My argument is that Mitsubishi doesn’t need to make a profit on the cars to stay in the US. They can keep a presence here while they revamp their lineup. Saab was backed by a company that itself was going bankrupt. That is very much NOT the case with Mitsubishi. They have very, very deep pockets. They had an…

The difference is that Fiat/Chrysler basically ONLY makes cars. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries makes... Darned near everything and anything. From TVs to containerships. Air conditioners to missiles. Trains to airplanes. The cars are a sideline, not the main show. They can keep making cars as long as they want. I really…

On a percentage basis you will lose less on the Acura. On a dollar basis you will lose less on the Mitsubishi. The discounts on them are EPIC. One of my Aunts bought one. Then one of my cousins. Now her sister just bought one - for something like $10K off list. The first two have been nothing but boringly reliable.…

A coupe is properly defined as a car having a lower, swoopier roofline and less rear legroom than a sedan - "close coupled". Thus there are 4 door coupes, and there are also 2 door sedans. For examples in the world of BMWs, 2002s are 2dr sedans, as are 2dr e30s. The 4 and 6-series grand coupes are 4 door coupes. The…

Pretty much any odometer made by VDO.

I cannot even imagine drinking that much in one day. I probably have not had 24 drinks in the past two years.

I have some friends who go on two Disney cruises a year, like clockwork. Gay couple with a kid who is now 14. They absolutely love it and will do nothing else for a vacation.

5mph. The bumpers are mounted on shock absorbers, those accordion bits let them move without damaging anything. In theory. Not sure what else you could do. Would look worse with a huge gap, and anything solid would break. And the whole point of the 5mph standard was less stuff breaking in minor hits.

So you add a diminished value claim to the insurance claim. Assuming that is allowed in your state.

And yet, the three American truck makers seem unable to do so. The bodies rot out long before the frames. Unless it is a Toyota...

Compared to fixing people, fixing cars is chump change for an insurance company. Still cheaper than a writeoff too. The carwash is probably in for a stiff increase on their liability insurance though.

Not even remotely true. “Totalling” a car is a purely economic decision, for the most part. If the repair is less than X% of the vehicle value, it gets repaired. Thus, the more expensive the vehicle, the less more it is to get repaired. Drop a tree on a 5yo Corolla, it gets totaled. Drop a tree on a 2 week old Volvo…

My BS meter goes off about the rivets too. Having a supply of the repair rivets should be part of the baseline investment to be a certified repair facility, just like having to buy all the special tools and the training costs. At a minimum (putting on my accounting hat) they should be considered “shop supplies” or…

Not necessarily. I have owned two salvage title cars with perfectly clean carfaxes.

Given the number of holes in them steel truck bodies tend to have around here after not nearly long enough, I would be more than happy to give aluminum a try. If you live in a place where the roads are not a salt bath 6 months a year, YMMV.

How far is it from the house? I have my WiFi Router in the middle of my house, it is probably 75’+ to the back of the garage (detached, 32x40). That is through a few walls and across the yard. With a good Asus N wireless router and a PCI-E WiFi card with three good-sized antennas in an old PC in the garage I get great…

Even better than a cheap used pickup. A trailer hitch and a 5x9 utility trailer. 5 reasons:

And then consider that the B-1B is much bigger, much, much faster, and carries a MUCH heavier bomb load. Of course it is also much, much, MUCH more expensive to fly.

But not when you wildly overpay for it. And Doug most definitely overpaid for his Rover. I would have rather paid $5-6K less and then put the warranty money in the bank to pay for repairs at a reasonably priced indy shop. But then again, unlike Doug I know which end of a screwdriver is which, and have no particular…

There is no earthly reason to do it in person in this day and age. I have bought my last four new cars in much the same way. A 20 minute in-person visit (by appointment) to start the ball rolling. Then a few e-mails back-and-forth to agree on a price. When I go in the first time, I have already done my research (the…