Geeto67

This is a narrow view and unfortunately incorrect in that it supposes that all automatic transmissions require a torque converter. It is correct in that a torque converter automatic is one of the many types of automatic transmissions out there. Unfortunately most of them died out in America before the second world war, so it is not unusual for Americans to think the definition of automatic transmission starts and stops with torque converter transmissions but that is just not the case. In the 50's there were a lot of european cars that came with a mechanical centrifugal clutch automatics - no hydraulic torque converters. Porsche's sportmatic transmission used a torque converter instead of a clutch but the driver had to still shift into every gear, it is debatable as to whether this qualifies as an automatic since there was no option to have the trans shift for itself, but the majority view is that it is still an automatic or a "semi-automatic". I agree, computer controlled clutch actuation in conjunction with computer controlled shifting makes it an automatic. In the 1930's the Cord 810 and 812s came with a preselector gearbox. The clutch was electrically operated and the lever vacuum operated. The driver could put the gear selector in any position they wanted but the car would not shift until they stepped on the clutch. Guess what - still considered a manual transmission because it requires a human to select the gear and also to operate the clutch. Where the clutch is engaged by mechanical linkage, hydraulics, or a computer signal, if it still requires a person to tell it when to engage and disengage it is still a manual. Also the fact that it conforms to all the user input standards set by the Society of Automotive Engineers for Automatic transmission operation. When you remove the human element to something it is called Automation, finding a new way to make an old transmission design operate automatically makes it an automatic transmission - it just doesn't make it a torque converter transmission, but as we discussed before a torque converter transmission is not the only automatic transmission out there. I never said the DSG wasn't a technological marvel. It really is and completely something we couldn't have built well 30 years ago. However, for 90% of it's day to day use in a DD street car it offers no real advantage over a torque converter automatic. Does it have it's place? sure. If I was racing Formula 1 you bet your ass I would want one because that is a competition and the standard for the field (yes I know the F1 trans is not really comparable to the street DSG, humor me), but for a commuter car it's just another PRNDL stick in the floor. I get there is this "stigma" about automatics being inferior and a crutch for inferior driving skills. You can't ignore that the DSG does level the playing field a little and does give those who are sensitive some sort of legitimate excuse for when people make fun of them....but honestly who cares. If you are that defensive about your transmission choices that you have to ignore the fact that a DSG is still an automatic transmission, maybe you should change your tampon and get over it. the interesting thing about a DSG is that it takes a completely different set of skills to operate than traditional manuals or automatics. However, it still has a lazy mode "D" which gives you the option of not practicing that skill. "More fun" is a subjective opinion statement and not a quantitative value in how much better something is objectively. You think automatics are fun, I don't, it's that simple. From a human interaction standpoint it is always a reduced interface and that is the thing I am trying to avoid. I have owned automatic cars, and I have driven a tiptronic 911 and boxster, a DSG R32 and an Audi A3 with the DSG, and I just find them boring - and for getting on the highway and going to work the experience to be no different than any torque converter automatic.

and it shifts faster, and it is smoother, and it is more durable, and it gives you a handy while you are in traffic...blah blah blah. I just don't like it. For me the clutch pedal is the point, getting rid of it just removes the skill and levels the playing field. In an every day driving non-competition scenario, or as I call it how I use my car 99% of the time, I just prefer to have a clutch pedal.

Can you put it in D? will it shift on it's own? Is the shifting process Automated? yes? it's an automatic. It just isn't a traditional hydraulic torque converter automatic. Automatic and manual refers to the method of shifting - if there is an option for the thing to do it for you it is an automatic. And yes there are different types of automatics (CVT, Electromanual, Hydraulic, etc...) just like there are different types of manual transmissions (preselctor, sequential, etc..). Just Sayin'. Trey is a master of the hardsell for the DSG. He hit every enthusiast talking point masterfully when we chatted. But the heart wants what the heart wants.

