Re: Soldering irons: made in America but designed in Russia?

I should h "There are probably 200 US cars with this sort of styling [Chrysler

300] for every US car that looks like this [Chrysler ME] and that one is still very angular."

Of course that Chrysler ME 4-12 is a concept car and not for sale.

This is not a concept car and you can actually buy one for a reasonable price. I lately had the pleasure and that thing sure corners well. Best of all, on the freeway it doesn't use more gas than a compact passenger car:

Same here:

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

The Corvette and Viper are lovely cars. They're not exactly typical of American design.

That's what I meant when I said there are probably 200 cars which have that "hit a brick wall" look for every one which looks sleek and smooth.

They are as American as it gets ;-)

Well, I am not a great fan of US passenger cars. Not because of the looks (where I could care less because that doesn't matter to me as a buyer) but because of reliability. US trucks, however, are real work horses and they don't really have any EU equivalent. AFAIK only two foreign companies, Toyota and Nissan, make such trucks.

Then, the little Jeep looks quite cool.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Ahhh - seppos in attendance!

Neither of the above match the fuel economy of my proper sized passenger car.

--
And remember kids, RAID is safe and the UPS never fails, and Cisco routers 
never develop intermittent faults, and external hard drives never fail with 

To be fair, they did try to make it look like a Bentley!

Is the Chrysler ME anything like Windows ME?

Jeep reliability and build quality is, however, a bad joke. I've had the opportunity to compare ten year old Jeeps (Cherokee and Grand Cherokee) with my ten year old Ford - the Jeeps have all been in poor condition at lower mileage. I've also found the Dodge/GMC trucks to be better built than Jeeps, which seems odd. I conly guess that the old AMC spirit of building rubbish that falls apart still prevails at Jeep.

Allus Smith wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.albasani.net:

Chrysler got that design -from- their crash testing. B-)

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Jim Yanik
jyanik

Have you ever driven a Corvette? What was the gas mileage?

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Joerg gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've never driven one. Nobody this side of the pond feels they need to compensate quite that badly for such a tiny penis.

But, fortunately, we can refer to the official figures.

That'll be

btw.

The extra-urban number for the 'vette is 31.4mpg. Quite impressive, I'll agree, given the type of vehicle.

But not exactly comparable with the official extra-urban figure for a "compact passenger car" - let's say a 1.6TDCi Focus. 74.3mpg.

If you look at the much more representative combined figure, the Focus achieves 62.8mpg vs 21.2 for the 'vette. That's the "economical" 6.2 'vette - the 7.0 Z06 and supercharged ZR1 are worse, of course.

As for the Viper... The official figures for the SRT10 roadster (only Viper we get through official channels, so the only official figures) are

21.4 extra-urban and 13.4 combined.

The Excursion is holding up spectacularly well. 125k mainly urban miles and nothing serious has fallen off or broken in close to seven years. Trim doesn't squeak or rattle (but is resolutely 'hard touch'), leather is as new, engine is still near-silent and incredibly smooth, gearbox is obscenely smooth shifting and responsive. I'm amazed how good it's been.

It's needed a couple of wheel bearings (understandable at 5 tons, up from 3 ton 'standard' weight), an alternator (again understandable with extra electrical loads) and the AC radiator changing (once again, extra load compared to factory spec).

Only things that have broken that you could reasonably blame Ford for are a coil pack went down at 110k miles (£27) and the fuel tank sender has packed in, but only to the gauge - the computer still knows how much fuel is in there.

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Pete M - OMF#9

Range Rover V8 Turbo

I once saw a "tractor pull" where one of the events was a mud "race". With all of the monster trucks, 6' tires, noise, and noise, the only vehicle that actually made it to the end of the mud run was a dolled up WWII Willys Jeep. (well, most likely a replica, but it was shaped just like the jeeps on MASH and such.)

Cheers! Rich

I once had a neighbor who was a car guy; he once said, "There's nothin' doggier than a stock 'vette."

Cheers! Rich