Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close

Blake Noble

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    7,803

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Blake Noble

  1. Blake Noble
    Yes, my Grand Cherokee is like that...maybe it's from driving it for over 12 years, but the layout works for me. Lighting on the left, wiping on the right. Every time I'm in a GM rental or driving my sister's DTS I seem to cycle the wipers when signalling at least once.. It's much more intuitive; when you want to turn on the wipers you can simply reach the stalk from the wheel and move it up or down like you can the turn signals. It also feels much sturdier. You have to take your hands off of the wheel to twist the end of those retarded multi-function stalks to turn the wipers on, and it always feels like you're going to break something off every time you do. Like you mentioned, you sometimes find yourself setting the wipers to a low delay when signaling too. It's happened to me on a few occasions, and it's always embarassing. So, not only is one of those stupid stalks unsatisfying to use, they can also make an ass out of you. Now, I can sort of give a pass to pickup trucks with column shifters on this issue, but even that god-awful hellhole that Toyota passes off for an interior in the Tundra will grant you the luxury of seperate stalks with a column shifter. I'm going to keep the jury out on this one.
  2. Blake Noble
    I've had to live with more GM cars with that annoying "multi-function switch" than I care to mention. I hate the damn thing, sorry. It's an ergonomic mess. ChryCo also used a similar stalk in the Challenger I had and even then I hated it. I've always felt the best setup I've used was in the XJ Cherokee I had for short period of time; wipers on the right and turn signals on the left. The Astra has this setup, and it would be awesome if the stupid turn signal switch wasn't pumped full of damn Novocaine.
  3. Blake Noble
    I know I might be in the minority, but I've had time to think about it, and I know I expected something a little more from the C7 Corvette. I don't feel that this particular design is as graceful, timeless nor as clean as previous Corvettes. I don't think it will age well, especially when parked next to C2, C3, and even C5 models. Certain elements of the exterior, such as the taillights and rear fascia, do not mesh well with the various Moorish curves and sagging lines littered throughout the car. It's busy almost to the point of being inflammatory. It's also easy to call the design a mash-up of other current design elements from other vehicles; I can see a few undertones of the Nissan GTR, Dodge Viper, and Ferrari FF. I also never much cared for the C4's interior that always seemed to bury the driver way down in the seat, and this interior certainly can be viewed as a homage to that design. Granted, it won't be around as long as previous Corvettes, but I can say with complete confidence that I'm already ready to see the C8.
  4. Blake Noble
    I'm personally feeling more than just a little lukewarm about the upcoming Corvette, but I won't say much more about it beyond that.
  5. Blake Noble
    Yeah, looking back on it, I'm glad the Patriot I almost bought before the Astra didn't work out because of those two reasons. The CVT in the Patriot can really make the entire car unbearable at times, IMHO. It's a good thing that the Compatriot replacement should be ditching the CVT in favor of more conventional automatic transmissions.
  6. Blake Noble
    Well, I'm re-evaluating my options at the moment. Someone bought the '02 Formula before I could get back to it and finding another low-mileage fourth-gen Firebird has been extremely difficult. I've been looking to GTOs and a few fire-sale priced G8s and Challengers as acceptable alternatives. The holiday season has also dampened any serious interest in buying the Camaro, so that has slowed down my search as a result. I've had text messages and phone calls coming in at a decent pace since I listed and subsequently re-listed it, and I've been offered a few decent trades (some even worth more than my asking price) that I ultimately turned down, but no one has showed up with the money yet. I think once the holiday season has passed, someone will come along and buy the car. A project car with a dismantled interior isn't exactly an ideal Christmas present to most folks, I guess. It's all just a matter of time at this point. I'm not looking to rush into anything anyway. I honestly rushed into the Astra, so I consider the end result there a hard lesson learned. I know what I want and I'll hold out as long as I can stand to get it. Everything will work out in the near future, it's just going to take some devotion and patience.
  7. Blake Noble
    Good news - Both of them found out that you are a big old filthy man whore. Wife divorces you, takes the Monte Carlo and sells it for pennies on the dollar on Craigslist. Your boyfriend leaves you soon after, leaving you in a pool of your own emotional vomit, compelling you to commit suicide. Since you're just a big old whiny bitch, you go through with it. Good job, jackass. You're dead now ... ... except this was all really just a bad dream. You aren't having an extra marital affair with some dude you met in Dallas (although, because of you dreaming about it, you're probably going to go to counseling soon and wind up in a gigolo gang bang with your wife to expel your repressed feelings), your Monte Carlo was never real to begin with, your dog has been dead for years, you never went to the hospital or Barrett-Jackson, and the Cadillac you won was actually a 2010 CTS-V wagon and not a turbo-powered Cimarron pro-tourer.
