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  #121  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2013, 4:29 PM
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Originally Posted by 240glt View Post
I bet half of the Impalas you see on the road have a laptop on the front passenger seat, an overnight bag in the back seat and a set of golf clubs in the trunk
When the W-body finally reaches its long-overdue retirement sometime next year, the slow-selling current Malibu will likely be the one inheriting the "fleet queen" role, so if you don't yet agree that it's fully a businessman's car/salesman's car, just wait a couple years, and then we can expect that this business/rental aura will eventually also spread to the previous generation car like Copes'...

(Which in LTZ trim is one of the nicest midsizes on the roads IMO!)
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  #122  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2013, 4:34 PM
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  #123  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2013, 4:41 PM
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Originally Posted by 240glt View Post
I'd call it a salesman's car. Very popular with people who work on the road.

I bet half of the Impalas you see on the road have a laptop on the front passenger seat, an overnight bag in the back seat and a set of golf clubs in the trunk


I've rented a few Impalas over the last few years. I don't mind them at all.
You sir have just described by Dad's 2001 Impala. He sold it a couple of years back but is looking at another Impala now, and yes, he does a lot of travel.
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  #124  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2013, 10:57 PM
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What's the deal with the black unadorned rims that look like a throwback to the days when rims came with detachable hubcaps? I'm seeing them all over the place these days. They're really hideous. They look vaguely military.

It's a real trend. For the life of me, I can't understand why. I guess that makes me not young anymore. The process of dumbing down, uglifying and infantilizing North American life seems to grow ever more complete. Cars used to be the last holdout: Mom might be obese, and she might think that putting on the nice pink sweatpants for the trip to the supermarket was a touch of class, but her new SUV would look shiny and flashy on the highway. "People of Walmart" ogres would emerge from a sportyish car that might not have looked out of place in Monaco. But now even the wheels, which can often make or break the appearance of a car, are becoming bland and black, a utilitarian affront to the idea of style or good looks.

Soon we'll live in pods.
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  #125  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2013, 10:59 PM
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In my case, I have the plain, black rims on my winter tires. Initially I was paying a garage to put my winter tires on the alloy rims my car came with - all I had were the treads.

But then I decided to buy cheap, plain rims for my winter tires so that I could change them myself.
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  #126  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 4:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 240glt View Post
I'd call it a salesman's car. Very popular with people who work on the road.

I bet half of the Impalas you see on the road have a laptop on the front passenger seat, an overnight bag in the back seat and a set of golf clubs in the trunk


I've rented a few Impalas over the last few years. I don't mind them at all.
I like Impalas because they are the epitome of "WYSIWYG". No pretensions, no ambitions of grandeur, just a big American car with a big American engine and fleet-proven reliability. Big GM vehicles are excellent for long-distance highway travel. I'm going to be sad to see the last W-body Impalas roll off the line next year (as will the Oshawa assembly plant).

Quote:
Originally Posted by rousseau View Post
What's the deal with the black unadorned rims that look like a throwback to the days when rims came with detachable hubcaps? I'm seeing them all over the place these days. They're really hideous. They look vaguely military.

It's a real trend. For the life of me, I can't understand why. I guess that makes me not young anymore. The process of dumbing down, uglifying and infantilizing North American life seems to grow ever more complete. Cars used to be the last holdout: Mom might be obese, and she might think that putting on the nice pink sweatpants for the trip to the supermarket was a touch of class, but her new SUV would look shiny and flashy on the highway. "People of Walmart" ogres would emerge from a sportyish car that might not have looked out of place in Monaco. But now even the wheels, which can often make or break the appearance of a car, are becoming bland and black, a utilitarian affront to the idea of style or good looks.

Soon we'll live in pods.
They're called winter rims, mate. People buy them because they don't feel like paying $200 a wheel for alloys, because they don't feel like paying $200 a season to install tires, and because removing/remounting your tires reduces their service life. I'm actually going to have to buy a new set of winters for next season (my current ones are down to about 4/32" of tread), so I'm looking around the scrapyards to see if I can find some decent-looking Saturn L-series plastic wheel covers to put over the black steel wheels that I also plan to buy.
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  #127  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 4:11 AM
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What do you guys think of the Echo hatchback?

I tend to have a hardon for Hondas, but from what research I've done, a 2005 Echo seems to be pretty reliable and very fuel efficient, and also a lot cheaper than a Civic of the same age and mileage. And the hatchback isn't as butt-ugly as the sedan version. It's actually mildly attractive to my eyes. Certainly more so than the newer Yaris.
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  #128  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 4:24 AM
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Yeah I have black steelies for my winter tires, and since I have a black car it doesn't look too bad. The biggest reason I decided to buy them is because I don't care if they get dirty or scratched and they are dirt cheap (about $60 each). If you really don't like the plain industrial look, then you could easily put some hub caps on them...
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  #129  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 2:20 PM
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Buy new rims for summer driving use stock rims for winter tires. That is the first thing i did for my SHO and Audi A3.
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  #130  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 2:45 PM
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I just finished paying off my 2008 Civic! Woohoo!

