Buick or Pontiac could be phased out....

[Nightrage]

First Oldsmobile and then Buick? I saw some more negative press yesterday claiming that the Blazer is the "deadliest car on the road". Everyone still believes in the superiority of foreign cars. Motor Trend just did an article about how overseas, Hyundai is ranker higher in customer satisfaction than Volkswagen and Hyundai's are still being labeled as throw away cars. I know 4 people that have them and of them have any problems. The bigger companies (Toyota, Nissan, etc) already have a positive image so unless they do something horrible, that image isn't going anywhere. I get made fun of for driving a RWD car. Everyone else thinks that FWD is better. Maybe for snow but is FWD really superior to RWD in any other way? The way you guys explained it to me, FWD makes for a poor performance car.

[Rhode Island Red]

Nightrage funny you mention Hyundai... guess how much GM owns of it

[Nightrage]

Nightrage funny you mention Hyundai... guess how much GM owns of it

Mucho? 70%?

[Rhode Island Red]

Oops It was Daewoo that GM owns a giant chunk of. Daimler/Chrysler owns 10% of Hyundai . Look at Subaru ...

General Motors owns:
-Buick
-Cadillac
-Chevrolet
-Daewoo (GM owns 44%)
-Fiat (GM owns ~20%) (GM has decided to divorce itself from Fiat as of Feb '05)
-Fuji Heavy Industries (GM owns ~20%)
-GMC
-Holden
-Hummer
-Isuzu (GM only owns a percentage)
-Oldsmobile (brand discontinued)
-Opel
-Pontiac
-Saab
-Saturn
-Subaru (GM owns 20%)
-Suzuki (GM only owns a small percentage)
-Vauxhall

[markd79ta]

I get made fun of for driving a RWD car. Everyone else thinks that FWD is better. Maybe for snow but is FWD really superior to RWD in any other way? The way you guys explained it to me, FWD makes for a poor performance car.

FWD better for performance? Oh goodness...the times we live in. Yep, I just love torque steer, wheel hop, and the shimmy of the drive wheels on the same wheels that I steer with. 'and, I just love to lose the back of my car with no hope of throttle adjustment and recovery. I would like to see one race car that is FWD...not a snow balls chance... They are nothing but grocery getters and econo cars...pure and simple. The sport cr@p act market is based on this stuff so naturally they think it is better, but they also think a coffee can on the tail pipe adds 50hp. Stay true...you are on the right path!

[thomas]

Yeah, I have a little dealership. I have 2 2005 300's. One has 16k and the other has 12k on it. There pretty nice. I was thinking on getting one for my wife because like you said theres nothing exciting out there from GM unless you got 50k laying around.

[95TransAm]

Everyone else thinks that FWD is better.

Not me I will say that FWD=better snow traction....but do I care....not at all. My first car was a 96 escort, drove it for about a year, then got the t/a. I will never go back to FWD (hopefully ). It's not that it's necessarily bad, but I absolutely love RWD....so much fun to drive. Drove my t/a through this past chicago winter with my higher stall converter....slid everywhere with no traction whatsoever and still loved it 900 times more so than my escort. My preferance would obviously be not driving my car though in the winter, but I wouldn't mind driving a stock RWD V8 at all.

As for performance....just don't even listen to those people. Just because they watched the fast and the furious, suddenly everyone thinks they are a master tech. Keep in mind, this comes from the movie where Ja Rule (your true technician right there ) looks under the hood and responds with "This kids got enuf nawwwwz to blow himself up. There's also the famous "Granny shiftin not double clutchin' like you should".

If FWD is so much better for performance, then how come the smartest people in the world who could write books on performance and have been building cars their whole lives seem to disagree. LOL, I could just imagine a FWD funny car, top fuel, nascar, or formula one What a disaster that would be.

[Nightrage]

Not me

As for performance....just don't even listen to those people. Just because they watched the fast and the furious, suddenly everyone thinks they are a master tech. Keep in mind, this comes from the movie where Ja Rule (your true technician right there ) looks under the hood and responds with "This kids got enuf nawwwwz to blow himself up. There's also the famous "Granny shiftin not double clutchin' like you should".

Not me either. 2 Fast 2 Furious even made my girlfriend laugh and she doesn't even know how to change oil. They hit the naws and all of a sudden, the world is flashing by like they just broke the sound barrier. A 50 shot isn't going to launch you to mach speed lol. What exactly is double clutching anyhow?

[95TransAm]

What exactly is double clutching anyhow?

Double-clutching is a gear shifting procedure to save wear and tear on your gearbox, and on your clutch, at the expense of a little extra work for your left leg.

