I like the think on my own some times. No have not read anything of the sort. If you have a national health care, and want everyone to pay into the pot, the VAT or a national sales tax of some sort is the only way to do it. The politicians however will likely try to avoid does so, particularly the Democrats as they may lose the votes of certain voting blocks. A VAT seems to be a logical way of funding a national health care.
Now back to cars..... National Health Plan should be the concern of Washington in a relationship to the car industry and not some billions in researching how to make cars run on water. The private sector will fund this by way of huge profits on such new high mileage cars. Unfortunately GMs electric car seems to have gone to crusher, and Toyota's to the market place. Who knows the real story there?
Well Toyota, is yet to prove it's drivetrain will hold up. If they are so confident then why don't they offer a 5 yr. 100K warranty on their beloved new truck ????
Desperate men do desperate things.
One of the many things that GM HAS TO do, that Toyota doesn't is pump up warranties to boost sales.
And use larger engines to compete with smaller ones.
First, Toyota needs to develop a checkered past like GM has, THEN pay for more sales short-term with more warranty cost in the future.
GM has issues Toyota hasn't even gotten to yet, like selling small cars Americans don't want, at a loss, to counter-balance their trucks for CAFE, plus fend off the Koreans.
Toyota has so much confidence, the rest of the industry call sell warranties, while Toyota sells cars and trucks. It's all in how you look at it.
GM is looking down the barrel of a gun right now. Toyota's sipping margaritas. To each his own.
>national health care plan. It certainly would help business overall.....
I'm not sure it will help. We have a large number of parts of the Hillary secret meeting plan implemented... do you know of anyone who couldn't get healthcare in your city? Illegal aliens come here for it. Their kids have it as citizens and keep their parents here because of it. The ones on subsidies know to go to the emergency room using the EMS services as ambulances and the emergency rooms as doctor's offices. We pay the bill as hospital users and as city/county residents because they subsidize indigent care at the hospitals. The additional cost of health care will not lower the total healthcare cost to companies for other than a short period of time because the government control and interventions will run the costs up so rapidly companies will be paying more--and so will individuals who report their incomes, e.g., or pay taxes to the IRS.
As for VAT method of collecting I don't see that coming for a long time because of the lack of trust.
So GM is going to continue to be saddled with more than their fair share of healthcare costs and Toyota will have less than their fair share.
It is not a fad. While sizes will not continue to increase significantly 14" and 15" wheels are gone forever on midsize cars. 16" is/will become the standard and 17/18 will be uplevel.
Wheel appearance is just too important to go backwards.
So the Aura XR and the Malibu V6 won't be such a deal in the near future, as the new G6 will be RWD and have the 3.6 V6 as standard equipment. Poor Saturn, I guess the Astra imports may help. Too many divisions of GM competing with themselves for the modern world. The days of dominance may be over and thus cutting the smaller sized pie too many slices is gonna hurt all the dealers. A half dozen good cars and trucks say, would be plenty, I would think. Maybe the G8 should have been the New Malibu alongside the New Impala? The FWD New Malibu could be called the Nova. The LaCrosse is not selling, and will they sell many G6 once the Malibu is out? Then there is the Aura XE at around the price of a G6. If they could only concentrate on a few good cars to develop. Oh well, the dealership support woes shall strike at the heart. Loren
Not something I'd like to find after Day 3 of ownership, the General corralled 20% of my horses for 4 seconds at full-throttle!
DrFill,
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Do you know anything about "Closed loop" vs "Open Loop"? Apparently not. Closed loop is when your engine is receiving info from sensors such as MAF, O2, etc and adjusting things such as fuel/air mixture and timing accordingly. Hence, the term "Closed loop". And your engine is almost always in closed loop mode, except when at full throttle when it just dumps as much air and fuel into the system as possible (open loop). This is fine at high rpms since the engine has no problem burning it all. But at WOT from a stop under load, all it's doing is wasting fuel and creating ultra-high emissions due to unburned fuel escaping through the exhaust. GM has incorporated this 4 sec closed loop at WOT to prevent this which saves our planet and it does NOT affect the trucks towing capacity. 0-60 times? Maybe a fraction of a second, but who cares? Bottom line, GM is being responsible. If you really want a streetlight racer, then you can always re-tune the engine and keep up with the Tundra both in 0-60 times and in dumping all of those harmful emissions into our environment. If that makes you feel better.
