Jalopnik Sour
My first job was mostly cutting and crushing lemons at fairs. It was a weird first job, but it was a good one. Decently hard work, little money, and long hours in the summer. But I can make a killer lemon shake up with various liquors…
Speaking of lemons… Ever heard of the 24 Hours of LeMons? I’ll get back to that…
Jalopnik is probably one of my top 5 blogs. What can I say? I love cars. I grew up reading Autoweek and the other major rags, but I’ve embraced the blog in a big way. Despite Jalopnik being a rather important part of my blog subscription, I’ve been increasingly annoyed of late by it.
Like anything that anyone has a passion towards, there’s things you like and dislike… I love Jalopnik’s quick reporting all year round on consumer offerings and the prototypes at and around auto shows. I don’t like certain cars here and there, but that’s all personal preference.
What really gets me pissed is the constant coverage of the 24 Hours of LeMons (link)… Not the 24 hours of Le Mans (the world famous endurance race in France that I blogged about earlier), but LeMons as in a bunch of older model cars put through a specific race. These races happen regularly, but it’s just crap features for what I consider a top notch car blog.
As someone who detests NASCAR, I’d rather read about that bastard of a race series than LeMons. Hell… There’s probably more coverage on LeMons in the past two years than IRL and F1 combined… That’s total crap…
The sole writer responsible for these posts usually has a good group of reoccurring post themes (I love his “Down on the Street” posts), but these LeMons posts have been more than annoying enough to make me want to write about it here and maybe send a letter on to the editor in chief.
Maybe I just don’t get it. But I do get that it’s getting nice outside… So I’ll have to make some lemon shake ups soon…
Free movie for car fans
Audi produced a movie that aired last week. It’s titled Truth in 24. The film’s website is flash intensive and very well done [truthin24.com]. I knew about this and was looking forward to catching it. To my happy surprise it’s been released for free on iTunes.
This film chronicles the 2008 Le Mans with some history at the very beginning. It’s extremely well shot, and narrated by Mr. Audi – Jason Statham.
I do recommending at least taking in the first 5 minutes of the film for a tiny bit of history and some very nice shots.
If you’re not much into cars, then the entire film isn’t really for you. It does have the formulaic elements of a event documentary – set up the event, create an adversary, show some action when possible, and then pull it all together in terms of the event. It’s not quite that easy, but oh well.
Our Recent Carmax Experience
So we’ve been having quite the experience with Carmax of late. My wife has blogged about it, but I’m going to weigh in because I have a different perspective. I’ve got a deeper well of experience when it comes to automotive services. This is just a situational post based on our experiences with Carmax over the past few weeks so that anyone considering dealing with them can take it under advisement.
The abridged version: Carmax screwed up and initially “lost” the car after we had it towed up there. Carmax then didn’t admit their mistake and delayed it getting in for service for another day. They referred the car to the local VW dealership which couldn’t even look at it for another 4 business days – and thus pushing it into the next week. When VW disagreed with the initial diagnosis of bad head gasket, they replaced the thermostat which Carmax had already replaced just a few thousand miles ago. They bickered for at least a day about what the diagnosis was. All this while they wouldn’t approve a rental car which her extended warranty grants until yesterday, 13 days after Carmax took delivery of it.
Sure, I could go into an insane amount of detail of exchanges, but it doesn’t change where we are right now. So far it seems like they give us too much contact and their supposed customer service when it’s unnecessary (like calling multiple times to tell us there’s no news or that there’s disagreement between mechanics with no details of the disagreement). But then there’s the complete absence of customer service when it involves things like losing a car that your company took delivery of… Or delaying the approval a rental car earlier because as a customer you’d paid for an extended warranty that grants one in such circumstances. Someone from the corporate level got involved and basically did nothing but convey a little inconsequential information (no apology for losing the car, the time wasted and no granting of a rental despite evidence to the contrary).
Carmax blames AAA for the car misplacement (despite someone behind the fence at Carmax taking delivery of with the a signature). The slow service at VW is the only thing everyone agrees is beyond fault. But the bickering between Carmax / VW or the level of relevant contact to us (the end consumer) has been without consideration of our time or frustration at the situation.
A month ago, we’d have given Carmax decent marks with a good probability of earning our repeat business. We’re going to be very glad that we have that extended warranty (the head gasket is the culprit – yeah, ouch) – but it’s just such a bad taste in our mouths from all the bumbling around. I’m unsure how this will change our overall opinion of Carmax when we’re done with this car. A lot of it will depend on how this winds up in the next few days.
is it raining man?
Just browsing stories on Jalopnik, and I came across this image which made me laugh out loud… Not only because it’s aligned with some of my economic beliefs, but because it brings R. Kelly into it.
If you’re interested, this was taken outside of the Detroit Auto Show. The group protesting is the UAW. I’m not going to go all editorializing on this anymore, but the issue is far from going away. I’m still unsure on what to make of all sides of the government / auto company / union love-hate triangle.
Just ask yourself if watersports is really the answer?
