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Havae a great week y'all...we are off to Vegas on Sunday...
Ross
-mike
Speaking of juice, the Liberty trim may be brushed metal but it still looked as cheap to me as the new Impreza's. Gratned there were a lot of people driving it, but the easy tendency for smudges and fingerprints to accumulate would drive the OCD among us batty.
Ed
Edit: paisan, your spare experience speaks better of Harlem than I can speak of the Philly area. Seems like once a month we get local news coverage of some car vandalism spree in the area.
My Jetta ended up looking like a Civic! Amazing!
paisan: easy - only sell it if you get the full asking price.
-juice
Pros:
Bullitproof reliability according to multiple sources
Easier to find parts and mods
cheaper to find parts and mods
Know the history of the car (never abused etc)
Light, good power to weight ratio.
Cons:
FWD
Not a Subaru
4-cylinder engine
no A/C
Another XT6:
Pros:
Already have 1
Great handling, especially if I get an MT
Rims from current XT6 can go on it
Love the XT6s
Cons:
Hard to find parts
heavier than MX6
not-so bullitproof reliability
dont' know the history.
-mike
-juice
Regarding the spare, I wonder if there is enough room underneath the Liberty, behind the rear axle to fit in a full-sized spare? My ML comes with an underbody Mickey Mouse spare tire because of that reason. There is not enough space between the rear axle and the rear (last) crossmember to fit in a full-sized spare.
To protect the underbody spare, and also for crashworthiness, there is a drop down underbody carrier that houses the tire. In the event of a serious collision, the carrier and tire breaks away to dissipate energy. An exterior spare tire carrier for the ML is available in every country but the US though (probably because of the iIHS' tests). MB partly got around the problem of cars rear ending the carrier and causing it to push into the tailgate by placing the spare tire further up the body, a few inches above the bumper. Unfortunately, like many things in life, this is a compromise, and you end up losing some rear visibility in the middle as a result.
Drew
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Vans, SUVs, and Aftermarket & Accessories message boards
We are headed for a week in the Outer Banks, NC (this weekend). I'm loading up 2 adult bikes on roof racks (per yellowbikedon's recommendation; thanks, Don) and 2 child bikes on a borrowed trunk mount rack. This is my first trip with the Legacy GT wagon in cumbrous configuration and even unladen, the bicycle appendages generate a cacophonous maelstrom (open moon roofs aren't sanctioned for this trip). Hopefully I'll be cognizant of vertical clearance. I'll report on the lower gas mileage and genus of organisms collected on the windward side of forks and downtubes.
Cheers,
..Mike
..Mike
http://www.4x4abc.com/images/ML1999/M4swingout.jpeg
http://www.4x4abc.com/images/ML1999/M4swingout.jpeg
It didn't end there. They agreed to cover damage and since it was just cosmetic we were advised to go ahead to LA (after fixing the bikes and rack) and get the body work done after we settled in. 2 weeks later in LA we took the car to a nearby body shop and had it fixed. When we went to pick it up the shop had "lost" the keys. Naively we said okay and drove it home and parked it in our garage. Next morning the car was gone only later to be found stripped and burned. Welcome to LA.
Bit
Serge, Susan, Michael, and Dina Ferrari Superfast American Dog
Don
Ed
Cheers Pat in NC
I remember a CHMSL like that on some Suzuku Sidekicks.
So, Mike is already at the beach? Sweet. I'll be going in a couple of weeks. Can't wait.
Ed: it's funny how two people can look at the same thing and come away with such different impressions.
Then again, maybe I liked the metal-look trim because the black plastic stuff looked cheap and had unfinished edges in some places.
-juice
Wished I had my camera-
On the way home we stopped to get gas at some truck stop on I-95. There in the lot getting gas was some old beat up Ford Fairlane (mid-'70's) with a (also old and beat up) jet ski strapped on to the top of the trunk!
Bob
I wonder if that Fairlane will get pulled over. Was it one of the older folding jet skis? Aren't those heavy?
We rented a Wave Runner at the beach and had a blast. My fore arms were sore from holding on tight!
