Drove That: Week of January 7th

1/7/13

2010 Ram 1500: New interior is leaps and bounds better than the old truck. Otherwise it's a truck.
2005 Volvo XC90 AWD: Drives ok. Comfortable, but from the inside it feels Bigger outside.
2010 Lexus ES 350: If your first priority in buying a car is how nice the interior is, this is your car.

2010 Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0T: Power is much better in two wheel drive with the 2.0 Turbo engine. It drives well, but it's just too high.
2004 Honda Element: Great cargo box, not so great to put people in the back what with no roll down windows or anything. Honda makes better trucks than cars these days.
2010 Jaguar XF: Forget the ES 350, you want a GREAT interior get the XF, Huge slabs of real wood, leather everywhere, and it's damn fun to drive to boot. Look at one of these before buying a German.
2005 AUDI A4 Cabrio 1.8T: Lots of cowl shudder, Engine is ok, but this is still just a slightly nicer Passat.
2003 GMC Sonoma: It's little, It's a Pickup, um.....yea.

2004 BMW 530i Sport 6spd: At over 100,000 miles this car still drives like a dream. This may be a perfect car. It's a shame the new 5er isn't as fun to drive as this.
2011 Toyota Prius: This car is just flat out cool and compitent. No it's not sporty, or cushy, but man this is what Toyota used to be about.
2005 Volkswagen Jetta 2.5 5spd: Great power with the 2.5 Inline-5. Exhaust tone is strange but not raspy. Cruising on the freeway at 3000 rpm however the exhaust note gets tiresome.
2009 Toyota RAV-4 Sport: Lots of power but for no good reason.
2011 Toyota Prius: As cool as the instrument display is, I still don't like it in the middle of the dash so far away.
2008 Chevy Impala: It's an average car for an average american. At this point i's basically on par with the Camry. Not sure who that's damming to more.

2007 Kia Sedona LX: It's an ok minivan, no frills or fancy entertainment systems, but it will move 7 people around with minimal bitching.
2006 Mazda 3 2.3: Zoom-Zoom! Fun and dynamic with lots of power for cheap! Also Mazda understands you pull BACK to Upshift!
2011 Ford F250 Powerstroke Slam-Eagle: Every once in a while you come across somebodies custom labor of love. Be it the bitchin van with the wizard fighting a robot dragon painted on the side and a built in water bed, or a Mustang tuned to an inch of it's life for the 1/4 mile, or in this case, a low profile towing rig pickup that has no pretension of being used anywhere the tarmac ends. All trucks for towing should be low like this. Drives great, and you don't need a drop hitch.

That's as tall as you ever need to tow stuff.

Oh yea and wicked custom paint work UNDER the clear-coat helps too.

This guy alone adds 200 pounds of towing capacity!

2005 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder: It's nice to be reminded of what cars used to feel like all low to the ground and sporty. Sure this one had no power steering, but I needed the upper body workout.

2004 Toyota 4-Runner V8: Taller and less solid feeling than the old blocky 4-Runner. Very thirsty. Still love the big, mitten workable climate controls though!