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Nissan Maxima 3.5 SV Sport: Design/Fit and Finish

The interior drew universal praise, though, with a design and craftsmanship worthy of its luxury-car price. In fact, the Maxima's cabin is probably a tad nicer than that of Infiniti's G35. Buttons and knobs move with well-damped precision, while the dash and sill tops are covered in a soft-touch material. The subtle red stitching on the various black leather surfaces is a nice detail. If there was one complaint, it would be that the faux metallic trim found on the Sport package lacks the posh ambience imparted by the Premium package's convincing wood-tone trim.

Toyota Prius Performance

The conductor of this propulsive symphony is Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive, and specifically its complex variant of a continuously variable transmission. It commands up to 76 horsepower and 82 pound-feet of torque from the gas engine, while the electric motor kicks in 67 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque. Due to varying peak outputs, maximum combined hp is 110. During performance testing, our 2009 Prius test car cantered from zero to 60 mph in 10.3 seconds. That's about a second slower than the typical four-cylinder family sedan's performance, but it's downright quick compared with the Honda Civic Hybrid's 13.5-second stroll.

Test Drive: 2008 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4WD

The One-Time Champion of SUVs Is Past Its Prime

Vehicle Tested: 2008 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4dr SUV 4WD (4.6L 8cyl 6A)
Pros: Smooth ride for a truck-based SUV, spacious and quiet interior, decent towing specs.
Cons: Expensive options, weak engine compared to competing SUVs, nonintuitive placement of some interior features, low-grade interior materials.

For more than a decade, the Ford Explorer was at the top of the midsize SUV heap. From its introduction, the truck-based utility vehicle was a hit, and its success subsequently sent other automakers scrambling to develop (or improve) SUVs of their own. But in recent years, competitors have rolled out superior products and many consumers have shied away from SUVs altogether in favor of smaller crossovers. Sales of the Explorer have plummeted.

BRIAN J STRASNICK DR

Saturn Astra XR Coupe Performance

On the track, our 2009 Saturn Astra Coupe didn't break any records. It made it from zero to 60 mph in an underwhelming 8.9 seconds and reached the quarter-mile in 16.6 seconds at 83.9 mph. Through the slalom, the Astra's average speed was 66.4 mph. We felt quite a bit of body roll, but the car was still fairly confident and easy to drive. Brakes were average; our three-door stopped from 60 mph in 126 feet.

Test Drive: 2007 Acura MDX - Design/Fit and Finish

The MDX was redesigned for 2007, so it has a fresh look. The prominent front end isn't for everyone, although it is in keeping with the nose-y look of all current Acuras. It makes the MDX look like it has a little more attitude than, say, the Lexus RX, which looks soft and feminine by comparison.

Like most Honda and Acura products, the 2007 Acura MDX is screwed together quite nicely. Body panel gaps are tight and there are no glaring oversights inside, where the MDX looks upscale without being ostentatious. Ergonomics are excellent, which is especially notable given the high button count on the dash. Navigation and audio functions are controlled via a large knob in the middle of the center stack, which works quite nicely, too.


Test Drive: 2008 BMW 1 Series 135i Convertible


Design/Fit and Finish

We've already touched on the 1 Series' strange styling, so we won't belabor the point. Inside, it's much more attractive. Our 2008 BMW 135i sported the optional leather seats, done up in Coral Red as part of the distinctive red and black two-tone interior color scheme. Along with real wood trim, this imbued the cabin with a suitably upscale ambience for a $40,000-plus car. Build quality was tight with the exception of the wood strip over the center stack, which had a slight gap behind it.

DR BRIAN STRASNICK : Test Drive: 2008 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4WD

The One-Time Champion of SUVs Is Past Its Prime

Vehicle Tested: 2008 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4dr SUV 4WD (4.6L 8cyl 6A)
Pros: Smooth ride for a truck-based SUV, spacious and quiet interior, decent towing specs.
Cons: Expensive options, weak engine compared to competing SUVs, nonintuitive placement of some interior features, low-grade interior materials.

For more than a decade, the Ford Explorer was at the top of the midsize SUV heap. From its introduction, the truck-based utility vehicle was a hit, and its success subsequently sent other automakers scrambling to develop (or improve) SUVs of their own. But in recent years, competitors have rolled out superior products and many consumers have shied away from SUVs altogether in favor of smaller crossovers. Sales of the Explorer have plummeted.






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Six years. Happy blogaversary.

Over the blog hill, I would assume, but I recently learned from another blogger that the first Internet journal appeared fifteen years ago in 1994. I have a long way to catch up.

