Random Thoughts Thread

[USA-1]

5 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

Interesting...I always thought Hyundai was the entry level brand and Kia a step up.. and Kia has the interesting Stinger GT...

Kia has always been their entry "value" brand from what I've seen and heard. They had the top of the line for HMC, Hyundai Equus, then Hyundai Genesis, now the Genesis brand. The Stinger is a Chevy SS competitor when the SS was still rolling off the line, but will probably die off soon or already is, being in such a niche low volume class. 

This doesn't help sales either...fire no bueno... https://www.carscoops.com/2020/09/almost-190000-hyundai-and-kia-models-recalled-over-abs-issue/

[G. David Felt]

6 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

Interesting...I always thought Hyundai was the entry level brand and Kia a step up.. and Kia has the interesting Stinger GT...

Let me throw a bigger monkey wrench into this thought as being married to a Korean, in Korea as well as here in the US. Kia and Hyundai are seen as Equals with Genesis being their Luxury brand and the Stinger is the start of the Hyundai / Kia Performance sub brand. Kind of like how many of us saw Pontiac.

Koreans see the Hyundai / Kia as an entry point into an auto with two distinct styles. If you want Performance you go Kia / Stinger, If you want normal auto with some luxury you go Hyundai and then full Luxury is Genesis.

I see the Hyundai Santa Fe adding in the Buick mid Luxury level in trim packages.

26 minutes ago, USA-1 said:

HMC is clearly trying to position the Hyundai brand with Buick, Genesis with Cadillac and Kia is also clearly their entry level brand, but still not as nice as a Chevy or Honda CUV.

At least they know who to emulate or aspire to be, but still have work to do on their reliability and vehicle longevity.   

If you start looking at the last 5 years, you will find that Hyundai / Kia are very much on par with Chevrolet and below Buick but improving. The Hyundai / Kia advantage is that they give far superior value in buying one of their auto's in packages at a lower price point versus GM products which many here myself included has stated that the price point with the packages is crazy high. It really would be better for GM to reduce the prices and also reduce the crazy discount money on the hood crap.

Here are some interesting reviews that prove that the reliability and longevity is on par between GM / Hyundai / Kia.

https://repairpal.com/cars/compare/chevrolet-cruze-vs-hyundai-sonata

https://www.kbb.com/comparison/2020-hyundai-santa-fe-vs-2020-chevrolet-blazer-comparison/

https://repairpal.com/cars/compare/chevrolet-malibu-vs-hyundai-sonata

This is very interesting as Buick is on Top with Kia right behind.

https://www.jdpower.com/Cars/Ratings/Dependability/2020/Small-SUV

Kia has 6 awards and is in the top 6 best auto companies for 2020.

https://www.jdpower.com/Cars/Ratings

For 2020 J.D. Power Initial Quality Awards makes a very interesting read. Seems Dodge is the #1 followed by Kia, Chevrolet, Genesis, etc. You can see that Hyundai is above Cadillac.

https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2020-initial-quality-study-iqs

[Robert Hall]

22 minutes ago, David said:

Let me throw a bigger monkey wrench into this thought as being married to a Korean, in Korea as well as here in the US. Kia and Hyundai are seen as Equals with Genesis being their Luxury brand and the Stinger is the start of the Hyundai / Kia Performance sub brand. Kind of like how many of us saw Pontiac.

Koreans see the Hyundai / Kia as an entry point into an auto with two distinct styles. If you want Performance you go Kia / Stinger, If you want normal auto with some luxury you go Hyundai and then full Luxury is Genesis.

 

 

I remember in my neighborhood in Phoenix an older Hyundai XG (predecessor to the Genesis sedan) w/ the license plate KRNBCK  (Korean Buick?).  Had a 'Korean War Purple Heart' license plate frame. 

And to throw in another angle, Hyundai has the N-sub brand for performance...--2-3 models in Europe so far, 1-2 in the US...

The new Santa Fe looks quite nice inside.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Robert Hall

[daves87rs]

Finally got my new Facia for the Cobalt...and for the first time in like 13 years, it will now have an LS bumper on the car instead of an LT bumper...... ? 

Gotta get everything done before winter.......

