Automobiles

[rec head]

Wow. Those seats look awesome. I guess if you can afford it then you can afford to have someone driving you so you can take advantage of them.

[vertical_doug]

Wow. Those seats look awesome. I guess if you can afford it then you can afford to have someone driving you so you can take advantage of them.

That's why the Rolls Royce Cullinan has suicide doors. It is easier for the driver to open for the passenger. (Although in old world circles, these are coach doors.)

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/21/1...gant-tradition


I actually think the EV version of the Maybach will be killer.
https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/veh...s-maybach-eqs/

[j44ke]

Neighbor went for a two-toned Mercedes Maybach GLS. It's big, but the back seats are like flying in first class.
...


You can get the same type of backseats in the RR Cullinan. They call it immersive seating.

....

Glad Mercedes has finally figured out how to design a Buick.

[j44ke]

I was wondering if anyone heard reports from Tesla drivers stuck in that I-95 snow-jam in Virginia a few weeks ago (known to some of our Richmond friends as the attempted assassination of Sen. Tim Kaine.) Just wondered whether a Tesla might be damaged in ways that combustion engine cars might not be.

Also reminded me of driving in my old 1966 VW and the disaster kit that I carried. It went something like two sleeping bags, camp stove, instant coffee, dehydrated backpacking food, matches, flash lights, extra batteries, water, extra gloves, and a number of other things I am sure I am forgetting that basically filled the rear compartment behind the back seat - in addition to tools, flares, reflectors, scissor jack, cheater bar, tire under the front lid. But that car had moments in its life when it was so undependable I carried my bike in the backseat just in case even in sunny summer weather.

[robin3mj]

Jorn there was an article in the Wash Post questioning whether electric cars are ready for prime time, after that storm.

I don’t think it focused on permanent damage but rather what happens if the batteries run down and how do you get it going again etc.

[vertical_doug]

Glad Mercedes has finally figured out how to design a Buick.

this is quality humor from you Jorn.

[Saab2000]

this is quality humor from you Jorn.

Belongs in the joke thread.

The odd thing is that when the Buicks are rusted out and still running, these will have depreciated by 80% and will be facing repairs to the engine and air suspension far more expensive than the car is worth.......

I toyed with the purchase of a used MB SL500 about a decade ago and a friend who is an S-Class owner told me to stay away unless I was willing to pay many times what might be considered normal costs every time a dashboard light went on, which he assured me it would.

[j44ke]

That's it for the year. Peaked a little early. Not even spring classics yet.

[j44ke]

Jorn there was an article in the Wash Post questioning whether electric cars are ready for prime time, after that storm.

I don’t think it focused on permanent damage but rather what happens if the batteries run down and how do you get it going again etc.

When we rented winters in Amagansett, someone living in the neighborhood stored his Tesla in his garage over winter. A combination of errors were made worse by a very cold winter that somehow killed the battery. The garage wasn't heated, the Tesla somehow wasn't connected to proper voltage or continuous voltage - I no longer remember the details. But the battery death essentially totaled the car. Pretty sure he sued Tesla.

Seems like plug-in hybrid might work well around here. We could probably do our grocery marathon on battery. But the gas/hybrid option would still definitely come in handy back and forth to NYC and on colder days like we've had the last week (and will have in the weeks coming up.)

I've been doing some fancy driving on 4 seasons tires lately. AWD would also be handy. Our car is FWD. Not sure how that works with battery cars - probably two electric motors? But that might also be better used with a plug-in hybrid.

[Saab2000]

When we rented winters in Amagansett, someone living in the neighborhood stored his Tesla in his garage over winter. A combination of errors were made worse by a very cold winter that somehow killed the battery. The garage wasn't heated, the Tesla somehow wasn't connected to proper voltage or continuous voltage - I no longer remember the details. But the battery death essentially totaled the car. Pretty sure he sued Tesla.

Seems like plug-in hybrid might work well around here. We could probably do our grocery marathon on battery. But the gas/hybrid option would still definitely come in handy back and forth to NYC and on colder days like we've had the last week (and will have in the weeks coming up.)

I've been doing some fancy driving on 4 seasons tires lately. AWD would also be handy. Our car is FWD. Not sure how that works with battery cars - probably two electric motors? But that might also be better used with a plug-in hybrid.

