Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

dino001

I understand. My position on the whole global warming debate is that, assuming that it's all real and all due to human activity (which I'm skeptical to the extent claims, not the general idea), it's an economic problem, not environmental. Raising ocean levels on its own will not cause Planet's life to disappear, we won't die because of couple of inches of water in next few decades (provided that will actually happen). In other words, we should use our energy to learn how to cope with it (for example how to move some people from lost areas to those that may possibly open to agriculture due to warmer climate), not how to stop it. CO2 emissions became a stupid fetish, completely out of control. If they were a general proxy for pollution (i.e. usually industrial activity that can be really harmful will result in some CO2 emissions as well), then it would be useful, but it became its own entity, often displacing real issues. The VW debacle is a result of applying wrong priorities (CO2 above all) and taking them to extreme. The real pollution (heavy metals, smog, nitrates, etc.) on the other hand, should be dealt with aggressively, IMHO, as aggressively as possible. Those things will really kill us in large quantities.

Mr_Shiftright

Human ideals are..well...ideals. They are something we strive for, not necessarily completely ever attain.

The real danger is that people must not fall into paranoia and despair. Fear is often used to control populations, and it must be resisted. There are plenty of "real" things to worry about, right there in front for all to see. We don't need bogey-men.

dino001

Mr_Shiftright said:

Human ideals are..well...ideals. They are something we strive for, not necessarily completely ever attain.

The real danger is that people must not fall into paranoia and despair. Fear is often used to control populations, and it must be resisted. There are plenty of "real" things to worry about, right there in front for all to see. We don't need bogey-men.

Hear, hear! CO2 became one, in my opinion.

dino001

Mr_Shiftright said:

And an example of "long-term success" might be damming rivers to control floods and drought....or the Panama Canal.

Careful with those. Not all flood control measures proved to be success. Europeans attempted to straighten their large rivers and reinforce their beds with concrete. The results were even more floods in other locations, as water was rushing down without any abatement provided before by the meanders. These were extremes, of course.

jmonroe

PF_Flyer said:

qbrozen said:

PF_Flyer said:

There used to be some REALLY short merging lanes on the Schuylkill Expressway in Philly back in the day. I'm not sure that there were many vehicles with adequate 0-60 times that also had the ground clearance to deal with those road surfaces

That is exactly where I was thinking of while reading this convo. When leaving U Penn Hospital every day, I'd have to go down a short ramp merging onto that highway AND there is a cement barrier dividing the ramp from the highway NOT TO MENTION the cement barrier at the end of the ramp, leaving you no room for error, so you're clear view is maybe a couple hundred feet, at best. Stopping would be worse because you'll never get up to speed again in a reasonable amount of space. I just try to match pace as best I can and slip behind someone's bumper, crossing my fingers that there isn't a tailgater there.

Best way to describe those merges... you need to be GOING.... NOW

And that is why I laugh when people ask me if I really need a V8. I should get them to come in here and read a few posts.

When I want to merge, the last thing I'm thinking of is...'do I have enough HP to do this' ? With 420 HP, I don't waste my time thinking I just GO.

jmonroe

28firefighter

jmonroe said:

PF_Flyer said:

qbrozen said:

PF_Flyer said:

There used to be some REALLY short merging lanes on the Schuylkill Expressway in Philly back in the day. I'm not sure that there were many vehicles with adequate 0-60 times that also had the ground clearance to deal with those road surfaces

That is exactly where I was thinking of while reading this convo. When leaving U Penn Hospital every day, I'd have to go down a short ramp merging onto that highway AND there is a cement barrier dividing the ramp from the highway NOT TO MENTION the cement barrier at the end of the ramp, leaving you no room for error, so you're clear view is maybe a couple hundred feet, at best. Stopping would be worse because you'll never get up to speed again in a reasonable amount of space. I just try to match pace as best I can and slip behind someone's bumper, crossing my fingers that there isn't a tailgater there.

Best way to describe those merges... you need to be GOING.... NOW

And that is why I laugh when people ask me if I really need a V8. I should get them to come in here and read a few posts.

When I want to merge, the last thing I'm thinking of is...'do I have enough HP to do this' ? With 420 HP, I don't waste my time thinking I just GO.

jmonroe

Wholeheartedly agree. When people ask me why I want the extra power in my car, usually I can just point to the person doing 25 mph in the left lane of a 35.

thebean

driver100 said:

Well, you've got your deer hit for the season. Glad everyone's ok. Not sure about the deer though!

