsepower wars. I intended my remark for that context and not as an indictment of horsepower in general.
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Feb 27, 2013 06:06
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Bob NewSCART posted:You have an S4 and you don't beat the poo poo out of it? It's my daily driver and I bought it new, so I've never gone beyond 9/10ths of its full capabilities, and I usually try to keep it at about 8/10ths. (Well, not deliberately. There was one time I almost missed a turn but decided to go for it, and I had the car wildly oversteering for a moment before the stability control brought it round. That got my heart beating.) My previous car, a 2006 WRX, was not quite fast enough for me to hit my limit of skill and courage. The S4 can definitely exceed that limit. I conclude that outside the track, a hp/lb ratio of about .08 will let the car do anything I'm gutsy enough to do. Therefore, beyond that level, I'd rather manufacturers focus on handling and then on either luxury or price than on piling up more power.
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Feb 27, 2013 15:48
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But can it be had with a sports diff? If there's no manual (sad but typical) and no sports diff, I declare it unworthy.
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Mar 27, 2013 21:55
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I can't wait for the combination of HUD + gaze recognition to become mainstream. That will simplify the interface enough for us to devote 100% of our complaints to menu order and layout.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:07
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Cream_Filling posted:Why would gaze recognition be a good thing? Just leave the displays on all the time. Gaze recognition means your eyeball becomes the cursor control device. The way I imagine it, the HUD would have a standard display showing speed, rpm, gear, nav cues, etc. Press the menu steering wheel button and the bottom row of the HUD is replaced by icons for other car systems. Look at the one you want, press the select button on the steering wheel, keep navigating. It's fast and your eyes are never really off the road. Probably needs to be coupled with a secondary display and voice entry for browsing music libraries and entering nav destinations, but for anything that can be represented as a one line set of icons, it would be slick. I saw a mockup of something like this once and it really impressed me. Zorak of Michigan fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jun 21, 2013 |
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Jun 21, 2013 18:58
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Cream_Filling posted:That sounds terrible because you're literally taking your eyes off the road while also holding down a button, which seems to me to be a "rub your tummy pat your head" situation. And in real life, your eyes flick around all the time and eye movements aren't under total conscious control, meaning you wouldn't be able to have reliable recognition of gaze without a fairly generous sample window. Controlling things via eye movements is in no way intuitive and would probably have a significant learning curve. Voice control would be far better than that if you were really that button-phobic. If you display the icons to be gazed upon in the HUD, then your eyes stay very close to the road at all times. Your focus might be on the road right in front of the car but it's a lot better than looking down at the console near the shift lever trying to find the right button. It's clearly inferior to buttons if you can keep the buttons down to a minimum, but when you start chasing buttons for every function, things get real crowded. It's easy for me to imagine how to get pause, skip ahead, and volume up/down into muscle memory, but hard to envision getting the less commonly used functions there.
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Jun 21, 2013 19:51
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I had the impression that hydrogen is a chicken and egg problem. If fuel cell cars were sure to be huge in five years, the industry could arrange for stations to be there for them, using either hydrogen transport or hydrogen from natural gas. If the fuel stations were sure to be there in five years, fuel cell cars might take off.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:53
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Snowdens Secret posted:That's assuming that they really want top-end horse, which isn't the common complaint about the BRZ, and not a raising of the torque curve especially in the lower rev range, which the S2000 is decidedly unsuited for. Yeah, I dunno if it's the torque hole or what, but the BRZ just doesn't perform like its power/weight ratio says it should. Looking at old Car & Driver test sheets, a 2008 WRX had 14.3 pounds per horsepower and a 5-60 street start of 7.5 seconds. Their BRZ takes 8 seconds despite having only 13.8 pounds per horsepower. I owned a WRX for a while and I know it had enough speed for me, so what I want is a BRZ that performs at the same level. I'm not sure that will stop me when used prices drop to levels I can contemplate, but in the abstract, I'd rather have a power curve that would get me at least WRX acceleration curves.