I drove a plug-in hybrid for three weeks this past summer in Europe. It was very impressive. Tons of get up and go, and went 60 km on the battery alone. It was an Opel Grandland née Peugeot 3008. As a daily driver it was really impressive, with a far more refined drivetrain than than my VW Tiguan. Admittedly, that’s a low bar to overcome….. But it was quite strong and refined. And fuel economy seemed very good though I never ran numbers. But I filled it up once. So there’s that. Most driving can be done on electrons.

Don’t worry about AWD. Worry about tires. They’re way more important than whether or not the rear wheels are driven in snowy conditions. AWD may help get going but it does little to nothing with stopping and/or turning. I’ll take Blizzaks over AWD and all-seasons 100% of the time. That said, AWD, ground clearance and proper winter tires will make your vehicle a beast in winter in Upstate NY.

[vertical_doug]

When we rented winters in Amagansett, someone living in the neighborhood stored his Tesla in his garage over winter. A combination of errors were made worse by a very cold winter that somehow killed the battery. The garage wasn't heated, the Tesla somehow wasn't connected to proper voltage or continuous voltage - I no longer remember the details. But the battery death essentially totaled the car. Pretty sure he sued Tesla.
.

If you let a tesla sit, the battery naturally discharges about 1% per day, in the cold this would be higher. Once the battery is fully discharged, there is a chance the anode/cathode plating gets damaged and will cause a short circuit killing the battery.
Normally, the battery would be under warranty and the battery replaced by tesla, but they probably claimed this was intentional misuse and voided the warranty/

[Mabouya]

If you let a tesla sit, the battery naturally discharges about 1% per day, in the cold this would be higher. Once the battery is fully discharged, there is a chance the anode/cathode plating gets damaged and will cause a short circuit killing the battery.
Normally, the battery would be under warranty and the battery replaced by tesla, but they probably claimed this was intentional misuse and voided the warranty/

Surely smart cars like that would be able to "phone home" to tell either the owner or the manufacturer that the battery was running super-low and needed to be plugged in, or else...

[sk_tle]

Don’t worry about AWD. Worry about tires. They’re way more important than whether or not the rear wheels are driven in snowy conditions. AWD may help get going but it does little to nothing with stopping and/or turning. I’ll take Blizzaks over AWD and all-seasons 100% of the time. That said, AWD, ground clearance and proper winter tires will make your vehicle a beast in winter in Upstate NY.

This.

Don't bother with all seasons, they are the worst of all world. Switch from summer to winter tires twice a year. AWD help you getting traction uphill but less than proper tires and is of no help to get grip while braking or cornering.

Oh, and the Peugeot 3008 and its Opel counterpart are terrible cars to drive.

[sk_tle]

Surely smart cars like that would be able to "phone home" to tell either the owner or the manufacturer that the battery was running super-low and needed to be plugged in, or else...

For that you need network. Not sure if it applies to this example and how things are in USA right now but in europe in 2022 it is still very easy to be in a zone with very little cell coverage.

[Saab2000]

Oh, and the Peugeot 3008 and its Opel counterpart are terrible cars to drive.

I didn't find it that bad, though sportiness wasn't the goal. The drivetrain was fine and it put out a combined 300 horsepower.

The infotainment system, though, was another story. Slow and laggy to touch commands.

Oh, and I fat-fingered my comments above. I meant to say that I'd take FWD and proper tires over AWD and inappropriate tires, which as he says, all-seasons are kind of dumb because they give people a false confidence that they're decent in the snow when they're only marginally better than dedicated summer tires in the snow.

[Marvinlungwitz]

IME, certain all seasons are not bad at all in snow. The Continental CrossContact LX25s we put on my wife’s SUV are quite good, in fact.

I’ve always wondered what one should drive in the spring and fall, or for that matter, the occasional light winter, when temps can range from 70s to below freezing +/- snow within days. And then the opposite a few days later. Too much hassle to change wheels that often, IMO, and given that snow tires are horrid in warm temps and summers tend to be terrible in the cold, with or without the white stuff.

(I’d be all for dedicated tires if I lived somewhere the seasons and conditions are sharply defined. For now, it’s all season tires).

[Saab2000]

IME, certain all seasons are not bad at all in snow. The Continental CrossContact LX25s we put on my wife’s SUV are quite good, in fact.

I’ve always wondered what one should drive in the spring and fall, or for that matter, the occasional light winter, when temps can range from 70s to below freezing +/- snow within days. And then the opposite a few days later. Too much hassle to change wheels that often, IMO, and given that snow tires are horrid in warm temps and summers tend to be terrible in the cold, with or without the white stuff.

(I’d be all for dedicated tires if I lived somewhere the seasons and conditions are sharply defined. For now, it’s all season tires).

