The car does have a seat sensor (in both front seats). If you try reverse the car with your seatbelt off, it will let you go very slowly but go faster than just a crawl and it shifts itself into park. 

I needed to change a rusty control arm on my old Mercedes. After leaving the car to sit for ~4 yeas I finally replaced it, with lots of help from our roommate. Getting to the outside bolt means taking the subframe out....

I don’t think it’s fair to compare the OTA updates Tesla does to say, the USB stick updates you can do to Blue&Me on a 2013 Fiat. 

Lots of VW parts counters charge the “We saw you coming” price.
There’s also nothing hugely special about VW coolant - they’ve been using the same Zerex stuff for years. 

I love these old training laserdiscs.
I have a couple from Ford, and a bunch from GM on my youtube channel:

It was air in all 4 corners. 

The computer on our 92 Dodge Ram pickup was air cooled in a similar manner. Great for cooling... bad for repairs. The PCB either had cracked solder joints, or a bad voltage regulator and the potting made it a pain to deal with.
I think even the early Lean Burn spark control computer was cooled in the same way - those…

My daily is a Cadillac ELR. The long doors require careful parking, and in the winter I have to go without cabin heat on my drive home from work to make it on EV power only.

In Michigan anyway, it’s not ultra difficult to get a title for an old vehicle without one. 

Jason, have you noticed that modern cars have a different cadance for the 4 way flashers than the turn signals? The 4 ways have a cadence more like a 1960s Mercedes, a short flash about once a second. 

Is it a good use of the dealer’s time to spend an hour installing software updates over a 9600 baud serial cable?
If automakers design their cars to be able to OTA, it will make their overall software package better.

It used to be Mercedes gave free access to their Electronic Parts Catalog. You could drop a VIN in there and get the original options list. The option code descriptions weren’t always accurate for cars from the 80s and 90s, but you could look up the codes on other readily available lists.

Ford had a similar kind of system for detecting cracked windshields in the 80s on their cars with the electrically heated InstaClear windshields.

Buicks and Dodge Caravans used to at least sound the chime when you left the turn signal on. 

There’s a hood latch on each side. If they’re gummy, only one side will latch when you shut the hood.

Over 90 mph autopilot, lane keep, etc does not work. The driver was at the helm. 

Autopilot disengages at 90 MPH - if you try to make the car go faster, you get put in “AP Jail” and can’t activate the system for the remainder of the drive.

I grew up in MI, and moved to VA. The VA safety inspection is somewhat basic - but that means any car in basic working order will pass. IMHO it’s a great balance, and makes me feel safer that every car in VA* has been checked in the last year that it at least has tred on the tires, the lights work, the defroster…

There is a master code, which is printed on the case of the keyless control module. On a 90s Taurus, you can see the code if you look up inside the driver’s footwell. 

I always figured this was a patent thing, just like electrically heated windshields - which Ford has held the patents on since they were introduced in the 1980s.