I do not, but you do spend a lot of time exposed to said fumes. You don’t have to be directly in the path of the exhaust to inhale it. Especially when diagnosing an exhaust leak. Which happens a lot in rustbelt states.

You know what sucks? Having to be a Volkswagen technician being slowly poisoned by supposedly clean vehicles. I mean, I’m not a VW tech but I feel bad for my brothers in arms.

As of right now, he is a magnet for trouble. Before the Arab Spring, yes, he was just another dictator in the ME. But Pandora’s Box has already been opened and this is what we’re facing now. What a mess.

No I think he meant that statement to liken Assad to a magnet for trouble, but in this case, foreign fighters to oppose him.

I just calculate my mpg increases by percentage of increase. Like 20 mpg to 30mpg is a 50% increase. But then again, there are a lot of people out there who aren’t good with percentages...

Nuevo-California?

Our biggest enemy isn’t Russia, it’s our own bureaucracy.

As a Subaru technician, I too can confirm that customers ask us to put their license plates on too.

Subaru tech here. A lot of our buybacks go to training centers for use in technician schooling. And some of these “unfixable” problems are rattles and squeaks that come from the owner previously driving a BMW and expecting a Subaru to be as quiet as a tomb.

I have fine tuned my ability to park and move cars in close quarters through the experience of working at a dealership where there are no provisions for employee parking. Parallel park a Subaru Outback and pull it back out of a spot 2 spaces deep? Entirely possible.

Ha, I don’t have the type of personality it takes to be a YouTube personality, unfortunately. I definitely don’t mind giving people advice though.

Not really on your resume, but the whole public perception of dealership employees is pretty poor as a whole. People tend to automatically assume we’re dishonest because of stories like the one above and other “stealership” stories. Bad guys get press, good guys go unnoticed kind of thing.

That and the initial stigma of working for a dealer. You also have to fight against service writers who want to just make a quick sale as well, because for the most part, the service writer is the only person the customer sees.

Doesn’t work quite as well when you work at a dealership, unfortunately.

Articles like this depress the ever-living crap out of me. I and my coworkers(there’s only 8 of us at the shop) try our best to be as honest as possible to counteract this view of all mechanics being dishonest, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever work.

Curb weight of 2004 STi: 3,296 lbs
Curb weight of 2008 STi: 3,373 lbs

There is one large difference you’re not mentioning: advances in suspension and aero. These new cars should be able to handle the additional power, akin to how F1 cars use their aero to control their power.

EXCEPT that Subaru makes a turbocharged FB16 in the Japanese market only Levorg. 1.6, turbo, direct-injected. That screams potential WRC engine to me.

And thank goodness for that.

$300,000 doesn’t even buy you a condo here in shitty Southern California.