G. David Felt

Having not had that experience with GM SUV / trucks, I was very surprised to see the message on the center dash and then have to do that. Not sure why Ford does it but would like to know why they think that is a better way then just releasing the brake pedal.

Right now I am not feeling this happening.

20190505_110414-mp4.mp4 Mother’s Day weekend was a busy one. The kids had planned out the whole Sunday for the wife and I had planned the day before to build an area with a raised garden bed for the wife. The raised bed material was bought, the area mapped out and the plan to get up early and rent a truck to pick up cedar chips and black gold compost soil was scheduled. Saturday morning went as I expected, up early, quick breakfast and off to be the first in line at the U-Haul rental place. Figured rather than $75 per delivery, two types of material meant $150, why not spend $19.95 for a single day rental of the truck, pick up the material myself and pocket $130 or so. U-Haul actually has it to mileage and other fees that made the single days truck rental $55 and change, so not as big as I expected but still roughly a $95 savings. Surprise was that the truck I got was a new 2019 F150 with V8 that only had 300 miles on the odometer. Having not been in a new Ford pickup in the last couple years, I was excited to see how it drove, what the fit n finish was like and over all materials. U-Haul trucks are your base trucks with rubberized floors, dash is all hard plastics yet they still had backup camera and the V8 engine. As such the truck had no problem even loaded down with dirt or the cedar chips moving. Over all ride was decent and I actually really loved the seats as they were very supportive to my large size and yet comfy driving from freeway to local roads, never tiring to the body. Radio was a basic am/fm with a base pair of stereo speakers. Decent and functional. Dash being a base truck was hard plastic, as we have seen in many videos about even top of the line Luxury auto’s, the dash did make a big amount of squeak noise. Screen size of the radio system was also very small. Yet as many folks have used the term, the truck was functional. Fit n Finish was very tight, did not find any large panel gapes or errors in the paint job or exterior body. I did find the very simple tie down points with already rusting bolts to be a bit surprising but it still worked and the truck had a bed so I did not have to worry about messing the truck bed up. Interesting observation is that when the truck is locked, so is the tailgate, so with a load, I had to always keep the truck unlocked so the tailgate would open and let me unload my chips and soil. The V8 engine was very smooth and quiet and the only drawback was the weird auto stop / start. If you’re in normal traffic it works just as GMs systems have worked with turning off and on the engine. Yet sit in one place too long and then release the brake pedal and you get a message on the center dash screen saying you have been stationary too long and must put the transmission in park and then back to drive before engine will start back up. Even with following their directions, it seemed the engine did not want to start back up forcing me to put it into park and then manually starting the truck again. Other than that single issue, the truck worked and the backup camera was nice to have to get as close as possible to the wife’s new raised veggie garden. Hit me up with any questions you have about the truck or my project. Yes I did take out the grass the weekend before so my cedar chips are 3-4 inches deep.

Leasing ignoring the business benefits from an individual standpoint is usually used to temporarily own something or appear to own something that one would otherwise not be able to afford. So this would tend to go to the badge thing. The other point that I believe @surreal1272 is getting at is that while the Germans have done an outstanding job of marketing their products, the actual quality seems to not live up to the marketing hype and many of the reports tend to imply that the cost of ownership past the lease period is not worth the actual cost of owning the auto. German brands are well known to be very expensive to service and repair, thus leasing is the best way to drive one since they seems to have repair issues and the costs of ownership outweighs leasing, thus leading the assumption that the quality is not there for personal long term ownership. Honestly do you really see many older BMW or Mercedes-benz around? I do not compared to long life of American and asian auto's.

