2QuickZ's

You know, a funny thing happened recently. It magically started working again before I got a chance to replace it. It basically did not work for a year, got charged up by the tail end of a 1000+ mile journey to Florida only to stop working again shortly after we got there. Then it charged back up again on the way back and worked for a day or two and then nothing. Now for no discernible reason it just randomly started working again a week or so ago. Very strange. If it stops working again, I will see if there is a Lithium Ion replacement battery for it. That is a good suggestion.

Update on the Canyon. Still going strong. No real issues to speak of. I thought I had an annoying rattle on the rear sliding window pop up but it turned out the gaskets on the tri-fold tonneau cover compressed enough over time to allow it to shift slightly and one of the plastic clips was tapping on the back window. That was a 5 minute fix to loosen it up, reposition it and re-tighten. Fuel economy was pretty abysmal over the winter. To the point where I wonder if a V8 full size would have done any worse. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I am still working from home so with no commute, most of my trips are short and the engine barely had time to get warm. Still, I think I had one tank come in at 14.9 mpg. That was a bit of an outlier and most were in the high 15's or low 16's. Now that it is warm, it is generally averaging low to mid 17's and any longer trips I have taken with it have been more in the 21-22 mpg range. It still annoys the crap out of me that a Denali does not have a Homelink garage door opener built in. I also continued to be annoyed by actually having to get the keys out of my pocket to unlock the doors and start it. I know that may sound ridiculous but once you have a number of cars in a row that have passive entry and push button start, its annoying to live with out. Call me spoiled. haha I do wonder if I would have been better off with a full size truck. What appealed to me most about the Canyon (its size) is also my biggest problem with it. The front seats are fine but my long legged son is not too comfortable in the back seat. We also have a dog we take with us on our camping trips and it doesn't work very well for her. She's a bit of a nervous traveler so the floor is the best spot for her but there is no room there in the truck so she has to sit on someone's lap. That said, while those areas would be better in a full size, I know my wife would hate parking one. I also know since it stays parked in the driveway, I would have had to make my driveway a little wider to make it easier to get the other vehicles in and out of the garage and while I would have liked the interior room in the full size much better, the Canyon overall just fits us better.

Wow. It's been a year since I have updated this. We still have the van and it is still going strong. No real issues since the last update. The suspension creaking is back but you only hear it at low speeds so not that big of a deal. The only other issue is that the start/stop battery needs replaced again. It hasn't actually died like last time but it almost never has enough charge to work. I'd guess for a lot of you this would be ideal but I am one of the few oddballs that actually likes stop/start. It feels so wasteful to me to sit at a light with the engine still running. I'll likely wind up spending the $100 for a new one soon and yes, I know I will never get my money back from the gas I save, even at current gas prices ? Anyway, it is up to 44k miles now. The wife and I still both work from home so it went from having 32k miles put on it in the first 22 months of ownership to having only 12k miles put on it in the next 26 months of ownership. That includes another trip to Florida we did back in March. I did have to buy a new set of tires. I went with Firestone Destination LE3 tires and they are working out pretty well. They are quiet and smooth riding tires but have a little less wet traction than I was hoping based on the reviews. Still not bad, though. That's about it really. I did pull the camper with it again (200 mile round trip) a month or so ago even though I have a Canyon now. The Canyon was busy at the time. The trans temp is always steady and the brakes are more than adequate to stop our 2000 lb pop up. The thought is we will likely keep this another year. Its a bit tricky because we would like to take advantage of the ridiculous used car market, especially since it will show two accidents on a Carfax but at the same time what is the difference if we wind up just spending that extra money and then some on a new vehicle with no real discounts.

I'm no Tesla stan. In fact, I'm not really even a fan. That said, the sales model of the traditional OEMs, especially the Big 3, allows for easy price adjustments without having to bump MSRP's monthly like Tesla. Why? Because they normally have big fat incentives on them. If they want to adjust prices month to month, they can (and do) simply adjust rebates. Once inventories started to dry up, so did the rebates. Tesla, on the other hand, had to raise prices to take advantage of the current market. When the market changes again, they may have to drop them back down.

You missed something. ? More than likely my fault since I gave both threads similar names.

