SAmadei

It looks to me like the IIHS has been looking at these crashes posted on the internet, where new (so called "safe") cars are hitting rigid objects just outboard of the subframe, and are shearing off the suspension, fender, wheel, and doors. For a change, I applaud the IIHS for reacting to the need for this type of crash protection, as it really seems like the automakers are tuning safety to do well at crash tests and not real world crashes.

More here: http://blog.caranddriver.com/iihs-adds-new-frontal-crash-test-most-cars-expected-to-perform-poorly/

That's Antonio Garay, NFL Defensive Tackle for the San Diego Chargers. 6'4", 320lbs. (You know, a little guy) I told you guys the Smarts can fit some big guys... even if his passenger can only be 180lb, otherwise, he'd be over the weight capacity. LOL.

I know how to drive in the snow. I'll buy a '88 Pontiac Trans Am GTA Notchback and thumb my nose at all of you.

I'm not sure I really see a lot of importance in a test drive anymore. For the most part, I consider most modern FWD cars to handle close enough alike that I seriously doubt I would need to consider it. Its going to plow through curves and accelerate as fast as the traction control and rubber are going to allow. My biggest concerns are driver comfort, overall size and flat storage area, an engine that can get in front of traffic, aggressive styling that appeals to me and finally, cost. All things I can judge, for the most part, without turning a key. My less cared for points are handling, safety, fuel economy and resale value... probably in that order. In the past, a test drive was definitely not needed, as I would rent cars I was interested in. OTOH, RWD cars do handle uniquely enough I'd want to take a test drive... but preferably without the salesman. Of course, in the past, my RWD choices have been so limited, again, why bother? I would have gotten a G8 or a ? ? ? another G8. In general, I'm either going to like the handling and get used to it, regardless if its buck-board hard or sofa soft... or I'll modify it later. I prefer to let others in the family do the test drive, that why they can not complain later...

Toyota and Honda both had recalls... however, to the owners of these cars, the problems got fixed for free. Its a black eye, but it didn't hit the Toyota and Honda owners in the pocket book (at least not directly... perhaps some lost resale value). GM's quality problems bit people in the ass on things that failed that weren't covered by recalls, warranty or by GM weaseling out of fixing the problem on their dime. Also, remember, most GM aficionados did not desert GM after one problem car... but after car after car of problems. Lets say the quality started becoming an issue in the early '70s... it was 1984 when the Japanese cars really started making inroads... thats 15 years of quality problems before switching... depending on how long people kept their cars, that 3-6 cars. Obviously, a lot of GM people didn't leave until GM continued shooting themselves in the foot with more brain damaged ideas and problems. Realistically, Toyota and Honda are going to need to put out at least a decade of bad cars before getting a GM-like bad rep... though some would argue that they are well on their way, I'm not so sure (at least in the eyes of the T&H owners).

Uh... and you're basis for this? It looks pretty legit to me... a few plastic items that broke down (bumper filler panels)... a few bad adhesives (passenger mirrot glass)... a little paint imperfection and a few ideas underhood with surface rust or paint imperfection... a garage that likely was not perfectly waterproof. Door jams are IMPOSSIBLY clean. The carpets look brand new. The pedals look pretty much new. The interior color appears to have changed a bit, but very uniformly... though its hard to tell if its grey or blue or blue-grey in the photos. Then the final detail is the window sticker... I would imagine it would be impossible to go 100K with it in the window... and very difficult to make a replacement (no PHS for Oldsmobiles) and get the slight patina/glue discoloration shown in the photos. I am as certain this is a 155 (158 in photos) mile car as I can be without seeing it in person.

