siegen

omg hahaha ROFL :rotflmao: Sorry, I couldn't contain myself. Dodge Ridgeline? Except with a much manlier name! If I ever were to drive one of these vehicles, I would probably feel an urge to go thrashing through a parking lot running people over screaming out the window RAMPAGE b*tches!!!! (that is until my front wheels get stuck) Btw, let's not compare the production Ridgeline to the concept of this. This thing will be plenty dumbed down before it hits the showroom (which is a good thing, just look at it, ugh). Oh this made my day.

The RL comes with a lot of neat techy stuff, hopefully AHM can increase the sales of the RL by making some of it options. The platform most likely won't fit a V8. If the RL can loose some weight in the process of losing some of the standard features, it should also help with the acceleration. The RL already accelerates just as well as other cars in its price range, a lot with V8's. That doesn't get past the "image" of a V8, but unfortunately that is nothing they can do with this platform, unless they develope a super conpact sub-4.0L V8 (which might not be a bad idea at all). Lay off the rice.

I think everybody knew Toyota wasn't going to "reinvent" the truck, they would simply try to improve on things Ford has done, and let their marketting do the rest. But that's besides the point, we have enough Toyota threads on here already =)

So production cuts lead to the companies struggling? They're still making a profit off of the vehicles. Like Flybrian alluded to, the flexibility of the Japanese plants allows them to cut production of a certain model (or models) and put the same time and resources of the same plant into another model (globalized platforms). They are hardly struggling, and can change with demand. Are you surprised truck sales are falling, gas prices are still above $2 here, and I'm sure much higher in more populated areas. Now when you see Accord or Sentra production cuts, there's something to look into. As far as I'm concerned, small production cuts of big trucks or SUV's by Honda or Nissan are nothing to worry about, specially Honda (who doesn't even have a full-size truck).

I agree! As if the constant metaphors normal car reviews use aren't lame enough, these are the icing on the cake when it come sto car reviews.

Regardless of what you may think, yes it is a feature, just as a lip kit or body-painted sidemoldings are features. The Accord also comes with other hybrid-only features, mostly cosmetic. There is an article hightlighting it all but I don't feel like finding it right now. Hybrid is a word that means more than just an electric-assisted gasoline engine. Give your Impala LT to those reviewers and it will get much worse mileage as well. The difference is the Accord's wheel covers won't fall off during the review (oh wait, it comes standard with alloys) doh! Before you say anything, I know that doesn't make up for the 7-8k difference in pricing (not 10k), but I think we've already beat the gasoline vs hybrid cost thing into the ground and came to the conclusion that hybrids generally don't save you anything on gas, nor do they get significantly better mileage than gasoline only cars.

Kind of pointless, the hybrid. Just like all hybrids though. It is faster than the gasoline-only model, and comes with more features. I think it may be a worthwhile buy for some, considering around town driving should be even more comfortable, and less stops at the gas station. I would rather have a TL myself.

That's because it shouldn't feel like a RWD car. It should feel like a completely balanced AWD car (not that all AWD cars are balanced, this one uses an active system to make it so). The idea is to make it better than RWD. FWD-based or not, it is not a FWD car, nor is it designed to mimick a RWD car. sh-awd, RL around the track I don't expect Honda, regardless of how much pressure is put on them, to design a copy-cat. I don't call it arrogance, even if it may not be the best option (no doubt they could do better with a RWD V8), there may be more to it, like where Honda plans on taking the Acura brand in the future. Honda may save RWD for its sports cars only, and all of its Lux cars in the future may be SH-AWD.

The problem is the RL comes with everything standard, which might scare some people off. Unfortunately nobody seems to look at the feature list when comparing it. It may be better for AHM to optionalize some of the less wanted features to get the price down. Acura has always been a sport-minded luxury brand. They make real luxury cars, similar to how BMW makes real luxury cars, with an emphasis on driving. Their flagship may not be as expensive or come with as big of an engine as others, but that in no way means it doesn't stack up well to other cars in its price range. It did good in this comparo beating out many rivals coming in 2nd to the Infiniti. The RL isn't FWD. And I personally like the way it looks. As for the price, look at the feature list and stop comparing it to an Accord.

Still ugly, and surprisingly cheap looking.

