[lesmore49]

Say Hello to My Little Friend Al Pacino - Bing video

well " little " at least in comparison with my old friend that we got rid - the 2002 Chevy Suburban 1500 LT which only had 190 K + miles on it, we bought that one new,
it had 22 miles on it when we took it off the dealer's lot in ' 02, from the same salesman

( that one " moved on " to the dealership and auction, perfect for someone who wasn't worried about its trashed interior, a little rust on the low rear panels and " beauty marks "
ready for many more miles to come )

___________________________________________________

this one is a 2016 GMC Acadia Denali AWD V 6 with 35 K miles and we got it Saturday

still trying to learn all of its details, the ride is very soft and " floaty " but I love the detailed interior, it has bucket seats, captain chairs ( buckets ) and a split 60/40 bench 3rd row rear seat and all of the safety features you could think of:

lane drift alert, front collision alert, blind spot alert, rear view camera, parking assist, head up display, steering wheel controls, tow package,
etc, etc, etc, and so forth and so on

Beautiful GMC SUV. We are thinking about the Acadia. Like the looks, like the 3.6 DOHC V6, we have a car with that engine and it has lots of punch.

[aslyfox]

Beautiful GMC SUV. We are thinking about the Acadia. Like the looks, like the 3.6 DOHC V6, we have a car with that engine and it has lots of punch.

haven't done much with it yet, will be going up to north to Omaha Ne from Topeka Ks ( see the Henry Doorly zoo as well as my son and his wife ) this weekend, PM me if you want a report on Monday

if you are looking at new, I don't know what changes, if any, were made to the 2016 model we just got

[cooltouch]

Speaking of efficiency, I guess that's why I have the 7.5 liter (460 ci) in my pickup truck. I won't ever buy a truck with an automatic if I can help it. I need a clutch when I'm pulling out tree stumps, hauling heavy loads and pulling trailers. I've yet to have any problems with my 1991 F250, and loved my 1998 Silverado Z71 (the last year they came readily-available in a stick). I hope my truck continues to serve me well.

For stump pulling with an auto, isn't that what the torque converter is for? To behave like a clutch you're letting slip?

Thor, regarding having the auto on the "tree" I believe you're correct -- the ubiquitous (at the time) bench seat, although I have seen cars with bench seats that came with shifters from the factory. I think it was either the Plymouth Super Bee or GTX that had that possible configuration. But I've never seen a car that had a bench seat and an auto shifter on the floor.

[builttospill]

For stump pulling with an auto, isn't that what the torque converter is for? To behave like a clutch you're letting slip?

Not exactly. Only when at a complete stop does it behave like a manual clutch. There are two problems a torque converter encounters when pulling stumps: One, the recoil when the chain tightens and the engine is still pumping fluid into the convertor but the tires aren't spinning causes additional wear. And two, the converter will put much more torque to the wheels from a standstill after pressing the gas pedal, compared to riding the clutch for just the right amount. Using a stick allows me to control the torque so I don't tear up the lawn as much, keeping my wife much happier .

[aslyfox]

I am really liking the HUD ( head up display ) on my 2016 Acadia Delani

hud gmc acadia denali - Bing

I've never seen one before

[ThorSanchez]

I think almost everyone has a rational dislike that has morphed over time into a semi-irrational thing that makes your eye twitch and your blood pressure go up. For some people it's Canikon. Others it's the Yankees or Patriots. Liberals. Trump supporters. People who use too many commas.


For me it's SUVs. When you all are talking about the virtues of your SUVs it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. It's vast acres of beige Toyota Highlanders, parked out in front of Costco, ready to load up with 128-ounce cans of pork and beans. It's 5200-lb, three-row monstrosities commuting 47 miles to work with one dude and his lunch. It's the taunting of basic physics - land Zeppelins are sooooo inefficient, so top-heavy, stopping distances sooo long, and so not fun to drive! Floaty, numb suspensions and slushbox automatics. The perverse race to 7-ton vehicles on the argument safety is all about size, and that's all that matters. It's the requirement for 550 hp to go 0-60 in 6.5 seconds. It's the billboard-sized vehicles I'm always having to try to look around at intersections. It's the woman at the grocery store with the stepstool she needs to get in and out of her SUV (not making this up).


So hate me if you must, but SUVs are my bane! Begone all of you. I'm going off to illegally import a Tata Nano just for spite!

[ChrisPlatt]

I wouldn't worry. When $4 per gallon gas returns surely automakers will sell us all new smaller more practical vehicles.

