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Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-05-02, 20:57

I still can't believe there isn't much criticism of the BRZ/FR-S being a rebadge. If GM did that, you know the media and everyone will be going on about it, etc.

giggity
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Chinney
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
 
2012-05-03, 08:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqtly View Post
It's funny, I agree with you in principle, but Toyota is the company, along with Subaru, that made this happen:



And that car (Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ) is what pretty much everybody is calling the purest driver's car in decades. Sure seems like they'd be able to take some of that engineering focus and aim it towards the Prius, right?
It must be that Subaru supplied the drivability aspects.

Actually, I must say that my Legacy Wagon is the nicest car to drive that I have owned. Too bad that they discontinued it. Subaru now mostly sells SUVs for the North American market. I think that their sales are still strong, but their technology is not heading in a direction that interests me.

When there's an eel in the lake that's as long as a snake that's a moray.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2012-05-04, 11:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by Quagmire View Post
I still can't believe there isn't much criticism of the BRZ/FR-S being a rebadge. If GM did that, you know the media and everyone will be going on about it, etc.
Getting preemptively defensive? GM has made decent strides in past years and I'm pretty sure we've collectively bashed Toyota in recent years for becoming increasingly like Detroit of old and less like the stereotypical efficient Japanese manufacturer. Still a rebadge here and there isn't necessarily the end of the world. It's when you take it to the extreme like GM did in the 90s and early 00s.
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Xaqtly
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-05-04, 13:39

Quote:
Originally Posted by Quagmire View Post
I still can't believe there isn't much criticism of the BRZ/FR-S being a rebadge. If GM did that, you know the media and everyone will be going on about it, etc.
I'm not sure what you mean by calling it a "rebadge" - this is an entirely new car, jointly developed by Toyota and Subaru. Subaru provided the engine, the manufacturing and the design, Toyota provided the engineering and the DI fuel system. The Scion is not a rebadged Subaru, nor the other way around.
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Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-05-04, 14:14

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqtly View Post
I'm not sure what you mean by calling it a "rebadge" - this is an entirely new car, jointly developed by Toyota and Subaru. Subaru provided the engine, the manufacturing and the design, Toyota provided the engineering and the DI fuel system. The Scion is not a rebadged Subaru, nor the other way around.
In that the design of the exterior and interior is pretty much the same.









You already provided the interior shots.

Yes, while Subaru didn't take a Toyota and rebadged it as their own or vice versa and they both developed it together, they are rebadges when it comes to design. There might be some design tweaks between the two, but they are largely still the same design. They weren't differentiated enough.

giggity
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Xaqtly
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-05-04, 15:55

Um... yes, as I said it was jointly developed between the two companies. That is not even close to being the same thing as a rebadge. The Pontiac GTO was a rebadge, because it's a Holden Monaro with different badges on it. The Dodge Dart is a rebadged Mitsubishi Galant.

The FR-S/BRZ are each respective company's version of the product they developed together. Neither one of them is a rebadge of the other, because a rebadged car, by it's very nature, assumes that it is a previously-existing car that has been rebadged to sell under a different name.

That's not the case here. This car has had design input and contributions from both companies. They both own it. "Rebadge" is absolutely the wrong word to use to describe them. If you're complaining that they look the same... well yeah. They're the same car. It really sounds to me like you're fishing for things to complain about, incorrectly calling it a rebadge is really stretching it.

And GM does rebadge cars, all the time. Most of their cars are rebadges. Even my car is like that, it's the Sigma II platform and the CTS is a Holden in Australia.
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Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-05-04, 16:56

Holden's RWD vehicles ride on Zeta( as does Camaro), not Sigma. If you meant the CTS being sold in Australia as a Holden, no it isn't. It's still sold as a Cadillac.

The Buick Regal and 2013 Chevy Malibu is the same car. Both on SWB Epsilon II, can you tell they ride on the same platform? How about the Infiniti G and 370z? How about the Camry and ES350?

There is a difference between platform sharing and a rebadge. Subaru and Toyota could have easily done more to differentiate their respective vehicles on the same platform if they were going to sell both versions in the same market.

