Older guy, kind of an "ex-hippy", I think the historical context meant a lot to him, though he's also kind of a gear head, his other car is a Corvette.
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Older guy, kind of an "ex-hippy", I think the historical context meant a lot to him, though he's also kind of a gear head, his other car is a Corvette.
Now Apple has me doing a full restore from iTunes. I really have to consider not using the bluetooth in my car, which is infuriating.
A now long dead family friend had a Bug here, I think. He was quite the jolly hippy until he passed. Not the stereotypical hippy, but one nonetheless and quite active in his later years. Which was rather ironic given his previous almost life career.
I personally think the new Bug isn't bad but you wouldn't catch me driving one. RE Bluetooth: My wife's iPhone is sketchy with her Merc's bluetooth. But car bluetooth is sketchy in general simply because it's a terrible way to connect your phone. I'm trying to remember and up and coming technology after Bluetooth but I can't at the moment. It does, if I recall correctly, solved BT's many problems. But for the moments, BT 5.0 is supposed to support a theoretical 100 Mbits transfer speed, which is about 17 MB/s if I'm doing the math right. Take away overhead and you might be left with 13-14.5 MB/s. Assuming the device you're using and the radio system in your car eats up some bandwidth.
I'm going back to bed. It's too early in the morning to do math.
I personally think the new Bug isn't bad but you wouldn't catch me driving one. RE Bluetooth: My wife's iPhone is sketchy with her Merc's bluetooth. But car bluetooth is sketchy in general simply because it's a terrible way to connect your phone. I'm trying to remember and up and coming technology after Bluetooth but I can't at the moment. It does, if I recall correctly, solved BT's many problems. But for the moments, BT 5.0 is supposed to support a theoretical 100 Mbits transfer speed, which is about 17 MB/s if I'm doing the math right. Take away overhead and you might be left with 13-14.5 MB/s. Assuming the device you're using and the radio system in your car eats up some bandwidth.
I'm going back to bed. It's too early in the morning to do math.
One of these days, I'd love to have a Morris Minor. One of the downsides to them, though, is how often people mistake them for Beetles
The local shop doing the MGA for me a Minor convertible sitting up on a shelf. I'd entertained buying on it, but decided that the A is a much better choice . Since I passed on it, the car is going to be his daughter's first car. It's a first generation Minor, which means that it has a 1L(or I think actually 984cc) side valve engine. Depending on the references you check, the 0-60 time is either given as 59 seconds or -. Needless to say, it has four wheel drums, and the drums are about the diameter of a CD.
That aside, it does have Trafficators, and there's something very endearing about those to me. That aside, I also love the "Britishness" of the Minor.
The local shop doing the MGA for me a Minor convertible sitting up on a shelf. I'd entertained buying on it, but decided that the A is a much better choice
. Since I passed on it, the car is going to be his daughter's first car. It's a first generation Minor, which means that it has a 1L(or I think actually 984cc) side valve engine. Depending on the references you check, the 0-60 time is either given as 59 seconds or -. Needless to say, it has four wheel drums, and the drums are about the diameter of a CD. That aside, it does have Trafficators, and there's something very endearing about those to me. That aside, I also love the "Britishness" of the Minor.
@EnderBeta - thought we might as well pick up this conversation in a more appropriate place than a PRSI immigration thread. Welcome to the car thread.
You might be surprised to know that living in New England we are well aquainted with snow. I have a set of snow tires and a set of all seasons. I never put the all seasons on last winter and did just fine. The past few winters my GF has switched her Volvo with her father's spare car, a Land Cruiser. Just for those really bad days.
In a car like a BMW, you can go with RWD or AWD. RWD is awful in the snow. FWD- people manage generally pretty well. AWD performs the best obviously. As long as you're not driving through snow banks you're fine. But even SUVs and Trucks have ground clearances to get hung upon. I will confess I miss my old 2003 Grand Cherokee with the HO V8 and Quadradrive. That was a beast in the snow. It's hard to get a true 4wd system with low range and front and rear locking diffs.
