Autonomously driven cars represent a much greater public threat than that of general aviation. The design, testing, manufacturing and maintenance of aircraft is under the purview of the FAA. Federal requirements add much cost to the manufacture and use of planes but delivers a safety level acceptable to the public. I…

Surprised you didn’t organize a Colorado I-70 ski trip and inspect the many roundabouts which have replaced traffic lights. Do not miss Moe’s Original BBQ in Eagle which is between 2 roundabouts.

Many Asian plant work only 2 shifts a day. The third shift performs maintenance while other departments make sure that inventory levels are as required for the next day. Lastly, production tolerances are designed in not a reflection of manual adjustments. If something is out of whack it means that out of tolerance…

Makes a lot of sense to the guy who negotiated a $1000/mo car allowance. My wife bought her Cayenne with 100% financing at 0% for 5 years. Her investments were earning 8%, you want her to pay cash? Suggest Jalopnik avoid financial advice. Writing about cars is proving to be a challenge as it is.

Japanese luxury cars at 100k miles have a long way to go relatively trouble free. Their hourly rates are likely near the krauts but parts prices can be much lower. If a Lexis part is the same as a Toyota the prices will be close. VW parts that fit a Porsche will most often to be much cheaper. German transmissions and…

Simca 1204. Was copied to yield the first gen Golf and the Omni/Horizon twins. Great handling and ride. An example of a promising child born to bastard parents. Wagon added utility. The dealer service manual is a great read.

If the federal government can present a compelling argument that they need your stuff and they are offering just compensation they are going to legally take it. If you have a different perspective and try to utilize your second amendment rights to change the outcome you’ll likely end up dead.

Japan has operated high speed trains since 1964 carrying billions of passengers without a single fatality. The US is the only developed country where train travel is more dangerous than air travel. What we have is a political cluster that will never be fixed.

More accurately they are angry spiders. Don’t ask.

Stopping sales of of new gasoline fueled new cars means squat. When California announces that they won’t sell anymore gasoline you’ll have some news.

Amtrak’s Positive Train Control is an old technology. It was installed on Japan’s bullet trains (labeled ATC) at the onset of operation in 1964. Since that time they have carried 10 billion passengers with zero fatalities. The real question is why does the US subsidize by the hundreds of millions of dollars a system…

1974 December 26th at my grandmother’s in north Texas at 20F. Replaced the clutch by myself on a ‘71 2l Pinto with only a bottle jack and some $2.99 jack stands in a 60 year old windy maintenance building with concrete floors so soaked in oil they never dried. Put down corrugated cardboard to fight the oil. Bought…

During the winter New York applies hundreds of thousands of tons (yes, thousands of tons) of salt on the roads. Surprisingly environmentalists have been fairly mute in this respect. I expect NYC uses far more salt on 5th avenue (site of the old GM building) than what Detroit is beefing about.

Headliners are certainty a PITA but there are worse engineering failures. All of the electrical interconnections in a car are ultimately subject to increasing resistance over time. There are accelerated tests for these connections which accurately predict their failure in the real world. There are a wide range…

I could take a lot less. Imagine your autonomous driven car takes you an intersection in a sketchy neighborhood. A few miscreants quickly show up with card boxes weighted enough to withstand the wind. In a few seconds you would be in a cardboard stockade that the autonomous driving system would be powerless to…

Adding a bigger sump and an oil filter would have greatly reduced required maintenance. The air cooled engines had no oil filter and required oil changes every 1500 miles. Most dealers had a lift in the front of the service bay and a handy waiting area. Owners could drop in Saturday morning and get a quick oil change.…

Try this: put a retractable tow bar in the front. Tow bar has manual connect but remote release. Have an app that identifies those with trucks that are going your way and are close to you now. Stop off in a safe area, connect the tow bar, use the app to pay the $5 for their trouble and the truck drives off pulling…

I think that any single French mark would struggle in the US. I do think that if there there was a “Frenchy Motors” brand that could pick and choose from any of the French models they could find success. I posed that to a Peugeot engineer who also thought it would work but said that Peugeot would rather die than…

Let’s face it the end for hoarders is rarely a happy one.

I suggest the wheels started to fall off in 1992 with the introduction of the Civic Del Sol. The first generation 1984 Civics were cars that represented the best cars they could build. Once they were designed they sought production efficiencies to lower costs, not to move to technologies that compromised performance…