Hyundai is sliding into Nissan/Mitsubishi subdprime buyer specialist territory. Kia is suffering from dealers used to dealing with subprime buyers while their products and price points have gone upmarket considerably. The entire company has an identity crisis, too reminiscent of pre-bailout GM with corporate…

It is if you’re willing to pay for it. Hyundais price to get you in the door is for cars with interior quality on par with a 12 Civic. Jump up $6000 or so in price and you get a much nicer interior, but by then you could get something nicer with a few less options.

Prices have started to come down somewhat, that was a year ago and in Chicago. $1400 of that estimate was the labor for the dealer to calibrate the sensors, labor in downtown Chicago can be well over $200 per hour for operations that they have a monopoly on. But still, a grille for a Nissan Rogue is $1800 if it has…

Most of your rate goes towards stacking the bank account for bodily injury claims. Less safety tech in vehicle makes you a higher risk for a bodily injury claim, leading to higher rates.

First generation Hyundai Genesis sedans with radar cruise control feature the sensor in the lower grille. One small rock or piece of debris in the road can crack the lense, leading to the replacement of a $4500 part to make the vehicle driveable again. It’s getting ridiculous in insurance/collision repair now.

Insurance adjuster currently based in Chicago here. From personal experience over the past 3 years, I’ve gone from replacing a camera or sensor in a bumper once or twice a month, to multiple times a week. I had a customer last winter hit a chunk of ice with her A8, the ice hit right where the right fog lamp would…

The Corvette was THE car to me growing up. After college I started working at a high end bodyshop because it paid better than anything my degree would get, so I got to drive one finally. I was wrecked when I got to experience it first hand and learn the performance really couldn’t make up for the interior. I did…

I think many people used to shop for new cars every few years out of necessity. Repairs got expensive outside the warranty, the interior started to fall apart, or better yet for $250 a month they could get the new generation with new features. Now cars have risen in price as the quality and the content has increased.…

He’s fixing frame rails so that they look repaired cosmetically, however that BMW will fall apart in another front end collision. Structural components that have kinks or buckles need to be cut out and replaced, at least to perform the same again in a collision.

Each state and insurance company has different standards for what a “total” is. Generally, once a repair reaches 70-80% of the vehicles value they pay out the value instead of the repair. Usually once factors like rental charges and additional repair costs are factored in they save a little bit of money. Also, your…

Exactly, this isn’t a repair you’d get from a BMW certified repair shop. It might not be enough to total this car on the first go, but as soon as any reputable shop put together their repair order the insurance company would most likely write it off.

Working at a busy body shop, I can’t tell you how glad I am when I’m handed the keys to a Forester to move around the tight back lot. The cars no one wants to move are anything with a convertible top, horrible rearward visibility, especially Solstice and Skys (which I see often in Chicago suburbs for some reason).

I think it would have to be closer to 220. Everyone else in the segment has started to creep away from the low 200s toward 250hp or so. Unless Honda can undercut the Focus St and GTI by a $1500-$2000 right out the door, I can’t see them going under 210.

I believe this car was also delayed because the greenhouse would perform poorly in crash tests. So the tech is old, the electronics are crap, and the engineers don’t know how to make proper crumple zones...

1) 1963 Corvette. This is the car that got me into the car scene. This is slow, Sunday cruising car.

I used to work at a body shop that didn’t have space for a lift, so we had to send mechanical work out to a different mechanic down the street. I was used to driving that route in my FR-S, 3rd gear at moderate RPM was around the 45mph speed limit. One day I had to take a customers 2013 CTS-V Coupe down the the…

Idea for a new article. Give me $3000 and I’ll find an Aztec and write weekly reviews on it for you. It’s only 6 months of car payments for you, plus I loved the Aztec concept car when I was a kid.

Exactly, they bought Volvo so they could bring Geely to North America and Europe eventually. The strategy has been working for Tata with Jaguar/Land Rover. It’s a long game, but I won’t be shocked to see Chinese built Geely or Indian built Tata vehicles on the road within the next 10-15 years.

I had a guy once tell me his CEL came on from a minor fender bender in his 2006 M5. He took it to his independent BMW shop where his buddy worked and they wrote up an estimate to rebuild the motor and replace rod bearings and some solenoids for the valves. I asked them to show me the physical damage for his insurance…

It looks good, but for what VW will most likely ask you could probably get a entry level luxury midsizer vs this. I think it may be too late for anyone looking for a 3 row SUV to consider these in any large quantities.