I really could care less who our provider is - they are all the same, big businesses, nickel & dime-ing their customers - as long as I can call when I need to and receive calls anywhere I go.

Any call going to my cell is important to critical and due to AT&T / GSM's abysmal rural coverage, we were forced to move away. We now enjoy coverage with Verizon where we had absolutely none with AT&T. I see people all the time with fancy phones and guess what: no signal other than CDMA.

Anyway, unless GSM coverage is as widespread as CDMA, Apple will have to include CDMA or there will be no iPhones in my family for years to come.

The rotors & suspension only protected the car a little bit it. There is considerably body damage too. The cinder blocks were beating it up in various places as the vehicle was moved forward, plus, who knows what happened underneath the car, as it was plain old dragged around on its "belly" ... How far did they drag the car like that? How did they remove it from the truck? Anyhow on my vehicle that would certainly ruin the transmission and exhaust system.

#7 Jeff.

That has been my experience with every US car dealership I have walked into! I rather go to a dentist and get several root canals than shop for a car!

It's always a hassle to look at a variety of cars in the price range or model. No, we don't have any catalogs. No upfront price clarity on any of them. Vague circles around the MRSP and charges for the "dealer extras". What price do you want to pay? Make us an offer and we'll consider it. What does it take for you to drive this car off the lot today? I need to check this manager. Let me work some numbers.

All this is absolutely infuriating.

If I wanted to, I could pay cash for any car I'm interested in.

I much prefer the more transparant approach, no hassle, free to look, ... approach I was used to in Europe. Walk in. Have a chat. Receive the catalog and the basic price list. Sit in the vehicles in the showroom. Drive one or two. Note that they don't have the 100s & 1000s of cars at the dealerships. Maybe one or two dozen. Two to three for each model. So you will need flexible mentally if you want a basic or mid range with certain options. On some German cars the option list is a small booklet.

No destination or other inflated items like dealer extras to worry about. They have the nationwide MSRP, which includes 25% tax, and the dealer will work down from that price themselves. You don't have to jump through hoops for an hour before they put a number on paper. This is car is this much 'list' and we'll give it to you for x less. And you can very quickly comparison shop. You just call another dealer and say how much for this model with xyz.

The option grouping is common on European brands, so I guess it is more of a global thing. I don't like either if option x can only be had as part of package xyz; and you don't want yz.

I guess it did help that, from what I could tell, but this may have changed since I moved, that most financing is through banks. Not the manufacturer or the dealership acting as the middle man.

I can't help but feel sick when I see that photo ... and it's not the car that causes my stomach cramps.

What the heck were they thinking?

Show the car as is. Move the ... eh ... model. Give her some food. Or pay a little more for someone with a normal figure. Or just get a regular good looking gal instead.

Thing is, he's not innocent. He is the chief financial officer and so must have signed off on the deal / submitted it. Like your accountant would on your tax return, no?

I wonder about who's money it is as well. If it is from his pocket or insurance ... great. I guess when you're a big ?illionaire what's a few million to make a problem go away?

Noah,
I could not agree more that the US needs better driver's education and serious road tests etc.

Still, as a European with a dozen hours of road law & a two dozen hours of on the road training and two driver's licenses ... you can't include those advanced skills. They do not fit in basic driver training. That's the advanced training once you master ordinary day to day driving.

I think a lot of people drive reckless, do not keep safe distance, totally overestimate their capabilities (like how everybody ABS thinks that's a green card for tailgating ...) etc. endangering other people.

If their car and my car can respond better to emergency situations on the road, I'm all for that.

I never understood a 3 & 4 gear automatic. An extra gear or two in auto gearboxed US vehicles in the would help get better mpg at highway speeds. In many you start to see a drastic drop when start going above 60 - 65 ... and that's what has contributed to the low speed limits.

We need to get that ideal mpg from 50-55 to extend upwards a bit to a good 70-75.

The typo in the article is cool. I've wondered if it would be possible to dial in cruise control or better a throttle limiter to a certain MPG. Set your car to drive at x mpg in the city and y mpg on the highway.

ABS & ESC save tons more lives than the few instances where they might be perceived to be a disadvantage.

Don't tell my you can brake - release - brake faster than ABS. When your wheels lock up when you're breaking hard, you're it ... at the same time you can just mash on the brake, ABS brakes as hard as it can while leaving you in control of the steering wheel. Is it perfect on snow & ice with ordinary tires. Heck no. You always need the appropriate tires for the season. Good studded snow tires on a intelligent 4wheel drive ABS ESC car and you're the safest person on the road.

Neither can you control the throttle to the wheels in adverse conditions. Have you ever seen how fast these systems work?

On my daily route during winter storms, there's always that one particular icy uphill patch where my traction control kicks in briefly once or twice, but it gets me carefully up the hill. The cars without, front wheel drive and lots worse rear wheel drive just slide sideways. Flooring it. Burning rubber. Needing 5 tries. Still not making it. Making an illegal U turn. Just saw it the other day with a very nice few hundred hp rear wheel drive US sports car. No matter how hard the driver tried, the car wouldn't do it. Subaru & Volvo AWD didn't blink once.

Do I climb the steepest streets covered in snow / ice?
No. I don't have AWD nor studded snow tires.
Does that mean my traction control is useless? Hell no.

I would love for auto leveling headlights to be mandatory for ALL vehicles.

I drive quite a bit and the glare I experience does not stem from HID vehicles themselves.

- people driving with high-beams
- different headlight placement height between trucks / SUVs & sedans
- absolutely misaligned headlights, there seems to be no default headlight level inspection in the US
- lack of manual adjustment wheel so the driver can compensate for passengers, fuel level and/or load (In Europe, you can fail technical inspection if you get your lights top level set on an empty tank and go to the control station with a full tank)
- fog lights used without fog, heavy rain, heavy snow

Btw. Does anybody know when a rear fog light be mandatory in the US ??

Have requested this vehicle as well :(

Unfortunately VW is all hung up in going more and more upscale.

Sure, the dollar - euro rate doesn't help ... but you can't tell me if VW can't do it. We need more safe compact and fuel efficient vehicles on the US market.

Whatever horsepower this brings with it, I'm sure its more than plenty. I used to drive a 50hp -ish VW Golf 1 in Europe, where they drive a bit faster than the US.