Let's say you're accelerating in second gear. When you're ready to shift into third, you decide not to use the standard approach, which is just to tromp on the clutch, take your foot off the gas, shove the shift lever into third, and let the clutch back out. Instead, you opt to double-clutch properly:

First, you take your foot off the gas and kick in the clutch. You shift into neutral, AND let the clutch out. You wait perhaps 0.3 to 1.0 seconds for the engine to slow down from its high revs, depending on how fast you were revving when you started to shift and how much inertia the engine has to slow down. THEN you kick in the clutch and shift into third, and let the clutch out quickly, feeding the gas appropriately. If you have judged it right, when you let the clutch out, there isn't any JERK. And when you shove the lever into third, the gears and engine are at a synchronized speed, so there's minimum wear on the synchronizers, which are the tiny clutches that bring the clutch plate and the gears into smooth synchrony. There's also usually less wear on the clutch plates.

What's the big deal? The main point is that when you try to shift into third gear, the engine has slowed itself and the clutch plate down to the right speed—just about the same speed as the gearbox—so it saves wear on the synchronizers and the clutch. It can also save shock and strain on the whole drive-train, because the speeds are just about synchronized when you let out the clutch.

Double-clutching can aslo be used when down-shifting. You have to shift into neutral and then blip the throttle momentarily before you shift into the lower gear. It requires practice and a good feel, a good touch, to do it right, especially considering the embarrassing noises you make if you miss your shift into a low gear on a crash-box. For example, you should aim to have the revs just a little high, so if you miss, the engine will soon slow down, and then gears will be at the right speed to mesh and the cogs will slip in....

Smooth transitions are everthing in racing. If you're downshifting during a turn at a road course and you're cornering at the limit, a sudden lurch in your car isn't going to be too pretty. Say hello to the curb/barrier or whatever is going to catch you when you spin out. Double clutch properly, and you'll be faster/smoother at the track.

Most modern streetcars don't need double-clutching, because they have a synchromesh transmission, in which the synchronizers decide which pair of gears to connect to their shaft.

~I knew a shortened answer, but decided to give you a proper answer with more explanation courtesy of some web site I just went to

[Nightrage]

While we're at it, funny story-

Last night a "racially confused" white kid that i work with was talking to his friend. I happened to overhear as they were about 5 feet away. The conversation goes like this-
"Yo, um gitten a shift light. Hundred bucks and slap that s--- right in son"
"Oh word?"
Not only does the kid have a stock Honda Civic but it's an automatic as well. What use does he have for a shift light?

[TraceZ]

Not me either. 2 Fast 2 Furious even made my girlfriend laugh and she doesn't even know how to change oil. They hit the naws and all of a sudden, the world is flashing by like they just broke the sound barrier. A 50 shot isn't going to launch you to mach speed lol. What exactly is double clutching anyhow?

You do "double clutching" on the upshift:

lift off => depress the clutch => switch into neutral => release the clutch => depress the clutch => switch into a higher gear => release the clutch => step on the gas.

You do "double declutching" on the downshift:

lift off => depress the clutch => switch into neutral => release the clutch => [blip the throttle, increasing rpm in order to match the higher rpm of the secondary shaft in the gearbox needed for the bigger DIA lower gear] => depress the clutch => switch into a lower gear => release the clutch => step on the gas.

[markd79ta]

What exactly is double clutching anyhow?

You can pull out of gear and put into gear on the downcycle of your RPMs; you don't need a clutch. The big rigs drive this way, and most people who drive the big trucks. After they start out in first, they never use the clutch again. I drove my K5 this way. I doubt that I would drive any of my muscle cars this way; if I cared about them. If you mess up when grabbing gears hard...OPPS off to the builder you go!!!

[Nightrage]

Isn't that just a lot of extra strain on the clutch? Speaking of clutches, last week, my buddy Rich came home from school. I figured, what the heck. We ripped around in it but it seems like whenever i shift into a gear and hop off the clutch fast, it doesn't seem to grab well. Another problem is that when i launch, i feather out the clutch and hop on the gas but it seems like there's a little bit of lag to it. Could my clutch be going? It doesn't seem like it's grabbing.

[TraceZ]

You can pull out of gear and put into gear on the downcycle of your RPMs; you don't need a clutch. The big rigs drive this way, and most people who drive the big trucks. After they start out in first, they never use the clutch again. I drove my K5 this way. I doubt that I would drive any of my muscle cars this way; if I cared about them. If you mess up when grabbing gears hard...OPPS off to the builder you go!!!

no. What you describe is clutchless shifting. "Double clutching" is as I explained above.

[markd79ta]

You do "double clutching" on the upshift:

lift off => depress the clutch => switch into neutral => release the clutch => depress the clutch => switch into a higher gear => release the clutch => step on the gas.

You do "double declutching" on the downshift:

lift off => depress the clutch => switch into neutral => release the clutch => [blip the throttle, increasing rpm in order to match the higher rpm of the secondary shaft in the gearbox needed for the bigger DIA lower gear] => depress the clutch => switch into a lower gear => release the clutch => step on the gas.

I learned that the throttle was your clutch, let of the gas, pull out of gear, throttle, put into gear, and go. You don't use the actual clutch; you double clutch with the throttle...shift on the down revs.