Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)

roadburner

corvette said:

@roadburner - the C43's MPG is quite impressive compared to the X1.

I think a lot of that is due to the fact that the X1 is rarely driven on the open road.

oldfarmer50

stickguy said:

naturally aspirated big V6 boat anchor? I would highly doubt it.

Not sure if you were responding to my post but if you were I wouldn’t call the 300hp 3.7L a boat anchor.

sda

We travelled to see my in-laws yesterday who are 120 miles away. A combination of state highway, small towns and interstate driving the Q5 returned right at 30 mpg. In everyday local driving 22mpg on PUG of course.

graphicguy

When I test drove the Blazer EV, sales guy said I could still listen to iTunes. I could, but couldn't pull up podcasts or sort through my playlists. He said I could use Audible to get to my the books I listened to, but it wouldn't connect to Audible. He then said I could get Podcasts through the Google Store.

We got Waze to connect briefly, and then it went away. Podcasts through the Google Store wouldn't connect at all.

Chevy has some work to do!!!!!

I believe it was a mig mistake dumping Car Play and Android Auto. That's certainly not helping their sales.

jmonroe1

graphicguy said:

When I test drove the Blazer EV, sales guy said I could still listen to iTunes. I could, but couldn't pull up podcasts or sort through my playlists. He said I could use Audible to get to my the books I listened to, but it wouldn't connect to Audible. He then said I could get Podcasts through the Google Store.

We got Waze to connect briefly, and then it went away. Podcasts through the Google Store wouldn't connect at all.

Chevy has some work to do!!!!!

I believe it was a mig mistake dumping Car Play and Android Auto. That's certainly not helping their sales.

————————————————-
But they saved $1.72 per car. That’s a lot of money for a lot of cars. But they’re not selling a lot of cars like they planned to and once the word gets out they’ll sell even less.

Like I said before, just when you think GM has arrived…they haven’t.

jmonroe

laurasdada

jmonroe1 said:

graphicguy said:

When I test drove the Blazer EV, sales guy said I could still listen to iTunes. I could, but couldn't pull up podcasts or sort through my playlists. He said I could use Audible to get to my the books I listened to, but it wouldn't connect to Audible. He then said I could get Podcasts through the Google Store.

We got Waze to connect briefly, and then it went away. Podcasts through the Google Store wouldn't connect at all.

Chevy has some work to do!!!!!

I believe it was a mig mistake dumping Car Play and Android Auto. That's certainly not helping their sales.

————————————————-
But they saved $1.72 per car. That’s a lot of money for a lot of cars. But they’re not selling a lot of cars like they planned to and once the word gets out they’ll sell even less.

Like I said before, just when you think GM has arrived…they haven’t.

jmonroe

The ghost of Roger Smith lives large...

sda

My family was loyal to GM for years. My grandfather sold Buicks at some point and that is what he drove. Dad liked Oldsmobiles and we had many of those. He defected from GM for about 10 years after his dismal experience with 2 Cadillacs.His Eldorado diesel was the final nail. Dad bought a 95 Cutlass Cierra which was reliable but bland. Mom loved her 98 Aurora, but Olds is no longer. She has a Honda CR-V now, which has been a great vehicle but she misses her Aurora.

roadburner

My dad bought Chevrolets, Fords and one Lincoln. My father-in-law drove Buicks exclusively. My BIL now drives a Lexus and a couple of Toyotas. His son bought a new X3. You can read my vehicle lineup. While I still wouldn't mind having a newer Bullitt or Mach 1, I definitely wouldn't swap the C43 or Club Sport for one. Ditto for a Challenger SRT. I'm relatively certain that the Wrangler will be the only domestic vehicle in my garage for the foreseeable future.

tjc78

I think someone mentioned it earlier … but the only reason to dump something that works as well as CarPlay is because they can’t make money on it.

It’s a short sighted decision and bound to tick buyers off.

suydam

Again, Tesla has never had it and didn’t seem to hurt their bottom line.

stickguy

it would get me to cross that option off the shopping list. and I doubt I would be the only one.

corvette

I like CarPlay a lot, but it is a bit buggy in the Maverick, and the Volt had an issue where you had to turn off the "whoosh" startup sound made by the car in order for CarPlay to work reliably, so it's not bulletproof. I'd have to take a hard look at the setups GM and Tesla offer before having an opinion, because I have no experience with either.