Final, final update: Got the last statement from GM Financial. Was surprised to see they were going to charge me $900 or so dollars but since the car sold at auction for more than the buyout + the charge, they waived it. I am assuming the charge was for the tires. The only rule to replacing the tires is they have to be the same performance rating or better and even though I knew that and thought what I was buying was the same rating, they actually were not. At the end of the day, it didn't matter. In case any one is curious, the car sold at auction for $31,000 and the dealership down south that bought it had it on their lot for $34,500!!! There really is some COVID madness there. You could bought one in similar condition (age, mileage) a year or so ago for around $26k. Oh, and it still has the same tires on it so I guess they couldn't have been too bad ?

I'd have to rank them like this: 1) Audi eTron GT 2) Audi eTron GT ? 3) Lucid Air 4) Porsche Taycan (tie) 4) Tesla Model S (tie) 6) Mercedes EQS I really, really like the look of that Audi. The proportions and styling of that car really do it for me. I also am a big fan of both the Rivian and the Hummer. I don't think the Mustang Mach-e looks that bad either. Someone in my neighborhood had a cyber orange GT parked in their driveway when I went for my lunch time walk yesterday and it didn't look half bad. Truth be told, the only one of these that would have even the smallest chance of ever winding up in my driveway is the Rivian. Maybe a Lyriq if that back end ever grows on me.

Not sure if this is the most current available or not but it is the most free to use ? Bit of light SAE reading for you on legroom measurements. I'm not going to lie, I did not read it in detail but I am guessing what you are looking for is in there somewhere. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/cfr/ibr/005/sae.j1100.2001.html

Came across one of these in the wild today. It was a black one and appeared to be full production spec. We were on the road so I did not get a chance to check it out but it looked pretty good moving down the road. Wish I would have paid a little more attention to the size as I pulled up next to it at a light. It didn't seem any bigger than my Canyon from what I recall.

The real wood trim certainly says luxury. You generally only find it on the luxury marques though it has started to move into the higher trims of the more mainstream brands like Ford, Chevrolet and GMC. My Canyon Denali, for example, has both authentic aluminum and open pore wood accents throughout. On the Rivian, though, some of the spots that they put the wood, while looking nice, are definitely going to get beat up over time because they are high touch areas. I'm specifically referring to the wood around the wireless charger on the console and also on the seat backs where I could see them getting scratched with hangars or poorly aimed USB connectors.

These are the regular cab shortbeds I see the most in my area. I even knew a guy that leased one a number of years ago (a DS) and drag raced it a few times. IIRC, it was running high 13's in the 1/4. Ford F150's are probably second. They are getting popular with the racing crowd as people are buying them up with Coyotes in them and slapping Whipple superchargers on them. It is very, very rare to see a regular cab short bed Silverado, though I have seen one or two. Not as rare as the previously mentioned Tundra. I didn't even know they made a regular cab until I saw the one in my 'hood.

Someone in my neighborhood has a regular cab short box Tundra. Every time I see it I marvel a bit because I don't know that I have ever seen another one. Keep in mind I live in SE Michigan, though. ?

This is a nice looking truck. They did a good job with it inside and out. If I was going to go this route, I would do either Limestone or Compass Yellow though to charge as much as they do for colors seems a bit absurd considering the starting price of the truck. Ocean Coast interior with the Adventure Package. Forest Edge is an intriguing interior color option but I don't think it is going to age well. Kind of like avocado color appliances from the 1960's and 70's.

Toyota's interior and exterior styling just does not do it for me. At least when they first showed the Silverado LD my initial thought was that it was quite ungainly but that the styling might grow on me (it did). This is more like when they first showed the Silverado HD and my initial thought was "that is ugly and I can't imagine it ever growing on me." I still think it's ugly and it has been out for a couple of years and I think the same thing is going to happen here. It is like after years of doing boring vanilla Toyota decided to be stylish and some how mistook ugly for stylish. It started when the grilles on all their products started to get big. What is even going on with that tailgate area? Why is the interior so busy? The exterior might look okay in dark colors without the chrome horseshoe mustache on the grille but otherwise ? That grille reminds me of this: