ShadowDog

Definitely a selling point. When my wife worked at the GM dealership and saw the 2005 Grand Caravan on the lot that we now own, she had a couple of eyebrows raised when she said she wanted it. People said, "...but you work at a GM dealership?" Her reply was simple, "Well, if GM would make a van with Stow'N'Go, or a minivan at all, I'd consider it, too!" We were also praised for finding one with the 3.3L instead of the 3.6L for reasons that revolved around reliability. The jury is out on the transmission, which many mechanics often joke is the first thing they think is wrong with a Caravan when they see one parked outside the shop. Isn't that just a comforting thought when you own one? My wife and I have discussed how nervous we get when we take the engine up in RPMs and drop down a couple of gears. It just doesn't sound smooth, almost as if something wants to rattle free. We chose to avoid any hard acceleration or passing, just for peace of mind. As for the seats, we've taken a few 500+ mile trips with various people in the back and there have been no complaints about the seats so far. There is very little we could think of changing anything to do with the cargo area; except maybe adding a 120v outlet, but the power inverter we already own takes care of that through the supplied rear 12v power outlet. It's pretty comforting knowing how little they've changed them in a few years. At least, it makes me happy to know there wasn't much worth changing... if it wasn't a cost-prohibitive issue for Dodge anyway. Thanks for the writeup.

I'm not so sure those figures represent the true nature of the final costs. Nevertheless, why is GM so worried about what others are claiming to achieve with their mileage figures by having so much marketing directed to touting its own mileage figures?

My grandfather had a two-door Pinto... bright freakin' yellow. It wasn't even close to ten years old and it was developing a whole lot of rust. But Jebus brown is even worse! He traded it in for a nice, metallic-blue Malibu exactly like this one: Four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine

Few teens in highschool can see past the next few months, never mind the years in which they will be educated in college and university institutions. The most important things in their lives are image, toys and maybe their grades.

That would be a company decision, but a marketing challenge. The most important factor is what the competition would choose to do. For a company to settle with tacking on the 'fine fee' to each vehicle, they would have to be very wary as to what their competitors are doing, especially with the car market. The MPG war is already being waged on commercials. Apparently, auto companies seem to believe this is the most important aspect to buyers looking at a new vehicle. Heck, the majority of the commercials I've seen tend to be promoting the company in its challenge to meet consumer MPG expectations with only a blurb on any individual vehicle. That being said, if the auto companies are correct in their studies on what is really important to the consumer; if their choice is to market against each other in the MPG war; if their goal is to meet the expectations of the consumer by adding value to their vehicles by meeting CAFE standards to gain on market potential, then an auto company cannot afford not to invest in the challenge and doing all of the above and avoiding the potential negative PR by failing to address the matter and, instead, paying out.

As far as I can tell, if you act like 10 year olds, prepare to be treated like 10 year olds. I have two nieces, once graduated and the other about to. Their friends on Facebook provide so many examples of a generation of self-entitlement and lack of respect. While it's always said about the next wave of people to lead our communities and countries that we're all going to suffer worse with each passing decade, I think it's actually going to be quite true. The kids of some of the baby-boomers have made lousy parents.

I get the feeling not every other engine in existence was immune to the climate in Arizona.

Those red wires against the firewall connect to foot long plastic housings that slide deep past the camshaft heads into the block. If the entire engine was an all-new design from the block on up, then this issue may not have been so significant. This wasn't an all-new design, but had carry-over parts similar to the 3.1 L pushrod. GM worked with what they had available without having to go from scratch because, well, they couldn't.

Which was odd to always read about since it won numerous awards throughout its life-cycle. The L36-L26 (Naturally-aspirated pushrod V6) was bulletproof and the L67-L32 (Supercharged Series II & Series III) was a gem of an engine. So goes the story of the 3.4L DOHC, which, as far as I could ever research was a myth. The actual engine buildup from Fiero tuners revealed that the amount of effort to bring an engine like that to market would be the equivalent of all the moneys that went into the R&D of a Vette engine... never mind that it would be going into a FWD car with an automatic transmission, which seemed extremely pointless. While the Getrag 5-speed manual was optional, it only existed from 1991 to 1993, but offered the ability to build up enough to handle turbo applications that Fiero owners were thrilled with. The test-bed of using F-bodies on the R&D track is what caused so many people to speculate that the LQ1 DOHC was meant to be the replacement for the V8's in the Camaro and Firebird. Again... all speculation. No, hardly abandoned. The engine itself was derived from the Quad-Four with great, albeit staggeringly expensive success. The cost of ownership of the LQ1 DOHC was significantly higher than that of the L36 pushrod which replaced it. It was the market that lost faith in the engine since it was such a PITA to work on. You could actually get the LQ1 from 1991 through 1997 from the Monte Carlo / Lumina lineup. It was the Cutlass and Grand Prix that did the changeover to the 3800 in 1996. I have no clue why, but speculate that it was to push out the last of the DOHC engines. I don't think GM would have benefited from this since their best engines were OHV designs. The 3.4 DOHC block was entirely similar to that of the 3.1 pushrod. Its only progressive development was going from multi-port fuel injection to sequential. From my notes, in the last months of its life, GM revised the heads and intake manifolds, giving it a larger throttle body and plenum that had slightly shorter intake runners, combustion chamber modification, and bigger exhaust ports. A slightly higher RPM band was also included through revised camshafts and timing. The fact that it was developed off the same 60 degree blocks as the pushrods provided its limitations. It was just too damned big. Spark plugs were the least of all worries (though I managed to change mine without tilting the engine forward by having the right self-custom-made tools just for that engine. The alternator, mounted underneath the engine, was not an ideal location due to its proximity to the exhaust manifold (high heat = premature death). I'm not even going to get into the timing belt. Leaking intake manifold gaskets was a notorious problem and was another time-consuming repair. The engine just made grief for the common person's pocketbook and the shade-tree mechanics knuckles. I still loved it. Oh yeah, my point in all this... if further development can be made from a DOHC design to evolve and progress more rapidly than a pushrod design, it would be interesting to see; however, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sorry to read, BV. The U.S. working class being smacked around with an unemployment figure spilling over 10% is no laughing matter. Up here in Canada, depending upon the region, things are either good or terrible. My niece (18) was frustrated with her job at a local chain hotel and was thinking about quitting. My sister just shook her head and said she wasn't sure it was a good idea. Her husband was a little more blunt with saying along the lines of, 'How many other people applied for the job you were given? How many other places did you apply at and how long did that take you to finally get accepted at the hotel? How is it you think you're more entitled to a job that gives you everything you want? These are not the times to be picky-choosy. Unless you have a another job in-hand, don't be crazy enough to think of yourself as more special as to deserve one just because you want one.' He was pretty harsh; however, so are the attitudes of entitlement among today's teens.

Will Fritz go for it? Was his declaration on not being a fan of 'the rebadge' just for the G8 or was it policy? Quite frankly, if it came from Lutz, it's almost like a pipe-dream where the opposite would occur. Hell, who knows if there will even be an Opel to import in the near future anyway.

Story I think they got the story wrong, but you be the judge... If you ask me, the pelican distracted him from his phone. It was the phone that made the dim-bulb veer off the road. What a dork.

Took Monday off instead of Wednesday the 11th, so I worked. I really didn't have much fun dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency website for arranging to file employee record of employment forms, so I spent a good portion of the day doing another person's payroll tasks and organizing work records and material sales orders for invoicing. On my spare time in the early afternoon I took one last look at the iPhone offerings, now that all major carriers in Canada now provide the iPhone. It's amazing how things end up on this train of thought: 1) Hmm, I could upgrade to an iPhone for more convenience and efficiency 2) Come to think about it, my existing contract expired years ago and I'm paying peanuts for a 600 minute plan with two phones that only one is needed for 3) I wonder what the math comes out to if I go with a prepaid plan? 4) I think I'll switch my plan and save about $700 a year! So, yeah, instead of paying $960 a year on a two-phone cell plan for work and home, I'll pay roughly $260 for a prepaid plan using only the minutes I require and no extra. All in all, today was a day when I didn't do my own job and I actually chose to save myself some money. Twilight Zone material!

I'm quite familiar with the level of care a good nursing home can provide. At least when there, he would have had a social network and daily routine of care to rely on. It would seem to me that she let him fend for himself and gave him no support for his elderly mind to cope with. I can't see her sentence being all too heavy, but at least he would be rid of her and good, healthy care ordered upon him.

