Just a note about the MotoAmerica series, which wrapped up last weekend. Josh Herrin is the 2024 Superbike champion for the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Team.
Ducati now has 3 total AMA/MotoAmerica Superbike Championships:
1. 1993, Doug Polen for the Fast by Ferracci Team.
2. 1994, Troy Corser, also for Fast by Ferracci.
3. 2024, Josh Herrin’s title.
What do they all have in common? Eraldo Ferracci (Team owner/tuner for Fast by Ferracci. Team Consultant for the Warhorse guys.)
Also, there have been a total of two Ducati Supersport US National Championships; Josh Herrin in 2022 and Xavi Fores in 2023— both for the Warhorse HSBK Racing Team. With the involvement of Eraldo.
Ferracci also has 2 World Superbike Championships with Doug Polen in ‘91 and ‘92.
I think he’s 87 years old; but I believe he still lists engine work on his website. I’ve never asked him about it. If you look at the website, the female model on there is my great niece. “She’s a-beautiful”, Eraldo. (He came here from Italy in the late 60’s when he worked for Benelli.) The male model featured is Eraldo— I had nothing to do with those photos. I did do the ones of my great niece.
He used to own a dealership in eastern Pennsylvania, and they certainly would modify your Ducati. They sold them with performance packages.
Eraldo will tell you Polen “broke-a the contract” they had when he signed with Honda for ‘94. He brought in Corser and got the ‘94 championship anyway.
I started a new job, and (tragically) have started commuting again. I no longer have a company-sponsored fuel card, and one half of the highways I use are no longer maintained by the state.
Given all this, I want to get a "commuting shitbox." It doesn't have to be performant. I would prefer a PHEV, and have some ideas, including the Audi [A3] Etron, the Chevrolet Volt, The Ford Fusion Energi, perhaps the Hyundai Ioniq or Prius Prime could be tolerable. I could do a Lexus ES300h, but it's not a plug-in. I realize the '19-20 Fusion Energi recently got dinged with the most absurd recall I have ever even heard of ( https://tinyurl.com/tm7auuyn ), suggesting a temporary fix disabling the plug-in functionality. I note no dealers seem to care.
Thoughts?
Does anyone have any favorable plug-in or hypermiling or "lovable beater" stories to report?
My experience, admittedly limited to Titanium-trim rentals, was the same - excellent NVH suppression, very decent sound from factory audio, much better "comfort manners" than segment rivals. Then again, I didn't drive an Energi, and reviewers say the battery pack kills the pleasant handling
I absolutely do not recommend the Fusion Energi. A friend of mine had one, and I even borrowed it for the better part of a month.
It is a miserable, shoddily-built conveyance that hardly delivers on any of its promises. The battery sits more or less on top of the trunk floor, both robbing you of trunk space and seriously disrupting what would be normal driving dynamics. The motor-generators , engine, and transmission cannot always make their minds up about how to deliver power, causing—in our experience—things like the regen braking activating at a stop and then suddenly deactivating, causing the car to nearly rear-end another car. Even the UI is bad, with all sorts of unhelpful graphs and meters that don’t make any sense.
The Fusion Hybrid, OTOH, is excellent, especially the 2017+. You can snag a Titanium example with reasonable mileage for well under $20K.
Beyond that, yes, the gen. 2 (2016+) Chevrolet Volt is an excellent commuter.
My parents have been through three MKZ hybrids even going so far as replacing their last one early to get a new one in the final model year - they quite like them.
We own a 2014 Volt, and until recently a 2016 ELR. A Volt is a good commuter car. Can charge up overnight on a 110v circuit as long as you are home around dinner time ish. Hatchback is useful. Back seat is sort of cramped. Used prices seem to be low compared to other cars.
I really like the Prius Prime, as noted above, but I'd also buy a used Volt. It is hard to believe Chevy made a decent (plug-in) car, but miracles do occur. Chevy quickly remedied this anomoly, sadly, but the used Volts are legit in my book.
I second the Volt for commuting. Have a 2017 (second gen) Volt that has been great so far in a year and a half of ownership. Get around 50+ miles of electric range in summer/fall and 40 or so in winter, plus it gets roughly 43 mpg when using gas. Very quiet, decently sporty and fun to drive.
My wife's 2022 Prius Prime has averaged 106mpg over 45k miles or so, with fairly regular overnight charging with a regular 120v outlet. Can't beat the hatchback utility, altho the battery takes up some space, raising the trunk floor. The car is fuglier than just about anything else and noisy at speed, but it's hard to beat for utility and efficiency. $17 fill-ups are very nice.
The new (aka 5th gen) Prius looks much better, doesn't cost much more, relatively, but if I were buying, I'd prob look for a used 4th gen with 30k miles for $20k or so, as I have taken a pledge to never buy a new car again. The utility or commuter car doesn't need to be good looking. The money you save can be used to buy motorcycles.
Not speaking from experience here, but Prius Prime 2017 and up are compatible with Comma3 Openpilot, which you might consider helpful on a long, boring commute.
Hondas do not seem to be as compatible as Toyotas and Hyundais, losing some features in comparison. Also, cars with "advanced" data buses like Mercedes' Flexray are completely out.
I think I've only driven two hybrids for more than a test drive, unfortunately both in city driving and not on the highway. The third gen Prius suffers from what I call a dead zone in the accelerator pedal input from a standing start; no matter the travel, it will always take the same amount of time to accelerate in EV mode until the ICE kicks in. The different modes, including Power, change the duration of said dead zone. Otherwise as a commuter it's fine. The JBL-optioned system will rattle the mirrors given a bass-heavy input. It buzzes in trying to hit the low notes instead of rolling off.
The second gen Accord hybrid had a very nice drivetrain. The handover between EV and ICE was seamless. I had to roll the windows down to hear the change, otherwise it was imperceptible. Steering was enjoyable compared to the aforementioned Prius. Trunk space suffered from the hybrid system. The beltline was a bit high for my preference, but not a deal breaker. The owner mentioned it whined at highway speeds which I didn't have a chance to observe. Whether it's due to tires or drivetrain is unknown.
Guy at my church had a company car Ford Fusion Energi. He begged them when the lease was up to keep it around for awhile. He loved that thing. 300-400 mile one way business trips. Never game him problems.
It is simultaneously awful and fantastic , but his is the last year of the Venza. Not a plug in, but as a way to get from one ace to another pleasantly it doesn't suck. It is an excellent appliance.
My wife’s daily is a 2017 Toyota Avalon Hybrid. It’s not a plug-in, but it is a big, roomy car with heated and cooled seats that consistently gets 40 mpg without trying. It also does that Toyota thing where it eats miles and needs nothing. She bought it with 26k miles, currently has 135k and has needed nothing but oil changes and a set of tires.
You’re not gonna win any races, but merging on the interstate is easy enough.
Pretty quiet. No rattles. Very little road or wind noise.
Handling is decent for what it is, ride quality is excellent. I personally think the brakes feel weird, but I don’t usually drive something with regen, and she has gotten used to them.
I've seen some mentions of Volt/ELR and I have to say that would be my pick. At my previous job, we had a 2nd gen Volt as an errand car. I put a few hundred miles on it in mixed highway and backroad driving, and overall I think it is a fantastic car! Lots of luggage room in the hatch, comfy front seats, decent enough stereo, good ride on broken Michigan highways, and surprisingly fun and capable on a twisty section! I could get about 35-40ish fun miles in sport mode before draining the battery and kicking the gas engine on. They're even eminently affordable now.
Solid recs. I like the Volt, i will price Prius Primes in comparison. The only thing against the PP is increased purchase cost dependent on years/miles and I’m a bit wary of interior quality if it’s anything like the 2020+ Camry’s I’ve rented.
At least do the math on a pure EV, unless your commute is a megacommute. Early Bolts are cheap as chips and we love ours to death. Where we live, its fuel cost is 20%-25% of a gas car, but that varies wildly.
Having said that, we leased a C-Max Energi for three years before the Bolt and had a great experience with it. We just like the Bolt better, mostly because it's more fun to drive.
My first wife replaced her plain-jane C-Max hybrid with an Energi. I think she ended up SLIGHTLY preferred the plain hybrid, but she's also been a remarkably enthusiastic driver for a long time and used to run her 330i around Ledges in a half-decent time, so...
I rarely comment unless I feel that I can genuinely contribute, that being said..
Around 5 years ago, I took a miserable new job with a miserable new commute of 80 odd miles round trip with a mix of interstate, state, and rural county roads to contemplate not seeing my children for 16 hours at a time.
Long story short, I purchased a 16 Mitsubishi Mirage, base model with a stick. The thing was an absolute riot to drive fast (not quick) and regularly returned 45MPG below 75 and about 39 at 80. In the roughly 100,000 miles that I owned it, I never did anything but change the gear case lube when I bought it and change the oil every 10,000 miles. For less than half the price of a used electric, you can buy A LOT of gas to make up the difference.
I had a 1997 Hyundai Accent for my first car. It was still running when we moved to Japan in 2007, still with its original engine and transmission. That thing's refusal to die felt like a curse when I had to drive it up at college, but in the end it served its purpose and I have many fond memories. Still... I haven't bought another Hyundai product since.
the late 90s-mid 00s Hyundais were in retrospect some pretty solid products. The engines were almost exclusively derivatives/licensed copies of sturdy older Mitsubishi stuff. In Lutz' book Car guys vs beancounters, when they bought up all the contemporary midsize cars in 2004 to compare and set a target for quality for the upcoming Malibu, the Korean made Sonata had the nicest paintwork and fit and finish, as I recall.
It is an interesting book, but Lutz’s ire is mis-aimed. I’m a beancounter, and most of what he railed against was bad policy and management. The beancounter is the guy who takes your cost target and spreads it across your bill of materials. And if you want to spend more here you take it out of there. If you want to increase the cost of the unit 20%, fine, but that’s a senior management decision. Don’t bitch at the guy who gets the directive “we need to build this thing for $20k to sell it for $25k and make a profit.” Bitch at the guys who came up with the $20k and the $25k.
My read of the book aligns with your thoughts. (And I see Jack has a similar take.) It’s been a while since I read it; and far be it from me to put words in Lutz mouth— but I see it as an admonition against anyone other than enthusiasts and people that understand the customer running the company. That people focused only on cost containment in their decisions screw everything up.
I saw this first hand. The company I spent my career with had a management structure biased toward the folks that dealt with the client. The operations guys certainly had a large part; they had to give cost/time estimates. But it was the Client folks who decided it if made sense to move forward. We were more expensive than the competition; but lots of clients were willing to pay for the excellent service. Once we were acquired by a larger entity with an operations focused management (and their mandate was cost only); the product went in the shitter. And I got thrown out for telling the truth about it.
There isn't a better looking midsize SUV on sale than the Kia Telluride. Not even the JGC or Bronco. The Stinger looked good, the G70 and G80 (before the redesign) looked good. The Ioniq is attractive for what it is.
Their other products... yeah. Probably less bad than Toyota though
Obviously. Your post sounded to me like you were inferring my comment was about lack of power. I was merely clarifying that my comment was about reliability. My apologies if I misunderstood your comment.