I am also not saying rebadging is bad all the time. GM rebadging Holden's( which GM owns) to sell in the US is fine. Honda does the same with Acura. Rebadging Euro Honda's as Acura for the US market. But, if they sold the Commodore as a Chevy and Pontiac with the only difference being the bow tie and kidney grill in the same market, then rebadging is a bad thing.

giggity

Last edited by Quagmire : 2012-05-04 at 17:22.
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addison
Formerly “AWM”
 
Join Date: May 2009
 
2012-05-04, 17:38

Isn't the Dart based on an Alfa platform?
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Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-05-11, 15:50

Carroll Shelby has passed away.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2012-05-11, 16:41

Sad day today.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2012-05-11, 17:26

This is going to make Xaqtly cringe:

There's one fewer (intact) CTS-V wagon in the world.
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Sauvblanc
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Mel-Bun!
 
2012-06-23, 23:08

Apologies for resurrecting an old-ish thread, and also whether this has already been discussed. Not sure I can bear to go through 37 pages of comments...

I was looking at a 2007 Subaru Forester yesterday. It was actually fun to drive (at least compared to the Honda CR-V I tried right afterwards). It's in my price range. The only thing that gives me pause is that it has nearly 200,000 km (~120K miles) on the odometer. Supposedly it's been well maintained (need to verify the service records) and had a major service done at 189,000 km (brakes, timing belts, driveshaft, etc...). If I do decide to get this car, I plan to get the RACV (AAA equivalent) to give the car the once-over before finalising the deal.

Should I be wary of the high odometer reading given the age of the car? Should I look for a slightly older model with fewer kms?

I've spent the last hour looking online on the young car high mileage question and the gist I'm getting is that as long as the car has been meticulously maintained with regular service intervals including oil changes, the car should still have a lot of life left in it. However, at that mileage a lot of things might need replacing or overhauling and this could add to the cost of ownership considerably.

I only plan on driving it on weekends to the beach (~100 km return trip) for scuba diving with the occasional longer trip, so don't plan on doing any really hard driving.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

Specialists are people who know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. Generalists are people who know less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything. I'm somewhere in the middle.
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Xaqtly
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-06-24, 00:26

Yep, when you're at 120k miles all bets are off pretty much. The Forester is generally a very reliable car, my Subaru Legacy was still very nearly perfect at 92k miles. Just make sure you have the basics taken care of on the long term wear items like the timing belt (or chain... not sure which the Forester has), but honestly because it's only 5 years old I wouldn't expect things like bushings or hoses to be going bad yet.

Because of that I'd say you're probably in a better position than you might be with other cars that have 120k on them. Just keep an eye out for common wear-based issues, like the shocks, brakes, things that wear out via use rather than age.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-06-24, 07:27

It also depends very much on how the car was driven. If those 200,000 km were mostly accumulated at 100 km/hr in top gear on slick asphalt, driven by a careful driver who doesn't mangle the gearbox or drag the brakes every ten seconds, the car will be far fresher than another one that spent its life in traffic or on bumpy country roads with a reckless driver at the helm.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-06-24, 07:42

By the way, I have a question too. I like to clean my own car inside (because valet services don't reliably do a good job), but because I live in a first-floor flat it's impossible to plug in a vacuum cleaner. I was thinking of getting either a cordless vacuum cleaner or one that's powered off the 12-volt cigarette lighter socket. Are these worth trying or are they uselessly weak?
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addison
Formerly “AWM”
 
Join Date: May 2009
 
2012-06-24, 19:04

Subarus have had problems with head gaskets over time that may or may not include MY 2007 cars. You might want to look into it. The fix is expensive so you might want to take it into consideration when making an offer.
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addison
Formerly “AWM”
 
Join Date: May 2009
 
2012-09-04, 21:27

VW took the wraps off of the Golf 7. Evolutionary for sure. Like most of its competitors it's a little bigger and a good deal lighter. The interior has definitely taken a more Audi like design with the center stack angled a bit towards the driver. Lots of nice powertrain options too, most of which we won't see here in the US.







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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-09-05, 03:24

The engineering is undoubtedly impressive (the low-end model weighs 1050 kg, which is pretty light for such a big and stiff car), but this has to be the most conservative Golf yet. Anyone but a car geek would be hard-pushed to spot the differences between this and the Mark 6.

