Were the 13" wheels reused race-to-race? My understanding was that at least some teams had wheels that were so light and fragile that they were essentially considered “disposable”. The mere act of dismounting a tire would put too much stress on the rim, rendering it unusable.

With the 18" wheels being a “spec” part,…

My local dealer has told me that they have already taken deposits on their entire allocation of the entire production run.  They are no longer taking deposits (nor is any other dealership in their “region”).

No pay would be an upgrade.  I used to pay to do the job (after you factor in the extensive travel costs).

This law is better than the original draft. The original draft did set a static decibel limit, although it didn’t specify how that should be measured (fast response, slow response, a or b weighting, etc). However, the decibel limit of the original draft was so low that even a Tesla (driven at 65mph) would easily…

Emptying of said bucket is acceptable only after punching out at the end of your shift.

I’ll be surprised if this ends in anything short of a class-action lawsuit (or a change of policy by Tesla). Ford recently just had to give a ton of Mustang owners $1500 due to a misprint in one brochure in one market. Tesla was shouting the “has FSD hardware” marketing from the rooftops.

There’s a local guy who has “POMPOUSA” on his Rolls

Another story from my Fiat 500 Abarth. The door handles have a “hinge” in them, that’s basically just a piece of ~14ga steel wire. Inevitably that “hinge” fails, and needs to be replaced.  Trouble is Fiat USA will only sell you a complete door handle assembly for ~$120.  Fiat UK however does sell the “hinge”…

Key fob on my Fiat 500 Abarth. Went to start the car one day, and instead was greeted with the security system being triggered. After dealer inspection, they found that the BCM had “forgotten” the key fob, and since they were “marry once and throw away” keys, my only choice was to buy a new key fob. Oh... except the…

I’m nervous about the safety of such a system. In particular I’m thinking of a spot in my local city where a major interstate (65mph) runs elevated, with a local road (30mph) running parallel underneath it. I’ve seen my GPS jump from locating me on the local road to the interstate, and while it’s annoying, it’s just a…

There will be abuse, but they’re unlikely to let you go to Krogers 10 times in the next 2 months for “your vaccine”.  I’ve been an Uber driver for these types of promotions in the past, and there’s zero validation.  In these situations Uber is just willing to absorb the abuse in exchange for actually doing some good.

Braking right now is generally limited more by grip than brake performance.  Improved feel would certainly assist drivers in maximizing their use of that grip, but there’s probably bigger gains to be found from increased brake cooling allowing for smaller brake ducts.

Wow, a slideshow of all the comments from yesterday? Why not just view yesterday’s article, and read the comments yourself?

It’s still rare in the non-commercial realm (I have no idea about commercial trailers), but the systems do exist. Mine was aftermarket, and while it used regular production car OEM sensors, it had a controller that you mounted in the trailer, and then a wireless display that you mounted in the truck.

Tri-jets mostly existed because regulations prevented long over-water flights with just two engines. The concern was that a twin engine plane might not make it back to land after a single engine failure.  By having three engines, they would still have two functioning engines after a single engine failure, without…

Worst direct TPMS system I had was in a trailer. Someone screwed up and installed the wrong sensor in one wheel, and it had a max reading of 90psi. 91psi would read as “0 psi”. Considering that trailer had a recommended cold pressure of 85psi, it didn’t take much heat to push the tires up past 90psi.

End result is…

My last two cars have basically worked as you described. I set it to a comfortable temperature, and maybe change it twice a year (down a little in the winter, up a little in the summer, to account for me normally having a coat or not). It also runs at (or near) 100% until the desired temperature is reached.

It might…

Why don’t we just have headlights/taillights on anytime the engine’s on. I’m ok with a switch to disable (drive in movies, etc), but the “default” state should be “motor on = lights on”. No longer need DRL’s or automatic light sensors for that.

Only justification I’ve seen for having headlights “off” by default is to…

I’m excited to see what kind of performance they can get out of a rotory with modern engineering and tuned for such a small performance envelope. I can see where tuning a rotory would be much easier if you only need to tune for a very narrow RPM range. Also add in the relatively low hours the engine will run (since it…

I was driving home from a Syracuse Orange basketball game one night when I saw the heaviest snowfall I’ve ever seen. Most of the trip home wasn’t that bad, but then about 5 miles from home we just experienced an extreme level of whiteout. I could only see about 3 feet off the nose of the car, so obviously we were…