...and that's OK by me. After spending nearly the entire holiday weekend slugging around in our long-term Honda Insight, I was forced to trade cars on Sunday afternoon following the Chevrolet Volt drive at Dodger Stadium.
Engineering Editor Extraordinare Jay Kavanagh needed to get some seat time in the Insight to help him clarify his Volt experience before penning his First Drive impressions, and since Jay arrived at the stadium in the Nissan 370Z, we swapped cars in Parking Lot 1 before heading out of the ballpark.
I've never been a huge fan of the Z, but boy, after driving the Insight for four days, I welcomed every single horse in the coupe's V6 stable.
I can accept our long-term 2010 Honda Insight's busy ride and thin sound insulation and weaksauce acceleration as natural consequences of its fuel-sipping, low-costing, battery-hefting mission.
What I can't stand, though, is its crummy on-center steering behavior. For this there is simply no excuse.
The steering response as you cross juuust over center seems to go dead, like there's inertia or stiction or hysteresis. As a result, driving it in a straight line at freeway speeds involves constant, minute corrections around center.
It's not tramlining or crosswinds, it's the electric steering. And it's irritating. Behaves just like the Fit's steering, in fact, which isn't that surprising since the two cars share a lot of DNA from the firewall forward.
I'll say this, though -- I flung the Insight onto a freeway on-ramp yesterday and the thing didn't understeer like a bad bus. On the contrary, it was completely neutral, even requiring a bit of countersteering. I was floored. Oversteer in an economy car, yee-haa!
I think this last bit will be lost on Insight buyers.
As you probably know by now, we drove a close-to-production-ready Chevrolet Volt yesterday. You can read all about it in the Inside Line first drive and in the test drive over on the Edmunds site.
The Chevy Volt can theoretically run for 40 miles on electric power under ideal conditions. When the battery is depleted, it switches over to a gasoline engine that feeds the electirc motor like an on-board generator. The gas tank holds 8 gallons and GM optimisitcally claims it will run for another 300 miles.
So, my question for you today is this: Would you rather drive the Mini E that runs 100 miles on electricity only or the Chevy Volt that runs only 40 miles on electric power but can continue for 300 miles burning gasoline?
Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor
P.S. Our Green Car Advisor blog has some interesting articles about The Volt, too:
As I mentioned this weekend, I had the opportunity to drive the Challenger at night through the desert. This was a perfect test of its headlights, which I thought were sufficient for the desert's pitch black darkness. Despite not being xenons, the wash of light was consistent and bright enough. I wasn't as enamored with the high beams, though. They aren't particularly brighter than the regular lights, just whiter in light and the beam casts itself higher toward tall shrubs and big reflective signs. I didn't find the high beams useful and stuck with the regular headlights.
Fast forward several days when I was driving in a torrential downpour on I-10 just east of Palm Springs. The cabin was quite noisy. I was concentrating on the treacherous road ahead. The turn signal indicators are buried on the far left and right of the instruments and in a dim yellow color. You guessed it, I turned into Grandpa with his turn signal on for 157 miles. Thankfully, I didn't get that far because the Challenger has a pleasant feature that dings you the standard warning chime shared with the low fuel light and displays a "Turn Signal On" warning in the trip computer. What a smart feature.
The ultimate luxury during cross-country motoring is not having to go the gas station. Sure, you want to take a break during a long drive, but trying to fight your way to the pumps through a horde of minivans on a Thanksgiving weekend is not for those who value the structural integrity of their sheetmetal.
Say what you will about the relative merits of its fuel efficiency, but the 21.7-gallon fuel tank of the BMW 750i took me 459.3 miles before the reserve light finally forced me to the gas station. And for that I'm thankful. It was desperate enough just to be out amongst the civilians on the Interstate during my trip to Phoenix and back.
Sometimes it's all about cruising range, and that's what a big car does best.
Of course, if every gas station looked as good as this 1958 design for Shell by Meusburger and Ramersdorfer that you can still see in Goetzis, Austria, I might be going there more often.
We are two weeks shy of the halfway point in our test of the 2009 Dodge Ram 1500. We've already reached the 15,000-mile mark. It's popularity in our fleet is proof that the utility of a truck can't be matched.
To date our only out-of-pocket expenses went towards routine maintenance. And the only time the truck spent out of service was parked at the body shop waiting for a new rear bumper.
Total cost: $200 Days out of service: 2
Mike Schmidt, Vehicle Testing Manager @ 15,000 miles
Most vehicles fitted with navigation systems have some sort of disclaimer about how one shouldn't use the navigation system while driving. A smaller percentage of cars also have warnings about their backup cameras. OK, sure, I understand that we live in a litigious society and there is a subsequent need for such things. But the warning that pops up for our 2010 Volvo XC60's review camera display is particularly annoying.
Since having its cams swapped, our Evo has enjoyed a power peak near 8,000 rpm. And a lumpy idle. We like them both. The idle is difficult to fully capture with any video, but here's how it sounds and how it looks on the tachometer.
I'm really tired of seeing BMW's Tire Pressure Warning System in action. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the advance notice regarding a slowing dying tire, but I'd prefer tires that simply didn't get punctures (or at least not when I'm driving on them).
