🚀 go-pugleaf

Ragnarsghost@hotmail.com wrote:
> Leif Erikson wrote:
> > Ragnarsghost@hotmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > Nexus7 wrote:
> > >
> > >>Leif Erikson wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>In these horrific excess emporiums in America,
> > >>>particularly the Fridays/Applebees/Chilis/Max-and-Ermas
> > >>>chains, no one cares about the food.  It's all an MBA
> > >>>project, intended to make money.  If the MBAs running
> > >>>the places thought they could make more money selling
> > >>>engine valves to GM or collection services to banks,
> > >>>they'd be doing that.  They don't *care* about food.
> > >>
> > >>And you've inadvertently hit upon the problem with the US auto industry
> > >>too. It is an MBA/actuary/anyone-but-engineer project designed to sell
> > >>quantity over quality. Whether in pounds or units sold.  A look at the
> > >>current lard-butt Mustang or Corvette compared to a Miata illustrates
> > >>the difference in perception of what a sports car should be,
> > >
> > >
> > > Then explain the Pontiac solstice and the Saturn sky.
> >
> > Don't know anything about them, but I'm willing to bet
> > money they're not even half the car as their import
> > competitors, for a comparable price.
> >
>
> Do the research then flap your gums. Both the solstice and the sky are
> based of GMs Kappa platform. This architecture has been around for some
> time now in Europe in the form of the Opal speedster.

Opel, not "opal".

   Jeder Popel faehrt sein Opel

Look it up.

In any case, what you're saying is that as long as the 'murkan auto
makers import their cars from abroad to sell in 'murka, they'll be good
cars.  How exactly does that contradict what I've been saying?

Ford's 500 and Fusion are built by Volvo and Mazda, respectively.  What
does that tell you about Ford's faith in their 'murkan engineers?


> As far as price
> and quality go these models are too new to make that kind of
> determination. But they don't have to go very far to keep up with
> Mazda in these categories. Remember Mazda has not always kept up in the
> quality and reliability ratings with other Jap imports such as Toyota
> and Honda.

Because Ford own most of it; maybe all of it by now.  I suspect Ford
are in the process of ruining Volvo, Jaguar, Range Rover, and any of
their other recent acquisitions, too.  Still, they're better than the
'murkan designed and built Ford products.


> Stupid people seem to have the misconception that if the car
> is Japanese it must be superior. But only uninformed fools think like
> this. Because when it comes to quality and reliability among the
> Japanese auto imports Mazda pretty much brings up the tail end of the
> dog.
> >
>
> > > Don't say the
> > > American car industry has no perception on what a sports car should be.
> >
> > In general, the American car industry has a very bad
> > perception of what *any* car should be.
> >
> >
> > > The problem is, niche filling two seat roadsters have limited sales
> > > potential and it has nothing to do with appeal and everything to do
> > > with practicality. Almost everyone loves the small sports car, fat
> > > Americans and thin Europeans alike. But as an everyday driver they come
> > > up short and they just don't fit in with most peoples needs.
> > > Also comparing a high performance car like the vet to a miata is hardly
> > > fair. Each vehicle caters to a different type of driver. The miata
> > > delivers decant handling capabilities coupled with rather lackluster
> > > performance while the vet delivers on all accounts.
> >
> > Why can't the 'murkans build anything like the Miata at
> > all?  Why don't the 'murkans have anything remotely
> > comparable to BMW or Mercedes?  Don't give me any
> > crapola about "niche" - I see more Mercedes S500s and
> > BMW 7-series cars on L.A. freeways than I see of all
> > Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler sedans combined.
> >
> Do you realize that only in the U.S. can auto makes like Mercedes and
> BMW sell their car models at such exorbitant prices. Its not because
> they are sooo much better it because fools are with retarded ideas
> about auto quality are willing to pay through the nose for slightly
> above average crap.

No.  That could hold for a while, but not for long.  The competition
from Lexus and Infiniti would kill them if they didn't get things up to
speed.