By my reckoning, the design is also ugly in places. That horrible, small, fat, flat-bottomed steering wheel, for instance. What is it with steering wheels these days? The flat bottom is inexcusable in any car, and fat, small wheels belong in rally cars, not family cars.

If drivers want to pretend they’re rallying, they could start by shoving their seat forward by about six inches, so they have a hope of controlling the wheel quickly and precisely. I’ve seen so many guys poke fun at their girlfriend/wife/anonymous woman on the road for sitting too close to the steering wheel. No: you sit too far from the wheel. By about a mile. Do you think you look cool with your arm stretched out straight to reach the wheel? Maybe you do, but don't do that and simultaneously pretend you know how to drive. Amateur.

Back to the Mark 7. I heard that the entry-level model will have torsion-beam suspension. A Volkswagen Golf with an expensive (albeit not entirely successful) interior, but torsion-beam suspension? Are Golf buyers now so disinterested in driving that they’ll buy that?
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2012-09-05, 04:01

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
If drivers want to pretend they’re rallying, they could start by shoving their seat forward by about six inches, so they have a hope of controlling the wheel quickly and precisely. I’ve seen so many guys poke fun at their girlfriend/wife/anonymous woman on the road for sitting too close to the steering wheel. No: you sit too far from the wheel. By about a mile. Do you think you look cool with your arm stretched out straight to reach the wheel? Maybe you do, but don't do that and simultaneously pretend you know how to drive. Amateur.
Ridiculously cramped driver position is sort of a throwback to earlier days. Only some drivers still do this...and of course they also have short throw shifters, 5 point restraints and HANS devices. If I sit that way in a normal car, I imagine an airbag deployment would completely miss my head rather than hit both my head/chest.

F1 or Indy car drivers obviously sit in a severely reclined position due to the design of the cars...





It looks like Foust sits farther back, Block closer to the wheel. The position of the wheel is relatively higher than most people prefer as well.

EDIT: The front seats *are* reclined past way past the B-pillar. It was probably done to make the interior look more spacious.

Last edited by Eugene : 2012-09-05 at 11:56.
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addison
Formerly “AWM”
 
Join Date: May 2009
 
2012-09-05, 09:14

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
The engineering is undoubtedly impressive (the low-end model weighs 1050 kg, which is pretty light for such a big and stiff car), but this has to be the most conservative Golf yet. Anyone but a car geek would be hard-pushed to spot the differences between this and the Mark 6.

By my reckoning, the design is also ugly in places. That horrible, small, fat, flat-bottomed steering wheel, for instance. What is it with steering wheels these days? The flat bottom is inexcusable in any car, and fat, small wheels belong in rally cars, not family cars.

If drivers want to pretend they’re rallying, they could start by shoving their seat forward by about six inches, so they have a hope of controlling the wheel quickly and precisely. I’ve seen so many guys poke fun at their girlfriend/wife/anonymous woman on the road for sitting too close to the steering wheel. No: you sit too far from the wheel. By about a mile. Do you think you look cool with your arm stretched out straight to reach the wheel? Maybe you do, but don't do that and simultaneously pretend you know how to drive. Amateur.

Back to the Mark 7. I heard that the entry-level model will have torsion-beam suspension. A Volkswagen Golf with an expensive (albeit not entirely successful) interior, but torsion-beam suspension? Are Golf buyers now so disinterested in driving that they’ll buy that?
VW styling has always been conservative. It's what makes their cars age well in my opinion. I look at my eleven year old Jetta and it still looks modern. Compare that to some of the edgier designs from others and they look good for a few years then seem dated.