Deer HITS... end of November on the left side and this one on the right

PF_Flyer, have you heard of those deer whistles........might be a good investment. Not sure what the chances are of being hit twice within a year, by a deer. Must have just glanced off the car for that hair to be there. Somewhere there is a deer with a bald patch.

Maybe the deer was wearing a toupee.  He will be ticked if he has to shell out for a new one after this "incident".

suydam

Depending on where you live your chances of hitting a deer are quite good unfortunately. Where we were in the country, we had to honk the horn to get them to get out of our driveway! And for such large animals they are absolutely silent. Your first glimpse of them is usually just before they're flying across your windshield.

fintail

Good points, but I haven't seen anything that shows smog in Europe or elsewhere would be better with gassers, and no mention about how it has actually improved over time even with all of the diesels and steady population gains. I'll wager that if commercial vehicles had the same standards as passenger vehicles, it would make a far greater impact.

Disclaimer: I drive a urea injection diesel. It was the cheapest (base) model in the lineup, and maintenance is topping off the tank once a year or so. No issues, and 45 mpg on the highway is easy, not bad for a 4000+ lb AWD car.

dino001 said:

When it comes to particulates, absolutely, but not necessarily for NOx gases (which are carcinogenic and contribute to smog as well). There it's actually inversely proportional to combustion efficiency, price of the higher combustion temperature. In other words, those fantastic fast and efficient diesel turbos produce more NOx, not less of them, which requires urea injection installations to arrest those gases. Those installations are expensive and high maintenance. They also adversely affect the gas mileage and performance. VW claimed they could do those without urea injection systems. We now know how. In fact those new engines were worse than the old ones on the roads for NOx - they exceeded (new) norms by 10-40 times! Once doen in the Jetta/Golf engine, the "defeat device" spread to those urea-injection based systems, as well (like Passat or 3.0 diesels), probably to improve the numbers (claim supremacy over MB or BMW systems).

fintail

I don't know if that justifies the massively different punishments.

Of course, one is a national institution, another is 'furrin.

dino001 said:

fintail said:

Not long ago

Thanks for the link. One big legal difference I can see, Harley still denies wrongdoing, VW flatout admitted it.

Mr_Shiftright

Harley needs to be fined for NOISE. :@

fintail

If we can determine the rules are worth the price. Too many greenies out there looking to cash in or assuage latent guilt, preaching for everyone to live in a shoebox and use bike/bus, while they of course are still entitled to and unwilling to move on from the detached house they bought for nothing way back when, and their private car (maybe a hybrid or EV made with offshored pollution). Not the most credible group, that.

Mr_Shiftright said:

Strict environmental laws make more sense if you are a longterm or "big picture" type of thinker. It's hard for humans to consider consequences beyond their own lifetimes, maybe impossible for most.

Mr_Shiftright

Either the message is true and good or it isn't. Who delivers it is secondary. If somebody smoking a cigarette while pumping gas tells you not to do that, you don't merely call him hypocrite and light up yourself, do you?

'course not!

This is because the guy with the cig in his mouth is expressing an ideal--the way he'd like to be.

PF_Flyer

thebean said:

driver100 said:

PF_Flyer said:

suydam said:

Well, you've got your deer hit for the season. Glad everyone's ok. Not sure about the deer though!

Deer HITS... end of November on the left side and this one on the right

PF_Flyer, have you heard of those deer whistles........might be a good investment.

Not sure what the chances are of being hit twice within a year, by a deer. Must have just glanced off the car for that hair to be there. Somewhere there is a deer with a bald patch.

Maybe the deer was wearing a toupee.  He will be ticked if he has to shell out for a new one after this "incident".

The way things seem to go, the deer probably has insurance...heh

fintail

People who refuse to practice what they preach suffer from a severe lack of credibility. If their ideal is so, well, ideal, maybe they should be able to live it. If they can't, it begs the question: why?

I think carrying a lit flame near a fuel source and preaching greenie fantasy are kind of apples to oranges

Mr_Shiftright said:

Either the message is true and good or it isn't. Who delivers it is secondary. If somebody smoking a cigarette while pumping gas tells you not to do that, you don't merely call him hypocrite and light up yourself, do you?

'course not!

This is because the guy with the cig in his mouth is expressing an ideal--the way he'd like to be.

fintail

Guaranteed minimum income is an interesting subject. IMO it is a virtual certainty for the future, as AI and automation will slash employment more than natural job growth can compensate, especially with population growth.