Farking Spot
It’s funny ’cause it’s true…
thanks Jalopnik…
Speaking out of one’s cornhole…
Thursday, February 22nd, George W. Bush flew to North Carolina to speak of energy initiatives. In his speech to a biotech company concerned with ethanol, Bush said:
“Someday you’re going to be able to get in your car, particularly if you’re a big-city person, and drive 40 miles on a battery,” he said. “And by the way, the car doesn’t have to look like a golf cart. It could be a pickup truck.”
I know he doesn’t write his own speeches, but why pick one out of the unused bin from his fathers’ presidency? I say this because Ford produced an electric version of the Ranger pickup from 1998-2002 that had a range of 65 miles… It’s not the future GW, it’s the past… Most current electric vehicles going into production have 150-200+ range (250 in the case of the Tesla). And all this is without governmental assistance that companies like Hummer get.
I guess all the fact checkers haven’t been replaced since that whole WMD thing… But who needs facts when you have spin?
The Chronicle via Jalopnik…
tuesday nothing
A coworker, who is only in once or twice a week, got into one of our political discussions… not only did I come to a new realization that I won’t go into yet (needs more thought), but I’m in another political frame of mind… I won’t bother blogging about much except two things…
First, and foremost… Al Gore needs to run for President. That’s all I’ll say about that for now.
Second, take a look at another electric car to his the newswire. It’s a joint venture of Lotus and APX, and not only can it go 350 miles without a charge – but it has the equivalent of 644 horsepower and can do 155 mph. And it’s a smallish SUV / Crossover…
Yes, I’m sick of all these prototypes like this and the GM Volt because there is nothing economically feasible like them on the market for interested consuners like myself… But this is another example that if a small car company can make something like this, then is it not much of a leap to expect something remotely comparable from any of the major automakers to be in production within the next year?
One hell of a concept
Now to blog about what I intended to this morning. If you’ve come this far I beg you to hear me out on this one.
This is an image of a General Motors concept hybrid vehicle. It’s code name is the XP-883 and if built it would have an electric motor that also drives the car when enough energy is stored up in the batteries thus vastly increasing economy. But wait you ask, aren’t all hybrids like this? No. All GM hybrids produced and planned for production to date do not have any electric motor within the drive train. Instead these “hybrids” have larger banks of batteries that allow the car to shut the engine off and run all other functions from the batteries (everything in the electrical system) when the car is parked or at a stop. Because there is no electric motor component to this type of system, it is referred to as a “hollow hybrid”. It does increase the mileage, but not much. In the case of the Saturn Vue, the mileage is increased more by using a smaller engine than the larger battery system.
So producing a hybrid that actually has an electric motor encorporated into the drive train would be a big step for GM to join Toyota, Honda, Ford and Nissan in the “non-hollow hybrid” game.
But wait, you ready for the kicker? This is a concept from 1969 published in Popular Mechanics (thanks Finkbuilt and Jalopnik). Think about that for a second… First of all, if it was published in a magazine, how long had GM been sitting on it? GM has had the foresight to put R&D into this field at least 36 years ago, but they still do not have a real hybrid on the market. Even throughout the oil embargo days when the Japanese automakers started kicking Detroit’s butt with fuel efficient cars, GM didn’t even think of actually trying to produce something that could blow everything away.
Now that it predicted that Toyota will overtake Ford and GM within 12-18 months in volume of production, what’s GM’s reaction? To show off concepts of what they have had the ability to make for years and will never see the production line for years if ever. It’s not just GM, but every company other than Toyota and Honda are also guilty (Ford and Nissan license Toyota technology for their hybrids).
I think we’re past the time for concepts in this realm. Put up or shut up. For the sake of the American economy and the global environment, just do it.
Stability for the Masses
It was recently announced that the federal government is going to require that all US passenger vehicles be equipped with stability control as a standard feature. While I applaud ability for this innovation to increase the safety of vehicles, two things came immediately to mind…
One, this only makes the cars more resistant to becoming unstable. This in no way accounts for bad drivers which seem to be everywhere (especially in Florida and New Jersey).
And second, why not turn that power of vehicle standards to MPG ratings? They’ve done it before, why not now? Not only could this spur innovation (or just require companies to give us the cars they already sell in the rest of the world), but it could lower fuel costs from an increasing supply thanks to more efficient vehicles.
I guess everyone is happy with gas $0.50 cheaper than a few months ago…
EV
Went and saw “Who Killed the Electric Car” yesterday evening, and I must say that I really liked it. Of course I’m biased in the respect that I love cars, and I’m a bit of a greenie.
Regardless, I challenge anyone to see it and concretely refute the case it builds that there was a specific effort by automakers and the government (local and federal) to repeal California laws requiring automakers selling automobiles within the state to sell a specific percentage of completely emission free vehicles. Most large companies are already suspect in my eyes because of the nature of a corporation, but what respect I did have for large automakers is now gone. I may appreciate their products as an a
utomotive enthusiast, but their practices over the past hundred years has severely limited progression in many ways.
I’m personally proud to drive a very fuel efficient car, but would really love to have an electric car. Comparatively very cheap fuel… Maintenance is almost non-existent with hundreds of fewer moving parts than a normal car… I’m looking forward to the future where I can get an electric car with the current selection. I’m especially keen on seeing the 2nd and 3rd generation Tesla vehicles. I will buy one if the company survives and I’m in the position to do so.