This year my winter wheels went on in November, a bit early. Sometimes I used to wait until near the end of November based on weather forecasts. Obviously, winter tires aren't optimized for huge temperature swings but where I live, western burbs of Chicago, winter is still winter sort of and we rarely get over about 45ºF in the winter and usually it's below freezing. I too could get by with something else but have no regrets because I have first hand knowledge of the enormous difference the right tires make when I do actually drive in legit snowy conditions. I will take them off usually by the end of February or first half of March, again, depending on the forecast. I now do this job myself after I bought a jack and a torque wench last fall.

[bigbill]

This year my winter wheels went on in November, a bit early. Sometimes I used to wait until near the end of November based on weather forecasts. Obviously, winter tires aren't optimized for huge temperature swings but where I live, western burbs of Chicago, winter is still winter sort of and we rarely get over about 45ºF in the winter and usually it's below freezing. I too could get by with something else but have no regrets because I have first hand knowledge of the enormous difference the right tires make when I do actually drive in legit snowy conditions. I will take them off usually by the end of February or first half of March, again, depending on the forecast. I now do this job myself after I bought a jack and a torque wench last fall.

I've given winter wheels consideration for when we move to Wyoming. I have an AWD Ford Escape with all-seasons that I drove in some severe winter conditions near Flagstaff last month. Where we're building in Wyoming isn't especially snowy, but bitter cold for 2-3 months each year.

On a separate note, we are flying from LAS to BWI on 2/24 and returning on the 2/27. We're hoping for a smooth flight and aisle seats with our early bird.

[j44ke]

Sad story of tire abuse here - I had Nokian Hakkapeliitta's but during the first year of covid, I just completely blanked on switching them back to my regular tires. Had I removed them, they probably had at least another season in them. When my brain returned in September, I realized that the tires in the corner of our garage were the Michelin Primacy MXV4 tires and the Hakkapeliitta's were still on the car. A lot of things went by the wayside in those first several months of 2020. For me it was tires. Anyway, by then the Hakkepeliittas were behaving as if they had gone square, so I switched back to the Michelins and drove them all last winter and then this winter with few if any real problems. I take the car out of traction control and drive it in sport mode and things are fine. Figuring out how to turn off traction control on the Volvo (was not clear from the manual at all and language made it counterintuitive almost) was the big improvement, not the snow tires. Snow tires still did not allow me to drive up our driveway if the traction control was still on. We definitely get snow and ice all winter here, but even just twenty miles north, snow tires seem like a no-brainer. Here they are helpful in some situations, but if you know how to drive in snow, you can do it with good all or 4 seasons tires. And traction control off.

The one thing that rotating out 4 seasons tires with winter tires does is prolong the life of your 4 seasons tires. But it increases your winter tire budget by 100%. And if you are doing it right, you are managing a second set of tires with rims and pressure sensors. And that prolongs the life of both tires, but it also a hassle. I used to work on cars I owned all the time, so I'm pretty burned out on cars. AWD seems like an advantage to me because (as mentioned above) it not only adds some rear-end traction but along with it the car is usually designed for a bit higher clearance. I'm thinking Town and Country here, not SUV. But 4WD seems more of a real difference than AWD, so if money was burnable, we'd have a small 4WD truck for the limited number of really rough days. Maybe emergency plowing. Hauling stuff. Otherwise the Volvo does fine. And it would last longer not being used as a pickup truck like I do now.

Cars are stupid. I'd rather not have to care for them like a horse. Ours is the most dependable car we've ever had, and I still don't like having to do the 4 or 5 things required to keep it in good shape.

rant over

[davids]

I was wondering if anyone heard reports from Tesla drivers stuck in that I-95 snow-jam in Virginia a few weeks ago (known to some of our Richmond friends as the attempted assassination of Sen. Tim Kaine.) Just wondered whether a Tesla might be damaged in ways that combustion engine cars might not be.

Also reminded me of driving in my old 1966 VW and the disaster kit that I carried. It went something like two sleeping bags, camp stove, instant coffee, dehydrated backpacking food, matches, flash lights, extra batteries, water, extra gloves, and a number of other things I am sure I am forgetting that basically filled the rear compartment behind the back seat - in addition to tools, flares, reflectors, scissor jack, cheater bar, tire under the front lid. But that car had moments in its life when it was so undependable I carried my bike in the backseat just in case even in sunny summer weather.

It sounds like EVs did just fine while stranded on 95. A few reports led me to this video. Be sure to read the comments!