Let's further help SMK out: Actual options per MB web site: https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/special_offers/finance_options Pretty much even MB wants their customers to Lease and not buy. Here is a story that supports that many Americans are moving to Leasing especially for European branded auto's compard to buying for American or Asian. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/financial-services/articles/auto-finance-industry-trends-lease-residuals.html For those that want a better understanding of how dealers make money on selling versus leasing: https://www.cross-check.com/blog/selling-vs-leasing-how-auto-dealers-make-their-money Here is the Meat and Potatoes of where the statistics come from: https://www.statista.com/topics/1721/us-automotive-industry/ https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/automotive-lease-volume-reaches-record-high-in-2016-according-to-new-edmunds-report-300397551.html Biggest point of news is the Leasing report which is only up through 2016. lease-report-jan-2017.pdf Interesting read is the Lease Trends report: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/financial-services/articles/auto-finance-industry-trends-lease-residuals.html To quote the report: Record auto sales in the past six years have been driven primarily by increases in leasing volume. One quarter of new vehicle transactions, in fact, resulted in a lease.2 As those leases near the end of their term, they are likely to set a particularly high rate of lease returns. This should make for some amazing CPO deals as these auto's hit the lots. Additional info on leasing trends: JAN-2018-us-fsi-hot-topics-in-auto-finance-lease-residuals.pdf Overall, Audi is #1, then BMW, than MB but this pretty much shows that German brands are not to be owned long term. I have always felt this, but am surprised to see Lexus and Infiniti in the tops for leasing. Is anyone surprised by VW being the number 1 top low end auto maker on Leasing? Another German auto company. ? So what does this really say about long term ownership of German brands when they lead the world in Leasing?

Let's add the Fake Engine sound of Fail! I am really getting pissed with the fake big engine power sound on a tiny engine that I have heard in some auto's and especially movies lately and even with an EV, they are making fake engine sounds. Fake = Bad

Even the E-Class is squeaky plastic mercedes. Where is the World Class Quality or nothing at all?

Saw two Brand new Rangers yesterday while coming home with the wife and kids from Mothers day dinner. Just visually, they are not that impressive. The wife thought the front end just blended with everything else and she thought it looked as if it was a new F150. Son was equally not impressed with the new trucks. Gonna have to get inside to see how the interior is, but the exterior is meh. Forgettable, if not for the HUGE Ranger on the tailgate.

I can totally understand this and the cost of the battery systems will go down by sharing the cost across Honda and GM. Economy of scale. I can totally see a fully automated assembly line in the future where once puts in the desired content and within hours an auto comes out the other side ready for pickup and use. Electrification will drive simplification of auto's.

So then you agree that all MB products need to be compared to the same products from Chevy and Toyota since they use allot of cheap materials, hard plastics and over all have gone from a Luxury product line to a Toyolet product line with the cheap cars and vans, etc.

Really? OK, it was listed on the Google search as a CT5 trunk. Thank you

So one question that has not been brought up, when we move to solid state denser power holding batteries that reduces the over all size of battery packs and sedans from Cadillac, MB, BMW, etc. go electric, could we like Tesla move to having a Frunk and Trunk that make up this size issue? If so, would people want a bigger trunk of a big Frunk pr a balance between the two? I truly believe that we can have bigger interior room and trunk / frunk size with EVs. Bolt does show this as I can fit in it and behind the seat in front that is set for me. ???

I understand moving up, but we have shrunk cars and what is full size today is anything but full size when looking at real size cars of the 70's and early 80's before the shrink it all down happened. CT6 could stand to grow in size too.

I have to wonder at what point people will say enough of crazy prices and stop going, but seems to be way to many crazy sport fans that are willing to pay those crazy prices and enough high tech workers who still will park in the parking garages even though the express busses are standing room only. Guess growth of a tech city.

Son loves it, drives it everywhere and has had zero issues. He informed me last night he is going to hold onto it long term as he approaches 3 years of ownership and is hitting almost 45,000 miles. Goes camping in it as he can fold down the back seat and lay flat with out folding up his legs. Loves his jeep and says he will own another one when he is ready. He was going to go black as he likes black auto's and his patriot he traded in to the dealer he bought here was black, but loves the rare Rhino color as you see black everywhere but not too many Rhino colors.