-juice
Bob
I had my trailer gone over by my mechanic before going on this trip to move move our daughter into college. The trip was over 900 miles round trip, and the last thing I wanted to have problems with, was the trailer.
When we got down to her college, I was planning to disconnect the trailer, and park it at the motel, so I wouldn't have to take it every place.
Well, when we go there, I discovered I couldn't uncouple the trailer. It was like it was stuck or pinched in a manner so that the coupling wouldn' release. I looked at his this from all angles and couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong. So, I ended up taking this trailer all over the place with me—shopping, out for meals, sight seeing—you name it, the trailer tagged along.
On the way home yesterday, on I-95, ˆ got to thinking that there was something attached to the coupling that I hadn't remembered seeing before. So at a gas stop, I checked the coupling again only to find that my mechanic had inserted a safety pin with a cotter pin holding it in place, where you place the lock. All I had to do was remove the that safety pin, and it would have worked just fine.
Man do I feel stupid!
Bob
bit
As an interesting aside, an instructor told me that when the school was using Subarus, they had to disable the AWD to make it easier to induce understeer and oversteer on the skidpad.
For those unfamiliar with the course curriculum, we had a couple of hours of classroom instruction on vehicle dynamics but spent most of the weekend driving on the following courses:
Skidpad (understeer & oversteer correction)
Braking (ABS, threshold and trail braking)
Finesse (keep the ball in the bowl) (timed event)
Lane Change (both one and two emergency lane changes)
Precision (maneuvering forward and reverse in a tight course) (timed event)
Slalom (maneuver thru the cones as fast as possible)
Autocross (both dry and wet) (timed event)
I found the two-lane change course to be the most challenging. The driver accelerates to 50 mph and then throws the steering wheel hard over, gets the car almost sideways and then throws the wheel in the opposite direction to resume the original direction of travel. And of course the distance you had to accomplish this seems like only a matter of feet. I can assure you that traffic cones were flying in abundance but it's certainly a confidence builder to perform the maneuver successfully.
I'm sure it comes as no surprise that the autocross courses were the most fun. Especially since it was some one else's car that was being abused!
The courses were all setup in the infield of the Road Atlanta racecourse. Meanwhile, there was a 3-day racing school going on concurrently with our course and it was entertaining (and noisy) to watch the racecars running laps around the track. For anyone who's interested, the 3-day racing school is approx 3K but they provide the racecar, suit and helmet and when you complete it you're SCCA certified.
In closing, I'll leave you with my favorite instructor quote from the weekend "a squealing tire is a happy tire".
-Frank P.
Oops, almost forgot..... Anita Lienert of He Said/She Said fame (syndicated auto review column) was there Saturday morning doing an article for Audi Magazine.
Don't sweat it. We all goof up on occasion. It's all good when you have a sense of humor about it.
A buddy of mine rebuilt his big block Camaro and had one aftermarket piston on backwards. High compression pistons have indentations for the valves. Talk about a PING! He was lucky the damage was minor, and he still laughs about it today.
Frank: you dawg! That's sweet!
Hilarious - Panoz is then proof that Subaru's AWD is basically TOO effective at eliminating unsafe handling characteristics. Darn! ;-)
-juice
http://www.4car.co.uk/jsp/main.jsp?lnk=240&storyid=1076
-mike
-juice
-mike
Mark
Cool write up. You are one lucky dawg.
Did the instructors comment on the differences between Audi and Subaru handling?
Ken
Myrtle Beach was hot and humid (as was most of the US). My parents are considering a 7-passenger mini-van or SUV. I talked them into test driving the Suzuki XL7. My mom liked it but my dad hated it. At 230+ pounds, it was too small for him. That little V6 felt more powerful than its 170hp. Too bad the GM-aru isn't out yet. Saw only about 5 Subes in over a week.
Cape May is a beautiful place to visit. A quaint little town with lots of victorian homes. Great seafood too. Went to the Crab House in Wildwood for some Maryland crabs.