I'm sure because you have a pickup you can drive 80mph down the highway in the snow
You might be surprised to know that living in New England we are well aquainted with snow. I have a set of snow tires and a set of all seasons. I never put the all seasons on last winter and did just fine. The past few winters my GF has switched her Volvo with her father's spare car, a Land Cruiser. Just for those really bad days.
In a car like a BMW, you can go with RWD or AWD. RWD is awful in the snow. FWD- people manage generally pretty well. AWD performs the best obviously. As long as you're not driving through snow banks you're fine. But even SUVs and Trucks have ground clearances to get hung upon. I will confess I miss my old 2003 Grand Cherokee with the HO V8 and Quadradrive. That was a beast in the snow. It's hard to get a true 4wd system with low range and front and rear locking diffs.
I'm sure because you have a pickup you can drive 80mph down the highway in the snow
I hail from Michigan transplanted to Virginia. Been driving in snow from the start.@EnderBeta - thought we might as well pick up this conversation in a more appropriate place than a PRSI immigration thread. Welcome to the car thread.
You might be surprised to know that living in New England we are well aquainted with snow. I have a set of snow tires and a set of all seasons. I never put the all seasons on last winter and did just fine. The past few winters my GF has switched her Volvo with her father's spare car, a Land Cruiser. Just for those really bad days.
In a car like a BMW, you can go with RWD or AWD. RWD is awful in the snow. FWD- people manage generally pretty well. AWD performs the best obviously. As long as you're not driving through snow banks you're fine. But even SUVs and Trucks have ground clearances to get hung upon. I will confess I miss my old 2003 Grand Cherokee with the HO V8 and Quadradrive. That was a beast in the snow. It's hard to get a true 4wd system with low range and front and rear locking diffs.
I'm sure because you have a pickup you can drive 80mph down the highway in the snow
No one drives 80 miles an hour down a highway in the snow. At least anyone that will make it to a ripe old age anyways.
However what you can do with a truck like ours is plow through snow drifts and not worry if the snow is more then a few inches tall. Back around 2011 we had a huge snow storm that caught the people on 495 by surprise. The truck we had at the time was able to drive down the backroads and through the snowed in 267 toll road and get us home while people in cars that had AWD badges got snowed in. This is why I'm trading in my Lexus for a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit. I drive a 2011 IS 250 AWD. It's paid off runs ok. The interior as alright but I want something new after the last 5 years. I plan to trade it in for a 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit 4x4 5.7L HEMI. The interior is to die for and it will handle the snow better.
@EnderBeta - thought we might as well pick up this conversation in a more appropriate place than a PRSI immigration thread. Welcome to the car thread.
You might be surprised to know that living in New England we are well aquainted with snow. I have a set of snow tires and a set of all seasons. I never put the all seasons on last winter and did just fine. The past few winters my GF has switched her Volvo with her father's spare car, a Land Cruiser. Just for those really bad days.
In a car like a BMW, you can go with RWD or AWD. RWD is awful in the snow. FWD- people manage generally pretty well. AWD performs the best obviously. As long as you're not driving through snow banks you're fine. But even SUVs and Trucks have ground clearances to get hung upon. I will confess I miss my old 2003 Grand Cherokee with the HO V8 and Quadradrive. That was a beast in the snow. It's hard to get a true 4wd system with low range and front and rear locking diffs.
I'm sure because you have a pickup you can drive 80mph down the highway in the snow
I agree, except for the SUV part. Overall, low clearance does not mean bad in the snow. All these pickups and SUVs with high clearance end up being too heavy to properly drive in the snow. They have too much momentum for even the best snow tires to control, and they're too heavy for the wheels to lift the entire car over a snowbank.
I used to drive a Saab 9-2x (aka Saabaru for the initiated, aka Subaru Impreza RS with slightly better trim and a some WRX components for the uninitiated) in Boston, around the suburbs, and up to the White Mountains in NH. I had winter tires on it, not studded, on 17" wheels. And Subaru's AWD naturally.
