Mercedes publishes their maintenance schedule well pas 120k.

I had an Audi with 214k on it when I sent it off to be turned into a cube. Getting it to 214k took a hilarious number of parts and as many hours of my time.

I guess I’ll give you that. I can say that it’s a marvel that VW has been making engines as long as they have and that they’ve made as many as they have and that they still screw up basic stuff like timing tensioners. It’s also a marvel that VW’s are considered reliable in Europe.

Didn’t Jason point out in the first article he wrote about that Tiguan that he knew that engine was a ticking time bomb and declined to do anything about it until it blew up?

I read someplace that Rotella doesn’t have so much ZDDP in it anymore and that it’s more in line with everybody else. Still good oil and usually fairly cheap, but without that added bonus.

I took a FRAM filter apart once. It’s construction was hilariously cheap and slapdash. I’m fact, when I bought my Audi, it had a FRAM filter on it that the PO had installed. It was so restrictive that it’d make 80lbs of oil pressure at hot idle. On a 1.8T with 185k on it. I buy Purolators and MANN’s now. The MANN I…

How recent are these statistics? There’s quite a few makes in there that are so dead they’ve stopped smelling.

Eh, not really. Most are still belt driven. They all have electric clutches to disengage when not needed and many pumps are variable displacement so they can stroke down to almost no load when they’re on but not much needed.

Do they not use weird plugs anymore? My Audi used a 17mm secure triple-square for the transmission drain plug specifically to keep goofballs from draining it by accident. This was a while ago, though.

The fluid absolutely is lifetime fill. Lifetime of the part!

By itself, probably. I can’t help but wonder how things shake out when you factor in the higher propensity for bro-bravado in the pickup versus the likelihood of a terrified Karen in the Subaru in regards to the care taken while driving those vehicles.

Most trucks on all seasons suck more than practically anything with snow tires in the snow. I used to run my E46 coupe with a sport suspension in the winter out of necessity. I ran circles around pretty much everybody with the snow shoes on. Kinda funny to pass some good in a 4x4 failing to climb a hill in a sporty…

I don’t disagree with your point about sports cars handling nice on the road and this being nice to drive in general. However, people with every type of car bolt dumb shit to their vehicles. Offroad vehicle people get lifts and dumb tires they’ll never offroad with and other people stance their cars, for instance. The…

God forbid cars are priced fairly to begin with so you don’t have to get into a dick measuring contest with a salescritter…

They’ll come around. Manufacturers will streamline their pipelines so it won’t take so long and dealers will stop fighting it. The only people build-to-order doesn’t work for are the odd person who needs a car this second (car was totaled in an accident, for instance). Those people are perfect candidates for a visit…

You’re probably right. Given that people buy what’s on the lot and what’s on the lot is black, white, and silver, “people only buy black, white, and silver” a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

What you’ve got there is an anecdote about a bad union paired with a bad employer, and a good employer. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need unions; employers would be treat workers well like your second one does. But, they often don’t. Thus, workers need to organize to force them to. That goes wrong sometimes.…

We really need to change this whole business with people walking into a dealership and expecting to leave with a new car. Dealerships should be somewhere you can learn about a car and check it out, then place an order for exactly what you want. If you need a car this exact second, go buy a used one.

My local Subaru dealership used to do every other oil change is free. It was great for people who didn’t do their own oil changes, though on your typical Subaru you don’t even need to lift the car to do it.

This trend of offering cars in no colors that aren’t grayscale needs to stop.