Still doesn’t work. If you see the same parts in a non-exclusive car it cheapens the experience.

If you’re an exec buying an expensive car, you have to be able to drive it to places where you’ll be meeting other executives who can be impressed by it. That means you need to be able to drive it to the golf course.

Hoovie had an SSR, which at least was made this way from the factory. And didn’t have plywood as a major structural feature.

I’m OK with some of them but the HHR is one of the worst examples of the trend.

Yeah, agreed. My only other concern is it’s apparently gotten nearly impossible to get parts for HHRs.

The hold is meant to eliminate a race condition. It’s a bit like a database transaction lock. With a simple balance check you could remove the money in between when they checked the balance and when they completed the transaction.

Nah, they use Canadian Tire Money.

The problem comes in when the preauths start to stack. You buy a couple tanks of gas ($175 each) then stop at a hotel, where they preauth the entire stay plus a damage deposit. Now you’ve got $1000 in your account but can’t use any of it. It can take a couple days for them to release the funds.

I almost always use my AmEx when I buy gas. In fact I use it at any merchant I hate, because I know they get dinged for a higher fee than when I use my Visa. ;)
BTW if the pump offers tap-to-pay, it’s a lot harder to skim than a magstripe swipe.

Yeah, I don’t buy “insurance scam.” There are lots of safer ways to pull that off.

I vote drunk driving. If the police don’t find you until you’re sober I imagine it saves a lot of legal difficulties.

I agree about most of that except “increase towing capacity.” BOF chassis tend to have much higher towing capacities than unibodies. Unibodies lack anything substantial enough to bolt a hitch to.

Normally, yes, but EVs have upended things because there’s unmet demand for EV trucks. Rivian is a completely unknown brand but they’re moving product, for example.

It’s true that the Clarity doesn’t have a pure EV mode, but in Eco mode the engine won’t kick in unless you use the last inch or so of pedal travel, unless the battery is low. (The point where the engine kicks in does slowly creep lower below a certain charge threshold; this is indicated by the white arc on the…

The fact is, pickup trucks are not challenging vehicles to design and build. That’s one of the reasons domestic automakers love them so much — they’re all profit. There are marketing challenges, but right now there seems to be more demand for electric trucks than supply, so even those are not a high hill to climb.…

I remember looking at an Element when they first came out and being shocked that its payload capacity was the same as my Civic hatch.

I also think the Aztek doesn’t look as ugly now as it did when it came out, especially the later version without the plastic cladding. The Kammback styling that looked so weird then is so common now.

I’ve always thought the Crosstour looked like a Civic hatchback that had been inflated by a car bomb explosion.

The thing is, I’m agender and my wife is transgender. DeSantis seems to be on a path toward making it outright illegal to be trans, so I think I’ll just have to put up with the higher rent.

2011.