Suaviloquent

You made the interior issue one about logic. Subjective opinion is the exact opposite of logic. Did I ever try so say what I said correct is for all? Also, you entertained the thought that I fabricated words. I didn't think you were capable of going that low, so I'll just pretend it didn't happen. I made the issue one about the competition, the strengths and weaknesses of each product, and what works and what doesn't, my circumstances added to the mix as well. I can't take any distracting argument construed as 'logic' against my opinion as being veritably persuasive when it isn't sensible and it tries to define some sort of credibility that exists at a level higher than my own first-hand experience. Your first post was the best one Stew. Then it devolved into dissecting what I said to try to find some injustice I did to the car. I presented only my experience with the one old version and the one new one. And now that I feel a bit off-put, you are saying I am reading too much into this. So at every stage I am either wrong, misleading or lacking detail in my own experience. How could I lack detail when I mentioned I poked and prodded everywhere? Okay, let's pretend I do lack detail. But does that mean you lack the ability to comprehend the very words that you contradicted in your insinuation? But if this is your standard intelligible argument against others, well lets hope they don't retort back. I came into this thread feeling happy about a car getting by with less of new and more of proven, and instead I'm leaving in disgust because of the reasons why I cannot post my opinion without it being hounded for no reason, when I am not trying to incite a war of facts or logic or anything other than a recital of impressions and opinions.

Yep. I liked the interior too. But I still think is there plenty of room to improve. The tech is great though. But it's not a revelation like the Challenger. Proof: the challenger has the best interior in its class. For me to get an LX 4-door car to do that, you have to step up to the 300. The 300C and Platinum just take it to another level.

Yes. The pursuit to create the best or nothing ultimate perfect driving machine by acting upon the great dare of becoming the standard of the world. Yes.

#Wynneing Well bro, with sleep deprivation a constant issue for me (because I cannot naturally fall asleep)... zombie mode is no fun mode. So yes, whiny little suavy kiddy.

Uh no... I was just referring to the one I was in. The door trim was squeaking on passenger side. It was a rental too, but it had about 10,000 kms. About 7,000 miles I'm just guesstimating. The E-class bits - I'm referring to the door switches for the windows. A redesign is a brand new interior. A refresh is a nip and tuck - a replacement of interior bits and pieces while the overall design is fundamentally the same. And it's not like new is suddenly better. Again, I liked the old designs in some areas more. I don't like new always. Why should I? Part of being rational is to resist the temptation to jump on everything that is newer and suddenly cherish it for its fresh appearance rather than resulting outcomes. Again, the car is nice overall. But I cannot fundamentally agree with youtube reviewers and car mags because my own experience wasn't up to the expectations set by them. Who's at fault there? No one. Logic. Well, I guess I'm the most illogical poster here. Hmmm. Well nothing I can do about my own idiocy. Change what you can, manage what you can't. Again, I am inconsistent with your beliefs and self-confirmation bias. And that will not change. Again, I love how whenever I disagree with folks here, I get called names, and get descriptions ascribed because I must be wrong. Yet they forget how I mention the car is great for the price. Look, you can refer to your old Chevy car with tons of miles as a point of reference for an acceptable amount of sqeaks and rattles instead of my experience with the latest competition that is similar enough in price and segment space. That's fine. In that respect however, the interior of the Avalon is better than a more expensive ES... and the Impala - well it didn't just totally surprise the folks at MT at just how competent it was, despite being FWD. There's real stitching in the Avalon interior and the padded vinyl stuff is on the doors and dash. The Toyota controls were actually quite simple as well. Living in the city, I can't really hound any of the cars mentioned here, so they all performed well enough, but I liked the Impala the most of all 3 in driving it. The Avalon was smooth as butter, ride was closer to the Charger than I would have liked though. FWIW, again, nice car. But you're not missing out ton by getting the FWD Impala instead, and you do gain in some respects, lo and behold.

I'm someone who should hate CVTs, but in lighter, cheaper vehicles...if done right they are not too shabby. Especially if it replaces a gear hunting and clunking 4-5 speed transmission.

So, we lost power last night. And then got rudely awakened at 3 am when it came back on. My head...is aching.

