Page 47 of 50 FirstFirst ... 374546474849 ... LastLast
Results 691 to 705 of 739

Thread: The "I just drove a..." Thread

  1. #691
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    └A & Connecticlump
    Posts
    5,367
    I am surprised that it's taken Audi this long to get into the hybrid game. It seems like the kind of thing their chic/arrogant clientele would be all over.

    ... looking up at my reviews farther up this page, I realize I'm slacking; I drove a 300hp Impala that was actually quite fun on my last trip up, but I haven't found the motivation to write it up or finish my review of the Focus from over the summer.

    EDIT: Spoilers:
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by f6fhellcat13; 11-17-2014 at 02:24 PM.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  2. #692
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Barcelona
    Posts
    33,489
    Oh god, how can that dark saloon thing be fun?

    I'm genuinely intrigued, really.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  3. #693
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Posts
    10,227
    Yeah, Fleet Impalas, what what!?

    European cars have never been as electric as Japanese cars made for North Americans, much like the Japanese haven't been as diesely for the Europeans as European cars. Benz and Audi seem to be getting onto the train a bit later than most, and these two seem also to have kept a door open to other alternative fuels and solutions.

    The thinking I suppose is they already develop diesel variants for economy and sell those to Europeans, and powerful gas versions for North Americans. Electric as well is a big ask.

    The extreme versatility and extendability of new platforms and the ever mushrooming of segments is maybe prodding the Euros to try to a) develop and sell electric cars to Californians and b) attempt to develop a larger internal market for the cars.

  4. #694
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Barcelona
    Posts
    33,489
    I think that if you are really bothered about fuel economy the best thing to do is to buy a diesel.

    I don't think hybrid's main point is fuel economy. Sure they may be better than petrol-only cars, but I guess that actual proper road driving (especially at European speeds) must actually wear out the battery pretty quick. And anyway the electric motor switches off at speeds above 130km/h.

    However, I can of see the point of silence and comfort. Maybe even to the point of going petrol only on the road and saving the batteries for when you arrive at the town/city you are going.

    I don't know it intrigues me, but I'm not sure if I'm prepared to choose such a car yet.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  5. #695
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Perth, Australia
    Posts
    6,534
    Plug-in hybrids make sense in cities, if a) you need a car at all, and b) you have somewhere at home you can charge it. Both of those things are more prevalent in America than Europe. Once you're doing highway driving, a long-legged diesel for the proverbial.
    Life's too short to drive bad cars.

  6. #696
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Barcelona
    Posts
    33,489
    Due to a combination of circumstances today I've driven a colleague's 2004 Mazda 6 Estate Diesel to and back from a business meeting.

    Now there wasn't much to try out (without scaring the living daylights out of my passengers that is) but one of the things that surprised me was the notchiness of the gearbox. Compared to all the other Mazdas I've driven this one was particularly disappointing.

    (Although it could also be due to the car being on its last legs... being ten years old and having 119.000km on the clock)
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  7. #697
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    East Coast of the United States
    Posts
    11,994
    Looks like a really nice first gen Ford Thunderbird.

    I also see way too many Murano convertibles.

    And I saw a mall cruiser. Honestly, I'm just surprised not to see an AMG one.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  8. #698
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    └A & Connecticlump
    Posts
    5,367

    Miles’ Rental-Car Ramblings Continue!

    Moar because Moar
    Setting: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Québec, New York
    Car: 2014 Ford Focus SE


    In my other ramblings, I’ve at least sort-of had a point; luxury isn’t what it used to be and neither is economy and things that attempt to look either are vapid and worthless, despite their underlying worth, or something... Unfortunately, my most recent subject produced no such neat coalescence of thought. I will attempt, anecdotally, to explain the car and my feelings about it, but there in no real unifying theme here. The 2014 Ford Focus was, if anything, what the Corolla should have been. Silly aspirations of Europeaness aside (despite the car being a sedan, it is the “World Focus”), which Ford acknowledges with a smug wink, the Focus is in the exact same class.

