My first car I bought was my first stick shift car (Mazdaspeed 6). It was also brand new. It also had a clutch that took some muscle, and a rather short engagement. Even with my hamfisted shifting and stalling (hills scared the shit out of me... even the pathetic NJ excuses for hills) for the first few months that…

haha yeah, I looked this up cuz I have a 94 and I wondered whether I got a real gauge or a fake one. Thankfully mine is real :)

Actually, a blue and red coolant light would be quite useful in all cars. I want that red overheating light to be as bright as possible, and preferably flash in an annoying manner. I say this cuz I had a friend overheat an evo without really realizing it. I happened to glance over at his dash and saw his temp needle…

Your article reminded me of an interesting (and a bit random) fact about Miatas of yore. So first generation miatas had an oil pressure gauge. Then somewhere around 1994-95 they switched over the sensor (or the readout, not sure which...) from a true PSI sensor to an “idiot gauge” that pretty much went straight from…

I, being in possession of a tired but running miata, am wondering about this whole rallyX thing. What kind of suspension is needed in order to survive a jump like that? I can jack the ride height up through the roof and I think I’d still kill my car on a landing like that.

Mazdas have cable actuated caliper ebrakes. My 07 Speed6 has it, as well as my 94 Miata. I’m pretty sure the current 3 and 6 series do as well.

Not sure about “cable on caliper handbrake” being unreliable. Some older ones needed tending every once and a while (mainly after a brake job) cuz you had to adjust the “cable engagement” because the pad thickness drastically changed, but I think most modern cars adjust themselves within the caliper. It does simplify…

The Jackhammer is probably one of the most awesome looking guns made, along side the P90 and possibly the Kriss Vector. Sure, you had to leave all sense of practicality at the door with the Jackhammer, but as a movie prop you really couldn’t do better.

The issue won’t be the plastic bits, those are easy to fix. Try sourcing all the correct motors when they eventually die, or even worse, board components and flex connectors. It’s sad to see them go, but its awesome that there’s a cottage aibo repair industry to begin with.

The one thing I’ve seen to limit the crazy at DMV is just to show up as early as possible (like, 30 minutes before doors open). You’ll end up waiting 45 minutes anyway, but at least you’ll have fresh employees who haven’t been beaten down by that day’s work.

My 94 miata has double wishbone front and back, so “packaging” and “cost” are pretty poor excuses for BMW not having it in the front. Its almost feels like an antiquated holdover they they never bothered to design out cuz it works “good enough”. As an engineer... I can respect that, even if I don’t like it.

No need for the absolute lowest price, just a competitive price will do. I bought my car in 07 from an email quote. Got a quote from a dealer, shopped it around, found it lowest in the area, went in and paid that number. No haggling. My parents did the same thing a couple years ago. They actually went to dealerships…

after watching two Russian spacecraft explode or burn up I’d be having second thoughts as well... She’ll just have to wait a few more years until SpaceX Dragon gets up to speed. Plenty more crew space for those tourist dollars.

I think if even a few more people started doing this then some company will come up with a more efficient micro jet engine for this kind of application. They could cost $10k a pop and have run times in the tens or hundreds of hours between rebuilds, doesn’t matter, there will be a market for it. These current model…

I was wondering when there’d be the real world equivelent of “beginner mode” in Forza. All you gotta do is hit the gas and steer and the computers handles all finicky stuff for you.

But you have all the paperwork saying who the first owner actually was. If you are even the least bit meticulous about keeping your paperwork then you just need to add on your records to that tome of documentation. Or... you know, drive it till it (or you, or both) die.

Cash is king for private, in person transactions. Unless you’re dealing with something in the 10’s of thousands of dollars (in which case, get both your asses to a bank and hash out the funds there), cash is the only way to make sure everything is on the up and up at least as far as the transaction is concerned.

There’s a big difference between packs built for rebuilding and packs that you rebuild cuz you have to. All laptop packs “can” be rebuilt, but they are a pain to take apart (you’ll probably break something along the way, and even if you don’t the pack will never physically look the same), the cells have to be soldered…

Most readers of Jalopnik probably have a mechanic they frequent. Ask the mechanic if you could run the transaction in front of or near the shop. This may or may not work depending on where this shop is located (down a dead end alleyway isn’t exactly on my list of “safe locations”), but for any mechanics located closer…

Tiff Nadell, Rowan Atkinson, and Kari Byron. Boom. They all can drive well enough, but I think they all are in their own wheelhouse (so to speak) when it comes to skills. That would make for some pretty good comedy in the long run.