ShadowDog

Who the hell takes the water heater with them when they move? Was their last house condemned or something? Sure, there must be a logical explanation, but people keep proving me wrong too often when logic is considered. Upon closer inspection, that trailer-load 'could' be headed for the local dump. If those are all personal belongings being moved to the next house, it could be said they're STILL likely headed to a dump.

I feel your pain. It's one thing to avoid a near-miss, but when damage results, it's already the worst-case-scenario. Lately, I'm constantly in the mode of thinking, "That guy isn't paying attention," or, "she has no idea I'm coming." I'm so happy to be leaving the current city I'm in when it comes to the terrible drivers. A town of 16,000 people and I'm far happier driving on the busy streets of Calgary! Everyone here drives like they're in the middle of a farmer's field, "PLEEEENTY of room...who needs a signal light...everybody can see me and that's all that matters!" My latest adventure was pulling up to a stoplight at a four-way intersection. When my light turns green, the opposing traffic has to wait a few seconds because my lane also has a green left arrow. So, I'm actually heading straight through when I look to my right and see a white Lumina sedan barrelling up to the lights in the right lane to make the turn. Since people mostly yield to red lights and stop signs, I half-expected him to look for traffic first. What does he do? He looks straight at the truck that's opposite from me to see it's not moving. (Remember that green left arrow my lane has? - The truck has to wait). So the guy must figure "DUH, if da twuck isn't moving, I must have a green light?" Hell if I know why he didn't look my direction. So, he doesn't stop and cuts right in front of me. I already see this coming, so I've barely even crossed the intersection before hitting my horn. What does he do? He looks back at me, sneers, looks at the truck again, looks right, and keeps turning in front of me, all on a red light. I never realized that driving properly was a skill so difficult to comprehend, much less understand and most likely never to master for SO many people? So, yeah, accidents suck ass.

It's getting so rediculous with these "energy" drinks that yet another recent article blasted them for the health consequences to teens who are mixing them with alcohol and ending up with poisoning due to the all-night drinking binge. How mental is that? I'm a one-cup-a-day coffee drinker with the morning hit. It's actually more for taste than anything. Caffine beverages sell like mad here... and even end up being the most heavily stolen product due to their popularity by broke teenagers needing a 'fix'. Personally, the world could be better off without.

I rebuilt a 1983 Nissan 2WD pickup with over 200,000 kms from the frame-up back in 2002. When it came to reinforcements to the frame, all it needed was some added plates to the region directly behind the cab with about a 5" x 8" piece of steel. This was even considered overkill, but since I had it all taken apart, I didn't want to risk having to remove components again if I 'had' to fix it. If I owned a truck that was less than 10 years old and it wouldn't pass inspection due to frame-rot, I don't care what a manufacturer told me, it's a serious oversight. For anyone to think this is just a bad Friday production run, they've been humping imports so vigorously that they probably have the rising sun tatoo'd on their ass.

I thought it was a photochop when i first glanced at that front end. Then I read on and thought, "Oh, they're serious!" The attempt to place the family appearance on the Aveo seems to be a tad overstated, in my opinion. I'm not overly impressed with the MPG figures either, for any subcompact these days. It would appear the challenge to offer more standard amenities and creature-comforts on the low-buck transportation segments is taking away from the true notion of what a 'base' car was meant to be; however, these days, nobody should feel as though they are making a major compromise in buying a subcompact. The car has a place in today's world of high price fuel, but a better mileage rating on all of them should be addressed. It looks like the lights came from the Pontiac Torrent?

Patience? More like a need for a week long vacation first! I imagine it isn't as bad as I, well, imagine; however, the words describe it bad enough. I read you've cleaned up the majority of it, which is good to read. I get to wondering about leasing and how much pressure there is. I know I'll have to lease my next vehicle for the company, but I just don't know if I can manage to keep the younger ones from destroying part/all of it. I take good care of my vehicles, so I would either have to 'let go', or become world's worst daddy?

The Bullit is the best drink-mix blender on the face of the planet. Being able to mix in the same container you will drink from means less dishes to wash! Yay!... or in my case, less dishes to put into the dish washer. Either way, it saves me time! We also use it to blend fresh vegetables to make my boy's baby-food. That alone has made it a miracle-machine. It seems so powerful, you'd swear it practically ran on a friggin' vaccum motor! My wife manages to find some of those other useless gimmick machines. Still, she manages to stumble across a good machine that really makes life easier. Case in point, a Starfrit Meat Slicer that helps dispose of the annual Christmas smoked-ham 'block' that is just annoying to attempt making slices for sandwiches any other way. As with any kitchen 'device', they are as time saving as they advertise them to be... until you have to CLEAN the damned things. Of course, that's why we love our Bullit blender. As for gaming, the Wii really brings me back because I've been buying all of the old console games through the Wii store. It's really cool, being able to download original games for multiple consoles: All the Nintendo consoles, original Sega and the Genesis, NeoGeo, Turbo Grafix 16, and others. They're pretty cheap ($5 for Nes games), but the killer is finding time to play them all! Heck, I still have my original Nes, Super Nes, and N64. The Wii has overtaken the fun of my PS2. Maybe the PS3 will be the next purchase since we'll be wanting to take advantage of BluRay.

Seeing the comparison of the changes, I am pleased with the minor styling enhancements. The original, though low in stance, didn't have enough of a difference to look apart from a convertible STS. This gives a bit of individual flair. Enough to scream about? No. Who cares? Nobody really should. It's not like they were going to do a major redesign.