Welp, we're going that same road again... My views are not consistent with yours, you place a premium on consistency and self-confirmation and therefore something with my statements has to be wrong. Nope. I've sat in, and driven both the pre-refresh and refreshed Charger. I examined every touch surface and poked and prodded till I got bored. The car is competent for its age, you are getting a decent enough, but well worn RWD sedan setup in place of the latest front wheel drive competition. Sure it's got E-Class bits - but they're atleast a decade old, just retuned and refined to be decent enough for today. The interior changes were superficial over the refresh, not like the Challenger that got a brand new interior. The unconnect buttons were re-arranged and the shifter was changed, and gauges were newer font typeface. Nothing else felt different. I will give points for the transmission choice, and the PentaStar combo works great here. But that's all I have left for the car. The front grille is ok. But I felt it was a downgrade over the unique look the changer had before IMO. Look Stew, I'm not trying to prove you wrong... I'm just presenting my take on the car as a reply. Good car for the price you pay, but not greatness worthy of being in every garage.

I'll fulfill the toy part first:

The perfect munificient moneymakers? Gotta be the RX and ES brothers.

Chalk it up to subjective interpretations, but if the definition of the Ultimate Driving Machine or the Best or Nothing or even dare greatly are provisional... then you can have some nice conflicting logic and musings. Basically BMW dared greatly to create the original the ultimate driving machines, that displaced at the time Cadillac's idea of their luxury being the best or nothing, while Mercedes had somehow become over time the standard of the world in overall luxury. S-class. Standard of the world. CLA - a great dare. A terrible paradigm though. Escalade - the best of its kind, really. Very apt to say the best or nothing. New blood Cadillac sedans - the ultimate driving machines. 3 Series - the ultimate "standard of the world" cookie-cutter compact RWD sedans? i8/X6 truly the best or nothing of their kind. Through some pity points for the ELR as it was a great question, that no one dared ask... Many more apt definitions that can be mixed and matched. Excellence of understanderings I guess...

Hah! Resonates... Discount Lexus RX for those who want everything the Lexus gives you except real wood trim and slightly plusher dashboard with after-stitching. Equally as polarizing... yet I will say I like the Lexus spindle in front, with the Murano's back butt. But, (hah! another but) you can get a CUV matching the performance of a Porsche Macan for only $4000 more. I can't believe that the Edge is a roomier, discount Porsche Macan, but it is. Probably totally discordant with the desires of buyers of this segment, therefore probably a sales dud, but yeah. You can get your CUV larder and eat your Macan Cake at the same time...

I feel like Diesel fuel prices should actually be compared to mid grade level fuel. 89 octane here, or 91 where 93 is available. Or even an average of the two, just to be fair to diesel. Why? Because in RAM, and the impending Ford diesel, the performance of the engines will fall in between that of the high-output, range topping engines and the base V6s.

I've also has some extensive seat time in one. LX cars are lot of goodness for a decent price. They churn them out of a suburb 30 kms from where I live. But I could tell the age of the vehicle immediately. Soft curves everywhere inside, hard touch plastics (where they are) that don't have as close matching of grain patterns to the soft materials. The door trim was actually quite creaky, and the dash while a soft touch material, is not what I would consider a "high-quality" version of it. More like slightly below average - but perfectly adequate for the price. The drive-line tunnel is kind of thick though, and the driver's foot well felt cramped for such a big car. Again, not bad for the car's price and mission. Overall, I felt it was well enough assembled, but the new Impala, or heck even Avalon feel exceptionally well screwed together. But alas they're not RWD. I find the racetrack lights a bit off-putting in person in the Charger. Maybe it's an acquired taste, but it just dominates the rear.

I am amused at how I get ads for car buying with bad credit... Yet certain financial transactions that I did in lump sum, and thus my credit rating and history (of about 4 years), are actually purty decent for someone of my age.

Well, it depends on where you live. Diesel prices have tanked in the GTA in the past few months. It's only 2-3 cents more expensive now, it used to be 20-30 cents above before. And of course is subject to the volatility that is occurring in the industry as we speak. Some folks save right away. Others never make up the difference - ever. Some fall in between. It's a personal issue. I could not digest the price of a diesel a year ago, it just made no sense here, in the GTA if you wanted to save money overall. Now it's a wait and see or take the risk right now situation, here for the specific purpose of saving money on fuel costs.