(shown with summer tires)
A few winters ago, when we had those awful two months of seemingly non-stop snow, it was great. I parked in the street then. I would regularly see SUVs or pickups stuck in the snow. My neighbor had a grand cherokee that he had to shovel out all the time, all the way to the pavement often, or else it would not get over the snowbanks. "Mud and track" tires did not help.
The little Saabaru would was unstoppable. Never got stuck. Rarely lost traction. Shoveling was not necessary ever. I would brush the snow off the roof, the hood, and the windows, and just go. I would plow right through any snowbank and never got stuck. This also effectively saved my spot, as no other car would get into it without the owner first shoveling it out. Meanwhile, I could get back into my old spot, or any other spot.
I loved the look of my jeep-driving neighbor as he watched me with a hot beverage in hand casually clear the snow from my car with one hand, get in, and go in under 3 minutes, while he was stuck shoveling for close to 45 minutes.
Driving up to ski in NH, you often see Civics, SUVs, and pickups that ran off the road into a ditch. These accidents suck, and I do feel bad for those folks. I almost never see a Subaru or an Audi Quattro in that sort of accident. Maybe those drivers are just self-selected to be smarter in the snow, or maybe their vehicles are actually just plainly better in the snow.
Granted I did break the front-spoiler air dam thing on the bumper from plowing over snowbanks. It was a relatively cheap fix. Also, driving through very big snowbanks would clog the ABS sensors with snow and they would not work until the snow melted from the heat of the brakes. Small issues though.
TL;DR - Lightweight AWD beats SUVs and pickups in the snow. Lots of terribly snowy New England winters confirm this.
I hail from Michigan transplanted to Virginia. Been driving in snow from the start.
No one drives 80 miles an hour down a highway in the snow. At least anyone that will make it to a ripe old age anyways.
This is why I'm trading in my Lexus for a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit. I drive a 2011 IS 250 AWD. It's paid off runs ok. The interior as alright but I want something new after the last 5 years. I plan to trade it in for a 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit 4x4 5.7L HEMI. The interior is to die for and it will handle the snow better.
My point was there are idiots that drive too fast for conditions and think they can handle it because they have a truck/SUV or AWD/4WD. AWD primarily just helps with traction getting moving and recovering from sliding. But then again if you don't have good tires, all bets are of. See comments on ground clearance below.
I was looking at a new Grand Cherokee myself to replace my 5-series. Overall it's a nice package but there's some major drawbacks that have turned be against it.
1) Fiat-Chrysler ownership- awful company.
2) Reliability ratings have tanked with the brand.
3) Interior quality, too much parts sharing. Same bits and peices are found in the $12k Dart to a $50k JGC to $100k Maserati. A little disappointing. Not a big fan on the bronze trim work. I hate their all in one left steering wheel stalls- L/R turn signal, headlight control, wiper controls- too much in one place. Idk why that bothers me.
4) Its nearly impossible to find a V8 or my ideal preference 6cyl EcoDiesel option. From what I can discern 98% on dealer lots are the V6 model which I am been impressed with. (I've been spoiled with the BMW I know!)
5) The EcoDiesel engine evidently doesn't have a great track record.
6) Getting a V8 or diesel would probably require a special order to get what I want
6) I'd prefer Brown leather, used to be available on the Overland, now only the Summit. The Summit has a bit too much exterior bling for me. It's also now getting $60k price range which is way more than I think that car is worth.
7) Haven't found a dealer I love in this area. The two I've been too we're too high pressure sketchy with sales. My sister out in Seattle was given a JGC Summit lease price with $12,000 down off the b(insulting!)
8) Poor resale.
Unless the snow is like a deep pile of compressed snow at the end of a driveway, I've had no real problems with ground clearance with my car or any other one for that matter. 2 years ago we had 7ft of snow in 1 month, craziness. I never had an issue making it through deep snow. If I attempted to drive through a snow bank or snow that had settled, that would be an issue. Fresh powerder though, no real issues.
