I don’t know exactly where the cliff is, but I know it exists. I have had part time employees working two days a week as a delivery driver... they were great employees and I wanted to give them a third day but it would have pushed them over their income cap and they would have lost their state health insurance…

I remember when the requirement came out that employees averaging above a certain number of hours per week had to be considered “full time” and offered whatever benefits were available to other full-time employees... I think the threshold was 40 hours/week but it might have been 35.

Two people I know just bought the Kia Niro and both are averaging over 50 MPG. It’s a genuinely comfortable and practical vehicle... Hybrid tech has definitely become more mainstream without any feeling of sacrifice.

Neutral: I think the smallest cars do poorly here because of the value proposition. They’re not really any cheaper than a car one or two class sizes larger, and they don’t get much better mileage either. Plus, space is only really an issue in some of our cities, and even then not nearly as much as in Europe. Why would…

Yeah, they seem to have the engine part figured out (except for the timing components on the 3.6 V6 engines...). I’ve had a 4-cylinder S-10 and a 4.3L Astro exceed 300,000 miles in my fleet... it’s all of the dumb little stuff that drives me crazy though.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but the emotional aspect can’t be discounted entirely. I get a tingle seeing an Alfa Giulia drive by and plan on test driving one when the time comes. Even though something like a loaded Optima would make a better car for daily use in almost every measurable way and would still be…

Maybe his knees are in a weird place compared to regular humans?

I think the Shell app creates the ability for the vehicle to automatically obtain info about the purchase itself such as actual dispensed volume, total cost, etc. rather than the driver having to punch all of that in on their own.

Your mom got a lot of life out of that wheel bearing! I think it comes down to luck... I’ve seen plenty of those vehicles (+ Suburban, Tahoe, etc.) that needed at least one front hub before 50k miles.

This is really the only acceptable answer, because of the way the question was posed. He wants a cheap pickup, what car should he buy? Within his budget and desire for reliability, this is really the only vehicle that fits into both categories.

He might even be able to make one himself. He’s already got a intact Prius front!

I image one useful feature would be that the infotainment system has access to the vehicle’s odometer and trip computer. So not only could payment be handled via the vehicle’s system, it could also eliminate the need for a 3rd party app like Tank Full to track long-term mileage trends for the owner.

My thought is that eventually every car will have its own “account”, so that fuel expenses (and even maintenance, insurance, etc.) can be billed to the specific car instead of who is driving it.

Cadillac had already gone down that road around the same time with the DTS, CTS and STS. Lincoln has at least had the sense to come back from there and use real names again, whereas Cadillac decided to double down on the alphanumeric flustercluck.

Given Elvis’s love for pink Cadillacs and his signature pelvic moves, the only appropriate name for this truck would be “Thruster”.

GM hasn’t had a problem with engine/transmission issues for quite a while and they still don’t. The problem is with everything else around it. Wheel bearings that have a short life span, ditto for suspension and steering components, electronic components that require dealer-level reprogramming before installation,…

Re: Pay for fuel via infotainment system

Part of what made the 1989 crash so catastrophic is that all three “redundant” hydraulic system lines ran parallel to each other, so all three systems were compromised by the engine shrapnel. Had those lines been spaced even a little further apart it would have been a far less severe incident.

Not quite “almost the last window”, just about 2/3 of the way down the fuselage. But still far outside of the area you’d expect to receive severe damage from an uncontained failure. Aviation reporter/blogger Jon Ostrower noted that if you look at a 737 from the side, there’s a blanked-out window space right in line…

Not necessarily. Lots of automakers employ overnight shifts already, and plenty of people work overnights in other industries. You adjust to it after a bit...