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dangermobile's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | | 7:20 pm |
Our Sports Cars Are So Big They Are Named After Boats
There's been a lot of rumors going around about the the Corvette lately. The biggest (and somewhat confirmed) rumour is that they're making a higher power version with superchargers and updated handling bits. But that's a boring rumor. The only interesting part about that is the thing about including the cost of a high-performance driving course with the price of the car. No, the interesting rumors are the ones about adding extra models to the Corvette line-up. Now, in the US this sounds very confusing, because the Corvette is a model, and you can't really add models to the line-up of a model, but in Europe Corvette is also a marque of its own. (This is thanks to the degradation of the Chevrolet name in Europe from the practice of GM selling Daewoos as Chevys there.) It turns out that around here there's even a dealership that styles itself as Corvette-only (although I understand GM contractually forces them to move a certain number of trucks as well). I'm not sure how it would be handled in the US if they did offer multiple Corvette models. Maybe they just wouldn't call them Corvettes in the US, or maybe they'd pretend they were trim lines (like they claim that replacing the steel frame with an aluminum frame in the Z06 is a "trim" change). But, on to the theoretical new models, both of them. The first model is a low-end V6 roadster based on the Saturn Sky/Pontiac Soltice platform (AKA the kappa platform, which mostly a shortened and somewhat simplified version of the Corvette platform). An entry-level entry-level supercar. Corvette purists will decry a V6 Corvette (although the original had an inline 6), and I'm sure a few of them will point to the people that have stuck a V8 in the Solstices and Skies. Plus, as good as it sounds to put a V6 in a kappa-platform car, the engine would have to be pretty good to beat what the Sky Redline/Solstice GXP engine does with turbocharging and direct injection (giving nearly 50% more power than the base inline 4 for those models with better fuel economy). It really seems like a no-go, with the only exception being the idea of it being offered with a fixed roof (in addition a convertable), unlike the two convertables. But really, this doesn't seem like enough justification, especially since there are also (more credible) rumors of a Solstice coupe in the future. More recently there was a rumored mid-engined model with more emphasis on handling than the regular Corvettes. The rumor has it that offering it as a separate model was a compromise between the people who wanted to make next-generation regular Corvette mid-engined on one side and the Corvette purists who wanted to keep the front-engined Corvette, as well as the people who feared that the added expense would drive away customers. In theory, by offering it as a separate model they can still cater to the usual Corvette customers with the base model, and then the mid-engined model would be the refined car to compete with other exotic cars. But it seems to me that the better solution would be to sell this model as a Cadillac instead of the Corvette-based alpha-bit soup model they have now. As desirable as such a car would be, it seems to me that they'd need to do an awful lot of part sharing or charge a whole lot for it to make economic sense. I suppose I should have had a point to that post. Oh well. Current Music: Golden Smog - Corvette | | Monday, February 5th, 2007 | | 9:47 pm |
| | Friday, February 2nd, 2007 | | 5:50 pm |
| | Saturday, December 9th, 2006 | | 10:32 pm |
Replacing the Bulb is About Thirty Seconds of Work
So, on Thursday one of my coworkers told me that one of my brakelights was out (left driver's side). So, when I got home, I jammed a snow brush on the brake and sure enough, he was right. The tail light still worked though, and that was part of the same 2-filament bulb. Since I wanted to wait until I had daylight to fix this, I waited until Saturday to do the work. So, Saturday afternoon I undid the wingnuts and removed the rear driver side light cluster (since that's the only way to access the bulbs) and pulled out the offending bulb. I then took a walk to the local Autozone, where it turned out that carrying the bulb with me was unnecessary and not really helpful anyway. When I got back it was a bit dark and cloudy, so I sat in the car while I opened the package (just in case there were important notes on the packaging. There weren't.) and stuck the fresh bulb in the old bulb carrier. Then I got out of the car and habitually locked the door. Then, when I went to open the trunk, I realized the keys were sitting on the passenger seat. After checking the doors on the off chance a passenger had forgotten to lock the door and I hadn't caught it, (nope) and checking the trunk in case it was down but not latched, like sometimes happens if I slam it (nope), I got out my AAA card. At which point I got nervious because the expiration date was in December (and I had been putting off sending in the next payment because there was no spot on the stub for change of address). Then I checked my watch and noticed I still had 5 days left on the old card. So, I called and told them my membership number, where I was, the make and model of the car, and they told