[USA-1]

3 minutes ago, David said:

Let me throw a bigger monkey wrench into this thought as being married to a Korean, in Korea as well as here in the US. Kia and Hyundai are seen as Equals with Genesis being their Luxury brand and the Stinger is the start of the Hyundai / Kia Performance sub brand. Kind of like how many of us saw Pontiac.

 If you want Performance you go Kia / Stinger, If you want normal auto with some luxury you go Hyundai and then full Luxury is Genesis.

I see the Hyundai Santa Fe adding in the Buick mid Luxury level in trim packages.

GM products which many here myself included has stated that the price point with the packages is crazy high. It really would be better for GM to reduce the prices and also reduce the crazy discount money on the hood crap.

 

Ohhh, so because your wife is Korean you are suddenly the Oracle of Hyundai Motor Company?! LMAO!! I guess you're the new "olds" of the group with the ranting diatribes.

 

Kia? Performance? Really? Kia has some pretty damn boring, gutless cars, the Stinger is a niche car that's dying on the vine and has had some troubling issues. HMC is trying to make Kia the knockoff Pontiac "We Build Excitement", but they're missing the target. Hyundai is the knockoff Buick and Genesis is still trying to find their way.  

Compare all you want, the difference is quite measurable with quality of material and fit and finish, I know the difference first hand from sitting in the new Hyundai's, Chevy's and Honda's, among other makes and models at the Int. Auto Show here in Jan.

GM is a much larger manufacturer by size and unit quantity off the assembly line and they have much more overhead than HMC, like huge retirement salaries and legacy healthcare costs from being in business for over 112 years, so the per unit pricing will follow. The crippling UAW contracts and the golden parachute (6 digit $ retirement with benies) the top execs get upon retiring don't help matters.

JD Power "Initial Quality" Study. Neither Hyundai nor Kia have the quality image or reliability that Chevrolet or Honda have, for a reason.  Friends and colleges that have or have had an HMC vehicle have had issue after issue some safety related like brakes, engine stalls and fires.

 

Some HOT Hyundai's out there, ICE and EV.

https://www.motorsafety.org/category/hyundai-recalls/

http://www.hyundaiproblems.com/recalls/

https://electrek.co/2020/10/12/hyundai-recall-77000-kona-electric-cars-risk-battery-fire-lg-chem/

 

 

[balthazar]

hyundai - after the years of pushing sub-standard junk at cutthroat prices here at their start- should earn scorn & disdain for a solid quarter century, regardless of their current quality level.

Edited October 13, 2020 by balthazar

[G. David Felt]

16 minutes ago, USA-1 said:

Ohhh, so because your wife is Korean you are suddenly the Oracle of Hyundai Motor Company?! LMAO!! I guess you're the new "olds" of the group with the ranting diatribes.

 

Kia? Performance? Really? Kia has some pretty damn boring, gutless cars, the Stinger is a niche car that's dying on the vine and has had some troubling issues. HMC is trying to make Kia the knockoff Pontiac "We Build Excitement", but they're missing the target. Hyundai is the knockoff Buick and Genesis is still trying to find their way.  

Compare all you want, the difference is quite measurable with quality of material and fit and finish, I know the difference first hand from sitting in the new Hyundai's, Chevy's and Honda's, among other makes and models at the Int. Auto Show here in Jan.

GM is a much larger manufacturer by size and unit quantity off the assembly line and they have much more overhead than HMC, like huge retirement salaries and legacy healthcare costs from being in business for over 112 years, so the per unit pricing will follow. The crippling UAW contracts and the golden parachute (6 digit $ retirement with benies) the top execs get upon retiring don't help matters.

JD Power "Initial Quality" Study. Neither Hyundai nor Kia have the quality image or reliability that Chevrolet or Honda have, for a reason.  Friends and colleges that have or have had an HMC vehicle have had issue after issue some safety related like brakes, engine stalls and fires.

 

Some HOT Hyundai's out there, ICE and EV.

https://www.motorsafety.org/category/hyundai-recalls/

http://www.hyundaiproblems.com/recalls/

https://electrek.co/2020/10/12/hyundai-recall-77000-kona-electric-cars-risk-battery-fire-lg-chem/

WOW, you truly to do not read the actual info, but read bits and make assumptions.

As I said being married to a Korean which gets me a much closer look into the community here in the US and Korea due to family, I am only reporting how the Koreans see Hyundai / Kia. I NEVER SAID I was an Oracle, but thank you for giving me some god like status.

