Another vote here for poly, just don’t get the hardest ones.

Up to a point, too much noise deadening could keep you from hearing a wheel bearing or a ball joint go bad.

It seems all Hondas, once they reach a certain age become fitted with a fart can exhaust.

Everything in this car is designed for doing a crazy cocaine-fueled binge with a couple of hookers, every - single - detail, that’s why it has the auto and the big, open, um, seating area.

Haha, whenever I’m driving it’s because I’m taking my mom somewhere so “i” it is. Still managed to surprise a couple of guys who were drag racing an old Civic and an old Integra with fart cans at a stop light.

Corolla

Yup, convinced my mom to buy the XT and the thing moves. 0-10 is a bit slow because of the CVT but after that the speeds climb really fast without you really noticing (again because of the CVT). Even at higher speeds acceleration from say 60-100 (for passing, obviously) is pretty good.

HVAC, no, that’s not a problem.

I’m pretty sure a LHD swap wouldn’t be so hard if you actually want to own the van in the US; despite the tons of different brands I’m sure most of these are just the same two or three designs badge engineered to hell and back so pretty much all you’d need is a dash, pedals and steering rack from the LHD version and…

Nevermind, that happens when replying without reading completely. I was thinking more about how my car DOES suffer from starvation on autocross and how a dry sump would help.

I think the opposite actually. This engine is probably dry-sump, so there’s a shallow oil pan with a scavenger pump that takes the oil to a tank and from there another oil pump pumps it through the engine.

Not really, they need to be over 25 to be imported to the US, but you could probably drive it for at least a couple of months on the Latin American plates as a “visitor”. That’s how I drove my Seat all over Texas and all the way to New Orleans.

Polyester bushings all round, definitely the way to go.

Because we know race car drivers never exceed the speed limit on the road, only on the track?

You can get them LHD in most of Latin America, new for about $9,000 or used around $4-5,000 and drive your way up to the US.

The answer is right there, Subaru BRZ!

That’s with towing? My car, with me in it, a full tank of gas and a skinny passenger is just under 3,000 lb; and most of my driving is on very twisty mountain roads (think 2nd, 3rd gear) so I’m fine with eating pads but I’d never thought the difference would be so drastic.

100,000 miles on a set of brake pads? Not if you live somewhere with hills, I’ve never had a set last more than 15,000 miles in any of the cars I’ve owned.