Car Chat

[WookieOnRitalin]

IIRC Tesla & Genesis were about the only ones with significant sales growth last year. I was going to replace the G37 last year. Then I pushed it to this year. Now I've pushed it out to 2024. I'm guessing a lot of others have decided to wait on the sidelines: prices are high and compelling pressing any buttons.

(OT: Did not know you lived in Nashville. When we drove across to Texas in December we were super-impressed with Tennessee - stayed in  a really nice hotel in Franklin. The state's roads are in great shape etc. & it has the look of prosperity.  (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama - not so much)

The question is are the dollars there, but people are waiting for the numbers to come down a bit? Or...are they all stretched thin and doing more damange control to reel in their consumer spending?

I think the interesting thing is just seeing which brands have been hurt the most. Hyundai/Kia is really the new darling in the import sector. The amount of people switching to Hyundai/Kia/Genesis has got to be astronomical just based on how I have seen others update their fleet.

Considering my Baja, would a Sante Cruz be a fun replacement at some point? Could be. It's just an interesting dynamic that I have enjoyed watching play out since I was in college when Kia was pushing out Rondos and Hyundai had their fifth gen Sonatas and still making their Eclipse-ish competitor Tiburon. It is really a fascinating case study.

What the numbers tell me is that the market is wide open and the traditional stranglehold the Japanese had on quality and dependability is beginning to wane. Now the name of the game seems to developing strong name plates and creating some flagship products to get people into show rooms.

I think Nissan needs to take some chances like they used to do. The Xterra as an example was a product that had it flaws possesses a lot of recognition with people for its unique packaging and would likely do better in today's market with its "butch" styling and perhaps running off a unibody platform. Ford has proven you can build a butchier products on the unibody platform that people will buy if the packaging is right. The last Nissan product that I found interesting was the FX. I cannot remember a single Nissan product outside of it that made me check their website outside of seeing if they had any cheap leases available.


OT: Yes, I live in Nashville/Tennessee. Been my home for almost 14 years now. Really do not want to live anywhere else. Just got to keep all the communists out and we should be pretty good!

[Soup DeVille]

Didn't Nissan invent the "lifetime" transmission?

Yes.

When the transmission goes, the car's life is over.

[Rich]

Nissan is speed running the Mitubishi downfall.

Especially in the south...  busted altimas everywhere.

[AutobahnSHO]

Altimas are the car of choice for idiot drivers. Maximas are just the idiots that can manage to stupidly navigate faster.

But the new Frontier is their first "handsome" pickup!

[Eye of the Tiger]

Yes.

When the transmission goes, the car's life is over.

[shp4man]

Mazda is the best manufacturer! The ones made in Hiroshima, Japan. All others? Fail!   

[shp4man]

None, however, can match the quality and dependability of the vehicle in my sig picture. That was a loooooooong time ago. America was great then. 

[shp4man]

I live across the street  from an elementary school. I had a dentist appointment and went outside to find the Miata blocked by jackass parking asshats picking up their kids. Damn.
But Blue wasn't blocked. I hadn't driven Blue for a few weeks, but the old guy started right up and off to the dentist I went.
Modern traffic is sometimes a bitch, but Blue was made in the 60s, so it can pass some really slow dog drivers.
You know you're dogging ass if a 65 Chevy pickup passes your dumb ass.

[Morris Minor]

One of our friends had a tree fall on her when she was driving into town - a newish Highlander. It came down right on top of her, above the driver & front passenger seats. She's a bit traumatized but otherwise okay. Modern roof crush resistance at work. I'm guessing the car will be totalled - probably bent in places you can't see.

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

How much?

The Price wasn't listed.

[giant_mtb]

One of our friends had a tree fall on her when she was driving into town - a newish Highlander. It came down right on top of her, above the driver & front passenger seats. She's a bit traumatized but otherwise okay. Modern roof crush resistance at work. I'm guessing the car will be totalled - probably bent in places you can't see.

What a "freak" accident!  Glad she's okay.

[Morris Minor]

Its one of those cases where I'd like to know how hard she actually braked: four more feet and she would have stopped short.

She's in her 60s and so, like me, was trained to be careful when braking hard - cadence braking to avoid lockups and uncontrolled skids. My ABS era kids, were taught to stamp as hard as they could, try to break the brake pedal off, and let the computers worry about things.

[CaminoRacer]

Yeah, 100% brake in modern cars is very uncomfortable. Most people have never done it

[giant_mtb]

I hate ABS. It's absolutely terrible in the snow, offroad, and/or if you don't know what you're doing.

[Laconian]

It works for me when I need it. It doesn't snow often enough for me to practice threshold braking.

[giant_mtb]

It works for me when I need it. It doesn't snow often enough for me to practice threshold braking.

"hello, the road is icy, would you like to stop sooner or later?

"sooner, please."

"sorry, you can't, because ABS saves lives somewhere where they never deal with this, but not here!"

https://youtu.be/kQdtayz525A

It's legitimately dangerous that ABS is a thing.

[AutobahnSHO]

Scrappy has me careful with braking- I locked a wheel or two one time when some dummy traveling way too slow cut in front of me to go right instead of left at the end of one of Scrappy's favorite Interstate exits...

[r0tor]

"hello, the road is icy, would you like to stop sooner or later?

"sooner, please."

"sorry, you can't, because ABS saves lives somewhere where they never deal with this, but not here!"

https://youtu.be/kQdtayz525A

It's legitimately dangerous that ABS is a thing.

...if your an all star and don't lock a wheel, it doesn't activate

[Soup DeVille]

But you sometimes need to
lock the wheel.

[CaminoRacer]

They come runnin' just as fast as they can
'Cause every girl crazy 'bout a straight-cut gear

https://youtu.be/dmJH84FnQa8

[Eye of the Tiger]

I like gears

[giant_mtb]

...if your an all star and don't lock a wheel, it doesn't activate

If you're braking lightly enough to not lock a wheel, you're going to hit whatever you're trying not to hit. It's a distance thing, not a control thing.

Trust me. I've driven many, many more thousands of miles on ice and snow than you.

[r0tor]

Brake early enough so you can stop in time.  The only time locking wheels up works is in soft snow when you can get it to pile up in front of the tires.

While I might only get a couple months of snow driving here on a typical year, there are no flat roads here.  I drive over 2 mountain ridges just to get to work.

[FoMoJo]

What really happens when you stunt drive a '69 Charger...2 Hospitalized After Crashing the Famed Car from Dukes of Hazzard

[CaminoRacer]

That is the typical fate for General Lees in the show!

My dad rented an orange Challenger last time he visited SLC. Someone had put General Lee stickers on it previously, you could tell because the dust stuck to some of the faint sticker residue that wasn't fully removed.

[Morris Minor]

I'm no expert but I'd say that's an IIHS fail on the small overlap rigid barrier test. Folded like a wet Kleenex.

[r0tor]

I'd buy a couple of these... Assuming I can fit

https://www.motor1.com/news/652582/toyota-suzuki-small-sports-car-rumor/

[Rich]

[Eye of the Tiger]

someone needs to write that shit

[CaminoRacer]

The article has 7 exterior and 1 interior pic, how many more Citations do they want?