28firefighter

A well done infotainment system with good app integration will beat CarPlay by a mile. Just haven’t seen one that does that.

stickguy

If I remember correctly (it happens occasionally!) a big reason for "outsourcing" the interface was because the manufacturers were, well, not very good at it and terrible about keeping it updated. Instead, they just needed the basic hardware and Apple/google kept it updated. (with the car just having to support it).

ab348

Of course, one of the things that people love to complain about is when the software companies release updates that change some aspect of how the system works.

Maybe a gas station paper map wasn't such a bad idea after all.

stickguy

I’m amazed by car makers not updating their Navi systems. But I guarantee your paper map won’t be getting updates unless you do it with a sharpie.

nyccarguy

Friend of mine came over yesterday afternoon to borrow some fans and my shop vac to dry out his basement which took on about a foot of water during yesterday's torrential rain storm. A few months ago he asked me some prodding questions about leasing and electric vehicles. Said he test drove a Hyundai Ionic5 and loved it. He pulled up to my house in a light blue Ionic5 SEL. Very nice color. 1st time I've seen one of these up close. He's happy with it. They did lease it. He took it on a CT to MI road trip and it performed well. He has free charging from Electrify America. He traded in a 2011 Camry Hybrid with 120K miles on it.

xwesx

That's all great, but the more pressing question is this: How did your basement hold up with the downpours? Is the work from a few years ago doing its job well?

stickguy

I have heard horror stories about electrify America network. Pretty sure if I did get one a requirement would have to be that I could use the Tesla network to charge (even if it wasn’t a Tesla)

graphicguy

suydam said:

Again, Tesla has never had it and didn’t seem to hurt their bottom line.

Tesla's User Interface is way more advanced than the one I experienced in the Blazer EV.

I concur with most. It's a faux pas for GM not including Car Play and Android Auto and will hurt sales.

It was a while ago, but I recall some Chevy exec in an interview stating they wanted to go to a subscription model for the Car Play/Android Auto like services. Seems they're starting that transition.

ab348

stickguy said:

I’m amazed by car makers not updating their Navi systems. But I guarantee your paper map won’t be getting updates unless you do it with a sharpie.

Since I'm allergic to Nav systems, that sounds good to me!

graphicguy

corvette said:

I like CarPlay a lot, but it is a bit buggy in the Maverick, and the Volt had an issue where you had to turn off the "whoosh" startup sound made by the car in order for CarPlay to work reliably, so it's not bulletproof. I'd have to take a hard look at the setups GM and Tesla offer before having an opinion, because I have no experience with either.

I will say Car Play in my Acuras and Hondas have been bug free. They just work, which is what we all want.

sda

The NAV in the Passat is easy to use and works well. I did try to get an updated SD card for it about two years ago at the VW dealer. The Parts dept associate seemed perplexed that I would need an update, but finally directed me to a web site to acquire the SD card. No luck, my model was not listed. As most of my travels are local and the streets have not changed much with the exception of new neighborhoods, and businesses, it works fine. I can also leverage Google Maps, etc. I know my way home!

ab348

These comments make me glad that my iPhone is not surgically attached to me.

I know I'm an outlier but I can barely manage to answer a phone call when it rings while I'm driving and as for making one with voice commands, fugget about it. I cannot imagine trying to track down a podcast while I'm behind the wheel. The other day I got it in my head that I didn't know how long I spent in the shower in the morning so I decided to time it. Not only did I get that totally wrong but I couldn't turn off whatever wrong thing I picked trying to do it! Add to that the rejection of nav systems by my brain and I'm clearly not your typical buyer. Maybe I'm allergic to smartphones completely, not just nav systems.

laurasdada

I may be an outlier, but I've never had much issue with my cars onboard software/nav. Even in the Jags, it did what it was supposed to do.
All 3 of our cars have CarPlay, which seems to work fine. But currently, my only preference is with Nav, if I'm going on a longer trip, prefer to use Waze or Google Maps for more real-time traffic and speed trap info. With SXM, FM and a boatload of my music on either a thumb drive or the M340s hard drive, I'm good there.