Ya know, some smaller wheel wells or skirting those tires would help fill the gaps. Kids are alway referring to filling the gaps. Makes the car look sick. I take it sick is healthy.
Exactly why methods of collecting tax may change some day. Everyone pays with a VAT or a national sales tax, just like gasoline tax.
Will hospitals survive in California, may be the question. It ain't lookin' so good these days.
Why would you say that Toyota will have less than their fair share of health care expense. Actually, can not see how they are responsible for any expense, unless it is in the form of a benefit. Toyota is a for profit company, and not a government program we are paying into for a health care plan of any sort. When a company offers health plans, as many of us have enjoyed, it can as a benefit package of working for that company or store. Loren
Ya know, some smaller wheel wells or skirting those tires would help fill the gaps
Very true but that has nothing much to do with bigger wheels because it has more to do with the tire diameter.
The tire to body gap is due to many issues, the main one being tire to body contact. GM has had much higher requirements in this area until Bob came in and said 'who says?". Now the requirements are looser and they can get a tighter look. There will be some situations where you can get contact but now GM is closer to what is done by their competitors.
Good Post......I've been hammered in the Silvy vs. Tundra forum over this subject.
Only from un-informed Tundra folks who put 0-60 times at the top of their list. hmmm? I always thought that's what Sports Cars were for and trucks were meant for working?
Always thought the C5 Vette front wheel wheels looked a bit large. Like you said function is a good thing. Do you prefer the looks of the new shorter C6 Corvette, with exposed eyes, or the previous C5 looks? Or THIS ONE
Wheel appearance is just too important to go backwards.
One could have said the same thing about rear-wheel drive, body-on-frame, V8s, and open greenhouses in days past. Those all went away. We may all be driving around on tweels in 15 years.
It looks like GM is certainly going to have more product to throw at the market place than is Ford. So in that respect, they will compete better against Toyota. The real focus needs to be on profit -- stable profit and paying down tremendous debt. Getting leaner and meaner, will help GM stay competitive with Toyota. If Toyota sells more cars one day, it is not an issue with GM compared to good stability and even growth of net.
The only thing GM has to lose by Toyota selling a larger number of vehicles is a bit of prestige. As you have eluded the real sign of a good company is Net Profit. In that arena there are a dozen companies ahead of all the automakers. It was not always that way. I can remember when GM was the largest corporation in the world. When it comes to bottom line net profits Toyota holds the honors right now. Toyota is not even in the top ten corporations.
If this thing can get, at least, 32 hwy, 24 city(fwd only, Suzuki salesman told me), and 143HP... might be ok. It seems like Suzuki has decent cars, but they are slower than the others(with similar size, weight, HP), and less MPG, by 5 gallon on avg.
Maybe they should just buy Toyota engines, and drop them in? ;-)
Then they could get 37MPG hwy-29 city, and better 0-60( 9 second-10 seconds). You think after 22 years of selling cars in the USA, they could get the 4 cylinder, at least, up to 32-34 MPG hwy,like Cobalt, at least. (similar HP, maybe weight). That would be the concern( seeing as gas has only been below 2 dollars per gallon maybe 1 or 2 weeks in the past year+ in SW Ohio, once in October, and once in January, around 1.99 a gallon, for maybe 5 days). If they can hit 32-33MPG hwy...(vs 29-30 for the current SX4 SUV/CUV)... then we might be talking. take care/not offense.
Sorry if I posted this story again... 2 lazy to go look.
It looks like GM is certainly going to have more product to throw at the market place than is Ford.
I wonder if, like the airlines, GM being currently the strongest will work in their favor? If Ford, or more likely Chrysler, doesn't survive or is assimilated into another non-GM maker, then the reduction or elimination of one of the other traditional "big 3" will leave a bigger slice of American pie for GM. GM looks most likely to survive of the 3, and if they can take Ford or Chrysler's customers that may boost the volume to strengthen GM.