BTW I am home sick from work today, and I'm so bored I even resorted to reading Craigslist rants and raves.
I was surprised how badly they are written now, by Russian trolls maybe. Your rant here OTOH was quite good.

Chris

[aslyfox]

I think almost everyone has a rational dislike that has morphed over time into a semi-irrational thing that makes your eye twitch and your blood pressure go up. . . .

For me it's SUVs. . . .

So hate me if you must, but SUVs are my bane! Begone all of you. I'm going off to illegally import a Tata Nano just for spite!

ah, I respect your rant and you make great undeniable points

however, anything can be rationalized:

we were a family of 3 + dogs which made trips with us

my first SUV, 2002 Chevy Suburban 1500 LT, was purchased when my son started attending a private parochial school K - 8 which had no bus

guess what got used as the " bus " on field trips

and I was the Cub Master of the Pack

guess what was used as mass transit

guess what was used as mass transit and tow vehicle as he progressed into Scouts and HS Marching Band when the band went to out of town competitions almost weekly, during the fall and for the Church's youth group travels

guess what was used when the wife wanted to visit her mother near Sioux City Iowa at any time of the year, including snow season, and served as mass transit when the family went to the big town for the movies

now, it is just the two of us, but the wife wants to get to work regardless of the weather and she still wants to visit her mother during snow season

so we just got the 2016 Acadia Denali

do we need it all of the time

of course not

but how many people have things they don't need daily?

like perhaps multiple varieties of the same lens ???

[ThorSanchez]

ah, I respect your rant and you make great undeniable points

however, anything can be rationalized:

we were a family of 3 + dogs which made trips with us

my first SUV, 2002 Chevy Suburban 1500 LT, was purchased when my son started attending a private parochial school K - 8 which had no bus

guess what got used as the " bus " on field trips

and I was the Cub Master of the Pack

guess what was used as mass transit

guess what was used as mass transit and tow vehicle as he progressed into Scouts and HS Marching Band when the band went to out of town competitions almost weekly, during the fall and for the Church's youth group travels

guess what was used when the wife wanted to visit her mother near Sioux City Iowa at any time of the year, including snow season, and served as mass transit when the family went to the big town for the movies

now, it is just the two of us, but the wife wants to get to work regardless of the weather and she still wants to visit her mother during snow season

so we just got the 2016 Acadia Denali

do we need it all of the time

of course not

but how many people have things they don't need daily?

like perhaps multiple varieties of the same lens ???

I get it, the one real requirement that's driven the SUV craze/plague is safety. In 1978 my brother, sister, and I piled in the back of the station wagon (or pickup truck with a cap!) haphazardly shoved in between boxes and luggage and dogs. Today each of us would have to be in car seats. So I guess the backward-facing third row pops up, we lose half the luggage, and one of us gets to volunteer to throw up from riding backwards.


But how many families today have three+ kids? I got through my kids' 0-8 year old phases with them in the back of a Mini Cooper.

[Canada_Rockies]

ah, I respect your rant and you make great undeniable points

my first SUV, 2002 Chevy Suburban 1500 LT, was purchased when my son started attending a private parochial school K - 8 which had no bus

guess what got used as the " bus " on field trips

My high school bus for the volleyball team, part of the track & field crowd and the basketball team my daughter the jock was on (my son is the Linux geek) was a 1984 Toyota Van LE. 93 whoop-de-ding horsepower in the Rocky Mountains. Later it was the Friday night square dance bus to Grasmere (55 mi/90 km each way). It was slow up hill (<-understatement) but held 7 adult sized people comfortably. It got great gas mileage. It was never in the ditch, no matter what the weather (and we do get some at 3,808 ft/1,157 m in the Rocky Mountains - my GPS altitude at my basement desk this morning).

It had 295,00 ditch free Km when we traded it in on a 1990 V-6 Toyota 2 WD pickup that racked up 285,000 ditch free Km, but that was twice used as an expensive target by the local wildlife. Where we live is the area with the highest incidence of vehicle/wildlife accidents in British Columbia.

Current vehicle (288,900 last night) is a 2002 Toyota Tundra V-8 (blush) 4 WD (double blush) pickup. Only body work needed happened in the supermarket parking lot. It is much better than the V-6 for towing our trailer up mountain hills, and a lot worse at the gas pump, but we don't have kid expenses any more and we can take it up rock falls now that our legs are a lot older (75 and 77 years and counting).