Maybe a return to the tax code when Murka was "great", as trickle down fails again and again. Yeah, not likely.

driver100 said:

I think a big change we all need to try and prepare for is, how to make a guaranteed income a reality.

suydam

Generalizing and calling groups of people names is a little unnecessary.

PF_Flyer

OK... might be time to take the next ramp back onto the highway

With the CARS, ya know??

Mr_Shiftright

Well how far do you want to take this...can a man justify spending $36,000 on a MINI because it is economical? Why don't we insist that all hybrid owners drive 1965 Volkswagens?

How "pure" do we need to be here?

If you drive a clean new car rather than an old one that pollutes 60X as much, I think you deserve some credit, even if it isn't some teensy gas sipper.

suydam

Then today I was behind a Maserati -- on an ordinary city street. It looks like any other newish white California car. Not nearly as impressive looking as the McLaren I saw parked on a Columbus street last year. Maybe that's the idea.

sb55

I'm numb. My friend's son just died in a car accident on my road 2 hours ago. He was a 37 yo "yahoo" who sped on our 30 mph dirt road all of the time. And I'm sure that he didn't wear a seatbelt. He hit a tree and was killed a mile from my house. I drove by before the EMS arrived and knew that it was bad. I stopped at the dad's house and told him to get there.
BTW, I was meeting with the volunteer fire chief at our church when the call came in. Accident on my road. WHAT?!? I live on a 1.3 mile long dead end dirt road with a 30 mph speed limit and there is NO snow or ice here in Northern Vermont. Maybe it was a hit a deer/car? Nope. Dumb young man ran off or the road and hit a tree. HOW? All that I can guess is that he had a fight with his GF and sped off. Thank god he didn't take anyone out.
His dad and this son built my house. Not my best friend, but this is a VERY small town and it's hard to stay to not call most people you know, "a friend".
Sorry if I ramble, but I can't process right now

dino001

fintail said:

Disclaimer: I drive a urea injection diesel. It was the cheapest (base) model in the lineup, and maintenance is topping off the tank once a year or so. No issues, and 45 mpg on the highway is easy, not bad for a 4000+ lb AWD car.

That's good news. I wonder how much your oil change is and whether it's any different than gas car. The big concerns on modern diesels come beyond warranty expiration. Bi-mass wheel, particle filters, etc. Extremely expensive and quite common failures in higher mileage engines, especially driven in cities, when short trips defeat diesel engine advantages and start-stop cycles put cumulative strain on much higher mass (in comparison to gas engines. Turbos leak and fail, but this one is also a problem to the new breed of gas engines, too.

ab348

@sb55 - my deepest condolences. I can only imagine how much of a shock that must be.

explorerx4

@sb55,
That's a terrible thing that happened.
You deserve a lot of credit for taking the task of stopping to see his dad and let him know something bad happened.
99% of people would have let someone else deliver the news.
It won't make you feel any better, but that showed a lot of character.

jmonroe

sb55 said:

I'm numb. My friend's son just died in a car accident on my road 2 hours ago. He was a 37 yo "yahoo" who sped on our 30 mph dirt road all of the time. And I'm sure that he didn't wear a seatbelt. He hit a tree and was killed a mile from my house. I drove by before the EMS arrived and knew that it was bad. I stopped at the dad's house and told him to get there.
BTW, I was meeting with the volunteer fire chief at our church when the call came in. Accident on my road. WHAT?!? I live on a 1.3 mile long dead end dirt road with a 30 mph speed limit and there is NO snow or ice here in Northern Vermont. Maybe it was a hit a deer/car? Nope. Dumb young man ran off or the road and hit a tree. HOW? All that I can guess is that he had a fight with his GF and sped off. Thank god he didn't take anyone out.
His dad and this son built my house. Not my best friend, but this is a VERY small town and it's hard to stay to not call most people you know, "a friend".
Sorry if I ramble, but I can't process right now

Don't worry about the possible rambling. These types of things just take your breath away. Like you said, it's good that nobody else was involved. Too often there are more people injured and worse.

The guys in here can take the good and the bad. If you have more to say, fire away.

jmonroe

suydam

So sorry.

28firefighter

I'm so sorry, @sb55

oldfarmer50

dino001 said:

suydam said:

American cities are still more polluted than most European cities, so I'm not so sure sticking with gas technology has worked for us. That said, I, not a big fan of diesel.

