This time on Ur-turn, reader Erikstrawn weighs in on an issue that kept TTAC busy for years: Will GM go bankrupt?  After all those years, Forbes woke up to the issue and wrote a long article on same.

While we are at it: Parts of the Forbes article was written with generous help from TTAC. What bedeviled the magazine to quote an article on Volkswagen’s Winterkorn checking a Hyundai at a motor show is anybody’s guess. While Forbes acknowledged TTAC as a source, the magazine did so without adding a link, which is considered both common and professional courtesy in the business. Also, the rather generous “quote” from a TTAC article was more generous than the formatting at Forbes made believe. Letters to Forbes were not returned. Both common and professional courtesy must run short at the magazine.

With that said, now it’s Ur-turn:

There’s a big argument online this last week over whether or not GM is really going bankrupt again, and it seems to have been started by a politically motivated piece on Forbes.com. I’ve been keeping an eye on GM’s situation, and I don’t think GM’s going bankrupt any time soon, but I think they eventually will if they don’t change what they’re doing. Read More >

Fisker concluded its investigation into the fire that consumed one of their Karmas in Woodside, CA. According to a Fisker statement, neither the Lithium-ion battery pack, nor “new technology components, engine component packaging or unique exhaust routing of the Fisker Karma” were responsible for the conflagration. Rather, it was a lowly cooling fan, that, well, overheated. In the guessing game for the fire’s cause, TTAC’s independent accident investigator Ronnie Schreiber came closest when he suspected a low voltage unit.

A recall of approximately 2,400 Fisker Karma has been initiated. Read More >

One would think that with all the head scratching, added expense and needless difficulty involved, anyone who persisted in their own repair and maintenance efforts (professional or otherwise) on such flawed contraptions —which I will continue to document in this series on my experiences with automobiles British— must be running as low on vital fluids as the vehicles themselves typically were!

But we’re not talking about the repeating of the same procedure and expecting a different result, in this case. The experienced British Car  mechanic understood that the oil leaks would persist, the electrics would continue to be perform intermittently and the driveability would literally change with the weather. To expect otherwise WOULD have been a sign of insanity! Read More >

After I visited the Brain-Melting Colorado Junkyard last month, I couldn’t stop thinking about the car project I’ve been wanting to build more than any other (including even a Zaporozhets with a Tatra V8 swap, and that’s saying something) in recent years: a 1940-1954 American sedan with well-aged patina, 21st-century Detroit V8, manual transmission, and modern suspension and brakes. So, last weekend I returned to the largest assortment of cars from that era that I’ve ever seen, to get some ideas. While wandering around, looking at Kaiser Virginians and Buick Specials, I glanced up and saw the scene in the above photograph. Read More >

[Ed: Part one of Steve Lang’s updated used car buying guide is here, part two is here.]

You can rigorously apply the tests described by previous installments of this series without encountering a single setback. However when it comes to buying a used car, it pays to assume one simple salient fact: you don’t know the complete truth.

At least not yet.

Read More >

We saw a 1975 Datsun B210 hatchback Junkyard Find a few weeks back, and this ’74 B210 hatch about a year ago. Today, we’ll look at a fairly solid example of the B210 coupe. Read More >

Anonymous writes:

I’ve got somewhat of a stupid question; why does my car roll when it’s parked in gear? My current (135i) and my previous whip (Mazdaspeed3) don’t like staying on any inclines without teetering ever so slowly backwards in a scary, slow, lurching motion. Read More >

To be used as burn packs in Sharia jurisdictions

Yesterday’s anomalies with TTAC’s commenting system were fixed after long hours  in short order by our crack technical team, cheered on with robust language undying praise by our editorial team. In Wednesday’s evening hours, the problem was declared as solved. All TTAC correspondents could comment again, unencumbered by announcements that the post is roasting in moderation purgatory. All except DeadWeight. Read More >

Back when I reviewed the final Mazda RX-8, I ranted on at some length about my envy of my RX-7-driving college classmates who were the rich sons of high-ranking South Vietnamese military officers and government officials. Still, except when I was shopping for a Mazda rear end for my 20R Sprite Hell Project, I haven’t paid much attention to the many RX-7s I’ve seen in wrecking yards over the years. First-gen examples aren’t uncommon even today; here’s an ’85 I found in a Denver yard last week. Read More >

The Mustang II stands as the poster child of the Malaise Era; based on a miserable economy car yet bearing the name of a beloved icon from a more optimistic period. You don’t see many Mustang IIs these days, for obvious reasons, but a few are being kept alive by enthusiasts. Here’s a pair of well-stripped examples that appear to have come from the reject bin of a Mustang II collector. Read More >

George writes:

Sajeev,

I’m the owner of the dark green 1999 Honda Accord Coupe that appeared in prior editions of Piston Slap. Its paint is failing (clearcoat starting to peel and gray patches showing) after many years of sun exposure here in the Dallas area and it’s time to get a new car. I have a garage to protect the car at night, but my engineering career requires that my car spend the day out in the sun on a concrete parking lot. The good news is my cars never get exposed to road salt and snow, ice, frost, and morning dew are pretty much a non-issue for cars that spend the night in a garage. Read More >

TTAC commentator Sinistermisterman writes:

Why isn’t Sajeev all over this one like a rash? GM recalls 38,000 cop cars.

 

Read More >

Two weeks ago, we had a rash of annoying ads. We are talking about autoplay video with autoplay audio. Not good. Especially in a work setting. Our technical crew worked quickly to have them turned off. And they did. Now we hear reports that they are back. Read More >

Back when I wrote the Automotive Survivors series (Part I and Part II), I specified that I was only considering cars built for 20 or more years, and I included boldface text stating NO TRUCKS! NO TRUCKS! Naturally, I got barraged with weeks of hate mail from the Land Rover Jihad (because Land Rovers were being slapped together out of mud and sticks by Celtic tribesman circa 600 BC and thus my cars-only restriction was fatwa-worthy), but that was nothing next to what I heard from the Wagoneer Jihad. Legendary industrial designer Brooks Stevens drew up the original SJ platform-based Wagoneer for Willys-Overland in the year 1905 (OK, the early 1960s), and Kaiser-Jeep, AMC, and Chrysler kept building great big SJ Cherokees and Grand Cherokees until the sun collapsed and became a red giant (OK, until 1991). That meant that Chrysler was building AMC 360s in addition to Franco-Swedish PRV V6s into the 1990s. And, just as you could buy Super 8 movie film at ordinary stores until the early 1990s, so could you buy Jeep SJs with Simu-Wood™ plastic woodie siding. Here’s an example I found last week in a Denver self-serve yard. Read More >

TTAC Commentator Pete Zaitcev writes:

Dear Sajeev:

I am reading a rather interesting book right now, “Owner Assisted Aircraft Maintenance” by Dan MacDonald. It discusses the maintenance tasks that an airplane owner can perform without being a licensed Airframe & Powerplant mechanic. This got me wondering if a book exists that deals with the maintenance of a 20 to 30-year-old car in general. Read More >