Or getting all those documents together and going down to the DMV to get that gold star on your drivers license. Some are lucky enough to get an ID with just their say so that will get them on a plane.
Really amusing how we're 20 years into the implementation of that and we're perpetually 1 year out. Indiana was rolling it out when I was getting my learner's permit half a lifetime ago, but our BMV is more with it than most.
In fairness it went pretty easy for me here in Tennessee. Made an online appointment for 10am and was out by 10:20am. But it still chaps my ass I had to do it when others don’t. And I’ve had a TSA pre-check for a number of years which is almost the same process so why again?
Jumping through the hoops to get an enhanced I'd when I was a NY resident was worth it at land crossings. Idaho has a border with Canada but I can't get one here damnit!
well, there goes the prospect of me ever buying a hyunn-dae in any way shape or form. either manufacturers dont quite understand how far the bad gas of denied warranty claims goes with buyers, or the problem is so pervasive that fixing this car would set a precedent of tens of thousands of motor replacements costing them many millions of dollars to address. this is why you can get 2 used elantra Ns for the price of one post-ADM CTR.
i like how the solution is "be more selective on which motors we replace" instead of "fix the motors so they dont grenade". a little reminder that the korean approach to business is often closer to the chinese approach than the japanese approach. god bless that island.
I remember reading about how a Korean who makes something of himself is expected to help out his family. And not just by paying mom & dad's mortgage, but by getting his unqualified brother-in-law a job at his company and other such things.
My dad has had 4-5 genesi (going back to when they were still just a hyundai) now and the heads have been off each engine. The most recent (~2018 G90) has had the engine out twice.
I had a 2015 Sonata with 100k that burned a quart every 500 miles.
He keeps going back because the warranty is working, I guess. They've made an enemy of me.
I strongly considered a G70 before getting my Giulia, and the below-crap dealer experience was the deciding factor. The Alfa dealers, I've found, are merely "crap."
Same lol. If I'm going to take on some risk, the car better feel like magic and give me weak knees whenever I look at. I enjoyed the G70, but it fell short on both measures.
I have seen that there are kits to take the 3.3TT in the G70/Stinger/other K/G kars to the 500-550hp range.
Would the car have been compelling with power equivalent to the quadrifoooglio? (I know, I know... even considering modifying a K motor for more power... I'll see myself out)
Are K/G cars under-chassis'ed for that much power? The 3.3 G70 I drove felt a little dead, kind of like the engineers deliberately smothered some of the response because they didn't have confidence in the chassis' absolute limits.
To be fair, that's 100% a "butt in the seat" assessment on a regular road, and not looking to lose my license. And I'm an enthusiastic-but-average driver. But still.
this is how i ended up in a new M car. the QF sounded like a bad college relationship, the CT4 BW did nothing for me and also has its own set of reliability problems, and the RS3 made me feel like i was giving up and taking the path of least resistance.
I have been mystified by Hennessey's ability to get credulous and fawning automotive press for many years now. You basically need to be willfully ignorant not to know the guy is a crook peddling vaporware at this point. Even by the low standards of the typical autowriter, this degree of disconnect is inexplicable.
What is interesting to me about the voter ID debate is that the trend in the Trump era is toward low-propensity voters (disproportionately poor, uneducated, elderly, etc) voting much more Republican than in the past. I don't know the breakdown of the population who doesn't have an ID, but I imagine it has some overlap with this group, and I also begin to wonder at what point restricting turnout begins to benefit Democrats rather than Republicans as the long term conventional wisdom holds.
My opinion on the matter is vote in person with ID, but expanded voting hours with early voting and no assigned polling place (vote anywhere in your county of residence). This is basically the system we have where I live, and it works well (as best I can tell). We are the most advanced society in the history of the world, it should not be difficult to allow every citizen a chance to vote both easily and securely
"What is interesting to me about the voter ID debate is that the trend in the Trump era is toward low-propensity voters (disproportionately poor, uneducated, elderly, etc) voting much more Republican than in the past. I don't know the breakdown of the population who doesn't have an ID, but I imagine it has some overlap with this group, and I also begin to wonder at what point restricting turnout begins to benefit Democrats rather than Republicans as the long term conventional wisdom holds."
Never -- because the no-ID Republican population is dying as fast as it can, while the no-ID Democrat population arrives here in seven-figure amounts every year. Furthermore, most of the low-whatever Republican voter population STILL has identification, because they live in places where you can't access government services without it. Rural West Virginia is not El Paso: you need to show your ID to git yer check. :)
That data is from 2018, these numbers from 2023 are more like 2:1. I don't think the Trump impact can be overstated (look at his county by county numbers in Texas and Florida between 16 and 20).
Maybe, but Socially Conservative isn't the same thing as Independent Thinker Who Votes His Conscience. He's gotta stay in good with his brothers and his cousins, you know.
Highest compared to what? For blacks I think the current Trump bump is on the order from mid single digits to high single digits.
Native latin americans are and nearly always have been inveterate socialists, with an occasional strong man in the mix. Cubans are a corner case and the ones in question are all essentially Spaniards anyway.
"The new NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll shows Harris with a 54%-40% advantage among Latinos, her party’s lowest mark in four presidential election cycles. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all cleared 60% support."
"Former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, is doing better with Latino voters than in his past two presidential campaigns including a double-digit jump from his 2016 run, according to a poll released on Sunday."
Generally speaking, "immigrants = automatic Democrats" is true because democratic vote fraud NGOs generate thousands upon thousands of ballots and mail them to and collect them from... 7-11s, walmarts, etc. Elizbeth Nickson has more: https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/black-swans-orchestrated-chaos-and
I can confirm this with personal experience.. I had to do a LOT to make sure nobody had committed fraud in my name in 2020, AND jump through a lot of nasty hoops and interactions to have my name taken off the voter registration lists in Michigan.
"Arguably it had a little bit too much chassis for the available power"
not sure what this means so could you elaborate on it
"It’s also worth noting that nearly every Venom F5 is a unique creation"
this applies to nearly every other supercar hypercar and most porsches
anyway as a tangent to voting kinda does anyone have any strong thoughts on the mob boss union head threatening to shut the ports down until a very favourable wage is reached because holding billions of dollars hostage and potentially making a pretty big dent in the economy seems like a rather selfish thing to do but i understand this is the point of a strike in some regard
I'm sympathetic to the idea of workers getting leverage over management in theory, but that guy has literal mob ties. His workers make deep into six figures for an unskilled job that they can basically hand down to their sons.
The demand for a ban on automation is insane and should not be considered seriously. Our ports rank last in the world. I heard some estimate that the longshoremen cost every American household hundreds of dollars a year through inefficiency and high wages.
The fact that union rank and file are by now so pro-Trump and authorize a crippling strike a month before an election with a vulnerable Democratic incumbent (sort of) while Democratic leaders pay lip service to supporting unions seems like a situation that can't hold forever.
"does anyone have any strong thoughts on the mob boss union head threatening to shut the ports down until a very favourable wage is reached because holding billions of dollars hostage and potentially making a pretty big dent in the economy seems like a rather selfish thing to do but i understand this is the point of a strike in some regard"
Yes, I'm 100% for it and I hope the day comes when every longshoreman and stevedore earns $1 million year. Companies that don't like it should consider opening domestic factories.
In a few years it won't matter because yes we will have no bananas. The same risk applies to many crops that are nearly monoculture.
"Panama disease is one of the most severe threats facing the banana industry worldwide, with no cure and no banana varieties that are resistant to the disease yet developed. It has been estimated that 80 per cent of global production is under threat from Tropical Race 4."
I'm sure it would be profitable for you guys! I was talking to a Chinese master one time and hated loading/unloading in the US, said it took twice as long as it does in other countries.
Actually, Mexicans have taken over many docks throughout the country. It's quite simple. Come to america and get passable fake docs. Offer to work for less, which pathologically altruistic and low-wage-worker-exploitative Americans are happy to accept. As you climb the ranks, practice ruthless ethnic nepotism until HR has little choice except to back down. Then, when the organization can no longer resist demands or is completely taken over by one demographic, demand a gigantic wage bump in excess of even what actual native-born Americans considered reasonable. We all get to watch this in real time as it happens; impressive chutzpah!
In this way we see the truth---migrant labor wage-savings prioritized by companies is always a short term play, a shot in the arm that backfires---heroin. In the long term, migrant ethnic nepotism networks take over your *entire* org and ruin it (IBM) or take it over and demand an end to what was, at one time, cost savings that could be passed on to consumers (stevedores).
Not good on them: they did it because they hate us. The people who changed the laws to bring them here ALSO did it because they hate us. Everyone involved deserves a nice rope necktie.
I always find it funny--however sincere you may be!---when you do this schtick.
The ULTIMATE discerner of qualitative differences, one of the more discerning people I've come across, period-
immune to discerning qualitative differences that offer short-term pumps in exchange for faustian long term disaster. Would be droll, but the more you bring it up, the more I get the sense you believe it sincerely.
Question for you: am I to infer that, since your comment suggests "certain favored groups" deserve zero protectionism and perhaps even *should* be replaced by low-wage migrants/economic mercenaries flown here & housed & fed (& not taxed!) at taxpayer expense, you believe that the same logic should apply for investment bankers and dealmakers such as yourself?
Not speaking for Sherman, although we've discussed this tangentially in the past, but my experience is that the people who are farthest in this world from doing any tangible, respectable, traditionally masculine work are also the people who create, propagate, and ingest the worst bootstrappin' Ayn Rand fantasies about work.
The fact is that Sherman and his ilk are protected, just like welfare hobbits in their little projects, only infinitely more so, because they are protected by the most powerful interests in the world. If an Indian city tried to do to New York's financial markets what they've done to American tech, we'd discover they were harboring ISIS and erase them from the surface of the earth. Every year there is a meeting called G7 and the purpose of that meeting is to protect Sherman and his fellow American banksters/hustlers with every violent or forceful end at their disposal, from sanctions to the 101st Airborne. The only competition Sherman will ever face will be from a strictly limited and vetted group of people with similar interests, background, and education to his own.
The rest of the American labor market, from doctors to fry cooks, has to live by the code ruefully noted by Avon Barksdale:
"See, the thing is, you only got to fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't gonna never be slow? Never be late? You can't plan through no shit like this, man. It's life."
The immigration system that brings in five million people a year to fight it out for jobs at Dollar General and McDonald's also restricts educated Europeans and Japanese/SEAsians to a few thousand per year, all of whom have to jump through a Cirque de Soleil's worth of hoops.
Sherman favors open competition for the same reason Snobes The Kitten at my house thinks he's the toughest animal in the jungle: because someone vastly more powerful than him has spent blood and treasure to protect him from the coyotes outside our borders.
What, pray tell, protectionism do investment bankers and /or deal makers receive? My ability to make a living is entirely predicated on only a handful of things:
-What’s between my ears
-My rolodex
-My ability to leverage the above resources to create value for others and earn a slice as my compensation
I genuinely welcome competition. I am ready, willing, and able to compete with anyone out there; there are limited barriers to entry, particularly once you step outside an investment bank and live on your own two feet.
The idea of importing nothing is great, and worked fine in the 1800s when we exported our resources for $$$. We should be able to equal trade (not free trade) with countries who are allies. Our government betters have put us in the position that we depend on our potentially most dangerous medium term threat for basic items, and items not so basic.