I don't think too many modern cars could pull off tailfins with much dignity. Those old 50's and early 60's cars with fins were long, sleek, and low-slung, with long hoods, long rear decks, and fairly short passenger cabins.
Today's upright cars, with their stubby rear decks, short hoods with too much FWD overhang, and passenger cabins that have swollen up to accommodate acres of dashboard top and rear package shelf (an obsolete term, but I dunno what they call it nowadays), just couldn't pull off something like a tailfin.
Although, the way many of today's beltlines slope up from front-to-back, instead of being level, it's kind of like a modern twist on the "Coke-bottle" look that was popular in the later 60's.
I pretty much agree with you, though. If the could do it they'd have probably done it when the PT Cruiser was an initial big hit. The Chevy HHR is supposed to be a late 40s early 50 Suburban knock off and it does a pretty good job of it. My dad had a 49 Suburban that he used for deliveries when I was a kid. The HHR definitely makes me think of that thing - though I have to pretend most of the windows aren't there.
I'm getting the idea that retro has run its course with the new vehicles, We'll see.
I'm not married to a particular style but know a nice one when I see it.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
what evidence do you have that larger wheels are fading from popularity? There is no reason to go back to smaller wheels because the public doesnt want them. GM was one of the first to jump on this trend my offering 20" rims on their pickups and SUVS and 18s on a wide range of cars. It seems like you are saying since Toyota and Honda dont believe in big rims its a stupid fad. Thats like saying power windows or auto headlights are a trend. Have we those features gone out of style? Cars from back in the day with 14" and 15" wheels look extremely puny by todays standards and people dont want to go back to that.
GMs electric car seems to have gone to crusher, and Toyota's to the market place. Who knows the real story there? toyotas version did not go to the crusher but they quit building them.
From a GM hater/EV1 lover: Only Toyota honorably sold a production EV on the free market, without trick or artifice, although there were only 328 to sell. The gas RAV4-EV had undergone two design changes by 2002, so any further production, beyond the 328 sold, would need a complete re-design of the RAV4-EV's 500 EV-specific parts. Toyota abruptly cancelled the RAV4-EV sale, stopped taking deposits, and spent months finding the parts and car bodies to fullfill unexpectedly heavy orders. All orders were filled, but it took a while. Yes, all 328 orders were filled! If I was Toyota with that kind of huge demand I would redesigned it to fit in the new Rav and built another 300!!! :P
And then Toyota did not build anymore. The press/California elite lambast GM for "killing" the EV1 and crushing them while saying nothing when Toyota did basically the same thing and quit building them. Both companies stopped supplying electric vehicles, probably for the same reasons.
The big issue with them is that GM took away their leased cars (legally) and crushed them while Toyota still has up to 328 vehicles still out there.
GM did not want the liability.
Who was right? Probably Toyota because they kept working on alternative vehicles (GM did also but took a different route with no production of hybrids until later) and got the hybrids out before anyone else while GM was doing the next step with fuel cell vehicles.
The chapter on the EV-1 is closed. The RAV4-EV is still open. Some of the vehicles Toyota sold are still under warranty. That battery pack was just under $30k range. For the buyers that had the foresight to get a 7 year 100k mile warranty it could spell trouble for Toyota. Batteries are not something you can keep on the shelf for years like a fender. They may be doing some serious scrambling to get replacements manufactured if there are battery failures.
Toyota should be thanking GM for the EV-1 project as it was GM research that developed the NiMH battery which made the hybrids on the road possible.
I am hoping it is a fad. Most of the low profile tires and wheels are just plain ugly. Of course the spinners are a nice touch :sick:
Having owned a 2005 Passat with 17" wheels and tires I can say I would not buy another vehicle with low profile. They handle good on smooth roads. They are not worth a hoot on the average streets in So CA. to many potholes and rough repairs for a comfortable ride. I made them remove the bling, bling ones on the new GMC PU I bought and discount back to 16" full size tires.
You need to remember that not every car with wheels larger than 16" has low profile tires. GM uses 55 series rubber on cars like the Impala LTZ. They use 50 series tires on the Epsilon cars with 18" rims. Europeans cars will take things down to 40 or even 35 but you wont find that on many GM vehicles short of the vette or V series cadillacs. On the Lucerne and DTS I believe GM uses 245/50 tires on 18" rims which will ensure a comfortable ride.