I don't own a DSG. All my cars are manual. Wife and I are hardcore members of the cult of the left pedal. It isn't about servicing at all..and now I realize that I worded my previous comment confusingly. It's like I told Trey, by discontinuing the manual option on all the US cars Audi has sent a clear message they don't want me as a customer. Don't get me wrong, I think the DSG is a fine transmission, and I think it is the way automatics should have been built, I just don't want to own an automatic car.

no I laughed too. Dirty minds and all... Trey is a solid dude. He and I had a lengthy conversation the last time I was at mag getting the wife's Audi serviced. He was a little pushy about the DSG transmission but I don't blame him since Audi put him in the unenviable position of having to sell their "pussy-ified" new all automatic lineup.

I didn't realize they made so few of them, I saw a charcoal gray one on my way home on 270 yesterday (yes a hybrid hemi).

I did my daughter's birthday parties (2 and 3) at World of bounce and this little play cafe in bexley called Piccadilly. Both allow you to bring your own food (although Piccadilly prefers to serve the kids food). It's basically an indoor jungle gym and it's about the right speed for a 2 year old, plus the "cafe" atmosphere made it easy for the adults to talk. If you want they can do art activities with the other kids while the grownups continue to kibitz. I think it was just over $200 to rent the whole place for the morning, plus art supplies, food, etc....but it has been a few years so better call them for pricing. It was a really great experience. world of bounce is good for a big party where you invite the whole daycare class. It was a lot of fun but I wouldn't bother renting the place unless you have a lot of kids going.

So a hemi aspen non-hybrid is ok?

They don't have trailer parks where you live?

Can you elaborate? I mean it's just a gussied up Durango right? Don't you work for mopar? It piques my interest when someone says "don't buy our products".

for SUVs...People are going to hate me for this suggestion but.... 2009 Chrysler Aspen. They were the luxury version of the Dodge Durango and cost $45K new in 2009. Average price for an under 100k mile example right now is between $13-17K or in dodge terms, they experienced slightly less depreciation than toilet paper or a Chrysler 200 rental car. There is a hybrid hemi AWD version if you can find it that gets 20mpg on the highway (yeah it's awful I know). Even for a luxury Mopar the interior can best be described as premium rental car spec (plastic fake wood grain instead of just gray plastic), but it does have a 3rd seat. Here is the closest one on cars.com: a 128K mile example with the hemi hybrid (376hp or so I am told) for $11K. https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/667018146/overview/ Only negative thing I have heard about them is the front suspension goes sloppy fast. the other SUV I would look at, and this really is just because I am an unabashed jeep guy, is the Jeep commander. I have heard they have front axle issues but other than that people seem to love them. I would personally only look at the V8 because it is a lot of heft for the 3.8L v6 to haul around and the mileage is actually worse. here is one for example price: https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/661738029/overview/

My wife is still lobbying hard for a subaru crosstrek as a replacement for the audi when it comes time. Here are my thoughts as to why it is not great for what you are talking about: - Size: It's just a lifted impreza. So space wise it isn't bigger than an impreza. for me and my family it's the perfect size but that comes from living in NYC and learning to live with compact cars. Compared to a minivan, the minivan kicks the crosstrek's ass every day of the week and 4 times on Sunday in the space department. Nobody every regretted the space they had and didn't use but when traveling plenty have regretted not having enough room. - Mileage. Actually I have never heard anyone complain about the mileage. I drove two testers last year at dealers and it seemed fine. Chances are loaded down I can't see it getting the high side, esp if it is overloaded. - Speed. the two I have driven are slow. I mean I expected it to be slow because it is 148hp moving an AWD midsize wagon. It's not unsafe slow, but it def felt like a step down from the 2.0T turbo in the audi. If they made a WRX powered one, I think I would fall over myself to buy one. Wife wants a manual car so it meant we were stuck with a "premium" model (as opposed to base or high end limited) which is just one up from base. - Price. As new cars go it is a decent amount of car for the money. However, a quick search for leftover 2015 units on cars.com showed 73 left overs - some of them 2014 models nation wide. Seriously these things are nailed to dealer lots. I have seen as much as $4000 for msrp before any qualifying discounts or rebates. The cheapest one I found was still $22K for a new one, but I betcha if you were a good haggler you could do something. If the company you work for is a subaru partner you get pretty good discounts. Overall it's a nice car, I just don't see it being an "upgrade" for your from the CRV and what you want to do.