I'm not saying that the longshoremen should hold the country hostage for a decade. Only that a LITTLE BIT of being held hostage would point out what the risks are in our current direction. Like... the fact that many lifesaving necessary medications are ONLY made in India.
'These ports are also transporting more than just imported/exported goods. Some are domestic goods."
That's a corner case. The VAST majority of what's happening at these ports is: Chinese trash being poured into the country. Stopping that, however briefly, is useful.
While we're discussing it -- consider, if you will, that the rise of the Southern "right to work" states was actually enabled and enshrined by the chicken tax and the VRA. It took federal protectionism to make local non-union labor an effective force. In a world where there was no VRA, there wouldn't be a single auto plant or supplier plant in the United States, because it will ALWAYS be cheaper to make the parts and cars elsewhere.
"...which is the most statistically effective means of preventing pregnancy yet discovered."
I dunno, Jack!
I think that the ability to hold forth (on a moment's notice) as to the meanings of the Ancient Greek Rhetorical terms "Apophasis," "Apotropaic," and "Paraprosdokian" is a hugely effective means of preventing pregnancy.
Especially "Paraprosdokian." A girl who gets pregnant after having Paraprosdokian explained to her REALLY was desperate to have a baby.
Meh. Back in my glory days, I’d run 6-8+ miles at cross country practice, take a whore’s bath in the locker room, and then take my HS girlfriend to some out of the way wooded parking lot and finish off the afternoon on the way home.
That's why I held a professional cycling license and you, sir, are not... uh... an ex-professional cross-country runner! DETERMINATION! WOMEN WEAKEN LEGS!
I'll have you know that thanks to you I spent an hour watching string quartets last night.. I can't say whether those videos really stirred my better half into the heat of passion, but judging from the fact that she didn't look up from her book once, I'd say not..
I intentionally wrote one of my stand-up jokes as a Paraprosdokian:
I wasn't having any luck with the ladies. So I thought and thought and thought how best to put myself in a situation where ladies who cared about their looks would outnumber the men at least 2 to 1.
EUREKA! Yoga class!
So, I scoped out the various classes, chose the most Target-Rich Environment. I then bought the clothes, and I bought the Yoga Mat.
H/K dealers not honoring the fabled 10yr/100k mile warranty seems to be a common thread going back decades at this point. I will say, there's a bit of confirmation bias in that *statistically speaking* a greater amount of their products are still sold to the, uh, "credit challenged" who may or may not neglect their vehicles. So dealers dealing with people wanting new motors after never changing the oil in three years/30k miles is a regular occurrence I'm sure. Then someone comes in with a genuine issue and they get told to get stuffed. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that a good many of their newer products are known to start using oil by 60-70k especially if treated to 10k oil change intervals. So couple a car with some oil control issues to owners who likely never bother to change the oil and/or run the longest intervals possible, is basically a recipe for disaster.
Using "oh you redlined it" as an excuse to weasel out of a warranty claim is ridiculous though, outside of a manual being over-revved on a downshift, as you mentioned. Maybe if the ECU data also contained some sort of confirmation that the redlining happened on a stone-cold engine? Even then, tenuous. Then again there was that recent court case over a Corolla GR that was driven "faster than 85mph" that blew its motor and the dealership was trying to get out of. So it's not just a H/K thing but more of a "shitty dealer" thing.
They do... until they don't. Warranty claims are periodically audited and ones that are not kosher are charged-back. This terrifies dealers more than ten thousand customers with pitchforks in the parking lot, because it's like the IRS: the more audits you fail, the more you'll get.
For reference, the % of warranty dollars that can be realistically touched and controlled is in the low single digit percentile. A dealer might see an audit once every 3 years if they aren't especially egregious. Warranty is their best customer. Payments go through every month, no collections. A lot can be buried there. When a dealer denies something, its because they KNOW they won't be paid by the factory. I've seen and touched all the dirty shit they and do and even modelled it mathematically. 10 to 12% of warranty expense at the market level is bullshit.
My most recent experience with this was BMW, which audited a LOT of parts and claims back in the day. I can't imagine that anyone has the kind of margin to do that at the corporate level that BMW had selling 4-cylinder sedans with vinyl seats for $70,000 in today's money, so the reduced percentage makes sense.
It depends how much resources you can realistically put into it. The Germans are BY FAR the worst at oversight, but there is a cost to that. It holds up the repair process, dealers hold your customers hostage, creates all kinds of customer relations issues. Maybe the German Marque dealers can absorb it better but mainstream dealers will practically send you a Daniel Pearl video of your customer if you fuck em around TOO much. It's a balance.
That being said, the German brands spend by far and away the most money per car on warranty expense, so there's that to consider in how they manage it.
That's a good question. It may be that the engine swaps don't pay out great book-time-wise? I would be fascinated to learn about the inner financial workings of how warranties are paid out/handled on the dealer to manufacturer side of things.
What I've experienced for warranty work (exclusively post COVID) is that the dealer won't even START the work unless someone at corporate has okayed it. Which I think for BIG ticket items like engine swaps is generally true.
Nobody is rolling the dice the way you're suggesting, not these days.
Well, when I was in the dealership game there were no "systems" for that. Approval meant a phone call, and nobody wanted to be on the phone all day.
Still, there's a dice-rolling aspect even to approved work, because the rep might not see it the way YOU saw it, if that makes sense, after the fact. "Oh, you said the valves weren't bent, but..."
It’s harder to get bought by Hyundai Motor Credit or Kia Motor Credit than most captive finance companies. The subprime business belongs to Nissan and Mitsubishi now.
Recent Hyundai owner here. The “complimentary” three year “service” they give you with the car will only cover oil changes every TWELVE. THOUSAND. MILES. (A la 3 years/36k miles). How much does that contribute to failed engines? And God help you if you have a warranty issue or have to visit the dealer service department for any reason. The one I bought the car from has a wait time of over ONE. HUNDRED. DAYS. Before they can even look at your car.
Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, bouncing off the rev limiter or riding it for extended periods of time is a NO-NO. Anybody who thinks otherwise on a production car is an idiot.
If Hyundai engineers were smart, that rev limit would pull back as a function of revs spent on it... so it would be lower and lower to prevent MORONS from sitting on it.
Lastly, real world Hyundai/Kia products suffer for the same reason Nissan products suffer and FCA ones do - they attract trashy human beings as customers who subsequently don't care for the vehicle and treat them very badly. Their products may have improved, but their clientele hasn't.
"Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, bouncing off the rev limiter or riding it for extended periods of time is a NO-NO. Anybody who thinks otherwise on a production car is an idiot.
If Hyundai engineers were smart, that rev limit would pull back as a function of revs spent on it... so it would be lower and lower to prevent MORONS from sitting on it."
Don't be stupid. I run the V-8 in my Radical to the redline six times per 1:25 lap and I only have to rebuild it every 30 to 40 hours...
The “N” 2.0T actually has a somewhat high redline for a motor of its type, come to think of it, at 6750. Drops off by like 6k though, so no real reason to wind it all the way out anyway.
“ Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, bouncing off the rev limiter or riding it for extended periods of time is a NO-NO. Anybody who thinks otherwise on a production car is an idiot.”
I had 65k miles in a 5MT 1998 Civic and 80k and counting in an S2000 that says that ain’t true. Beat the absolute snot out of those engines all you want as long as you A) let it come up to temp first and B) keep it full of clean oil.
To my knowledge there are two main ways to lunch an F20 engine; you can run it low on oil (they do drink oil) or you can money shift it and crack a valve retainer and swallow a valve. In 25 years of being active in S2000 communities, those are the only two normal ways I’m aware of.
So what you're saying, without realizing it fully is that:
1. A port injected engine burns oil, more so or at least as much as a DI engine (which is at a huge disadvantage).
2. Its a Honda, so its fine because they're the best.
3. If topped up with oil, a LOT of the Hyundai/Kia engines are also able to survive, but their customers are ignorant so the company takes it on the chin. If this was, I don't know, the Honda Accord with Fuel dilution and oil consumption problems, well lets not go there cause it can't happen cause Honda knows everything.
Sarcasm aside, you're just confirming what I said elsewhere that I suspect H/K engines are no worse than anyone else's, their customers are a lot worse than the others.
They can, but plain evidence shows that with increased oil intervals in modern engines and the customer base that is at play here, it's like 90% of one and 10% of the other, and I'm only referring to these N vehicles.
I'm assuming the Honda L15 fuel dilution isn't killing many if any engines under warranty? It's been around long enough that we should know by now if it's causing 1.4 Cruze-level problems. I'm still concerned about it though.
All depends on how many short cold start drive cycles one does. If that's your commute for 5 days a week, you're a statistic against THE GREAT HONDA ( yes I'm mocking Jack).
+1 to this. The redline is 7,000 on my VQ35, but it revs to ~7200 before the fuel cut. I don't intentionally do the latter often, but shifting below 7,000 means the engine doesn't sound as nice, and who doesn't want his engine to sound nice? 80K miles of abuse on the 19-year-old car and counting.
But I definitely use more oil driving the way I do than if I shifted at 4K RPM like a boring normie. That's just simple physics of oil rings and piston speeds.
The issue in this case is that the driver managed to well exceed the factory max RPM on multiple occasions in this manual transmission car causing valve timing system failure. A lot of people seem to think it was a case of just revving the car out to the max RPM, not the case.
"an age that, were I to discuss it, would cause about 75% of my readership to shudder involuntarily"
0. Does that mean he was 35? Or that he was 85? I can't tell.
1. Carlton Douglas Ridenhour for president: I had this discussion with a friend who has voted for Tom Brady for the last several elections... What the fuck is the point of that? Do you just want to throw away your vote? In a place like CA, or MA, I can see the pov of a person who thinks that an red vote is pointless anyway, but it's not like the system recognizes your petty protest, looks up and says, "well played, sir, well played". It's just whistling in the wind.
2. Voter ID: One day, blue thumb, paper ballots, count them manually.
Well, of course everyone in my house is, ah, quadruple vaxxed and boosted, but somehow none of us ever really got sick from the 'vid, or had it more than once. It must have been the quad boosters. No vaxx denier could ever have that kind of positive outcome.
Do you have an employer? Do you have to get up in the morning and go to a job? Do you have bills you couldn't swing if you finally had enough of your boss's bullshit?
If the answer is "Yes" to any of these questions, then your vote doesn't matter.
If you NEED a job, you have neither the power, nor the wealth nor the influence to matter. You are a serf, somebody's bitch, beholden to Someone Else's Way.
Human beings are meant to have that kind of relationship only with the Almighty, not CEO J. Clayton Pennybags IV or VP of Sales Dash Riprock.
Ah yes, a much more nuanced point. I would have to agree with you.
Our current political donation and influence system is completely corrupted and in need of radical overhaul. I doubt it will ever happen, too many plebes can get themselves elected and then live in the lap of luxury, as long as they keep the overlords happy.
if people want to elections a one day, in person affair, then it has to be a paid federal holiday. people should not be forced to choose between exercising their right to vote and their need to show up for work.
Re the VP Debate: Consensus around the office seems to be that "Wasn't it nice to see two grown men behave themselves during a debate, instead of playing to the literal worst extremes of their carefully curated characters and saying dumb shit for 90 minutes?" Nearly everybody who watched said that each VP candidate acted presidential. Unlike the two topmost names on the ballot.
It's clear the VP debate was targeted at least 1 sigma above the presidential. That, and JD focusing his fire on the moderators instead of trying to get under Waltz's thin skin.
I could give two pennies about how a candidate "acts". All I saw for years was "can't we get a guy or gal who seemed authentic" and as soon as we got one "No...not like that!".
Can the person perform the job. Can they execute the policies they sold the people on. Can they perform under war time and natural disasters.
All I saw on the VP stage was two trained slick talkers. I thought neither were very authentic.
Mail-in ballots is where the voter fraud really happens. Sidney Powell and her merry band of dupes allowed themselves to be distracted by red herrings involving China hacking voting machines and ignored the much more relevant and likely sources of possible fraud involving mail-in ballots. Proper counting and canvassing of mail-in ballots including a proper signature match are put in as security measures precisely because of how easily they can be exploited, but those standards have to be enforced to do any good.
For giggles, one can compare the signature rejection rates seen in the 2020 election to the signature rejection rates that were seen in, say, the recall of Governor Newsome. Or the rejection rates seen when outsider political candidates like RFK Jr. or Cornell West try to get on the ballot in various states. The disparity in signature rejection rates when it's a challenge to the system versus when it's something the system wants is a rather glaring clue as to how much "wiggle room" there is in the system to get a result that the powers that be prefer.
Of course, there are limits to how much that sort of thing can actually work. It has to be close enough for the fudge factor to come into play. 2020 was close enough and with an unprecedented "shadow campaign" (as described by Time Magazine, lest someone accuse me of making shit up https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ ) It was an unprecedented effort and most definitely didn't contribute to the believability of the system.
Despite what the black-pilled sorts say, I don't believe we'll see it be that close this time. Between some legislative reforms, some court decisions finding that, no, secretaries of state cannot unilaterally set their own rules over what the legislature rightfully enacted, and a significant decrease in early and mail-in voting I don't think it will matter. Illegals voting will happen, but not at any sort of significant scale that will alter the result. I think the margin of victory will be significantly beyond what even 2020's efforts could throw into doubt.
2020 guarantees election security will be an issue for as long as we're alive. More people are awake and paying attention...and that's a good thing.
"For giggles, one can compare the signature rejection rates seen in the 2020 election to the signature rejection rates that were seen in, say, the recall of Governor Newsome. Or the rejection rates seen when outsider political candidates like RFK Jr. or Cornell West try to get on the ballot in various states. The disparity in signature rejection rates when it's a challenge to the system versus when it's something the system wants is a rather glaring clue as to how much "wiggle room" there is in the system to get a result that the powers that be prefer."
"Despite what the black-pilled sorts say, I don't believe we'll see it be that close this time. Between some legislative reforms, some court decisions finding that, no, secretaries of state cannot unilaterally set their own rules over what the legislature rightfully enacted, and a significant decrease in early and mail-in voting I don't think it will matter. Illegals voting will happen, but not at any sort of significant scale that will alter the result. I think the margin of victory will be significantly beyond what even 2020's efforts could throw into doubt."
Pray tell, were you born before 1970, and also, would you like to bet on the above assertion?
After 1970. And I already have on Predictit. I find having money on it alters one's motivation, thus altering one's reasoning. I'm going for accuracy.
Polling, at least as reported in most media, is hot garbage. Trump has consistently outperformed public polling (because there is private polling that isn't released to press outlets done by the campaigns) and he's polling better now than he ever has. More importantly is who his supporters are. He is winning an ever-increasing number of working class zoomers and millennials, independents, hispanics, and blacks, especially working class black men.
You will see higher participation from working class voters of all stripes, but especially working class whites as a percentage of the electorate this time around and that will carry Trump to victory with margin.
My bet is Trump wins somewhere between 287-325 electoral votes. He will carry PA, and with that likely Michigan and Wisconsin as well. He wins GA and NC. He will likely win AZ and NV as well.
Even Virginia is in play this cycle.
But if you want to drop $100 on it or even a subscription to the substack for a person of your choice or Jack's choice, I'm game.
I drove a 2016 Veloster Rally Edition a few years back (wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I took on the lease from a friend that needed out of it for financial reasons.) Not actually a bad car to drive minus the terminal understeer.
Anyways I don’t think either of us were exactly easy on it, but no money shifts that I’m aware of and only mod was a CAI. Engine locked up while idling about 3 minutes after starting it up one morning, no weird noises or anything, it was just like it turned off. Car had about 20k miles on it at that point. They replaced it the whole engine under warranty, Notes on the ticket said the engine was seized, with scoring on the cylinders and cams, metal debris in the oil pan.
Just a note about the MotoAmerica series, which wrapped up last weekend. Josh Herrin is the 2024 Superbike champion for the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Team.
Ducati now has 3 total AMA/MotoAmerica Superbike Championships:
1. 1993, Doug Polen for the Fast by Ferracci Team.
2. 1994, Troy Corser, also for Fast by Ferracci.
3. 2024, Josh Herrin’s title.
What do they all have in common? Eraldo Ferracci (Team owner/tuner for Fast by Ferracci. Team Consultant for the Warhorse guys.)
Also, there have been a total of two Ducati Supersport US National Championships; Josh Herrin in 2022 and Xavi Fores in 2023— both for the Warhorse HSBK Racing Team. With the involvement of Eraldo.
Ferracci also has 2 World Superbike Championships with Doug Polen in ‘91 and ‘92.
Pinned.
Thank you!
Ferracci is truly a legend— no hyperbole at all.
Also a great guy. Humble, funny, great stories.
does he also tune or modify road bikes
sounds like the best possible guy to do it
I think he’s 87 years old; but I believe he still lists engine work on his website. I’ve never asked him about it. If you look at the website, the female model on there is my great niece. “She’s a-beautiful”, Eraldo. (He came here from Italy in the late 60’s when he worked for Benelli.) The male model featured is Eraldo— I had nothing to do with those photos. I did do the ones of my great niece.
He used to own a dealership in eastern Pennsylvania, and they certainly would modify your Ducati. They sold them with performance packages.
Doug Polen was a badass. Ferracci is a legend.
True and true.
Eraldo will tell you Polen “broke-a the contract” they had when he signed with Honda for ‘94. He brought in Corser and got the ‘94 championship anyway.
Could use some advice:
I started a new job, and (tragically) have started commuting again. I no longer have a company-sponsored fuel card, and one half of the highways I use are no longer maintained by the state.
Given all this, I want to get a "commuting shitbox." It doesn't have to be performant. I would prefer a PHEV, and have some ideas, including the Audi [A3] Etron, the Chevrolet Volt, The Ford Fusion Energi, perhaps the Hyundai Ioniq or Prius Prime could be tolerable. I could do a Lexus ES300h, but it's not a plug-in. I realize the '19-20 Fusion Energi recently got dinged with the most absurd recall I have ever even heard of ( https://tinyurl.com/tm7auuyn ), suggesting a temporary fix disabling the plug-in functionality. I note no dealers seem to care.
Thoughts?
Does anyone have any favorable plug-in or hypermiling or "lovable beater" stories to report?
I can't speak to the hybrid drivetrain but the NVH and highway manners of the final Fusion are very respectable.
My experience, admittedly limited to Titanium-trim rentals, was the same - excellent NVH suppression, very decent sound from factory audio, much better "comfort manners" than segment rivals. Then again, I didn't drive an Energi, and reviewers say the battery pack kills the pleasant handling
The battery absolutely does kill the handling. It pretty much sits on top of the floor.
I absolutely do not recommend the Fusion Energi. A friend of mine had one, and I even borrowed it for the better part of a month.
It is a miserable, shoddily-built conveyance that hardly delivers on any of its promises. The battery sits more or less on top of the trunk floor, both robbing you of trunk space and seriously disrupting what would be normal driving dynamics. The motor-generators , engine, and transmission cannot always make their minds up about how to deliver power, causing—in our experience—things like the regen braking activating at a stop and then suddenly deactivating, causing the car to nearly rear-end another car. Even the UI is bad, with all sorts of unhelpful graphs and meters that don’t make any sense.
The Fusion Hybrid, OTOH, is excellent, especially the 2017+. You can snag a Titanium example with reasonable mileage for well under $20K.
Beyond that, yes, the gen. 2 (2016+) Chevrolet Volt is an excellent commuter.
My parents have been through three MKZ hybrids even going so far as replacing their last one early to get a new one in the final model year - they quite like them.
Have had a 17 MKZ 2.0H since Aug 2021. 17k miles at purchase, just turned 61k.
All it has needed is tires and maintenance. Nice interior too.
Never driven an Energi, but I have plenty of time in the hybrids and liked them.
We own a 2014 Volt, and until recently a 2016 ELR. A Volt is a good commuter car. Can charge up overnight on a 110v circuit as long as you are home around dinner time ish. Hatchback is useful. Back seat is sort of cramped. Used prices seem to be low compared to other cars.
I really like the Prius Prime, as noted above, but I'd also buy a used Volt. It is hard to believe Chevy made a decent (plug-in) car, but miracles do occur. Chevy quickly remedied this anomoly, sadly, but the used Volts are legit in my book.
ELR! The only EV (or is it a hybrid?) I would like to have.
PHEV. The Cadillac version of the Volt. Way better.
I second the Volt for commuting. Have a 2017 (second gen) Volt that has been great so far in a year and a half of ownership. Get around 50+ miles of electric range in summer/fall and 40 or so in winter, plus it gets roughly 43 mpg when using gas. Very quiet, decently sporty and fun to drive.
My wife's 2022 Prius Prime has averaged 106mpg over 45k miles or so, with fairly regular overnight charging with a regular 120v outlet. Can't beat the hatchback utility, altho the battery takes up some space, raising the trunk floor. The car is fuglier than just about anything else and noisy at speed, but it's hard to beat for utility and efficiency. $17 fill-ups are very nice.
The new (aka 5th gen) Prius looks much better, doesn't cost much more, relatively, but if I were buying, I'd prob look for a used 4th gen with 30k miles for $20k or so, as I have taken a pledge to never buy a new car again. The utility or commuter car doesn't need to be good looking. The money you save can be used to buy motorcycles.
A lot of good points here!
Not speaking from experience here, but Prius Prime 2017 and up are compatible with Comma3 Openpilot, which you might consider helpful on a long, boring commute.
I do like that and would love to fit it to this potential vehicle. I wonder if the Honda Clarity would also work
Clarity not on the list:
https://comma.ai/vehicles
Hondas do not seem to be as compatible as Toyotas and Hyundais, losing some features in comparison. Also, cars with "advanced" data buses like Mercedes' Flexray are completely out.
I think I've only driven two hybrids for more than a test drive, unfortunately both in city driving and not on the highway. The third gen Prius suffers from what I call a dead zone in the accelerator pedal input from a standing start; no matter the travel, it will always take the same amount of time to accelerate in EV mode until the ICE kicks in. The different modes, including Power, change the duration of said dead zone. Otherwise as a commuter it's fine. The JBL-optioned system will rattle the mirrors given a bass-heavy input. It buzzes in trying to hit the low notes instead of rolling off.
