Wascally Wabbit

After the debacle with GMAC, I've been fortunate enough to get a car that I like, the VW Rabbit. The Rabbit is a model that first got started in the '70s, I beleive. After a while VW changed the name to "Golf", and I think that there was a version of the Golf called the "GTI". Now they've dropped the "Golf" moniquer and have gone back to calling it the Rabbit. I love it. It get good gas mileage and has lots of luggage space inside, since its a hatchback. On Black Friday after Thanksgiving, we went out and picked up a new TV at 5 in the morning, to take advantage of the wildly reduced prices. It fit into the Rabbit with no problems at all, plenty of room to spare. Its an automatic transmission, I have no idea how to drive a manual transmission. In addition to regular automatic, it has two other modes. A "Sport" mode, where the gears kick in at higher RPMs, and a "Triptronic" mode. Triptronic is a type of transmission, developed by Porsche, that allows you to Upshift and Downshift through the gears of the transmission, no clutch action required. If you try to shift down into a gear that would over-rev the engine, the computer won't permit it. In some descriptions of Triptronic, its claimed that when the RPM are lower, the computer will remember that your command and then down shift. However I've played around with it, and it doesn't seem like the VW Triptronic at least will do that. It will also downshift on its own if the engine's RPM fall very low.

The car has a bouncier ride than I am used to. I've noticed that most companies are claiming that this is a 'sportier' ride. That the American public is moving away from the old feels of some cars, where the smooth ride was important, and are becoming more accepting of the more European style 'sporty' rides. I had an old Mercury Grand Marquis, and driving it was like cruising along on a boat. Now, apparently, everyone wants to feel every bump and joint in the road. Takes a bit of getting used to, at first I thought something was wrong with the suspension!