Cars

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

Car reviewers only really care about go fast and shiny, unless it's Consumer Reports, in which case what they care about can't really be predicted.

[random axe]

unless it's Consumer Reports, in which case what they care about can't really be predicted.

I know!  I eventually gave up on them for the most part because their review criteria are so frequently so bizarre.  Reliability projections based on repair histories, yes.  Usable cargo space, sure.  Awkward tailgate, yes.  But sometimes they downgrade a car because it's hard to get a folding wheelchair and two golf bags in the trunk, and, honestly, not many of us need to do that too frequently.

I'm also still mad at them because the flat-out by-a-million-percent best microwave I ever owned, they downgraded (a lot!) because they felt the automatic popcorn button was confusing.  That microwave was the only one I ever had that actually worked the way we were always promised microwaves would work -- it thawed properly, it automatically reheated things magically perfectly, it boiled water in no time flat.  And the popcorn button worked the exact same way as every other microwave's automatic popcorn button that I've ever seen . . . and, seriously, how badly do you even NEED that button?  Is it that hard?

Mrrrr . . . .

Car magazines are mostly useless.  They're almost all nothing but low-variety car porn.  It's sad, but Popular Mechanics has more good car articles than Car and Driver.  I only need to read so many articles about cars (mostly pretty damned ugly cars packed with features I don't want and wouldn't use) costing over $50k that go 0-60 in under six seconds and are usually proclaimed 'too slow'. 

And, frankly, the photography and layout of the car magazines I see nowadays are WAY too 'creative'.  I don't mind if you want to do 'arty' pictures that are strangely cropped and from bizarre angles, but I'd like, at some point, to get a good idea of what the car looks like.  And doing things like having four capsule reviews snake around four counter-intuitively placed photos, with different-colored lines leading from each review to the picture that's supposed to go with it . . .

Just stop.  Seriously. 

And knock off the endless editorials about how global warming is fake and there's plenty of oil and speed limits are the work of Hitler.  Just shut up.  I don't care what you think and don't want to hear about how self-entitled you are to drive twenty miles an hour over the speed limit because you're a really good driver.  Or your column about how you really loved the beat-up K car you had when you were eighteen.  I've already heard that one.  Jay Leno's funny / nostalgic car stories make you sound like too many overripe mangos finding their way out of a monkey.

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

And knock off the endless editorials about how global warming is fake and there's plenty of oil and speed limits are the work of Hitler.  Just shut up.  I don't care what you think and don't want to hear about how self-entitled you are to drive twenty miles an hour over the speed limit because you're a really good driver.  Or your column about how you really loved the beat-up K car you had when you were eighteen.  I've already heard that one.  Jay Leno's funny / nostalgic car stories make you sound like too many overripe mangos finding their way out of a monkey.

I'm going to quote you on this. COPIOUSLY.

[mybabysmomma]

I only ever use consumer reviews about cars.  I couldn't give a crap what someone getting paid is saying about much of anything I want to buy.  I want to know from people who have bought it and used it.

[SANMAN]

My Maserati does one eighty five,
I lost my license, now I don't drive.
I have a limo, ride in the back.
I lock the doors in case I'm attacked.

[random axe]

Per the NY Times:

- 1984 base Mustang had a sad 88 HP engine and got 26 MPG on the highway.

- The current base Mustang (as well as being much better-looking) has a 305 HP engine, weighs 900 lb more, and gets 31 MPG on the highway.

Exactly as it should be.    I didn't compare the prices in constant dollars, but regardless.  Oh, the current base Mustang will also do 0-60 in almost 5.5 seconds and run the quarter mile in 14 seconds.

[feffer]

Punk wants the new Mustang sooooooo bad.

[random axe]

It's a damned improvement over many of the Mustangs of the last 30 years and a pretty solid all-around car, considering, but for people with kids the Charger might be more appropriate, what with the doors.  And the Mustang's grill isn't right, although rally lights disguise that.  It also looks a little plasticky with some gloss paint jobs.  Sheet metal should look like metal if you want it shiny. 

[random axe]

Friend sent me the link for an NY Times review of the new 911 convertible.

OK, for me, this car is on the edge of reprehensible.  It's a $160k two-seater, which to me is roughly equivalent to a solid-gold toilet.  It's just a colossal misuse of money, even if it's an amazing piece of engineering, which it is -- this is a controllable car that can go 0-60 in under three seconds, and you don't even have to shift if you don't want to.  Still, you can get an AMG Mercedes sport wagon that'll hit 60 in about four seconds for that much money and have enough left over for a kickass Mustang besides.