I saw a similar screen in our Long-Term 2009 BMW 750i less than a month ago, so forgive me if I feel I've reached my Tire Pressure Warning screen quota.
Is chromey a word? Well, that's how I like to describe our Dodge Ram truck.
It's covered in chrome details: grille, wheels, interior trim.
Besides being bedazzled, it also does duty as a real honest-to-goodness pickup. We've towed, we've hauled (stuff and arse), we've bumped into things, we've been bumped.
Greetings from that mecca of global culture, Goodyear, Ariz. Home to a Target, a Macaroni Grill, the Cleveland Indians and the parents of one James Tiberius Riswick.
In the past two Thanksgiving journeys out here, I've written letters to myself in the future to warn against repeating that year's calamities. Leaving stupidly on Wednesday in the G35 for one, and leaving my wallet behind the other. This year, I'm happy to report that I heeded my own advice and no such letter is warranted. I won't need to reiterate to myself next year that I should just celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. Outside of an unfortunate accident-caused traffic jam just outside of Ontario, my Tuesday trip went muck-up-free.
Yesterday, four of us, all adults, got into the 2009 Mazda 6 for a 20-minute drive to Thanksgiving dinner. I sat in my preferred driving position (no moving the seat up for people in back) and still there was legroom to spare. It's no wonder, really, now that the (North American-market) Mazda 6 has a nearly 110-inch wheelbase.
Had I been in the first-generation Mazda 6 (2003-2008) that I liked to drive so much, we wouldn't have been nearly as comfortable; its wheelbase was just over 105 inches.
And although I don't find our Mazda 6 especially interesting to drive, I always find satisfaction in its fairly crisp throttle response and solid brake pedal feel -- within the standards used to judge four-cylinder, midsize sedans, mind you.
My recent road trip to Palm Springs, California in our long-term 2010 Chevy Camaro SS wasn't quite the excursion of my Monterey run in our long-term Genesis, but it did reveal the road trip friendliness of Chevy's new muscle car.
So who got stuck with the Mini E over the long holiday weekend?
When the car clipboard got passed around last week, I saw the Camaro, the Challenger, the Suzuki, among other cars still available. I looked at Mike, our Vehicle Testing Manager, and said, "I'm not traveling this weekend, I'll take the Mini E."
And he said, "You just made everyone left on the list very happy."
Now, don't get us wrong, we like the Mini E. It's cute as a button and fun to drive if you don't need to go anywhere. What a statement for a car, huh?
I know it's beating a dead horse to say the Mini E is not practical. But that's what we're faced with every time we drive it. It's a fun little car. But don't go shopping, or try to pile your kids into it. And don't go too far.
It's nice not to have to go to the gas station and touch the swine-flu-infested pump. But it's a pain in the neck to have to wait a day for it to recharge.
All things you've heard before. But that's the reality of the Mini E over this holiday weekend.
Good thing I'm doing my Black Friday shopping online.
Actually the pedals themselves are fine. It's their spacing that's bugs me. Erin says she thinks they're perfect for heel-and-toe downshifting, but I can't agree. The gas pedal is a little far away to make a simple roll of the foot work. You have to do the full-on 45-degree foot turn to get a good stab at the gas. Hardly the worst pedal setup I've ever seen, but a little unexpected from a car that's so otherwise well sorted.
Ed Hellwig, Senior Editor, Inside Line @ 3,699 miles
On Tuesday morning at 6 AM, in the dark, I climbed behind the wheel of our long-term 2009 Hyundai Genesis and headed north to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. I was to arrive by noon to watch Dodge's Viper Team attempt to break the track record for production cars, which they did.
I drove back the very next morning.
That's a 600 mile round trip of interstate in 24 hours. Not nuts. But not exactly the kind of trip you want to take in a Smart Fortwo. No, the right car is key.
Our 2009 Mazda 6 made its final trip to the dealer for service on the navigation screen. We are hopeful this is the last time.
Long Beach Mazda was more thorough now than during our last visit. This time the GPS screen was physically removed, which uncovered the problem. One of the wires from the loom was not soldered properly. The ineffective solder-job was touched up and now we're back in business. Our navigation system works like new.
So what did we learn from this process? Ford of Orange was a disappointment. It took them 4 months to order and incorrectly replace the nav-screen. We would use Long Beach Mazda again. Yes, the first repair attempt failed, but the folks there were always pleasant. And in the end they do get credit for fixing the problem.
Mike Schmidt, Vehicle Testing Manager @ 20,613 miles
The wing, that is. In case you hadn't noticed in the last two posts, this much-derided piece was returned to the GSR's trunklid during our GSR/GT-R lap battle. And it made a difference.
Kavanagh will have all the gory details in an upcoming feature story in the next few weeks.
Recently, one of you guys asked for a review of our Camaro's heated seats. Well here it is. Don't ever say I don't come through for ya
The Camaro's two-level heated seats are very good. They warm up quickly, deliver even heat throughout the seatback and bottom cushions and are powerful enough when on "high" to force me into the sweats on a 55 degree evening. Usually after five minutes or so I have found myself backing the heat off to the "Low" setting and leaving it there for the duration of the trip.
In truly cold climates I think the Camaro's seat heaters have the power to satisfy the butt warming needs of most consumers. Even on Thanksgiving.