I dunno...a 245/50/R18 might sound ridiculous at first, but overall it has a smaller diameter than the 235/70/R15's on my '79 New Yorker (27.7" versus 28.1", at least according to tirerack)
A Lucerne might not need that much wheel, but I don't think that much tire is too extreme.
I'd hate to pay the replacement cost on 4 245/50/R18's though! But, as they become more common, perhaps the price will come down.
All I know is they were ugly, chrome and a $2400 add-on. If people want to throw money like that down the toilet. It is America, Land of the Free. I buy a truck for the times I want to look at property down some rutted old fire trail. I want my tires to protect my rims. I see those goofy wheels and tires on Denali's by the gross. Almost to a person they are young, mid 20s, probably living at home. They are obviously making too much money and not buying a home or something of lasting value. I just consider it a further indication of the decadent society we are all a part of.
PS I don't blame GM for selling them. You see a sucker you want to get in on the cash.
Wish those AUTO-DOWN windows were a thing of the past. Please kill those off.
Saw a Chrysler 300 with those 20" -- maybe 22" super chrome & overstyle bling-bling wheels. The car was all wheels. Takes a crane to change out a wheel :surprise: They looked about 24", but who knows. Loren
about the auto-down windows? I like them, as long as the switch is designed so that it's not easy to accidentally put it all the way down, when you only want to crack it a bit.
My Intrepid is the only car I've ever had with an auto-down window. It did take awhile to get used to it at first, and I'd accidentally put the window all the way down sometimes. But I got used to it. The switches on my buddy's '06 Xterra have, in my opinion, a more sensitive touch to them, but if I drove the thing regularly, I'm sure I'd get used to it, as well.
Cadillac around 1985, with the downsizing came some overcompensating custom grills in gold color vertical bars. Ah, those were the days. I still see people with those Members Only jackets. The good part is how they held up over time -- well I hope they all got washed.
I wonder how good a job Toyota has done with the tuner people. Scion may be a good idea, but dropping the Celica, I don't see as a good thing. All that car needed was some HP and a way to see the cars on the left side, as in left shoulder driver view. I see Cobalt has been promoted as a tuner car. As popular as a Civic? Civic/Acura I would think is a bit more on the radar of young buyers of smaller cars for sport and show. But Cobalt was promoted well by GM. They seem to be into getting the Chevy name out with younger people -- score one for the new GM. Will be interesting to see where Scion goes with the next generation of cars. Does GM have enough cars for the younger set to hold brand interest? Will the Camaro be a real hit? I am sure a RWD Celica for around $21 to 23K would be a hit, with 250HP +. Maybe an additional smaller four cylinder for those needing lower insurance rates. Loren
Worked on my PT. On the Honda it is out of control. Sometime I can go down then back up where I want it, but I gotta be fast. On a PT if you go all the way on the switch, it sort of clicks and goes into auto. Lighter pressure and it was NOT in auto mode. Some day I will read the car manual. Perhaps I am doing something wrong. -Loren
I've seen them. They usually came in two flavors - pseudo-Rolls and pseudo Mercedes. The Rolls grilles were the most common. I at least have the good taste not to junk-up my rides with this self-destructive add-on junk.
I've seen them. They usually came in two flavors - pseudo-Rolls and pseudo Mercedes. The Rolls grilles were the most common.
For some reason, I'm just getting this mental image of Huey Hogg, Boss Hogg's nephew on the Dukes of Hazzard. He drove around in a VW Bug convertible, white, with one of those Rolls Royce grilles that were a common aftermarket thing back then. And it had the required steer horns mounted on it, too!
