I never fully understood why people I knew from Nebraska said Iowa stood for “Idiots Out Wandering Around” until I had to drive through the state. Jesus H. Christ.

You can service German cars in your driveway with no formal training and a basic selection of hand tools available at Harbor Freight; mostly the same tools that would be required for a Honda or a Chevy. I have a friend that bought a CLK500 with 80,000 miles on it in 2016. He’s driving it 20,000 miles a year and he’s…

Oh I’m sure they’re very popular with all of the neighbors. I can think of worse cars to have strewn everywhere, at least.

I paged through some of his other posts to see if I felt like he was trolling or not; he mentions having owned the crapcan since ‘04 when he was in high school or some shit. So, like. I could go either way with this. I know people who are genuinely like this-they are absolutely convinced that their random shitbox is…

I mean, there aren’t too many snobs besides myself kicking tires on Mazda 2s and Honda Fits because they want a cheap crapcan to gut out, cage, and beat on until it pukes.

I’m not honestly sure if you’re trolling or not; either way, I’m going to disregard my own advice because I have nothing better to do at the moment, I have speech-to-text, and I enjoy the sound of my own voice.

They’re talking out their ass. It’s not even worth engaging with people like this; they’ve constructed an entire “reality” in their head to reinforce a provably asinine and ridiculous belief system with no basis in objective fact. In this case, that a 20 year old Camry bears mentioning in the same sentence as a…

I’m going to preface my statement by acknowledging that I’m aware of the Neon’s history in club racing, etc.

Unpopular opinion: Having driven cars equipped both ways, I prefer BMW’s turbocharged i6s when they’re in front of the ZF 8HP. The manual option doesn’t complement the engine well at all. This is one car I’d never consider a stick in anyhow.

I’ll regret taking you out of the grays

Disagree. When someone is being deliberately difficult (as in the original story), you shaft them as hard as you can. And then you take every opportunity to rub “if you’d only listened to me...” in their face, in the most belittling manner possible.

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll do that. I’m completely unfamiliar with the German and Spanish systems. On its face, your argument makes a lot of logical sense, yes. Of course, you know how politics works in the US-if there’s a logically sensible, workable solution, it’s identified, and then we do exactly not that.…

I think you make a number of excellent points. This is a much more nuanced issue than a lot of people would like it to be, I think.

Of course, if someone is dying, they should get immediate attention. I don’t think a reasonable argument can be made otherwise. And it is also absolutely the end of my world if I have to sit in agony for a month or two, particularly when I’m paying for a service that I’m not receiving.

I never said they did. I’m not sure what bearing that’s supposed to have on anything.

It’s good to hear that wait times aren’t necessarily as bad as they appear. My concern is that even their target times are unacceptable. e.g. http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/11/12/unacceptable-cancer-waiting-times-are-testing-patients-patience/ “85% treatment within 62 days.” Categorically unacceptable.…

You are correct; that was in the bay area. I live in a rural state now, so we’ll see how that changes. At any rate, I wasn’t really claiming that my experience was normative; I was claiming that under a system similar to the NHS, on a personal level, my quality of care would probably go down and/or my costs would…

Oh it absolutely happens, no question. I’ve called people to make appointments and been told “oh our next appointment is in 2 months” myself. To which I say “neat. I’ll find someone else.”

This is a fair and completely valid point, to which I would like to offer a counterpoint. Directly from the NHS website: “The maximum waiting time for non-urgent consultant-led treatments is 18 weeks from the day your appointment is booked through the NHS e-Referral Service, or when the hospital or service receives…

I bought my C5 Z06 at 25. I get all of the crap the guy in the featured story does. And, bonus points, when I tell people that I decided on the Corvette instead of the 993 911 Turbo that I thought I wanted, they look at me like I’m speaking martian.