    Where the Veloster and Chrysler seem to be sold on their attempted premiumness and luxury, respectively, the majority of the 2014 Ford Focus SE(dan)’s marketing push seems to be about fuel economy numbers. This makes sense; thanks to the duality of the clutches’ being and the directness of its injection, the Ford Focus is capable of knocking out a much greater number of emms per gee, forty, than the other cars I have driven. However, it also does the car a great disservice. Sure, the engine has a very disinterested character, the DCT doesn’t quite seem sorted (I’m beginning to notice a theme…), and the steering’s grasp on reality is similar to Congress’, but that doesn’t stop the Focus from being a fun involving car to drive. You would think that having electric steering and an automatic transmission would sap the fun out of driving, after all that’s what us internet enthusiasts blame for everything, and I say that earnestly. This car, however, was truly revelatory for me; it wasn’t just those two factors holding modern cars back. After all, I put a great deal of blame on the Veloster’s steering and transmission for it not being the car it could have been. Though not the light car it once was, to misuse one of Jay Leno’s favorite automotive clichés (about Italian cars), this car has an incredible lightness of being. There is effervescence and a hidden eagerness that encourage you to do stupid things in it. I fear that I am projecting a little bit; the Focus reminds me of the dearly-departed 3½-cylindered Ford Escort in which I learned to drive. In the Escort, the overbearing sense of cheapness and lightness made no amount of abuse and teenage stupidity seem cruel. It merely took all my silly inputs in its laconic stride. The Focus is a much more-accomplished package, especially the engine. The 2.0L boasts all sorts of fun modern features like variable timing and direct injection, yet it still cannot escape the fact that it is a thrashy four from an economy car. It has as many horsepower as my Supra, 165, but fewer lub-futs. This lack of torque is acutely felt when passing on the freeway, which is not a pleasant process. Unlike the 300 and the Corolla, though, it did not have to leave top (6th) gear through hilly Vermont, so there is a torque or two hiding somewhere in its crankcase.

    Unlike all of the other cars I have reviewed to date, I was able to drive the Focus on nice roads. A few friends and I participate in the so-called Rallye Adirondack through the eponymous state park in Upstate New York. It is a couple of friends looking for an excuse to fool around in their cars after a long winter’s hibernation and then to drunkenly lie in a field and have passionate discussions of whether Colin Chapman was a career cheapskate who happened to be a genius or the other way around. This is all largely immaterial as far as the Focus is concered, but I felt I should share it, because it certainly colors my view of the car: Had I merely commuted from downtown Montreal to Mirabel and back in it every day, I would not have really begun to approach the limits of the car. The roads in the Adirondacks are incredible; everything from sweeping bends, to twisty mountain lanes, to yump-laden farm roads through rolling hills covered with understeer-inducing cow pat. Here I was able to, in relative safety and isolation, probe the limits of the car, and on a few occasions exceed them. The car’s pedestrian behavior elsewhere belies a chassis that really does want to play. Sure the steering is lifeless shit as is the suspension and, to a greater or lesser degree, the engine. The suspension was obviously not tuned for extreme sportiveness nor were the tires or the driving position. Despite all of that the car was very balanced, poised, and because it was a rental car, kept up with a Lotus Elise through a nicely-flowing section of mountain roads, of which I am sheepishly proud.