When the G8 comes out, would it not be interesting to have tires with the red sidewalls? Wasn't that General Tires on say GTOs which had the red color. For some odd reason, those have appeal to me. And in rare cases, a classic car with those wide white walls is neat. But then again, it was a different period in history and it actually fits the car look. The red wall tires had a rather narrow circle, and I believe them to be tasteful. And if not tasteful, delightfully tacky! :shades: Loren
Large wheels come standard on many models so they are not always add ons. Certain models of GM's trucks come with 20s standard. The Lucerne CXS and Impala SS/Grand Prix GXP come with 18s standard. Sorry but this is the way things are now. Most people like it this way and if you think that affinity for wheels larger than 15" is exclusive to 20 somethings who live at home I think you are mistaken. Do you know how many middle aged white guys I have seen with factory issued 20s or 22s on Escalades? The Q7, GL450 and other European SUVS also have 20" rims from the factory. Jaguar and BMW offer 20s on some cars. Large cars need larger wheels to look proportional. No one wants to see a Lucerne with 16s, it looks absurd. The base Lucerne and CXS model almost look like different vehicles due to the wheels. The CXS is hot, while the base looks like a rental car.
>And it had the required steer horns mounted on it, too!
Used to be a business along main highway in Dayton that had a white Cadillac with a full-sized set of horns on the front. I believe this was before Dukes of Hazzard. I'd have to see dates on the tv series. I think he had a couple of steakhouses in town. White convertible.
I'm sure it was fashionable to put those steer horns on car hoods long before the Dukes of Hazzard came out. I can't remmeber for sure, but I think the Dukes came out in January 1979, as a midseason replacement show. I don't think it had a "traditional" full first season.
Anyway, Big Enis Brudette's Eldorados always had steer horns on them in the Smokey and the Bandit trilogy, and the first Smokey movie predates the Dukes by about a year and a half.
I'm sure I've seen old Warner Bros and Tex Avery cartoons from the 50's where they would show some oil baron from Texas with a big Caddy looking limo with steer horns on the hood.
I believe Honda has upgraded all their V6 Accords to large 17" rims already. They used to be 16" for V6's. Anything bigger than 17" is overkill on a midsize and smaller car.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
If some bling-bling wheels makes the difference between your car looking like a rental car, something is wrong with that car. Ya know tractors have large wheels, they must look pretty sexy Oh yeah, some John Deere yellow wheels woo-hoo!
Comments
2007 Saturn Aura: Length 190.9", Width 70.3", Height 57.6", Wheelbase 112.3"
2007 Commodore: Length 192.7", Width 74.7", Height 58.1" Wheelbase 114.7"
No, a locker isn't AVAILABLE on the Tundra.
Now back to cars..... National Health Plan should be the concern of Washington in a relationship to the car industry and not some billions in researching how to make cars run on water. The private sector will fund this by way of huge profits on such new high mileage cars. Unfortunately GMs electric car seems to have gone to crusher, and Toyota's to the market place. Who knows the real story there?
loren
Desperate men do desperate things.
One of the many things that GM HAS TO do, that Toyota doesn't is pump up warranties to boost sales.
And use larger engines to compete with smaller ones.
First, Toyota needs to develop a checkered past like GM has, THEN pay for more sales short-term with more warranty cost in the future.
GM has issues Toyota hasn't even gotten to yet, like selling small cars Americans don't want, at a loss, to counter-balance their trucks for CAFE, plus fend off the Koreans.
Toyota has so much confidence, the rest of the industry call sell warranties, while Toyota sells cars and trucks. It's all in how you look at it.
GM is looking down the barrel of a gun right now. Toyota's sipping margaritas. To each his own.
DrFill
I'm not sure it will help. We have a large number of parts of the Hillary secret meeting plan implemented... do you know of anyone who couldn't get healthcare in your city? Illegal aliens come here for it. Their kids have it as citizens and keep their parents here because of it. The ones on subsidies know to go to the emergency room using the EMS services as ambulances and the emergency rooms as doctor's offices. We pay the bill as hospital users and as city/county residents because they subsidize indigent care at the hospitals. The additional cost of health care will not lower the total healthcare cost to companies for other than a short period of time because the government control and interventions will run the costs up so rapidly companies will be paying more--and so will individuals who report their incomes, e.g., or pay taxes to the IRS.
As for VAT method of collecting I don't see that coming for a long time because of the lack of trust.
So GM is going to continue to be saddled with more than their fair share of healthcare costs and Toyota will have less than their fair share.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Wheel appearance is just too important to go backwards.
Loren
DrFill,
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Do you know anything about "Closed loop" vs "Open Loop"? Apparently not.
