Disagree on pads. I’d cheap out on rotors before pads, since being able to stop and avoid a wreck is way more important than saving a few bucks. Granted, mediocre brakes with great tires will stop a car faster, great brakes with great tires is a recipe for success.

Disagree. Data shows that higher performance (aka lower tread wear) tires are better in the wet than all seasons, regardless of their use. Braking distances are reduced with better tires, and all other handling aspects are increased.

A star spec or rs3 will do better in the rain than any all season - save maybe some…

Why would it be totalled? There doesn’t appear to be any frame damage. He just needs a new bumper/hood/lights/hatch/etc.

It’l get fixed.

So a shaker style front porch has no character, but some awkwardly slapped together stucco, paint, and no symmetry does?

Please... The original porch was a clusterfuck. The new one looks and functions way better, and has just as much crafstman details as any other well built bungalow.

OP also forgets that almost all of the cars caught up in the scandal are not fitted with exhaust fluid devices.

Which is why they had to cheat. Because you can’t get clean enough exhaust without added ammonia.

Most of them aren’t though. They’re raised 4 door hatchbacks. They lack the extra cargo space of a wagon, which makes them kind of pointless.

I’d disagree on the baggage part. After having rented a small handful of various crossovers, there’s no more room in the hatch area than in my vw golf. A sedan will do a considerably better job of hauling both people and things, or obviously a larger SUV.

Crossovers are just large hatch backs with no added room. …

I don’t know, when you consider how many top gear to 1st gear down shifts there are on that track, there’s probably 5-10 seconds spread out across the whole circuit that you’re losing when you’re having to downshift/revmatch/brake vs just clicking the paddles and braking hard. Also the ABS systems probably make a…

The transmissions in the new cars probably make a huge difference on a track like Monaco too. Think about hand shifting the 100 or so times necessary each lap, vs tapping a button.

Driving 10,000 miles or so a year and averaging 30mpg nets you around $175 in gas taxes each year. closer to 200 if you drive a diesel, and if you’re driving something like a pickup truck, sports car, SUV, whatever that gets sub 20mpg, you’re well over 250 bucks in gas taxes.

While it may be high for the cheaper…

Those added taxes are for road maintenance. EV’s don’t pay gas taxes, which go towards maintaining the roadways... You don’t get to drive on roadways and not pay to maintain them, unless your sole form of transportation is a bicycle.

I don’t think it’s standard on the lower end honda base models. I remember when I was cross shopping hatches, VW was one of the only ones with cruise as a standard. Honda Fit didn’t have it.

Any modern CR diesel does that already. Kill the injectors when no throttle is applied and the vehicle is rolling. It just becomes a really complex air pump at that point.

And of course, there’s the jake brakes.

My car was built in Germany, with mostly German Parts. One of the last years the golf TDI’s came out of wolfsburg. :(

I’ve towed plenty with my golf TDI DSG with no negative effects... The golf TDI has a 3000lb tow rating in europe, and that poundage is really only a consideration for braking, not actually towing.

I’d say the only negative thing i’ve experienced towing is the noise from the receiver wiggling around in the hitch.

There’s also plenty of downhill driving over passes that these long haul guys see day in and day out, which would be an ideal time to kill the ICE generator, and let gravity and magnets do the work. Electric motors would also do a really great job of slowing down the wheels like most engine brakes do, so you’d have a…

I don’t know man. They came with optional all wheel drive, so they were basically softly sprung AWD GTI’s with a bit more space. And their normal height they’re super easy to get in and out of.

If they made them a bit lighter, they’d actually get good mileage and be a decent all around commuter. Even stock they get…

I’d say it’s an i3 range extender.

That’s true. A lot of smaller trucks in urban areas would benefit greatly from a fully electric drive. I’d only worry about refrigerated trucks, since those guys gotta stay cold all the time and I imagine that compressor is run off the engine’s power? (no clue, not trucker)

I imagine a semi being fully electric means that it’s got a diesel generator powering an alternator to charge the battery bank.

Basically a train, but on the road. Seems like a pretty smart thing to do, and there’s already tons of information and what not on the platform since... trains have been doing it for a while…