me to wait for up to 45 minutes. While I wait, I consider what I can do to pass the time. I could go sit in my apartment, except I locked my keys in my car. I could go check the mailbox, except I locked my keys in my car. I could top off the windshield washer fluid, except I locked my keys in my car. I decided to lean up against the support post for the carport. An hour later, the flatbed tow-truck shows up, and after the formalities of giving him my membership information and a signature, he pulls out his tools from the back seat of his truck. After fishing one end of his fancy coathanger under the window and inside the car, he spent a few minutes trying to push the door latch to unlock the door (and I didn't remember until hours later that he could have just tried to pull the handle with the tool) he finally got the passenger door open and handed me my keys, which I immediately used to unlock the driver's side door. Then, when he tried to get his tool out, it got caught on something in the door, and there was a bit of jiggling and then the window shattered. Using the snow brush from the trunk, and a dustpan and trashbag grabbed from my apartment (since I could get in it now), and a pair of gloves he had in his truck, he cleaned up most of the glass. It was another hour or so before the second truck from his company showed up with the roll of automobile-grade plastic wrap to cover up the window. I got a business card and gave the driver all of my contact information, but the office doesn't open until 8 am Monday, so I have to wait until then. The driver of the second truck also chastized the first driver for keeping his tools in the warm cab instead of the boxes on the outside, although I really doubt there was enough surface area on the tool or heat in the rubber tip to have caused the problem. I find it more likely that the natural springiness of the tool caused it to hit the window hard when it finally came unstuck. Oh and yes, my brake lights work now. | | Monday, November 13th, 2006 | | 6:02 pm |
Auto Show
The Sacramento Auto Show snuck up on me this year, I didn't realize it was this weekend until Saturday night. I went Sunday afternoon, forgetting that: 1) going north on Business 80 on a weekend afternoon is horrible, and 2) to check what they were charging for parking and admission. After surviving the horrible affects of my forgetfulness, I entered the California State Fairgrounds (or Cal Expo, as it is called). They expanded the show somewhat since last year, proclaiming that they have 13 buildings of vehicles. This is because they expanded into the expo center buildings this year, which are eight rather small buildings in the same little complex. The new car portion of the show took up the space the entire show had taken last year, which isn't really all that much more. The level of manufacturer support for this show varied rather drastically. The domestic brands, and a few of the imports (Toyota, for one) had the full auto show experience, but it was obvious that some of the brands were just a few cars packed up off some dealer's lot and parked in one of the buildings. GM was fully showing off their Kappa cars, with a Solstice, and two Skys (one base trim and one redline). I'm sure part of this is because they had three roadsters this year, but you could actually sit in the Solstice this time, unlike the throng of guys wishing they could justify buying one that crowded around the car last year. GM also showed off their new HHR panel van, which was behind a rope with pretty much zero crowd around it. In the Subaru section, they had, among other things, the WRX STi Limited, and which I took a picture of, just to have a picture of an STi without the insane wing on the back. The Mazda booth had a Miata Power Hardtop, which they had sitting with the top down, and they never operated it to my knowlege. And they didn't have any RX-8s out (unlike last year when they had two, even though you could only sit in one). I didn't really pay much attention to Toyota, other than to notice that there seemed to be more old people in the Toyota area than other places, and to notice that the center guages on the Yaris make the interior look pretty bad, in addition to being poor ergonomics. Not much of interest in the Ford section, other than the guy on stage talking about the new Mustang Cobra and mentioning that if you remove the governors you might be able to get it up to 180 MPH, although Ford doesn't advise that at all (wink wink, nudge nudge). The Silicon Valley Auto Group showed up again, with their roped off, invitation-only section. They had plenty of expensive cars there: Spyker, Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and even a Lotus for the cheaper customers. When I was by this display, there was a guy with a video camera narrating to himself. I assume he was some sort of video bloggart. The Jaguars were being shown in a different section by a different dealer, so you could get in to those. Other than the overabundance of leather, some of the interior bits of the Jaguar I sat in seemed a bit cheap, and rather flimsy, actually. There were of course other brands there, but I can't really think of anything from those displays worth mentioning. After I left the new car area, I walked over to the Expo Center and looked at the other stuff they had. The first building I went in to was the Toys For Big Kids display, where they had