Locate an Auto Repair Shop in Ladys Island, South Carolina

Ladys Island, SC Car Consumer Discussions

Re: [ateixeira]

by andre1969 on Fri Nov 07 10:18:21 PST 2008

54 highway in the Echo? Yowsah. At what, 46mph? Downhill? While drafting? Well, Nippononly claims he can meet or beat that, so I guess it's conceivable. I have a friend who used to have a 1990 Dodge Dynasty with the 3.3 V-6 and 4-speed automatic (the one infamous for early failure), then a 1995 Nissan Maxima with a 5-speed, and now he has a 2001.5 Passat with the V-6/stick. He claims he's been able to get upper 30's and even lower 40's on occasion, with all of them. I've ridden with him a few times, and he would drive so slow it would scare me! He'd also do stuff like turn off the car and let it coast. I guess it would be possible for those stick-shift cars to get that kind of economy if you try hypermiling. They were probably EPA rated around 29-30 highway anyway, which would probably mean raw numbers of around 38-40. I have no idea how he got the Die-Nasty to get that kind of economy though...it was only rated at 19/26. He has a 2002 or so BMW 5-series, that he bought about a year ago. I rode with him last year on a trip, and he was getting around 31-32 mpg. Mostly highway driving, but he was getting a bit aggressive. It's a stick shift, and I think was rated around 21/30. So if you can actually get aggressive with a stick shift and still beat the EPA estimate, it really makes me wonder why the EPA tends to rate stickshift cars so low to begin with? The only time I've really been able to beat the EPA estimates with an automatic transmission car is to drive it gently. And with my uncle's 2003 Corolla, that STILL didn't quite do the trick. It was EPA-rated at 38 highway, and I got 37.4. Okay, so maybe that's close enough, but doing the same type of old lady driving got my 29 mpg highway Intrepid up to about 32.5!

Re: Cab Forward [hpmctorque]

by andre1969 on Mon Oct 27 06:59:40 PDT 2008

In my opinion, the only thing that "Cab Forward" really gave you was a huge dashboard and huge rear package shelf, and sharply sloping windows that would make both impossible to clean. It might have made the cars look sleek and futuristic, but I don't think it really did anything for interior room. That was the wheelbase, pure and simple. I was always impressed with the amount of legroom that the Neon had in it. However, the first-gen model was on a 104" wheelbase, and 105" for the second. Just for comparison, some midsized cars were in range of that. The Chevy Celebrity was 104.9". The "small" Ford LTD/Mercury Grand Marquis was 105.6". And Mopar's own Dodge Dynasty/Chrysler New Yorker was only 104.3". The older Dodge 600/Chrysler E-class/New Yorker/Plymouth Caravelle, also a fairly roomy car, was only 103.3"! I think the first Ford Taurus was around 106". Similarly, the Dodge Stratus/Chrysler Sebring/et al sedans were decently roomy. I think their wheelbase was around 108". My old 1980 Malibu, with a 108.1" wheelbase, was about as roomy inside, and it was a coupe. The sedan was a bit roomier. My 2000 Intrepid's wheelbase is 113". That car replaced a 1989 Gran Fury I had, a box on wheels if ever there was one. The Gran Fury dated back to the 1976 Volare, wasn't exactly the ultimate in space efficiency (decent for 1976, but NOT 1989!), and rode a 112.7" wheelbase, yet I swear it was roomier inside than the Intrepid. Maybe a little tighter in the back, but it more than made up for it up front! The only thing I really hated about that Gran Fury was the steering wheel location. Too close to my chest. And it had an airbag, so I'd hate to think of some little old 5'2" lady driving one and getting into an accident! It's kinda funny how Chrysler has a knack for making cars that look nice and futuristic but fall apart, or are somewhat conservative and stodgy but last forever. Too bad they couldn't strike a balance somewhere!

