Detroit auto makers try some new tricks

Not only that, when people talk about how long cars last, you need to figure
out what that means. With proper repairs any car will last forever. That
should be obvious. Just because they have certain repair rate doesn't tell
you anything about when you'd put one in the junkyard.

So somebody has to decide what it means to wear a car out. Obviously people
who said "my car was a lemon and I got rid of it at 40,000 miles" don't
count. Their opinions have no bearing on the question of which lasts
longer, because they didn't have the experience of wearing the car out.

 

That depends on the car.
I'll have to speak up for my '63 Chev II 6 cyl.
It wasn't very sophisticated, but it was one tough car that took me 100k
miles, including 15k miles towing a 1,500lb trailer.
Then I traded it in still with the original brakes.

 

My 72 Dodge Dart went everywhere...off road...across streams... Drove it until we got the 99 Camry.

 

Oh - but *certainly* he has plenty of carbon credits to cover that!!

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Actually GM did buy all those companies. They bought part of Opel in
1929, the rest in 1931. They bought Vauxhall in 1925. Holden was
purchased in 1931. GM has purchased many brands over the years. In
fact, GM mostly grew by purchasing other companies until the mid
1930s. Saab was a relatively late addition, being purchased in 1990.

Regards,

Ed White

 

This statement is just total BS. 90's era Toyota 4Runners had a much
higher rollover rate than 4 door Explorers. Crown VIctorias are on of
the safest cars you can buy.

Ed

 

Well, "better" in some ways but not in all. They're far more efficient
and enable the use of much smaller engines because they have more
forward gears, but they sure don't last as long as an old Torqueflite or
c6, and not a one of them can bark the tires on an upshift!

My '49 Plym never had a glitch with its 3-onna-tree. Even with the
linkage bushings pretty much deteriorated away to nothing, it still
snicks right into gear amazingly well.

 

Sounds like a poor design to me, if such a simple and common practice
can damage an emission component.

 

I'll bet you a hamburger with all the trimmings Infiniti and Acura
switch entirely to CVTs within 10 years. Their demographic isn't the
gear-stirring set anyway. The other two will probably continue to offer
manuals on *some* models. And there'll always be the Viper and Corvette.

 

"Sphagetti?" Have you ever *seen* what a mid-60s midsize car will do to
a modern car of equivalent weight in a collision? True, the modern car
has more safety features, but older cars were built like battleships in
comparison.

 

Yeah, and Chrysler bought Dodge Brothers and Maxwell (which became
Plymouth) back then too. But pre-war buys don't count... ;-)

 

I agree, and it can happen on many, if not most, car brands.

 

Oh, well you didn't say that.

Ed

 

None that I've ever owned.

 

I was pointing out Ford uses its own name on most of its foreign
operations, while GM uses actual "foreign" brands. And GM bought
Vauxhall and Opel; they were not created by GM.

 

You don't want the impact force transferred to the occupants, the idea
is to disperse the energy by letting the vehicle take the damage. The
vehicle is easier to replace than a human life.

b

 

Therefore, it can't POSSIBLY be true! ;^)

<http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&q=gas+tank+charcoal+overfill&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&>

 

Actually Opel was founding in 1863 and by 1913 was Germany's largest
automobile company. GM bought controlling interest in 1929 and
increased it's ownership to 100% in 1931. Thus for 50 years Opel was
independent of GM.

Holden's founding goes back to a saddle making company in 1856 which
evolved into a body factory (much like Fisher bdoy in the US). GM
bought Holden in 1931.

Vauxhall has a similar history having been founded in 1857 and bought by
GM in 1925.

Post WW-1 GM was in a position to expand by buying up foreign
competitors at a time when those companies were struggling to recover.
By 1931 in the middle of the great depression GM did some buying on the
cheap.

Just setting the record straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Motors

 

Sharky needs an automatic so he can masturbate while driving. That's
what he told the sales person when he bought the car. He ended up
getting the automatic for free.

 

Where'd you get that nonsense? The Mustangs had nothing to do with the
Pintos and had no such defect.

You want to talk about corporate cheapness, go look up how GM screwed up
the Corvair.