Given the fact that I can still fairly easily find gasoline loaded with tetraethyl lead (not at a pump, but still not an issue), I am not sure it would be a problem to find regular gasoline in 15 years.

It’s kind of hard to justify lower the rates when they were already effectively zero. But they certainly didn’t go up either - even though there was plenty of argument that they could have.

How what works?

Exactly this. They are late on raising them.

Well the fed also has big time inflation to deal with. They aren’t raising rates to cut them, they have a big problem on their hands from not raising them soon enough.

But if you aren’t in the know how do you determine if someone is selling you bullshit or not?   

Isn’t the current sales person standard WORSE for those who don’t know a ton about the super expensive object they’re buying?

The biggest lesson for me on chassis harshness and how details can affect the big picture was actually from mountain biking. And not from fancy suspension setups either, from bikes with no “suspension” at all - rigid frames and forks. No real mechanical damper at all.

Where did I say springs have little to do with it?

So with all your experience you are saying that dampers have no effect on ride quality?   Talk all the shit you want, but that’s complete bullshit.   And it’s clear you’ve never spent time in a car with adaptive dampers.

How quickly it reacts makes a giant difference for ride quality. And how stiff the spring is doesn’t exactly have a direct correlation to how comfortable it is - aka ride quality.

Probably.   But many of those in the know would buy this for the 5cyl sounds in a sea of turbo 4s.

Apparently in day to day driving this car averages more or less the same as a Golf R.   High 20s low 30s combined.   It might be the best example of speed and relatively good MPG.

Why everyone is convince that dampers make a big difference?

I bet it rides better in comfort mode than a Mustang GT - short of sharp bumps that are hard on the low profile tires.

Depends. The massive cargo box I bought 2 years ago is nearly silent. And the kids are still plenty small enough to have plenty of room.

S3 or mk8 R? If it ends up being reliable the AWD system of the R will make for a WAY more fun car. Also a much more practical shape.

You can make the claim that the mk7 was major cost cutting as well compared to the mk6. And the mk6 was a cost cutting of the mk5 - although a very popular and successful one that did not cut perceived quality.

Same exact tires? Relatively same performance cars? Same weight?

Goodyear is just serving up the same quality tire that they do for road going passenger cars.