At Last America gets it!

[jk]

Re: At Last America gets it!

fatalities per million miles is strongly affected by the self-selecting driver population. who drives crown vics? who drives hyundai's? their driving habits will strongly influence the mortality rate, perhaps even more than the construction of the vehicle itself.

[lektrode]

Re: At Last America gets it!

still say that its perty damn hard to beat the performance (over time, like a decade each) of my 1991 and 1993 chevy cavaliers

the 91, bought in 2000 w 34k orig mi - for 1000bux - drove it for over 100k - shipped it across the pond that year and drove it back n forth across the continent for 3 winter seasons - never got less than 26mpg - even at 'transcontinental cruising speeds' of 75-88mph
shipped it back across the pond and drove it for another 8years - never did anything more to it than replace consumable components (like 1 set of snows that lasted almost 50k, 1 round of reg treads, a couple sets of brake pads and 1 alternator and starter)

the 93, bought in 2004 for 1400bux, with 70k orig - was still going strong at 30mpg like clockwork when i had to part with it in 2013...

glamour-box, hotrods they aint - but dependable daily-drivers = most certainly.

would buy another one 'in a heartbeat' (assuming it was from the first owner)

[GRG55]

Re: At Last America gets it!

still say that its perty damn hard to beat the performance (over time, like a decade each) of my 1991 and 1993 chevy cavaliers

the 91, bought in 2000 w 34k orig mi - for 1000bux - drove it for over 100k - shipped it across the pond that year and drove it back n forth across the continent for 3 winter seasons - never got less than 26mpg - even at 'transcontinental cruising speeds' of 75-88mph
shipped it back across the pond and drove it for another 8years - never did anything more to it than replace consumable components (like 1 set of snows that lasted almost 50k, 1 round of reg treads, a couple sets of brake pads and 1 alternator and starter)

the 93, bought in 2004 for 1400bux, with 70k orig - was still going strong at 30mpg like clockwork when i had to part with it in 2013...

glamour-box, hotrods they aint - but dependable daily-drivers = most certainly.

would buy another one 'in a heartbeat' (assuming it was from the first owner)

I would think snows would have a nearly infinite life out there in HNL

[shiny!]

Re: At Last America gets it!

fatalities per million miles is strongly affected by the self-selecting driver population. who drives crown vics? who drives hyundai's? their driving habits will strongly influence the mortality rate, perhaps even more than the construction of the vehicle itself.

That makes sense. Thanks, jk.

[Polish_Silver]

What Car nuts should do!

. . .
One of my brothers imported a 1971 Rover 3500 sedan into Canada...nice car but nobody in the colonies knew how to fix it.

[Never get a car nut going... ]

Car nuts should watch "Cars II".

I am not a car nut, but I could see all kinds of references to famous cars, design faux pas, maintenance nightmares, etc. My favorite was when the Italian car was trying to loosen the bolts on the hero. In frustration, he threw down the wrenches, exclaiming "It's not metric, it's not imperial !" This incident is based on a very old British manufacturer, in business long before the world had agreed on standard sizes for the heads of bolts. They had their own system, and just kept using it, while the rest of the world went either metric or imperial. The mechanics had to have special wrenches for these cars, which were useless for any thing else. If you are making a boutique luxury or sports car, this is probably a superb business model. For anythings else, it's terminal.