First of all, let’s remember that even the cheapest cars today are reasonably competent. If you want to be US-centric about this, then even our base models are often considered sports variants in the rest of the world. Imagine the BMW 3-series being offered with the 115hp engine that most people choose in Europe.

My previous car was an A3 with the DSG. I owned it for 10 years and never had an issue. It was smooth and quick, with only a handful of quirks which I quickly learned to avoid. Those quirks were generally familiar to anyone who’s driven a manual, but if you went into it expecting it to function like a torque converter…

I like unconventional and as far as unusual cars go I think the i3 looks quite good. I find it far more interesting than the Mini which, while I don’t dislike the design, has gotten rather stale.

This seems to be a largely American thing and endemic to a lot of industries. You see it with everything from product design to graphic design. It stems from a conservative approach to business; not so much political or ideological but in terms of what the business values.

Some time last year my friend took his phone to the Apple store to get the battery replaced. He got back a dead phone and apparently the employee was hoping he wouldn’t notice or that the phone would somehow fix itself. They tried scheduling an appointment for another day at which point he threw a fit and got a new…

A couple of thousand dollars is a huge difference in this segment. I’d also argue that the Si falls into a different category although I acknowledge that even the regular Civic feels reasonably sporty.

I always saw the A3 sedan as a better proportioned A4. The A4 has definitely gotten too big.

They’re consumers in the worst way, they just happen to consume experiences. They’re the kind of people take advantage of good will from those much less fortune they are. Then they use those shallow experiences for self-aggrandizement, sharing with the rest of us how special and enlightened they are.

Rosa was the best part of that movie, by far. Outside of the fighting the movie had this incredibly cheesy 80s vibe. The most grating thing had to be the guy playing Hugo who was miscast and unlikable. Exacerbating the cheesiness, he felt like he came straight out of an old school sitcom and it didn’t help that the…

That’s not how premium fuel works... Octane as nothing to do with cleanliness and is simply a measure of at what compression the fuel will detonate.

That’s why I’ve long stopped worrying about what TV shows I’m missing. Sure, I can’t partake in the occasional office conversation, but I’m not pissing away money because I’m fixated on a particular show that, more often than not, proves to be overrated.

There was a time when the Maxima was respected and a bit of an aspirational vehicle for some. In a lot of places that sentiment lingers.

Except when you live in a city where a thousand different dipshits with aftermarket exhausts are driving aggressively or in way too low a gear. Unfortunately, this law doesn’t apply to them and even if we had similar regulations here in the US, cops wouldn’t enforce it.

If it’s a hatchback with a lifted suspension, then it’s a crossover. I’d argue that a lifted sedan is also a crossover, but those are so rare as to be irrelevant.

If Americans had to pay the purchase costs, fuel costs and taxes that Europeans pay, 0-62 in 10.5 seconds would start looking a whole lot more attractive.

A manual transmission costs millions to develop and, in the world of high performance sports cars, virtually no one wants one. A custom VIN is almost pure profit. The few thousand GM has spent to support this will go towards a bit of extra admin.

People keep arguing that the new Silverado is ugly, but I’m struggling to see what’s unattractive about it. The only thing I see with the Silverado is that it looks more contemporary where the Ram and F-150 have a vaguely traditional aesthetic. Despite that, I don’t consider those two better-looking; they’re equally…

Who the hell assess reliability based on 3 months of ownership?

I had a coworker who drove a Mazda CX-5 for a few years. He said it drove well, but essentially felt cheap. He replaced it with a used Acura MDX. Although I can see Mazda being more upmarket than Honda or Toyota I don’t know if it will fly with your typical consumer. There’s a lot of legacy to overcome before anyone…

Given that there are pens costing thousands of dollars out there I expected this one to be priced at a lot more than $700. Not to suggest that even $700 isn’t offensively overpriced. I suspect this one is a generic nice pen with a 10x markup because they stuck a Bentley badge on the cap.