My limited dealings with EA, VW group really letter-of-the-law'd/half-hearted that project. I think the network is getting better, but it wasn't unusual for most of a bank of charges I visited to be offline in the not-too-distant past.

nyccarguy

Thoughts on this 2009 Forester @xwesx ? Looks like it needs new tires. Obviously I'd have to get it checked out to see if the timing belt was or needs to be done.

nyccarguy

2010 Scion xB 5-Speed

Thoughts?

Michaell

I like the Subaru over the Scion:

1. AWD, for a new driver
2. Automatic, so as not to present too many things to said new driver

tjc78

CarPlay has been more or less bug free for me since my 2017 Hyundai Elantra.

Apps I use almost every time I drive are Waze and Apple Music.

Quite often I use Siri to respond to texts and she reads them to me as they come in.

Also - wireless CarPlay was a huge upgrade.

I’m not buying anything without it. The manufacturer’s systems don’t work as well IMO. Even my Mercedes with all the bells and whistles doesn’t work as well as CP

tjc78

@stickguy said:
I have heard horror stories about electrify America network. Pretty sure if I did get one a requirement would have to be that I could use the Tesla network to charge (even if it wasn’t a Tesla)

Yeah - it can be buggy especially the integration for the free charging which works through the car’s app (at least in my case).

Usually a quick call to them to reset the charger does the trick

ab348

tjc78 said:

Apps I use almost every time I drive are Waze and Apple Music.

I get regular reminders from Apple that I have a free three month trial of Apple Music. I ignore those. I admit that I know nothing about it other than some chatter shortly after it was introduced that it did some nefarious things to your existing music library. In any event I have zero interest in recent music so there isn’t much of an attraction there. I should probably look into it further but I have no pressing need for it as far as I can tell.

roadburner

laurasdada said:

I may be an outlier, but I've never had much issue with my cars onboard software/nav. Even in the Jags, it did what it was supposed to do.
All 3 of our cars have CarPlay, which seems to work fine. But currently, my only preference is with Nav, if I'm going on a longer trip, prefer to use Waze or Google Maps for more real-time traffic and speed trap info. With SXM, FM and a boatload of my music on either a thumb drive or the M340s hard drive, I'm good there.

My limited dealings with EA, VW group really letter-of-the-law'd/half-hearted that project. I think the network is getting better, but it wasn't unusual for most of a bank of charges I visited to be offline in the not-too-distant past.

I've been very happy with the navigation systems in my BMWs, my Jeep, and my Mercedes. The Mercedes has wired CarPlay, but it can be converted to wireless. I haven't bothered. I do use CarPlay in the Jeep- primarily to listen to various F1 podcasts.

tjc78

@ab348 said:
I get regular reminders from Apple that I have a free three month trial of Apple Music. I ignore those. I admit that I know nothing about it other than some chatter shortly after it was introduced that it did some nefarious things to your existing music library. In any event I have zero interest in recent music so there isn’t much of an attraction there. I should probably look into it further but I have no pressing need for it as far as I can tell.

It’s very convenient. You can pretty much stream any song/artist/album on demand. Make playlists and they have tons of curated playlists. It is well worth $13 a month and I don’t have take up a bunch of storage on my phone.

We use it at the house too.

tifighter

corvette said:

I like CarPlay a lot, but it is a bit buggy in the Maverick, and the Volt had an issue where you had to turn off the "whoosh" startup sound made by the car in order for CarPlay to work reliably, so it's not bulletproof. I'd have to take a hard look at the setups GM and Tesla offer before having an opinion, because I have no experience with either.

Not once have I been in the Tesla and thought "this would be better with carplay" and all of our other cars have carplay.

It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that Tesla's UI team has quite a few ex-apple peeps. They poach people from each other all of the time.

tjc78

So how do you use Waze or Google Maps on a Tesla? Bluetooth stream for audio and have to look at your phone for the map?

Does Tesla’s built in Nav have real time traffic, police reporting and hazard reporting like Waze?

suydam

The Blazer has Google Maps built in. I dont know what system Tesla uses.

graphicguy

ab348 said:

These comments make me glad that my iPhone is not surgically attached to me.