The second gen Accord hybrid had a very nice drivetrain. The handover between EV and ICE was seamless. I had to roll the windows down to hear the change, otherwise it was imperceptible. Steering was enjoyable compared to the aforementioned Prius. Trunk space suffered from the hybrid system. The beltline was a bit high for my preference, but not a deal breaker. The owner mentioned it whined at highway speeds which I didn't have a chance to observe. Whether it's due to tires or drivetrain is unknown.
great info, thx!
Guy at my church had a company car Ford Fusion Energi. He begged them when the lease was up to keep it around for awhile. He loved that thing. 300-400 mile one way business trips. Never game him problems.
Part of me really wants to try one. Aside from an ES300h it would be the best interior, almost certainly the roomiest
And enough room in the trunk for both Empathy and her friend.
It is simultaneously awful and fantastic , but his is the last year of the Venza. Not a plug in, but as a way to get from one ace to another pleasantly it doesn't suck. It is an excellent appliance.
Of the cars on that list, I'd suggest the second-generation Chevrolet Volt.
My wife’s daily is a 2017 Toyota Avalon Hybrid. It’s not a plug-in, but it is a big, roomy car with heated and cooled seats that consistently gets 40 mpg without trying. It also does that Toyota thing where it eats miles and needs nothing. She bought it with 26k miles, currently has 135k and has needed nothing but oil changes and a set of tires.
It’s a fantastic car and is the ultimate stealth wealth whip and has been for ages.
How decent or leisurely is the acceleration?
How quiet is it inside ?
You’re not gonna win any races, but merging on the interstate is easy enough.
Pretty quiet. No rattles. Very little road or wind noise.
Handling is decent for what it is, ride quality is excellent. I personally think the brakes feel weird, but I don’t usually drive something with regen, and she has gotten used to them.
Do the rear seats fold down?
Not on ours. I think on the next generation they will, but don’t quote me on that.
I've seen some mentions of Volt/ELR and I have to say that would be my pick. At my previous job, we had a 2nd gen Volt as an errand car. I put a few hundred miles on it in mixed highway and backroad driving, and overall I think it is a fantastic car! Lots of luggage room in the hatch, comfy front seats, decent enough stereo, good ride on broken Michigan highways, and surprisingly fun and capable on a twisty section! I could get about 35-40ish fun miles in sport mode before draining the battery and kicking the gas engine on. They're even eminently affordable now.
I'm order or preference: Prius prime, Chevy volt gen Ii.
Solid recs. I like the Volt, i will price Prius Primes in comparison. The only thing against the PP is increased purchase cost dependent on years/miles and I’m a bit wary of interior quality if it’s anything like the 2020+ Camry’s I’ve rented.
Am I the only one noticing that the popular suggestions are mostly OOP and probably at the end of battery life?
Barra’s GM killing the Volt was a crime against humanity and should be punished accordingly.
I’m less worried about battery pack replacement than I perhaps should be. I wonder if I can bring an OBD tool to the lot to assess Battery health ?
At least do the math on a pure EV, unless your commute is a megacommute. Early Bolts are cheap as chips and we love ours to death. Where we live, its fuel cost is 20%-25% of a gas car, but that varies wildly.
Having said that, we leased a C-Max Energi for three years before the Bolt and had a great experience with it. We just like the Bolt better, mostly because it's more fun to drive.
Good advice is good advice. I would rather a PHEV for road trips, but I’ll test drive one / test fit the car seats for sure.
My first wife replaced her plain-jane C-Max hybrid with an Energi. I think she ended up SLIGHTLY preferred the plain hybrid, but she's also been a remarkably enthusiastic driver for a long time and used to run her 330i around Ledges in a half-decent time, so...
Our lifetime MPG on the Energi over the lease period was somewhere around 110. For an everyday commuter I'd take that over a bit of added lightness.
Yeah i don't think she did nearly as well. Largely because she almost never plugged the thing in!
Had a Volt for 3 years under lease. Solid reliable car. Can’t recall the mpg w/the hybrid but think it was good.
I rarely comment unless I feel that I can genuinely contribute, that being said..
Around 5 years ago, I took a miserable new job with a miserable new commute of 80 odd miles round trip with a mix of interstate, state, and rural county roads to contemplate not seeing my children for 16 hours at a time.
Long story short, I purchased a 16 Mitsubishi Mirage, base model with a stick. The thing was an absolute riot to drive fast (not quick) and regularly returned 45MPG below 75 and about 39 at 80. In the roughly 100,000 miles that I owned it, I never did anything but change the gear case lube when I bought it and change the oil every 10,000 miles. For less than half the price of a used electric, you can buy A LOT of gas to make up the difference.
First problem? He bought a Hyundai.
Remind me to tell you about my 1986 Hyundai Excel sometime…
Hyundai engines and transmissions are junk.
I had a 1997 Hyundai Accent for my first car. It was still running when we moved to Japan in 2007, still with its original engine and transmission. That thing's refusal to die felt like a curse when I had to drive it up at college, but in the end it served its purpose and I have many fond memories. Still... I haven't bought another Hyundai product since.
the late 90s-mid 00s Hyundais were in retrospect some pretty solid products. The engines were almost exclusively derivatives/licensed copies of sturdy older Mitsubishi stuff. In Lutz' book Car guys vs beancounters, when they bought up all the contemporary midsize cars in 2004 to compare and set a target for quality for the upcoming Malibu, the Korean made Sonata had the nicest paintwork and fit and finish, as I recall.
Great book, by the way. Really lays out the problems with corporate America in general. Highly recommended!
It is an interesting book, but Lutz’s ire is mis-aimed. I’m a beancounter, and most of what he railed against was bad policy and management. The beancounter is the guy who takes your cost target and spreads it across your bill of materials. And if you want to spend more here you take it out of there. If you want to increase the cost of the unit 20%, fine, but that’s a senior management decision. Don’t bitch at the guy who gets the directive “we need to build this thing for $20k to sell it for $25k and make a profit.” Bitch at the guys who came up with the $20k and the $25k.
That's very fair -- and I think Lutz uses "beancounters" in this absurdly broad sense to mean "anyone who does not agree with me".
My read of the book aligns with your thoughts. (And I see Jack has a similar take.) It’s been a while since I read it; and far be it from me to put words in Lutz mouth— but I see it as an admonition against anyone other than enthusiasts and people that understand the customer running the company. That people focused only on cost containment in their decisions screw everything up.
I saw this first hand. The company I spent my career with had a management structure biased toward the folks that dealt with the client. The operations guys certainly had a large part; they had to give cost/time estimates. But it was the Client folks who decided it if made sense to move forward. We were more expensive than the competition; but lots of clients were willing to pay for the excellent service. Once we were acquired by a larger entity with an operations focused management (and their mandate was cost only); the product went in the shitter. And I got thrown out for telling the truth about it.
I rented a Palisade (made in Korea) and I noticed its metallic white paint looked better and less orange-peeled than a RAV4 I was parked next to.
I don’t think I’ve heard of Pallisades having engine issues.
Don’t
And their VP of Design should be charged with Felony Approving Ugly Cars for Production.
I am okay with ugly cars. At the very least, ugly cars are trying something new and look different from the other stuff on the road.
Beauty…beholder.
Some of them aren’t bad to my eye.
Maybe, but beauty is also quantifiable. The Golden Ratio, for example. Or a woman with a big rack and clear skin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
I have never been a fan of big tits. A nice ass and great legs are my preference.
See, you made my point for me.
Shape, color & proportion are far more important that raw size but you know, biological hardwiring and all that. Depends on the girl.
Speaking of designs that won’t age well…my first wife’s, um, headlights turned into curb feelers by the time she birthed #2.
There isn't a better looking midsize SUV on sale than the Kia Telluride. Not even the JGC or Bronco. The Stinger looked good, the G70 and G80 (before the redesign) looked good. The Ioniq is attractive for what it is.
Their other products... yeah. Probably less bad than Toyota though
JGC styling is going to age much more gracefully.
I hope so, just bought one.
We used to have to open the pass door and pedal to get up to freeway speed to merge...
When I say they are junk, I’m talking (lack of) reliability.
The N cars have plenty of power (not neck snapping, but fun); and the rest of the lineup is comparable to most.
They didn't have N cars in 1986...
Obviously. Your post sounded to me like you were inferring my comment was about lack of power. I was merely clarifying that my comment was about reliability. My apologies if I misunderstood your comment.
Nah, I think I replied to you but meant to reply to Laney.
Am I first?? Do I winn??
Dang it...
NO!
Or getting all those documents together and going down to the DMV to get that gold star on your drivers license. Some are lucky enough to get an ID with just their say so that will get them on a plane.
Really amusing how we're 20 years into the implementation of that and we're perpetually 1 year out. Indiana was rolling it out when I was getting my learner's permit half a lifetime ago, but our BMV is more with it than most.
In fairness it went pretty easy for me here in Tennessee. Made an online appointment for 10am and was out by 10:20am. But it still chaps my ass I had to do it when others don’t. And I’ve had a TSA pre-check for a number of years which is almost the same process so why again?
Jumping through the hoops to get an enhanced I'd when I was a NY resident was worth it at land crossings. Idaho has a border with Canada but I can't get one here damnit!
well, there goes the prospect of me ever buying a hyunn-dae in any way shape or form. either manufacturers dont quite understand how far the bad gas of denied warranty claims goes with buyers, or the problem is so pervasive that fixing this car would set a precedent of tens of thousands of motor replacements costing them many millions of dollars to address. this is why you can get 2 used elantra Ns for the price of one post-ADM CTR.
They replace lots of engines, you should see how many get delivered to dealerships. It’s amazing.
They are starting to get a little more careful, and are looking for reasons to deny claims more than they used to.
i like how the solution is "be more selective on which motors we replace" instead of "fix the motors so they dont grenade". a little reminder that the korean approach to business is often closer to the chinese approach than the japanese approach. god bless that island.
Yes!
It’s baffling to me.
japan did nothing wrong
I remember reading about how a Korean who makes something of himself is expected to help out his family. And not just by paying mom & dad's mortgage, but by getting his unqualified brother-in-law a job at his company and other such things.
apparently all those unqualified brothers in law work in hyundai engineering
Who you callin' unqualified brothers in law? We all have J.D.'s and are in good standing with the state bar. We could never get engineering jobs!
The hyphen can haunt us.
sorry, i never intended to sully the good name of DeMarcus, DeMarcus, and Shantel, LLP
Deny claims more than they used to? I thought H/K already had a reputation for a worthless warranty.
Trust me, they are making it more difficult. I’ve seen it.
My dad has had 4-5 genesi (going back to when they were still just a hyundai) now and the heads have been off each engine. The most recent (~2018 G90) has had the engine out twice.
I had a 2015 Sonata with 100k that burned a quart every 500 miles.
He keeps going back because the warranty is working, I guess. They've made an enemy of me.
Even if they honor the warranty, dealer visits are inconvenient. Convenience is the whole point of buying something new enough to have a warranty.
exactly. not to mention the diminished resale with every incident. i buy an asian car to deal with less bullshit, not more.