Totally agree about the flat bottom steering wheel. Not sure it's standard though. The car in the pics is pretty well optioned. I did see it has an electronic parking brake as standard which I could do without. The beam axle out back is probably standard except for the GTI. I'm guessing on that though. Don't think it matters. I've driven the new Jetta with one and it handles fine. It's not the end of the world that auto writers want you to believe. They need to cut costs to compete and they choose to do things like this. It's always been hard for them but they have no choice.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-11-25, 14:12

Achim Anscheidt, Bugatti head of design, on his stripped-down Porsche 911 job. Tasteful, über-cool, and 820 kg (1800 lb).
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Dave
Ninja Editor
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bay Area, CA
 
2012-11-25, 15:53

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
Achim Anscheidt, Bugatti head of design, on his stripped-down Porsche 911 job. Tasteful, über-cool, and 820 kg (1800 lb).
I wonder how a more modern 911 would react to that treatment?
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Xaqtly
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-12-07, 11:57

On the Cadillac forums, rumor is that the 2013 CTS-V wagon will be the last one. There are no plans for a wagon version of the upcoming all new 2014 CTS-V, there will only be a sedan and a coupe. Or a saloon and a coupé for you weird people in Europe. The good news is that the new CTS-V should be an even better car performance wise, it'll be built on the new ATS platform and it will lose a significant amount of weight, possibly 500-600 lbs.

But for those of us who like performance wagons - or performance estates for the Euros again - this is disappointing. The CTS-V is the only performance wagon you can buy in the US with a proper manual transmission. My long term plan was actually to trade mine in on a next-gen V wagon some time down the road. I would love to have the option to buy something like an Audi RS6 Avant, but they're not sold in the US and even if they were they would cost $120,000 or so. You can get an E63 AMG wagon in the US but again, no manual transmission, over $100,000, and handling isn't as good as the CTS-V.

One thing about Europe, there is no shortage of great estate cars. Cadillac say they're discontinuing the CTS-V wagon due to low sales, but the consensus seems to be that the low sales they're talking about are actually the normal CTS wagon, not the V model. And that's too bad because they've been making profit on the V wagon since it was released in 2011.
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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-12-07, 16:08

I love the old air cooled 911's. There's something simple, beautiful and durable about them. Especially when all the extra racy visual pollution is stripped away. I hope I can own one one day. It remains just accessible enough for an enthusiast to buy and set right, though it would take years to do, that's just part of the fun...

.........................................
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-12-07, 17:13

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave View Post
I wonder how a more modern 911 would react to that treatment?
Wouldn’t start with the heater removed? (I’ve no idea, really.)

I love air-cooled 911s too, Matsu. I liked them when I was ten years old, and I still like them, mostly for the reasons you list.

Xaqtly, almost all the estates/wagons in Europe are lumbering diesels. There are a few exceptions (still diesel, but fast), but people who buy them typically need the space for dogs, kids, wetsuits, etc. I suppose Americans prefer SUVs for those things, since fuel is cheaper in America. In any case, they’re rarely bought for fun, so they rarely have fun engines.

An extreme example was the first diesel car my family had, a seven-seat Renault 21 Savanna estate. This great hearse of a thing had a 1.9-litre naturally aspirated diesel that made 60 horsepower on a cold day, took darned near half an hour to warm up, and enveloped the neighbourhood in smoke in the meantime. The engine was unburstable—it sounded like something from a trawler—but the bodywork was flimsy, and the handling was dominated by the usual massive understeer associated with diesel estates.

They’re a bit better today, I’m sure.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-12-27, 15:00

Does anyone here have a ScanGauge? My car doesn’t have a water/coolant temp gauge, which is pretty annoying. I’d also like to know exactly when the oxygen sensor disconnects at large throttle openings, the battery voltage, and the intake air temp, not to mention instantaneous fuel consumption. General geeky stuff like that.

I was thinking of the ScanGaugeE. Any objections?
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2012-12-28, 06:27

So after test driving a 2013 Ford Fusion, I'm going to go ahead and say it's the far and away best ~$20-30K large/midsize sedan. It just does certain things that matter to me way better than competitors like the Accord, Camry, Passat.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-12-28, 16:21

What things matter to you?
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hmurchison
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: LV 426
Send a message via ICQ to hmurchison  
2012-12-28, 18:00

On a collision course with a Tesla Model X.

Car lust has taken over.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2012-12-28, 18:17

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
What things matter to you?
Styling, ride quality/handling (how German does it feel, basically), cabin noise, driver's seat comfort, fit/finish. The minuses are the engine is slightly underpowered and fuel efficiency isn't class leading.
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