a strange variety of stuff, from electric 3-wheeled vehicles from ZapCars, to a Campagna T-Rex. Much of the vehicles in the room had signs re-assuring the visitors that they were street legal. Next, I visited the building with the Horseless Carriage display in it. I was struck by the smell of gasoline as soon as I entered the room. They had plenty of cars, mostly from the 1910s, but some others. One thing I noticed that I hadn't noticed before was that many of the cars there were right-hand drive, even though they were American. I suppose it was quite some time into the history of the automobile before that sort of thing started becoming an issue. There were several groups showing off their hot rods there, but not much impressive. They had a stretch (new) Dodge Charger limousine there, all decked out in racing trim, just so they could have a stretch limousine in racing trim, I suppose. There was at least one Cobra replica there, as well as a supposedly real Cobra, because everyone likes Cobras. Once again, they had the Guess the Cubed Car contest. I was thinking a Geo Metro based on the GM-looking door handle and the 4-bolt wheels. I didn't enter, though, since I really don't want to give car dealers any contact information unless I really need to. Plus, looking at the pamphlet they gave out, last year's car was a Peugeot, so it seems highly unlikely that this year's car was anything as common as I was guessing. Oh, and I have pictures. I didn't get a picture of the most interesting car I saw, though. This is because it was a run-down old stretch Lincoln Town Car limo I saw on the way home. Because seriously, you don't see people driving run-down old limos. | | Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 | | 9:29 pm |
| | Saturday, October 21st, 2006 | | 9:48 pm |
I Coulda Sworn Iit Had More
I was just watching TV and I saw an ad for the Pontiac G6. The music was a Klee song, and I'm pretty sure it was Not Even Ten Horses. It seems like that's not the best choice of music in an ad for anything other than a Citroen 2CV. | | Monday, October 16th, 2006 | | 11:29 pm |
| | Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 | | 10:24 pm |
And much of it can't even blame freeze/thaw cycles
This weekend my parents were visiting, and one of our activities was visiting South Lake Tahoe. One of the ways to tell you've just crossed the state line is that the pavement suddenly gets much smoother right after you cross over into Nevada. So I'm not surprised. (The other way to tell you just entered Nevada, of course, is the sudden appearance of high-rise casinos.) | | Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 | | 10:10 pm |
| | Friday, September 8th, 2006 | | 9:10 pm |
| | Saturday, August 19th, 2006 | | 8:08 pm |
need more conditioning to shut off the conditioning
I guess the one advantage of driving cars with broken A/C all of those years was that I never had to worry about disengaging the A/C right when the light in the intersection turns green. I didn't notice it last year because I only used the A/C on the highway, but this year I've been getting lazy and wimpy. I'm not sure if it lacks the capacity to shut off under gassing or it's just not sensitive enough. | | Saturday, August 5th, 2006 | | 3:37 pm |
I can think of a few components I wish they had shared instead
So, I was looking at some information on the Ford GT, and I notice that it shares the steering column stalks with my Focus. (Well, not completely, the GT has a slightly different right stalk, for the variable intermittant setting.) I suppose for some people this might make them think slightly higher of the Focus, but given my experience with the car it just makes me feel sorry for the people who paid all of that money to get a Ford GT. | | Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 | | 8:37 pm |
And remember, it's always fun to say Wankel
So, I was just reading up on Mazda, and I found some things I thought I would note. The name Mazda derives from the name Ahura Mazda, a Zoroastrian diety. You may remember the Zoroastrians as the followers of Space Zorro. Also, they use the Zoom Zoom Zoom song for some of their ads (although apparently only in Japan and Europe). This song originally appeared in Only The Strong, which as I'm sure you all know is pretty much the only Hollywood movie to feature capoeira as a major plot element. (Just start learning capoeira and eventually someone will talk you into watching this movie). | | Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 | | 10:46 pm |
Gaming the system
I ended up buying a copy of Gran Turismo 4 for my Playstation 2 over the weekend. Now, I normally hate driving games, and GT4 reminded me why. The controls are twitchy, and I keep trying to accelerate and brake with the steering analog stick and steer with the acceleration/brake analog stick (when I'm not trying to roll the car around like a Katamari, that is). I'm sure this would be easier if I went out and bought a steering wheel for my PS/2, but then I'd be paying even more for a driving game, which would still provide barely any feedback. Ignoring for a moment the fact that I'm completely incompetent at it, the game seems pretty accurate. I hear the physics are good enough that the game is of some actual use to real race drivers, something like how some aerospace engineers use X-Plane as a design tool. Of course, I assume none of them are using the