I Need Your Help

Time for another post (finally), here it is,

The...
I think I have run out of cars I really hate. I really need your help, please suggest cars, and let's keep this blog running!

Happy Blogging


(credit: upload.wikimedia.org)

Fiat 500L

Time for another post, here it is,
The Fiat 500L


(credit: www.caranddriver.com)
Hmmm, where to start... The 500L has lots of the same problems as the Countryman. This is a case of fattening and stretching out a toaster. The whole concept of the 500 is that it was a VERY cheap little car, because it was first produced after World War 2, when metal was scarce. So, we get this monstrosity of a car which is like the actor that played Kevin in the Home Alone movies... grown up. So, I am saying that a while ago, it was cute because it was little and nice, then it grew up into an absolute bum.

The 500L's color choices and names are well, just plain bad. The colors include "beatbox green" and "heavy metal grey". I found a picture with all of the colors here.

If cars could have politically correct names (like how being a garbage man is now called "sanitation engineer") the Fiat would be a "power challenged" car. This "Failed Italian Automotive Technology" has a 1.6 liter turbo engine. This sewing machine of an engine produces only 160 horsepower, that's nothing for a vehicle of it's size and weight. The auto transmission is very slow to shift, just adding to the powertrain problems!

The Interior is very cheaply made, Car and Driver says that "the interior is poorly assembled and full of cheap materials".

Speaking of  Car and Driver, their instrumented test started with "Apathetically going where others have gone before." So, I want to try this: Fiat... the final frontier... These are the voyages of the station wagon 500L, it's 5 year mission to discover strange new soccer practices, to seek out new snacks that fall on the floor and the resulting life, To apathetically go where others have gone before!

The only good thing about this monstrosity is that less and less of them are being imported to the U.S., last year, Fiat only sold 8,000, 37% down from 2014.

Do you have any thoughts about cats? What drives you crazy? I welcome any respectful comments so keep it clean!

One post on this blog a week, so stay tuned!

Honda Ridgeline

Time for another post, here it is,

The Honda Ridgeline

(credit: caranddriver.com)

I'm pretty sure the thinking behind the Ridgeline went like this:

"Honda should make a truck!"

"Agreed".

"Our truck should be the Honda Odyssey on a Pilot platform, with the Odyssey's D-pillars chopped out!"

So, if you buy a honda Ridgeline, you will be driving a modified minivan on a pseudo-SUV chassis (kind of, its a unibody). Earlier models had these strange things running from the C-pillar to the top of the bed:

(credit: partly me, partly Motor Trend)

The red oval shows the rather odd bed. The old Ridgelines look like D-pillar chopped Honda Pilots of the same era. The thing that is really repulsive is the striking resemblance between the Honda and the Subaru Baja! Are they brothers?

The Ridgeline can't come in a V8? This is 2016! It is standard for full size trucks to have a V8, even the entry-level trucks have V8's as an option. It can't come in a manual transmission, which is such a disadvantage, because it is preferable to an auto, especially in trucks. The V6 Honda has under the hood isn't powerful for a truck, it generates only 280 horsepower. The 2017 Dodge Ram 1500 with the 5.7 liter V8 engine, not the really huge 6.2 liter, generates 395 horsepower. 

I doubt the Ridgeline has any off-road capability, it is on tires better suited to suburbia then to the black rock desert. The truck has a trunk inside the bed. This may be strange, but what Honda has done, is to raise the floor of the bed, making the bed shallower, for the silly trunk and a spare tire. Isn't one of the purposes of a truck to have a large bed? Google Honda Ridgeline trunk for a picture of this. The tailgate opens both on a horizontal axis, as well as a vertical axis. What's wrong with opening vertically? If you are tight for space, a horizontally opening bed is the last thing you need.

Ending on a happier note, the Dodge Power Wagon is back! Dodge, because they are awesome, are answering the F-150 Raptor pack, with the Ram 1500 Rebel TRX!

Do you have any thoughts about cats? What drives you crazy? I welcome any respectful comments so keep it clean!

One post on this blog, one post on A Good Popular Blog About Good Popular Cats (if possible) a week, so stay tuned!