Not ‘invaluable’, per se, but super useful on long trips. I bring you the thermoelectric cooler:

If you have a tall vehicle, I recommend also getting one that telescopes and can also be used as a snow rake/broom (head rotates 90°). It’s not that you can’t clear a tall car without it, it just makes it much faster and easier. I carry both types in my car.

We don’t have a Costco or Sams club around here, but I can’t recall ever having to wait at the local BJ’s gas station. What are these mythical ‘lines’ you speak of?

That would pretty much outlaw every pistol in existence, and most revolvers. The irony is that, because handguns are responsible for ~95% of deaths by firearm, that could potentially be a much more effective measure than trying to ban military-style rifles.

Headlight or taillight lenses that protrude from the body for the car:

What I’ve found to be the most important thing: The dealer. A good dealer will let you drop the car off, hand you a loaner, and let you go. A bad one will tell you things like “if what we find requires warranty work, we can give you a loaner”, which means it’s never a drop off and go. Or even worse: no loaners.

Getting RID of a car saved my relationship.

I used to have Subaru change the oil (wait, wait, let me defend myself) in my STI for $20 (included filter) when I supplied the oil. So for the cost of ~1.25 gallons of Rotella T6 from Walmart and $20, I would get an oil change every 7500 miles. Not too bad.

I see a lot of both, probably in equal numbers.

Weird, I didn’t notice that the first time I read that article. Is there even a car sold today that recommends 3k mile oil changes?

I’m guilty of the offense. I had a STI hatch, and would get waved at constantly (fast Subarus are stupidly common in New England). Felt rude not to wave back. Now that I’ve gotten rid of the car, I must say I don’t miss it.

Never go below OEM-quality with rotors and pads.

http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/why-expensive-oil-is-a-waste-of-money-1797241527

WRX/STI owners do it as well.

I’ve considered mounting a pistol holster back there. Out of the way and mostly concealed, yet still within reach if necessary (hopefully never).

I’ve never tried plugging in a flashdrive, but my 2013 Volvo handles my old iphone 4 as a mp3 player as well as I could expect, and better than every other system I’ve used (glares at Subaru).

I can’t speak for the lower-level cars (30s, 40s, and 60s), but the 70/80/90s generally had decent interiors in recent years (except maybe for the XC90, which was starved for a refresh for many years). The interior build quality was worthy of the price tag, and I liked how their designs were generally less ‘busy’ and…

Right, but that wasn’t available in MY2013. So they had the obnoxious touchscreens, but no Android Auto or Apple Carplay to take advantage of it.

Disagree. If you’re talking about the entry-level C30 model or the previously out-of-date XC90, sure, but I’ll put the interior of my XC70 up against anything in its model year short of a A8/7 series/S Class.

I personally don’t want a large touchscreen. I think there’s something to be said for the fact that I can access every single function on my car’s media center/nav system without removing my hands from the steering wheel.