My prominent off-road use is sand, aka driving on the beaches in North Carolina. Sand requires- added ground clearance, skid plates, decent AWD or 4x4, and preferably an LSD. The ideal ground clearance I’ve found is 8"+ that allows you to clear when you are bobbing up and down at speed or the occasional dips from…

I worked at a lincoln/mercury dealership so to say I did a lot of 4.6 plugs on panthers would be an understatement. A common problem (not as common on other cars ahem LS) was the coil on plug ignition coil causing a misfire.  Typically you replace the spark plug when doing the ignition coil so plugs were an almost…

Good thing that driving around worksites never results in rock chips right?  Also it’s not like putting an undue burden on the HVAC system would reduce range by having the glaring sun be on the occupants at all times.

How about a Maverick Top Gun edition.  I’m thinking with the color scheme from his helmet.

I’ve been interested in a pull out awning for my 4runner for awhile and there’s some good reviews on https://trail4runner.com but it’d be cool to see the Jalop take on some of them.

That’s the 5.4 triton the earlier motors had the issues with not enough threads, later ones with the two piece spark plugs that broke off in the heads.  Never had a problem with the 4.6 removing or installing spark plugs.

I’m a supply chain mgmt major and JIT is only as good as the data that supplies it and often that data is late and bad. Target tried to do JIT to reduce inventory since a lot of inventory is stored on site. They ended up being out of stock on a lot of things then promptly being overstocked with stuff people didn’t…

I hear what you are saying and I’m not going to sell my tools to replace drum brakes despite the fact that I hope to never own a car with drum brakes again.

These are solid reliable cars that get decent gas mileage and can actually tow things. This one has (imo) the benefit of having regular shocks in the rear instead of the air suspension common in the grand marquis and town car which is very expensive to fix and usually fails around 100k miles.  The only downside is the…

Replacing an alternator on a 4.6 is almost on par with an oil change its so darn easy.  Just make sure you disconnect the battery first!

I was disappointed that the 2.5 only came with the auto.  After driving my 2013 3 with the 2.0/manual I knew the added weight of the CX-5 would push me into the larger engine.  Ours is a FWD which is fine because it is mostly for commuting duty and the grand touring package already adds a lot of weight.  We have a…

Look up the prices to replace batteries and get back to me. There are still coolant systems, multiple connectors to everything, and the fact that you’re removing a very heavy motor attached to a high voltage battery pack. In concept they are simple but in practice...

When reading the specs for the hybrid engine I thought they sounded remarkably similar to another car from ford days past: the 2010 mercury milan hybrid. Looking into it I found that the milan actually had slightly more torque even though this same engine is 10 years older (according to edmunds).

I too am a mazda lover.  I had a 2015 mazda 3 2.0L manual that my brother in law currently drives and I have a 2.5 cx-5 now which is imo the most “fun”crossover out there in terms of driving dynamics.  The range, price, etc. just make it DOA.

I can see a crew of these rolling around stealing a bunch of VCR/DVD combo’s before race wars

Most electric cars. Due to the speed the technology is making the newest one obsolete and there isn’t anything particularly stylistically ground breaking on the newest gen to make them stand out which I guess is what they are going for. Having a 15 year old Mazda with 100 miles of range (when it was new!) when…

“Which makes me wonder who 600 miles of range is really for.”

You want the views you have to crash it.  Sorry I don’t make the rules.  You can see how guy who tracks his car responsibly for many years and does reasonable upgrades to prevent brake failure doesn’t really break into the headlines.

0-60 in the mid 9's and 100 miles of range sometimes! Wow these sure are wild times. Truly the car of the future. Snark aside the biggest problem with this car will be it’ll be obsolete on arrival.  Who is going to keep this car for 135,000 miles that are the authors proposed “break even” case.  This thing will…

Feeler guage Ha! Set it with the width of a cardboard match and then use it to light your lucky strike.