That may be due to all emission technologies not being updated for years/decades, plus SUV/pickup trucks being exempted from the passenger car rules, also for years/decades (because they fell into same categories as commercial vehicles). It actually created a perverse incentive for the manufacturers to market and consumer to buy those vehicles in numbers far exceeding their actual need, as their pricing and costs structure did not reflect their environmental costs in same proportion small passenger vehicles. In other words, Taurus, Impala, which would suffice for many people, were proportionally more expensive (i.e. less profitable) to make, sell, or meet standards than say Explorer or TrailBlazer for all 90s, so the system became geared to chase the size. "Everybody" won (consumers got their Excursions and Suburbans, driving mostly to work alone), except of course people who had to breath inside of those cities, but who cares about them.

I'm not huge on environmentalism, to me Sierra Club or Greenpeace are dangerously close to eco-terrorist organizations, and I certainly do not value a tree above human. That being said, American market was certainly mispricing environmental cost of those oversized passenger vehicles for far too long. Perhaps it was necessary to go through an environmentally extremist administration, like this outgoing one, to just catch up with some things. It's not a pleasant process and social costs of overreach, or worse, misapplication of priorities (like chasing global warming rather than actual pollution) can also be debilitating, but perhaps it was necessary to upset the system for a while, so we can dial it back to more reasonable levels, but higher than before. Just thinking aloud...

I'm with you on the Eco terrorism stuff but I have to admit that without their prodding we wouldn't have 400hp cars that get 30mpg. The problem comes when extremists demand that which is beyond the limit of physics and cars are priced out of our reach.

oldfarmer50

fintail said:

Good points, but I haven't seen anything that shows smog in Europe or elsewhere would be better with gassers, and no mention about how it has actually improved over time even with all of the diesels and steady population gains. I'll wager that if commercial vehicles had the same standards as passenger vehicles, it would make a far greater impact.

Disclaimer: I drive a urea injection diesel. It was the cheapest (base) model in the lineup, and maintenance is topping off the tank once a year or so. No issues, and 45 mpg on the highway is easy, not bad for a 4000+ lb AWD car.

dino001 said:

When it comes to particulates, absolutely, but not necessarily for NOx gases (which are carcinogenic and contribute to smog as well). There it's actually inversely proportional to combustion efficiency, price of the higher combustion temperature. In other words, those fantastic fast and efficient diesel turbos produce more NOx, not less of them, which requires urea injection installations to arrest those gases. Those installations are expensive and high maintenance. They also adversely affect the gas mileage and performance. VW claimed they could do those without urea injection systems. We now know how. In fact those new engines were worse than the old ones on the roads for NOx - they exceeded (new) norms by 10-40 times! Once doen in the Jetta/Golf engine, the "defeat device" spread to those urea-injection based systems, as well (like Passat or 3.0 diesels), probably to improve the numbers (claim supremacy over MB or BMW systems).

Once a year is pretty good. I have to fill my DEF tank on the bus about once a month or the computer will shut the bus off on a whim ( like halfway across railroad tracks)

oldfarmer50

sb55 said:

I'm numb. My friend's son just died in a car accident on my road 2 hours ago. He was a 37 yo "yahoo" who sped on our 30 mph dirt road all of the time. And I'm sure that he didn't wear a seatbelt. He hit a tree and was killed a mile from my house. I drove by before the EMS arrived and knew that it was bad. I stopped at the dad's house and told him to get there.
BTW, I was meeting with the volunteer fire chief at our church when the call came in. Accident on my road. WHAT?!? I live on a 1.3 mile long dead end dirt road with a 30 mph speed limit and there is NO snow or ice here in Northern Vermont. Maybe it was a hit a deer/car? Nope. Dumb young man ran off or the road and hit a tree. HOW? All that I can guess is that he had a fight with his GF and sped off. Thank god he didn't take anyone out.
His dad and this son built my house. Not my best friend, but this is a VERY small town and it's hard to stay to not call most people you know, "a friend".
Sorry if I ramble, but I can't process right now

Sorry to hear that. Go ahead and ramble. We don't mind.

nyccarguy

@sb55 - I'm so sorry for your loss Skip. Please feel free to list about it as much as you'd like. We are here for you.

fintail

Normal MB service interval, once a year. I prepaid for it, which gives a significant discount. I about $120 each for the first 2 years of service. This engine has been made for several years and is in constant service in European taxi fleets, with no known major Achilles heels. If I keep it in for the long term, I am more concerned about electrical issues than mechanical (German car and all).