  8. Blake Noble
    Good news - You put your new Hot Rod Cimarron up for grabs at Barret-Jackson, and someone was just drunk and/or high enough to buy it for $7k.
  9. Blake Noble
    Good news (everyone!) - It has a freshly rebuilt drivetrain out of a Sunbird Turbo and suspension upgrades.
  10. Blake Noble
    Well, at least we finally all know what we can pitch in on and buy Infiniti's marketing department for Christmas this year ...
  11. Blake Noble
    If you're strictly speaking in the sense of progression, then yes, the '97 F-150 was Ford's revolutionary pickup design. However, when it debuted it was doing little more than playing catch up to the GMT-400 trucks. Ford was simply so reluctant to take a significant gamble on the F-150 for the two "generations" of trucks that came before the '97 models that they allowed both GM and Chrysler to pretty much pass them in both technology and design. Considering how well those traditional F-150 models sold I can't say I blame them, but having the best sales doesn't necessarily mean you have the best image. Going back to the train of thought I touched on earlier, the 2004 model F-150 trucks were really Ford's equivalent to the GMT-400s, where they could finally claim they had industry-best design and technology. I can actually remember, for example road tests and reviews comparing the design of upper-level '04 interiors to Audis. Those trucks made it hip to be square again, finally made it okay to put an interior in a truck that might would pass for what you would find in a decent family sedan. The formula of that truck was so correct that it's essentially carried on unchanged for a decade now and yet every truck since has tried to escape its shadow. I'll leave this thought here: considering what I've seen from the current-generation Ram, I'm paying quite a lot of attention to what Chrysler is cooking up.
  12. Blake Noble
    Agreeing with Ocn here. GM is sticking with the more classic look. I see nothing wrong with that.... I do. Ford and Dodge RAM could very well have trucks in the pipeline that could really make these two look stodgy and dated when they hit the market. Remember how the '88 GM pickups suddenly made the '80s F-150 and Ram look like they were old cornflake boxes when they hit dealers? Granted, they didn't exactly set huge sales figures when they debuted, but they did establish GM as a sort of "technology leader" and design champion in the full-sized truck market. If Ford or Ram either one decides to release their own '88 Silverado, so to speak, then these trucks will always be criticized in reviews and fail to attract new buyers. Not only that, but the design of the GMT-400 trucks were so right that both Dodge (Ram? forget it, the history here is too convoluted) and Ford eventually had to rethink their strategy on pickups because of it, and it took Ford almost a decade to have a proper response, which by that time the GMT-400 trucks were due to be replaced. Ten years on the market ('88 to '98) and virtually few changes. That's a truck "done right." Although I'll admit, when I think a little more about it from that perspective, in a certain sense the 2004 F-150 has had an impact on trucks similar to the '88 Silverado. Hmmm ...
  13. Blake Noble
    Well, imma gonna leave this stuff here. Again, I'll voice my criticism from the other thread: what have the new Silverado and Sierra trucks done here to change the game? How are they more advanced than what is on the market today? They look right in line with the current crop of trucks that are due to be replaced in the very near future. This not how you establish supremacy in a given market. This is why these trucks are so disappointing -- they just don't do enough, at least from a design point of view. I criticized GM for bragging about the Silverado and Sierra's inlaid doors in the other thread, saying the RAM already had them in 2009. Well, let me say that I stand by statement, but I'll amend it by saying the Tundra had them before the Ram in 2007, and the F-150 started the whole trend in 2004. Wow, GM! You really can brag about being ahead of the curve here! Look, I know that's a small detail, but still. It illustrates my point. Honestly, the live unveiling yesterday left me with an uneasy feeling about the culture at GM. I mean really ... Bragging about how your interior won praise in design clinics? Okay, then. I think the last time you were designing cars in clinics, GM, you were thinking of giving the world this thing ... Can we please make a machine that will make a billion copies of Bob Lutz and Mark Reuss and have them run at least 95 percent of GM?
  14. Blake Noble
    I'm not going to say how I think likely it is, but If the Silverado High Country and Sierra Denali models were to have a specific and unique dash, I would be inclined to say that it would likely be shared with the Tahoe/Suburban and Yukon/XL. As for a specific dash for the HD model trucks ... well, I wouldn't put too much stock into the idea, but you never know.
