“Are German unions a forced membership deal and politically active using membership dues to support a candidate their membership may not agree with? “

What’s your point? Forced membership was banned in the US in 1947 nationwide, and Abood v Detroit Board of Education prohibits using membership dues to support a…

Here’s what there is to hate about small SUVs...

There’s no space.

Seriously - try a Chevy Trax. They’re poorly made very cramped, virtually no space for luggage, and they want $21k+ for the horrid things, with many of them over $25k. You can spend just a hair more and get a decent Equinox or save money and get a more…

Ford sold 142,603 Edges last year, and you describe this as buyers staying away in droves?

Ford had 26 different nameplates for sale last year (going by their sales reports, which count “f-series” as one). The Edge was 6th on that list for sales in the US.

“Is the electrical transmission system able to handle the demands imposed by a few million more cars by 2030?”

The big question there is when will vehicles likely be charging?

The current average peak loads on the grid across a day are generally from 7-9 pm at 26 GW. From about 10 pm to 9 am, the load is closer to 20…

Except “lightly used” tends to run at such a ridiculous price nowadays that its often hard to find one where the depreciation isn’t simply linear - as in a 2 year old car going for 80%+ of the price of a new one, so is it even worth it? Heck, last new car I bought the “lightly used” ones were going at asking prices…

Easily? Not likely. Possibly? Probably? Sure.

We’ve had 4 Camrys in our immediate families (thankfully none now): 1987, 1996, 1998, and 2003.

The 87 was actually pretty reliable when sold in 2002. Actually, it was about at peak reliability for that one when sold, as it was on its third engine at 160k after the first…

If we’re going to jump to the conclusion that he wants to jump to serious off-roading and start offering impractical solutions like old jeeps, why not a Unimog?

Stiffer is the opposite of what you want here - you want it to be compliant so it moves out of the way but recovers.

Perhaps the issue was simply dumb luck - a 1 in a million shot. After all, Ford has sold millions of these and I can guarantee you they’re going through automated washes all the time and yet we only hear…

Has your antenna actually been snagged by the machine? If not, then you haven’t exactly been in the same situation, have you?

meh - the 2.5L isn’t a powerhorse, but it is powerful enough and still responsive. The Mazdaspeed 3 engine would just be additional cost and lower reliability.

Nonsense.

All manufacturers will be impacted, unless they’ve taken extraordinary steps to hedge, and all of them will see profit drops because of this.

4 years now...

You could also swap “dealer” for buyer.

I just had a free oil change at the dealer for my 2010 Mazda6 where they tried telling me I needed a throttle body cleaning because the direct injection engine I (don’t) have would lead to the throttle body fouling up. Seriously - the dealer tried telling me I had a direct…

And my first thought was who doesn’t put a bedliner in if they’re going to drop stuff in the bed? Neither would tear a hole then.

And if you’re going to get a hole, having one that won’t rust would be preferable.

I’d wager the results would have been similar in a steel truck. That takes a LOT of force to rip that antenna out. At a minimum, the steel panel would have bent up pretty good, the antenna would have broken, and then the antenna still would have beaten down the side of the truck. In either case, the cost effective…

“Would you buy a truck solely because it was several hundred pounds lighter and not made of steel?”

Solely because of that? No.

But if it gets good safety ratings (like the F-150 does), comparable or better gas mileage than the competition, and doesn’t come with a price premium so high so that the expected cost over the…

And 2016 companies took a bunch of drops thanks to forex if they were pulling profits from overseas, while benefitting from lower commodity costs.

Now in FY 2017, we see the opposite happening, so its hitting companies like Ford that get profits from the US primarily and rely on low commodity costs. We saw the exact…

Sure, the lawyers will take your case on such a payment basis...

IF they see it as an open and shut, slam-dunk case. They aren’t going to waste hundreds of hours of their time trying to fight a case where they’re likely to only get a few thousand dollars.

That used to be a benefit - we’d get more exports and more tourism. But when Cheeto Benito damages our reputation so badly, we see tourism dropping significantly even while we’re becoming the cheap destination.

Yes, but global commodities aren’t priced based on what the dollar is doing against the yen - they’re priced based on what the dollar is doing against every other currency as a whole.