In fairness to Nissan, no one in their engineering group expected the rest of the Versa to last long enough to ever consider the difficulty of a spark plug replacement.

I really take issue with your metaphor. My younger dog loves to eat the shit from the older dog, in what seems to be an endlessly renewable cycle. And yet, you are suggesting these trucks are inefficient--really an affront to the efficiency of the dogs.

I have a manual and automatic version of nearly the same car, with one being a saloon and the other an estate. I only bought the estate as an automatic because everything else about the car was right. I guess I’m getting used to it, but it is objectively worse in every way than the manual car. Enjoyment, fuel economy,…

Driving quickly at sustained speed really doesn’t cause that much wear. My Saab has 300.000km, many of which have been covered on the de restricted Autobahn at full thrust, and the gearbox, engine, turbocharger, and mechanical bits are original and working perfectly. The oil is changed once a year, when I can remember.

Consider that there is no 25 year rule on exporting yourself from the USA...

I had a nearly brand new one of these as a rental in the USA once. I don’t remember exactly, but it had less than 5,000 miles. My lasting memory of it is opening the door and the door moulding, which was of course supposed to be attached to the door, sticking to the frame of the car and then slowly peeling and falling…

What about buying a used car from overseas without having seen or driven it, from a private seller? Because I’m on my fourth one of those.

Probably a side-effect of having a US market car and needing to meet some highway requirement there. The light switch functions as you’d expect on my EU Saab.

Had one of these in the Saturn Sky I sold—it was a fantastic engine.

Your statement isn’t really accurate regarding clutch wear. There isn’t a wear counter on releases—it wears depending on how you use it, and if you use it correctly, it will hardly wear at all. If you make sharp, precisely timed releases and never heat the clutch disc up by riding the clutch or slowly shifting, it…

Right, same basic gearbox that I have, then. I think different manufacturers had different names for it. I have 9 liters of oil that I already purchased to exchange it, I’m still searching for a new o-ring for the cooler line. My car has ~141km now (~88k miles), and I doubt it’s been done, I don’t see anything listed…

I’m guessing your Volvo almost certainly has the crappy Toyota/Aisin AF33 gearbox. I bought a Saab 9-3 Sportcombi recently with the same gearbox—it is still working fine and I will do a fluid change soon, but I wish I’d researched and thought about it more carefully before buying it. My 9-3 saloon with the Saab-made…

I don’t know what manual gearbox you’re driving that is “less reliable” than an automatic. I’ve never had a manual gearbox go wrong and never had a clutch wear out despite my hard driving. I sold one car with over 360.000km and the original clutch was working fine.

The position of the wiper stalk has nothing to do with the steering wheel position and everything to do with the vehicle manufacturer. Asian cars tend to put the indicator stalk on the right, but Europeans one have it on the left. My RHD Saab has it on the left side.

My 2005 Saab sets the clock automatically from the RDS broadcast and is pre-wired for integration with a Nokia mobile phone.

I’m sure it’s to help with centering of the letters.

I feel bad for the bus driver. If there’s anything I know about America, the last place you want to end up in, for any reason, is a hospital.

If you can’t import the cars, you could always consider exporting yourself.

At least up until the early 2010's when I lost interest in GM, they always had dramatically above-average engineering and research, average (and sometimes below-average) production quality, and dramatically below-average marketing. Toyota seems to be the opposite in all categories.

I mean, the Volt was a spectacular car. Too bad they killed it for the Bolt, which is a terrible car.