Last March I flew home Spirit from Tampa and got the Grand Prix and drove back to FL, 1,500 miles, solo.
A thousand miles later, stopping only for gas, my wife and especially my daughter (almost cried into phone), forced me to get a motel on far side of Atlanta.
I didn’t need/want to stop. They wanted me to stop. My point is how comfortable that car is for me to drive. I have a hip that complains in sometimes an hour behind the wheel in almost any car. No problem in the GP. Good seating (It’s like sitting in a hand!), visibility, controls, sound system, HVAC, etcetera…
What’s that worth?
Total waste…All the few hours I tried to sleep (felt like I was still driving in bed!) did for me was to waste time and make me feel tired for the last 500 leg. I stayed in bed a few hours, got up, and got out of there, no shower, no pool, no work-out room, no complimentary breakfast, ha, ha. CSA
At our facility, there are many other tradesman besides mechanics . . . plumbers, hvac, machinists, welders, pool crew, electricians, etc.
Anyways, one of the pool crew guys drives an older Buick or Oldsmobile as his personal vehicle. It appears to be a little older than your Grand Prix. He comes by in the afternoon, after his shift, to check the fluids, check his tire pressure, and talk with us. He does this because he doesn’t have strong mechanical skills, when it comes to automobiles , and he sometimes asks for advice. I noticed he had the hood up one day and came over to look. It had the naturally aspirated 3.8 liter V6, series 2, I believe. I said the engine might very well outlive the rest of the car
What’s Spirit . . . a budget airline, or one of the big boy’s subsidiaries?
At least you don’t have feet that tend to fall asleep . . . that happens to me, on certain vehicles, after a time
I have found that it’s extremely important to have controls that are easy to use . . . and within reach. That typically means power controls for everything. Kind of hard to adjust a manual mirror on the passenger’s side while on the freeway. Of course, you shoud have everything adjusted before setting off, I would think. One of the features I particularly like is the steering wheel audio controls. Even briefly taking your eyes off the road to change stations or increase the volume could lead to something
First ride on Spirit. It is a budget airline, but I was very impressed. One-Way Non-stop in a newish Airbus A320, quiet, fast, comfortable, and very inexpensive.
Compared with a round-trip to FL in August to Sarasota and back on Delta it was much nicer. Delta had me in one of there old venerable MD-88’s (They are updating fleet ASAP) and parked my butt next to the very loud engine (no window) back by the restrooms. It wasn’t non-stop, the lay-over in Atlanta was hideous and not even free soft drinks and snacks won me over.
Bringing it back to cars, Tampa and Sarasota are easy to get into and out of in cars, very convenient. CSA
It’s not just your theory. All the people who track reliability acknowledge the margin between the top and the bottom of manufacturing quality has narrowed significantly, and GM has never been a slouch in the ratings, unlike Chrysler.
I did that on purpose. There is still a myth floating around, for instance, that the old boxy Volvos were great cars.
What they had was good bodies, good seats and they were safe for their era. I worked with several engineers who had these cars and they had all sorts of other problems that US cars did not have.
I also worked for a Swedish company and never were we even encouraged to buy Volvos or SAABS. Instead the Swedish visitors for head office always liked out “big American Cars”.
The cheapest econobox today from Japan or Korea has better quality that luxury cars from the 60s.
