A recent post on the CX-9 users forum (at www.mazdas247.com) caught my eye. An stalwart owner tore down his 3.5 (Ford) engine to clean up a sludging problem and broke a rod bolt in the process. He then discovered much to his dismay that replacement rod bolts are not considered “serviceable parts” by Mazda. In fact, it turns out that most of the internal engine components you would want to replace in a rebuild are not available from Mazda. (This is true for both the 3.5 and the more recent 3.7 litre versions.) Unavailable items include pistons, rings, bearings, etc. Searching on-line one can find the typical factory exploded parts diagrams with all these internal components listed, but in lieu of part numbers there is the notation, “This part is not serviced.” (Here’s an example) Read More >
WARNING: If you think this picture is too gross, do NOT hit the jump. – BS
We have all seen it before. You are cruising right down the road, and it immediately catches your attention. There is a female passenger in another vehicle with her feet up on the dash. Imagine the horror if someone did this to your brand new vehicle!
The nightmare came true for both Bob and Carol. They were running errands around town and Carol put her foot up on the glistening dash of Bob’s new SUV. Holding back his true thoughts, Bob politely says, “Honey, please get your foot off of my new dash.” Carol replies, “I am just admiring my new pedicure like you’ve been admiring your new SUV.” As the conversation heats up, Bob becomes distracted while making a left hand turn at a four-way intersection and fails to yield to an oncoming vehicle. Distracted as well, Carol still has her foot on the dash at the time of impact. Read More >
Because I live in Colorado, I see quite a few Scouts in wrecking yards— this ’70 and this ’73, for example— and most of the time I don’t photograph them. IHC pickups and SUVs, sure, but the Scouts just blend in like DJ-5 mail Jeeps. This ’71 had a cool custom paint job, plus I’ve realized that all Scouts are interesting, so we’ll check it out. Read More >
I have a 2001 Buick Regal LS. I bought it in 2007 with 14,000 miles on (yes, from a grandmother). It has 72,000 miles on it as of this morning. It’s not a great car and has required plenty of maintenance (for example, I’ve had to replace the brakes completely 3 times already). However, I have a few questions about long term items: Read More >
Dan Sloan is tired. The head of Nissan’s Global Media Center in Yokohama got up at 6am this morning after days of not much sleep. Today is the day when Nissan’s third quarter earnings are to be announced to the press, and the world at large. It will be a long day of preparations for the big announcement in the late afternoon, and TTAC will be the fly on the wall. Or, as Sloan predicted, the fly in the ointment.
Remember TTAC’s Future Writers Week? You chose the writers. The writers wrote. The stories are in (well, most of them …). Here is the first one. Do you like it? Tell us. The stories will be published in the sequence in which they arrived in TTAC’s mailbox.
Jeff called while I was watching the Ed Sullivan Show. He was my best friend, but it was odd for him call on a Sunday night. (As eighth-graders in 1968, it was unusual for any of us to call our friends except to see if they were available to “do something” at that moment, and we never did anything on Sunday nights.) Jeff did something all by himself. Jeff liked to take his parents’ 1967 Saab 96 around the block when they were gone and, that evening, he overshot the turn onto his street, jumping the ditch and landing in his next-door neighbor’s front yard. After repeatedly killing the engine while attempting to get traction, he managed to exit the yard. As this was a two-cycle three cylinder Saab that sounded like a chain saw when revved, Jeff assumed the neighbors, or the police, would soon be paying a visit. Read More >
So venerably ubiquitous was the VW Beetle, I wondered for a while whether the sighting of this particular example constituted as something special enough to qualify for another “fifteen minutes of fame”, here on the Bodacious Beaters page.
Here in the SoCal area, for many years after the end of the sales line, the Beetle just kept finding a way to stay in the spotlight. Read More >
Remember TTAC’s Future Writers Week? You chose the writers. The writers wrote. The stories are in (well, most of them …). Here is the first one. Do you like it? Tell us. The stories will be published in the sequence in which they arrived in TTAC’s mailbox.
I thought I was hard-core. People who complain about the Lotus Elise’s lack of creature comforts or suspension compliance are wimps I thought. Many of us would agree that pure driving pleasure outweighs most other considerations. The Elise is the ultimate test of this idea. Buy or by the hour? Let’s do the test. Read More >
This is making the rounds of the driver-training people on Facebook right now. It’s interesting to watch for a few reasons. Critique it yourself then click the jump.
Better Place is shutting the doors of its Australian and American operations, and will concentrate on its Danish and Israeli divisions. The New York Times reported the news just days after Evan Thornley, head of Better Place Australia, left his post as CEO after just three months on the job.
Remember TTAC’s Future Writers Week? You chose the writers. The writers wrote. The stories are in (well, most of them …). Here is the first one. Do you like it? Tell us. The stories will be published in the sequence in which they arrived in TTAC’s mailbox.
My neighbor growing up, Wayne Stork, was a quiet, gentle guy who loved machines. Growing up as a car nut myself, it was hard to miss the fact that the Storks had almost every kind of cool machine you could imagine – motorcycles, trucks, cars, boats, tractors, hay bailers, even a couple of bulldozers and a ramp truck. If it rolled, floated, or crawled, Wayne probably owned it at one time or another. Read More >
…people are right to be pissed at Danica Patrick. She squandered the good will of a multitude of fans who wanted to see a woman win at what used to be a man’s game. Guthrie and the other woman drivers pushed one of the most sexist subcultures to respect women… and Patrick undermines it all. She’s become a harmless, hair-flipping mascot…
The five-door hatchback, long a staple of world markets, is enjoying a resurgance in a big way. While hatchbacks were once regarded as symbols of poverty in the eyes of most Americans, the premium segment is the vanguard of the hatchback today, with everything from the Audi A7 to the Porsche Panamera sporting a “fifth door”.
The first leaked pictures of the BMW 3-Series GT drew more than a few comparisons to the very first Hyundai Elantra GT (shown above). Unlike the two-box GT on sale now, this one looked more like a pseudo-sedan and was part of a sporadic line of five-doors that tried their hand at the American marketplace and ultimately failed.
The campaign for TTAC’s Top Troll goes into its final stretch. Nominations for the TTAC Top Troll Poll have been made. Some folks received multiple nominations, but we will not declare a winner just yet. The Top Troll will be decided by popular vote. Tomorrow, Friday, we go to the Top Troll Polls. But first, we need your help. Read More >
The manual transmission is dying. We know this because other sites constantly run articles about the death of the manual transmission, predicting its final demise sometime in the next few years, weeks, or hours. Personally, I realized the manual’s future was limited on my last couple of trips to Europe, when I was given an automatic without even requesting it. On one occasion, I even returned the car without damage.
But while the manual may not be long for this world, there’s still the occasional vehicle that – against all odds, and market research – is offered with three pedals. Some are listed below, and I hope to hear about many more obscure stick shifts in the comments. Even if you’re TTAC’s top troll.
Dan writes:
Because I live in Colorado, I see quite a few Scouts in wrecking yards— 
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