The Cook Family

Living in SE Michigan the Auto Industry is everywhere. I pass by a few plants each day. One of those is scheduled to close. Lately things appear to be a mixed bag.

Bob Lutz left GM and then came back as the head of Marketing. I thought this was a bad idea. Lutz appears as pompous and crazy. On the Colbert Report he said he didn't believe in man made global warming. Recently he boasted that he could beat any production sedan in a CTS-V. The awesome auto blog Jalopnik took him up on it and it turned into a pretty good publicity stunt. Lutz lost to a kid in a BMW M3, but a few GM ringers beat the BMW. But hey no press is bad press. I heard an interview with Lutz on NPR about it.

Ford announced today that they are actually making a profit. I wonder when GM or Chrysler/Fiat will be able to do that. Though Ford was also hit with the unions voting down concessions today.

Ford has a great lineup. I never though I would even consider buying a car with a blue oval on it, but they now have a few models I really like and would consider. The Flex, Fusion, Fiesta, and new Taurus are all great cars. If they brought the Euro spec Focus over that would be awesome too.

This is a cool movie about the cars that film the cars.

After thinking about it for a couple years we finally took the plunge this year. The All Season Tires on the Vibe are worn to the point that they are fine for summer, but weren't quite making the cut. I will put them back on and then in spring of 2010 we will get new tires and probably rims. As far as cost goes they are only a couple dollars more then regular all seasons and you spread wear out between two sets of tires. Extra costs come from getting them swapped a couple times a year which will run you $50 total a year. That price can be mitigated if you get a second set of rims and swap them yourself (which I plan to do). Most people get steel wheels, but we already have steel wheels, we will get nicer rims for the summer tires. Another way to look at it is: what is the price of your deductible and increased insurance rates from an accident? A few extra bucks for two sets starts to look nice.

After looking at the whole range of options I settled on "winter performance" tires. They have a winter compound that stays softer in colder temps and have treads to deal with ice and slush more then feet of powder. They still work better in powder then an all season tire though. Reviews are difficult because the lines change every year and who puts multiple sets of snow tires on in exactly the same conditions? I was able to get an idea from tirerack.com and some magazine/newspaper reviews. The best article I found was this one.

After looking at the range of options I had it narrowed down to a couple options and then availability decided on which of the two. I ended up getting Yokohama Ice Gaurd IG20's. I called Discount Tire and asked about price matching because I found them online for about $15 less a tire then they were advertising, and asked if I needed to bring anything in with the price and they guy said that I could do that or they could look it up online from the store. When I went in I told the guy the tire I wanted and that I saw it for this price and he just said "we can do that." Lesson learned, I am glad I didn't pre-buy them buy them online.

I have had them for a few weeks now and am really happy. Before I went to get them I did some informal stopping distance testing with the regular tires. Our side streets were plowed, but still mostly covered in snow and ice. It was basically go 25mph and hit the brakes when I pass the tree. With the snow tires I was stopping in about 60-70% of the distance of the all seasons. I also had the old tires and 3 stores worth of groceries in the car. We got a snow day before break and about 10" of snow. I just had to take them out. I went down the street and back with some sliding around the culdesac, but it worked out fine. On the slush and ice covered roads they worked great. At highway speeds they are a little squidgy.

We will see how they handle the rest of the winter and how many seasons they will last. I am hoping for 4 seasons, but they wear quicker then all seasons, especially on dry pavement.

Edmunds has a nifty article about why you shouldn't buy a hybrid now. With gas prices lower it will take a long time to break even on the added cost of a hybrid.

This is a scary time and I have held my tongue about the auto bailout because so many other people seem to be making sense. The problem is they don't make decisions. I saw this at Jalopnik and though that it was pretty cool.

This is a map of manufacturing sites for the Detriot 3 Automakers. It does not even count the suppliers.


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I had posted a while back about what our new car should be. C&D has a new article that shares some of my frustration about the lack of wagons and specifically the lack of hot wagons. Some of the wagons I like more then others, but all would be acceptable.

Jalopnik has often commented on Popemobiles, but now they have a roundup of them.

So far my favorite comment has been:
"Even with the power of the Pope's prayer he wasn't able to keep a Fiat running." - Maxxofor

Dean pointed out to me the new VW diesels are coming out soon. A month or so ago that was my car obsession for the week. Awesome mileage, good space, rack for canoes and gobs of torque. I want one to run B99 through.

And after reading this post at Edmunds maybe that Lotus Elise might be the next car.

