I leased a Focus SEL in 2012 and drove it for 30K miles over the next two years. I did experience some occasional shuddering and it would sometimes not be sure which gear to be in, but I started driving it as if it were a manual ie: using the gas pedal more sharply as if you were taking up the clutch and it generally…

When something is riveted, it’s sort of like the manufacturer saying to you, “This part isn’t replaceable at this component level, keep moving up the chain.”

The two impressive items of this story:

I like Ted’s paddock reporting and his notebook pieces.

Sky Sports F1 has impeccable coverage and it’s almost physically painful to go back to NBCSN coverage, even though I really like Diffey, Matchett, and Hobbs. If the team could be expanded further than 4 people and a half-assed attempt by US media at covering motorsport then I wouldn’t have to rely on Sky F1.

Fingers crossed that TSN keeps its SKY coverage and doesent switch over to the ESPN feed.

I killed two automatics before converting my Probe GT to a manual.

Why would you buy this when you can find something infinitely better used?

Only one problem there. He took the Karma’s singe redeeming feature, its looks, and changed it.

Pfft. Do what Bob Lutz was planning to do back in 2013:

I would agree, and tell them to ditch Diet Coke; however, the fact that they exist is proof positive that your opinion on this is wrong too. Trust me, they have run the numbers, if they weren’t turning a profit, one would disappear. The sales do in fact justify the marketing.

Why in hell does Beth Skwarecki get to call Coke Zero a “bullshit drink”? What kind of bullshit life advice article is this in the first place? This isn’t life hacking. It’s not even some hidden secret of the food industry, or a blistering look behind the marketing curtain. Guess what, snarky wise-ass blogger: natural…

They taste very different.

I’m a woman and I prefer Coke Zero. Diet Coke has a radically different recipe than Coke, it’s far more than ‘Coke without Sugar’ but Coke Zero tastes a lot more like actual coke so I prefer it. Changing Diet Coke to taste more like Coke is also not an option since Diet Coke has it’s own near cult like following.

Also…

Wow, you are really full of it. Coke Zero has real cola punch to its flavor while Diet Coke has dishwater-like cola-ish flavor. Everyone I know that I recommended switching from DC to CZ agrees.

Are you really allowed to just publish articles with fundamentally wrong ‘opinions’? ‘Cos that sounds a cushy gig. There is a pretty large difference in taste between Diet and Zero, that’s not an opinion, that’s a fact, you’d have to be sans tastebuds to not noticed the difference surely?

Sorry but this is a horseshit opinion. Coke Zero tastes a lot different from Diet Coke, it’s sweeter and has that spicy, slightly citrusy flavor to it like Coca-Cola whereas Diet Coke does not. (The “base formula” of Coke Zero is the original Coke formula whereas the base formula of Diet Coke was and is the New Coke…

Zzzzzzz...

You’d think a “defense writer” would know that those 2 bombs were not hydrogen bombs.

Facts kind of don’t matter when a defense blog is simply a vessel for political hackery.