The only thing truly “janky” in this story is the people at Tesla who engineered it this way. I think that’s the main point here. Someone willing to try out a questionable fix for about 95% less money just highlights why that connection shouldn’t be this way to begin with. It’s theses kinds of little mistakes (that…

Have you never tapped a brass fitting into a plastic radiator housing before? I’ve done this plenty as a quick fix and they almost always eventually fail. Plastic is pretty shit at holding threads, especially with a fitting with different expansion properties... let alone the likelihood of simply cracking.

It cracked…

I should have been more clear. The brass and the plastic that it is tapped into will contract and expand at different rates and create a fail point. It’s a pretty common fail point on many plastic radiators.

I am surprised how many people on a car blog have never wrenched on their own cars before.

Easy. 1.0L Ecoboost in a 2020 Ecosport I had as a rental car last month.

I’d say this about all my European cars, ranging from a Maserati QP to pretty much everything except the high-end stuff. But currently, the car that has lasted me longer without any exorbitant costing issues, is my 2002 BMW M5. It’s got 286,000 miles on it, been to the track in stock form (the first 2 years I bought…

Yes, maintenance matters. Cost of maintenance is a factor in its diligence. Changing a water pump on far too many BMWs involves removing most of the face and the many mechanic hours removing said face add up REALLY quickly. A two hundred dollar water pump replacement on a lot of cars rises quickly to four figures when…

You don’t get a roof that flies off. <shrug>

No one said Tesla? The cars run well, but for and finish is terrible. Model S and X are 6 figure cars, and even with almost 10 years of building, they still don’t have production down. Pair that with $50-60k model 3 and Y where bumpers fall off the in rain and roofs fly off on the highway. Even overpriced trucks keep…

is it much dumber, conceptually, than making battery packs for Tesla cars out of about 440 individual cells? i mean, constant environmental exposure and assembly/installation outside of a manufacturing plant by roofers with little or no experience would scare me off, but.

I think this is the crux of the issue. The only reason the solar roof exists is that Elon wanted to dupe investors into believing the acquisition of Solar City was a good idea, when in fact it was a way to bail out his cousins who ran the company. It has never been a good idea, any more than the ludicrous “solar road”…

Yes but will they fly off in a 60 MPH wind?

The yaris would end up being a couple grand less, at best, and people would still be complaining. Let’s just be thankful of another offering in this segment, please.

Gonna add a lot of weight to a car who’s real stand out feature is a low curb weight and the handling that provides.

The trick is to hold it off-center, to counteract the wind.    Then scream like a schoolgirl when a semi blocks the wind and your car jerks sideways.

We just made the drive from Topeka to Copper Mountain a few weeks ago. That southerly wind is no joke. Just inside Colorado we saw a truck camper get ripped right out of an F250 bed and exploded all over west bound I70. 

If he wants he can stay home with his mother. I am going snowboarding in Breckinridge

I’ve had to do that drive a bunch too and I actually hated Iowa the most, maybe because I always hit blizzards in Iowa or because I saw the grossest public bathroom ever there. 

Alright, who wants to tell him?

Put this in a Grom, you cowards!

Again this is supposed to be cheap commuter bike. Ergo the ByBre brakes. And what I’ve heard from other bikes with those, they are OK units.