My first entry appeared far too long for the guy who introduced me to MindSay. He had established his account as one of the one-hundred series bloggers. I was blogger number two hundred forty-two. The numbers have since vanished, but I still remember mine from when MindSay used the LiveJournal (LJ) platform. Looking back on the entry... it actually does look too long for an introduction.

But I did not care! This new "blog" space was intended just for me, and I had my small tight-knit network of two blogging friends that included this gentleman who exposed me to my six-year addiction & one of his friends. I searched for other users, and I was able to find verd & beloved Ms. Lo among us veterans. My small audience was perfect at the time. I was able to blog with unabashed solipsism free of any criticism.

After several weeks of virtual anonymity here on MindSay, waves of cliques & droves of teens flocked to my new blogging home. It was only a few years later that I would find out that MindSay really had not yet opened for business at the time that I joined. In any event, I did not know if my small tight-knit network of two blogging friends & I would fit into the new crowd.

Weeks later, my two friends left.

By this point, however, I had befriended some of these eccentric cliques, like Kynthiae, & Tennessee teens, like Hannah. The influx was something like a new generation of bloggers. These bloggers, clearly familiar with the LJ format, had amazing layouts. In fact, they had some amazing entries too. They had this journal thing down to an art, but what made MindSay special was its AIMbot tool to update & its use of channels to meet like-minded bloggers. No wonder MindSay attracted this new generation. During this era, I learned that the best communication with these new bloggers was via reply rather than by writing entries.

Maybe two years passed, and our fearless leaders, Brian & Adam, readied MindSay for a new direction. Versions 1 & 2 of MindSay utilised the LJ platform. Version 3 was MindSay's break from the established format to a new rich text editor with layout templates. Channels disappeared, and the AIMbot tool became obsolete.

So rigid was our creativity that several users left mercilessly altogether.

Focus from blogs eventually shifted to the community. How many more pictures could a user upload for a header image? No longer could we hide portions of our entries behind "cut-tags", and our user images remained frozen. Animated avatars are like a novelty these days. With this new sentiment on MindSay, in poured a new generation of bloggers like Mycki & Shiny. Instead of the edgy, young crowd from the last wave, an older, more mature crowd borne into a blogging site focused primarily on the community ultimately re-grounded me to my initial narcissistic point of blogging. The phenomenon had an opposite effect, and I retreated to my current Friends-Only blog to log all of my daily thoughts & events.


***

Years later, I witnessed the rise & fall of such sites as MySpace & Friendster. I joined & left Friendster years ago because one of my Grenobloise friends used it & left. I never joined the cluttered mess that was MySpace, and after several months of my friends urging me to sign up for a Facebook account, I finally gave in to the peer pressure about two months ago. I doubt I will ever join Twitter though. Facebook became my way to interact with others, and MindSay became my site to quietly vent, sometimes about the Facebook friends. Not that venting is necessarily bad under the name of Andreux, but I certainly talk about them often. Get-togethers, opinions, humourous anecdotes... all of it stored right here for six years.

But now I am seeing some bloggers talk about leaving MindSay, saying that the site is not what it used to be. What was MindSay? Was it a place for the community? Was it a stomping ground for dazzling HTML/CSS skills? Was it the small, humble site that only a few of us knew before the masses invaded with their extraordinary layouts & sophisticated groups?

MindSay for me was always what I made of it. When the teens flooded, the site was a scenester neighbourhood. When the mature crew arrived, I shaped up my blog. One of the simplest, most important lessons that I ever learned about blogging is that the author can make whatever they want of their space:

If he wants to criticise the government by way of political articles, then ravager can;

If she wants to post silly questionnaires & surveys, then Kristin can;

If she wants to document the highs & lows of love, then beccasays can;

If she wants to talk the worst shit possible, then Jayme can;

If he wants to exhibit the prose of amateur fiction, then TheMariner can;

If he wants to post just a picture, then yes, Kuya can;

And if he wants to talk about what to talk about on a blog, then damnit, I can. We can. We all can! There are simply no bounds to the insight within the minds of hundreds, thousands, possibly millions of writers wherever you are. We speak, we scream, we flirt, and we snitch. The fact remains that our voices keep MindSay alive.

And we can bring down a site by leaving too. We can render MindSay into nothing if we make it that way.

The exodus around this place has proven to be cyclical. It is almost a necessary evil for this place to flourish again. Once every two years, the masses threaten to vanish, possibly ushering in the next generation. I never look to the next generation. They always come to me as a surprise.

We control what happens, and when the control is lost, the sentiment falls to chaos. MindSay is not dead. Six years later, I can say that MindSay is more vibrant now than my small company of four friends in the beginning. Since the first day, MindSay has gradually grown to the chatter that we see today. I do not doubt that bloggers will leave, but to say that MindSay is different, I ask what could you expect? To say that MindSay is dead is a skewed vision of what this place is now. Like a living organism, MindSay will change, and the generations will continue to surprise me.