It isn't just the construction quality of the cars, it's the concept of
a car that people are buying.  German cars handle better than any
'murkan piece of crap, and better than most Japanese stuff.  It comes
down to how the engineers see the car.  Japanese cars aren't as stiff
handling as German ones, but they're nowhere near as mushy as the
'murkan ones.  Driving a 'murkan sedan, *any* 'murkan sedan, is like
driving a garbage bag full of marshmallows.


> > No one - I mean, no one who isn't stuck driving a
> > donkey cart - aspires to own any American car.  For
> > anyone with any taste and panache, American cars are
> > what you make do with if you can't afford European or
> > Japanese.
> >
> > The 'murkan manufacturers just haven't figured out, in
> > over 40 years, that people with any discernment don't
> > like 'murkan cars.  They *still*, after all this time,
> > have the attitude that they'll tell us what we want,
> > and what we need.  I used to have committed to memory a
> > list of about 15 items that the 'murkans get utterly
> > wrong while all the Europeans and Japanese get
> > completely right.  Only a couple come easily to mind
> > now, but they're emblematic.  Look at the windshield
> > wipers on 'murkan and imported cars.  On *all* imported
> > cars that I've ever seen, the wipers stand up
> > completely perpendicular to the windshield, and stay
> > there, so you can let go of the FUCKING things when you
> > clean the windshield.  On *every* American car I've
> > seen, for decades now, the FUCKING things lift off the
> > windshield a couple of inches; you have to hold the
> > thing up with one hand while working the squeege with
> > the other.  THIS IS BAD.  Imports 1, 'murkans 0.
> >
> What American cars are you looking at, fully opposable wipers have been
> standard on U.S. built cars since the early nineties. I own several
> American cars and just how do you think I clean the snow off of their
> windshields every winter. In fact the last American car I owned that
> didn't have opposable wipers was in 1985.
>
> > High beam switch.  It took for-FUCKING-ever for the
> > 'murkans to begin to put the high-beam switch in the
> > turn indicator, rather than the stupid little foot
> > button.  I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn
> > that the switch *still* is that same little annoying
> > can't-find-it aluminum foot button on certain big
> > lard-ass American cars like the Ford 500 and (do they
> > still make it?) Crown Victoria, and whatever the
> > comparable Chevy models are.  Imports 2, 'murkans 0.
>
> Wrong, the foot but went out in the late 70s I once owned a 1978
> Pontiac Grand Prix and even that had the high bean selector on the turn
> signal.
> >
> > Some things the 'murkans eventually copied from the
> > foreigners, but it took them too damned long:
> > McPherson strut suspension, radial tires, etc.  Imports
> > 3, 'murkans 0.
> >
> Again American cars may have lagged behind in the suspension department
> at one time but that has be pretty much rectified since the late 70s
> early 80s and radial tires have been common since the early 70s.
>
> Btw, how fucking old are you anyway? Your knowledge of the American
> auto industry seems to be stuck 1975.

Old enough that I haven't bought a 'murkan piece of crap since 1971.
I've driven a few, though, as rentals.  I had some GM pile-o-crap just
last year up in Seattle for a rental, and as sure as there's shit in a
goat, the windshield wipers didn't stand up; I had to hold them up when
I cleaned the windows.

Another one I forgot to mention was the hand actuated parking brake.
That's better, and actually allows you to use it for something other
than just holding the car in place when you leave it.  I know a few
smaller 'murkan cars began using it when they finally started trying to
build some small cars, but most still have that shitty worthless foot
pedal parking brake that is all but useless.  Imports 5, 'murkans 0.


>
> > And then there's that performance "thing".  Somehow,
> > the Germans manage to get more performance out of a
> > 3-litre engine than the 'murkans do out of 4 litres.  I
> > just looked at the specs for a BMW 530 vs. a Ford 500.
> >   Both have 3 litre engines, but the BMW gets 225hp to
> > the Ford slug's 203; BMW gets 214 ft./lb. of torque to
> > the Ford hay bale's 207.  And the BMW gets better gas
> > mileage to boot!  Imports 4, 'murkans 0.
>
> The difference in horsepower ratings between these two cars doesn't
> impress me much. As for the torque 7ft/lb can almost be negligible. It
> more a coefficient of the torque curve, without comparing the two
> curves I cannot honestly tell how efficiently the torque is delivered
> across the length of the curve. As they say Horsepower brings customers
> into the showroom but torque delivery sells the car. As far as the gas
> mileage goes, according to my research their almost dead even in fact
> the Ford beats the BMW by 1 mile each way. Besides when you consider
> the price difference and since the 5 series cost on average $20,000
> more than the Ford it damn well better outperform the Ford. If it
> didn't it would make owners of BMWs extremely stupid.