    This set and setting left me with a good feeling, so writing about the Focus is a rose-tinted process. On those roads, even an oxcart would have your heart pumping and a Daniel-Ricciardo smile on your face. With that in mind, the rest of the car, the parts that 99 per cent of people care about 99 percent of the time, are not as accomplished as the chassis. As mentioned above, rather than being tuned for sportiness or luxury, the suspension, and brakes, appear to have been tuned for cheapness, which manifests itself even in mundane everyday A-to-B nonsense. The interior is overwrought to my eyes, but I do like what I think they were trying to achieve; I think it is compromised by having so many buttons and it certainly suffers from Porsche-dashboard vomit syndrome, which, truthfully, is much more excusable in a Focus than in a Porch. The MP3 integration was one area that I felt let down by; I have complained in thte past that the user’s interfaces in cars are so far behind those in our consumer electronics as to be laughable. Ford farmed the job out to Microsoft with their Sync setup so I expected a little more fluidity and competence. The GUI was not particularly attractive, though it did seem much better from a software point of view than previously-encountered infotainment systems. One bone I do have to pick is that my music device is made by Apple, and is a fairly-ubiquitous one (guess…). This seemed to get in the way on a number of occasions and certainly made the process of navigating to a song a playing it that much harder. I realize that Apple seems to be helmed by pricks who have no interest in releasing their software architecture to anyone, much less Microsoft, but I think that the sheer popularity of the iPod would warrant a little more advanced integration. The quality of the interior was passable, with semi soft-touch plastics (ugh..) strewn aspirationally about. There was an annoying squeak that emanated from within the dash. I couldn’t seem to figure out any logical coupling between hitting bumps, engine speed, or HVAC-fan speed and the squeak, so it was probably at the mating point of two pieces of plastic. That niggle aside, the interior was a perfectly-passable place to be, and any demerits given to it are derived from unrealistic expectations of what a car in this class should be like.

    The Focus was a faithful car and certainly worth purchasing over an equivalent Corolla. Its static and dynamic shortcomings are loargely offset by its lightfootedness and design. It is a good car, and a fun car, and for that alone it stands miles ahead of the other cars I have driven.

    EDIT: I wrote most of this back over the summer, hence the comparison to those rentals I had back then. I have a few more queued up, and am actually traveling now, "researching" another one. The writing is pretty bad in my most recent crop, even by the standards of the internet, so I'm trying to polish those up before I forget what the cars were like.

    It kills me to look at these pictures from July now, but hopefully soon it will be green again...
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by f6fhellcat13; 03-16-2015 at 01:28 AM.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  9. #699
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Posts
    10,227
    Wow, a balanced, well written review. This isn't typical automotive journalism!

    It'd be interesting to compare a rental SE to a newly purchased say, SEL or Titanium. Maybe with the stick too.

    The steering and MyFordTouch (it hurts to write that) stink, but it seems there are redeeming qualities in this car.

  10. #700
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Barcelona
    Posts
    33,489
    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    ...
    I think I have a similar problem with my Alfa. And I think that the main reason for that is comparing to what you are used to. I mean, cars I used to drive:
    • Supercharged Mini
    • Rear wheel drive 1 Series
    • Mazda sportscar
    • V8 Jaguar
    • Etcetera

    If I'm being honest the Alfa is not quite up to the standard of any of the cars on that list when it comes to driving pleasure. Sure, compared to polished turds like the DS4, the A-Class or even the new 1 Series it isn't bad at all, and as you say on the right roads it is quite a lot of fun but it is not:
    • As hooligan as the Mini
    • As poised as the BMW
    • As intuitive as the Mazda
    • As charismatic as the Jaguar

    In the end, you have to take it for what it is. And with that in mind it stacks quite well up to the competition. Which I guess, is the same that can be said for the Ford.

    PS. If you actually want the best ride/handling compromise for the class, the only answer is Mazda 3
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  11. #701
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    └A & Connecticlump
    Posts
    5,367

    2014 Chevrolet Impala

    It has been a few trips, and a few cars, since I’ve last given you my poorly-organized thoughts on driving around Canada French. I have had some good cars; perhaps that has contributed to my inability to write about them; praise is much harder for me to accurately give than criticism. Since we left off, I’ve driven a ’14 Chevrolet Impala, a ’14 Mini Countryman, and a ’14 (maybe ’13) Dodge Charger. I had to keep these reviews shorter because some of the memories are beginning to fade, and the last thing I want to do, dear reader, is to deceive you with poorly or improperly-remembered experiences..