There's no engine or car without drawbacks. I prefer this over the V6 gasser equivalent.

dino001 said:

That's good news. I wonder how much your oil change is and whether it's any different than gas car. The big concerns on modern diesels come beyond warranty expiration. Bi-mass wheel, particle filters, etc. Extremely expensive and quite common failures in higher mileage engines, especially driven in cities, when short trips defeat diesel engine advantages and start-stop cycles put cumulative strain on much higher mass (in comparison to gas engines. Turbos leak and fail, but this one is also a problem to the new breed of gas engines, too.

fintail

Disclaimer II, I drive a relatively small mileage, under 10K

oldfarmer50 said:

Once a year is pretty good. I have to fill my DEF tank on the bus about once a month or the computer will shut the bus off on a whim ( like halfway across railroad tracks)

fintail

IMNSHO, those who preach and try to social engineer people out of cars and houses and into buses and shoeboxes need to take the bus and live in a shoebox, themselves. If they don't, it calls into question their motives and credibility. If you drive a new car, but work towards making it so nobody else can have a car at all, no credit will be awarded by me

Mr_Shiftright said:

Well how far do you want to take this...can a man justify spending $36,000 on a MINI because it is economical? Why don't we insist that all hybrid owners drive 1965 Volkswagens?

How "pure" do we need to be here?

If you drive a clean new car rather than an old one that pollutes 60X as much, I think you deserve some credit, even if it isn't some teensy gas sipper.

fintail

Condolences.

Ramble on, let it out, it helps. And as you say, he didn't take out anyone else, maybe a hidden blessing.

sb55 said:

I'm numb. My friend's son just died in a car accident on my road 2 hours ago. He was a 37 yo "yahoo" who sped on our 30 mph dirt road all of the time. And I'm sure that he didn't wear a seatbelt. He hit a tree and was killed a mile from my house. I drove by before the EMS arrived and knew that it was bad. I stopped at the dad's house and told him to get there.
BTW, I was meeting with the volunteer fire chief at our church when the call came in. Accident on my road. WHAT?!? I live on a 1.3 mile long dead end dirt road with a 30 mph speed limit and there is NO snow or ice here in Northern Vermont. Maybe it was a hit a deer/car? Nope. Dumb young man ran off or the road and hit a tree. HOW? All that I can guess is that he had a fight with his GF and sped off. Thank god he didn't take anyone out.
His dad and this son built my house. Not my best friend, but this is a VERY small town and it's hard to stay to not call most people you know, "a friend".
Sorry if I ramble, but I can't process right now

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

What happened to snake....did he get lost in Magic Mountain or did he get scared of buying us lunch?

My understanding is that he was really enjoying spending time with his grandkids and house hunting with his wife. I heard he got stuck in Orlando for an extra day because Midway airport in Chicago was fogged in. Once he got back to work he sat there at his desk and all the paperwork that backed up and wondered where to start and wishing he had a match. When he got back to this forum he noticed over a thousand unread posts that he is skimming through.

driver100

PF_Flyer said:

thebean said:

driver100 said:

PF_Flyer said:

suydam said:

Well, you've got your deer hit for the season. Glad everyone's ok. Not sure about the deer though!

Deer HITS... end of November on the left side and this one on the right

PF_Flyer, have you heard of those deer whistles........might be a good investment.

Not sure what the chances are of being hit twice within a year, by a deer. Must have just glanced off the car for that hair to be there. Somewhere there is a deer with a bald patch.

Maybe the deer was wearing a toupee.  He will be ticked if he has to shell out for a new one after this "incident".

The way things seem to go, the deer probably has insurance...heh

Probably got it through the Hartford.

nyccarguy

@fintail - in our area they have a pretty good mass transit system. The mayor is always telling people to "take mass transit," especially during the "gridlock alert days" we have in the city between Thanksgiving & New Year's. A little more than 10 years ago, the MTA Union "workers" decided to go on strike (no buses or subways). The mayor put a ban on all cars south of 96th street with less than 4 people. You can't push the mass transit all the time, then when they go on strike tell people they can't drive.

At the time, we were living in a suburb and my very pregnant wife was commuting into the city by the Metro North Train. When she got into the city, she would hop on a subway for about 4 stops, then walk 2 long blocks east. I couldn't even drive her. I. The end, the morons ended up getting fined for more than they made by going on strike.

driver100

SB55 That must be a shock. Life is fragile, and it doesn't take much to cause such a needless death. My condolences.

driver100

Dino and Mr S....I have been out all day but enjoyed reading your comments regarding the future.

