For good reasons buyers purchase Porsches new or CPO. Porsche’s. At 72,000 miles the clutch release bearing On my wife’s car (2011 6M Cayenne) died one month out warranty. At that moment we had $65 (puddle light) in all the warranty charges from new. The service manager contacted Porsche to see if he could get some…

I largely agree in all respects but don’t see any discussion of trade ins. I’ve seen buyers boast about how they got big discounts without mentioning what their trade in appraisal was.

Surprised? This is the same company that charged $800 (old money) to add a separate CD player (single disk) when they became available.

Of course VW welcomes Tesla with open arms. How long do you think it will take before VW poaches some engineers?  Don’t forget the US does not have an extradition agreement with Germany.

If the right front passenger seat would slide to the rear, engage locks to maintain restraint requirements, have the floor rise to seat level and have a couple of lube dispensers conveniently placed you would have something....

MB and MB dealers are making outrageous profits on service work. As such MB often requires the VIN to be loaded into replacement devices to force you to have the repairs done at the dealer and to discourage the use of good but used electrical components. Toyota manages to avoid this practice except on safety critical…

I expect that any car that does 0-60 in less than four seconds consumes tires at a prodigious rate. Surprised Tesla hasn’t offered a modified the launch profile for owners who would prefer longer tire life over stop light bragging rights.

The hatchback version was copied by VW to build the first Golf. In the US it was named the Simca 1208. It was available with factory air that was far better than what was available from VW. I was going to buy one but Chrysler announced that the Simca would no longer be imported. I’ve should have known better, Chrysler…

Power loss is 4% per 1000'. This power loss is due to a loss of oxygen with greater altitude. It applies to all normally aspirated machines and those that drive them.   

Remember the days of Windows 3.11? Rebooting your PC 5 times a day didn’t deserve mention. You were only trying to produce a formatted document. In those days no one dreamed that bad people could find advantage in hacking your computer or just did it because they could. The more complex AV systems become the more…

If your own time is worth $50/hr then the offer is meaningless. Order factory oil filters online and go to Walmart after work (mine will make an appointment). They’ll give you a credit for providing your own filter and offer synthetic oil at a good price. In the meantime you can get some shopping done.  

The problem is not technical but hubris coupled the power of bureaucracy. NASA had to design everything in the Apollo program because no one had gone to the moon before. Designing subway cars is not a moonshot. There are time proven designs all over the world which could be easily adopted. This would cause great…

Mercedes Benz Sprinter Powertrain Comments

Whenever an EV’s published range is disappointing do you notice the lame attempt to pivot the discussion towards “you don’t need that much range any way”?

It did get 280 miles per tank in “Test” mode. I don’t understand why during the test no Porsche personnel would sign anything, wore dark glasses, always wore gloves and kept muttering “I’m not going to jail for this”. Why did the AMCI tech’s speak with a Bavarian accent and wear electronic ankle bracelets?

The cost of installing an electrical outlet near the toilet can double the cost. Stretching an extension cord to the washlet (bidet is an antiquated term) is both dangerous and hideous. There is one danger: just because you wash your butt every day does not mean you can skip bathing even if makes you look European.

The cost of installing an electrical outlet near the toilet can double the cost. Stretching an extension cord to the…

Building a manual transmission for the C8 may be hard but I expect there are clever folk who are now waiting for deliveries so they can figure out how it can be done. Once sorted I expect there won’t be a shortage of gearheads willing to pay $20,000 for another pedal.

Replace the Smax?  No way.  It is a European R-class but was better executed.  I once was one of 5 passengers in one while it was getting 35mpg at 85mph.  This new Ford will never serve that market.

The vinyl tape you can buy at Walmart or HD has no place on a car for a bunch of reasons. The leader of the automotive tape market is Tesa which you’ll find in many cars. It typically has a fabric backing which never leaves sticky snot as the vinyl crap does. 

Traditionally an SAE technical committee composed of american manufacturers and tier 1 suppliers have controlled headlight standards to their advantage since the 1930's. It was this committee that barred quartz iodide bulbs, they created worthless sealed beam QI rectangular lamps and barred moveable headlights,…