Long ago when I was in high school, a classmate’s father worked at a candy bar factory in our town. He came and spoke to our chemistry class once, and said his job as a “microanalytical entomologist” was to determine if the candy had more than the allowed amount of roach legs and rodent hair in it. The allowed amount.

FWIW I replaced it with a $50 camera from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and it’s working perfectly. This new camera even has a slightly better picture than the original. It’s a pretty straightforward process, but I suggest following the guidance of one buyer who recommended getting a package of the little clips that…

My 2016 Fusion’s rear camera has started doing that. :-/ I really like the car otherwise, but there’s clearly something wrong with Ford’s cameras. More than half the time now it’s reversed. When that happens it’s also missing the overlay showing where the wheels are going to go. The raw camera image needs to be…

I’ve only flown Turkish once, but I thought the food was really good, even in economy.

GM seems to have discovered the only source of interior plastic worse than what Chrysler uses.

I agree that the Element has an incredible amount of space, especially leg room. But I was in one on a 3000 mile road trip, and it was super-uncomfortable. Great design, terrible ride.

I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to find the GLHS!

Interesting. Yeah, I see that U.S. light truck sales are up almost 250% since 2009.

Serious question: what happened to car sales in the past 20 years or so? I just looked up the stats, and even the Neon sold more than 100K units every single year it was available, and more than 200K units in some years. Now it seems like a car that sells 20K units a year is considered a success.

Thanks. It’s always been a really fun car to drive. I was 37 when I bought it, older than your typical SRT-4 driver. I’m beginning to get a few odd looks driving it now at 58, and people have asked if it’s my son’s car. :)

I’m a fan of 5-spoke wheels, especially clean designs like those. The absolute first thing I did to my SRT-4 when I bought it new in 2003 was get a set of forged aluminum Centerline Storm wheels, which I’m still running today. They’ve been powder coated a couple of times since then, and currently match the subtle strip…

That looks stunning! Do you have a very rough ballpark of what this kind of thing would cost? I really need to do something with seats in one of my cars. It’s very difficult around here to find somewhere that does auto upholstery at all, much less good custom upholstery.

Because of the points you bring up, probably the answer should be expressed as a ratio. I’d suggest maybe 7hp/100lb is “enough” for most people and situations.

Really slowly

Seat memory was one of the primary requirements the last time we bought a car. Our car isn’t fancy, just a Fusion with most of the available options, but it’s the nicest car I’ve ever had. Heated seats and seat memory have become a couple of those things I’ll never be able to feel we can do without from now on.

Once I had a cop radio in to verify my claim that the SRT-4 came from the factory without a muffler. “Huh. Never heard of anything like that,” he said when he came back. I started carrying in the glove compartment the page from the service manual that said it doesn’t have a traditional muffler.

Ooo, manual into a 3.0L. That’s a more interesting project than a turbo 2.5L, which is what I assumed. I’ve owned two 3.0L vans myself in the past, but they were both automatics.

Caravan that I’d just jammed a 5 speed into

I’ll have to give that a try. I have a decent scanner.

My Fusion has actual sensors, but it still won’t tell me what the pressures are, just if one is low. It won’t even tell me which one! One of my few gripes about that car, which I actually like a lot.