Speaking as someone who is mechanically inclined but not hugely experienced, are there not situations where some sort of impact is the only way to go? I’ve injured myself pretty thoroughly by having wrenches slip off of fasteners when I was using too much steady torque. I understand not using a rattle gun, but what’s…

There’s so much truth to this. My father-in-law has a classic car. To my wife, who absolutely doesn’t care about cars in general but grew up around this particular classic, it’s a huge thrill to get to drive the thing.

4-point harnesses are contentious because you can “submarine” and get squeezed out the bottom opening in a hard enough crash. I think at this point they’re mainly used for autocross, so it’s probably a combination of keeping the driver in control of the car, and greater safety at relatively low speeds.

David, I think anyone reading this site can get behind the idea of a car with a lot of character, even if the crossover-driving public just view it as a junker.

Is there any chance he interpreted that as a threat? Like, maybe you weren’t joking about the maintenance history, but were planning to shoot it down?

. . .Why? Are you for some reason concerned about the paint? It’s a Lemons car; you could clean it with a wire brush.

Why are you doing this to yourself and that poor Jeep?

It turns out the fatality statistics between general aviation (private pilots) and motorcycles are pretty similar. I’m not going to drag out a bunch of numbers because it’s really hard to find unbiased statistics, and land vehicles are reported per mile while airplanes are reported per hour. So a serious statistical…

Yes! Mythbusters did it in a Honda CR-X. It made bad noises but didn’t go into reverse gear; even without a lockout mechanism, the parts are moving too quickly in opposite directions to actually mesh and lock in.

When he refused to take responsibility and told you it wasn’t that big a deal, you should have violently opened the damaged door into the side of his truck.

I think I’ve seen more complaints about that segment than any other, but I thought the commando bit was absolutely hilarious. Through computer games and movies, we all get to live vicariously as total bad-asses. Those three went and did the exact opposite.

Accurate or not, Mazda’s press has been pretty adamant that they were able to meet emissions on the test cycle without the EGR cooler, and included it anyway to improve real-world characteristics.

I haven’t driven one, but from what I’ve read the CX-9 engine is really impressive. Most small turbo engines are tweaked and tuned to play well to the EPA test cycle, and when you start asking for more performance they don’t run nearly as efficiently.

Even though they’re all proper nouns, I think we treat names of places and things (like the examples of Jaguar and Volkswagen) differently from names of people. If your boss hires a new guy named Dmitry, are you going to call him James instead?

No? I’m pretty sure he meant belly. On account of how the Cayman is mid-engined. Not rear-engined like the 911.

Never change. I love seeing you on here and trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.

Clickspring is comparable, although not car-related.

Torch has correctly identified the cat as AWD, but I don’t think I can accept the same for dogs. Anyone who has watched the two chase each other on a wood floor will know that while cats can recover from some mad powerslides, dogs are much more likely to spin out. Dogs are plainly RWD, possibly with a somewhat poor…

Yes. Maintain safe following distance and it won’t be a problem. It’s a public highway, not a racetrack where you can memorize all the turns and hazards and everyone behaves predictably.

Step 1: Put the long-term “nice” projects outside. You’re worried about salt, not snow - the Mustang and J10 will be fine in the yard.