While GM has made major improvements in some areas post Bankruptcy, there are others where they need to still make major improvements in. Same with Hyundai / Kia. Interiors are Subjective to each persons taste and yet no one auto company is hitting nothing but home runs as we all have stated here and that includes GM, but lately FORD is really hitting the recalls as is Toyota in comparison to GM or Hyundai / Kia.

J.D. Powers is a snapshot in time, a short time but as is showing recently, the last few years Hyundai / Kia have been hitting better than average compared to even GM.

[USA-1]

38 minutes ago, David said:

WOW, you truly to do not read the actual info, but read bits and make assumptions.

As I said being married to a Korean which gets me a much closer look into the community here in the US and Korea due to family, I am only reporting how the Koreans see Hyundai / Kia. I NEVER SAID I was an Oracle, but thank you for giving me some god like status.

Lately FORD is really hitting the recalls as is Toyota in comparison to GM or Hyundai / Kia.

J.D. Powers is a snapshot in time, a short time but as is showing recently, the last few years Hyundai / Kia have been hitting better than average compared to even GM.

Yep, time is money, it's called speed reading, skim through.  

Of course the Korean community will love their homeland automaker as do the Japanese with their automakers, as we all should ours. It was just funny that you brought up that your wife is Korean, so as to say that you know more about Hyundai because you know the Korean way of life.

Ford and Toyota issues and recalls are due to cuts in QC to compete. Toyota's R&D dept. clocked out a long time ago. They also should have learned their lesson a few years ago with the multi million unit recalls because of lack of QC.

JD Powers is like the Consumer Reports of the automotive world, usually take it with a grain of salt.

Edited October 13, 2020 by USA-1

[ocnblu]

I have met several Korean War veterans who swear by their Hyundais.  The South Koreans have been our friends.

[daves87rs]

I’m a bit confused myself, as I have a good friend whose family is Korean, and say pretty much verbatim what David says. Different cultures see different things. Like my German  friend who happens to hate VW.... ? 

Based on their current products compared to GM, I would now would put the twins just below GM, and creeping up faster every day. Kia already has two products that I would say would be better than GM’s.... the Soul (against the Trax) and the K5 (against the Malibu). While we love our Trax, had there not been such a good deal on it- Good chance a Soul could have been in the driveway. The Malibu suffers behind the K5 in a few ways: Simply dated, and that useless 1.5 that they keep using for it. The 2.0 should have been standard.....

 

 

[USA-1]

1 hour ago, daves87rs said:

I’m a bit confused myself, as I have a good friend whose family is Korean, and say pretty much verbatim what David says. Different cultures see different things. Like my German  friend who happens to hate VW.... ? 

 

The Malibu suffers behind the K5 in a few ways: Simply dated, and that useless 1.5 that they keep using for it. The 2.0 should have been standard.....

 

 

I have friends who loved VW for their TDI "clean diesel" who now hate them and will never drive a VW again because of their deceptive and dangerous practices.

 

It comes down to CAFE regulations. GM produces many more vehicles than HMC and the big spendy sellers fullsize trucks and SUV's which are more economical on fuel today, but are still thirsty, so each car or CUV gets a smaller high mpg engine to make up for the big lower mpg V8's sold. At least it's not the 3 banger 1.2T/1.3T crap in the sub compact GM CUV's. I've driven the Malibu 1.5T it's really not that bad, gets moving pretty swiftly. Kia K5 is fugly front and back, it's twin, the Sonata, looks like a wrecked car when driving down the road and K5 is a ridiculous name. K5 Blazer is the only K5 that really matters  

 

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by USA-1

[ocnblu]

While the K5 name is not Optimal, it is a good looking car inside and out.  GM, Ford and Chrysler have given up on too many segments, while the Koreans just keep plugging away, winning customers.

This is a neat little car, comes with a lot of stuff (including nav) for about $25k, plus that famous long-ass warranty.

 

[G. David Felt]

49 minutes ago, USA-1 said:

 

K5 Blazer is the only K5 that really matters  

 

 

Agree that the K5 Blazer or 2 door Tahoe/Yukon were awesome!

Would love to have a modern day Yukon GT.

