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This has been in process for a while, but we’re finally ready to spring it on you: There’s such a thing as a TTAC forum.
You can check it out at
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/forum/
Your existing username and password are valid there and there’s a chance you’ll even find yourself logged in when you get there. Feel free to try some test posts. We’re not quite sure yet how we’ll use the forum; your suggestions, as always, are welcome.
General TTAC rules about civility of discourse — you know, the ones that are always being broken because somebody has the nerve to disrespect the V8-6-4 — continue to apply on that side of things as well.
See you there!
83 Comments on “With This Post, We Welcome You To A New Era Of Civilized Discourse...”
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General TTAC rules about civility of discourse — you know, the ones that are always being broken because somebody has the nerve to disrespect the V8-6-4 — continue to apply on that side of things as well.
Hey man, just snip one wire or install an off switch for the deactivation and POW! you have an honest to god large displacement high torque Cadillac V8 like God intended.
Why don’t you look for one? I’m sure there are a few MY80-81 Cadillacs floating around in your region.
hey
What do you mean… Cadillac.
The Magnum 5.7L V-8 also has the 8-6-4 engine management and it works quite well in the 2005 Magnum, I just picked up. A recent run to the boat in SF Bay/Berkeley, Ca., netted me nearly 30mpg at a steady 65mph. I figure a steady 55mph could put me over 30mpg. Adding true dual exhaust with performance CATs and mufflers, might even net more, plus another 10-hp.
By the way, a new car for Jack’s consideration, would be the Dodge Magnum R/T or SXT. Fun to drive, goes well, stops very well, and gets around a corner in pretty good fashion, plus it has the nearly the same crash protection of Merc’s E-series. Also available in AWD with a 250hp V-6 and the 340hp 5.7 V-8.
I personally think that you guys shouldnt allow any Panther critics in there.
I can’t critisize Panter’s because my Dad has a Mercury and well he is pretty old and I don’t want to upset him.
I can’t say anything good about Panthers around my Dad because he, my mom, and my uncle and aunt went on a trip to Vermont and got a Crown Vic as their rental car–when the four of them have been buying cars for the past 30+ years with the express intention of getting rid of all childhood memories of 70’s land-yachts.
Maybe in the forum a panther aficionado can explain to me where to find one of the artisan hand built models. I once dared mention that a rental Grand Marquis had sloppy handling, an unreadable in daylight digital dash, and the interior was falling apart with only 20,000 miles on the clock. I was told I had a bad one because it was a rental not one of the fine production models.
I enjoy playing count-the-loose-trim-pieces with my housemates’ eighty-something-thousand-mile ’04. The car’s a tank, though; it’s survived their neglect admirably so far. If you need to get somewhere every day for the next decade, and ‘somewhere’ is multiple hopped curbs away, it’s hard to go wrong with a Panther.
Absolutely, mechanically panthers are tanks that just keep going. It’s just their fit and finish left lots to be desired. Some panther lovers have decided pointing that means you are a Prius driver.
I strongly feel that no one should have to drive one who is not wearing a uniform and getting paid to do so. Those cars have a skill set that is simply not useful to civilians.
A Camry does everything a Panther does 10x better, minus the curb hopping.
Driving a Panther is like riding a Cougar. One really doesn’t want to admit to it or be seen doing it, but they are both so comfortable and dependable and require such little maintenance it’s hard to resist.
Very good analogy, although its been some time since I’ve ridden [in?] a Panther.
And the Cougar may know one or two tricks you don’t know. ;)
This is true. I think Sajeev knows a thing or two about Cougars.
Am I missing it, or is there no link off of the main page to get to the forum?
It’s coming, depending on when your local Cloudflare server caches it out to you.
Well done, should be fun!
ok, I’m old – 51. What is the point of the forum as opposed to the regular site? Is it so that we can post topics of our own choosing, like “look at the 12 point buck I got with my Buick”??? Apparently it is not a place to take a feud.
FWIW, I’d like to see some discussion on how car insurance can leave the insured with a multi-thousand dollar liability: I thought that was what insurance was supposed to protect against.
If the claim against you exceeds the policy limits, you have to make up the difference. I believe most states’ minimum liability requirements ($40,000) for property damage are woefully inadequate, with people driving around in $70,000 cars. The personal injury limits (about the same, I believe) are woefully inadequate if you injure a bunch of people and you’re at fault. Medical bills are high. I’m guessing the medical bills in JB’s accident (not counting his own) exceed that number.
If you don’t have any other assets to protect and don’t mind declaring personal bankruptcy, those low limits are good enough, I suppose. But if you have any other assets, or don’t want to go bankrupt or have your wages garnished for the rest of your life, six-figure limits make much more sense and don’t cost that much more in premiums.
Minimum requirements on Big Rigs is even worse, $750,000 in liability. This goes very quickly in a chain reaction accident and many people are left to collect on their own uninsured coverage.
We took out a million-dollar umbrella liability policy for about $200 a year, on top of our auto insurance $300k liability per event. Doing so actually lowered the rates on the auto policy by about $100 a year.
I have heard of these umbrella policies a few times now, but when I asked my insurance company about it they said it was no where near $200/yr, more like $200/mo. Where do you get such a policy?? I really want one.
My $1 million umbrella with a major national insurance co. was about $180/year. I got it because I now have a rental home.
I’m curious as well, who is your agency?
Shelter Insurance in Missouri. Just checked my policy online – exactly $200/year. It’s bundled with our home & auto policies.
We got ours after my wife was named personally in a workplace lawsuit, and decided we were too exposed should something happen at home or with the cars.
Another motivation for the umbrella policy that I forgot to mention: one teen driver with another soon to come.
I can’t believe these numbers are real. I am now even more nervous to travel in the US. The Canadian province I live in requires a minimum of $500000 although most companies won’t write for less than $1M, there are caps on injury payouts and being Canada health care costs are socialized.
My friend recently had his 7-week-old Encore totalled by an impaired (don’t know the substance) driver who T-boned him.
Turns out the driver had only the state minimum coverage, which I think is $5k in PA, which didn’t cover his brand new $27k car.
So my friend will lose about 80% of his deductible because that’s about the amount of damages the other guy’s insurance didn’t cover. Seems wrong to me.
I sense a 1-800-SAFE-AUTO driver. Was your friend ok?
Why would anyone make up some story involving a $27 grand Renault Encore? (Pics or it didn’t happen…)
BUICK ENCORE, TOSH. Tiny little CUV with a standard turbo.
…and no utility with ugly as an options package.
I’m pretty sure he means BUICK Encore – a 2014 vehicle, which has a starting MSRP over $24,000.
And gets like 45 mpg to hear some tell it on here.
No no its 72mpg, it emits fragrance from its exhaust, and it has the ability to create rainbows.
Well, 72MPG after the secret stage II tune
And after that tune it’ll take a Veyron from a stoplight.
I like this development. Seems like this site has seen a lot of increased traffic and many new commenters. Given this rise, the existing comment system can get kind of unwieldy. There are a lot of topics that I’d like to see additional discourse on, particularly from individuals who are especially active on this site. For instance, there was an article yesterday that prompted some heated discussions that could have been more appropriately aired out on a forum.
This should be fun. TTAC seems to have one of the more intelligent and informed commenter bases out there; it’ll be great to see what people come up with left to their own devices…
I just don’t know how I will keep up with all of the content….
Any plans to upgrade comment system on main site? Maybe outsource to IntenseDebate, Disqus? Both problematic, but would at least bring 21. century tech here, working links etc.
When I clicked on the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail,” within 10 minutes I’d see 4 or more posts that were responding other posts, not to my original post. The extra email generated is worthless.
In other words, only the posts at this level or further to the right, based on my original post above
I have the opposite problem… I never get notified of new posts, despite asking for it.
Somewhat a related question: has there been any upgrades to the site lately? When I log in from work (IE9) the stories on the main page are from late November, and any links I click display “server busy” errors. Cleared cookies and such, still happens.
p.s. Poop.
Tapatalk support? Yes/no/maybe?
I was gonna ask just that. Anyone?
Not yet. We’re trying to see what people want in this.
We are all switching from windows to android and ios for the day-to-day computing, one way or another, so personally I think Tapatalk support would be nice. Anyway, an off-topic section would be good too. That’s where we had many great topics at the now-defunct ECF. Including a nice GTC thread.
No. I’m tired of bring solicited to buy Tapatalk every time I go to a forum site on a mobile device. Mobile device browsers are pretty good so I don’t see the need and there is no way to turn off the Tapatalk nag.
-sighs- It will just be the usual band of suspects attempting to pontificate more. Then again, when I’m bored or think someone is being a dick; I remember what I pay for TTAC
I thought the whole website was pretty much a messageboard style forum, each article serving as a topic.
Thanks. Just spewed coffee all over my monitor lauging at the picture for this article.
There’s a torch somewhere here… ah there you go… it’s covered with dust.
I don’t think my boss will approve… but I do :)
Bravo. First, an improved logo and now this. Go TTAC Staff!
One thing I can’t figure out is why modern forum software doesn’t provide built-in ranking functionality similar to reddit. Reddit’s system promotes high-value comments, improving conversation and readability. I am not sure why it isn’t just the forum default by now.
Maybe the functionality is copyrighted?
I am pretty sure it is Open Source
The functionality, as opposed to the actual code, would be covered by a patent. Given the various implementations I’ve seen it does not appear that a valid patent is in place for the basic concept.
The actual code can be covered by a copyright, not a patent. The patent consists of the (prior art) Background, a Summary of the Invention, and a Detailed Description of the Invention, where someone “skilled in the art” can understand how to accomplish the invention. The “claims” at the end of the patent are what the lawyers and the Patent Office fight over. And you can patent a ham sandwich if you think you can win in court.
The downside is that it can create a “hive mind”, stifle dissent and certain users rise to prominence with their ideas gaining currency above others.
Case in point: Jalopnik.
Please don’t add the ability to vote down comments or people. The autos.ca forum has this, and I get voted down everytime I mention I like driving stick. It makes it less enticing to comment. And I think most B&B would agree I try to make measured, reasoned comments and I in turn think most of the B&B do the same. Being able to vote down a comment without being identified for it brings down the veil of anonymity that promotes internet douchebaggery.
I second that.
Let’s please not have a vote down/up system. Chronological order of posts would be how I would like to see it.
I third that.
I’m okay with how Hooniverse works, because of the community that Hooniverse draws most of the time. Here, we’re a bit more diverse (read: less universally outside ‘the norm’.
My ideal, I think, would be TTAC implementing IntenseDebate (or a similar system) and disabling the thumbs-down (downvote) button, as some other sites do – posts would still display in chronological order, and we could see the most popular posts without anyone feeling left out.
Also being a member of the same site davefromcalgary references, I would agree. I’ve been a member there for almost a dozen years, and frankly, thanks to the hive mind mentality, I haven’t posted in close to a year.
I can’t say if the membership numbers declined, but the number of people active in the forums certainly has decreased.
I’d prefer “ranking” not be an option.
I like the idea. But I went and looked at the forum, and it’s very tiny, implanted as if it’s a post. Linking it out to a separate website, maybe?
I see that the “member since” on our profile goes back to our first comment on TTAC.
Is there a way to change the resolution? The forum is tiny on my screen.
As a former forum admin, I think it is a very bad idea to publish a member list, or even membership numbers. I’m not at all familiar with Simple-Press as a forum solution, but I always ripped out any code for that functionality. Not that 171735 signups, give or take a few, is bad-going, but why show all the member names to the world and let the scrapers slurp up 11449 pages of member names and signup dates?
On a design note, the forum is too constrained in the content column of the main site, I think you should remove the right-hand column completely for the forum pages. (Maybe place a narrower column for ads as required.)
Where’s the off-topic?
How are we supposed to discuss the ways of Vanilla Dudeness?
And how we all agree politically, God bless us everyone?
Where is the UAW discussion forum?
As long as Mikey get’s appointed moderator of that forum I’m all for it. :)
I don’t know Dan? I’m afraid my trusty old lap top, might just melt from all the flames.
I’ll sell you a nice Thinkpad and have it fireproofed.
We can all pitch in and buy mikey a Panasonic Toughbook.
I say we build him a small-form-factor desktop and submerge its components (minus drives, of course) in mineral oil, just to be on the safe side.
Hmmm
I checked it out
I guess I will try anything once
I’m a fan of forums instead of just comments, and would actually like to see articles have links to discussion threads in the forum instead of comments directly under the article, largely because it keeps discussion chronologically organized on an absolute basis and generally requires less scrolling.
That said, if it’s possible to get rid of the sidebar with reviews and the like in the forum, that’d go a long way towards making it more readable – your readers already know about your front page stuff, how to search and/or check your FB feed and may or may not have opted in for updates via email.
The only way to close out this thread is to have Crabspirits finish Joe Biden’s Penthouse Forum submission.