That’s interesting. My colleague has an Equus which I thought was incredibly similar and it’s been fantastic for him. Really nice car to ride around in, and I’ve been in it when it’s loaded up with people without any problems. Different suspension tuning and interiors I imagine.

Did the parking brake failure cause front end damage? The car has low quality aftermarket headlights that are usually a sign of bad front-end damage and salvage rebuilds. That will scare off a lot of buyers. It’s weird, I’ve noticed an easy $1.5k-2k off sale price for that alone if you’re selling to people who know…

I don’t know what world this dude is living in where there are tow operators all over the place and there’s time and money to find and fund those hires right now

nearly 2 million extra retirements occurred due to COVID and there are labor shortages in everything from construction to healthcare to logistics to municipal…

accurate but while COVID is around you’re winning absolutely no one over with mass transit arguments.

Tax the shit out of fuel economy, gas, and vehicle weight

That powertrain is in the cruze and it’s not good. I don’t like these cars. The start/stop is awful but at least in the encore you can turn it off. The transmission is weird and does unexplainable things sometimes. The brakes are funky feeling and have a lot of complaints. The pedal spacing is strange. The paint was…

Turbo 4's in SUVs and large sedans are horrendous. There are no exceptions.

In clearcut cases of harm caused by showboating, texting, or racing on public roads there should be astronomical fines levied for things like this - like 5x the cost of the damage, and they should go towards medical bills and after-care of people hurt and families ripped apart. And you shouldn’t be able to get out of…

Yeah, someone else here mentioned SMIC. SMIC is the huge chipmaker in China that was restricted from selling to many American companies due to trade policies in 2020.

This combined with yield issues, shutdowns, and COVID disruptions in other chip foundry locations caused supply disruptions. That combined with increased…

I had that era of Mazda 6, and no it wasn’t, not in the modern sense. It still has a lower grill.

If you start including trapezoidal upper grills with a traditional bumper, you have to throw in much earlier designs like the 90's Mark VIII, early 2000's civics, etc.

There was no shield grill from Mazda in production in that era. The era you’re discussing was dominated by the Nagare design language but that expressed itself as the smile grill on the NC refresh and the 3. Most of the other cars had more traditional grill designs.

You guys are hypercritical - silly and out of touch with reality. It feels a lot like a way for you to criticize something you will probably never be cross-shopping in the segment. What’s the point of that?

It looks nothing like the Mazda, not even the grill. And as a fan, Aston hasn’t made an interesting car in a…

Counterpoint: there are a lot of modern performance cars (maybe most?) where the sound is unpleasant and no-sound is an improvement. I’m not at all a fan of Subaru boxer sounds, but they’re not as droning and trumpeting as the migraine-maker, the Nissan VQ, or as raspy as sub-1.8 liter Honda 4 cylinder engines. Flat…

I love my Anker bluetooth devices but they won’t and if they try it won’t compete on audio quality. They’re not really going after the high-end market, and they’re not likely to mess with proprietary audio formats until the formats are mature.

The 7M has some oil starvation concerns when driven hard or older (oil squirters, undersized pump, baffling’s not the best). Also headgasket problems but I’ll assume those are fixed.

The thing that depresses me and scares me about the size of trucks and work vans now is pervasive opioid use within the trades. I wasn’t really aware until somewhat recently... I live in a Suburban area that hasn’t really been devastated like some parts of the country. I was helping out a neighbor for a while, and on…

This happens with every make. You’re rolling the dice with every new car you buy really. It happens with Mazda, Ford, GM, Subaru, and Acura as well. I’m sure it’s present with every other brand too. My wife leased a Chevy and there were recalls, fit & finish issues, defects, and an extremely confusing transmission…

Yikes. You said one thing and then presented a barely-related, sloppy strawman argument in defense. If you’re going to behave like a child, no one is going to take any of your points seriously.

This is exactly how it currently works though. You can’t have vehicles wider than a certain width or taller than a certain height along with many other restrictions to be used on public roads. You can drive on private roads with almost whatever you want but you have to comply with safety and regulatory standards so…

I have chronic pain and own a sedan in this segment. There’s an equivalent-model SUV that I likely would have bought if it were not significantly more expensive. It’s much easier to get in and out of an SUV when you’re taller than 6'. Sitting upright is also usually a more comfortable driving position for people who…