the4thheat

Why is this only posted to Autoblog Canada and not regular Autoblog?!?!

I agree that the quality is a lot better now but thr prices have gone up too. I've been shopping around for a new car and was surprised to see that these Optimas have very low incentives on them and dealers are definitely asking for a lot more money than they used to

umm...Lotus is a subsidiary of Proton motors...why would they need Russian monsters to help them? Basically they lost out on some low interest rate loans from the UK government.

Airbags fire very violently and can easily cause injuries. It always annoys me when people whine about airbags not going off in crashes, unless its a very high impact crash its better to not get smashed in the face by an airbag.
I'm guessing most of the injuries were cuts on the face and broken noses. Ford's lucky this happens right after starting the car or there'd be much more serious injuries and lawsuits.

@driverswanted07
The problem is that not all of your friend's sportage is really made by Kia, the transmissons were outsourced back then, i believe it uses an aisin unit. On the newer crossovers they've moved to their own in house six speed unit and its been having a lot more trouble. I think Kia has made grest improvements but you have to really research the details to know what you're getting into. I've been following in detail Korean cars for a decade now and they've made huge improvements but automatic transmissions have always been a weak spot.

Wouldn't it be a better test of how it holds up if she hadn't bought three? It doesnt tell us a lot about how it holds up if she buys a new one every 3 or 4 years. Does she still own the 2003?

Great looks and slightly better value than it's sonata counterpart because of extra features (heated steering wheel and cooled seats) but let down by ultra firm front seats that make for poor comfort on anything but the shortest drives. You can make firm but comfortable seats but these aren't it. Also suffers from the headroom limitations in the rear that the sonata has.

But it is amazingly close to being exactly what I want, I even looked up the price of replacing the seats with recaro versions with the same features (the optima can be equipped with heated and cooled powered seats) but once you do that it kills the value part of the equation. If they can improve the seats I think it could outsell the sonata here like it outsells it in Korea. I'm guessing the seats work better for Koreans since they're smaller and less weighty.

It's not much of a punishment if you send him straight to Beijing where he has a cushy job waiting for him...he was trying to move there to begin with so that would be pretty lousy punishment.

Industrial espionage isn't just a Chinese thing anyways, just look at the European scandals. Really obnoxious how everyone makes it sound like this is some communist thing, industrial espionage is a very capitalist thing if anything.

My honest guess is that GM didn't want another company to compete with it in the Chinese market using a lot of the same technology. GM depends a lot on the Chinese market so there's a good chance that they would rather see Saab fail than see it succeed under a Chinese parent that made it competitive. In fact their plan was originally just to scrap the brand anyways since they kept rejecting offers from everyone left and right. I half think they sold it to Spyker only because they figured it was doomed.

An AWD vehicle largely sold in snow-belt markets (Subaru's best selling markets are all in the north) should not have lower control arms falling apart after only a few years. My car is just as old and has been parked outdoors in the snow every year and the control arms look as tough as ever. So no, your lower control arms should not rust and fly off your car after 8 years, and no, your minivan's rear axle should not disintegrate into rust entirely either.