standard DualShock controllers. One other thing about this game was that it's supposed to have accurate representations of lots of different cars (over 700). I had wanted to check out some of the cars I've been looking at buying later, and there were some others I wanted to check out just for kicks. When you look at the selection of cars in the game, though, they tend to skew to Japanese cars. There are 20 Subaru Imprezas, 25 Mitsubishi Lancers, 48 Nissan Skylines, but no Ferraris, no Lamborghinis, no Porsches. They even list Lexus and Scion as American cars (since the Lexus and Scion cars are mostly sold as Toyotas in Japan). There are some Pontiacs (5), but no Fiero. At least they have the Ford GT (which even shows up on the case cover). Of course, an awful lot of the cars aren't available to me now, they have to be unlocked. And, it seems that the only way to unlock the cars is to actually do well in races, which let's face it isn't going to happen. (Some other games will still unlock features for sucky but persistant players.) | | Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 | | 5:40 pm |
Roadster Redux
So, I've been looking at it some more and I think I have to revise my earlier statements on the Miata vs. the Solstice. Mostly this is due to the Solstice's top. First off, the Miata's top folds into it's own little cubbyhole between the cabin and the trunk, while the Solstice's top folds down into the trunk, drastically reducing the available space. I suppose when you get right down to it I only really need enough room in the trunk for my laptop case, but still, this is pushing it. Next up: the little wings or buttresses or fins or whatever those things are that go back from the top. While they look nice (and the top would look pretty bad up if they weren't there), they complicate the top operation. Every review I've read has complained that putting the top up requires getting out of the car to snap in these things in. As an added unfortunality, simply opening the trunk to add or remove items requires you to then re-snap these (on both sides, naturally) when you close the lid again. Finally, hardtops. The Miata has offered a removable hardtop for quite some time already (for only about $3000). The Solstice doesn't have one yet, but there are plans to offer one in 2007. In addition to making the Miata more useful in a real winter (and meet certain track racing regulations), the hardtop also sports a rear window that allows for much more visibility than the window on the convertable top (It looks a lot like the RX-8's rear window, actually). While the Solstice top isn't officially out yet, the top on the race car seems to match the general shape of the convertable top. Which means it extends over the trunk. Which means you can't open the trunk. And the rear window is probably still tiny (though that's hard to tell from the pictures I could find, everyone just seems to have the same two pictures from the press release.) Oh, and the Sky? It's pretty much the Solstice. I hear the suspension is a bit better tuned and the trunk is ever so slightly bigger because of the different body panels, but that's about it. | | Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 | | 6:56 pm |
Make sure the sky is partly cloudy for the dogfight
So, out of boredom I just searched some Top Gear videos on youtube. I was looking at the track videos for the Lotus Extige and the Ariel Atom, and something struck me. If you don't actually sit through to the end when they tell you what the times were, you'd probably think the Extige was faster, simply because you can see it sliding and leaning a bit in the curves, while the Atom never does. But it turns out the Atom is faster, it's just having too easy a time of track so it looks like it's going slower. | | Sunday, June 25th, 2006 | | 7:26 pm |
The last of the V8 interceptors, would've been a shame to blow it up
For a long time it seemed that you never really heard much about cop cars, it just went without saying that they were all Ford Crown Victorias. This certainly hasn't always been the case, and lately I've been hearing more about different police cars, although a fair amount of it has been in foreign countries. I suspect part of the reason for the stagnation is that between oil crisis and SUVs, there wasn't much work done on large cars for quite some time, the Crown Vic having only marginally changed since the late 70s. Subaru has been becoming popular with police departments, with the French picking the WRX as a high-speed chase car, the Tshwane metro police in South Africa picking up Impreza sportwagons (after noticing how popular they were with criminals, apparently), and Kitsap County, WA getting the Legacy Turbo for unmarked use. Dodge has also been getting in on the action. While quite a few people were disappointed with the new Charger getting 4 doors, a large 4-door rear-wheel-drive car is exactly what most police departments are looking for. The NYPD has started adding them to their fleet, and the Washington State Patrol uses them as unmarked patrol cars. Heck, even Chevrolet is getting into the game with the Impala, although the FWD is a bit of a stumbling block. Oh, and then there's the Hummer and the Lamborghini police vehicles. One of them is a publicity stunt and one's a waste of taxpayer money. Guess which is which. | | Monday, May 29th, 2006 | | 10:20 pm |
Oh right, that's why you do the research online
