Except the disproportionately small wheels. But upsize those, ditch the squircle wheel wells, and I think it would do well now.

So much this^ The leading indicators of a correction were glaringly obvious in January and sooner. Railroad freight was so low, operators were siding rolling stock. Class A motorhomes last summer were stuck sitting on dealer lots (Covid might have saved some dealers and RV makers from tanking, or at least deferred…

Counter-counter-point. I bought my van, sight unseen, with 105,500 miles (nearing half a million miles now). From Enterprise, via eBay Buy-It-Now. BEST. BUYING. EXPERIENCE. EVER. Seriously, a few seconds to click the button, a confirmation email from Enterprise with all the VIN info for financing, and a 5-minute…

GM’s first attempt hurt the market for hybrid full size trucks and SUVs IMO. The hybrid Silverado and Yukons were flops. They offered zero highway fuel economy gains, while having less payload and costing quite a bit more. And ultimately, the reliability sucked. One of my friends was a regional sales manager for GM in…

That looks like the standard Escape/Kuga with the stub arm and a small 11" blade. The same stub arm on the Focus connects to a 14" wiper frame. I suspect the Bronco Sport will use the latter.

It might not be that bad at the source. Sound has an additive effect. Every source at the same frequency and output will increase total system output by 3 db. While you’re on the bridge, some of the sound energy will be cancelled out be nearby railing. It’s only when you get far enough away, that enough of the…

I use it for everything. Camping van for ski season and mountain biking, tow rig for the trailer, and hauling tools and supplies for work. But in the pic posted, it’s the support/party rig for our running team. What you can’t see is the 550 gallons of water on board. For keeping the crowds cool, but we carry extra,…

Bullshit they don’t last long compared to a Sprinter or Transit. SuperShuttle used to keep their vans until they had 700 or 800,000 miles. AMR doesn’t retire their units until 250,000 and rarely have any major repairs needed on the E450 units (they mostly stopped using the Sprinter because of the lack of reliability).…

M/Ts suck for towing in city traffic. 485,000 miles on mine, mostly towing miles (I bought it with 105,000 from Enterprise). It tows exceptionally well, especially after stuffing all E450 running gear underneath. The transmission is stock still!

Oregon’s ODOT does all things trucking including inspections, although law-enforcement has the authority to do it also. I wouldn’t be surprised if Oregon flags more trucks than most states, simply by means of Weigh Stations that are always open since trucker pay a weight-mile tax instead of fuel taxes.

Oddly enough, the Transit Connect seem to best fill the space left by the Element. It even gets the Ursa Minor treatment now.

A 1500 Avalanche has the same payload as a Caravan. Of course the 2500 can carry more and stay within sticker, but they are far more rare. FWIW I’ve hauled 2,400 pound in a Ford flex (a bunch of 1" steel plate, six LN25 welders, and a dozen cases of weld wire) and it was fine. In a 1-ton van, you can leave it setup as…

For the once every 15 years I need to move a fridge, I’ll just hook up the trailer. Loading height is lower anyways. But also carrying a fridge on its side is actually fine, as long as you give it a day for the compressor oil to flow back down, before you plug it in.

A van. Seriously. Even a Caravan would do this (and had about the same payload). Or an 1-ton van, which could swallow an entire bunk of plywood and not even squat.

I bought my Ford E350 van from Enterprise with 105,000 miles. It has nearly 475,000 miles now. It’s been great, and Enterprise was diligent about the maintenance schedule, and threw in a powertrain warranty until 150,000 miles (not utilized of course).

This. I don’t mind digitizing features, but I refuse to buy a car without a physical buttons, even if they are redundant to the screen. Especially for key features, such as HVAC, radio volume, traction-control etc. 

Ford/Lincoln already has fully heated glass windshields. It works far better than the heating elements in other cars, and on a frosty morning will clear the windshield in about 90 seconds . But that still doesn’t prevent ice from building up in the wiper blade grooves when it’s very cold and blowing snow, and…

It’s not an OEM feature. It’s shitty dealers upcharging for it, and if a customer declines, they tell them it came that way. It’s literally a $15 a plug-and-play module, but the dealers charge hundreds for it, and suggest they buyer gets an insurance discount for having it.

You really only find cabovers in western states where overall length-limits apply to triple-trailer combinations. Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah mainly, and primarily on East/West routes where the driver will overnight in the trucks’s sleeper. North-south routes use day cab conventional trucks since they can make it…

Because Portland Metro population has gone up nearly 50% in the last 20 years, while the number of gas stations as steadily declined (combination of property values and legacy costs are old stations, like leaky tank remediation), and the miles-per-person average has gone up as well.