  15. Blake Noble
    Yep, I'll give my kudos to smk on that post. Just don't let it get to your head, fella.
  16. Blake Noble
    Another thing: GM really turned me off this morning when they mentioned how the interior won praise in "design clinics." Be still my crawling skin. I'd say it's pretty likely. Yeah...I can see now that my local Chevy store will have a line of white ones w/ black and gray front trim... Remember the backlash agaisnt the plasticky schnoz on the GMT-900 work trucks a few years ago? Yeah.
  17. Blake Noble
    Here's something else I'm curious about: the base model trucks. I haven't heard anything about the grilles being chrome on the lesser model Silverados and Sierras. Imagine these trucks with just grey plastic plastered up front instead ... ugghhhhhh.
  18. Blake Noble
    I'm slightly underwhelmed, too. Maybe that's due to the fact I pretty much knew exactly what these trucks were going to look like before they rolled out. But maybe it's due to the fact that, in all honesty, it looks like GM applied Chevrolet and GMC styling cues to a current-generation Ram pickup truck. The forward facing doors on the extended cab models, the way the center stack appears that it has been tucked underneath the upper dashboard, the door frames that GM bragged on this morning during the live reveal ... the Ram was already there in 2009. Don't get me wrong, it's good to benchmark your competition, but this? This is just copying your benchmark and not going leaps above it. This is one major reason why GM wound up in hot water not too long ago. You can call me pessimistic, but I think these trucks are going to be a sore disappointment for GM in the future, like the Malibu is now. If GM is looking for a truck to topple the F-150, this certainly isn't it.
  19. Blake Noble
    Also, when you consider the fact that a loaded used last-gen Vue with under 50,000 miles goes for a fairly cheap price (around $12 grand in my area) then the asking price on the Captiva Sport can look absolutely, well, retarded for a lack of a better word. What's that? Pay double the price for a bowtie badge, maybe 20,000 less miles if you're lucky, and a warranty that's good for 2 years? Yeah, no. I'll just buy this other one over here with this big ass red K on the grille. I'll deal with replacing the headlight bulbs out of pocket and an extra squeak under the dash if I can get half off the price.
  20. Blake Noble
    Yeah, at $20 large I'll pass too. There's no way I'd choose one over a second-gen Equinox. Hell, I can't really think of anything that it really outclasses now. The Jeep Compass maybe? Then again, the Compass isn't exactly junk anymore. Maybe the outgoing RAV-4?
  21. Blake Noble
    Actually, if legislation similar to what I'm talking about were to be implemented, it's probably better to include both "per project" and "per company" in its context. I tend to feel that just saying "per project" is too open-ended and invites buisness entities (especially larger ones) to repeatedly use the system and would potentially increase the risk of misappropriation.
  22. Blake Noble
    I think you can also add "ZR2" to that list.
  23. Blake Noble
    I started my mid-life crisis at 17. Welcome aboard the boat, son. Seriously, though
  24. Blake Noble
    A few thoughts: The shorter wheelbase, unforunately, is here to stay to prevent size overlap with the 2014 Impala. The wheelbase isn't the issue; the issue is that GM tried to apply design principals that would've worked fairly well on the old wheelbase to the new one. The previous-generation Malibu had a better flow to its design due in part to its perpendicular, more horizontal lines. I think the new car feels dated because it tries to be "wedgier." Sadly, there isn't much you can do here without reskinning almost the entire car. Lowering the ride height by at least a half inch would certainly help the stance of the car. The old Malibu had a decent stance and ride height. The new car feels like a step back to pre-bankruptcy GM cars here. Remember the "four-by four" ride height on cars like the old Cobalt?
  25. Blake Noble
    I'll throw my two cents into the cup here. If you're going to allow the government to "seed" a potential industry with federal grants, subsidies, and so forth, there has to be public and Congressonal approval and voted on measures in place to make absolutely sure that assistance is not only severely limited monetarily but annually limited, and by that I mean the government completely shuts off the taps after, say, a five year period for each individual company. I'm also in favor of punishing companies who abuse any sort of government assistance by making them pay back the money and whatever else was taken at an extremely harsh intrest rate, say as high as even 50 percent. We used to do something not terribly unsimilar around the turn of the 20th century, and it needs to be put in place again to assure that taxpayer dollars are not misappropriated in supporting private industries (like we've seen recently) and that we don't sink deeper into fiscal black holes.
×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search