Actually SMK is correct in one respect. By the time the Volt gets a 150-200 mile range before the range extender comes in... electric vehicles will be ready to crush any sort of hybrid amalgamation in MPGe with consistent and livable charging times, and a decent enough infrastructure. I'm guessing the Volt has two more product generations, so perhaps 10 more years before the pendulum will swing permanently to electrics. After that, the Bolt will become probably the better vehicle overall in GM's stable. We have to remember, this partial electrification approach was always meant to be a stopgap. Toyota can hold on to Hybrid Synergy Drive as long as they want, but even they should realize that the largest markets for their signature Prius will ban the car effective 2050. And hyper if we are going to be deterministic we should realize that using a technology that has high cultural visibility follows the same fallacies of innovation-centric histories of technology. If we're technologically determined, one could say that the Volt is an answer to the Prius. But we all know it's not. It's the answer to a combination of a drive to compete in a similar market, and socio-political climate where automakers were increasingly pressured to deliver more efficient vehicles - whether they are iterative improvements or new inventions. The Volt was there to offset the immense burden of the future CAFE requirements because of a very large truck portfolio. Thus, future electric vehicles will not exist because of the Volt or anything else. They will exist because in ever increasing numbers, some people and many lawmakers are intent on reducing emissions. Some jurisdictions have made it clear their desire to outright ban ICE passenger vehicles. Yup, I like the Volt. But it's not paving the way for others, it's a just a wave that has reached the shore. Waves have preceded it, and waves will follow.

Wouldn't have expected any other makes others than those mentioned. FCA and Daimler and the like have V8 heavy line-ups, few, if any hybrids and plans to introduce more diesels and new hybridization/electrification programs but they are still just plans.

Well add another segment that I just don't get. Alright, it's probably the best sub subcompact out there against stuff like Scion iQ and Smart, both of them deficient in intelligence, if you ask me. But I just hate this segment right now. This is a family car in India or South Africa in terms of segment positioning. Here it's just a very competent set of bargain wheels.

I think the big takeaway from GMC pulling ahead at the top level and just the strife within the industry, is that the truck segments are becoming more competitive than ever, and product cycles are getting tighter and tighter, or it seems to me I guess. This is a great win for GMC, but there was a big demerit - most editors felt it offered nothing luxurious to satiate its claim to luxury and precision. I've already mentioned I've been hooked by the PR spin of precision and slicing through crowds - but it is a merely profitable and superficial upgrade in terms of the plastering of extra chrome in the exterior and slightly less chintzy plastics inside. Which Ford pulls off in one model instead of two. The only real upgrade is the mangreride, which is nice, and if you're spending the big bucks, why not? But the same big bucks could go to a truck that gives you a huge, Lincoln like moonroof, and since they're the same seats as the Lincolns - Mercedes level of seat comfort. Extrapolation of Ed Loh's comments on the seats in the Lincoln MKX. Butt cushions matter at this point; to some I guess. What I'm saying is, there are clear wins for this truck when it's pushed to the maximum, but they are wins at the margins - great for enthusiasts and chest thumping - heck I thumped them, and also say it can get silly after a while, but they are still veritable for the people who do find the very rare occasions to utilize them. But the more mundane things you use to live with it everyday, those clearly fall short of expectations set on GMC - but I'll still get the truck if I had the coin. I think I towed the fine line decently, again, my perception bias aside, and full disclosure of segment favourite, I still think the F150 is a helluva truck for the other things it does offer. You can payload quite a bit more if you need to when equipped right. And that interior basically has aluminum plastered everywhere in the top trims. The air-vents with their 3-D shape, made out of aluminum, not just 2-D inset flap like design everywhere else is equivocal to EL K's million bucks knurled aluminum dial shifter.

The one minute mark is a comparison to the competition in Crewcab mid-level trim, mid-level engine option, typically equipped form. They do say the weight difference to similar last-gen XLT was over 700 lbs. What like 5060 vs 5800, something like that. I'm just tossing numbers out here, I'm not going to speak volumes more about a truck other notable publications simply never test adequately until Truck of the Year comes by.

Good that you can be clear, since the Cadillac and Camaro actually have the numbers to back them up. The ATS is the lightest in its class by a large margin.... as is the CTS. The CT6 weighs as little as cars two classes below it... it's 740i sized and 335i weight. All the F-150 did was beat the existing lightweight by 81 lbs. I'm a simple guy... just show me the numbers. Actually well, the ATS-V is 200 lbs heavier than an M3. And even by being lighter, it isn't as fast in plebian models, it's horsepower and torque are not as strong in feeling as the German ones, and it's interior is cramped. And in most tests, the 3 Series kind of teaches everyone how to make an efficient 4 cylinder turbo. Drew, I think your last statement simply cannot be applied to every F150 model.

This is where I got the 400 lbs from. Take it as you will, but these guys buy their own trucks and weight them on their own scales, and they don't usually buy fully loaded models - this video they do say this isn't their own truck, but they did weigh it anyways. Go to the one minute mark.

Well, even the marketing team at Ford was careful enough to make the 700 lb weight loss claim an "up to" type. CR, when weighing two comparable middle of the range GM and Ford half-ton crewcabs chucked a figure of around 400 lbs that the Ford has an advantage on weight. While mass is key to driving dynamics and has a lot of benefits overall, FE for a still heavy vehicle is probably still more affected by powertrain and gearing, which Ford didn't completely overhaul in 2015. GM did have a new engine range, but the 8 speed just became more available just recently. MT's test of the 5.3 with the 6-speed in the comparo, it chugged fuel, but the Ram won partly because even though it was slower, it had the 'feeling of being fast'. So quite a bit of rthetoric and hype in magazine tests is just what it is, pandering to the fears and likes of the audience to get controversial results and sell dead-tree and online subscriptions. By no means however, am I giving pity points to the F150. But the GMC Denali's performance is only against a comparably equipped Platinum, not the full range of trucks.

Plants re-tool all the time, but the Ford effort for Aluminum was a huge cost, many times over the normal retooling process. The High Country and Platinum both had sun roofs. Weights are listed with a dry tank, but even if you want to include the difference in weight of each tank full, that would still mean there is only a difference of 144lbs (the difference in dry weight between a 26g tank and 36g tank is marginal) A console shifter is nothing but a giant waste of space in a truck (and I'd argue the same for cars too, score for Lincoln on this one). Give me a column mount or the Ram's rotary dial. The giant and deep storage capacity of the Silverado's center console is tough to beat. As for my negative experiences - I didn't have any, nor did I say I did. I got the EPA stated fuel economy in a perfectly capable SUV which matches my experience in an SUV from the competition. What I don't buy is the marketing hype around Ecoboost in the trucks being so much better.... because that hasn't been my experience. Nor has the hype matched the experience at Edmunds, Motor Trend, Car & Driver, or Automotive News...... so it's not just me. Well, I didn't mean to construe the features as superior, just there. Well, if Ford's tooling for aluminum is questionable, THEN why is GM following suit? Not only that, Ford has patented most of the processes and technologies it uses to make aluminum bodied trucks. And it's got exclusive use of materials from industry suppliers. I guess GM could apply its mixed material approach with trucks, but tooling for aluminum is going to be expensive for GM too. Even more expensive if they use the tech found in the low volume CT6 for the mass produced trucks. And I can understand why the Ford development was expensive. The Dearborn and Kansas plants were ancient. They weren't just modernized, they were completely re-configured, and prepped for multiple generations of trucks. What can be quantified as the normal cost for retooling. Not so easy, is it? Heck, FCA's SHAP facility needed to be retooled and cost around $5 billion. And the most notable product it makes is the Chrysler 200. And FCA wasn't clear if the cost of the 200 development program was folded into that, but here's the key deal, some of the most advanced robotic welders were added and a new quality centre was built. Weight savings is weight savings. Magazines should disclose the reasons why trucks were closer in weight than expected rather than make a blank conclusion leaving readers to do the math.