I initially really like the redesign, but from a lot of angles in this article I just see an Audi.  While Audis are nice looking cars, they just come off a little “corporate boring” to me.  The Jag has a little more snazz, but still getting close to the line.

I’m not sure that an American company being bought by a foreign entity really makes it that much less American. I know it can be different for different cases, but as an example the company I work for has been owned by at least a half dozen different other companies over the years, but that rarely changed any of the…

My biggest reason in replacing all the bulbs in my old cars was the power draw.  The alternator in my 71 Vette isn’t exactly great at putting out power at idle, and it used to be you could watch all the lights flicker with the rpm and even more so with a turn signal on.  Going to LED bulbs was a no brainer as it can…

I pretty much learned everything I know about wrenching from watching over my dad’s shoulder (and probably getting in his way far too often as a little kid). He worked as a mechanic for a while when he was growing up and has always worked on his own cars as it was a great way to save money. We’ve had all sorts of fun…

ALL HAIL HELIX FOSSIL!

You’d think that there might be some kind of union among truckers that could keep their hours good and their wages steady so that nobody was incentivized or pressured to drive tired in the first place but welcome to America, where tech will solve all of our problems from deregulation and union-busting.

“Can’t afford” is one of the bigger issues there though. If you buy something that’s reasonable for what your income is that’s less of an issue. I tend to agree though that any “new” car is a bad purchase decision due to the massive depreciation. Go a few years used and it’s much less of a hit for basically the same…

Depends on the car. When one part wears out, a lot often tend to go around the same time, though you might not have the upfront money to repair everything in advance. Like if you have one ball joint fail, are you going to replace every single ball joint in the car or wait for the others in case that one was just a…

Fair, and I would agree that purchasing a brand new car is almost always a poor proposition due to the depreciation. I’ve never been interested in a new vehicle off a lot.

Right, though I think you also have one of the exceptions, lol. 4Runners are crazy at lasting and retaining value. I’ve been looking at picking one up myself.

True to an extent. If you have to put a car payment a month into your vehicle to keep it running, then that no longer applies.

That color reminds me of my parents Ram Truck, “Black Gold”.  I think it’s more or less gold metal flake under a black candy.  This seems maybe a touch more on the “bass boat” side of metal flake though.

But throwing a few desiccant packets into your toolbox can go a long way in preventing your tools–which can get pricy quick—from rusting.

Right, but I guess what I’m getting at is that I’d rather have the convenience of owning one vs the inconvenience of having to plan around not having one and having to arrange renting/borrowing one. From a certain standpoint, there’s no real downside to having one vs a car, aside from potentially higher running costs.…

I’ve managed to get by mostly just because both my parents and brother already have one and they are only minutes away from me.  The wife and I have been talking about a 4Runner to replace her Malibu and some point in the future though, so that would cover most of the use cases I would have for transporting stuff. …

Maybe, but it may have still been close. I believe it was a 4'x4' sheet. It was too tall to fit in the rear doors and I think it was still too wide to fit in the trunk, so I don’t know that having a wagon would have really helped since it was more an door opening issue than an interior volume one.

and five-speed manual anti-theft device.

The guy had a fairly well equipped shop/home, so it’s not like he was doing things out of a dirt floor garage, but it was really cool.  He had one room totally full of fun stuff like his first car and several bikes.  He had one old Harley in his house even, lol.  He had stuff like a mill and lathe though, so he could…

I just threw up in my mouth a little when I saw that picture...

This one is tough to me. Very few people would really use the full merits of an SUV on a regular basis unless they were essentially a school bus. I know my family got plenty of use out of our old Durango when my brother and I were kids and we played hockey and had bags full of gear.