Bought (well leasing) a new Grand Cherokee 4XE Anniversary Edition over the weekend.  I worked the dealer pretty hard - $11.5K in incentives, $4k in dealer discounts, plus $2k more on the trade-in than the online places would offer.  So yea, a $65k vehicle for <$50k...

After driving it a bit, it seems really solid. Interior is very nicely executed and quiet.  Ride is decent.  It has a blackout package with the more off-road oriented front bumper so it looks sort of badass - which was actually a wife requirement.

The 4XE PHEV system works pretty well.  The EV portion has enough grunt to easily drive in EV mode.  Powertrains combined have more than adequate power (better than the old hemi V8).  The brakes are a bit inconsistent and the EV efficiency is pretty aweful - but the EV motor gets routed through the transmission and transfer case so you have full 4x4 ability in EV mode and it makes blending in the ICE engine seamless... So there is some good side to the trade-off in efficiency. I wasn't really looking for a PHEV but the price after discounts was great, it's the cheapest way now to get a GC with a low range transfer case, and well with the Pentastar is a reliable V6 I just didn't want to have another SUV with one.

My list of early complaints are the brakes are a bit weird (hopefully things adapt with time) and the digital cluster lacks any kind of analog speedo/tach - just seems like a waste of space for the most part.  Lots of piano black which I already ordered a protective kit for.

 We've een shopping around for a long time for an SUV in the 190-195" range (seemed like the right combo of size/space/cargo room).  There seems to be a metric shit ton of SUV options out there, but a surprisingly few options in this size range.  There were a couple light duty Japanese products we looked at but the interiors look like shit to be honest.  Then there were a bunch of nice European options but all $70k+ with not a lot of discount room.

Quote from: FoMoJo on May 24, 2024, 10:07:43 AMI would think that the use of the revenue received from tariffs would be a determining factor as to whether it could be considered good or bad.  If the tariffs received from cars made in China, for example, were used towards building better roads rather than given to corporations or tax reductions for the wealthy, then it may be considered in a positive light.

There's no revenue from Biden's 102% tariff on cars imported from China, because the imports won't occur. His move was symbolic/substance-free anyway because Trump already had a 25% tariff in place.

 

Part 36: Buick Park Avenue (Chinese model)


The Park Avenue name first appeared as appearance option package on the 1975 Buick Electra 225 Limited.  It became a trim level on the Electra in 1978 then, beginning in 1991, Park Avenue replaced Electra as the name of Buick's largest front-wheel-drive sedan.

An updated Park Avenue debuted in 1997 and continued to be produced until it was replaced by the Lucerne in 2006.  The Lucerne was featured earlier in this thread.

We all know the Chinese love Buicks, or at least the Buick badge, much more so than Americans.  So it should come as no surprise the Chinese get models we never see over here and one of those is the Buick Park Avenue sold in China from 2007 through 2012.  It's yet another product of GM's famous badge engineering, being little more than an Australian Holden Caprice assembled by the SAIC-GM joint venture in Shanghai from complete knock-down kits imported from Holden's Elizabeth factory in South Australia.

If this car looks vaguely familiar to you, that's because Holden also exported this car to America, where it was sold exclusively to law enforcement agencies as the Chevrolet Caprice PPV from 2010 through 2017.  A number of these Caprices have now found their way onto the used car market so, if you really wanted to get creative with some badges and a little bit of glue, you could make your own Chinese Buick Park Avenue!

Then again, I think New York's famous boulevard deserves far better, don't you?

Quote from: giant_mtb on May 26, 2024, 04:46:33 PMFunny how silence is such a "luxury feature" but the guy says he prefers to have the fake piped sound on.

Overall, yawn. Always interesting cars, the super luxes, but ultimately unappealing given their unattainable-ness.

I know - that was weird. 

Today's race at Monaco...


Very tight course.

Interesting colour.

Funny how silence is such a "luxury feature" but the guy says he prefers to have the fake piped sound on.

Overall, yawn. Always interesting cars, the super luxes, but ultimately unappealing given their unattainable-ness.

Ok I don't follow F1 much but I'm watching highlights from the F1 race,

This moment and the following action, the sparks under the cars are the cars making contact with the asphalt?!?!?!!!

https://youtu.be/Q6InUqrk9F4?si=IPznzG6AoRvpUGQJ&t=172

Like at 6min exactly, too

Quote from: Rich on May 26, 2024, 08:53:17 AMTook a drive through the Adirondacks over the weekend
 

Looks fun! I wish I had a Miata when I lived up there!!! I didn't even have any cars with a sunroof the whole 3 years in NY.

My comment on the video:
When you distil all the reviews and tests of ultra luxury vehicles, it comes down to 1) cosseting and 2) silence. The first $100,000 gets you 90% there. The magic is in spending the extra $500,000 to take care of the remaining 10%.