[balthazar]

1 hour ago, daves87rs said:

The Malibu suffers behind the K5 in a few ways: Simply dated, and that useless 1.5 that they keep using for it. The 2.0 should have been standard.....

I haven't been in / don't know anyone with a 'K5', but I can report the Malibu 1.5T is anything but "useless". I drive my wife's car quite a bit, and frequently find myself out-accelerating all other traffic & doing 80. Perhaps it's just this singular car, but it hauls ass with ease.

450-mile moving window of MPG says 33.4 as of today. It had 1 repair (2016, 46K miles)- the start-stop didn't restart I think 2 times, other than that it's been a very nice lil sedan.

[USA-1]

15 minutes ago, ocnblu said:

While the K5 name is not Optimal, it is a good looking car inside and out.  GM, Ford and Chrysler have given up on too many segments, while the Koreans just keep plugging away, winning customers.

This is a neat little car, comes with a lot of stuff (including nav) for about $25k, plus that famous long-ass warranty.

 

That famous long-ass warranty you're going to need!

Edited October 14, 2020 by USA-1

[trinacriabob]

8 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

Interesting...I always thought Hyundai was the entry level brand and Kia a step up.. and Kia has the interesting Stinger GT...

I remember that the Kia Stinger was well received and, now, some reviews of it aren't as favorable as the initial impressions.  It looks like it's built on a variation of the Optima platform, but I'm not sure of that.

On a different tangent, a random thought that sometimes goes through my mind is that I'd like to take a tour of how the post office system works.  They probably don't do that anymore, and certainly not now. When I was in the cub scouts, we got to tour airliners and we got to tour military ships.  I would like to see how a first class letter is routed from beginning to end and how, nowadays, they'd deal with bad handwriting for addresses and such.  It's part of always wondering how things work.

[USA-1]

23 minutes ago, David said:

Agree that the K5 Blazer or 2 door Tahoe/Yukon were awesome!

Would love to have a modern day Yukon GT.

Love the 80's square body myself.

Parents had an Emerald Green 2 door '93 Blazer before they changed the name to Tahoe in '97. Great truck for towing our ski boat.

Similar to this...

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by USA-1

[trinacriabob]

On 10/7/2020 at 12:11 AM, balthazar said:

Wisconsin. Classy joint 

Someone's got a hard-on for used cars 

This is cool.  What's a little off is that most of the building is so vanilla, but the curved part makes a strong statement.  Styles are hard to pin down sometimes.  I don't know if this is art deco or a style they used for movie theaters in SoCal post WW2 which they called "streamline moderne" (learn something new every day).

Loved this place, even though it is no longer recognizable as such and hasn't been a theater for a long time.

The second caption was hilarious.

On 10/9/2020 at 11:38 AM, David said:

 

 

Incredible looking interior on this vehicle.  The only thing that's weird, and probably always will be to me, is how consoles are now about as wide as the control area between the pilot and the first officer on a jumbo jet.

Edited October 14, 2020 by trinacriabob

[balthazar]

13 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

The only thing that's weird, and probably always will be to me, is how consoles are now about as wide as the control area between the pilot and the first officer on a jumbo jet.

Yet, of COURSE, it'll still show almost the exact same front seat hip room as the rear seat hip room.

Edited October 14, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

I heard the machine-thread bolt go ino the tire, but I was doing over 60 and 20 mins from home. I hoped it was merely a rock, but : 

[daves87rs]

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

I haven't been in / don't know anyone with a 'K5', but I can report the Malibu 1.5T is anything but "useless". I drive my wife's car quite a bit, and frequently find myself out-accelerating all other traffic & doing 80. Perhaps it's just this singular car, but it hauls ass with ease.

450-mile moving window of MPG says 33.4 as of today. It had 1 repair (2016, 46K miles)- the start-stop didn't restart I think 2 times, other than that it's been a very nice lil sedan.

You know Irony when I have that same 1.5 hiding in my Equinox. ? Maybe I was a bit mean calling it useless, as it is not bad in the Equinox or the now departed Cruze. But- those are both compacts with the Mali being bigger I feel it shows at times...

I’d say 90% my Nox can haul ass too....though sometimes it does have it moments. Part of my distaste of it in the Malibu is that quite often I have driven the Mali right after driving the Equinox.....as you can feel the difference then.

