Having a small fleet (armada?) of vehicles, it’s sometimes difficult to keep everything straight. Factory manuals can be a chore to find reference data in a pinch. I use Google Keep for this, basically a quick reference guide of the important facts. Sizes, dimensions, oil/coolant types, torque settings, etc.

Agreed, while the Regal TourX is otherwise fantastic, the plastic cladding is what would prevent me from ever owning it. I just can’t get over it.

In rural areas you simply can’t exist without a car. And with cheap cars costing less than a new refrigerator, I disagree entirely that someone cannot be considered poor if they own a car. Some of the poorest people have way too many cars sitting in their lawn.

The *average* age of my fleet, not including the boat, is 17 years. All running, all in great shape, all mechanically sound, all ready to drive at any point. Take care of things and they will last, let them fall into disrepair and it’s a struggle to recover.

Yeah you’re right on the money. My commute to work is 49 miles each way, which takes me about 40 minutes. My 49 mile commute takes me through two stop signs and zero traffic lights. So throw in a few errands and hobbies and I’m easily driving 600-700 miles per week, or around 34,000 miles per year.

The idea of having…

As long as we agree every airline sucks. I’ve had better experiences with AA than most others. I avoid United at all costs.

I work in manufacturing, our China factories are paid by the piece. They embrace automation because it means more money in their pocket (shorter tackt time, higher throughput). Conversely, their pay is also docked if they make an error, which ensures sure they don’t intentionally shove junk down the line.

Automation is a high-wage civilization’s best defense against low-wage manufacturing in countries like China and Vietnam. You can’t just throw a bunch of labor at a manufacturing problem in the USA and expect to survive long term. Automation increases throughput and economies of scale, so the manufacturer gets…

That’s an anticipated 1.7% of their flights per day... this is probably within standard operating tolerances. No need to panic?

Tom, you should do one of these on how dealerships abuse the filters by marking their slushbox cars as “manual” to show up in the searches that enthusiasts have carefully filtered. Deep into the narrative description you’ll see an “automatic transmission with manual override!” thrown in somewhere after the obligatory “…

It’s going to be a massive amount of work to repair that roof. When you can pick up XJ’s for pennies on the dollar, why bother? Just buy another XJ.

I very much dislike the digital instrument cluster. Give me mechanical gauges and dials please.

I hope people appreciate these cars now, because in 20 years when every vehicle has converged into an AWD electric crossover with paint choices of silver, gunmetal and slate -- $2,000 adder fee for the premium badge to impress your neighbors -- we’re going to be begging for their return.

Get a Saab 9-3 or 9-5, they can be had incredibly cheap with no/low rust, are very reliable and safe, and they’re monsters in the snow. My Jeep Grand Cherokee wins at crawling through deep snow on unmaintained roads, but my 9-3 dramatically outperforms the Jeep on highway speed winter conditions.

New car sales are falling because no one offers a manual transmission sport wagon in brown or green.

That seems about right. I also drive about 3,000 miles a month.

New York motorist here, front plates are required, and I just don’t use them. I’ll pay the fine, and keep paying the fine. I hate the look of a front plate.

Syracuse area resident here. I take rt81 through the city on my daily commute. I live 15 miles outside the city on one side, and work 15 miles outside the city on the other side. Tearing down rt81 would bring the highway down to street level introducing things such as traffic lights and 30 mph speed limits. My case is…

So here’s my take that nobody asked for: Silver is the absolute worst.

Does it work on the 300SL Gullwing? Absolutely. How about the Delorean? Again yes. These beautiful machines pull of silver extraordinarily well.

But then you drive around today and it feels like 80% of the blobby indistinguishable cars on the road are…

Because puddles can hide nasty rim-destroying pot holes.