Funny. I had a 5-speed VW for awhile. Took it to get an oil change, and as I’m talking to the guy behind the counter I hear a horrible mechanical grinding, followed by another one. The guy that pulls the cars on and off the lifts didn’t know how to drive stick, and thought it was the same as an automatic: “You just…

VW Jetta. 2.5L 5-cylinder engine. Take it to the service department at the dealership I’d bought it at because the engine is running rough. Turns out the timing chain has stretched and needs to be replaced (conveniently about 1500 miles out of warranty). Much later I learn this is a “known” problem with the VW America…

V8 in a conversion van? Ever wonder why those things had those huge center consoles? There was motor underneath. This one looks like it’s had it’s distributor moved or something. Theres more... stuff... there than there should be.

Came here to ask if they are still doing this. Guess they are. This lady I work with actually has a Transit Connect. She uses it as a DD, and she does dog shows, so she wanted big cargo area. She went with the base model. She drove a bunch of us out to an off-site meeting. I mentioned, as I sat in the back seat, that…

TVR anything, really, but the TVR Cerbera Speed 12 was and still is considered one of the scariest cars to pilot at speed.

My current vehicle - a 2011 Ford Explorer - has a backup camera. It works fine (i.e. displays on the screen when you put it in reverse) except you are supposed to see the little red / yellow / green guidelines, and there’s a button to switch it to “tow hitch view” which basically just zooms in a little and draws a…

RE: Opel GT - the 1.1 wasn’t ever offered in the states - we only got the 1.9. And even then, 10.6 seconds to 60 is, well, generous, to say the least. Hemmings has the (admittedly emissions-choked version) 1.9L ‘72-’73 GT clocked at 0-100 kph: 16.3 seconds ( 62 MPH ). The older 1.9’s without all the smog stuff had…

Yeah. Sweet mercy that looked quick.

There’s a 12-gauge solution to this problem...

My brother-in-law towed a little 4000 lb (fully loaded) popup camper with his Honda Odyssey. It tore the transmission all up and beat up the rear suspension something fierce. The only way I’d tow with a minivan is to get the rear springs bagged, and install some sort of aftermarket transmission cooler, or beef it up…

Also came here to say this and post that very link.

I live in a town that was some sort of pilot for these things. There are charging stations for the things everywhere (and I think they’re fairly proprietary - they don’t work with Teslas, because we have a Tesla charging station or 2 in town also). All the local municipal offices have them (fire department, parking…

Trailer. Or very large can-opener and a good body shop.

I have just read some of the comments on 3 separate Jalopnik articles and ran across 5 of them that had apostrophes incorrectly placed before the ‘s’ in words that were just plural. Now it’s on the wrong side of a model year? Jalopnik writers - please write a column about the proper use of the apostrophe!

Yes, I know why. Dale Earnhardt’s nickname. I guess I could also argue that there aren’t too many of these anywhere near Monte Carlo, either. In fact, why name a car after a city that has very close ties to Formula 1 racing, then do everything you can to integrate it with NASCAR?

Because a 2-door FWD giant slow lump of torque-steer is “indimidating”.

45 Minutes WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING, mind you. I just bought a used Explorer 3 days ago, and somehow missed all the talk everywhere about how bad MyFordTouch was. You go to a website, ‘syncmyride.com’, download the updates, put them on a USB, do them in the car, then take the USB back and upload a results file to the…

Nope. Like I said, it was a rental. It felt like a wheezy little 4-banger from the 80s. A guy I work with drives a Cruze with the tiny turbo 4, and I cannot believe the same company made both cars, the Cruze is just so much more refined.

I rented a Chevy Sonic for a business trip recently. The dashboard is ridiculous. Makes you feel like you’re driving a transformer - the cheap plastic toy, not the cool robots. Also, notice in this fine specimen, a whole 322 miles on it, and the CEL is already on - probably to urge you to make sure there is actually…

"There's only one thing worse than electronics that do not work.... Electronics that ALMOST work."