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Oct 24, 2013 15:15
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One would hope that the Z06 owners would tolerate a little jerkiness about town for all the performance advantages, but one might be underestimating the folly of the Corvette owner base. I once saw C6 Z06 parked on the street in Ann Arbor and thought, "Nice race car, poseur. Bet it rides really nice on the way to Espresso Royale." Then I walked past and saw the roll cage and fire extinguisher. Prejudice is an ugly thing. Comedy option for the new Z06: CVT with gear ratio setpoints, which you can select via stick or paddle!
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Jan 12, 2014 19:07
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I want the option of driving a deathtrap with a nice, low, 90s-looking beltline.
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Feb 2, 2015 05:13
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94 Integra hatch 06 WRX wagon 12 S4 sedan Working my way to Nirvana, one car at a time.
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Apr 9, 2015 07:32
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At this point I imagine they were sized exactly to fit a typical drive-through window order, and no larger.
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May 16, 2015 22:15
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IIRC the big driver for the new engine was packaging, though the use of direct injection probably also played a role.
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May 24, 2015 20:56
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Laserface posted:Space is not an issue. There is a few EJ conversions kicking around, not to mention LSx and even 1/2JZ swaps that fit. One of their big boasts when the car was new was that the center of gravity was lower than a Cayman's. Can't get that with an inline. Also they wanted to get it entirely behind the axle.
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May 25, 2015 02:10
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Even given the car's light weight, I did not expect those acceleration figures that C/D got. I have a desire to treat myself to an impractical car when my kid finishes college and this Miata just moved to the top of the list. Edit: I know the Toyabarus are 2+2s and therefore allegedly don't compete with the Miata, but I'm hoping the quickness of the 2016 Miata will force them to try to make the Toyabarus quicker in order to stay in the same league. Zorak of Michigan fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Jun 1, 2015 |
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Jun 1, 2015 15:21
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Throatwarbler posted:Fine, but I would still like the column shifter though. The dodge/ford/Chevy cars already come with them in the cop versions, so there should be minimal new investment. Well I don't really care about the Chevy because you can get it with a stick, but the slushbox only ones should. What's the point of the rotary dial shifter anyway, what problem is it supposed to solve? I think it was a Jalopnik article a few months back that suggested that the console pushbotton is the way to go. I found it persuasive. Maybe younger folks will see the column shifter without prejudice, but for older folks like me, it will forever be associated with cars devoid of all driving enjoyment.
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Jun 6, 2015 19:31
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Which is why OEMs need to rely less on focus groups.
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Jul 4, 2015 02:30
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I know Porsche just demoed one that used GPS to maximize mileage over hills and also to predict the radius of upcoming curves and automatically take them at 0.7G or less, but I didn't think it was shipping yet.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:08
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Is there a better solution for borrowing audiobooks than CD? Last I checked, doing it electronically was always a pain in the rear end, one way or another. Edit: My point is that there's a good reason for keeping CD as an option in new cars. I don't mean to turn this into audiobook chat.
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Aug 10, 2015 19:16
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Uncle Jam posted:You can drive a Lexus throught dat grill tho. The winner will be the company that figures out how to skip the first buyer and sell factory-direct used sports cars direct to internet nerds. Zorak of Michigan fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 18:54
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:I'm sorry, what? I look at the slight upward curve on that grill and all I can see is Butthead's upper lip.
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Aug 28, 2015 21:20
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I never used to give a drat about Mustangs but there is something about that new 350 that I cannot get over. The latest styling tweaks took the 'stang from "nice retro homage" to "that is a dang nice looking car" and when you compound that with the monster V8 and flat crank, I become ensorcelled.
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Oct 2, 2015 21:38
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The articles about electric turbocharging read like it will fix all our problems. They never seem to mention a street date, though.
