akirby

Shocking.......

Generally speaking to increase GVWR you increase the suspension load capacity and possibly the tires too. The difference between the GVWR and curb weight gives you the max payload. If you can decrease curb weight you can increase payload (keeping GVWR the same). You can always exceed the factory rating a little but you run the risk of adverse handling at least and if you do it too often or go too far over you could damage something.

Please provide a specific driving situation where the new Taurus would be less safe than the old one. You still have rear visibility. You still have side mirrors. Even in a high cube van you still have side mirrors. Same for semi trucks. You can see what you need to see. Backing into another car in a parking lot is not a safety issue. And if you can't see directly behind the vehicle in any vehicle then you don't back up until you check behind you first.

Yes - IA is disabled until you unlock the vehicle with the keypad.

So you think continuing to spend like a drunken sailor is the way to fix the mess he inherited? That's the problem with all the partisan shenanigans - every time one party does something the other party interprets it as an attack and starts deflecting. Even if the idea itself is good. What is good for the country gets lost in the battle. It's not about doing the right thing - it's about your party winning and the other party losing. If you take parties out of the picture then the solution of extending the debt ceiling now in exchange for the promise of a balanced budget within 2 years is perfectly reasonable. Unless you're a democrat and it's proposed by a republican. And yes - it works the other way too. If we don't stop all the rah rah college football my team is great and your team sucks partisanship - we're all going to be screwed.

Look at it this way - what good does it do to shut off the engine when the fob is out of range? The only advantage I see is that you don't have to turn off the vehicle when you get out. But what if the fob falls out of your pocket inside the vehicle? You get out and it stays unlocked and keeps running. That's not good. All of those potential problems just so the driver doesn't have to turn off the vehicle. Not a good tradeoff IMO.

I am not giving the Republicans a free pass on anything. They've been almost as bad as the Democrats. My point was that someone finally stood up and tried to put a stake in the ground and say that the overspending needs to stop here. It should have been done years before - no argument there. But to say that it was wrong is just partisan bias. They offered a compromise - extend the ceiling now but agree to balance the budget before it needs to be raised again. Democrats think government spending is good and more government spending is better - as long as somebody else is footing the bill. And they don't seem to understand basic financial tenets about revenue and debt and living within your means. Republicans understand it but can't bring themselves to make cuts that affect their home states or pet projects. If you agree we need to curtail spending and stop deficit spending then don't villify the people who tried to do exactly that. if you think we need to continue deficit spending then you need to have your head examined.

Just because YOU can't follow along doesn't make it idiotic. The fact that a new Taurus has a higher rear deck and/or a smaller rear window does not make it less safe. The reasons why you would want a backup camera apply equally to older cars and newer cars. I had to adjust to my Fusion due to the high rear deck. It was annoying at first but in no way was it less safe than my previous car.

If 2 officers have to fire 16 shots to take down one perpetrator from a few feet away and hit 3 bystanders directly and many more with shrapnel - they should not be carrying guns. It's that simple. And the original point was that the headline was implying that the perpetrator went on a shooting spree hitting numerous innocent people and that wasn't even close to the truth.

Why do you keep harping on backup cameras? I said that having more rear visibility is always better. But that doesn't mean that having slightly LESS is a SAFETY problem. I'm talking about the difference between a 2004 Taurus and a 2013 Taurus. The 2013 Taurus probably does have a little less rear visilbility than the 2004. But you can still see behind you so it's not a safety problem any more than a work truck or semi. A 2 year old that can't be seen behind a 2013 Taurus also can't be seen behind a 2004 Taurus. Therefore the 2013 Taurus is not less safe. A backup camera DOES make any vehicle safer because it lets you see things you can't possibly see from inside the car. But that wasn't the issue.

That's what I said - the cleaning process is the same as other wheels. They're just telling you not to use chrome cleaner because they're not really chrome. But you shouldn't use chrome cleaner on any wheels.

I'm not suggesting that having better rear visibility is not good - it is. But please tell me how not being able to see directly behind the vehicle is a safety issue. I'm driving forward, not backwards. Anything I might hit is either in front of me or to the side of me which I can clearly see with mirrors and by turning my head. If somebody hits me from behind that's their fault, not mine, and being able to see them right before they hit you isn't going to help. And it's not like these cars have no rear visibility at all. Please explain how a car with slightly less rear visibility is a safety issue.

"Want to see me run to the Grand Canyon and back?" "Want to see it again?"

I don't understand how poor rear visibility is a safety issue. In college I drove a high cube delivery van with NO rear visibility at all. That's why you have side mirrors. Backing out of a parking space is the only time I can see that it's a problem and that's certainly not a "safety" issue per se.

Can GM even spell ROI?

You can't put music on the Navigation SD card if that's what you're thinking. That would only work on a non-nav vehicle.

They fired 16 times at a suspect a few feet away and only hit him 3 times but managed to hit 3 bystanders. Yes, it was heat of the moment, adrenalin, etc. but that's why they train.

Of course you can play mp3s from the usb flash drives. I've heard you can do it from the SD card but not sure. Even if you could I don't see the point with 2 usb ports.

They don't care. They really don't. They believe they are the authority and that they're protecting consumers from themselves. All car reviews are biased unless they only include statistics. You just have to understand the bias of the one you're reading at the time and make your own decisions.

Here is another one that truly drives me crazy. We have DirecTV and when you're on the playlist you can hit OK and you get a second screen where you can play, resume, delete and a few other things. My wife will select a show to watch, hit ok, then select play. When she's finished watching it returns to that screen and you have to scroll down and hit delete, then go back to the playlist. Or you can just hit Play from the playlist and when you stop watching it goes back to the playlist and you hit the red button to delete. Why on earth would you go to another screen when you can just hit play? I asked her to watch something the other day and she did it and I lost it. It drives me nuts. Then again, when I drive her Edge I pull directly into the garage. There is plenty of room to make the turn as long as you go all the way over to the left side of the driveway and turn sharply. When she parks, she pulls all the way forward, backs up, then goes into the garage. Did I mention that this drives me NUTS!?

Me too! Wait - is that redundant? I spent too many years with ksh and vi.

Why is the problem always "not enough revenue" as opposed to "we need to spend less"? If we were spending less then we would not have approached the debt ceiling in the first place and it would not have been an issue. Tell me when we're supposed to cut spending - or do you still think it's ok to keep going the way we're going even with increased tax revenue?

Will somebody please explain to me when, exactly, are we supposed to stop overspending? Or do you think it's ok that we just keep extending the debt ceiling ad infinitum? Don't we have to put a stake in the ground at some point and cut spending rather than raise the debt higher and higher?

She was an intern. Any business executive who did that would have been fired and sued for sexual harassment. Doing it outside of work with women who don't work for you is fine. Doing it in your office with an intern is sexual predation and sexual harassment. He had the power to fire her if she had said no to his advances - that's the power in a business relationship and it has nothing to do with politics. There is no way you guys can defend that.

You mean it had nothing to do with being in debt up to our eyeballs and CONTINUING to spend like drunken sailors? You act as if raising the debt ceiling was the only possible solution. If your credit card is maxed out does the bank just keep raising your limit indeftinitely or do you stop spending? You're blaming the people who were trying to act rationally and frugally when you should have been blaming the ones who can't balance their checkbooks. And the Democrats did EXACTLY the same thing when the Republicans were in power. Everything you accuse the Republicans of doing is also done by the Democrats and sometimes they're worse. We're never going to get anywhere as long as both sides only care about defeating the other side.