Last week we wandered down to Depot Town for the cruise. It is always fun to see what cars are there. There are the usuals, but then there are some new wheels. Earlier this year there were a pair of Lotus, an Elise and a Exige. This time we saw some more Euro-power. There was a Ferrari 308 and a Porsche Speedster (it may have been a kit car). There was also a nice guy from Ohio who let Eli sit in his Corvair.

I have been getting nervous about not fitting into the Vibe anymore and have been excited by mulling various cars over in my head. Canoe carrying is key, if I can't put a roof rack on a car that is an instant write off. Canoes also make it necessary to fit paddles (long) and PFDs (big and bulky) which is fine when that is all we are doing. On a road trip with 2 kids now that will get hairy, so I am looking at maybe getting a roof box.

Here are some of the cars that I like or at least think I will like:


GM Lambda Platform
This platform is a year or so old. I am really looking at the upcoming Chevy Traverse. It will be the first to get a Direct Ignition engine which boosts power and fuel economy. It should also be the cheapest of the platform. Seats 7 or8, gets decent mileage, good cargo capacity. So far there isn't a Lambda that has a good roof rack solution, sure I could tow, but that is a whole other hassle.

Cadillac CTS Wagon
This car is so hot it hurts. Might be a little pricy, but it looks amazing. The best part: rear or all wheel drive and a manual transmission.

Pontiac G8
A rebadged Holden from down under this car is amazing. I have been wanting to test drive one, but afraid to because I might not be able to sleep again. A RWD, big sedan. The only thing that would be better would be the wagon version, which GM has stupidly decided not to bring to the US. It has a big back seat and plenty of room for the kids. So far no roof rack option. The good news is that this car rocks. It apparently drives like, and can compete with a BMW 5 series.

Chevy Malibu
Good car, cheap. Good fuel economy with the new 4banger- 6 speed auto option. Everyone says it is a good car.

Saturn Astra
A rebadged Opel Astra. This is a great looking car. I don't think it will fit us, but my mom should get one, or it might make a good Vibe replacement.

There is lots of talk about gas prices these days and those with guzzlers are wanting something that gets better mileage. Edmunds has a calculator to let you find out when the fuel savings will start making the trade in cheaper. Trading in the Cavalier for a Prius would start saving us money in 879 months! Thats only a bit over 73 years!

361 months for the Vibe. If I had an 03 Suburban it would start saving me money in only 94 months.

So Bridgit has been complaining of an oil smell when she stops in the Caviler. I drove it today and noticed the same thing. I opened the hood expecting a leak and instead the oil fill cap was just gone, vanished. I swear I put it back when I changed the oil last. The smell has only been for a month or so....weird.

Auto Jerks has a replacement thats pretty cheap so I will pick one up tomorrow, and do oil changes.

On a side note I have been using synthetic oil in the cars because it is better for them, and I can go way longer between changes. Less changes means the oil ends up being cheaper (even though the oil is more expensive per QT) and its also better for the environment. I have been doing about 10k miles between changes instead of the standard 3k. Some say you can go up to 50k with synthetic.

So this week it was announced that the Nissan GT-R (remember the Skyline) whooped it up and did 7:29 around the 'Ring. That is the second fastest time of any production car. The fastest being the Pagani Zonda F at 7:27. As you can probably tell by the name it's a fast/expensive car.

Well today GM has decided to uproot the new occupant for #2. The Chief Engineer of the Corvette says that they new Corvette ZR1 will be able to beat that time.

So Bush is supposed to sign the new CAFE standard today. Sure its nice that we are raising fuel economy standards, but we are doing it in the stupidest way possible.

CAFE is the reason that SUV's make up almost half the vehicles sold. Because there are different standards for Light Trucks and Cars it was too much work to make a station-wagon that was fuel efficient. You just had to lengthen and widen the wheelbase and make it a crossover or just put one a truck frame and your wagon is now a truck and you only have to average 22mpg for your trucks.

Then there are the oddities out there like the PT Cruiser. For mpg it is classified as a tuck because you can remove the back seats.

The other thing that pisses me off is that auto companies get credits for Flex-Fuel vehicles, even though nobody is ever going to put E85 into them. There are only 1,200 E85 stations in the whole country. If you can put E85 into an 18.6mpg truck it magically turns into a 31mpg vehicle.

I just don't know what people are thinking. The best way to help the environment and cut dependence on oil is to use less gas. That means people need smaller more efficient cars, not larger slightly more efficient vehicles that in theory can use biofuel.