Closed loop is when your engine is receiving info from sensors such as MAF, O2, etc and adjusting things such as fuel/air mixture and timing accordingly. Hence, the term "Closed loop". And your engine is almost always in closed loop mode, except when at full throttle when it just dumps as much air and fuel into the system as possible (open loop). This is fine at high rpms since the engine has no problem burning it all. But at WOT from a stop under load, all it's doing is wasting fuel and creating ultra-high emissions due to unburned fuel escaping through the exhaust. GM has incorporated this 4 sec closed loop at WOT to prevent this which saves our planet and it does NOT affect the trucks towing capacity. 0-60 times? Maybe a fraction of a second, but who cares? Bottom line, GM is being responsible. If you really want a streetlight racer, then you can always re-tune the engine and keep up with the Tundra both in 0-60 times and in dumping all of those harmful emissions into our environment. If that makes you feel better.
Mike
Loren
Rocky
Perhaps this is also why the Tundra has such poor MPG? Probably not since I do not think that the Cafe tests include full throttle?
Will hospitals survive in California, may be the question. It ain't lookin' so good these days.
Why would you say that Toyota will have less than their fair share of health care expense. Actually, can not see how they are responsible for any expense, unless it is in the form of a benefit. Toyota is a for profit company, and not a government program we are paying into for a health care plan of any sort. When a company offers health plans, as many of us have enjoyed, it can as a benefit package of working for that company or store.
Loren
Very true but that has nothing much to do with bigger wheels because it has more to do with the tire diameter.
The tire to body gap is due to many issues, the main one being tire to body contact. GM has had much higher requirements in this area until Bob came in and said 'who says?". Now the requirements are looser and they can get a tighter look. There will be some situations where you can get contact but now GM is closer to what is done by their competitors.
Only from un-informed Tundra folks who put 0-60 times at the top of their list. hmmm? I always thought that's what Sports Cars were for and trucks were meant for working?
Thanks
Whoops. Does it have any kind of LSD?
This discussion is supposed to be more about the companies than the individual vehicles.
We're really losing focus here. :sick:
Loren
oh no, sorry, that's a bad one
Loren
One could have said the same thing about rear-wheel drive, body-on-frame, V8s, and open greenhouses in days past. Those all went away. We may all be driving around on tweels in 15 years.
Loren
If this thing can get, at least, 32 hwy, 24 city(fwd only, Suzuki salesman told me), and 143HP... might be ok.
It seems like Suzuki has decent cars, but they are slower than the others(with similar size, weight, HP), and less MPG, by 5 gallon on avg.
Maybe they should just buy Toyota engines, and drop them in? ;-)
Then they could get 37MPG hwy-29 city, and better 0-60( 9 second-10 seconds).
You think after 22 years of selling cars in the USA, they could get the 4 cylinder, at least, up to 32-34 MPG hwy,like Cobalt, at least.
(similar HP, maybe weight).
That would be the concern( seeing as gas has only been below 2 dollars per gallon maybe 1 or 2 weeks in the past year+ in SW Ohio, once in October, and once in January, around 1.99 a gallon, for maybe 5 days).
If they can hit 32-33MPG hwy...(vs 29-30 for the current SX4 SUV/CUV)... then we might be talking.
take care/not offense.
Sorry if I posted this story again... 2 lazy to go look.
I wonder if, like the airlines, GM being currently the strongest will work in their favor? If Ford, or more likely Chrysler, doesn't survive or is assimilated into another non-GM maker, then the reduction or elimination of one of the other traditional "big 3" will leave a bigger slice of American pie for GM. GM looks most likely to survive of the 3, and if they can take Ford or Chrysler's customers that may boost the volume to strengthen GM.
Today's upright cars, with their stubby rear decks, short hoods with too much FWD overhang, and passenger cabins that have swollen up to accommodate acres of dashboard top and rear package shelf (an obsolete term, but I dunno what they call it nowadays), just couldn't pull off something like a tailfin.
Although, the way many of today's beltlines slope up from front-to-back, instead of being level, it's kind of like a modern twist on the "Coke-bottle" look that was popular in the later 60's.