I know I'm an outlier but I can barely manage to answer a phone call when it rings while I'm driving and as for making one with voice commands, fugget about it. I cannot imagine trying to track down a podcast while I'm behind the wheel. The other day I got it in my head that I didn't know how long I spent in the shower in the morning so I decided to time it. Not only did I get that totally wrong but I couldn't turn off whatever wrong thing I picked trying to do it! Add to that the rejection of nav systems by my brain and I'm clearly not your typical buyer. Maybe I'm allergic to smartphones completely, not just nav systems.

Car Play is easy...driving along and it goes something like this...

-"Hey Siri...call my son"
iPhone dials my son and connects him through the car's stereo.
-"Hey Siri...read my texts"
iPhone reads my texts and then asks me if I want to reply
-"Hey Siri....get directions to the nearest Italian Restaurant"
A list of Italian restaurants pop up on your NAV Screen and you pick the one you want, which then you get directions to it, along with the travel time

You get a call while driving...."Answer the call"....the call comes through your stereo.

This may make GM rethink their Apple Car Play strategy....
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/gm-lays-off-over-1000-salaried-software-services-employees-cnbc-reports-2024-08-19/

graphicguy

And finally, a quick question.

Just had an MRI done. Seems my hip is bone on bone, which explains why it hurts all the time.

Doc said I need a replacement. Any Edmunds friends had this done? Recovery time? How about difficulty with recovery (like time it took to walk again)?

TIA!

ab348

I feel stupid talking to an inanimate object. The “Hey Siri” or Alexa or whatever is just too cringey.

For some strange reason I have never had the desire to visit the nearest random restaurant I know nothing about.

Whenever I talk to my car or a device it seldom understands me anyway. One time I asked the system in the car to call somebody (I forget the name) and it did the “OK, calling (somebody I most definitely did not want to talk to)” and had to quickly find a way to stop it. It was a mad scramble of screen tapping with no immediate effect. I do remember that yelling “Stop!” had absolutely zero success. I’m just not good at these things. We are a very dysfunctional pair.

suydam

@graphicguy said:
Car Play is easy...driving along and it goes something like this...

-"Hey Siri...call my son"
iPhone dials my son and connects him through the car's stereo.
-"Hey Siri...read my texts"
iPhone reads my texts and then asks me if I want to reply
-"Hey Siri....get directions to the nearest Italian Restaurant"
A list of Italian restaurants pop up on your NAV Screen and you pick the one you want, which then you get directions to it, along with the travel time

You get a call while driving...."Answer the call"....the call comes through your stereo.

This may make GM rethink their Apple Car Play strategy....
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/gm-lays-off-over-1000-salaried-software-services-employees-cnbc-reports-2024-08-19/

Exactly how Google Assistant works on the Blazer.

suydam

@graphicguy said:
And finally, a quick question.

Just had an MRI done. Seems my hip is bone on bone, which explains why it hurts all the time.

Doc said I need a replacement. Any Edmunds friends had this done? Recovery time? How about difficulty with recovery (like time it took to walk again)?

TIA!

Have several friends who had this done. Recovery is tough. But in the end they all say, why didnt i do this sooner?

ab348

Surgeons are often like dealer service departments. They get paid on a piecework basis so just like dealers like to sell unnecessarily premature services, surgeons like to cut on their patients. I ran into a fellow recently (in a non-orthopedic surgery waiting room, ironically) who told me he was on his third right knee replacement and needed another, while also on his second left knee replacement. Hmmm.

suydam

ab348 said:

I feel stupid talking to an inanimate object. The “Hey Siri” or Alexa or whatever is just too cringey.

For some strange reason I have never had the desire to visit the nearest random restaurant I know nothing about.

Whenever I talk to my car or a device it seldom understands me anyway. One time I asked the system in the car to call somebody (I forget the name) and it did the “OK, calling (somebody I most definitely did not want to talk to)” and had to quickly find a way to stop it. It was a mad scramble of screen tapping with no immediate effect. I do remember that yelling “Stop!” had absolutely zero success. I’m just not good at these things. We are a very dysfunctional pair.

That’s why they all still have buttons too.

kyfdx

@graphicguy Unless a cortisone shot helps, then there is no other treatment than hip replacement. The people I know had it done in their early '60s. They were both physically active, and said the recovery was easier than having knee surgery.

graphicguy

suydam said:

@graphicguy said:

Car Play is easy...driving along and it goes something like this...