5, how many more will he buy before he moves onto something else?
I strongly considered a G70 before getting my Giulia, and the below-crap dealer experience was the deciding factor. The Alfa dealers, I've found, are merely "crap."
I’m willing to cut an Italian car some slack, but not something from Asia.
They are pretty but the Giulia scared me.
Same lol. If I'm going to take on some risk, the car better feel like magic and give me weak knees whenever I look at. I enjoyed the G70, but it fell short on both measures.
I have seen that there are kits to take the 3.3TT in the G70/Stinger/other K/G kars to the 500-550hp range.
Would the car have been compelling with power equivalent to the quadrifoooglio? (I know, I know... even considering modifying a K motor for more power... I'll see myself out)
Are K/G cars under-chassis'ed for that much power? The 3.3 G70 I drove felt a little dead, kind of like the engineers deliberately smothered some of the response because they didn't have confidence in the chassis' absolute limits.
To be fair, that's 100% a "butt in the seat" assessment on a regular road, and not looking to lose my license. And I'm an enthusiastic-but-average driver. But still.
I really wonder if that “dead” feeling was just prioritization of comfort handling. A W222 often feels “dead” too IME
My 164 would blow ice chunks at me sometimes when I turned on the AC. I found it endearing. If our Honda minivan did that, it would be unacceptable.
That sounds better than the barely functioning AC that came with my GTV-6.
But all was forgiven when you red lined Ing. Busso’s violin.
If the quadrafoligio (sp) came in better colors and was 15k cheaper, i probably wouldve been stupid
Have you seen their prices used? Compelling if you ignore reliability issues!
Yeah. Was tempting but everyone for sale was the at ugly green or black and i wanted neither.
this is how i ended up in a new M car. the QF sounded like a bad college relationship, the CT4 BW did nothing for me and also has its own set of reliability problems, and the RS3 made me feel like i was giving up and taking the path of least resistance.
Honestly, no less reliable than a comparable M or AMG. And if you’re buying used, the biggest variable is the prior owner.
I have been mystified by Hennessey's ability to get credulous and fawning automotive press for many years now. You basically need to be willfully ignorant not to know the guy is a crook peddling vaporware at this point. Even by the low standards of the typical autowriter, this degree of disconnect is inexplicable.
What is interesting to me about the voter ID debate is that the trend in the Trump era is toward low-propensity voters (disproportionately poor, uneducated, elderly, etc) voting much more Republican than in the past. I don't know the breakdown of the population who doesn't have an ID, but I imagine it has some overlap with this group, and I also begin to wonder at what point restricting turnout begins to benefit Democrats rather than Republicans as the long term conventional wisdom holds.
My opinion on the matter is vote in person with ID, but expanded voting hours with early voting and no assigned polling place (vote anywhere in your county of residence). This is basically the system we have where I live, and it works well (as best I can tell). We are the most advanced society in the history of the world, it should not be difficult to allow every citizen a chance to vote both easily and securely
"What is interesting to me about the voter ID debate is that the trend in the Trump era is toward low-propensity voters (disproportionately poor, uneducated, elderly, etc) voting much more Republican than in the past. I don't know the breakdown of the population who doesn't have an ID, but I imagine it has some overlap with this group, and I also begin to wonder at what point restricting turnout begins to benefit Democrats rather than Republicans as the long term conventional wisdom holds."
Never -- because the no-ID Republican population is dying as fast as it can, while the no-ID Democrat population arrives here in seven-figure amounts every year. Furthermore, most of the low-whatever Republican voter population STILL has identification, because they live in places where you can't access government services without it. Rural West Virginia is not El Paso: you need to show your ID to git yer check. :)
I think "immigrants = automatic Democrats" is a lot less true than it used to be.
Education polarization is stronger than racial polarization and most places are "not sending their finest".
Trump support among black and Hispanic men looks like it could be the highest for a Republican in decades.
'I think "immigrants = automatic Democrats" is a lot less true than it used to be.
Education polarization is stronger than racial polarization and most places are "not sending their finest".'
It's literally 4 to 1 for the Blues:
https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/jtf-immigrants-political-engagement.pdf
That data is from 2018, these numbers from 2023 are more like 2:1. I don't think the Trump impact can be overstated (look at his county by county numbers in Texas and Florida between 16 and 20).
https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/press-release/many-immigrants-including-naturalized-citizens-dont-feel-well-represented-by-either-political-party-though-more-align-with-democrats-than-republicans/
They aren't big fans of baby killing and being that and OMB are essentially the entirety of the DNC platform I would expect a little Red drift.
That messaging doesn't get as far as the immigrants, however. It's aimed at cat moms who read New York Magazine.
It's more Illegal Aliens = Automatic Democrats.
Maybe, but Socially Conservative isn't the same thing as Independent Thinker Who Votes His Conscience. He's gotta stay in good with his brothers and his cousins, you know.
They sound law-abiding so they’re unlikely to vote illegally.
THEY don't, someone else, organised does it in their name and they may not even be aware they're being marked as future felons when it's convenient.
If they vote their ballot themselves, you're onto something.
If their ballot is created out of thin air for sending to a 7-11 in texas ( https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/black-swans-orchestrated-chaos-and ) less so
Highest compared to what? For blacks I think the current Trump bump is on the order from mid single digits to high single digits.
Native latin americans are and nearly always have been inveterate socialists, with an occasional strong man in the mix. Cubans are a corner case and the ones in question are all essentially Spaniards anyway.
Everything I've read lately is along these lines:
"The new NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll shows Harris with a 54%-40% advantage among Latinos, her party’s lowest mark in four presidential election cycles. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all cleared 60% support."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-harris-compete-latino-vote-different-ways-rcna172890
"Former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, is doing better with Latino voters than in his past two presidential campaigns including a double-digit jump from his 2016 run, according to a poll released on Sunday."
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-kamala-harris-latino-support-1960985
Generally speaking, "immigrants = automatic Democrats" is true because democratic vote fraud NGOs generate thousands upon thousands of ballots and mail them to and collect them from... 7-11s, walmarts, etc. Elizbeth Nickson has more: https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/black-swans-orchestrated-chaos-and
I can confirm this with personal experience.. I had to do a LOT to make sure nobody had committed fraud in my name in 2020, AND jump through a lot of nasty hoops and interactions to have my name taken off the voter registration lists in Michigan.
"Arguably it had a little bit too much chassis for the available power"
not sure what this means so could you elaborate on it
"It’s also worth noting that nearly every Venom F5 is a unique creation"
this applies to nearly every other supercar hypercar and most porsches
anyway as a tangent to voting kinda does anyone have any strong thoughts on the mob boss union head threatening to shut the ports down until a very favourable wage is reached because holding billions of dollars hostage and potentially making a pretty big dent in the economy seems like a rather selfish thing to do but i understand this is the point of a strike in some regard
Domestic production 🤷♂️
I'm sympathetic to the idea of workers getting leverage over management in theory, but that guy has literal mob ties. His workers make deep into six figures for an unskilled job that they can basically hand down to their sons.
The demand for a ban on automation is insane and should not be considered seriously. Our ports rank last in the world. I heard some estimate that the longshoremen cost every American household hundreds of dollars a year through inefficiency and high wages.
The fact that union rank and file are by now so pro-Trump and authorize a crippling strike a month before an election with a vulnerable Democratic incumbent (sort of) while Democratic leaders pay lip service to supporting unions seems like a situation that can't hold forever.
no kidding on the mob ties
i heard that some dude that testified against him was found dead in a trunk
Mob ties are fine. What I can't stand are those mob shirts with the pointy collars.
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/goodfellas-30the-anniversary-martin-scorsese-1044604/
"does anyone have any strong thoughts on the mob boss union head threatening to shut the ports down until a very favourable wage is reached because holding billions of dollars hostage and potentially making a pretty big dent in the economy seems like a rather selfish thing to do but i understand this is the point of a strike in some regard"
Yes, I'm 100% for it and I hope the day comes when every longshoreman and stevedore earns $1 million year. Companies that don't like it should consider opening domestic factories.
original flavour tariffs
But what about the bananas that don't grow in the US? I eat one every morning. I hope they don't go up to $10 each.
It's one banana! How much could it cost??? :)
The US has toppled governments for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw
THIS IS A REFERENCE TO A WELL-WRITTEN TV SHOW.
Top YouTube comment:
"10 years from now this joke will make no sense."
There's always money in the banana stand...
10 Dollars.
In a few years it won't matter because yes we will have no bananas. The same risk applies to many crops that are nearly monoculture.
"Panama disease is one of the most severe threats facing the banana industry worldwide, with no cure and no banana varieties that are resistant to the disease yet developed. It has been estimated that 80 per cent of global production is under threat from Tropical Race 4."
https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/pests-diseases-weeds/plant/panama-disease-tropical-race-4
Yeah, I suppose that would incentivize them some.
i wonder if they would mean boats would come into canadian ports instead
might be profitable for us
I'm sure it would be profitable for you guys! I was talking to a Chinese master one time and hated loading/unloading in the US, said it took twice as long as it does in other countries.
looking forward to seeing the detroit river turn into the 401
nah the govt will fuck it up somehow
From my understanding, stuff is still coming in through Montreal no problem.
Those longshoremen and stevedores should learn to code!
Because magical robots are going to do their job far better for far less.
Or maybe we can get some migrants to do the job!
fortunately we get the privilege of paying for the inefficiency
Actually, Mexicans have taken over many docks throughout the country. It's quite simple. Come to america and get passable fake docs. Offer to work for less, which pathologically altruistic and low-wage-worker-exploitative Americans are happy to accept. As you climb the ranks, practice ruthless ethnic nepotism until HR has little choice except to back down. Then, when the organization can no longer resist demands or is completely taken over by one demographic, demand a gigantic wage bump in excess of even what actual native-born Americans considered reasonable. We all get to watch this in real time as it happens; impressive chutzpah!
In this way we see the truth---migrant labor wage-savings prioritized by companies is always a short term play, a shot in the arm that backfires---heroin. In the long term, migrant ethnic nepotism networks take over your *entire* org and ruin it (IBM) or take it over and demand an end to what was, at one time, cost savings that could be passed on to consumers (stevedores).
That's Walmart's and Amazon's business model, too.
I was going to say “now do IT”, but got to the last paragraph where IBM was mentioned. 3/3 would read again.
Yeah, it was a 20 year journey, MAX, from
"Indians can do it for less"
to
"We have an Indian CEO and executive staff, all of whom are earning incomprehensible sums of money".
Good on them for doing it, I suppose.
not good on them
should have been americans all the way
i have no idea on how to reverse this except for an even more extreme version of nepotism
Not good on them: they did it because they hate us. The people who changed the laws to bring them here ALSO did it because they hate us. Everyone involved deserves a nice rope necktie.
what utterly insufferable people
cant be kicked out fast enough
“Offer to work for less, which pathologically altruistic and low-wage-worker-exploitative Americans are happy to accept.”
Am I to infer that certain favored groups deserve above market compensation just because?
I always find it funny--however sincere you may be!---when you do this schtick.
