PurdueGuy

Someone's never shopped at Big Lots. lol

Beautiful car. Now GM should make a Chevy wagon that is function over form (but still make sure it looks darn good, just not at the sacrifice of function).

True, and I could understand an argument that the last gen GP is the worst at it's time and price point, but while it may be boring & have a lack of attention to detail, it's a solid car with a competent drivetrain. It may be the Holiday Inn of cars, but there is always that shady motel down the street that's cheaper, but you have to seriously question if you'll find a dead body in the bathroom. lol

Well, part of the question is what the real time frame we are talking about is. Some people have been putting some 80's cars out there. Gobs of 80's cars worse than a last gen GP. Heck, I have a hard time believing the last gen GP is worse than an early KIA or a number of other early cheapie korean imports. I've driven a last gen GP and while I was unimpressed, it didn't strike me as a truely bad car. When the complaints are things like panel gaps, that's not really getting into things that make a car truly bad, IMO. That's just the picky crap that, while annoying, isn't really that big of a deal IMO.

It's reasonably good for the class it's in. I still wouldn't buy one, but if it was from a more reputable manufacturer I'd be fine with one I think.

Yes, quite simply the extreme cost and distraction of resources involved in getting the additional models certified in the US just to sell a few models.

That's a pretty sweet land yacht there.

Yeah, have fun with that. I've replaced a mirror on a '92 LeSabre, which is mounted the same way. What a pain. Have a universal joint for your socket ready, and a long extension.

Yup, it's pretty much like any other car in that family - all around decent, but very boring and unimpressive. Unimpressive doesn't automatically equal a bad car.

If that's the worst modern car you've driven, you're spoiled.

You guys are doing the same thing that so many people wrongly do - saying Frams are crap, ignoring that not all the Fram filters they dissected were crap. Yes, the cheap Frams are crap. But they said outright that the upper ones were pretty good. Thus, you can't just say Fram = crap. I don't personally buy Fram oil filters, but I do get tired of the oversimplification, because it then spills over into assumptions of all Fram = crap, which isn't necessarily true. Just like everyone else, most of their stuff is relabeled from some other company, and you could avoid Fram and buy some other brand just to get the same crap half the time. Or it could be the same thing as the good brand. The generalization just doesn't work.

An electric car that didn't have to carry batteries would either be uber efficient, or very efficient while being uber fast. Execution is the difference between this being terrible or terrific.

Because this isn't France?

http://www.autolinedetroit.tv/journal/?p=5268 How do you care to back up your argument that GM should kill it's most profitable brand?

It just looks that way because the photo is so beige.

It's a bragging right that GM would be smart to make good use of, but it is misleading. I think as more plug-in's come out, we will see the EPA forced to develop a whole new way of rating these cars. I was hoping for (and would have been much more impressed with) the 230 being a range number for a quietly developed all-electric version of the Volt.

http://www.examiner.com/x-10697-SF-Autos-E...ress-conference Note that it was not referred to as a next generation Opel Astra, but Saturn Astra. It may be a substantially different car than what Saturn had, but it's still going to get called a rebadge.

I think it will continue to be successful, but it'll focus more & more into what it's actually useful for - specialized live news coverage, and as an extension of myspace and other social networking sites, as an access method for addicts of those sites.

Read it again - the plant isn't going anywhere, it just didn't get that particular small car program. It may idle for a while, but GM is very unlikely to shut down one of its most modern, most flexible, most productive plants, which can produce ~500k cars a year IIRC. I almost wonder if Spring Hill didn't get this small car program in part because there are bigger plans in the works.

I think the issue some have (and I wrestle with) is that the bill possibly should have leaned a bit more toward protecting american interests, seeing as how it uses american taxpayer money. A bill that said "it has to come from a domestic brand" wouldn't have passed, as we know, since import brands have US factories, which provide political leverage on those states where the factories reside. Perhaps what could have been done is a credit that acknowledged US (or NA) assembly and gave increased credit toward purchase of those US (or NA) assembled vehicles. This may have been able to garner enough political popularity to actually happen.

For push mowers, IMO, the best method is to buy the biggest engine with the least features. Simple deck with a side discharge and a little flap to close it to mulch, so you can do either. No bagging, no self propel, none of that crap that breaks. Mower will last next to forever. Not that isn't a bad thing sometimes - I still shake my head looking back at mowing when I was growing up. My dad bought the cheapest push mower he could, 3.5hp off brand side discharge generic brand. One day when I was mowing, a wheel fell off, not because it was broken, but because the deck had rusted through all the way around the wheel mount. I love my dad, but I so wanted to yell at him when he fixed it with some kind of straps and other random hardware. Had to keep using that pile for another couple years. lol

For push mowers, IMO, the best method is to buy the biggest engine with the least features. Simple deck with a side discharge and a little flap to close it to mulch, so you can do either. No bagging, no self propel, none of that crap that breaks. Mower will last next to forever.

You know, as much as I HATE seeing some of the perfectly good cars being destroyed, and I am really not a fan of some of the particulars of the deal overall, this is a lifeline to the auto industry when it desperately needs it. It's awfully nice of China to loan us money for some new cars when we're already bankrupt...

If any one of you are even slightly tempted by the idea of trying autox, do it. Take any old car (no trucks) that's in a condition that's not going to fall apart on the track, clean all the crap out of it so nothing's sliding/bouncing around, and go play. Don't worry about being competitive - you could have an awesome car and you'll get schooled at first, so it's often better to start out with something not so great anyway, and you'll enjoy it more if you go out to have fun, not to win at first. Bring your daily driver with factory tires, you'll still have a blast! If you get into it & decide to do it regularly, then worry about becoming competitive if you want.

I don't think they will be - I started to make some LeSabre visors work at one point, until I noticed the bigger problem - they were long enough that I had to lean waaay back to turn them to the side. I think if I can find an N, L, or J body one that has the extension, it should be smaller than the lesabre visor and fit just fine between the a-pillar and my overhead console. <3 my overhead console. I take it this is the thread you came across, Ted? http://www.sixthsphere.com/phpBB3/viewtopi...=60&t=29376 Yeah, the car has definitely come a long way. I haven't yet posted info on my engine swap. I spun the bearings on the original engine (160k+ miles & an overrev while autox'ing), so I had to speed up my plans to swap in an engine I had acquired that has SCAT rods & hyper pistons, and was of the older 5-bolt exhaust manifold design. The 5-bolt heads have larger ports, and you can bolt up a '91-'92 OEM header in place of the cast exhaust manifold. I went ahead & had a whole new exhaust system put on, upgrading from the 1 3/4" stock piping (which leaked badly at the resonator) to a 2.5" with new high flow magnaflow cat, large magnaflow resonator, and mandrel bends (no muffler, the large resonator acts as the muffler, though it's still a bit loud). The beefed up engine and the larger exhaust both get me a step closer to my intentions to do a turbo setup for 200-250whp.