Weight is a big factor too. In my opinion too light is not sufficient for good traction. Too heavy means if you start to slide you're SOL. A good weight balance is important. What I didn't like about my old WJ Grand Cherokee was it was way too front heavy. My brothers Disco and near 50/50 weight distribution, same with my Dad's RRS. Both therefore felt much more secure.
I agree about Fiat-Chrysler. I would not buy anything from them right now.
Have you looked at the new Jaguar F-Pace? Or any Jags for that matter? Most (if not all) of them come with a diesel now, and usually it is the least expensive trim.
It's a 2L 4-cyl diesel. Sure it seems small. But 180hp, 318lb-ft, is pretty respectable. Estimate is 29mpg combined, but our friends in the UK that have had this engine longer report getting much better economy than that, so likely this estimate is on the low side.
3,913lbs curb weight isn't bad for an SUV this size and luxury trim, indeed it can be even called light for a 186in SUV. It's only a bit heavier than a CRV. The low weight is likely due to the smaller engine.
It also comes with a 340hp V6.
I test-drove the car. It's nice. Unlike the Land Rovers, this car's AWD has a heavy rear-wheel preference. It feels like a mercedes sedan on dry pavement (meaning, sporty but heavy). Have not tried it in the snow yet.
Trucks are probably worse than RWD cars in the snow because they have no weight over the rear wheels unless you put stuff in the truck bed to get weight onto the rear axle.
I've been telling @A.Goldberg to buy the F-Pace for months. Apparently he doesn't want to be seen in a Jaaaaaag
Side note, the diesel in that car is a no go for me. I want the TD6 from the RR/RRS, but not happening in the US
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I've been telling @A.Goldberg to buy an F-Pace for months now. Apparently he doesn't want to be seen in a Jaaaaaag
Side note, the diesel in that car is a no go for me. I want the TD6 from the RR/RRS, but not happening in the US
Ah, ok. I test drove the F-Pace a few times and I like it a lot. It has a few issues though that make me want to hold off until the mid-cycle refresh or the maybe even the next revision.
First, despite being decently sized from the exterior, the trunk is surprisingly tight. I blame safety requirements, as all trunks are shrinking. But they can keep cars and keep trunks large-ish in cars Acuras and BMWs, I'm sure Jag can figure it out too eventually.
Second, the seats are very comfortable, but the armrests are oddly placed. In particular, the arm rest on the door seems to be too far from the seat. I have to lean to the side to use it. I don't think I have small T-Rex arms, but it feels like it in that car.
Yeah, the interior is low-rent for the price.
Interesting. I actually thought the F-Pace was the perfect size. Second row space closer to the X3, and the trunk closer to my X5.
The ones in Land Rover products are fantastic.
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Wow, it's crazy how many Mass folk we have on here
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Yeah, I don't think you see any major difference between full-time AWD systems these days. xDrive, Torsen Quattro, Symmetrical AWD, 4MATIC...
The ones that really struggle in the winter are the half-assed systems like in the CRV, where it's FWD until slip is sensed.
Haldex systems tend to be front-biased too, but they almost never stop sending (some) power to the rear axle.
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The ones in Land Rover products are fantastic.
I've rarely had a center arm-rest I didn't like. It's the one on the door of the F-pace that I don't like. The one that you would rest your left arm on.
Massholes!Wow, it's crazy how many Mass folk we have on here
I think you're right that the European companies have pretty much caught up to or even surpassed Subaru's system by now. Subaru used to be great, but now it's just average. In terms of drive-train, they have stagnated in technology. Other than the CVT, a Subaru drive-train today is not significantly different than a SUbaru drive-train 15 years ago. And most would agree the CVT is a step backwards in many ways.
The Asian companies just don't seem to care about AWD. To them, it's just a badge they need to slap on to the car in snowy states.