It is funny you say that about the Malibu....I kinda feel the same way about the Trax. For only 136 ponies-this little 1.4 can get up to 75 pretty quick when it wants to...

I think that is the only think it really do not like about the Equinox is that stop start. Even after owning it for a year and a half, sometimes I have a mini panic when it stops running....Otherwise it has been a great little CUV ? 

4 minutes ago, balthazar said:

I heard the machine-thread bolt go ino the tire, but I was doing over 60 and 20 mins from home. I hoped it was merely a rock, but : 

That sucks! I had the same thing happen to my Cobalt at the start of the year! Thankfully they were able to save the tire...

[balthazar]

• Equinox is several hundred pounds heavier than the Malibu tho.

• I plugged the tire with no problems.
 

[USA-1]

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

I heard the machine-thread bolt go ino the tire, but I was doing over 60 and 20 mins from home. I hoped it was merely a rock, but : 

Damn the luck. Years ago I picked up a freakin' 1/2"x 1 1/2" carriage bolt in the right front as well, not fun. I never get nails or screws either, so guess I had to make up for it ha, but I was only about a mile from home. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by USA-1

[USA-1]

On 10/9/2020 at 8:38 AM, David said:

*Autonomous mode aborted 

*Driver bailed after the throttle stuck and the brakes failed. 

Heading towards the ocean at 60 mph with no driver?! Not going to end well. 

*Autonomous mode aborted

*Driver bailed after the throttle stuck and the brakes failed. 

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by USA-1

[daves87rs]

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

• Equinox is several hundred pounds heavier than the Malibu tho.

• I plugged the tire with no problems.
 

Yep. And to that, I have no answer...maybe it is the car. ( to be fair- a few of the Malibus were rentals) Sadly, I have not had the seat time I used to in new vehicles.... ? 

Glad there were no issues with the tire.........

[ocnblu]

8 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

It looks like it's built on a variation of the Optima platform, but I'm not sure of that.

The Stinger is RWD/AWD, IIRC it shares a platform with the Genesis G70.  Stinger is like a Korean Charger, it is a cool outlier.

[A Horse With No Name]

19 hours ago, ccap41 said:

The Santa Fe is more Edge, Venza, Blazer sized but your point still stands. 

That being said, The Escape still has the most efficient Hybrid, and a 3500 pound tow rating if you get the 2.0 Turbo.  It has some tricks up its sleeves.

Good movie, some nice vintage car action, good cinematography, good plot line, well acted, nicely edited and directed.

 

 

11 hours ago, USA-1 said:

That famous long-ass warranty you're going to need!

I am a sucker for a green car though...

11 hours ago, balthazar said:

I haven't been in / don't know anyone with a 'K5', but I can report the Malibu 1.5T is anything but "useless". I drive my wife's car quite a bit, and frequently find myself out-accelerating all other traffic & doing 80. Perhaps it's just this singular car, but it hauls ass with ease.

450-mile moving window of MPG says 33.4 as of today. It had 1 repair (2016, 46K miles)- the start-stop didn't restart I think 2 times, other than that it's been a very nice lil sedan.

Might I suggest any car you drive is hauling ass by definition....

(Stang ducks wrench thrown from new Jersey....just kidding bro!)

11 hours ago, ocnblu said:

While the K5 name is not Optimal, it is a good looking car inside and out.  GM, Ford and Chrysler have given up on too many segments, while the Koreans just keep plugging away, winning customers.

This is a neat little car, comes with a lot of stuff (including nav) for about $25k, plus that famous long-ass warranty.

 

The Koreans keep doing better and better. They build tons of stuff I really like, and exactly zero cars I really want to own.

[A Horse With No Name]

14 hours ago, ocnblu said:

I have met several Korean War veterans who swear by their Hyundais.  The South Koreans have been our friends.

I have huge respect for Korea. If I could/had to live in another country, South Korea would rank very, very high as a place to actually live. Besides, I love how pretty Asian women are, and that counts for something.

2 hours ago, ocnblu said:

The Stinger is RWD/AWD, IIRC it shares a platform with the Genesis G70.  Stinger is like a Korean Charger, it is a cool outlier.

Stinger rocks. Seriously rocks.

[trinacriabob]

17 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Good movie, some nice vintage car action, good cinematography, good plot line, well acted, nicely edited and directed.

