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From my experience, lumbar support is the biggest thing for comfort in long trips. The lower quality economy cars will kill your back on long trips. The Reatta is extremely comfy, especially the 16 way seats. The furthest I've driven is 5 hours to and from Chicagoland. It's a more comfy seat to me than my leather Honda Accord seats. An 88 Reatta I had last year, I drove to and from my parent's in Mississippi which is eight hours from here. I was comfortable in that car as well and it had the standard seats. Ronnie, I know how you feel about "talking to Northerners." The St Louis and Chicago/Northern Illinois people think that I am from Kentucky when I am in fact from much further south (South Mississippi). My fellow Southern Illinoisans are completely kind about my accent and don't treat me any differently because of it. Chicagoland people are graceful except for a few Karen's who are a nuisance to anyone regardless of origin. My experience has been the same in other Northern metros. Some people actually really enjoy hearing it and think it is charming. The funny thing is, when I go back to my hometown, people ask "where are you from?" They asked me that when I was a teenager. I said, "here." They thought I was from Atlanta or New Orleans because I didn't use the Pine Belt twang of South Mississippi. An accent is about the same as any other human characteristic. It does not mean we are stupid or backwards because of a little drawl. God bless the fools who think it does equate to that.

I drove my Reatta about 220 miles today. the weather was beautiful. I knew I had to do it today because rainy weather is moving in for most of the weekend. We had a great time. We took the scenic route of back roads that pass through a lot of small towns. While driving from red light to red light in one of the small towns I decided to look at my gauges. I noticed that the temp reading was about 210. Not really overheating but was unexpected. I have an aftermarket fan control that should turn the cooling fans on high at 190 and cool the engine back down. That isn't happening for some reason. Maybe the relay I added has gone bad or the temp sensor I added has gone bad. I didn't feel like troubleshooting it after the long drive so I will have to check it out another day.

I went over the power and ground connections, not expecting to find anything since they were not disturbed during the engine swap, all except the ground under the coils and the large stud at the passengers rear of the engine, behind the power steering pump on the non-s/c engine. I had to remove the alternator to get to that ground stud and while I could not easily move the connections on the stud, I was able to tighten the nut over half a turn. Maybe it will help?? No way to know for now. In any case, everything is clean and secure. I have been making the assumption that the chip and/or interface device has been failing, so I tested that theory this morning. I installed the assembly that had run so poorly just a couple days ago into another ECM, which turned out to be my original one. The engine started, ran very briefly and quit. It did this five or six times in a row, then it started and continued to run on its own. It didn't sound very healthy with a seeming miss audible in the exhaust, but in less than a minute that cleared up and it settled down to a reasonable idle. I drove it a few miles and it doesn't miss a beat, but it has done this before. Why it had a hard time starting and running is a bit of a mystery. A flaw in the previous ECM being adjusted for in the Memcal or chip which came along for installation in a better ECM?? I just don't know. Of course, this begs the question of why installing a different Memcal in the previous ECM, twice, caused everything to return to a seeming normal. Maybe just doing a reset by removing battery ground and reconnecting would have done the same thing? Maybe tightening a harness ground to the engine helped? Only time and some miles will tell if this can be put to bed at last.

Thank you for your donation. It is appreciated. I'm happy that your find this website useful and thanks for letting me know. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell if people are using the website. The donations help me pay the bills for the website, but knowing that people are using it is what keeps ROJ going.

When I speak I sound like I just walked out of the rural Appalachia mountains of TN where city slickers expect us to be toothless and barefooted. Luckily I am neither. If you have heard the people on the Beverly Hillbillies talk you know pretty much how I sound. I'm proud of my deep southern accent but sometimes it can be awkward when talking with people from up north. The Reatta seat itself is plenty comfortable. I just wish I could move it back about 2 more inches to get my legs in the right position. I have to lean my legs out to the side and my right leg hits the hard edge of the console and it doesn't feel good. I can tilt the seat back to compensate but then I feel like I'm driving straight armed all the time. I have added a cushion to the console that helps some but it would be better if I could move the seat back a little more. If the Reatta had a telescoping steering wheel like my Equinox so I didn't have to drive straight armed with the seat tilted back I think I would be happy with that Reatta seating position. Here is a photo of the cushion I added to the console. It was done quickly to see how it would work with the intention of making another one that looks better. That was several years ago and I still haven't got around to doing it. Probably never will. 🙂

Dave, you are in the heart of Dixie. Can anyone down there understand a word you are saying? 🙂 You are probably going to melt in Charleston. When I was there it was the hottest place I have ever been. I hope you have a great time. Go to Patriot's Point, just across the big bridge, and take a tour of the WWII aircraft carrier and the old submarine if you have the time, and if you like that kind of stuff. I enjoyed it but man it was hot. Since you are relatively close, about 100 miles down I-95, you should drive on down to Savannah, GA. I like it better than Charleston. It's a beautiful place with lots of history. If you like old antebellum homes you will love Savannah. It's full of beautiful parks with big shade trees almost every other block downtown. The park with the big fountain is amazing. The parks and River Street (you've got to go there) are within walking distance from the parking lot at the visitor center. We just park our car and head out. You must have grown way to use to sitting in your Reatta. I have to say my Equinox is much more comfortable than my Reatta for traveling long distances.

Just for the sake of conversation, my wife and I are in Orange Beach, Alabama visiting friends and tomorrow leave for Charleston SC for a week. Glad the hurricane turned but I'm sure we are going to see a lot of rain. Took my wife's Chrysler Pacifica so she could lay down in the back while a drive 10 hours plus. I think the Reatta is more comfortable for the driver (me).

It is a 15KW whole house generator that runs on LP. I don't have NG coming into my house, so I went with two 100 gal tanks. UPDATE: The tech did his annual maintenance, and all is running fine. Hope not have to see him until next Sept/Oct.

I think the risk is worth the reward as the Reatta is such a joy to drive.

The photo was taken on the Blue Ridge Parkway about 20 miles north of Brevard, NC. Ronnie, your issues with the CPS and fuel pump failures posted here have weighed heavily on my mind. This is one of the reasons I chose to go Wednesday/Thursday, just in case a flatbed transport was needed…

That's a beautiful photo. Where was it taken? I'm just now getting my confidence back up after being stranded on the side of the road with a bad crankshaft position sensor for hours. To be fair to the Reatta, me sitting on the side of the road for hours wasn't the Reatta's fault. It was the perfect storm of having it quit out in the middle of nowhere, combined with it happening almost at dark on a holiday weekend, and no tow trucks nearby that wanted to come pick me up and haul me home. What should have took about an hour turned into 5 or 6 hours. I have just now got to the point of where I don't worry when I drive it. Mine ran like a champ today.

I’m trying to get over my fear of the Reatta having a sudden unexpected breakdown, so I threw caution to the wind and took it on a trip up to the mountains Wednesday. 3 hours of highway driving followed by 2 hours of steep winding mountain roads and the car performed like a champ. Sitting at idle in an overlook the temp gets up to 208 and the highest it’s gotten sitting in stop and go traffic was 214. I think the factory default setting for high fan is 216 . It seems to cool back down quickly once moving along again.