and from a engineering and design perspective both gm and ford have been braindead for years
Thank you.... HO HO HO... -gg
Which brings interesting situations since Toyota, BMW, (and I believe Honda too) have growing manufacturing plants here in the USA.
Next question would then be...
How come these manufacturing plants are not dying... is the hand of the UAW working "its magic" here ? or... as you point out, the engineering/design capabilities of ford & gm totally dead...?
My personal experience (after owning two Suburbans) and in the process discovering that the gear-box for the half-ton truck is a mere souped up version of the passenger car box, hence if you are to buy a truck, nothing less than a 3/4 ton would do... so I drove the 1/2 ton truck with a dead transmission into the dealership and exchanged it for a 3/4 ton.... then.... for the new truck I bought one of them "nation-wide extended warranties" [just "in case" -gg] .... which, I tried to use a few years later (in a different state) and after several "warranty work performed" --brakes, alternator, steering rack, air conditioning... etc etc.. the dealership in said other state, refused to honor the paid warranty any longer --no specific reason given--... I protested to no avail and the GM customer service told me to "take a hike" so I did... went to the dealership that sold me the extended warranty and demanded my money back (which I got ... about $800.00 --and that is a prorata amount--)
Next.... I told the two GM dealerships AND the GM customer service that ....
"I will go to the competing Toyota Dealership, give them your GM piece of crap and exchange it for a Land Cruiser, then I promise you that it will be my mission in life to become the best negative advertising representative for GM and would NEVER again buy a single GM product in my life"...
and so I did... since then, I have bought two Land Cruisers and one Sequoia (I still own the L/C that I exchanged for the crappy 3/4 ton suburban)
The Toyota trucks are bullet proof and drive great.... too bad they are getting a tad expensive... to the point that ....
Porsche Cayenne becomes a definitive alternative....
For no other reason than a powerful 450 HP Porsche motor -gg
btw... Speaking about water cannons... (or save the whale stuff, for that matter... -g)
Look at the test track Porsche recently used to test the Cayennes.... ---> That is Barber Motorsports Park a new track in Birmingham, Alabama....
and never mind Porsche, YOU can have your own track day with a Cayenne... (a two day event)...
porschedriving.com
porschedriving.com
Turn a hot lap.... click on "turn a lap" and then on video (I think they used a Cayenne on that one)
porschedriving.com
Other courses...
porschedriving.com
barbermotorsports.com
Anyway... you get the point.... -gggg
If people had to go through a course like that to get a license, the amount od accidents would be far less...
Well... I can dream can't I ? -g |
