G. David Felt

While that is fine for those that want to live in Vancouver, for those of us that do not like living like a sardine it is hell to get in and out of your city. Living just south of you, I would not think twice about heading north to shop and enjoy the parks of Vancouver. Yet with limited parking, congested streets and a tough time getting in and out of the general area if you do not already live there, the desire to turn the city into a walk / bike city does not work for those not living in it. Seattle has been drinking the stupid cool-aid of the Cascade Bike club and take away street parking and street lanes to convert them to bikes and yet bike riders seem to still not want to follow the rules as if the rules of the road to bikes is a double standard. Bike riding is fine for those living in the downtown city and they do need them to be separate from the cars on the road as well as the walkers on the sidewalk. Yet they also need to charge these bike riders and make sure they have a license and know how to handle their bike. Back on subject, I agree with Drew that entry level auto's do NOT spark any passion for youth to want to own. At the same time the youth of today have become more of an entitlement crowd and do not seem to want to bother to learn how to repair or take care of anything. Disposable society is what I see today's youth being. My first auto was my dads clean but well used 76 Chevy Luv truck Series 5. Cost my dad $1675.00 new, I spent another $1K restoring it to like new condition. This included rebuilding the engine, transmission and differential on top of a new dash, interior and paint job. By the time I was done, it took care of me very well till I sold it in 89 $3500 to a lady that still has it today. Needs major work, but she still drives it. I took the time to learn to fix / repair things. The drive to learn, repair/fix and satisfaction of ownership / pride in what I had is what is missing from the Disposable youth of today IMHO.

Very Cool, Hopefully CNG also.

And now Yahoo has the Top 12 Most Embarrassing cars. I have to disagree with #3 as I love #3 and own a Hummer H2 http://autos.yahoo.com/news/12-most-embarrassing-cars-192622446.html The rest I think are pretty spot on.

Interesting mule trucks. True to form, they do cover the work world.

Seattle has seen it's population decline and I believe that is due to the lack of quality housing, there is a huge building boom going on and it could change later this year once things finish up but for now the rural region is where peeps are at so car sales are pretty solid here.

Totally agree with you. Back in the 80's washington state had a major Nuclear plant series being built. They stopped after 2 plants and scrapped the other 4 and were forced by the state to refund millions back to the citizens. Did not go over well with the power company but the people loved it and I agree that they should refund all of it.

Yea, would not want an electric car in Florida.

That is not seen around here except in the city. Greater Seattle area is very rural so a car is a requirement. I would say this really depends on where you live.

Sounds like someone got out to sell with no proper training on knowing the auto before trying to sell it.

Posted to the wrong thread, Saw this Tan 1978 Ugly Mutt Tang, Fords worst version ever of the Mustang line.

Welcome to Cheers and Gears Robert! Look forward to your posts. I have to agree with you that the whole slab side small windows for safety is an ugly look and I really do not see that much safety added by having the metal go that high.

I know there are those that love the coupe look and BMW & MB have gone to 4 door coupes, but the loss of head room and usable space makes coupes a limited use auto for a small group and in todays climate, you need auto's that meet a wider market segment. Coupes come when you have crazy profits to blow on the tooling cost of a coupe I believe.

Partial clog cat can cause the die issue you were having. Glad to hear it is doing much better. I have to replace the whole exhaust on my Suburban. Leaks and it is straight thru pipe with Muffler tips. The wife says it is tooooo noisy.

My average age for all my auto's is 12.2yrs old.

Gov spending on R&D for Space to the auto industry and High Tech is good for the country. We could easily get this out more if we just closed some of our 1082 military bases and 500 black op bases and spent that money at home. Just closing 25% would allow us to invest in the roads, Electrical Grid, Clean water and securing the borders along with pushing the VOLT technology into more GM cars. I would have no problem giving each auto company even asian and europe company say 1 billion each as long as they deliver within 18 to 24 months a CUV or SUV Hybrid auto that uses a VOLT like power train. Helping companies to move to better technology that is over all good for the planet and for job creation is a good thing in my book. I really HOPE GM will scale the VOLT technology and get it into full Size SUV's, Pickups and Vans. This is where we can really see benefits for fuel savings.

As long as they keep making and selling Captiva regardless of fleet or personal purchase, they figure they can probably put the resources on other auto's that need it.

If they can push out the Lifers who are set in their old out dated way of thinking, then GM can really move the ball and kill the competition. They are getting there, but there is still much legacy house cleaning to do.

Very Cool, sweet write up, very much worth looking at if you like full size sedans. Way to go GM.

Now Yahoo has their 17 worst cars: http://autos.yahoo.com/photos/17-worst-cars-you-can-buy-slideshow/smart-fortwo-photo-1349816254.html Too funny.

Freakin Lovely Drew!!!

Yup, that one I am well aware of, 257 million auto in this country over 11 years of age or older. When you consider what CNG - Compressed Natural Gas costs compared to petrol. It totally justifies the up front cost of home fueling hardware as the savings over the long haul is huge. Over ten years you can save over $20K dollars and more.

Sounds like a 'software factory' mentality. Having worked in quite a few software companies (and traditional IT departments of Fortune 500 companies), I've seen a lot over the last 15 years....approaches like like this don't work... Over the last 20 years I have learned that hardware managers are clueless at managing software dev engineers and software are clueless at managing hardware Dev engineers. While learning hardware work flow of development is easier than software. it just does not work well when you bring outsiders that have no experience in the other side of the industry in to manage a group of people. Their stay in that position is always short lived.

I am growing a CNG business of selling cng fueling equipment, but it does not pay all the bills so still working in the computer industry till I reach that important break point of cash flow and this job allows me to leave all earnings in the business reinvesting to make it stronger for when I do go full time on the CNG only.

Sweet, that is what I am talking about.

True, yet I keep seeing more and more Captiva's on the roads around here. I thought it was a canada version at first since we are on the boarder with Vancouver and then I saw my local Chevy Dealer Lee Johnson have about 20 of them in various configurations on the lot and as I looked around found more and more chevy dealers having them on the lot for sale to the public. Thought it was a fleet only ride, but guess there is always ways to get around it.