But the review is pretty funny.

Step on the gas and the 3.8-liter flat 6 makes a noise as if someone opened a drain at the bottom of the ocean — a great stereophonic gargle of suction as the turbochargers try to inhale oxygen from adjacent time zones. Internal-combustion engines are basically air pumps, and this one is particularly good at what it does. A pair of 911 Turbos drag-racing in Los Angeles could stall a weather system over Nebraska.

With Porsche’s blessing, I took the Turbo Cab to my local drag strip and nearly got kicked out after the first run — for speeding, essentially.

At this strip, convertibles need a roll bar if they’re running quicker than a 14-second quarter-mile. Knowing this, I hit the brakes before the end of the run, in an attempt to sandbag my time. But I still ran a 12.8-second quarter — at 75 m.p.h. That’s crazy. A Dodge Challenger SRT8, with a 425-hp Hemi V8, is a 13-second car. And the Turbo is quicker than that with the brakes on.

  See, now you're just being ridiculous.  Also, would it kill you, Porsche, to put pop-up roll bars on the thing?  It's been done before.  Safety is a major feature when you build a car that can achieve escape velocity by accident.

[random axe]

D'oh!  California's labyrinthine and seemingly not very well thought out rules have decided that the Chevy Volt doesn't qualify for the tax rebates or carpool-lane privileges awarded to hybrids and electric cars.  This is purely stupid and not good for anyone. 

It basically screws the Volt, too, by killing a $3000-$5000 incentive to buy one out there.  The Volt is actually a much more practical car than the much ballyhooed Nissan Leaf and to a large extent more impressive than even the improved Toyota Prius, but it's about $5000 too expensive, even with the federal tax break.  The CA bonuses would've given it a real shot in the arm.

To give you an idea of the dumbness . . . you can drive 40 miles per day in the Volt without using any gas, and you can even drive on the highway in all-electric mode.  But it has a tailpipe, so it doesn't qualify as an electric vehicle, and the hybrid rules are written to favor hybrids that have to run their gas engine at highway speeds.  The Prius qualifies because its motor and batteries won't do all-electric on the highway.

I don't know why the CA legislature went to the time and trouble of trying to map out exact regulations before the cars even existed.  It would've been far better (faster, cheaper, more effective, more functional, less deeply deeply embarrassing) to set up general guidelines and create a commission to approve vehicles on a model by model basis.

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

Uh, yeah, you got that from Fark? I think there was some of the obligatory outrage there.

Truth is the HOV-lane sticker-for-hybrid-and-electric-vehicles thing was supposed to be temporary, and it's expiring. They aren't issuing new stickers to anyone, let alone Volts. There's talk about renewing the program, but there's ferocious whining from the car lobby and the usual ferociously whining bastards on the road and what is more likely is that they'll abolish car pool lanes entirely because that is the kind of shit they do.

As for tax breaks, well, those will probably be restored because it falls right in with the state Republican party's mission to eliminate all sources of public income.

[feffer]

The Volt isn't even being launched in CA yet.  We in the west are getting the Leaf first.

[random axe]

I saw it somewhere else first and then glanced at the Fark link but didn't hit the comments.  

there's ferocious whining from the car lobby and the usual ferociously whining bastards

They're just mad because they don't carpool.  Seriously, do voters and politicians not taking bribes not realize that the car lobby has kind of a vested interest in every person buying their own giant car?  Everyone who's ever stuck in traffic should love HOV lanes.  If you don't use them, so what?  If three other asswipes are carpooling, that's three cars not in your way.

They need to change the names of the lanes, is what they need.  Express Lanes, or something.  Or if electric vehicles, high-occupancy vehicles, etc, are less taxing on the whole infrastructure, give them lanes that skip tollbooths.

I've often thought that more people would buy hybrids if they got a thing for their keyfob that made them not have to pay tax on the gas they bought.  Even if they had to go inside the gas station to pay, or if only some gas stations participated.  I know it may seem stupid, but buying less gas might not be as much of an incentive as paying 60 cents less per gallon that they still have to buy.

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

voters and politicians not taking bribes

I don't believe they exist

[random axe]

Well, I mean bribes from the car lobby.  Most lobbies don't bribe everyone.  They're like sports teams; they pick and choose the players they want to draft based on different strategies.

/need a backup point guard and a junior conservative hawk