Drew Dowdell

“Rides” and “Handles” are two different things and usually (though less so recently) opposite ends of the spectrum. I don’t like harsh rides. The roads here are beyond awful. I’ll take a comfortable ride over sporty handling every day and twice on Sundays. It’s why I buy the vehicles I buy. My EValanche will have air suspension just like my Avalanche does. I’d love an airmatic Benz but unless something changed recently they don’t make them in AWD.

Found this in my basement collection today. Original magazine still intact

I visually like the Mach-E but I don’t like how it rides and the interior is way too spartan

You sound very much like me. Not wanting a Tesla and waiting until the right one comes along. And then the EValanche debuted and it wasn’t even a question anymore. I was saying in another thread that I think that’s the case for a lot of people who like the idea of an EV but haven’t bought one yet because they don’t like what’s offered. The other one I’m keeping my eye on is the Fisker Ocean for Albert. He wants to go back to a CRV sized crossover and it looks like it fits the bill nicely. I just need a bit more detail about options before I reserve it.

There’s something deceptive / off / Marketing Department about all of these numbers. I’m going to do a bit more digging tomorrow.

And the Lincoln 2.0T is 250 / 280

The actual underwriting is done by a major insurance firm. The OEMs just slap their name on it. Just like how Chrysler Financial is actually Santander Bank.

If they end up rolling this out nationwide it could be a boon for them and the EV driving public. There is a Firestone near my office and it’s in the parking lot of the local Walmart and Grocery chain. If I absolutely needed a charge to get home after work, I could park there to charge, do my grocery shopping, and have another 30ish miles of range to get home by the time I’m done.

Some of the market adjustment due to short supply is manufactured. What I mean by that is that some sectors, dealerships included, are intentionally holding back inventory so as to force prices up. Enough companies get on the bandwagon and they can manipulate an entire sector. It happened quite visibly with lumber in the last 18 months and I suspect it is happening with some vehicles as well (though certain models like Bronco or Lightning are genuinely in short supply). It’s hard to call it price fixing because there is no written or verbal communication between the companies, but every RAV-4 Prime that sells for $40k over sticker sends a message to all surrounding dealers. I’m on a Rivian group and several new owners are reporting struggles with their insurance companies because Rivian is too new for the actuary to rate and price. It’s borderline impossible to replace one with the same vehicle right now because the wait is currently years. Rivian is offering insurance to buyers, but I don’t know if the price is competitive.

It's 350. The naming scheme always rounds to the nearest 50. The 2.0T is weak really only on paper and even then not by much. Most people will find it acceptable because it has strong torque across the powerband. Since they are running it through 9 or 10 speed automatics depending on application, it feels strong in daily driving. You'd notice no difference between it and the Germans in normal driving. The BMW has 13 more horsepower, but the Cadillac has 1 or 2 more gears. The BMW and Cadillac 2.0T have the same peak torque and the BMW get there just 50 rpm sooner... nothing you'd ever be able to notice. The Benz 2.0T has 20 more horsepower and 20 more lb-ft of torque, but the Benz 9-speed automatic doesn't use first gear for efficiency purposes, so it is effectively an 8-speed. So... unless you're drag racing an XT5 v. a GLC v. an X3, you'll never notice any difference between the three. I didn't include Audi because at 201 horsepower @ 6,000 rpm and 22 fewer lb-feet it's the Audi 2.0Twith a 7-speed that takes the cake for weakest engine. Cadillac 2.0T - 235HP @ 5,000 RPM / 258 lb-ft @ 1,500 - 4,000 rpm BMW 2.0T - 248 HP @ 5,200 - 6,500 RPM / 258 lb-ft @ 1,450 - 4,800 rpm MB 2.0T - 255 HP @ 5800 - 6,100 rpm / 273 @ 1,800 - 4,000 rpm Audi 2.0T - 201 HP @ 6,000 rpm / 236 lb-ft @ not published on their site RPM Acura is the most powerful 2.0T at 272 @ 6500 rpm / 280 @ 1,600 - 4,500 rpm Genesis cheats by using a 2.5T that pushes it to 300 hp / 311 lb-ft (and the best available interior of ANY of them... hands down.. no contest) Infiniti I'm not going to bother looking up because really... who cares?

Just preserving for posterity in case the post gets deleted... Also... follow us on Facebook! Cheers and Gears | Facebook

That's a pretty disingenuous comparison in that article. The 4xe is optioned similar a mid-level TrailHawk with a Hemi which is $61k. It is nowhere near a base Laredo.

I'm pretty nimble for a 43 year old and even I have difficulty getting in and out of it... as would just about anyone over 5'2". That said, once you're in, it is a very comfortable fit. I really love driving it because it is so light and nimble (relative to the other two) and even the V6 is more than plenty for most anyone. But the Challenger is easier to live with day to day than both of them. It's big, as easy to get in and out of as my '81 Toronado, and rides comfortably. The V6 isn't really enough for its mass, but Dodge will happily sell you any of a selection of V8s. The Challenger is also the only one of the three to offer AWD.

We also need a new definition of "fully vaccinated". It needs to include being boosted as well. With Omicron, some people who are fully vaccinated under the current definition are still ending up in hospitals (much to the glee of a certain group), but those who are boosted are largely not. "fully vaxxed" probably needs to mean "both shots plus a booster in the last 6 months or less". I'm assuming I'll need another booster in May.

Happy birthday @Paolino! Hope it’s a good one! ????

We have the loudest dumb dumbs.