So, the one advantage of Minnesota's blue laws is that you can walk onto a car dealership on Sunday and just look around without any salesmen about hassling you. I had found out several weeks ago that there is no such limitation out here in California, but I figured I'd try stopping by a dealer on Memorial Day and see if I could get the same effect. Unfortunately, no. But I decided since I went all the way up to Roseville, I'd get myself a look at the RX-8 and WRX, and conveniently for me they share a dealership at the auto mall. So, hoping it would keep the salesman away from me, I pretty much immediately said that I wouldn't be buying for several months, but that wasn't as effective as I had hoped. (Had I planned ahead, I probably would've printed out an S-Plan PIN, which one of my coworkers claims is rather effective in getting transferred from a commision to salaried employee.) The salesman also had trouble believing that I was waiting because I wanted to increase my down-payment, pointing out that I don't technically need a down-payment at all (and ignoring my constant counters that whether I needed one or not, I wanted one). Nevertheless, I did finally get a look at the trunk of an RX-8 (smaller than I'm used to, but still definitely usable), and found that while none of the seats fold down, there is a trunk pass-through (barely wider than the center console, though. Not nearly enough for a quarter-sheet of plywood). I also asked about the non-STI WRX (since they had about 3 of the STIs lined up in front of the dealership) and he at first didn't think they had any, but then remembered there was one on the showroom floor. (A quick check of the dealer website shows 9 non-STI WRX sedans in stock, however.) I had wanted to take a look at the Miata as well, but I ended up deciding that I just didn't feel like having this guy constantly trying to talk me into buying a car today or giving him my phone or e-mail (which he didn't get, although I suppose he does have my first and last name and could've memorized my plates). Of course, they didn't really have what I wanted anyway. From their website, it looks like all of the RX-8s they have in stock have at least the Touring package (the salesman didn't believe they made RX-8s without sunroofs until one of his coworkers corrected him), and it looks like they don't have the WRX with cloth seats for the comparison between the base WRX and the WRX TR. | | Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 | | 9:27 pm |
I'm not a fan of the car I got there, either
So, I've nearly got everything sorted out of the way for my car. I paid off the loan a few weeks ago and got the title back even quicker than I was expecting. Not that any of this was smooth, of course. First off, apparently it's no longer enough to not have bad credit to buy a car, you have to actively put yourself in debt first to get a credit history. Being the sort of person who doesn't like being in debt, I had null credit at the time. So, in order to actually finance the car, I had to get my dad back in Minnesota to co-sign on the loan. Then, the warranty information arrived. (I had foolishly only asked about the price of the car, not the out-the-door price, and hence got kinda screwed.) The warranty information ended up getting mailed to Minnesota, which seemed stupid (considering that they had two addresses, one Minnesota and one California, and the car had been bought in California and registered with the California DMV). Then, I waited for the registration to come back. And waited. And waited. And visited the dealer. And was told to visit the DMV (and found out I had plates the entire time, all I had to do was click my heels together three times, say "There's no place like home" and look under the dealer plates). And at the DMV noticed that their computer system did not list the state, so the registration got sent to a non-existant address in Byron, CA, instead of a real address in Byron, MN or Rancho Cordova, CA. And of course, by the time I got to the DMV, my registration had expired and I had to fork out for a new one, so that got me some fresh tags. Several months later, the registration for the car showed up at my parents' house, apparently returned to the dealer, stuffed into the back of a drawer for several months, found, correct address found, and sent out. The address on the registration form confirmed my suspicions about the Byron, CA/MN mixup (there is actually a Byron, CA, just to cause more confusion). Then, after I paid off the car loan, a title showed up at my parents house, with Byron, MN written on the envelope, but Byron, CA written on the title. This was disappointing on two levels. First I had expected my lender to realize that maybe they should send the title to the address that all of the payments came from. Second, I had expected them to actually have the Byron, CA/MN thing straight. I still haven't fixed the address on the title yet. I plan to do that when I go in and renew the registration on the car (renewal notice came within a few days of the title), but first I have to get it smogged. So with that, and the various ways I don't want to get into that I got screwed, I strongly advise that nobody ever shop at Daewoo of Sacramento specifically, or really anything along Fulton, since the shops all seem to run into each other. |
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