Another Australian in PDX? You’re gonna feel right at home, we’re covered in ash from the wildfires in southern Oregon right now. Chrysler used to sell a minivan in Australia back in the early 2000's, I guess they stopped. Any of those cars will fit right into the bumper to bumper rush hour traffic on I-205 and I-5. Pa…

I downloaded Driver app for my iPhone. I’m already carrying a phone with excellent cameras, why buy anything else? Of course, it faces forward from the windscreen, so no rear view, and I don’t leave it in the car, so no footage if someone tries something while it’s parked. 

I like Biden’s approach here. My biggest beef with the UAW (and others) is that they caved to the corporate head honchos in the 1950's when the unions originally wanted the US to adopt universal health care like the UK and others in Europe, and Wall St didn’t. Boardrooms offered very generous health plans to unions if…

As unpalatable as it may be to some people who worry about their premiums going up, your best bet is to contact your own insurance company and let their lawyers have at the garage keeper’s insurer’s lawyers, and the third party driver’s insurer’s lawyers. You pay your premiums to be relieved of all this crap. If…

When I graduated high school in Canberra in 1983, very few of my classmates had been given cars by their parents. Some that had regular access to cars were driving older models that belonged to their parents but the kid was allowed to drive. For example, my best friend was allowed to drive his mother’s third…

Yeah, let’s not get too many RHD vehicles on the road here (Australia, Japan, UK, Ireland, New Zealand etc.) Driving on the right in a RHD (or on the left in a LHD) requires a different set of skills, and changes the driver’s field of vision. I  have driver’s licenses in the USA and Australia, and have no desire to…

My late uncle Robert had a four door version of this in Sydney in the early-mid-1970s. It was a shitbox then, can’t imagine anything has changed since. No dice.

People that honk/flash lights at me to speed up when I am going the exact speed limit in the right hand lane. Just fuck off. I know what the speed limit is, and my speedometer is accurate. If you want to drive at 90 miles an hour, go and live in Germany and play on the Autobahn.

I’m sure that Mexico believes that when people move from Mexico to the USA, they’re raising the average IQ of both countries.

My training is in accounting, not automotive engineering, so I read the owners’ manuals of our cars. Mazda states that our 2012 CX-9 should be fueled with regular unleaded gasoline, which is what we use. BMW states that our 2021 530e xDrive should be fueled with premium unleaded gasoline, which is what we use for that…

I’m sure Heinrich Himmler would have stated that his Gestapo Officers’ actions were all completely lawful too. History will not look kindly on policing in this era of US history.

I live in Portland, OR. I keep the trip meter running so that I have two sources of information - the fuel gauge and the trip meter. When the fuel gauge hits 25% and/or the trip meter hits 300 miles, I fill up. My workplace is across the street from a Costco, so I fill up on my way into work when there is no line. If…

I wonder if her insurance covers her stupidity? I can see them covering one gas container in the trunk, but not several.

Stupid is as stupid does.

When we sold our condo in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 2014, we sold the apartment and the deeded parking space separately. We got $45,000 for the parking space. When we bought the condo and parking space, we were told by the mortgage broker that the mortgage company would not give us a mortgage on the…

McDonalds keeps the franchisees in line (to a degree) by being the lessor for the store that they occupy - so if you don’t play ball your lease gets cancelled. I’m surprised that auto makers haven’t adopted that strategy.

I always, always, check the reservation/confirmation with the actual travel provider. Trust, but verify. When booking with any travel agency, you should receive the actual provider’s confirmation number, which you can use to check the reservation/booking on their website. In my case I have a Budget confirmation…

I have a prepaid rental for a week in June thr0ugh Cheap-O-Air (I’ve used them before, they’re fine). I just hope that there is a Toyota RAV4 or similar for me when I get to the rental counter in Maui. Otherwise I’ve got Cheap-O-Air on speed dial.

If you’re okay with your car being gone for two weeks before and two weeks after your vacation that would work out peachy keen.

When I lived in New Zealand in 1990, many, many of the cars that were driving around were second-hand imports from Japan. At the time, Australia still had a domestic automobile industry, so the Australian government put as many obstacles in the way of importing second-hand Japanese cars as it could.