While this does happen in other countries, I think this is a largely U.S. thing (with some spillover into Canada). IMHO, it's largely the fault of our education system based on a flawed view of "fairness". This idea that you have to give both sides equal time, equal attention, and equal consideration, that "everyone's opinions are valid", and the gross confusion surrounding what is an opinion and what is a fact. Anyone can have the opinion that they don't want to get the vaccine... but that doesn't mean the opinion was formed with actual facts. Many times that opinion is formed first and then the "facts" are sought to support it no matter what quack they come from. While there are valid reasons to not get the vaccine (allergic to an ingredient, extremely compromised immune system), there are far more not valid reasons floating around out there (It has microchips, it's untested, it causes blood clots (not true for mRNA versions), it causes cardiac inflammation (very rarely, and the virus causes it more, and all cases of it being caused by the vaccine have been resolved with treatment). We've just gotten to this point where nothing is ever true because you can always find someone with an agenda to disagree with anything. Most of the anti-vax movement that was around before Covid was caused by 7 or 8 people who run pyramid schemes to sell herbal supplements and their influence has only grown since. They have a vested interest in spurring vaccine doubt because they hope to tell more of their snake oil. My bet is that those at the top of the pyramid are all secretly vaxxed. The sad thing is that no presentation of facts will ever sway the opinions of these people because their opinion, and by extension their ego, would be too bruised if they are shown to be wrong. They have to continue to believe quacks to keep their ego intact.

I just don't understand... what are people like this trying to prove? And there are so many of them. I mean... I kinda get not wanting a "new" vaccine even though the safety and efficacy is proven... I don't agree with it and I think those people are wrong... but people were afraid of lightbulb too at one point... or when men thought that women riding on trains going over 25 mph would have their uteruses fall out... But what's the point of denying that a virus that can kill you exists and that if you take off the medical equipment, you'll die? It's like wandering into a tiger enclosure, taking off your protective gear, booping the tiger in the nose with a stick and then while the tiger is devouring you, you deny its existence just to try and prove someone wrong?

It might be an issue with your phone? I mostly post from safari on my iPhone. It’s how I’m posting this message now.

If the timing is right, please consider getting your third.

I don’t think there’s been a FWD BOF from any brand since ‘85. Solstice//Sky counts if you count Corvette.

Yeah, but there has to be more to it than that. Dodge gaining looks or Chrysler moving down market. I know what I feel about the cars looking back from today, but I don’t know what contemporary opinion was

The number of vaccinated + boosted in hospitals for Covid is so low it wouldn't be statistically significant. A recent report from New Haven Hospital shows that 20% of Covid patients are vaccinated, but of those, the vast majority are not boosted. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We already know that the body's immune memory for this virus degrades over time and variants accelerate this decline. In most healthy people, the immune memory for this virus declines by 7% - 10% a month. It doesn't matter if your immunity is from a vaccine or from being infected with the virus itself, but getting vaccinated starts you off at a higher immunity than being infected. So in my case when I got my second vaccine back in Feb 2021, I would have had my full ~93% effective immunity by beginning of March, but by November when I got my booster, that effective immunity had likely dropped to around ~50%... below the effectiveness of the typical flu vaccine. Getting boosted should have bumped me back up over ~90% again. The narrative around the vaccine really needs to change to one of "you aren't fully vaccinated unless you're getting regular boosters" because of this immune memory decline. While I don't have the studies in front of me...we can prove that Covid patients are causing non-covid deaths. All you have to do is take the excess deaths number and subtract the number of known covid deaths. In 2021 we had over 15% higher than expected deaths for at least a total of 452,000 extra deaths (not all of the December data is in yet). Can *I* prove it? No, I'm not a data scientist... but that knowledge exists and is out there. Back in November we exceeded the entirety of deaths from the HIV pandemic all the way back to the '80s... but we did it in 2 years. What would be absurd is assuming that dropping the entire 40ish year case load of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the US health system in a matter of 2 years wouldn't impact the health system. When hospitals have to shut down non-urgent but still pretty serious surgeries or cancer treatments due to Covid patients, there are going to be some negative outcomes. Where have you been for the last 18 months? This has been going on for a while. Before the vaccine hospitals were having to make choices on which patients to try and save and which not to use up valuable resources on. If a 50 year old obese man with a smoking habit and a 23 year old relatively healthy woman who never smoked both check into the ER with severe covid and there's only one ventilator or ECMO machine... guess who is getting it.... Now that we have a vaccine.. the decision usually becomes even easier. The one who was vaccinated or boosted is probably getting more care primarily because it is more likely to have a positive outcome. We already know the results of not getting vaccinated and being checked in to get vented, the proof is stacked up in refrigerated trailers. The statistics have gotten better since the beginning of the pandemic, but if you were admitted for covid and got vented there was a ~75% chance you were leaving the hospital in a freezer truck. There's a video going around of a guy who needs a kidney transplant turning down the kidney and preferring to die of kidney failure rather than getting the vaccine. Talk about absurd. He's willing to die twice to "pwn the libs". This also isn't new for transplants. Transplant patients are required to be up to date on ALL their vaccines because they will be immunosuppressed after surgery. That's been the case for decades. Active alcoholics don't get livers either.

I have a particularly contrarian view on the Maverick

Because if I slip on the ice and break my leg, I can't get into a hospital because it is overrun by the unvaccinated. Car accidents, heart attacks, delaying needed cancer treatments/surgery. The unvaccinated are clogging up the health system with a disease that is now largely preventable from causing hospitalization. Unvaccinated covid patients are causing non-covid deaths. Not necessarily. There can be breakthrough cases, and there were breakthrough cases a couple years back when a few vaccinated people got measles because so many unvaxxed around them got it.