Cmon man.  90% of the people I see commuting in pickups have the short bed.  

Audi is almost 100% owned by VW, so likely it is a business decision all around.  

I just flew from the U.S. to Iceland via Icelandair in January and didn’t even get peanuts.   Just a drink.  All food was extra $$.  Was a bit shocked.   

Probably true of most major car and motor cycle companies.   Perhaps it takes different skills as companies scale.   

I grew up on a dirt road.  Anything rwd could be easily drifted and flung about on loose gravel.  With the arming brake I could practically drift my Grand Am in high school. 

I remember when I was hiking the Amazon and I came to a clearing, and there was a Jalopnik commenter, sitting there with his iPad.... commenting away right before me.  

He is not saying it isn’t bad.... he is saying that it is different than an oil tanker spill. Just because two things are bad, doesn’t make them the same.

Rolling through a stop sign is against the law..... so is genocide. You understand that these two things are not the same, right?

The pollution isn’t a byproduct, it is one of their goals.   Completely false equivalency.   One of their trucks was tested and it polluted 36x the particulates of the stock version of the truck.  This does not equate to someone putting a stage 1 tune on a VW.  

When I bought my BMW wagon last year I intentionally went for the 17” (base) wheels as they look fine and I had replaced two rims And multiple tires on my previous MK7 GTI due to Indiana potholes.

Ironically GTI’s have always been about bringing technology to the people. The original GTI (Grand Touring Injected) had fuel injection in 1976! A full decade before GM’s sedans had it. Honda Civic’s also were carbureted until the mid 80’s

Ability to carry 4x8 sheets of Plywood... this is amazing and no CUV’s on the market can touch this trick. Generally only minivans can do it. Aztec was shorter but has the small rear tail gait that opened to allow it.

Given that the front seats are also bench, that car seats at least 10!

Original Hummer had an IRS. 

They did it when we were shopping for TDI wagons in 2013. Must have been a thing back then. We Absolutely didn’t buy the one in the showroom.

Letting the barley ferment in your mouth though....

The manufacturer still has incentive to give you good service at a good price, as they want to sell more cars to you and others.   

It doesn’t matter.  Most people don’t floor their cars at stop lights and highway on ramps.  Even people with fast cars usually lazily accelerate taking something like 15 seconds to get to 60.   10 second 0-60 is plenty fast to keep up with traffic.  This was the speed of Porsche’s in the early 80’s.  

I had a similar issue. Daily drove an MK7 GTI for several years. Two preteen kids fit fine and we even took it on a long 2000 mile cross country trip with a Skybox on the roof.... but day to day I needed more space. Considered the Alltrack but went with a lightly used 328i wagon. Has a bit more power than the GTI…

I just returned from 7 days driving in Iceland. 95% of the cars there were running studded tires. 5 of the 7 days were rainy and roads were clear. Pavement was in excellent condition... as modern tires aren’t as damaging. The two days it snowed, it snowed hard... and I appreciated the studs on the curvy mountain…