My point is that 'murkan Ford and GM cannot and WILL NEVER build a car
that will make potential BMW or Mercedes drivers consider the 'murkan
product instead of the German.  I've lived in Germany, and BMW and
Mercedes are just considered good cars over there.  In 'murka,
describing something as "German engineered" makes it sell; in Germany,
describing something (other than computers) as "'murkan engineered"
makes people laugh and walk out the showroom door.  Europeans quite
rightly consider that 'murkans don't know their asses from their faces
about cars.


> > The problem is that the 'murkans for a long time had a
> > nearly captive market of lard-ass 'murkan customers who
> > don't know quality from their asses, which is why they
> > eat at Bob Evans and Denny's and Applebees to begin
> > with.  The 'murkans could get away with making bigger,
> > mushier handling sleds, and the fat lard-ass 'murkan
> > public lapped it up.
>
>
> I'm not going to argue the food issue with you, because I agree with
> you the restaurants you mentioned serve little more than swell. But as
> far as the American car market is concerned you are correct to a
> degree. But what you are relaying happened 30 years ago during the
> early to mid 70s.

The 'murkan manufacturers have not caught up, and never will.  It is a
function of who runs the companies.  The people running Ford and GM and
the Chrsyler part of Daimler-Chrysler are all fat lard-ass 'murkans who
*like* Bob Evans and Denny's and Applebee's, so they build cars for
other fat lard-ass 'murkans.


> Back then the American car industry did have a
> monopoly and once competition in the form of cheap Japanese econo-boxes
> came along, they paid the price. But that was then and this is now and
> you really need to move into the 21st century with the rest of us.
> Besides back in the day when the American auto industry held their
> monopoly over the car market the average European car was absolute
> shit. Did you ever drive a 70s vintage BMW? I'd rather drive a
> Volkswagen.
> >
> > Back to the food angle of this:  it abso-fucking-lutely
> > cracks me up that in red-state flyover territory, fat
> > cardboard palate 'murkans actually are resentful of the
> > fact that we more discerning people on the coasts like
> > foreign foods.  I used to do some business travel to
> > some red-state backwaters, and when it came time to
> > pick a spot to go to lunch, the yokels in the local
> > offices always had some snide comment to make about
> > west coasters eating sushi, tofu, etc.  I don't think
> > they even knew about Thai or Indian food being commonly
> > available out here, and Chinese to them *only* meant
> > bland Cantonese fare; if you said "Hunan" to them, they
> > thought you wanted to know who Mr. Nan was.  And of
> > course, where we always wound up eating was Applebee's
> > or Max & Erma's or some other greasy shithole, and they
> > had the 44-inch waists to go with it.
>
> I haven't really come across this but to be honest it's a big
> country with diverse regional tastes and you will find fat people
> everywhere you go, even on the coasts.

You find very few fat people on the coasts.  However, as soon as you
move inland - say, to California's Central Valley - then you might as
well have gone to Iowa.  Those people are behemoths.


> In fact I hear they even have
> fat people in Europe now.

Heavier than they used to be, but you don't find those people with
upper arms larger than my waist the way you find 'em in flyover 'murka.


> > 'Murkans - correction:  red-state flyover 'murkans -
> > eat too much bad food and drive too-large bad cars
> > because they have no discernment, and they never will.
> >   To these benighted sweaty fundamentalist lowbrows, a
> > lot of something of low quality is *always* preferable
> > to a modest amount of something of high quality, and
> > that isn't going to change.
>
> You do have something of a point, I'll give you that. But I still say
> your knowledge of the American car scene sucks.

It may be a little dated, but I don't think it's as off as you're
making it out to be.