I’ve never felt the allure of Ebay parts, but I hate shopping for car parts in general for this reason. There’s no information available, at ALL.

I’m pretty sure the defaults are set this way because government testing for emissions, fuel economy, and noise generally uses whatever configuration the car defaults to when starting from parked. They don’t care what the fuel economy is in a hybrid with a super-secret “ultra-eco” mode, because they rightly assume…

But, if being a decent person and as long as you don’t think they intentionally played a shell game to get you to sign what sounded like a great deal at the time, you’ll probably feel guilty. . .

How fortunate for the rest of us, then, that the BBC doesn’t consult you for long-term planning. You’re too focused on the numbers themselves, without considering what they actually show.

While the article mentions a horsepower limit, that’s mostly because it’s coming from a marketing guy. For the most part, transmissions don’t care about horsepower; their limitation is with torque. With new turbocharged everything, torque is climbing even faster than horsepower.

My Protege pulled that stunt, but I have high hopes for my 2014 3. I got a door ding all the way down to metal, and left it for the better part of a year before I bought some touch-up paint. It didn’t show the slightest sign of rust.

The Nurburgring is far rougher and bumpier than your average track. If James May thinks Ring-tested cars are too hardcore, that’s nothing on what they’d be if they were set up for normal tracks.

I wish unleaded aviation was making more progress, both for environmental reasons and political ones.

The 100LL merely has low lead compared to old-school formulations.

The STI has the added bonus of its inexplicable voodoo resale value. I swear, it’s got to be the cheapest performance car on the US market if you account for resale value.

You’re right, in the sense that people should be more concerned with horsepower below 4,000 RPM than above. That’s why the Focus ST is considered fast, while the BRZ with the same power-to-weight ratio is considered slow. Without a doubt, the new turbo Si will walk all over the old one in the real world.

If I narrow my search to a reasonable driving distance, those prices jump back up to nearly MSRP. I’m familiar with the idea of buying a rare, desirable used car from halfway across the country. With a new car, it just seems weird. So, what’s the best way to handle that situation? Do you make the deal over the phone…

And then gives the data to the coffee intern, presumably. I love my Mazda for many reasons, but the road noise is on the threshold of being unforgivable. Even after switching to some nice Pirellis.

This is totally a thing, although not in quite the same manner you’re describing.

I think this applies to every car ever equipped with the 3800, apart from a couple of Holdens with rear wheel drive. Almost every car ever to house a 3800 has been a let-down that didn’t deserve such a good engine.

Though, in fairness, Mr. Clarkson has demonstrated that he also doesn’t have a strong grasp of the inner workings of internal combustion. I seem to recall a particular Koenigsegg was equipped with a “supercharger whacking the fuel into the cylinders.”

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.