    With the old-style lighter-weight W-Body, and GM’s (nominally) new direct-injected 3.6l V6, the One-Four was a surprisingly squirtable car. Despite the squishiness of the torque converter, the Impala’s excellent six-speed auto and three-hundred and five (!) horsepower got it up to speed in no time at all. It is a testament to the absurdity of modern times that one of the most boring, anonymous, and base cars on the market has enough power to make nearly any car built prior to the L.A. Olympics (the second one) blush. The Impala featured a few other welcome features; small keys with no extra buttons or embellishment, excellent visibility, space, and an unperturbed manner. In keeping with the general theme of the car, the keys looked like they cost about 18¢ per. However, they were thin, allowing your author to store them in any and all of his pockets without unsightly bulges. I have one of my many bones to pick with the huge rise in fobbery among car keys; I have no issues with a fob (or a start button) if the car, and its doors, can be operated keylessly. Things begin to irritate me when I am only given partial functionality of my fob and am forced to face the indignity of inserting and twisting. Having a larger, more plastichrome, key fob does not a luxury car make and the populist brands of the world would do best to remember that. Again, due to its dateness, the Impala’s visibility was excellent. The pillars were all quite slim by modern standards and afforded an excellent view for such a large car. It was also spacious; though a size class down, the Impala has as much perceived space inside as the Charger. This is a result both of its “outdated” interior, in which all controls and hardpoints are pushed to the extremes of the cabin and a much more airy interior from the pre-pillbox era of car greenhouses. It is amazing how much felt space this frees up compared to the cocooning philosophy that mast cars designed in the last thirty years have taken. Naturally, as the platform upon which all your grandmother’s Buicks are based, the ride is pretty good with some wallowing, though less than this driver expected. On the flip side of things, the car featured lackluster GM design, inside and out, lackluster fuel economy with direct injection compared to the old Buick 3800, lackluster handling that was safer than American cars of yore, but in no way engaging, fun, communicative, or intuitive, lackluster steering, lackluster interior materials (though they were actually quite shiny at times), lackluster this, lackluster that, lackluster, lackluster, lackluster… It’s an update of the old hotrod idiom: take a regular (read: shitty) car, shove a big engine in it, and enjoy. This car lacks luster in many many categories, which is part of what endeared me to it; it was honest. It also does a damn fine brakestand for a fore-driven car.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  12. #702
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Californian by nature, living in Teggsas.
    Posts
    4,130
    I've been driving a bunch of mostly-10-speed, mostly Detroit Diesel Series 60-powered mostly-Freightliners. Truck driving school. Yep, my next vocation. There's a lot to absorb about driving one of these things, and I haven't quite figured out how to plug it into my automotive lexicon yet. There's a lot I don't think will translate. But, driving an unsynchronized trans is something I've always wanted to learn, and now I have.
    An it harm none, do as ye will

    Approximately 79% of statistics are made up.

  13. #703
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    └A & Connecticlump
    Posts
    5,367

    2014 Mini Clubman

    The Mini was antithesis to the Impala in almost every way. The design, in an out, was carefully-considered, it was built to a much higher apparent-quality, the chassis was willing, and the engine was dull as a soggy Canadian. The Mini’s overwhelming pretense did begin to wear on me on the six-hour drive northward; the stupid central speedo and other attempts to mirror the quirkiness of the original design got in the way of functionality in comfort and all the cutesy little touches by Designers made me feel slightly bilious. The split rear gate was annoying, and the sheer glass surfaces fore and aft proved magnets for roadsalt and spray; the windshield washer fluid had to be replaced about every ten days. The firm ride also caused a slight buttock-seat divorce on some expansion joints and general hairiness on poorly-paved roads. In pretty much every other aspect the Mini shined. When given a moderately-fun road, all sins were forgiven. The car, despite being a good few percent larger and heavier than the old (old) new Mini I’d previously driven, handled with aplomb, if not grace. When several inches of Quebec’s finest white powder were offered up, its small high-profile tires and well thought-out suspension made quicker work of it than many of the lumbering all-drive behemoths surrounding me. Despite this and despite the fact that I would take it in a heartbeat over any of the rentals I’ve gotten before or since, I wouldn’t say that I really liked it as a car. Lest you accuse me of painting all German cars with a passionless brush, I did like the old-new Mini. This car just didn’t speak to me and I lack the observance, intelligence, or eloquence to realize and explain why.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by f6fhellcat13; 04-12-2015 at 06:14 AM.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  14. #704
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    └A & Connecticlump
    Posts
    5,367

