October 12, 2003 - A weighty issue...
I apologize in advance for not being able to directly link to this, but over on carreviews.com I have found what may be the funniest review of a car I have ever seen. If you click here. you can look for it, but there's no way to directly link to it, so you may have to do a bit of digging. I'll quote the funnier parts below.
AS you will see below, the car is not best for heavy people. With just 68,000 miles on it, we are facing rear springs and shock replacements. When my girl used to get in the car, it would sag a good bit. NOw when she gets in the back the car is sitting just 1 inch from the over load bumpers. So, the car bottoms out all the way down the road with just her in back. She is heavy - at about 360lbs, but a car should handle that weight - 2 normal people are around that load size!
The old Pontiac could handle her weight - even when she was at her heaviest. She is losing weight, she was nearly 430lbs and even then the sunfire cruised down the road only complaining on bigger dips in the road. The rear seat did bow under her, but was easily reinforced with a 2x4.
I don't even know where to begin here. I don't know of many cars that could handle that much weight pushed into one spot. Seriously, dump a tablespoon of dark matter into the front seat of your car and see how it does. And 360-430 pounds on one person is approaching dark matter density.
Now apparently his old Sunfire could handle the weight, but only by reinforcing the rear seat with a 2x4.
Think about that.
But wait, there's more...
Weaknesses:
Suspension is weak. Now this may be a unique problem to me, I know. My girl is heavy, actually she is real heavy - more than 360lbs . When there are 3 people in the car ( 2 regular sized plus her), she sits in the back as a courtesy. With her in the back I can see the suspension sitting low and the ride is choppy with the car hitting bottom occasionally. My last car, the Sunfire, handled her weight and other cars do to. Worse thing is, we cannot doubel date in the Jetta. We tried. With me and the other guy in front (neither of us more than 180lb) and the 2 girls in back (mine plus his girl maybe 180) and the car just gives up. The suspension is bottomed on every slight dip in the road! We have double dated in the Sunfire and whle the car sagged under the load, it only bottomed on the harder bumps. Lastly, the seat frame on "her side" is slightly bent to towards the reat. I know my girl is heavy, but not that much to damage a seat!
Oh well, we do have to do something and canot afford to buy a new car now since we now have a baby. Making things worse, my girl now rides in back all the time with the baby. The Jetta has now taken on a permenant "sag" in the rear even when empty.
Personally, I can't imagine a "doubel" date like that. The Jetta doesn't excatly have a huge rear seat as it is (it's more for children), so throwing what seems to be a largeish (180 pounds) girl back there with a behemoth (360 pounds) would have to be really uncomfortable.
He also complains that his girl is heavy, but not heavy enough to permanently bend a seat. I'm not sure about that. If she used to sit back there during her transition from the 400 pound to the mid 300 pound range, yeah, that's gonna ruin just about any seat. Didn't you just freaking say you had to put a 2x4 under your Sunfire's seat?
He finishes off by saying they have to do something and can't afford a new car. How about some new struts, because god knows your car needs it. And how about getting your girl to go on a freaking diet.