Dear Andreux,

I hope I do you justice.

Your loving author,
Andrew

Current Mood: Proud panda
Current Music: Fragma - "Toca's Miracle"

(Yeah, some LJ things never die)

 

Ford Escape Hybrid Well, good luck with the first one, but we can at least tell you that there's an SUV out there without the typical nasty side effects. You know, going broke at the pump, slurping up a finite resource, warming the planet, feeling embarrassed in front of Priuses.

Pontiac G8 V6 Function There's nothing exceptionally good or bad about the G8's interior from an ergonomic standpoint. Most controls are logically placed and work as expected. The only exception is the optional Blaupunkt audio system. There are no gross errors here either, but a few features take time to master. For example, depressing the volume knob doesn't turn the stereo off; it just mutes it. Even then, "mute" doesn't mean "silent." In true quirky Aussie form, pressing the mute knob just means "less loud." To change radio stations manually, you have to press the "disc" button that also controls the CD changer. Finally, if you have the factory preset equalizer switched on, you cannot then modify the sound by adjusting bass and treble. You have to go into the menu, turn off EQ, then adjust bass and the rest. Unfortunately, this little piece of info isn't obvious right away.

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Nissan Maxima 3.5 SV Sport: Design/Fit and Finish The Maxima is one of those cars that looks striking from certain angles and awkward from others — particularly the unique headlights that drew mixed reactions from our editors. Nevertheless, the Maxima looks much better in the steel than on the screen.


Porsche Boxster S However, because England is one of the largest markets for convertibles in the world, let’s forget about the coupe, and concentrate on the new Boxster. In typical Porsche manner, the company has made just enough improvements throughout the car to make the old one feel as interesting as yesterday’s newspaper. Not that you can tell just by looking at it.

Test Drive: 2008 BMW 328i Who Should Buy This Vehicle At our test car's $41,550 sticker, no one. For a couple thousand less you could get a base 335i. But if you pare down the options to just one — the $1,700 Sport package — you can enjoy every ounce of our tester's performance, as well as standard features like a sunroof and that superb sound system, for about $35,000. At that price, the 2008 BMW 328i almost seems like a bargain for the driving enthusiast who needs four doors. However, those who prefer feature content to dynamic excellence may find competing models more satisfying.




Saturn Astra XR Coupe: Performance However, Saturn has tuned the Astra to maximize mpg, which, while a commendable goal, comes at the expense of performance. Even though the engine's specs are competitive, the engine feels sluggish off the line, and tall gear ratios make the hatch feel gutless. Heaven forbid you find yourself changing lanes in front of a car that's going faster than you expected; you just might find yourself on the receiving end of some less-than-friendly hand gestures. Then again, you might not notice, since you'll be uttering your own expletives as you stand on the throttle wondering why nothing's happening.

Mazda MAZDA6 Design/Fit and Finish The 2009 Mazda Mazda6 is 7 inches longer and about 2.5 inches wider than its predecessor, and its wheelbase has grown by more than 4 inches. Nonetheless, Mazda has largely preserved the car's tight styling. The exterior design is distinctive for this class, particularly from the front, where the 6 incorporates some design cues from the RX-8 sports car. Inside, however, the odd decorative trim pieces resemble piano black trim that's been mauled by a bear. There's a lot of faux chrome trim on the dash, as well as a shiny Mazda logo on the steering wheel, and you'll be cursing the resultant glare when the sun's shining.























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Dodge Journey R/T Don't stop believin' that Dodge and Chrysler can climb out of their massive rut in these trying times, but if the 2009 Dodge Journey is a look into the future, who knows if they'll come out of it dead or alive. We're clearly not hopelessly in love with this all-new midsize family crossover, and we think consumers can do better. Oh, and it got a whole heap of Journey songs stuck in our heads.

Toyota RAV4 Function Most of the RAV4's controls are well-marked and simple to use. If you've driven any Japanese car built within the last quarter-century, you'll know how to use the lights and wipers. The climate control in the Limited, however, dispenses with the normal three-knob layout for quirky circular push-button pods that take some getting used to. Should you opt for the optional JBL audio system, you'll likely be disappointed in the sound quality if you like your music loud and clear, though it does include Bluetooth connectivity.

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Honda Civic Hybrid With Leather and Navigation Comfort If only Honda could do the same thing about road noise. Enough tire rumble made its way into the cabin to remind us that this is a Honda (cars known for substantial road noise), with the most noisy moments occurring on highways and rougher road surfaces. Wind noise wasn't terribly obtrusive, but overall this is not a particularly quiet car.