The ULTIMATE discerner of qualitative differences, one of the more discerning people I've come across, period-
immune to discerning qualitative differences that offer short-term pumps in exchange for faustian long term disaster. Would be droll, but the more you bring it up, the more I get the sense you believe it sincerely.
Question for you: am I to infer that, since your comment suggests "certain favored groups" deserve zero protectionism and perhaps even *should* be replaced by low-wage migrants/economic mercenaries flown here & housed & fed (& not taxed!) at taxpayer expense, you believe that the same logic should apply for investment bankers and dealmakers such as yourself?
Not speaking for Sherman, although we've discussed this tangentially in the past, but my experience is that the people who are farthest in this world from doing any tangible, respectable, traditionally masculine work are also the people who create, propagate, and ingest the worst bootstrappin' Ayn Rand fantasies about work.
The fact is that Sherman and his ilk are protected, just like welfare hobbits in their little projects, only infinitely more so, because they are protected by the most powerful interests in the world. If an Indian city tried to do to New York's financial markets what they've done to American tech, we'd discover they were harboring ISIS and erase them from the surface of the earth. Every year there is a meeting called G7 and the purpose of that meeting is to protect Sherman and his fellow American banksters/hustlers with every violent or forceful end at their disposal, from sanctions to the 101st Airborne. The only competition Sherman will ever face will be from a strictly limited and vetted group of people with similar interests, background, and education to his own.
The rest of the American labor market, from doctors to fry cooks, has to live by the code ruefully noted by Avon Barksdale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Fv-nJCfrk
"See, the thing is, you only got to fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't gonna never be slow? Never be late? You can't plan through no shit like this, man. It's life."
The immigration system that brings in five million people a year to fight it out for jobs at Dollar General and McDonald's also restricts educated Europeans and Japanese/SEAsians to a few thousand per year, all of whom have to jump through a Cirque de Soleil's worth of hoops.
Sherman favors open competition for the same reason Snobes The Kitten at my house thinks he's the toughest animal in the jungle: because someone vastly more powerful than him has spent blood and treasure to protect him from the coyotes outside our borders.
What, pray tell, protectionism do investment bankers and /or deal makers receive? My ability to make a living is entirely predicated on only a handful of things:
-What’s between my ears
-My rolodex
-My ability to leverage the above resources to create value for others and earn a slice as my compensation
I genuinely welcome competition. I am ready, willing, and able to compete with anyone out there; there are limited barriers to entry, particularly once you step outside an investment bank and live on your own two feet.
Amen!
Frank Sobotka and Thomas "Horseface" Pakusa have a line of boilermakers waiting for you down at Delores' Bar.
The idea of importing nothing is great, and worked fine in the 1800s when we exported our resources for $$$. We should be able to equal trade (not free trade) with countries who are allies. Our government betters have put us in the position that we depend on our potentially most dangerous medium term threat for basic items, and items not so basic.
I'm not saying that the longshoremen should hold the country hostage for a decade. Only that a LITTLE BIT of being held hostage would point out what the risks are in our current direction. Like... the fact that many lifesaving necessary medications are ONLY made in India.
It's not about companies that don't like it, it's about consumers.
These ports are also transporting more than just imported/exported goods. Some are domestic goods.
I think this is a terrible take. I'm glad I work in a right to work state.
'These ports are also transporting more than just imported/exported goods. Some are domestic goods."
That's a corner case. The VAST majority of what's happening at these ports is: Chinese trash being poured into the country. Stopping that, however briefly, is useful.
While we're discussing it -- consider, if you will, that the rise of the Southern "right to work" states was actually enabled and enshrined by the chicken tax and the VRA. It took federal protectionism to make local non-union labor an effective force. In a world where there was no VRA, there wouldn't be a single auto plant or supplier plant in the United States, because it will ALWAYS be cheaper to make the parts and cars elsewhere.
I wanted to yell at you, when I first started reading this, but your logic is not flawed.
Fuck that guy. Reagan would have put him in jail.
"...which is the most statistically effective means of preventing pregnancy yet discovered."
I dunno, Jack!
I think that the ability to hold forth (on a moment's notice) as to the meanings of the Ancient Greek Rhetorical terms "Apophasis," "Apotropaic," and "Paraprosdokian" is a hugely effective means of preventing pregnancy.
Especially "Paraprosdokian." A girl who gets pregnant after having Paraprosdokian explained to her REALLY was desperate to have a baby.
john
I, too, was going to comment on this. Frankly, I would have guessed that BMX was less effective than something involving either dice or screens.
The problem is that a solid two hours of sprint training really tires you out in a way that even the most vicious dungeon does not!
S1 comes close.
Fuck that. No physique is worth THAT kind of literal assache.
Meh. Back in my glory days, I’d run 6-8+ miles at cross country practice, take a whore’s bath in the locker room, and then take my HS girlfriend to some out of the way wooded parking lot and finish off the afternoon on the way home.
That's why I held a professional cycling license and you, sir, are not... uh... an ex-professional cross-country runner! DETERMINATION! WOMEN WEAKEN LEGS!
"WOMEN WEAKEN LEGS"
so true
this is why i can squat 595 for reps (no i cant)
I'll have you know that thanks to you I spent an hour watching string quartets last night.. I can't say whether those videos really stirred my better half into the heat of passion, but judging from the fact that she didn't look up from her book once, I'd say not..
Perhaps she appreciated the calming music?
john
Re: Paraprosdokian … it’s like @Hoodville frequently claims on Instagram:
“We broke up. She broke, I’m up.”
Thank you.
I intentionally wrote one of my stand-up jokes as a Paraprosdokian:
I wasn't having any luck with the ladies. So I thought and thought and thought how best to put myself in a situation where ladies who cared about their looks would outnumber the men at least 2 to 1.
EUREKA! Yoga class!
So, I scoped out the various classes, chose the most Target-Rich Environment. I then bought the clothes, and I bought the Yoga Mat.
And, for six months, I took Yoga Lessons.
But... it was all only just a pose.
# # #
john
John,
I would not have figured that you followed @Hoodville on Instagram! (Ask Jack about it).
I have a vague, distant, decades old memory of reading about a Hennessey coming in "DNF" in a magazine comparison.
H/K dealers not honoring the fabled 10yr/100k mile warranty seems to be a common thread going back decades at this point. I will say, there's a bit of confirmation bias in that *statistically speaking* a greater amount of their products are still sold to the, uh, "credit challenged" who may or may not neglect their vehicles. So dealers dealing with people wanting new motors after never changing the oil in three years/30k miles is a regular occurrence I'm sure. Then someone comes in with a genuine issue and they get told to get stuffed. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that a good many of their newer products are known to start using oil by 60-70k especially if treated to 10k oil change intervals. So couple a car with some oil control issues to owners who likely never bother to change the oil and/or run the longest intervals possible, is basically a recipe for disaster.
Using "oh you redlined it" as an excuse to weasel out of a warranty claim is ridiculous though, outside of a manual being over-revved on a downshift, as you mentioned. Maybe if the ECU data also contained some sort of confirmation that the redlining happened on a stone-cold engine? Even then, tenuous. Then again there was that recent court case over a Corolla GR that was driven "faster than 85mph" that blew its motor and the dealership was trying to get out of. So it's not just a H/K thing but more of a "shitty dealer" thing.
I agree 100% with the former half of your explanation.
I suspect its not 'you redlined it' as much as 'you sat on the rev limiter for minutes'.
Correct
Doesn't the dealer get paid for warranty service anyway? What's their incentive to not honor a warranty claim?
They do... until they don't. Warranty claims are periodically audited and ones that are not kosher are charged-back. This terrifies dealers more than ten thousand customers with pitchforks in the parking lot, because it's like the IRS: the more audits you fail, the more you'll get.
Ah, that makes sense.
For reference, the % of warranty dollars that can be realistically touched and controlled is in the low single digit percentile. A dealer might see an audit once every 3 years if they aren't especially egregious. Warranty is their best customer. Payments go through every month, no collections. A lot can be buried there. When a dealer denies something, its because they KNOW they won't be paid by the factory. I've seen and touched all the dirty shit they and do and even modelled it mathematically. 10 to 12% of warranty expense at the market level is bullshit.
My most recent experience with this was BMW, which audited a LOT of parts and claims back in the day. I can't imagine that anyone has the kind of margin to do that at the corporate level that BMW had selling 4-cylinder sedans with vinyl seats for $70,000 in today's money, so the reduced percentage makes sense.
It depends how much resources you can realistically put into it. The Germans are BY FAR the worst at oversight, but there is a cost to that. It holds up the repair process, dealers hold your customers hostage, creates all kinds of customer relations issues. Maybe the German Marque dealers can absorb it better but mainstream dealers will practically send you a Daniel Pearl video of your customer if you fuck em around TOO much. It's a balance.
That being said, the German brands spend by far and away the most money per car on warranty expense, so there's that to consider in how they manage it.
That's a good question. It may be that the engine swaps don't pay out great book-time-wise? I would be fascinated to learn about the inner financial workings of how warranties are paid out/handled on the dealer to manufacturer side of things.
See my comment above. As a dealer, you run the risk of having a $15,000 parts-and-labor job charged back to you, and you'll eat EVERY penny of it.
Woof. Any stories of charged back warranty claims from your Ford or Infiniti selling days?
Oh, I could probably come up with a few -- but I bet my brother knows a dozen or more.
What I've experienced for warranty work (exclusively post COVID) is that the dealer won't even START the work unless someone at corporate has okayed it. Which I think for BIG ticket items like engine swaps is generally true.
Nobody is rolling the dice the way you're suggesting, not these days.
Well, when I was in the dealership game there were no "systems" for that. Approval meant a phone call, and nobody wanted to be on the phone all day.
Still, there's a dice-rolling aspect even to approved work, because the rep might not see it the way YOU saw it, if that makes sense, after the fact. "Oh, you said the valves weren't bent, but..."
Again, see my other comment... you like to talk about shit from the eighties like it was yesterday... It isn't.
There isn't much. They'd rather just give the squeaky wheels the repair even if undeserved. Denials are almost always the result of corporate review.
Any car company trying to get out of a big-ticket warranty claim should have to point to SPECIFIC language in said warranty.
Abuse and Misuse could mean anything.
It’s harder to get bought by Hyundai Motor Credit or Kia Motor Credit than most captive finance companies. The subprime business belongs to Nissan and Mitsubishi now.
Summit Place Kia doesn't want to let go it seems. Reason number 137 I stopped listening to FM radio.
Hi, I'm Tanya LaLonde from Summit Place Kia...
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
Recent Hyundai owner here. The “complimentary” three year “service” they give you with the car will only cover oil changes every TWELVE. THOUSAND. MILES. (A la 3 years/36k miles). How much does that contribute to failed engines? And God help you if you have a warranty issue or have to visit the dealer service department for any reason. The one I bought the car from has a wait time of over ONE. HUNDRED. DAYS. Before they can even look at your car.
Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, bouncing off the rev limiter or riding it for extended periods of time is a NO-NO. Anybody who thinks otherwise on a production car is an idiot.
If Hyundai engineers were smart, that rev limit would pull back as a function of revs spent on it... so it would be lower and lower to prevent MORONS from sitting on it.
