[geeks] SPARC proprietary (waaaay off topic)

[N. Miller]

--On Wednesday, October 08, 2003 10:25 AM -0400 Phil Stracchino 
<alaric at caerllewys.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 08, 2003 at 01:52:39PM +0000, wa2egp at att.net wrote:
>> > Consumer Reports also does long-term testing of cars as well.
>> > Frankly, as far as repairs and reliability go, I trust them
>> > a lot farther that C&D and the other car magazines.
>> >
>> > =Nadine=
>> >
>> I would trust them more too but, I have issues with them "targeting"
>> certain products.

Well, they are sort of coming from the same stock as Ralph
Nader...what do you expect?

> Agreed.  In hindsight, it's pretty clear that Consumer Reports did an
> intentional hatchet job on the Suzuki Samurai, for example.  They were
> intentionally TRYING to roll it over, and you can roll *any* car if you
> try hard enough.

I disagree.  Before I even heard about the Consumer
Reports' tests, I saw that show on PBS that does
testing...Auto Week I think it's called.  You didn't
have to *try* to roll over the Samurai, that was the
whole point.

Auto Week did their standard "avoidance test", and had
to put skid plates on the Samurai--if they hadn't, the
dog-leg was so bad it would have went over on it's
side.  That's not *trying* to roll it over--at least,
not on the part of the testers.

Now, many small cars have dog-legging problems, that's
well known (which can generally be ameliorated with the
right suspension 'hacks' and tires).  But the Samurai
was ridiculous, and Suzuki deserved the smack that it
got for designing such a POS.

On the other hand, a few months back, I drove a Suzuki
Aerio from the Bay Area to LA.  Now that's a nice little
car.

=Nadine=