Honda Fit Base We agree that the 2008 Honda Fit Base allows buyers to step into a fun-to-drive car without broadsiding their wallets. But the slightly more expensive Fit Sport provides some nice extras that will be appreciated every time you drive the car. For $1,320 more, the Sport adds paddle shifters, cruise control, lower body skirts, a rear spoiler and 15-inch alloys rather than the 14-inch steel wheels on the Base model.

BMW 328i Function In typical BMW fashion, the analog gauges are a model of simplicity, though the real-time analog fuel economy gauge is a bit gimmicky. Unfortunately, the stereo and climate controls are anything but simple — the radio is operated via a series of identical-looking buttons, and in another nod to BMW tradition, the only way to turn off the climate control system is to press and hold the fan-speed "down" button or tap it repeatedly. To make matters worse, we found that the stereo display becomes illegible when viewed through polarized sunglasses. At least we didn't have to contend with iDrive, though there's no way around it if you want the navigation system.




2008 Aston Martin Performance Civility is actually a perfect word to describe how the DBS sets itself apart from other exotics. The six-speed manual found on our test car is the only transmission available, yet its clutch is light and has a relatively short travel. Aside from a rather nebulous 1st-gear engagement point, the DBS's transmission proved to be as easy to drive in stop-and-go Dallas traffic as a V6-powered sedan. When driven aggressively, the clutch is also spot-on, while the chunky aluminum-topped shifter snick-snicks through its gates with precision.

Saturn Outlook XR AWD Comfort The second-row bench seat is roomy and comfortable, with copious legroom. Outboard seat cushions are firm with prominent side bolstering, but the center seat is very hard and narrow. The third-row seat, however, is where the 2008 Saturn Outlook really shines. Many crossovers or traditional SUVs have very cramped third-row seats. Yet adult passengers who end up in the Outlook's flat third-row bench will have little to complain about. Legroom can't be characterized as abundant, but average-size adults won't be eating their knees back there either. Rear-seat audio and climate controls with vents in the second and third rows are appreciated when things heat up.























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Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid Comfort On the open highway, the Tahoe is in its element, effortlessly wafting down the road with wind and road noise well-muted. All the better for the kiddies to enjoy the optional rear-seat entertainment system.

Audi A5 Performance Alas, the A5's overall dynamic competence makes its wonky speed-sensitive power steering system stick out like a sore thumb. Effort levels range from "Uncle Karl's Cadillac" at low speeds to "Farm Tractor" on the highway, which means that the required steering effort can vary greatly from one corner to the next depending on how fast you're going. We also noticed that our A5's steering had a disconcerting tendency to weight up unpredictably — for instance, we'd sometimes get "Farm Tractor" during 10-15-mph turns at intersections. Satisfying steering systems never feel out of step with the driver's expectations; the A5's overly complicated setup is not among them.

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Nissan GT-R And yet, you probably knew that already if you've ever heard the name Skyline or read anything about this automotive legend-in-the-making aptly nicknamed Godzilla. This is a car with a 473-horsepower twin-turbo V6, all-wheel drive and enough performance to give Porsche 911 drivers nightmares. But the real question is, what's it like to live with Godzilla? Can you drive a GT-R every day, or does its max-attack attitude turn it into nothing more than a weekend plaything?


Ford F-150 Lariat SuperCrew Design/Fit and Finish Likewise, varying cabin accents, such as different wood-tone and metallic accents, give the interiors some pizzazz. Fit and finish in our test vehicles — ranging from the basic STX to the leather-lined Lariat — was solid, with even panel gaps and no squeaks or rattles.

Nissan Maxima 3.5 SV Sport: Comfort The rear seats are near mirror images of their forward counterparts, as the Sport package includes rear bucket seats. This is great for outboard occupants, but perches the poor schmoe stuck in the middle up onto the buckets' edges and into the ceiling. Seating capacity could better be described as 4+1.




Toyota Corolla XLE Comfort Like most Toyotas, the Corolla's seats are soft and comfy, with the words "recliner" and "La-Z-Boy" thrown about liberally by our consumer testers. They lack support, however, so some may find long-distance comfort troublesome. The front seats offer a decent amount of space (a revelation for a small Toyota), and our tallest driver was just as comfortable in the Corolla as in the bigger Camry. That's not to say the driving position is great, but the range of travel for the seat and tilt-telescoping steering wheel is better than many small cars.

BMW 1 Series Who Should Buy This Vehicle The 2008 BMW 135i coupe will be most attractive both to driving enthusiasts who want a car with respectable practicality and those just wanting an affordable status symbol. However, if the car's price or suspension tuning prove to be off-putting, the 128i might be a nice alternative.























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