It's all stock but its worth it - I'm not a car mod kinda guy.
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  #131  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 4:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wharn View Post
They're called winter rims, mate.
Shows you how much I know. I'm in Stratford, where people actually do put snow tires on. But I grew up in Hamilton, where nobody uses snow tires. You don't need them there.

Though I don't bother with snow tires anyway. I don't drive very much, and if the weather's crazy I don't drive at all. Thing is, I've really noticed more of these black rims lately. I think more people are using them, aren't they?
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  #132  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 4:59 PM
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They're "required by law" in many places now. In St. John's, for example, you hear radio adverts letting you know when you must have them on by. But I'm not sure if it's actually a law, or enforced.

It's our equivalent of the U.S. drone program. It has a fuzzy legal basis.
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  #133  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 5:10 PM
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You can get by fine in Calgary with all seasons, but if you like driving in the mountains you need winter tires. The plus side of winter tires is you can get better performance tires for summer. My next car will use the stock wheels for winters and buy nice wheels for summer. As long as the stock rims aren't low profile anyway, winters get really expensive when low profile, and I don't think they perform as well as they are too hard (softer tires with big sidewalls have more rubber in contact with the road thus providing more grip).
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  #134  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2013, 5:37 PM
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When I ran my Volvo year round I ran 14" steelies and Nokians. Perfect traction even up over the high mountain Coquihalla highway in the middle of blizzards. Plus I could change from my summer low-pros to the winters in my garage with a trolley jack in about 20 minutes... perfect for Vancouver becuase you don't want to run around that city on winters for five months.. you'll kill the tires.

I don't bother with winters on my 4WD Toyota. that truck will push snow up over the hood with the A/T tires I have on it.
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  #135  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2013, 9:52 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rousseau View Post
Shows you how much I know. I'm in Stratford, where people actually do put snow tires on. But I grew up in Hamilton, where nobody uses snow tires. You don't need them there.

Though I don't bother with snow tires anyway. I don't drive very much, and if the weather's crazy I don't drive at all. Thing is, I've really noticed more of these black rims lately. I think more people are using them, aren't they?
You probably should have winter tires regardless of whether or not you drive in snowstorms. Regular tires lose a lot of their grip once temperatures start falling below 7 degrees, so if you have the softer winters on you will see an improvement in stopping distance and possibly even handling. But I like the fact that you have the sense to not head out into snowsqualls with all-seasons. I see far too many people struggling with them here in southwestern Ontario, they're just accidents waiting to happen.

On the topic of 4WD... everyone, please keep in mind this is a performance feature and not a safety feature. At the end of the day you still have two wheels steering and four wheels braking. It will be the rubber that determines how much extra grip you get in those situations.
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  #136  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2013, 3:06 AM
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My black rims are Ultralight weight (12lbs) racing rims from spoon.
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  #137  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2013, 3:52 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgarian View Post
Yeah I have black steelies for my winter tires, and since I have a black car it doesn't look too bad. The biggest reason I decided to buy them is because I don't care if they get dirty or scratched and they are dirt cheap (about $60 each). If you really don't like the plain industrial look, then you could easily put some hub caps on them...
I use them for this reason as well. Winter can be hard on wheels, especially if you have low profile tires. I don't feel like subjecting the nice 18s that come stock with my car to it. I'd rather pay 60 bucks to replace a steel wheel than however many hundreds of dollars my stock wheels cost.
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  #138  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2013, 7:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wharn View Post

On the topic of 4WD... everyone, please keep in mind this is a performance feature and not a safety feature. At the end of the day you still have two wheels steering and four wheels braking. It will be the rubber that determines how much extra grip you get in those situations.
Oh I agree that winters would be better... but I don't see the value for the truck, given how much traction it gets with the higher end A/T tires I have on it. Plus being a manual I have the ability to slow all four wheels and maintain traction a lot better. I've probably logged hundreds of thousands of K's in extreme winter weather on all kinds of roads.. never had a problem in either my RWD Volvos with good quality winters, or in my 4WD trucks with very good A/T tires
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  #139  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2013, 9:47 PM
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Here's my car. If anyone can guess what it is from the pic, they get the grand prize.


Rear View by Surrealplaces, on Flickr
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  #140  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2013, 10:26 PM
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