My wife's CR-V has AWD, but you wouldn't know it. It drives like a FWD car all the time. Even when it senses slip, engaging the rear wheels at like 10% power then is too little too late. In terms of driving over fresh snow, it's about as useless as a civic. At least my old RWD C280 was uncontrollably fun in the snow... CR-V isn't even that.
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I haven't driven in an X3 or X5 in too long. I liked the F-Pace's exterior size and seating space size. It was not cramped like the Volvo XC60. But it was also not a yacht like the Volvo XC90. However, comparing the trunk space to the CR-V, I was disappointed. Both width and depth were less than the CR-V. Granted, the F-Pace has space for a full-size spare, and it seems the C-pillars are much thicker, so it's not for nothing.
Welcome to the world of British ergonomics. Surely always at least one major design flaw. Volvo typically has had excellent ergonomics, My GF's S60 is great in every regard until it comes to the infotainment/radio. Those tiny buttons they've been using in their "waterfall" design interiors suck. And to control the infotainment with a wheel on the stalk is okay, but to use knobs on the center stack is poor design.
Yes! I'm shocked more cars don't have adjustable arm rests like those. They've had those for at least 21 years and no one has bothered to emulate.
I must be looking at that image the wrong way. Isn't it a main arm rest with two smaller ones attached to the chair/seat? How is that adjustable if it moves with the seat back?
Some arm rests used to slide forward or back. I don't remember what companies made them like that though.
Some arm rests used to slide forward or back. I don't remember what companies made them like that though.
There's the center console "armrest" which isn't exactly an arm rest. You'll see in older Range Rovers it's basically the lid to the center console cubby.
The Driver and Pass seats each have their own arm rests on the interior side that flip down. There's a dial underneath to adjust how far up/down the armrest goes on it's axis, therefore adjusting roughly the height of the armrest and/or relative to how far back/forward the backrest part of the seat is.
Was that removed in the newer Range Rovers that came out in the mid 2000s? I don't remember that being present in the one I rented. That's a weird way to do things. I prefer the single arm rest in the middle. Realistically, the longer it is the better it is, but you or rather the manufacturer is limited in what they can put in there. Merc got around that by using a stalk for the gear selector and integrating the arm rest "into" the COMAND controller. I've expressed my dislike for this design, but it's better use of space and encompassing both driver and front passenger in a cozy setting. I've joked about it, but I'm sure you can run someone over without realizing and not hear their screams.
Mid 2000's if you're talking big daddy Range Rover they all should have had them... unless you were in Europe- then all bets are off. Our models base specs are way more decked out.
I believe the final facelift Range Rover MKIII (2010-2012 I believe) did not have the flip down arm rests on the base HSE model. Most of that generation sold as the HSE LUX or Supercharged (or special ed's) which all had them. I know all the earlier Range Rovers and Range Rover Sports I've been in have them (except maybe the super rare Gen 1.0 RRS SE - basically sold to salesmen, 17" rims, no air susp, no nav). I'm not sure but the similar 10-13 vintage RRS may have lacked them on the base HSE model once they started to do the HSE vs. HSE lux deal. I've been in more than a few RRS HSE nonlux and I'm sure they all had them, but it might have been an option.
I think the later stripper LR4's might have stripped them off if I remember corectly and I think the short lived LR3 V6's lacked them (SE probably had them, the base with no designation probably not). I believe all the Discos had them. All the P38's. LR2... who cares hahha.
TLDR: Most have it, exception being late model non-HSE-lux models.
Trust me Zenny, its life changing to be able to put the armest in just the right position.
I hate the gear selector stalks- there's something nice about shifting a hardy lever. I think the BMW joystick is fun, but I hate how "backwards" it is- makes other cars confusing. Forward is back and back is forward.
I don't like touch screens. I do get your point about the center console clutter. Knobs can be annoying, BMW IMO has the best laid out UI, especially on the newer ones. Honestly I wish they'd go back to those old ATM style Nav screens- no touch but the buttons lined up along the side to correspond with the screen. No tactile feel, no good while driving.