 

Saw "Green Book" twice and I could see it again.  Epic!

Given that he picked up the car in front of Carnegie Hall, I KNEW there would be some great cinematography of the car crossing the George Washington Bridge to head westward and out of NYC ... and there was!

Edited October 14, 2020 by trinacriabob

[A Horse With No Name]

15 hours ago, USA-1 said:

Yep, time is money, it's called speed reading, skim through.  

Of course the Korean community will love their homeland automaker as do the Japanese with their automakers, as we all should ours. It was just funny that you brought up that your wife is Korean, so as to say that you know more about Hyundai because you know the Korean way of life.

Ford and Toyota issues and recalls are due to cuts in QC to compete. Toyota's R&D dept. clocked out a long time ago. They also should have learned their lesson a few years ago with the multi million unit recalls because of lack of QC.

JD Powers is like the Consumer Reports of the automotive world, usually take it with a grain of salt.

Sadly our whole society is going this way....SC Boeing plant building the 787 Dreamliner has much more issue producing quality p0lanes than their Seattle counterpart, and yet the Seattle plant is the one being closed.

1 minute ago, trinacriabob said:

Saw "The Green Book" twice and I could see it again.  Epic!

Given that he picked up the car in front of Carnegie Hall, I KNEW there would be some great cinematography of the car crossing the George Washington Bridge to head westward and out of NYC ... and there was!

I loved how they had the 1962 car leaving a 1962 NYC in a 2018 movie....CGI FTW!

[trinacriabob]

A random thought that's being going through my head the last few days:

Flies gravitate toward turds, do they not?

[A Horse With No Name]

2 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

A random thought that's being going through my head the last few days:

Flies gravitate toward turds, do they not?

Obviously time for a swarm worthy of the book of Exodus....

[Robert Hall]

10 hours ago, daves87rs said:

 

It is funny you say that about the Malibu....I kinda feel the same way about the Trax. For only 136 ponies-this little 1.4 can get up to 75 pretty quick when it wants to...

 

Yeah, when I drove my sister's Trax from West Palm Beach, Fl to Cleveland, Oh this past January it was fine on a long freeway drive...I would floor it coming down freeway on-ramps and always got to 75-80....cruised fine all day at 65-70..

[A Horse With No Name]

Neat looking Ford Truck

 

 

[USA-1]

14 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

I remember that the Kia Stinger was well received and, now, some reviews of it aren't as favorable as the initial impressions.  It looks like it's built on a variation of the Optima platform, but I'm not sure of that.

On a different tangent, a random thought that sometimes goes through my mind is that I'd like to take a tour of how the post office system works.  They probably don't do that anymore, and certainly not now. When I was in the cub scouts, we got to tour airliners and we got to tour military ships.  I would like to see how a first class letter is routed from beginning to end and how, nowadays, they'd deal with bad handwriting for addresses and such.  It's part of always wondering how things work.

I've always wondered how the post office system reads really bad handwriting. They must have had a forensic scientist on payroll back before the PC days. Now days it's most likely a really spendy scanner we all pay for.

I used to win penmanship awards in grade school, no joke, but now sometimes I wonder if that letter is going to make it to the intended party, just have to make sure the return address is clear enough ?

BTW, I've never had one returned for poor handwriting, maybe it's not as bad as I think. ???

[ccap41]

8 hours ago, A Horse With No Name said:

That being said, The Escape still has the most efficient Hybrid, and a 3500 pound tow rating if you get the 2.0 Turbo.  It has some tricks up its sleeves.

Good movie, some nice vintage car action, good cinematography, good plot line, well acted, nicely edited and directed.

 

 

The wife and I really enjoyed the movie. 

[G. David Felt]

17 hours ago, USA-1 said:

Heading towards the ocean at 60 mph with no driver?! Not going to end well. 

*Autonomous mode aborted

*Driver bailed after the throttle stuck and the brakes failed. 

 

?They could have been making out in the back seat enjoying the view in their cool new Grand Wagoneer!  

After all ya gotta break in those seats some how.  

[trinacriabob]

6 hours ago, USA-1 said:

I've always wondered how the post office system reads really bad handwriting. They must have had a forensic scientist on payroll back before the PC days. Now days it's most likely a really spendy scanner we all pay for.