I actually rescued a woman at the beach that was caught in a rip current. The lifeguards thought she was swimming because she wasn't waving or panicing. She told me to call the lifeguards. I waved them over and then swam out too her and pulled her back towards the shore. The lifeguard got there when I had her in knee deep water. She thanked me about a dozen times but the lifeguard didn't say a word (teenager).
I driven on some scary roads (Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, Manhattan, etc.) but I think Maryland takes the cake. I've never seen so many lane swervers in one state. No one signals either. Including an Outback in the pouring rain at night driving about 65mph.
Ed, call Flemington at 908-752-5107. They will be way cheaper than Trenton. I spoke to the shop foreman there about synthetics. He said the boxers don't develop sludge as bad as some engines. He said a few of their customers do bring their own synthetic oil though. He's seen an engine taken apart that used Mobil1 and it was spotless.
Dennis
Greg
But remember, US diesel is low quality cheap stuff, so to make it meet world standards it would have to cost more.
Dennis: agree on the MD drivers, though I'd say DC area in general. It amazed me in Texas to see how curteous people were - they'd move right over for you to pass. Fat chance on our beltway!
Nice save, BTW.
-juice
-mike
In the DC suburbs, where many diesel customers are Mercedes or VW owners, the stuff is priced like liquid gold.
When gas prices peaked a month ago, diesel cost about the same as regular gas, maybe a nickel cheaper. Now, it's about the same price as mid-grade because gas prices dropped more. In the spring it was priced close to what premium costs, and if gas prices continue to drop that's where it'll end up for a while.
-juice
When was the last time you were in SC in August and it wasn't sticky? ;-) Too many teenage memories of farming and football practices to forget that.
I will call Flemington in the near future. I'm at 26,183 this AM.
Other places to drive: I've only driven Belt Parkway 3 times, most recently in June. Ugh. I lived in VA (Arlington) 1990-94 and tried to avoid driving at all costs. I had a radiator hose burst on me on the Inner Loop near University once; in the time it took me to get from the lane I was driving in over to the shoulder, the engine block cracked (VW 1.8L 8-valve inline 4, for those of you keeping score). Not fun.
Ed
Also, the instructors were all professional racecar drivers and while we weren't allowed to drive on the actual course (2.5 mile semi-figure eight), you got to ride around it with an instructor who gave a running narrative of what the pros look for when they drive it.
-Frank P.
-Colin
I noticed that diesel sold for agricultural use isn't the same as for cars. Does that mean the government thinks tractors don't pollute? I guess there aren't enough tractors to cause a problem.
Frank P.- Was it you that that had the really long a while back (manual vs. auto AWD, shifting the auto, brakes, etc.) I saw it while on vacation and couldn't respond.
I also notice the difference in driving feel between the auto and manual. I thought maybe it was more of the tranny than the AWD system but your post made sense. I also think the rear drums on my OBS are pretty darn good. It takes a big adjustment when I drive my wife's OB (larger car plus different brake feel).
As for shifting the manual, I know you can drop it to 3 when necessary. What about *always* shifting an auto like a manual? A friend told me he ruined his Honda tranny that way.
I figured Panoz would soon add a WRX.:-( I've got to get myself to a school one of these days.
Dennis
Wander over to the Forester board to see my latest in the never-ending AT v. MT discussion. Wish I could take my Forester (with some stiffer sidewalls) on a track; bet it would surprise some people.
Ed
I was really wishing for an auto on vacation. I've probably put about 1600 miles on my car in the past two weeks. Wife's leased OB has high mileage although she has since decided to purchase it.
IMO, you'll always get a different answer on torque splits. My response from SoA in 98 said the VC can transfer between 10/90-90/10 as necessary.
Dennis
Bob
So how can they stand out? Boxer engines. Turbos. Superior ride and handling. AWD alone is no longer enough.
But they do have to keep a lid on pricing. At least in the Forester's class, the Santa Fe and Escape have put on the pressure.
No competitor in the Forester's class has a 5 speed auto. Who will be the first?
-juice
Ken
Glad to see you back!
Patti
Have just rolled thru 33000km on the silver bullet, still no probs (touch wood)
Is Graham still around?
Cheers
Gus
-mike
-mike