The problem with the half-ass double stop maneuver is one stupid driver is completely relying on two separate moving vehicles to notice them. All too common the following scenario could be the potential outcome: Stupid Mr. Half-Ass pulls into intersection, blocking Mr. Unfortunate in left-hand traffic. Eventually, Mr. Courteous in right-hand traffic notices the plight of Mr. Half-Ass and slows to let them in. Mr. Impatient assumes Mr. Courteous is one of those Mr. Oblivious people, wanting to make a left-hand turn across traffic without a signal light and skirts around him on the shoulder to his right. Mr. Impatient meets Mr. Half-Ass and everyone gets a front row seat to the calamity. Any number to bad things can happen along these same lines. Any number of ways to get injured because Mr. Half-Ass is a complete idiot behind the wheel, and Mr. Impatient makes matters worse. Personally, I have a problem with people like Mr. Impatient because they're the type to stop at an intersection, but then release their brake and coast as I'm turning off the street in front of them and have to widen my turn radius because they aren't paying attention to their front end entering the intersection.

Lately, every day is Halloween. My wife and I are walking zombies from lack of sleep.

The boy and I enjoying a really good afternoon of entertaining television. Today, it was the American test on Top Gear of the Corvette, CTS-V and Challenger SR/T. The boy has taste.

These days, not so much; except for about ten years ago when a friend and I had a balcony-front-row seat to a cat fight ten feet in front of us near the dance floor of a club when one girl started to walk away from the other up a couple of stairs to the bar level. The other girl flung the contents of her glass to the hair of the girl walking away. She then ran up, yanked the back of her hair and pulled the girl down the steps toward her. The, now wet girl, turned around to bring it on. The drink-flinger tossed her glass to the floor and busted it into shards. Then the claws, fists and hair pulling ensued onto the ground. We sat on our chairs, feet up on the banister, looking at each other exclaiming with 'Ooo's and 'Oww's with each dramatic moment. Our stupid comment of the evening, "It was so real, you think you were watching it on T.V.!" <-- If you think of it as 'overdone dramatics' as good as being choreographed for the beginning of your favorite CSI show. BAH! But then the bouncers broke it up and we went back to our entertainment of watching white guys dance badly.

Had an employee like that. She was 'self-empowered' and 'self-important'. Quick to criticize the company for a lack of something or other when it concerned her, but just as quick to voice her complaint about a co-worker with similar expectations that would put her into a position to work harder. Such as, more time off with pay and other union perks. I ended up never sharing anything personal with her or people close to her because it would always come back to me in some negative way. She was a supreme pain in the ass.

Yes. That or, 'We can tell you who, what, when, where and why. But it's more fun to tell you with lots and lots of exciting adverbs. You know, to make a dull story POP!'

Oh no, it would be completely accurate... in a 'choose your own adventure' sort of way.

Perhaps calling him 'young' in the headlines was better than saying, 'A &#036;h&#33;ty-driving motorist had a simple answer ...' '

I figured someone will eventually have an abbreviated term for this, much like DWI, etc. So I'll just go with TWD for now. Wow, how this one makes me shake my head at the completely pathetic drivers out there: "Texting driver doesn't notice police" The link: OH! You're pulling ME over! - Full story below: A young motorist had a simple answer when police asked why he didn't pull over earlier during a 28km pursuit. The 22-year-old said hadn't noticed the marked police cruiser following him because he was busy texting on his mobile phone, police say. Officers had first noticed the man when he shot past them on the Eastlink Freeway in southwest Melbourne at a speed over 130km/h. The 1994 Honda sedan didn't stop but kept driving south from Mulgrave to Frankston. Leading Senior Constable Steve McIlroy said drivers needed to understand that texting while driving could have "catastrophic" results. "It was lucky on this occasion that the driver was eventually intercepted safely," he said. The driver had his car impounded for 48 hours and is expected to be charged on summons for various traffic offences.

I read on another public feedback board how the helium balloon didn't even have a basket attached, and that the lower bulb portion of the balloon is actually a part of the central chamber and is not accessible as a place to crawl into. Knowing this, how did the parents figure their son was in it when you can't 'get' into anything without a basket? While this is all just armchair observation, it's understandable that questions would be raised. For instance, another article by TMZ noted that the family had been pitching their own reality show to networks. What better way to ensure viewers would watch is if viewers knew just who the hell they were in the first place. All of this reeks of self-promotion. If it isn't, it's tough to come to that conclusion. My last word is that I agree with all above in that these two certainly are &#036;h&#33;ty parents.

Makes one think it was some sort of an intentional business publicity stunt?