Holy poop! The profile image showing the reflection of the sky in the glass and on the body did two things to my vision: 1) I didn't even pay any attention to the flat-black top and could only focus on those sexy rear-quarter lines; 2) The shade of the reflected surface made me wonder just how gorgeous this car would look in a deep, dark gunmetal silver. ... and seeing the actual headlights is highly reassuring.

Phuck me standing in a pile of dung! You know, GM could offer a variety of colors that many people would love to have wrapped around them, but don't... and yet, they offer THAT color?! It boggles the mind.

Not surprisingly, nearly a dozen SUVs with "For Sale" signs on their windows, driven by well-to-do looking 30-something women. Most husbands around here work for oil companies and drive not-so-tiny trucks. A dark grey '06 BMW M6 - Not surprisingly across from the lawyer's office. I've seen it twice now in as many weeks. I'll have to keep the camera in the car next time. My dentist drives a white '05 M3 - the tooth business must be good. A few more new CTS's / STS's than usual. Such pretty cars. (Driven by retired-"poor farmers") I'm awaiting the local McDonalds owner to bust out one of his two 'Vettes soon. Rumor has it he traded in his '02 for something new.

It is to laugh!

All I can say is, "Whoops!"

I like the analog much better. Those digital readouts looked straight out of the 80s.

I'll have to be one party to agree. It's not as if I'll remember any of this in a week or two since it's not important enough to retain. I think I'll just go back to reading the other funny-page posts.

No hating of the car, but the tactics. I wouldn't exactly call it shear tenacity when coming to the dealer service bay with an issue and being told by the technician that the problem isn't the car. Failed transmissions aren't part of the car? I guess all 50-something with bad transmissions in their Camry are street-racing? Would these examples of dealer service serve to hide issues that could possibly put a negative blemish on Toyota's 'lasting quality and refinement'? I'm sure you have recently read about the issues faced with the Tacoma recently. Even these are to be swept under the rug as "driver error"? Wow, that is not exactly the kind of shear tenacity that people can appreciate at any level; however, as long as it goes unreported, is there not a clean record the company can appreciate long into the future?

Beyond this, I would tend to think most import buyers (remember, they're buying 'quality' here) would have a much higher expectation to have zero-troubles with their new (or even USED) purchase. Now, I'm not saying this as a point against them; however, it's tough to be reasonably impressed with a car company's stance on quality when there is plenty of evidence that service shops at Honda and Toyota find it difficult to acknowledge a 'problem' with a customer's car. How is it fair to charge a customer a premium for a car's ability to look like it was put together with a ruler in one hand, but not follow up with concern when a particular model's transmission has notable issues, or a door guard begins to come loose and fall off, or a truck would surge ahead when the driver wants it to slow down... All car companies have issues. The perception of quality is more than just a panel gap or interior fit-and-finish. Even a vehicle with hand-assembled everything is only as good as the sum of its parts.

I find it humorous that Toyota can get away with their strategy while the domestic-front, particularly GM gets slammed for eco-terrorism (yeah, I know that's over-emphasizing the extreme, but it's to the point). What do I mean? For years, and most recently, Toyota has been pushing development of bigger trucks to capture some of the market held by the domestics. Their marketing strategy of a rugged, cowboy-hat-wearing, wise-sage-advice-providing tough guy dolling out philosophical mumbo-jumbo to reach the inner Monk in everyone seems to escape the attention of people whom would otherwise use this as ammo against a company like GM if they were to have this same marketing strategy themselves. After all, it's capitalism, where the whole intent is to bring the masses through your doors to buy what you are making; however, Toyota will surely get applause for their efforts in 'going-green', when all GM ever got was. 'Wow, that EV1 program was beaten with an ugly stick and thrown off a bridge. Should we still give credit to them for trying?'

The Sentra is worth a look; otherwise, the Vibe certainly has plenty of advantages for versatility.

Even the GMDAT program cars like the Optra/Optra5 (Suzuki Forenza/Reno) use throttle-by-wire after 2005. Necessary or not, it sure had better work!

Unless any of these views had reasoning where there may have been a void in practical need, they are simply vanity-based. At this point, given the significant expense in fuel and insurance, people would have to weigh some serious decisions to justify paying more to have less, all in the effort to avoid losing their dignity. Unless I'm in a minority, I don't think about the person driving a vehicle when I see a vehicle. I don't think a woman is less-sexy because she drives a mini-van. Heck, if anything, when I see a woman driving a monster SUV with 22" wheels, low profile tire and no kids with her, I still don't pass judgement; that is, even if I figure it being completely pointless.

I thought we were talking about the 90s. You just finished talking about how GM has done well with the Malibu / Aura, so are you going to give them credit for it at all? Or are you going to pigeon-hole them with the expectation of finding something to bring them to a sub-par level... which, by what I'm reading from you, would be considered a sub-par level at only a split-hair lower than the Taurus, Accord, Camry. Wait, you said Taurus? Yeah, they sold a lot of them, but did you even remember the mistake they admitted to making in designing the oval-submarine of the mid-90s? It was horrid. Funny, they still sold plenty. Wow, the Lumina wasn't the best the best. Funny, they still sold plenty.

Odd that anyone would want to watch a movie in the theatre just to see the cars in it. Let me guess, you went and saw The Fast & The Furious just to yell at the screen because you have a problem with imports. Man, the point of this thread was simply to answer a question of confirmation on the production of a particular vehicle, not to question the point of what cars should be in a movie.

The last 'hurrah'? Probably not. Like everything else in this upside-down world, expensive fuel-sucking vehicles built purely for the fun of it will only be accessible to the affluent.

Unfortunate news, I'm sorry. Hopefully everything will be well her health and all of your wellbeing. Concerning insurance, I completely agree with 68, that absolutely no discussion should take place with insurance right now, especially the insurance company of the other party.