I bet Putin is sitting in his volcano lair just laughing his ass off at us.

I wrecked my SRT-4 hitting a guardrail on an icy bridge several years ago. (I resurrected it; still driving it.) But that wasn’t my worst experience. The worst was due to the mental effects of that wreck, which has caused a kind of PTSD for me with winter driving. :( Last winter for the first time I experienced a…

It’s virtually always in reality easier—and cheaper—to take care of and keep an old car running instead of buying a new one. We just really like shiny new things.

There is a part of me that would really like to have one of those, for no good reason.

I have. Not very well. :) There are still songs from my childhood, played on 8-track in our old Dodge van (lots of Simon and Garfunkel, Starland Vocal Band, etc.), where my brain expects to hear that “cha-chunk” sound switching tracks at a certain place in the middle of the song.

That kind of goes to something I cannot reconcile about my rural county. While Obama didn’t win the county, he did get 48% of the vote. Somehow this same county voted nearly 75% for Trump. It just doesn’t seem plausible.

AMC Pacer. A car ahead of its time.

It’s hard not to believe there’s foreign influence behind it all, that the goal is to weaken the U.S. And there’s been actual evidence of that over the past few years, that for some reason just makes no difference. Back in 2016 it was clear in the internet’s domain name system that the Trump organization’s servers…

My daily is my 2004 Dodge Neon SRT-4. Bought it new in late 2003, and now have 252K miles on it. Until about 5 years ago I was also driving on many days either my 1987 Shelby CSX or 1989 Shelby CSX-VNT (built on the turbo Shadow/Sundance platform). The CSXes have been in the garage pretty much since then. I need to…

Is there really anything to figure out though? In many or even most things, it’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s the money and the will.

I’ve got squeaky rear brakes in one of our cars. Two or three years back I replaced just the pads without doing anything with the rotors, knowing this would eventually be the result. In the spring I’ll probably put in all four new rotors and new pads.

It might depend somewhat on where you are. I personally knew five people who died from COVID, and not all of them were old. Six if you count my father. He died last September, and while he had a lot of health problems and his death certificate doesn’t say anything about COVID, he got it and died a month later, still…

What’s with Chicago coyotes lately? I just saw something about a coyote in a Chicago grocery store.

Mine was a 1985 Escort, 2-door in a darker blue than your picture. I actually bought it brand new when I was 18 years old, with a down payment from selling my first commercial software product. I believe it was just over $6,000 new in 1985. Manual transmission, manual locks and windows, no air conditioning. Still the…

I’ve been surprised that our 2016 Ford Fusion does do that to an extent. It’s the 2.0L turbo with a 6-speed automatic, and while it’s not at all perfect, it does make a decent attempt to automatically downshift when I’m going down hills, especially steeper ones. At first I thought it was only when cruise was on, but…

I honestly don’t know a lot about them, but I saw one on the highway a month or so ago, which is really unusual here in rural Illinois, and it was a stunning looking car. Really got my attention.

I knew I liked you. You have a Neon, and you’re a Rush fan? Just more evidence of what a right-thinking person you are.

I experienced something like this. One of our daughters lives overseas, but her “U.S.” address is ours for mailing purposes. I had to sign a form with my insurance company providing her overseas address and stating that she didn’t live with us.

You shouldn’t be able to see the side of your car in the driver’s side mirror. Adjust your dang mirrors correctly.

Can’t argue with that basic idea, but a turbo 4-cyl probably has fewer parts than a naturally aspirated 8-cyl.