“Better” is a changing target, depending upon what your specs are. In this case, better would be offering cars that American consumers will buy. Not the cars you listed, which are better from other aspects, such as performance.

Growing up in a small town, I got a warning for driving 5 over in a 30mph zone. Clear day, limited connecting roads/driveways, almost no traffic, nothing to obstruct your view of the road ahead. OTHO, my son said that recently he was driving near a cop, the cars ahead were driving the speed limit (because of the cop),…

I’ve heard that in some states it’s common for drivers to blow their horn the second the light turns green. Apparently they just assume that the driver(s) ahead of them are not paying attention. I have to admit it is a tempting idea in the following situation: There’s a driver at the front of a left turn lane, they…

There’s still a lot of old computers being used because they have custom-designed ISA boards that control equipment. As with the name Compaq, most Jalopnik readers probably don’t know what ISA is.

Forbes article titled “Top Oil Trader Thinks Oil will double from here” quoted one trader, who’s been very accurate in doing shorts and longs on oil in the past few years, as saying that we’ll have $70/bbl by the end of this year, $80/bbl next year.

First class tickets gives you first dibs on the lifeboats.

Tint film, yes. But most cars today come from the factory with some amount of tint.

A neighbor told me to crack the bleeder valve when compressing the caliper. The idea is to keep crap in the fluid from being pushed back up into the system, possibly causing problems with the ABS.

I always changed the plugs on my cars that had iron heads, but I’ve been reluctant to do so on aluminum heads. At one point, I tried backing out one plug on my F150 and got concerned that much more force might break the plug. Any recommendations? Stripped threads or broken plugs would kind of ruin your day.

I’ve never resurfaced the rotors when changing the pads, but OTOH, I’ve never had warped rotors. If the rotors are warped, they may be too thin and would warp again in short order. So I’d recommend replacing them at that point.

I’m happy my F150 has 4-wheel disk brakes for just that reason. My old Mustang with rear drums, not so much.

The muffler bearing needs replacing.

I converted two R12 systems to R134; my wife’s 1989 Plymouth Voyager and my 1990 Mustang (oil/fittings kit). The Mustang A/C worked almost as well on R134 as on R12. The Voyager could barely change the air temperature for the driver/front passenger. Apparently R134 requires more coil area for the condenser, and the…

The Leaf has roughly a 100 mile range, right there with the electric Focus. So Landen being “hilariously wrong” is apparently keeping good company with the guys at Nissan. OTOH, few people are going to buy an electric car from a company they think isn’t committed to product. One electric car model doesn’t cut it.

That’s part of the problem; these agencies are victims of their own success.

Not really. John Adams wanted a larger federal government, Jefferson did not, and that was part of the reason why they had a falling out that lasted for many years. We’re still arguing about the role of the federal government over 200 years later.

Didn’t use the /s, so it’s hard to tell.

So which would rather be in, a car that’s moving at 49 mph being hit by a car going the opposite direction at 171 mph, or a stationary car being hit by the same car going 171 mph? The kinetic energy of an impact at 171+49 should be the same as 220+0 mph, as (KE = 0.5 x v^2). So I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to…

I think he’s adding the other car’s speed to the impact speed.

Well, you’re a rarity. I tend to buy new and then drive until the wheels fall off, so long-term reliability is important to me as well. But a lot of people lease or buy and then sell shortly after the warranty runs out, so many manufacturers build to that market. The long-term issues don’t show up for the original…