I used to win penmanship awards in grade school, no joke, but now sometimes I wonder if that letter is going to make it to the intended party, just have to make sure the return address is clear enough ?

BTW, I've never had one returned for poor handwriting, maybe it's not as bad as I think. ???

I think it is a scanner.  It has to be.

I use block printing on any envelope I write, so it wouldn't be an issue for the scanner.  But for cursive that is sloppy, too ornate, or written with a different hand by people from other countries, I wonder how the scanner might pick it up.  Some mail has get rejected and require hand sorting.

But also how the mail moves.  Payment centers seem to be in Charlotte, Philly, Chicago (Carol Stream comes to mind), Dallas, and Phoenix.

So, if you're sending a letter with a payment from Seattle to Dallas to a PO box for a regular monthly bill and you put it in the mailbox at noon, shouldn't it be picked up by the addressee in 2 days?  Wouldn't it be on the plane that night or the very next morning?  A commercial aircraft or a freight company's aircraft?  And, then, wouldn't the zip code and the bar code cause it to get priority handling to that certain PO box because it's a prominent credit institution with a lot of volume?  Don't know.  I've seen that it's about 3 days for most of my things to post as received, and sometimes 4.

 

[balthazar]

14 hours ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Might I suggest any car you drive is hauling ass by definition....

(Stang ducks wrench thrown from new Jersey....just kidding bro!)

Can't throw any wrenches because it's quite true.  I drive too fast, but on the other hand, I coast down / brake like an 18-wheeler.

[USA-1]

7 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

I think it is a scanner.  It has to be.

I use block printing on any envelope I write, so it wouldn't be an issue for the scanner.  But for cursive that is sloppy, too ornate, or written with a different hand by people from other countries, I wonder how the scanner might pick it up.  Some mail has get rejected and require hand sorting.

But also how the mail moves.  Payment centers seem to be in Charlotte, Philly, Chicago (Carol Stream comes to mind), Dallas, and Phoenix.

So, if you're sending a letter with a payment from Seattle to Dallas to a PO box for a regular monthly bill and you put it in the mailbox at noon, shouldn't it be picked up by the addressee in 2 days?  Wouldn't it be on the plane that night or the very next morning?  A commercial aircraft or a freight company's aircraft?  And, then, wouldn't the zip code and the bar code cause it to get priority handling to that certain PO box because it's a prominent credit institution with a lot of volume?  Don't know.  I've seen that it's about 3 days for most of my things to post as received, and sometimes 4.

 

It's definitely a scanner now, but pre-1990 it had to be hard as heck for the postal employees to figure out.

I haven't sent payment by snail mail in many years so I'm not sure how it flows now. I know the major airlines move boxes and boxes of mail for the USPS, I've seen the vinyl plastic USPS shipping boxes coming off the loading conveyor belt from the belly of the plane before. I think it's a mix of ground and air if moving multiple states or a long distance. I know it's consistently 3 days to the NW from Phoenix depending on the day of the week that the letter or parcel is sent.

[A Horse With No Name]

9 hours ago, balthazar said:

Can't throw any wrenches because it's quite true.  I drive too fast, but on the other hand, I coast down / brake like an 18-wheeler.

I think we all drive a might fast....

With all of the attention on the Grand wagoneer, this is the Jeep I would rather own..

 

 

This sounds amazing...

 

 

I still like vintage japanese Iron. 

 

[A Horse With No Name]

Impressive dog!

[A Horse With No Name]

Impressive car

 

[A Horse With No Name]

Yeah, too many videos....but one more for today. She does a realy nice job reviewing this Cadillac, Enjoy!

 

[daves87rs]

3 hours ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Yeah, too many videos....but one more for today. She does a realy nice job reviewing this Cadillac, Enjoy!

 

pretty good video....

[G. David Felt]

4 minutes ago, daves87rs said:

pretty good video....

For the Car or the Mini Skirt Woman?  

[A Horse With No Name]

20 minutes ago, David said:

For the Car or the Mini Skirt Woman?  

The car.....she has some good content. 

[A Horse With No Name]

 

[Robert Hall]

37 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

 

Those square body GMs have a lot of charm...I esp. like the earlier two tones..

 

[A Horse With No Name]

I would so love to own one, actually.