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Oct 21, 2015 05:42
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Summer tires aren't slicks. I have them on my S4 and I've never hesitated to drive in any weather as long as the temperature was up. I did get caught out by a freak early snowstorm a couple years ago, and dedicated that summer tires would get me to the grocery store OK. They got me to the grocery store unharmed, but I swear that fifteen minute drive (which is about seven minutes in clear weather) got my heart pounding more than fifteen minutes of vigorous exercise would have. Never again. I'd rather change wheels and eat dinner at 10pm than try to use summer tires on a snowy road. Edit: I learned driving on all weather tires. They're the default for most cars. They're much inferior to dedicated winter tires on snow and ice. I'd never go back to all weather tires, myself. I can find ways to fudge around bad traction when I'm accelerating or cornering, but you never know how much braking force you might need until the moment arrives. Zorak of Michigan fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 20:49
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Throatwarbler posted:The Chrysler-Mazda merger is still possible, and just getting Mazda to make all of Chrysler's small and midsize sedans would be a good fit. Miata Hellcat would be the best worst car ever made.
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May 12, 2016 18:31
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Proud Christian Mom posted:Most people want a car today which is why dealerships take up entire zipcodes and the supply chain is built to churn out all the white/silver/black mid-optioned models the world can bear Intellectually I know this but I cannot wrap my head around it. OK, maybe if your car just got totaled in a wreck and it's buy now or pay rental prices for weeks, but otherwise, what's the rush? As long as I have a driveable car to fall back on, I'd rather wait to get exactly what I want than pick something off the lot and spend years wishing I'd been able to get that one neat color or option. I have bought three new cars in my life and each time, I took several weeks after the test drive to think long and hard about what I wanted, then ordered the car, then waited weeks or months for it to arrive.
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Nov 18, 2016 20:34
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Throatwarbler posted:New Audis also aren't "permanent" AWD if your standard for permanent AWD is a manual Subaru. Depends on the Audi. They've got so many different mechanical layouts under the Quattro name now that you need a half-time intern just to keep them straight.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:31
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Mechanically, that Lexus sounds fantastic. If you described it without ever showing me a picture, I'd be imagining how my life would have to change for me to be able to afford one. Then I see it and the front end is a dealbreaker. Their designers are like the writers from a bad season of SNL - they keep trotting out the same crap over and over again, on the theory that eventually someone will like it.
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Feb 22, 2017 21:59
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Am I the only one who thinks the Audi A5 line looks weird? The way curves around the front wheel arches transition into nothing but straight lines at the door and then get curvy again in the back makes me think it was designed by a committee.
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Mar 7, 2017 16:41
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MrYenko posted:It's quite possible that they'll offer the mid engine flavor in addition to the front-engine Corvettes, and not instead of. I think the success of the C6 ZR1 perked up some bean-counters and convinced some internally influential people that there is a market for a Chevrolet Corvette with a six-figure window sticker. I've wondered for a while now if that's why they brought back the Stingray branding. They continue to sell the front-engine model as a Corvette Stingray, and the mid-engined model as a Corvette Zora (or whatever).
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Apr 15, 2017 16:29
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My Audi has a real key buried inside the fob that can open the doors. There's also a weird flat plastic emergency key thing that you can keep in your wallet, which fits into a plastic carrier to make a fob that will start the engine if your normal fob's battery dies. It's hilariously baroque and I'm not surprised they didn't stick with it in later models.
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Sep 3, 2017 18:28
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Cocoa Crispies posted:That wouldn't surprise me, with the way "Stingray," "Grand Sport," and "Z06" are all listed separately on their website. I expect that it will become some new high-end Corvette Zora with a starting price above $100k.
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Oct 11, 2017 22:25
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OXBALLS DOT COM posted:It looks like Tesla really needs more cash to get Model 3 production even close to reasonable levels That was exactly my thought when I heard the announcement. The X and the 3 seemed like they were aimed at growing Tesla's market, but the Roadster seems like a pure play for profit. It's a shame because if they'd gone the other way and introduced a sporty $30-50k Tesla with a 200 mile range, I would have been trying to figure out how to fit it into my mid-term budget.
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Nov 17, 2017 23:14
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