Is it bad that all I can think about when reading this is Dr. Rockso from Metalocalypse? so what you are saying is...he wasn't attractive enough to rape and didn't have a cool enough car to murder for? Cordell, the important thing is that you offered, not that she accepted the offer. People decline for a variety of reasons that may not always be clear to us, but people only offer genuine help out of being a good person. I'll tell a quick funny story as to why I decline most people's offer to help these days - at least roadside help. back in 2012 I got a flat tire in my wife's audi with the whole family in the car 100 miles from home. No big deal I pull over and begin to jack the car up and get the spare out. A "good Samaritan" pulls over to help - long story short while I am getting my audi lug nut tool out of the holder in the trunk he uses his SAE 4 bar to round out two of my lugs completely. Then he closes the trunk lid on my hand while I am trying to fit a one size smaller socket on the stripped lugs, and in his panic of trying to get the latched trunk off my hand proceeds to knock the car off the jack. Fortunately for him a state trooper showed up and chased him away before I beat him to death and then violated the corpse with his own 4 bar. The dude meant well but it went downhill so freaking fast. Just a funny story that this thread reminded me of...I now decline all roadside help but that story is too long to have to explain to everybody who offers - doesn't mean I don't appreciate the thought though.

It was a big deal in the sense that 1) it was the right thing to do to clarify, 2) they actually got the government to do something. But given how government regulations are normally written the likelihood it would get used as a "loophole" in the way SEMA was selling it was very small. It's the government, quality is not assured. To be fair, not all lawmakers draft the laws, sometimes private companies with an interest in the law draft the law. and then nobody reads it because government. In the case of the EPA, it is a regulating body so it usually writes its own regulations and again - it's done with all the care and consideration the government does everything with.

Chevy SS gets my vote. Since you are going to get the auto, go out and get a crazy color like bright blue just to keep it interesting.

Doesn't nascar run like 11 different series besides sprint cup and don't some of them still use converted street cars? or have I really fallen off on my knowledge of hillbilly sports I don't regularly follow? I know street stock is still a racing class I just don't know if it is still nascar supported. But back to the original topic: Again, I don't think the EPA had any malicious intent to "ban all race cars" with the original legislation. They are government organization and like nearly every government organization they word things poorly sometimes (ok a lot of the time). It's what you get for paying lower than the private sector and never firing anyone no matter how bad they are at their job. I am happy SEMA managed to get them to change the wording of the bill. Was it as big a deal as they made it out to be? I still don't think so, but they needed to get the ground swell of support to get the EPA to change the language (again, because gubment) so they made it seem like the EPA was going to come for your race cars like Obama was going to come for your guns (I guess he's waiting till his last day in office to do that since it hasn't happened already). There is too much money wrapped up in "racing" for it to ever go away...or at least go away rapidly through federal legislation. Is it possible to ramp down? sure....it's already happening on a local level and not driven by the EPA with the closure of every local track. My point is: if you are worried about the future of racing, take action to support your local tracks and events and fight against local legislation that seeks to harm tracks.

Something I have never seen discussed is weight adjustments or ballast. Every one talks about suspension setups and weight reduction but having the car not load and twist but actually go straight is just as important and some of that is about where your weight is not just how much the car weighs.

