Posted: 9/7/2008 9:14:50 AM EDT
Am I the only one who thinks it looks like a 68 Rambler wagon?
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It's an overweight Scion (over 4300 lb) that suffers from EXTREME understeer and poor performance. At over $40k, it is a waste of money. Even Ford marketing knows how ugly it is because they don't show the entire car in the TV commercial. They chose specific angles to show off the car but kept on blabbing about the interior. Want to seat 7 people comfortably? Buy a E-350 wagon. |
WOW A 99 F150 X-cab with little gas weighs 4,700 pounds!! That is an insane weight for that little car. |
It's not really a little car. And depending on how you outfit them, there's a lot of trinkets and toys...all wheel drive, advancetrac, front/side/curtain airbags, a freaking refrigerator, lots of sound deadening, navigation, etc. All that adds a lot of weight. As for the underpowered thing, yeah, it's a bit of a slug. But the Flex is supposed to get a twin turbo version of the 3.5 liter sometime next year. |
He's referring to the XB i believe. He's right on, Not really a bad insult. Flex is boxy, xB is boxy... |
So why not just put a 4.6 V8 in it and be done. It is still a chopped and channeled Explorer.  I did their 'build your own' option online, a Limited with all the options runs $35,400 MSRP/$33,636 Invoice. Way too much IMHO. |
Because it's on the D3/D4 platform, which is already set up for a traverse mounted V6 and front or all wheel drive. It shares nothing with an Explorer other than the Blue Oval on the grill. |
I get the platform difference thing, my point is the Flex is based on more of a car type platform but they are not doing much to keep it fuel efficient. If they do the twin turbo version it gets even more silly. What is the point in a 7 passenger hotrod? The more they do the more it starts to overlap with the Explorer in fuel consumption. They can claim 7 passengers but they are not getting 7 Wal-Mart shoppers in that thing, 7 Japanese folks maybe. My 5.0 Explorer gets 24 on the freaking highway.
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They're claiming "V8 power with V6 fuel economy" with the turbo engine. Whether it really works out like that, I dunno yet. We'll start seeing the engine sometime next summer. |
Yeah, like we have never heard that before.  My uncle just sold back his Taco (recall buy back) and bought a 2008 Silverado, it has one of those V8's that changes to a 4cyl for better economy. He was stoked for about a week, apparently it just doesn't work out as well as the sales guy said.
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Obviously he didn't look into it very much The 4 cylinder option comes on at highway speeds. Chevrolet only guarantees a 1-2 mpg increase at the most anyways. |
And THAT is why that whole concept failed 25 years ago. It is a GIMMICK. If you want economy, buy an economy car. If you want a truck, don't expect excellent economy. It is kind of like this. If you are a cheap bastard and want to date a low-cost, low effort woman; date a chick on welfare..... But don't expect her to look like a model. Everything is a compromise. |
| The Flex has been out since the first quarter of this year, and I seem to remember reading recently that well under 1,000 of them have actually been sold. I was at a semi-rural Ford dealer about 2 weeks ago, and they said they were getting ready to deliver their first Flex that day. Sounds like a flop to me... |
