Perhaps not maintenance, but ball joints can be a pretty severe item to ignore - right up there with lug nuts. Your brakes and tires only work if your wheel is still attached to the car...

As someone who generally rides a motorcycle... All of these vehicles seem pretty damn practical.

Edmunds gets such shitty mileage because they refuse to put anything besides 87 in a car with pretty high specific output (especially for a non DI motor) that specifies at least mid-grade in the owner's manual. Their justification? It's not written on the fuel filler door. I'm sure that thing is running with the…

I would buy the X1 s28i (or whatever the rwd, turbo 4 version is called). It just looks like a 3 series wagon to me, but with a $10k discount. If it had a manual I might seriously consider it...

The 5.7 (L05) up through '93 made 180 hp / 300 lb-ft with a redline at 4500 rpm (or might have been 5k with a "yellow" zone at 4500, it's been a while since I sold my '92 wagon). The '94-'96 cars got the LT1 with 260 hp / 330 lb-ft and a much higher redline. The Roadmaster never got the 4.3 that I'm aware of.

I probably would buy this, but I'm also giving serious consideration to the Elio (although I think it's pretty obvious it's not actually coming to market / surviving after the announcement that they expect to sell 250k of them a year). This is exactly what I want out of a DD - small, efficient and hopefully easy to…

Jack Baruth posted a comment in the "new start" article saying that BS is no longer associated with TTAC in any official capacity.

Jack Baruth confirmed it in a comment:

I can see how Jack Baruth is irritating, and some of his writing has annoyed me in the past - but nothing like Schmitt. I stopped reading the site after a particularly inflammatory and ridiculous article he posted. If he is truly gone, I think I'll start reading them again.

Is he completely gone? If I don't have to see any articles with his name on them, I may end up adding ttac to my daily circulation again (although I promise I won't spend nearly as much time there as Jalopnik).

Boy would I love to see the UML for the architecture of any of these automotive on-board computer systems. I'm a bit more familiar with the systems used on aircraft (arinc) and any properly designed system should be pretty safe against common exploits like buffer overflows and all values sent through command and data…

I'm a bit curious about a compact with 184 hp that manages a low 8 0-60 time, especially when the larger 6 is in the mid 7 range with the same engine. I have a feeling those numbers will be updated later.

Pretty sure this is AWD, albeit a FWD biased system (like the SHO). While GM may be a fan of putting transverse mounted V8s in it's FWD cars, I am positive they would not be dumb enough to do this with much over 300 hp. Florida's ditches would be littered with grandparents.

What does a NYS legislator have to do with the DOE? There are definitely some minor conflicts of interest here, but campaign donations from special interests aren't exactly rare in this country... His wife being hired by a marketing firm in the last month of it's contract with VPG also isn't exactly a scathing…

1997 Dodge Intrepid - It was a hand me down from my Mom. My dad and I ended up killing the trans when (he always buys GM A-body wagons) we put some Dexron in during a transmission fluid change. Mom replaced it with a pos Lumina. Upon discovering that dexron doesn't work in Chrysler's, Dad and I put some ATF+3 back in…

Slightly debatable - as far as I'm aware, Fiat has a majority ownership stake in Chrysler, but they are not the same company.

Yeah, but Chrysler is just a brand - admittedly the 300/c/srt are the only interesting cars they make, but if you include Dodge, SRT and Jeep - they have a lot of good offerings.

And with more torque at a more usable range, their drivers might be a bit more likely to attempt to get up to speed when merging onto the freeway. As an enthusiast, I support EVs

Yes - not that far from Monticello, but basically your standard small town in the Catskills. A mix of sleepy diners, meth heads and religious fanatics.

Is that on top of, or included within, the MSRP listed on the manufacturers' website? Those were the numbers I was comparing.