I pretty much agree with you, though. If the could do it they'd have probably done it when the PT Cruiser was an initial big hit. The Chevy HHR is supposed to be a late 40s early 50 Suburban knock off and it does a pretty good job of it. My dad had a 49 Suburban that he used for deliveries when I was a kid. The HHR definitely makes me think of that thing - though I have to pretend most of the windows aren't there.
I'm getting the idea that retro has run its course with the new vehicles, We'll see.
I'm not married to a particular style but know a nice one when I see it.
toyotas version did not go to the crusher but they quit building them.
From a GM hater/EV1 lover:
Only Toyota honorably
And then Toyota did not build anymore. The press/California elite lambast GM for "killing" the EV1 and crushing them while saying nothing when Toyota did basically the same thing and quit building them. Both companies stopped supplying electric vehicles, probably for the same reasons.
The big issue with them is that GM took away their leased cars (legally) and crushed them while Toyota still has up to 328 vehicles still out there.
GM did not want the liability.
Who was right? Probably Toyota because they kept working on alternative vehicles (GM did also but took a different route with no production of hybrids until later) and got the hybrids out before anyone else while GM was doing the next step with fuel cell vehicles.
I can remember looking at alternative wheels 15 years ago and we still barely have any runflat tires out there today.
Toyota should be thanking GM for the EV-1 project as it was GM research that developed the NiMH battery which made the hybrids on the road possible.
Having owned a 2005 Passat with 17" wheels and tires I can say I would not buy another vehicle with low profile. They handle good on smooth roads. They are not worth a hoot on the average streets in So CA. to many potholes and rough repairs for a comfortable ride. I made them remove the bling, bling ones on the new GMC PU I bought and discount back to 16" full size tires.
A Lucerne might not need that much wheel, but I don't think that much tire is too extreme.
I'd hate to pay the replacement cost on 4 245/50/R18's though! But, as they become more common, perhaps the price will come down.
PS
I don't blame GM for selling them. You see a sucker you want to get in on the cash.
Saw a Chrysler 300 with those 20" -- maybe 22" super chrome & overstyle bling-bling wheels. The car was all wheels. Takes a crane to change out a wheel :surprise: They looked about 24", but who knows.
Loren
My Intrepid is the only car I've ever had with an auto-down window. It did take awhile to get used to it at first, and I'd accidentally put the window all the way down sometimes. But I got used to it. The switches on my buddy's '06 Xterra have, in my opinion, a more sensitive touch to them, but if I drove the thing regularly, I'm sure I'd get used to it, as well.
I wonder how good a job Toyota has done with the tuner people. Scion may be a good idea, but dropping the Celica, I don't see as a good thing. All that car needed was some HP and a way to see the cars on the left side, as in left shoulder driver view. I see Cobalt has been promoted as a tuner car. As popular as a Civic? Civic/Acura I would think is a bit more on the radar of young buyers of smaller cars for sport and show. But Cobalt was promoted well by GM. They seem to be into getting the Chevy name out with younger people -- score one for the new GM. Will be interesting to see where Scion goes with the next generation of cars. Does GM have enough cars for the younger set to hold brand interest? Will the Camaro be a real hit? I am sure a RWD Celica for around $21 to 23K would be a hit, with 250HP +. Maybe an additional smaller four cylinder for those needing lower insurance rates.
Loren
For some reason, I'm just getting this mental image of Huey Hogg, Boss Hogg's nephew on the Dukes of Hazzard. He drove around in a VW Bug convertible, white, with one of those Rolls Royce grilles that were a common aftermarket thing back then. And it had the required steer horns mounted on it, too!
:shades: Loren
Used to be a business along main highway in Dayton that had a white Cadillac with a full-sized set of horns on the front. I believe this was before Dukes of Hazzard. I'd have to see dates on the tv series. I think he had a couple of steakhouses in town. White convertible.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Anyway, Big Enis Brudette's Eldorados always had steer horns on them in the Smokey and the Bandit trilogy, and the first Smokey movie predates the Dukes by about a year and a half.
I'm sure I've seen old Warner Bros and Tex Avery cartoons from the 50's where they would show some oil baron from Texas with a big Caddy looking limo with steer horns on the hood.
Loren