"Dealers want Subaru models under $20,000" More like: "Dealers want Subaru models that don't look like Alfa Romeo's"

Wow. Mid-engined, 4wd, 4 seats, two hybrid engines (in addition to the gasoline engine), and a folding hard top. So the rear seats are actually the exhaust manifold which sticks out of the firewall (heated seats none the less), and the hard top folds into the trunk space, leaving no cargo room. Or maybe it folds into a grove in the valve cover? The hybrid engines are actually out of an RC car, and only provide 1hp, but are very space efficient! Am I right? Sounds like they just took all of the features of each car and combined them into one imaginary ultimate car! :rotflmao:

Well I'm not sure if GM is using someone elses technology or developing their own variation of direct injection, but it is not by any means a new technology. Apparently they're the first to bring it to America (I'll take their word for it), but it's been in Europe and Japan for a while now. We're always the last to get new stuff <_< To answer your question, I highly doubt it will need to be debugged, I couldn't imagine GM being able to screw up the system that bad :P I can't wait to see Mazda's answer, and the many comparo's to follow. It'll be interesting to see if this is all that great. I'd still buy an s2000 8)

Can you interpret sarcasm? Your comments made you sound like you are very closed minded about the Ridgeline, and don't really know how it works or how it's built. Can you tell me how the two things you pointed out to your dad hold back the potential of the Ridgeline for its size and what it is designed to do? If you dad needs a full size truck to do whatever work, then he should have seen the small bed and not even walked up to the Ridgeline in the first place. I think most people here can agree that it was never designed or meant to be a pimple on a Silverado's butt (or an F-150's butt). I can contest that the interior quality of the Sierra I drive is closer to that of cardboard than the Ridgeline's I've looked at. I wouldn't take a Ridgeline over the Sierra for the kind of work it does though.

Yes, built on a minivan platform, and it is completely incapable of transfering any amount of power to the rear wheels due to its horrible FWD bias! Can you be a little more open minded and read about how the chassis is built or how the AWD system works before you try to null anybody else's interest in the vehicle?

OMG, they actually made it look cheaper and less new than the current models! That seriously looks like a late-90's year from a styling standpoint. Way to go backwards Hyundai.

From my experience and observations, Honda's performance cars have always been under rated. This is usually do to the straight line acceleration, which is less in the low rpm range, where people feel it the most (it's harder to tell differences in acceleration in high rpms). If you're saying this car is over-rated, you probably haven't driven one yet and have focused on only finding negative reviews about it.

For better or worse, a lot of the things won't make it production. Just look at the Coupe Si concept and the production version, and you can pretty much count on all the same changes going to production. Some shots: And the Coupe Si to compare: Concept: Production: You can pretty much use your imagination on the Sedan. The HFP lip kit is available for the coupe (and probably will be for the Sedan), which makes it resemble the concept more, and foglights are an option (although not yellow). Personally, I love the black hood and roof two tone look, I wish they would have that option for production models. Of course these don't even come close to the Civic Sport concept =)

NM, already discussed over here. I'm just a little exited. It looks good.

Toyota doesn't have recalls. They have Voluntary Special Service Campaigns. Almost makes you feel special if you happen to get one of the "special" vehicles that needs the service. Any problems Toyota has only makes them stronger. :AH-HA_wink: It's a good chance for them to find other things wrong to fix =) Btw, hasn't your fuel pump been making a whining noise lately? Maybe we should look at that too while we're under the seats... bwa ha ha.

I hate how Subaru bastardized the front ends of their new Impreza's. The old design Evo still looks better, even though it looks dated. $35,114 Evo? The base price is only $29,149 and all they got for that was weight adding confort features. For $36,299 they could have been testing the MR with 6mt (btw, why hasn't Mistu made the 6mt standard on all of the Evo's yet?)

Ugh. Is it still a FWD torque-steering beast? 162-horsepower 2.4-liter? What does it redline at, 4000rpms? That doesn't sound like a sporty engine at all. I would take a 170hp 1.6L in a lightweight Civic any day. But I guess people will buy the V6 if they want to go fast. And it's ugly to boot. Where's the 2nd gen Turbo Eclipse when you need it??? They still haven't managed to improve on that design even after 10 years.

See this thread.

It depends on the review, like I said in the other post. Here's an excerpt from a review by Inside Line: Road and Track got a 6.8 second 0-60 for the Si, and a 6.2 for the Cobalt SS. How long do you suppose it takes to shift to 3rd gear and accelerate the additional 2mph to hit 60 in the Si? Probably not 6 tenths, but it would definately close the gap a little bit. My point? The difference in straight line acceleration isn't that much, and varies greatly depending on who you're asking.

Just because it does wonders on the track, doesn't mean a normal drive can't be equally exciting to the regular commuter. My point is, mags rag on the Civic's straight line performance compared to the Cobalt SS and this VW (despite the very small differences), yet they have no standardized way to test its track performance (slalom doesn't cut it), other than comparing the cars side by side on the track and logging times. Of the three cars mentioned, they all excel in different areas. For the people that can't get over the fact that there isn't as much low end horsepower in the Si, and think the car sucks because of that, they're missing the boat entirely. And the Si gets 23/32.