Astronomy, stargazing....whatever you want to call it was probably the most advanced of all the sciences from antiquity. For thousands of years it was the primary means of navigation that allowed large wind powered vessels to sail thousands of miles across vast oceans and hit tiny islands with fairly good accuracy. The majority of our current knowledge of the constellations is hundreds if not thousands of years old. There is this underlying misconception that people in the past are intellectually inferior to people of today. From a problem solving perspective that is just not true (from an access to information perspective it might be a little true). Many of the high intellectual concepts we learn as part of fundamental education, like Euclidean geometry, are very very old. I think coaster has it right too...we really don't know the size of Mayan civilization because the records that survived the ages were the mostly unreliable reports of the Spanish conquistadores. It could be that there are so many ruins that you could throw a dart at a map and hit something ancient and lost.

There was a white one at CC&C last weekend

727 still has a 3/36 warranty on parts only. Still better than nothing. Does the factory mustang warranty still apply? Or is that completely voided? If a door panel falls off or a seat back breaks day 3 of ownership will they warranty it? That's a hell of a deal for a 700 hp car. Maybe it's just me but I feel like this package should have a name to be a true dealer special.

yeah it's been almost 7 years since they had "interesting" quirky car enthusiasts like Murilee Martin writing for them so it is possible you don't remember the good automotive stories. I used to have a lot of fun with the jalopnik people, but I don't think the content has kept up with the fresh blood.

this cracks me up.... http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/dale-earnhardt-sr-s-relatives-in-court-over-who-gets-t-1775430845 I mean it is super sad when family fights happen, esp when it is via the estate of a deceased....but on the other hand the number of nascar based interior design jokes are almost endless...

Actually that happens all the time. You know what I do? get on with my life because it's a stupid thing to worry about. But no..go on, carry on suggesting he pour day old diarrhea into the vents of all the cars and shit like that because it's funny and we know nothing bad is actually going to happen.

Let's be honest here, the only reason this is in the kitchen is because we both know you are not going to do shit about this problem. This was so you could get CR to write you some creative revenge porn that you could mentally masturbate to so you could feel better about knowing you are going to do nothing. if it has been there since we'd then it is over the 72 hour mark. What have you done about it? Call police non-emergency? No you called me a d-bag for calling you out on your flaccid approach to the situation. I have to wonder, how many times did you sing "America, fuck yeah" from Team America in your head while writing that? 6? 7? This isn't about taking pride, this is about you feeling potentially powerless to exert control over something you have to share with your neighbors. And you feel powerless because you really aren't going to do anything about it.

I am assuming you don't have a HOA that can pick up this fight and literally fuck him into the ground on this issue? First off, grow the fuck up. you don't own the on street parking in front of your house. I get that it's fun to vent about fucking with other people's shit but let's be real you aren't really going to do it and if you are going to do it you are kind of being a dick. I mean if you are really losing sleep over some dude parking cars in your neighborhood you must not have a lot to worry about, be thankful for that and move on with your life. I can see you being concerned if he was actually inconveniencing you in some way but it sounds like you aren't really put out other than you have to look at crappy 10+ year old Toyota corollas parked in front of your house. I mean it isn't like he is parking a box truck with a ton of graffitied swear words on the side outside your house for 48 hours at a time, is he? That doesn't mean you can't do something. First thing I would do is mark off how close he can legally park to your driveway. As someone else mentioned there is a minimum distance, so get out the spray paint and park the street with a white line and the curb red. Any time he parks over the line and into the red you call traffic enforcement to come out and ticket for blocking a driveway. After a few of those tickets he will get the message and either fall n line or move on. Additionally any time he steps out of line for anything, like loud party or something, call for a noise complaint. The best way to incentivize his behavior is to cost him money, if he knows the whole neighborhood has it out for him and will report him for so much as farting too loud, he will figure it out. You should also become an expert on your neighborhood homeowner covenants and local rules. There are restrictions on how many vehicles someone can continuously park, you just need to find where the restriction is and who enforces it. Do these cars have for sale signs on them? Because there are restrictions on running businesses out of your home as well. Or you can run up behind him and smash him in the head with a brick - I mean that carries the same moral implications as damaging his legally parked property. If you really think he is doing something illegal, figure out the illegal activity and use the system, if not find something else to worry about.