-"Hey Siri...call my son"

iPhone dials my son and connects him through the car's stereo.

-"Hey Siri...read my texts"

iPhone reads my texts and then asks me if I want to reply

-"Hey Siri....get directions to the nearest Italian Restaurant"

A list of Italian restaurants pop up on your NAV Screen and you pick the one you want, which then you get directions to it, along with the travel time

You get a call while driving...."Answer the call"....the call comes through your stereo.

This may make GM rethink their Apple Car Play strategy....
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/gm-lays-off-over-1000-salaried-software-services-employees-cnbc-reports-2024-08-19/

Exactly how Google Assistant works on the Blazer.

Admittedly, a quick test drive, but sorting through my iTunes, Audible and Podcasts were next to impossible by using Chevy's system. I could make phone calls by voice, though.

Seems like a system that is crippling Android Auto and Apple Car Play in lieu of their own (inferior) system.

ab348

suydam said:

That’s why they all still have buttons too.

That’s what I was tapping on the screen. Whatever I hit didn’t help. We just don’t get along.

I think part of my problem is that I’m an old IBM (70s/80s) systems guy. With those every piece of software had detailed manuals to accompany it that I would read and study before trying anything. These things have zero documentation of course. They are supposed to be intuitive and that’s where I go off the rails because I don’t find them generally that way.

explorerx4

A brother in law of mine who is doctor told "Surgeons like to operate and to keep that in mind".

xwesx

nyccarguy said:

Thoughts on this 2009 Forester @xwesx ? Looks like it needs new tires. Obviously I'd have to get it checked out to see if the timing belt was or needs to be done.

I'm surprised that it is being sold by a Subaru dealer, yet doesn't seem to have received much R&R care there. It's a limited, which is good for equipment and leather seats, etc., so they should clean up nicely with the care they should have already received from the dealer. The photos are awful (kudos, Subaru dealer!), which is not confidence-inspiring, but the miles are such that it *should* have received a new timing belt by now. I'd look closely for head gasket leaks (both internal and external), and for the condition of the transmission fluid (there's a dipstick on these!). Ad *says* new tires, but I only believe that if they put them on after the photos were taken!

The door seals on the rear doors look to be sagging, which often means those rear doors were used a lot (such as kids in/out, dogs, etc.) but also means that whomever had the car wasn't particularly meticulous about making sure everything was in good order. I'd think you should be able to knock at least a grand off that price, and more if you are looking at righting any wrongs.

xwesx

graphicguy said:

And finally, a quick question.

Just had an MRI done. Seems my hip is bone on bone, which explains why it hurts all the time.

Doc said I need a replacement. Any Edmunds friends had this done? Recovery time? How about difficulty with recovery (like time it took to walk again)?

TIA!

My grandfather had a hip replacement in 1998 after suffering with it for well over a decade prior. He was one surly SOB in the years leading up to the surgery, mostly because he was in such extreme pain all the time! After having it done, he was up moving around the next day and was walking without a cane within two months. He was *very* happy to have had it done (finally), but his doctors told him to push it off as long as he could manage because, at the time, the life expectancy of the artificial ball was about ten to fifteen years.

I'd hope that is longer now, and it is also more routine, but I don't know. Far easier recovery than a knee replacement.

imidazol97

My wife had both knees replace 15 or more years ago. At that time the hip replacement was supposed to be an easier recovery because less body weight is on the hip compare to the weight on one knee as one walks.

My advice is to check into presurgery physical therapy to strengthen the muscles that will be involved after they stretch them to replace the bones. My wife had been in PT and that made the recovery afterwards better than for some people who were less prepped muscle-wise.

Now many years later, I'm sure the replacement parts are better mapped. Our friend had knee replacement and the new knee was contoured to match the original bones, which are not spherical apparently. Makes walking after more like the movements before.

Also wife had shoulder reversal surgery and they did a CT scan (?) to get the exact dimensions for the replacement and it's positioning. It sounded like the machinery did the surgery as they cut away the old and placed the new...

Amazing.

Now if they could only do that for hearing and ears much the same as they do with replacement lenses in the eye and shaping of the cornea... to give better sight than I had had for decades.