Cadillac was being late to everything and slowly destroyed as Johan was just a German wanna be executive and clearly only cared about Germany and not the US. While I am sure the CT5 will drive nice, Cadillac should have made sure to be tops in all departments and this is where they screwed the Pooch! Turbo I4 should have been at least 285HP / 300 lb-ft of torque with the Turbo V6 at the 400 / 400 level and then give the CT6 a retune to push it to at least 450/450 or close to 500 level. The cars would move and people would be on notice that you had luxury sedans that could drive and move their solid feeling weight! As @ocnblu has stated, someone needs to photoshop a CT5 with a real trunk. While it is nice that it has more rear leg room, a luxury auto still is supposed to have a trunk. Adding a few more inches in the rear would have given a better sized trunk and they could have increased the pathetic headroom in the rear. Thanks to @regfootball for the links to the interesting reads. I like the Engineering story, but I still say they cut corners on the rear C pillar. I do love the camera in the shark fin and the whole auto is Cadillac / GMs first to allow over the air updates on all electronic modules in the auto. This is the future that Tesla has shown every OEM should embrace. Why GM did not think of this from the beginning of On-Star is beyond me. CT5 Trunk is Pathetic for a Luxury Car. Side Profile for comparison. V-Edition of the CT5?

But they already have that, the Durango. I could see something like this for the next refresh of the charger. Or do you mean something like this? Course they could go the V60 or V90 Crossover route but then just might as well bring back the Eagle.

This is my son with his ex now Kay when he got his Jeep 2 years ago, just realized I do not have any more current picture. LOL. He learned some very important life lessons and is focused on getting debt free again, hanging with his friends and working out. So over all her loss.

Totally agree with you that STEM is where our school system needs to be focusing those that desire a 4yr degree and for those that do not want it, then the 12 month trade school and 2 to 5 years of apprenticeship as it teaches valuable job skills is so right. Just imagine if we allowed people to come in where they signed a contract with the USA that they will go into a trade school or college for specific degrees and pay their taxes but get no credit for it as they get an education and prove themselves worthy of citizenship, then once graduated and work say 2 to 5 years you become full citizen with all rights and benefits of SS and Medicare. We would get plenty of people who want a better life and will work hard.

Cadillac XT4 AWD, Chevrolet Bolt, Chevrolet Blazer RS AWD, Jeep Gladiator, Nissan Leaf Plus, Acura TLX PMC Edition, Hyundia Veloster N edition, Mercedes GLE 450. Of course, Bolt and Leaf for a side by side comparison since Leaf finally has a long distance battery pack. Everything else is what I am excited by to hear what you think and where it really lines up in the auto industry market today. Did they nail the marketing and deliver the goods for what you buy or not? Is it better or worse than expected? Excited to hear back on what you drive and thoughts on the auto, where it lines up not just based on name plate but how the auto actually competes, upstream and downstream from where it sits. Excited for you Drew!

Ran an errand and saw these two beauties. Amazing the twins still look good today. Course I like the GMC best, but would take either one!

I agree with you on my Son and he also admits he should have addressed things much sooner in the relationship. Love is blind. My company has 400 job opening for the Seattle office and we cannot find enough engineers. Problem is that we have way too many students in liberal art degrees than in the sciences here in America. Getting an H1 Visa is much harder now and no profitable company is going to hire someone with the wrong skill set to just fill a job. This is dated and I could not find newer info but clearly the US while a tochnological powerhouse does not lead the world in students graduating in the sciences. https://www.businessinsider.com/most-technological-countries-lag-behind-in-science-2015-12 Last night my son told me that she had also told him that she will expect the family to go on a 2 week vacation some place nice around the world every year where she gets waited on. I had to laugh, I came to realize in the last year that her dad pampered her, but WOW, had no idea till my son left her and moved out on his own and we see him more just what all went on in that relationship. Pretty woman with out dated thinking.

Friend of mine just bought a CPO 2018 Audi. After the fact, they are offering them a 4yr all maintenance paid for only $1000. While sounds like a good deal, he sent me the PDF they sent him and am shocked at an auto line of products that has to have so much done in service every year. This alone makes Audi a NO GO for me no matter what even the electric as I see 1980's thinking here in service of an auto.

I have to say this looks really dated, good info and like the comparison to the new 2019 model. Mazda is just Meh to me, I honestly do not get the excitement other members here have for the product line.

@Drew Dowdell @Robert Hall @A Horse With No Name @balthazar Seems the Union is not going to let this happen, they want GM to give them a auto to build. Seems GM is tied up with the UAW for a while and Workhorse will have to take over the union contracts if they buy the plant. I do not see that happening. Good read at Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-08/trump-gm-reaction