Mallard

I don't have a problem with how you and anyone else shops for a car. I like all cars, no matter what company makes it. But I do not like when people judge the domestics by bogus stardards. They should all be compared on a level playing field. My only gripe was with the few people that said, "Bah, that's way over priced!" It's not over priced. In fact, it's 'in the box' when compared to other NEW cars in the segment. Compared to some cars it's still a performance bargain. What you're saying is "A new RS4 is extremely overpriced and has depreciated to the level of this car's MSRP. I would prefer to have the RS4." And there's no problem with that. My co-worker is looking at 3 year old Mercedes SL500's that are in the same price range. That's a 3 year old car that stickered for $105k and is going for ~$35-40k used. And you guys talk about GM depreciation!

You can't compare used car prices to new car prices. Why should GM sell a car that outperforms most of what's out there for a fraction the cost of a used car?! It doesn't make sense and they can't do it financially anyway. My point with the Venza was that everyone here seems to think that $40k is too much for a car with that level of performace and hardware. If $40k is too much for a ~435 HP, RWD, Manual, Brembo brakes, and all the options on a large sedan, then what do you call that rolling vagina wagon? You could spend $40k on the top level BMW 1 Series and you guys are bitching about this?! Cars cost money. You can buy the V6 or a GT for under $30k, this is just the top trim level.

If you think it's just a bigger motor you know nothing about the car. LS3 + Brembo's + the only manual transmission available in a G8 + different suspension + other misc. stuff Bottom line is, for $40k you could get a G8 GXP or a loaded Toyota Venza. Which would you choose? gilbert - because of new federal reg's all cars will be coming with ABS and ESC standard by 2012.

Really? $40k for this car is not 'out of the box.' Where else can you get a car that performs that well for $40 or less? A BMW 3 Series can cost you $40k and this is a much larger car at a higher trim level. It pretty much matches the SRT Charger's price and undercuts an SRT 300C by a few thousand. Even an SRT Challenger is over $40k. Why does everyone expect the US companies to give cars away? The other companies charge just as much or more for their products.

He had a lot of pictures on his MySpace. You could rip some stuff off of there.

Wow, I don't have time to read all 9 pages yet, but I have probably known Kenny longer than anyone here. We grew up together and have known eachother since going to Gables Ele. together. I'm saddened by this. This sucks. RIP Kenny.

I know. The 'captured fleet' or 'fast feedback' cars are out.

They're already on the road. I passed 3 of them last week.

Her condo was similar (all retiree's and young professionals), but there were more than 40 in the area. I don't know where yours is, what the spec's are, or what it cost new, but good luck getting $160k. My wife's condo went for around $140K new (in 2000), she bought it for $135 in 2005, and we sold it for $96k and we had other offers for $92k and $86k. Hopefully you can get what you want out of it, but be prepared for the worst. We went into it thinking we'd get $112-118k out of it. Everything the previous posts say about inspections is true. We had an offer on one, it was accepted, and during the inspection we saw something we didn't like and walked away. The bank called back asking what it would take for us to buy it and offered another $10k off the price. We still walked, but they sounded anxious to get rid of it.

Condo's are a tough sell. We had my wife's condo on the market for 8 months and continually dropped the price. We bought a home 3 months after putting her condo up. It was a b!tch to get rid of, and we ended up dumping it and taking about a 15% hit. My advice would be, if you buy before you sell the condo be sure you have enough cash set aside to pay for what you could lose. Otherwise you're screwed. Luckily, my wife closed the sale of her condo 3 days after she was laid off.

Congrats! I just got married too (on the 14th).

The SS will come out (the development is done). This doesn't effect current SS, V, or GXP badged vehicles. They will live out their life cycles. When things get better these engineers could get put back on performance vehicle projects.

Yes, but if you can reflect the heat of the sun you can still cool the surface of whatever is covered. There's one guy that wants to cover parts of Greenland with a big white tarp to prevent glacier melt. Recently he tested his theory by covering 2 acres of melting glacier with a tarp. The area around the tarp was turning to slush, while the covered area froze solid again. In just a few weeks the area around the tarp was 2 feet lower. Basically, it's like standing in the shade on a hot day.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html

That where we were at...until the wife got laid off. Now it's around twice that

To answer #2... The outlet of the stock manifold is round so dave (Dejon) just used a weld elbow and 2 flanges to make an adaptor.

If you want to see some cool ice circles go to Sweden in the spring and look at the frozen lakes they use as test tracks. There's always a 1/4 mile circle set up, and the area that's driven on gets the thickest. When it thaws there's a 1/4 mile ring floating in the water. Cool pics!

Stock boost is variable. The ECU requests a torque and does everything it can to control to that torque. Different weather conditions will take more/less boost to reach that torque. People have seen stock boost hit as high as 20 psi and as low as 14, but it can be tuned up to 23 psi (the limit of the stock MAP sensor). The GM "Stage II" kit comes with a new MAP sensor that allows you to run more pressure. Those are nice numbers!

I understand what you're saying, but also realize that a lot of the suppliers are global. For instance, if the company I work for (or some of our competitors) file Ch. 11 and can't ship parts to plants we would shout down Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, BMW, Mercedes, Nissan, Hyundai, VW/Audi, Bugatti, some Chinese company's, some Russian company's...everyone in the industry and since we are a global company this would happen all around the world. Now I don't think the company I work for is in danger of doing that, but I know of others that are. My company would just have massive layoffs. They are already talking with Canada. Sweden already promised aid for Volvo and Saab. Austrailia has alrady done this for their divisions also.

I think everything he's posted was supporting the rationale for Brandon getting charged, not necessarily his guilt. At least that's how I read it.

In a supplier based system it doesn't work like that. If the bankruptcy of GM or Chrysler causes the bankruptcy of a supplier (which it certainly will) than Ford's supply line will be cut too. Plants will be shut down, people laid off, money lost. Toyota will be affected in the same manner.

1) Check the latest quality ratings. They do. Ford is actually rated higher quality than Toyota. 2) They do. Other than the Prius GM and Ford make more fuel efficient cars than Toyota. Toyota has a truck-heavy line up too and they get a lot worse mileage than GM/Ford/Dodge. The 2010 Fusion Hybrid (they start building them for sale in Jan/Feb) gets 6 mpg better than the Camry hybrid. Is one test they averaged 43 mpg.

Actually it's not good at all down there right now. My fiancee's old employer has bene moving a lot of stuff down there and people from her building would make frequent trips. Right now the gang wars are really bad. A couple American workers have been beheaded and they send the heads to their employer. Some of my fiancee's co-workers were caught in crossfire and had to get on the ground under a car, and a few weeks ago one of the restaurants they frequest was fire-bombed. I'm almost glad she got laid off after hearing all that. I wouldn't be able to sleep if she had to go down there again.

I already know a handful of people that have been layed off because of the auto industry's troubles (my fiancee included). It's going to get much, much worse if they start filing Ch 11.

We're all fucked. I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand the ripple effect of this. The money the government will pay out in unemployment will dwaf the amount of these loans. Not to mention how many more people will foreclose on their homes. If they don't get these loans you can say hello to a depression. It's not just a Big 3 problem, it's a world problem. Other country's have already guaranteed aid for their automakers.