kevinrhodes
Kevin Rhodes
kevinrhodes

I don't understand the appeal of a hairshirt existence so that you can "retire early". I want to enjoy my life. I want to eat great food, drive great cars, see the world in some semblance of style, not as a backpacker. I am lucky to have a career that I absolutely LOVE that pays well enough to do all that. I have no

Where you live is by far the most important thing. I live in Maine, but work for a company based in Boston. I make roughly the same salary as my counterparts who live in greater Boston. The big difference is that my house cost between 1/4 and 1/3 of what their houses did (and I bought well before the housing bubble

"dots, not feathers", as I like to say.

Ultimately, the profits are going to Ford shareholders located all over the world. Global multinational companies are GLOBAL.

Straight highway I get 30 or a bit better, which is better than EPA for the car. Suburban around town I get 25. The N20 cars beat that handily while being rather faster. Too each his own, I will take added power and efficiency over sound any day. My '11 does have the various Efficient Dynamics improvements that were

Pilots have to carry liability insurance, no different than drivers of cars - at least they are supposed to. Actually a lot MORE insurance, usually.

Which would actually be kind of awesome - I have long wished I could have had my current 328i wagon with the engine from my former Saab 9-3 SportCombi. Saab Turbo efficiency in a perfect RWD chassis. But yeah, an early APC 8V Saab 900T motor would be a very different animal altogether.

The n/a engine will simply never have the low rpm torque and flat torque curve of a good turbo. I love my N52-engined BMW, but the reality is you have to rev the hell out of it to go fast, which is NOT efficient at all. It is fun when you are in the mood, but the 2.0T has shove EVERYWHERE. The speed is so much more

Good ones certainly do. I own a BMW with the classic N52 3.0L inline six n/a engine. A wonderful piece of machinery, 230hp (@7000 rpm!) in low 328i tune, with Valvetronic it even makes a decent amount of torque across the whole rev band. But then compare it to the newer BMW N20 2.0L turbo 4. A VERY underrated 240hp

Back in the early days of supercharging, many cars were setup such that the blower only engaged at full throttle. Mercedes-Benz was famous for this.

A Fiat Abarth is one of the last remaining old school turbocharged cars. And even that has nothing like the lag and thump of an old Saab, especially the 8V cars that were the classic "nothing, nothing, nothing HOLY SHIT"! Though the late non-Aero cars were pretty undramatic, even the last of the 16V Turbo C900s with

Valid point, and utterly irrelevant to an OEM that has to meet a CAFE target. And pretty irrelevant to me, who is highly unlikely to buy a new vehicle and keep it for long enough for it to matter. So I will take the efficiency gains up front, and so will the OEM.

Turbos have very little to do with back pressure. They use the heat energy in the exhaust to spin the turbine. The back pressure is a side effect, and a largely irrelevant one. They are the closest thing to a free lunch that physics will allow in an internal combustion engine. Superchargers are a lot less close to

But pretty typical for a $70K TRUCK these days... This is literally an ancient army truck they have been building fundamentally unchanged for almost 40 years. Slapping a big engine in it and some leather is not an expensive proposition. The profit on the G65 has to be at a level to make King Midas blush, or they would

Well, if we can have plump hatches we can certainly have ruined wagons too! But to me, CUV works just fine for anything with added ride height and butched up appearance but with no real off-road ability. It covers a much broader range of vehicle than station wagon, which is a very narrowly focused term to me.

They would make $30K profit on the diesel, and they probably make $130K profit on this one. Maybe more than that. Laughing all the way to the bank.

To which I also say, nobody who would actually buy one gives a shit. It's very much like living in a 15,000sq/ft mansion and complaining that good help is hard to find. Utterly and completely irrelevant. If you are going to complain about something, complain that they have all the refinement and driving ability of a

I'm with you on the manuals. When I can't get what I want with a manual, then I just don't buy it. If I could get one with a stick, there would be an F31 BMW in my garage, not an e91, but since BMW won't sell me one properly equipped I will just save the $55K and spend it on something else.

I don't care how it sounds on the outside, on the inside you can barely hear it anyway. It's both more powerful and MUCH more efficient than the N52, I'll forgive it not sounding as nice. I have about six weeks of rental time in 328i's and 228i's with the N20, and I am more impressed the more I drive them. The only

A wagon on stilts is a wagon spoiled, IMHO. We have a term for a wagon on stilts, it's CUV.