    2014 Dodge Charger: It Does ****ing Burnouts

    Car journalists in the US love to heap praise on the Honda Accord. Year-on-year and generation-on-generation, the accords accorded the Accord maintain strict accordance to the American autojournalist’s handbook: Is there a BMW in the comparison? It wins. If not, is there a Honda? It wins. Etc… Having driven a few older Accords, I can almost see from where they’re coming, but those cars, through years of abuse are probably quite different machines than the gleaming fully-optioned sleds afforded to the scribes. In those old Honda there is a slight pleasantness felt, even when tootling around, that is derived from their competence and quality. I would say smugness is the wrong word as it is a subtle, more-palatable, smugness. You amplify this sentiment by $40,000 and you arrive at what is referred to as a BMW driver: smug and self-satisfied with their “quality” purchase. The Chrysler is not that well-made, is not that competent on its feet, and does not feel like the movement in a nice old watch, but it does give just that little bit of warmth inside. There is something in that car that speaks to the little jingoistic hard-working god-fearing middle American in me. There I sit in my big house on my half-acre (1.4 ha citation needed) suburban lot (Charger), sitting in my big fluffly overstuffed chair (big fluffy overstuffed seat), with the heat on 85° because oil comes from Pennsylvania and I’m king of my domain. Perhaps, as someone raised on the dinkier offerings of the Japanese and Europeans, this effect is stronger on me, but settling back into my big machine with the music at just the right volume and the heat on as snow-covered Canadian farmhouses whizz past, breeds this incredible complacence and puddingy contentment. Chrysler is good at this sort of thing; I’ve ridden in various Dodges, Chryslers, and Plymouths spanning the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s and they all promote a similar crisis of motivation. It almost makes you want to crack open some rotgut Jack and get some shut-eye at the wheel. This is simply dangerous; other manufacturers have axed their similar offerings in an effort to prevent this, no doubt. However, Chrysler, ever the rebel of Detroit, bluntly pushes forward the age-old idiom of the American car into the third millennium. This is a good thing and is no doubt a boon to those apocryphal inlanders who think that a crumple zone is a Coors Light can. The Hellcat is probably too much car for me; gimme a normal V8 and watch the golden valleys sing by. (This one had a Pentastar, but it didn't feel nearly as out-of-place as it did in the 300)

    Long live the American car!
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by f6fhellcat13; 04-12-2015 at 06:17 AM.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  15. #705
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Barcelona
    Posts
    33,489
    Miles you should try out a Mk1 supercharged Cooper S.

    (If you haven't already)

    I also like the Charger. And the 300. And the Challenger. They would be ridiculous here, but if I was from Oklahoma, I'd buy one of them.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 3 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 3 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. The "I just saw a...." thread
    By werty in forum Miscellaneous
    Replies: 7049
    Last Post: 02-25-2024, 01:18 PM
  2. "Best Cars" based on PERSONAL experience
    By mduhair in forum Miscellaneous
    Replies: 36
    Last Post: 02-22-2005, 12:09 AM
  3. First car you ever Drove
    By shr0olvl in forum Miscellaneous
    Replies: 36
    Last Post: 01-15-2005, 03:14 PM
  4. The "I hate America" Thread
    By sandwich in forum Miscellaneous
    Replies: 106
    Last Post: 08-25-2004, 06:33 PM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •