I watched as one of my favorite magazines — European Car — died a prolonged death. One of my observations was that they had stopped reviewing anything that was remotely attainable by the Average Joe. Lamborghinis and Maybachs are neat and all, but the fact that it felt like they were essentially turning their noses up…

I’m confused. They made the Tiguan bigger because focus groups showed that people wanted a bigger CUV with three rows. Now, all of a sudden we have a new, smaller CUV around the size of the old Tiguan?

I guess the history of the corporation largely responsible for the fuel our cars run on, and, the way those cars and the ways we use them have evolved over time is completely irrelevant on a blog dedicated to the “Cult of Cars.” Jeeze, what was I thinking when I thought it might be an interesting thing to read about?…

If somebody had the cash to buy an $80k car outright, would they be looking at 4Runners? Would a bank even finance that deal? Like, how do they think they’ll even sell them like that?

Because of the front wheels are going at a significantly different speed than the rear wheels, you’ll exceed the tolerances of the center differential and cook it. Same thing goes for a really any limited-slip unit, front to back or side to side. If they’re running at different speeds all the time, you generate heat…

E46. Open the hood, locate the cover just forward of the cowl, turn three 1/4-turn clips, lift off the cover, remove old filter, reassemble in reverse. Takes longer to open the box for the filter than to replace it.

I always look up the factory reset procedure for a head unit in a rental I pair my phone to before I do it. If it can’t be done, I just use an aux cable.

My car is an anomaly, but I didn’t connect to Bluetooth right away because doing so *sucks balls.* It requires a complex series of voice commands and cannot be done using the buttons and dials on the head unit. I did finally do it a few weeks after I got the car, but it involved sitting in the driveway with two…

I’d also like to add that gating actual narrative content behind difficulty levels is also bullshit. I’ve run into that a few times. It never “inspired me to get better.” It always just pissed me off and made me decide to play something else.

You have to yield once you’re *in* the rotary? What fresh hell is that? How the hell do you get out once you’re in it? I mean, there’s a reason most rotaries I’ve seen have signs that say “yield to traffic already in rotary.”

So, two things:

Oh, yeah, true. In eastern MA they put big signs that say “ROTARY” on them. We have a few around here in Central/Western NY, but I think they just put a sign with three arrows chasing each other in a circle. Pretty sure we call them rotaries. It doesn’t come up much in conversation, though, since all of ours are…

Not as many cars as you’d think have them. It’s definitely more common that it used to be.

I have no idea how you impress it on her, but if you can get her to understand that the trick to being safe on the road is to be completely predictable, then you’ll cure her of it. Making things up as you go along is the very definition of unpredictability.

My driver-Ed teacher (back in the day!) told me to put the leading edge of the hood at the bottom of the tires of the car in front of me. I’d say that leaves probably 3/4 of a car length. Never done me wrong. In fact, the few times I’ve had issues have been when I haven’t done that for some reason.

Right? The rules are so simple:

I have no interest being next to a semi. Between the stuff they throw up, the fact that they’re prone to drifting lanes in high winds, their massive blind spots, and the weird fear I have that they’ll blow a tire when I’m stuck there, I want to spend as little time as possible  next to them as I can.

I forgot to mention people screwing up rotary use. I find it hard to believe that every time I encounter a rotary that half the people also encountering have never seen or even heard of one before. Particularly in eastern MA where they have a serious rotary fetish. Even the locals can’t seem to get it right.

Fine, but what about the other 65 people stopping at the light? They’re not all colorblind…

I don’t think it’s a regional thing. I’ve seen in in every part of the US I’ve visited, though I haven’t been to the whole thing. Dunno.