Timothy Burke's discussions

This era of VW interiors absolutely did NOT hold up well. I’ve had three of them and no amount of babying kept pieces from breaking off, falling off, you name it. 

This is more than I paid for my 2012 X1, which has more HP. And my X1 can haul two dog crates. And get twice the gas mileage.

no, none of these things are the point

1988 Honda Accord coupe with a 1985 Honda Accord hatchback front clip, chopped roof, and cut wheel wells.

...the climate controls are integrated into that unit. how are you gonna fix that?

I am guessing this depends on where you live, and how much car insurance is there. Here in Florida car insurance is obscenely expensive and I ditched my Cabrio as soon as we got married (we both work from home and have for almost ten years). If car insurance is cheap where you are keeping an extra vehicle in your… Read more

the original clutch on his Frontier King Cab lasted 801,000 miles Read more

As a kid I had a Honda Express that would only start if I pulled the spark plug out and primed the cylinder with aerosol bug spray. 

Putting a lot of faith in the 635 pounds of that 429 to keep the thing from nosediving. 

I feel like I read decades ago (back when I was regularly driving a ‘72 Type 1) that VW Beetles had extremely low traffic fatality numbers per mile driven because their size and nature simply made them smaller targets, literally, for fatal accidents, and there were so many of them. 

Is it the right thing to do? I guess, though our income in March subsidizes the costs of the rest of the year (our mortgage and utilities in slow months like September well exceeds our income)

so we lost a total of $4500 in about 48 hours. We have about two months of cash reserves to keep it afloat if we can’t get any… Read more

Update: AirBnB is indeed forcing hosts to eat the costs of “nonrefundable” reservations that they are allowing guests to get refunds on. 

The real question will be if AirBnB cancels the insurance hosts pay against people canceling in the form of nonrefundable booking discounts.

As it currently works, hosts can surrender between 10 and 15% of the nightly rate in return for a guest booking the stay as nonrefundable. The problem, of course, is that AirBnB… Read more

people have been criticizing artistic portrayals of Jesus Christ as a white, northern European man for like 1000 years

NP if you’re reasonably skilled at replacing interiors (especially headliners, but also door cards, etc). Mechanically, while this is not the extremely simple 2.0 8v, this is still within the last generation of Volkswagens that an average person can do all the wrenching on with just a shop manual. 

Oh, yeah, you’ll… Read more

I had to drive a Civic hybrid awhile ago, which has the same drivetrain as this (I think), with a five-speed stick. It was a bizarre experience, and at no point did the effect of driving a hybrid ever kick in. 

Are 350s really easy swaps in an S-10?

The most important parts of the car are pretty ubiquitous and the typical fail points are both known and inexpensive.

They built row-your-own Aerostars (I grew up being hauled to football practice in one) though I’m not sure if they were still offered by ‘97. Someone smarter than me could also tell you when they switched to a column-mounted selector.

I voted CP, despite my affinity for the model, because I think it’s simply... worth… Read more

Man Universally Acclaimed As GMG’s Best Blogger: “I Was Worse Than You Say I Was”