Up here the vehicles we see most in the ditches (with no finger pointing at anyone on this forum intended!) are the SUVs. Too many SUV owners (but no-one here, of course) think: "I've got 4 Wheel Drive, the roads are no problem!" and drive at the posted limit + 10 with 6 inches of snow on the road. Second place is unstable Dodge 3500 diesel pickup trucks with 9 inch suspension lifts that are used to show the neighbors they have the biggest truck (that they never use for more that a new mattress from CostCo).

Brickbat armour protection put on now ...

[mattb123]

I think almost everyone has a rational dislike that has morphed over time into a semi-irrational thing that makes your eye twitch and your blood pressure go up. For some people it's Canikon. Others it's the Yankees or Patriots. Liberals. Trump supporters. People who use too many commas.


For me it's SUVs. When you all are talking about the virtues of your SUVs it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. It's vast acres of beige Toyota Highlanders, parked out in front of Costco, ready to load up with 128-ounce cans of pork and beans. It's 5200-lb, three-row monstrosities commuting 47 miles to work with one dude and his lunch. It's the taunting of basic physics - land Zeppelins are sooooo inefficient, so top-heavy, stopping distances sooo long, and so not fun to drive! Floaty, numb suspensions and slushbox automatics. The perverse race to 7-ton vehicles on the argument safety is all about size, and that's all that matters. It's the requirement for 550 hp to go 0-60 in 6.5 seconds. It's the billboard-sized vehicles I'm always having to try to look around at intersections. It's the woman at the grocery store with the stepstool she needs to get in and out of her SUV (not making this up).


So hate me if you must, but SUVs are my bane! Begone all of you. I'm going off to illegally import a Tata Nano just for spite!

I'm also not a fan although technically I own a SUV of sorts (my 04 Forester XT is an SUV although it's very wagon-like). For me it's the big hulking ones that can't even seem to get out of their own way despite the terrible mileage. I know some people need them (or truly believe they do) but we get so many big white Suburbans and Denalis here with Texas and Oklahoma plates just clogging everything up. More often than not they are the ones in the ditch when it gets slippery or stopping in the middle of the highway when they see an elk or eagle. The safety argument goes both ways and while it may help make the people in them safer, it puts everyone else in smaller vehicles in more danger. I'm convinced 80%+ are totally unnecessary and are just wasting resources as single occupant grocery-getters.

Whew, I feel better now.

Edit to add: I've also been a contributor to the FUH2 site on multiple occasions, so I'm on of those people.

[Kombivan]

Best vehicle I've ever driven realiable and cheap to maintain and economical and has power and I can live on the road in it.

[timb64]

Best vehicle I've ever driven realiable and cheap to maintain and economical and has power and I can live on the road in it.

Owned this one briefly a few years back when I had had enough of cycle camping and wanted to sleep off the cold UK ground.Always drove it with a smile on my face but not being technically minded it soon proved to be a bit of a money pit.



Replaced with this



And subsequently this

Hi,

2015 Toyota Tundra

Things I like:

Power - lots of it. Never ending. When I pull our camper, I can pass transports like a hot knife through butter. Same when pulling my smaller ATV toy hauler.
Space - lots of that too. With the TRD package and the full crew cab, I have space for my hunting or camera gear, plus passengers
Reliability - it's a Toyota. 'nuff said. Every Toyota has been rock solid for us
Value - Toyotas hold their value. Every time I've sold a Toyota, they've held their value immensely.
Feel - the driving experience is sweet. The vehicle is put together well. Doesn't have that plastic feel to it.

What I don't like:
Gas mileage - but then again, I drive a truck so I don't worry about it. Otherwise, I would drive myself nuts worrying about.

Cheers,
Brian

[aslyfox]

3 memories of a '60s Volkswagen micro bus ( not exactly fine memories )

- 2 adults, and the 4 of kids in the summer ( August? ) around Lake Superior, up from East Central Illinois through Wisconsin, traveling along the UP of Michigan through Minnesota across Canada, down to Sault Ste. Marie, across the Mackinac Bridge to the LP of Michigan and south through Indiana to east Central Illinois

of course it was without air conditioning

- trying to edge out of the Parking Lot of the Field Museum in Chicago into traffic. The idea was to stick the front of the vehicle into traffic forcing oncoming traffic to stop

one problem, there was nothing to stick into traffic except the driver and passenger seat in the Microbus

- 1970ish, going to buy a replacement vehicle for the Volkswagen when the sales man tried to convince my dad that whit walls would help resale value on the Datsun 510 station wagon he was buying

salesnman asked dad how often he traded in vehicles, my dad's response 100,000 miles or whenever it burns up ( the fate of the VW ) which ever happens first