Its not still a fad simply because you can still option down your fleet Colorado to have square sealed beams. Square beam fad starts in 1975 and by 1978 virtually everything has them... by 1984 the next big thing is are flush mounts and by 1988, only a handful of vehicles, all long in the tooth or extremely cheap, still have them. That's roughly a decade and a third. In my previous post, I meant to say "square sealed beam headlights", but still, even square flush mounts only were common until '92 or so. The ONLY square beam retrofit I ever thought looked good was the '75 Grandvilles... but that's largely due to Pontiac's fullsizers being pretty ugly from '70-'74. I would avoid many of the square beam tack-ons, and would prefer a '74 Eldo or Toro over the '75. A '74 or '75 Riv would likely never grace my garage, as its just a disaster (and a fancy 2 door Le Sabre). Anyway, its a matter of taste, but I would think you and Cube, would have picked up on the quick fix GM did and saw it as a bandaid. In any case, the voting indirectly seems to prefer round over square, 6-2. Oh, BTW, I forgot to mention, that's not a '75 Matador Coupe... its a '76 or later. The '74-'75 Matador Coupes had little bull's eye round turn signals in the front... which looked much better than the later squares, IMHO.

Hand me the Sawzall so I can make the door opening on the Toyota quite a bit bigger... nope, still not awesome.

There are a few used mower places around here, but none go to your extreme with the detailing. I'm I had a "normal lawn" instead of a pile of weeds and hidden objects, I'd be more likely to take care of the mower. When we got the riding mower, I tried to keep it nice, but doing acres of rough yard near trees and fences, its just brutal. I can't keep it looking good. This was my argument for making scale model cars... but I was getting more and more out of hand with details, lighting, paint, etc. that it seemed to be easier to work at 1:1 scale. Better ROI, as well. Really? I find it pretty easy to just start replacing lots of copper with CPVC or PEX if its a big project. Only thing that sucks is that you need to hop through legal hoops to do most house work... unless you own the house yourself. Worst part for me... crawl spaces. I won't do any work in really tight areas. Hello, Lawn Mowers Anonymous? ;-) Looking forward to seeing this. The '04 GP has some clear coat issues I'd love to sort out myself.

Do lawnmower carbs count? Because I've rebuilt 30 or so of those. I think you need to rebuild a carb at least able to do 300 cfm to truly get in the club, but I am clearly not in the elite of the carb rebuilding club. Move up to a decent sized riding mower carb. Otherwise, we'll get you in the club... one of us will mail you a trashed carb and will wait to get it back shiny and perfect. ;-)

Limo drivers are required by law to be shut off after 3 minutes of idling, except in extreme conditions where the passengers require climate control. Last I checked, a 4 or 8 used the same amount of gas while off. Also, I've always tipped better to drivers who got me from A to B quickly... most of my friends do, as well... and even mention this ahead of time.

Before I was born, huh? So when did you buy your K-car, to have run up 100K before my birth, smart-ass? 1962? 1963? Sorry I have to spell it out, the X-body trounces the early K-cars. It was a smidge larger and the body and parts were, in general, more robust than the cheap junk parts the K-cars used. I will give the 2.2 and its turbo'd brothers credit for being a quick motor, but I never saw a turbo'd 4 survive 100K, and the NA 2.2's were not much better in the long term. The GM motors all sucked performance-wise (maybe the X11 didn't, but I never drove one), but they would start every morning and lug off to work ticking, leaking and burning oil. And, IMHO, the notchback X-bodies were not terribly unattractive compared to the K-cars... of which only the K-wagon only looked decent. I drove several friends X-bods over the years, including one that made it deep in the high 200Ks and withstood several accidents... and I drove about a dozen K-cars of various ilk. I repaired both. I worked hard to keep my friend's '84 Aries K from folding in on itself, but by the time '92 rolled around, the doors no longer would close and the engine had caught fire at least twice. It was not the only one I've seen back then with severe rot in the door sills. Maybe you should have looked under your sill plate. She would later love her 6000's and J-bodies. Every K-car I drove would flex like crazy, even new... and I constantly was fixing some cheap part that had fallen off. The K I rented in '89 locked me out because the door locks were fubared. Only reason I didn't see more X-bods was because GM euthanized the line after '84. OTOH, inbreeding 3/4s of Chrysler's car lines to be K-car related was NOT a smart move and hurt Chrysler badly in the early '90s. The K's should not have lived past 1988, IMHO. I certainly agreed earlier that the 2.2s didn't belong as "Fabulous Flops", but the K-cars were not the terrific cars you are hyping.

