leftcoastalgeek
Left Coast Geek
leftcoastalgeek

Costco gas stations are quite well marked with DO NOT ENTER and ONE WAY signs throughout the gas area. they typically have 8 to 12 gas lanes, and 3-4 pumps in each lane.   just one person trying to go the wrong way would make an unholy mess out of things.

Of all the cars I’ve owned since the 1970s, I think the most comfortable on long trips was our 1994 Mercedes E320 wagon, w124 series, we sold it a couple years ago with 280,000 miles.   completely stock except Bilstein touring shocks in front,  Michelin Primacy tires in the stock size.

I had a similar first generation (1996) 850 turbo wagon, not an R. It was just FWD, not AWD. The front suspension and steering on those cars was incredibly fragile. I got rid of it and reverted to a 1992 740T wagon, RWD, less horsepower, but way better ride and suspension. Added bilsteins, swaybars at 100K miles, and

My wife and I are already almost 70, so what we’re driving now probably WILL be the last cars we own.

1) a 1971 VW Bus with a high top camper conversion (not a popup westfalia). on a windy day you needed three lanes.

I came across the Mexican border a few weeks ago and stopped at a checkpoint a few dozen miles north of the border..., I had a back seat passenger, when asked, I grabbed my handy passport, started to show it, and said yeah, we’re all US citizens, BP guy just glances at my passport (and my California plates) and waves

My last hand crank windows were on a 1989 Jetta GLI, bought new. I had to replace one or another crank handle at least every other year as long as I owned that car (which was 10 years and 250000 miles). Contemporary with that we had a 1987 Volvo 240 which we owned for about 25 years, and around 500K miles, I only ever

I’ve bought one car sight unseen from a remote dealer, this was in late 2020, we had spent 6 months shopping for a car for my wife to replace her 1990s Mercedes E class wagon that had been her daily driver for the previous 10 years... I had her test drive Subarus Outbacks, Mazdas CX-5 and Mazda6, Honda Accord, various

Lexus GX == Land Cruiser Prado.

I don’t *WANT* to have my HVAC integrated into the cars computer screens. On both my wife’s Mercedes and on my Ford Expedition, the HVAC has its own temperature knobs (driver + passenger dual zone climate control) and physical mode buttons. When driving, the car’s screen screen is for navigation, and for playing music

I’ve been using Android Auto on a 2016 Mercedes E series, a 2019 Ford Expedition, and a Alpine ILX-W650 aftermarket stereo, and it works great on all of those.   My wife loves it too.

banks require comprehensive insurance if there’s a loan on the car.    cash purchased cars just need liability per state requirements.

My pet peeve is truck beds that aren’t even 6' long. standard bed should be 6' to 6'6" and long bed is 8' long. 6' is only acceptable on a smaller truck like a Tacoma. 4' beds, you can’t even put a bicycle in that without taking it apart

my 2002 F250 superduty had a semi-bench front seat... bucket seats on each side with a adult sized 3rd seat in the middle if you fold up the armrest.   oh yeah, and it was an extended cab (“SuperCab” in Ford parlance), with a 8' longbed.   Downside was a 62 foot turning circle, and 21 ft bumper to bumper, impossible

I think my most disappointing car was a 96 Volvo 850 Turbo wagon. I really wanted a 92-95 740/940 wagon but was having trouble finding a nice one so I figured I’d give the 850 a try. harsh suspension without particularly good handling. plenty fast, and OK but not great braking. By about 150k miles, the front

The Navigator featured in the start of the article is a SIX thousand pound vehicle, and thats its curb weight, its around 7500 lbs with payload.

odd, the climate control worked pretty good on our early/mid 90s Volvos that had it, worked great on our early 90s Mercedes, works great on our 2016 Mercedes, and our 2019 Ford SUV.

the 89 started in 2nd, the 93+ start in 1st, so they are much quicker off the line.  and the M104 3.2L HFM-SFI injection system has a fair bit more low end torque than the older M103 3.0L CIS-E injection.

I’ve recently test driven Ford Expeditions with 18, 20, and 22" wheels (the factory options on a 2018+ Expedition), and its very evident that the 18's give the best ride, and the 22" the worst ride. Considering how bad most urban and country roads are now, this is unacceptable. The Expedition is about as large and big

oversized wheels on inappropriate vehicles. case in point, was looking at late model Expeditions (to use for towing our camp trailer instead of a pickup truck), found one that hit all our hot points, except it had 24" Lexani rims with 305/35R24 tires. naturally the ride was awful, and the vehicle which only had 35000