Re: reliability [cooterbfd]

by andre1969 on Mon Oct 27 05:38:41 PDT 2008

To the best of my knowledge, the 200R4 was based on the THM 350, and the 4L60E is the electronically controlled version. Actually the 200R4 is based on the flimsy THM200C! To GM's credit though, they got the bugs worked out of the 200R4 pretty quickly. It was troublesome for its first couple of years, but after that was a pretty durable transmission. There was a beefed-up version that went in cars like the Grand National and Monte Carlo Super Sport. I had two cars with that tranny...an '85 Buick LeSabre with a 307, and an '86 Monte Carlo with a 305. Both were in the family since new, and never gave a bit of trouble, other than the Buick going through a phase where it the lockup torque converter wouldn't want to unlock when you slowed down, and the car would start to shudder and buck. The LeSabre had 157,000 miles on it when we got rid of it, and the Monte had 192,000 on it when I got t-boned in it. I had a car with a THM200C, as well...an '80 Malibu coupe with the 229 V-6. Mom bought it new, and gave it to me when she got the '86 Monte. It had about 100,000 miles on it when I sold it, and a year later, I ran into the people who bought it. It had 115,000 miles on it and they were loving it. Its tranny never gave any trouble. In those days though, we were in the habit of getting the transmission serviced every year, regardless of what the owner's manual said, so that might have had something to do with it. Ironically, the only GM car I ever had that needed a transmission rebuild, had the THM350! It was an '82 Cutlass Supreme, which just had a 231 V-6, but they still put the bigger tranny behind it. It started shifting funny, holding the gears too long. The tranny shop said they could fix it for about $150, but couldn't guarantee that it would stay fixed. It had a lot of metal shavings that were clogging it up, and that was making it shift funny. Or, they said they could rebuild it for about $675. Well, I figured I'd have that car forever, so I opted to have it rebuilt. In the end, I shouldn't have, because about 9 months later, the engine crapped out! :sick: I don't really blame GM for that one though, as the car was 11 years old when I bought it. It only had 61,000 miles, but I only paid $800. It had been little-old-lady owned, but while they are often gentle on things, they're not always so good about maintaining them!

no title

by bat1161 on Wed Sep 29 10:33:13 PDT 2004

Brenda- You are one busy Lady, who obviously believes in helping others. Good Luck! Mark

Re: . [fintail]

by andre1969 on Thu Oct 02 14:11:10 PDT 2008

Maybe by the late 50s it changed...I don't remember feeling bad behind the wheel of my dad's 60 full sized Ford, nor my 66 Galaxie, and the fintail is comfortable with plenty of room too...and I am not short nor skinny. It definitely improved in the late 50's. I remember sitting in a '56 Chrysler or DeSoto at one of the Carlisle swap meets, and the difference between it and my '57 was like night and day. The '57's seat is much lower, and I think they actually got a lot of complaints about that, but it also goes back much further than the '56 did, so legroom feels better to me. And the steering wheel is at a better angle, with the column being more vertical, so in a head on collision I guess it impales your chest instead of your face! The '56 felt more like an old pickup truck seating position. They made further strides in the late 60's. I remember the steering wheel of my '69 Bonneville being about as big as that of a modern car, rather than those bus/truck sized steering wheels older cars had. And it seemed to be positioned a bit further away from my chest than, say, my '67 Catalina. Or my '68 and '69 Darts. The most recent car I could think of that had a badly placed steering wheel was my '89 Gran Fury. Legroom in that car was excellent, but the steering wheel just seemed a little too close. Scary thought too, considering it had an airbag in it! I imagine it would've been pretty dangerous for some little old lady who had to sit right up against the steering wheel! I've always heard that the '76 Volare/Aspen still had a little Dart/Valiant DNA in them, as opposed to being a truly new from the ground up car. Maybe there's a bit of truth to that, as the seating position felt almost the same, with regards to legroom and the steering column position. Shoulder room was about the same, too. The engine sat further back in the Aspen/Volare and all their offshoots though, so that in turn pushed the transmission further back, making for a bigger hump. I remember reading an old Popular Mechanics review of a 1972 Impala, and one of the testers was complaining about the steering wheel location. So maybe with some cars by that time, it was still an issue. It's been so long since I've been in that era of GM big car though, that I can't remember if it was for me.

Re: That is correct [circlew]

by paisan on Sat Oct 11 21:40:45 PDT 2008

OW, I agree with yah. Same arguement I got into at an autoshow with a Ford rep. They could not give me a single reason to buy their FWD mid/small sedan over a foreign car other than "Support America". Actually when that arguement didn't work, she went so far as to say, well buy a Ford because we donated money to 9/11 relief efforts. That's when I lost it and went off on this lady because she was trying to use 9/11 donations by Ford to sell me a car. In retrospect, I should have taken her name and gotten her fired for such comments! I heard about the GM-Chrysler merger. That could get very interesting. -mike Motorsports and Modifications Host