Lastly, real world Hyundai/Kia products suffer for the same reason Nissan products suffer and FCA ones do - they attract trashy human beings as customers who subsequently don't care for the vehicle and treat them very badly. Their products may have improved, but their clientele hasn't.
"Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, bouncing off the rev limiter or riding it for extended periods of time is a NO-NO. Anybody who thinks otherwise on a production car is an idiot.
If Hyundai engineers were smart, that rev limit would pull back as a function of revs spent on it... so it would be lower and lower to prevent MORONS from sitting on it."
Don't be stupid. I run the V-8 in my Radical to the redline six times per 1:25 lap and I only have to rebuild it every 30 to 40 hours...
...actually, carry on.
Hey, that's STILL more reliable than an F-22!
Revving to within 50rpm of redline consistently because that is where the power is, is different from bumping into it erratically and camping there.
This is one of the things that distinguished better F1 drivers before paddle shifters came about.
Sort of like how the Nissan Altima is the Official Car of "I Ain't Drivin' No Damn SENTRA!"
The “N” 2.0T actually has a somewhat high redline for a motor of its type, come to think of it, at 6750. Drops off by like 6k though, so no real reason to wind it all the way out anyway.
“ Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, bouncing off the rev limiter or riding it for extended periods of time is a NO-NO. Anybody who thinks otherwise on a production car is an idiot.”
I had 65k miles in a 5MT 1998 Civic and 80k and counting in an S2000 that says that ain’t true. Beat the absolute snot out of those engines all you want as long as you A) let it come up to temp first and B) keep it full of clean oil.
The characteristics of the Rev limiter matter, the Hyundai rev limiters I've heard are very bouncy for one.
MY personal experience with the s2000 disagrees with you. At half the mileage.
Also I'm saying this as someone who works in this area of engine development.
To my knowledge there are two main ways to lunch an F20 engine; you can run it low on oil (they do drink oil) or you can money shift it and crack a valve retainer and swallow a valve. In 25 years of being active in S2000 communities, those are the only two normal ways I’m aware of.
So what you're saying, without realizing it fully is that:
1. A port injected engine burns oil, more so or at least as much as a DI engine (which is at a huge disadvantage).
2. Its a Honda, so its fine because they're the best.
3. If topped up with oil, a LOT of the Hyundai/Kia engines are also able to survive, but their customers are ignorant so the company takes it on the chin. If this was, I don't know, the Honda Accord with Fuel dilution and oil consumption problems, well lets not go there cause it can't happen cause Honda knows everything.
Sarcasm aside, you're just confirming what I said elsewhere that I suspect H/K engines are no worse than anyone else's, their customers are a lot worse than the others.
Can both things be true?
They can, but plain evidence shows that with increased oil intervals in modern engines and the customer base that is at play here, it's like 90% of one and 10% of the other, and I'm only referring to these N vehicles.
I'm assuming the Honda L15 fuel dilution isn't killing many if any engines under warranty? It's been around long enough that we should know by now if it's causing 1.4 Cruze-level problems. I'm still concerned about it though.
All depends on how many short cold start drive cycles one does. If that's your commute for 5 days a week, you're a statistic against THE GREAT HONDA ( yes I'm mocking Jack).
+1 to this. The redline is 7,000 on my VQ35, but it revs to ~7200 before the fuel cut. I don't intentionally do the latter often, but shifting below 7,000 means the engine doesn't sound as nice, and who doesn't want his engine to sound nice? 80K miles of abuse on the 19-year-old car and counting.
But I definitely use more oil driving the way I do than if I shifted at 4K RPM like a boring normie. That's just simple physics of oil rings and piston speeds.
The issue in this case is that the driver managed to well exceed the factory max RPM on multiple occasions in this manual transmission car causing valve timing system failure. A lot of people seem to think it was a case of just revving the car out to the max RPM, not the case.
"an age that, were I to discuss it, would cause about 75% of my readership to shudder involuntarily"
0. Does that mean he was 35? Or that he was 85? I can't tell.
1. Carlton Douglas Ridenhour for president: I had this discussion with a friend who has voted for Tom Brady for the last several elections... What the fuck is the point of that? Do you just want to throw away your vote? In a place like CA, or MA, I can see the pov of a person who thinks that an red vote is pointless anyway, but it's not like the system recognizes your petty protest, looks up and says, "well played, sir, well played". It's just whistling in the wind.
2. Voter ID: One day, blue thumb, paper ballots, count them manually.
0. He was fifty when he found out he was already too sick to survive.
1. I'm making a joke here.
2. Let's do that.
0. 50 is not entirely unusual but I gotta ask. Jabbed? Turbo cancer is probably turning out to be a thing.
Double jabbed, maybe triple. And it appeared after the jab with lightning speed.
Oof. Well, condolences to DG and MDG.
Well, of course everyone in my house is, ah, quadruple vaxxed and boosted, but somehow none of us ever really got sick from the 'vid, or had it more than once. It must have been the quad boosters. No vaxx denier could ever have that kind of positive outcome.
50 is pretty young. Flying to a funeral outside Chicago Friday, the guy was 45 and his heart exploded. Youngest child is just 9 years old.
I like jokes! I wish my friend was joking.
Do you have an employer? Do you have to get up in the morning and go to a job? Do you have bills you couldn't swing if you finally had enough of your boss's bullshit?
If the answer is "Yes" to any of these questions, then your vote doesn't matter.
I'm not quite that pessimistic. And also, I don't readily see how my vote is slaved to or effects my employment.
Allow me to clarify.
If you NEED a job, you have neither the power, nor the wealth nor the influence to matter. You are a serf, somebody's bitch, beholden to Someone Else's Way.
Human beings are meant to have that kind of relationship only with the Almighty, not CEO J. Clayton Pennybags IV or VP of Sales Dash Riprock.
Ah yes, a much more nuanced point. I would have to agree with you.
Our current political donation and influence system is completely corrupted and in need of radical overhaul. I doubt it will ever happen, too many plebes can get themselves elected and then live in the lap of luxury, as long as they keep the overlords happy.
this.
if people want to elections a one day, in person affair, then it has to be a paid federal holiday. people should not be forced to choose between exercising their right to vote and their need to show up for work.
What's the plan for essential workers like firefighters and ER doctors?
Re the VP Debate: Consensus around the office seems to be that "Wasn't it nice to see two grown men behave themselves during a debate, instead of playing to the literal worst extremes of their carefully curated characters and saying dumb shit for 90 minutes?" Nearly everybody who watched said that each VP candidate acted presidential. Unlike the two topmost names on the ballot.
It's clear the VP debate was targeted at least 1 sigma above the presidential. That, and JD focusing his fire on the moderators instead of trying to get under Waltz's thin skin.
I could give two pennies about how a candidate "acts". All I saw for years was "can't we get a guy or gal who seemed authentic" and as soon as we got one "No...not like that!".
Can the person perform the job. Can they execute the policies they sold the people on. Can they perform under war time and natural disasters.
All I saw on the VP stage was two trained slick talkers. I thought neither were very authentic.
Mail-in ballots is where the voter fraud really happens. Sidney Powell and her merry band of dupes allowed themselves to be distracted by red herrings involving China hacking voting machines and ignored the much more relevant and likely sources of possible fraud involving mail-in ballots. Proper counting and canvassing of mail-in ballots including a proper signature match are put in as security measures precisely because of how easily they can be exploited, but those standards have to be enforced to do any good.
For giggles, one can compare the signature rejection rates seen in the 2020 election to the signature rejection rates that were seen in, say, the recall of Governor Newsome. Or the rejection rates seen when outsider political candidates like RFK Jr. or Cornell West try to get on the ballot in various states. The disparity in signature rejection rates when it's a challenge to the system versus when it's something the system wants is a rather glaring clue as to how much "wiggle room" there is in the system to get a result that the powers that be prefer.
Of course, there are limits to how much that sort of thing can actually work. It has to be close enough for the fudge factor to come into play. 2020 was close enough and with an unprecedented "shadow campaign" (as described by Time Magazine, lest someone accuse me of making shit up https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ ) It was an unprecedented effort and most definitely didn't contribute to the believability of the system.
Despite what the black-pilled sorts say, I don't believe we'll see it be that close this time. Between some legislative reforms, some court decisions finding that, no, secretaries of state cannot unilaterally set their own rules over what the legislature rightfully enacted, and a significant decrease in early and mail-in voting I don't think it will matter. Illegals voting will happen, but not at any sort of significant scale that will alter the result. I think the margin of victory will be significantly beyond what even 2020's efforts could throw into doubt.
2020 guarantees election security will be an issue for as long as we're alive. More people are awake and paying attention...and that's a good thing.
"For giggles, one can compare the signature rejection rates seen in the 2020 election to the signature rejection rates that were seen in, say, the recall of Governor Newsome. Or the rejection rates seen when outsider political candidates like RFK Jr. or Cornell West try to get on the ballot in various states. The disparity in signature rejection rates when it's a challenge to the system versus when it's something the system wants is a rather glaring clue as to how much "wiggle room" there is in the system to get a result that the powers that be prefer."
Yes, thank you for pointing that out.
"Despite what the black-pilled sorts say, I don't believe we'll see it be that close this time. Between some legislative reforms, some court decisions finding that, no, secretaries of state cannot unilaterally set their own rules over what the legislature rightfully enacted, and a significant decrease in early and mail-in voting I don't think it will matter. Illegals voting will happen, but not at any sort of significant scale that will alter the result. I think the margin of victory will be significantly beyond what even 2020's efforts could throw into doubt."
Pray tell, were you born before 1970, and also, would you like to bet on the above assertion?
After 1970. And I already have on Predictit. I find having money on it alters one's motivation, thus altering one's reasoning. I'm going for accuracy.
Polling, at least as reported in most media, is hot garbage. Trump has consistently outperformed public polling (because there is private polling that isn't released to press outlets done by the campaigns) and he's polling better now than he ever has. More importantly is who his supporters are. He is winning an ever-increasing number of working class zoomers and millennials, independents, hispanics, and blacks, especially working class black men.
You will see higher participation from working class voters of all stripes, but especially working class whites as a percentage of the electorate this time around and that will carry Trump to victory with margin.
My bet is Trump wins somewhere between 287-325 electoral votes. He will carry PA, and with that likely Michigan and Wisconsin as well. He wins GA and NC. He will likely win AZ and NV as well.
Even Virginia is in play this cycle.
But if you want to drop $100 on it or even a subscription to the substack for a person of your choice or Jack's choice, I'm game.
I watched some of the videos from the Keri Lake lawsuit in Arizona over her loss.
They had video of election workers approving signatures in mere seconds.
Really? How does that work?
I drove a 2016 Veloster Rally Edition a few years back (wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I took on the lease from a friend that needed out of it for financial reasons.) Not actually a bad car to drive minus the terminal understeer.
Anyways I don’t think either of us were exactly easy on it, but no money shifts that I’m aware of and only mod was a CAI. Engine locked up while idling about 3 minutes after starting it up one morning, no weird noises or anything, it was just like it turned off. Car had about 20k miles on it at that point. They replaced it the whole engine under warranty, Notes on the ticket said the engine was seized, with scoring on the cylinders and cams, metal debris in the oil pan.
Pretty crazy for a low mile stock engine.