I’ve bought several used sets of wheels, people are pretty much giving away (< $100 for a set) usable, but scratched, wheels, and since I’m using them for winters anyway, it doesn’t matter if they aren’t visually spotless. For my current car I’ve bought two prettier used sets so I’d have the same for summer and winter.…

Living in a country (Norway) that several years ago was forced to accept any car legal in the EU, I have mixed feelings about opening up fully for gray imports.

It never ceases to amaze me how even people who spend $30,000 or more on a car “can’t afford” $700 for a set of winter tires.

I guess it’s the cold, not the tires, affecting his mpg. Nearly 12 years ago I did a little experiment on tires vs mileage, when I had to do multiple trips between two cities 220 km apart. The first couple of trips were on summer tires, then I switched to winters because the weather report said the temperature would…

You’re correct in that European 5G networks are further away from the altimeter frequencies than the US 5G networks.

My partner has the slowest hybrid version, which is painfully slow. I tried the faster hybrid back when the C-HR was introduced, and acceleration was only adequate up to 60 km/h or so, then it too was painfully slow.

One friend did launch her dad into the windshield hard enough to crack it when she pressed the clutch with authority on dad’s new 528i automatic, having until that day only trained on a manual G-wagon.

The cheapest Model S is 60 % more expensive than a Passat diesel wagon. This isn’t 2014 anymore, the ultra-cheap 60 kWh S is long gone, as is the horsepower tax on ICE vehicles.

A former colleague had a Mercedes S123 with the 300D engine, 650,000 km. The engine was still pretty much original, with the timing chain having been replaced as preventive maintenance at 300,000 and 600,000 km, and some glow plugs when they failed, but the rest of the car didn’t hold up quite as well, but mostly just…

So far it seems we’ve reacted by giving them recording contracts.

I drove a Rover 95 for a couple of years, and the horn on that one was such that I only ever used it once and immediately regretted it. There just isn’t anyone out there I wish that kind of suffering on. I wonder if the British are so polite that none of the people involved in making the car ever tried the horn they’d…

The Mitsubishi unit is the one they used in the Aero/B235R (and the rare B235L with 220 hp), but in such an early B235E, some more modifications would be needed to upgrade to Aero-levels of power.

Funny how it’s only considered a problem by the FAA and not by any of the many competent aviation authorities outside the US. This looks a lot like an FAA problem and not a real problem.

Two relatives both cancelled their e-tron orders citing terrible efficiency as one of the reasons. It’s not a bad car, it’s just not a very good EV, possibly related to it being built on an ICE platform and having ICE-level aerodynamics.

More frunk volume? Trying to hide that the whole car is too tall because the midsection sits on a battery?

Yes, these things are getting better every year, and degradation will be less of a concern with the current new models than they were in the past, which I guess just reinforces the “drop it off a cliff” depreciation of older models that are known to degrade badly.

They are money pits indeed, I never claimed them to be good value, but now their purchase price is so low that “anyone” can start wasting money on their maintenance. In the old days it took real money, or solid financing, just to gain admission to this particular club of pain.

I feel your pain. I’m very interested in getting an EV, but I have one particular frequent trip that I want to do without charging along the way. It’s a little under 200 miles, but then comes a dose of reality, as I want to be able to do it without charging even when...
- It’s cold
- I have to sit 30-60 minutes extra…

EVs have been very popular in Norway now for close to a decade, they started getting taken seriously when the Leaf arrived, and pretty much exploded with the Model S, being the 5th most sold car in 2014 and 2015 despite its size and price.

Now if they would only make it 271 mm longer, 10 mm wider, 131 mm lower and make it sedan-shaped instead of ugly-shaped, I’d be all over it exactly as much as I would be all over an electric A8.