Snake....welcome back.

JMonroe; I agree, lots of hp can be a good thing.

sda

How horrible SB55. Please accept my sympathies.

abacomike

@sb55 said: "I'm numb...!" How awful! My sincerest condolences to your friend, sb55. Losing a child is so very difficult - I don't think there is any way a parent can recover from such a loss. Strong religious beliefs do provide some solace - but the "living" are the ones who suffer the most.

dino001

Indeed. Burying your parents, as I did a few month ago is sad, but nomal. Doing it to your child feels against nature.

fintail

Yeah, NYC has kind of good mass transit. I can't see why anyone in Manhattan anyway would technically need a car (can't imagine living there if I didn't work there) unless they liked cars and were wealthy, as garage rent is probably a mortgage payment in flyover land. When I visited a few years back, I felt no need for a private car, and never used a taxi. That mayor wasn't the one who is nicknamed "gargoyle", was it? So many beloved mayors there.

Here we have a light rail system that might be complete by the time I am about 120 (retirement age for our generation), and buses which are sometimes good, sometimes not. That's it.

nyccarguy said:

@fintail - in our area they have a pretty good mass transit system. The mayor is always telling people to "take mass transit," especially during the "gridlock alert days" we have in the city between Thanksgiving & New Year's. A little more than 10 years ago, the MTA Union "workers" decided to go on strike (no buses or subways). The mayor put a ban on all cars south of 96th street with less than 4 people. You can't push the mass transit all the time, then when they go on strike tell people they can't drive.

At the time, we were living in a suburb and my very pregnant wife was commuting into the city by the Metro North Train. When she got into the city, she would hop on a subway for about 4 stops, then walk 2 long blocks east. I couldn't even drive her. I. The end, the morons ended up getting fined for more than they made by going on strike.

stickguy

if you have enough money, you keep the car living in Manhattan for weekend duty. Only the plebians rent when they need one.

having lived up there, I think I would be more likely to live in town if I worked there. Not cheap to be close enough to not have a huge commute, and even some of the shorter ones kinda stink.

abacomike

Well, this morning the Geek Squad is coming to install my new Vizio 50" 4K HD TV on my wall along with the Vizio Sound Bar I purchased.  Since they are drilling into concrete, I expect lots of noise and lots of mess.  Luckily I have my cleaning girls coming this afternoon.  

I am am very excited to be able to watch cable TV in a whole new perspective.  Just hope the installation goes smoothly. 

graphicguy

@sb55.....truly tragic. So sorry to hear. Process, if you can. Vent if you need to.

imidazol97

abacomike said:

Well, this morning the Geek Squad is coming

Hide your computer before they get there.

abacomike said:

Since they are drilling into concrete, I expect lots of noise and lots of mess.  Luckily I have my cleaning girls coming this afternoon.

If the Greek Squad does it right, they'll clean up before they leave, and it will be cleaner than when they got there with everything back it its same exact place. The noise they can't do anything about but it will end when they leave. The actual drilling won't take long because they'll have the right tool and bit to chew into the concrete.

jpp75

@sb55 Condolences on your friend's son, ramble all you need to. These things are difficult to process, as others have said a parent burying a child is the worst thing a person can experience.

graphicguy

Last night, my son and I went out for some BBQ. We were talking about his GTI (which he loves, BTW). Like Father like Son, he said he might start looking around in a couple of years...maybe even another GTI if they do a significant update.

The conversation turned to my CTS. We drove the loaner CT6 to dinner. He said it was "nice" (translated....OK for you, but I'd never drive one). I showed him the power, the features (which rival anything I've ever heard, or read about), etc. He asked me what I thought of it. As I told him, it's as good, or better than anything else in its segment. And, that he isn't the demographic Cadillac is shooting for. According to my son, neither am I. He may be right.

Then came the question about the elephant in the room....."how much longer they going to have your CTS?" Had no answer for him. As of yesterday, the dealership has had it for 3 weeks. Called this a.m. for a status update. They don't know when the part(s) will be in to fix it. They consider it undriveable (safely) as it is. So, no update, and no plans for the foreseeable future. They did ask how I liked the CT6....been good. No problems!

But, I am starting to think how totally ridiculous my Cadillac experiences have been. At first, it was mind boggling, then they couldn't seem to get out of their own way. Now, it really is becoming laughable.

I trully don't know what my next move is. I'm kind of numb by the whole Cadillac experience.