I can't agree... I always felt the early square beams looked out of place, tacked on and awkward... worse, they made the rest of the cars look past their prime. You mean like the round headlights in the square holes like on the Thunderbird, Fury, Grand Prix, and Elite? BFD, something done for years at that point. My '70 Tempest had rounded off square bezels... it wasn't because they were going to plug in square sealed beams. Or a 1970 Impala... or a '65 Chevy Pickup. Square headlights looked good on squarish cars... and it was a fad, as most headlights have returned to organic shapes... mostly circles... and circles in squares/rectangles.

I previously mentioned, the turbo 4 has the same output as the outgoing V8. You guys can continue to harp on this spec sheet comparison, but I'm not buying into it until I experience it myself... engines have characteristics other than HP and torque, otherwise, the V8 would have been banished overnight with these magical turbo 4's. I simply have not had the opportunity to drive any of the newer turbo 4's, as they all generally come in cars I can't fit into... and I haven't rented anything for a LONG time now... and quite frankly, with no new Pontiacs, I have not been compelled to stop by a dealership for anything but a handful of parts. This will be ending soon, as I plan on trying out some of the new stuff for kicks.

I can't agree... I always felt the early square beams looked out of place, tacked on and awkward... worse, they made the rest of the cars look past their prime.

Sweet! Welcome to a somewhat select group of guys who can brag they rebuilt their own carb. So what was the total damage ($)?

I'd rather have the Wienermobile. LOL.

Is the rebuilt carb still completely computer controlled, or did you free the mixture screws? Some of the rebuild kits allow this. If so, you'll want to check up on how much turns in you need to get things started, assuming its not mentioned in the rebuild instructions.

Why? I bet he can charge 25% more or more for one of his mowers that goes through his restore process. If he is making money on it (hope he's turning a good profit) then he's smart, not sick! First, its meant to be a tongue-in-cheek compliment. Second, DF needs to put those profits into flipping high profit items... cars, boats, houses, planes... he obviously has a knack for this stuff and while he likely DID profit more, only a small percentage of secondhand mower buyers will spend extra on a mower for its curb appeal. I just hope he's not getting too attached to his mowers. ;-)

Have to disagree with you here... the X-bodies had their problems, but at least the X-body was a much more substantial car than a K-car (especially the early ones). I would give the edge to the K-car in engine, but the X-body engine choices lasted longer (even if belching smoke and leaking)... while the K-cars had notorious rot problems. That said, Chrysler improved the K-car and used it to spawn all sorts of models for the next 15 years... but the X-body was quickly forgotten at GM, with only a handful of parts surviving on in the FWD A-bodies.

When picked up by my limo driver, I expect him to be able to get ahead in traffic and merge onto the freeway with authority.

GM needs to let the various brands compete with each other like they were separate companies, like they did in the '60s. This internal competition kept all the brands on their toes and GM crushed the competition regularly.

Matador definitely belongs on this list... AMC was definitely trying to move it into the luxury coupe market, and with reasonable success... "Best Styled Car of 1974" Car and Driver... used in a James Bond movie... some NASCAR success and 62K sales first year. But it just didn't have staying power. I would probably chose the Matador... Grand Prix would be second and while I like the Monte Carlos, they were too common at the time.

The Tech-2 I'm sure can do all things magic. Its GM built and that's why its so pricy. The JP-701, I'm not familiar with... but before you plunk down $200, double and triple check to ensure it can delete airbag codes is what I'm saying. You're dealing with people online (and in this case, China), so misrepresentation, either intentional or not is possible, and you would have little recourse for getting your money back if they play hardball. When I go to the link you posted, I don't see anything about Holdens , just Japanese cars... and it only describes in one place that it deletes codes... in an awkward sentence. When I was at Advance Auto recently, they were showing off their code reader, they read my ABS codes... but the reader could only delete OBD-2 codes, not ABS codes. So its very much buyer beware.