Robert writes:

Sajeev –

My wife drives a 1998 328i that we bought new for her- it currently has 64,300 miles on it. She drives it more or less daily (just not very far) so we couldn ’t just get rid of it; it would have to be replaced. I call this car ”The Immaculata” as it lives in covered parking and is often mistaken by her un-car-savvy girlfriends as almost new.

Unfortunately that isn’t the case. It got a new hood and fender after ”an incident”, and it’s ticked off the list of usual E36 demands. New shocks, radiator, etc. However it’s gotten everything it wanted including regular oil changes and radiator and brake flushes and a transmission flush as well.

Now it’s advanced down the list to having the HVAC mix door slam open when the heat comes on. My Independent macanic say $1,500 to fix that but it annoys the wife.

Thought about replacing the car, but I’m kind of stuck. She’s used to her heated seats and the easy power of the BMW. The suggestion of a new Mini was sneered at. However obviously this car, even in great condition as it is won’t be worth enough to make the trade for a new 3 – and she won’t eventry driving my 2011 anyhow.

So… should I bite the bullet and fix the noise she’s complaining about, bite the shotgun shell and dump it while it’s as valuable as it will ever get and buy a new car she doesn’t want, or tell her she’s crazy and that I don’t hear the noise? Read More >

One of two circular looms on the planet. 12 layers of seamless carbon fiber are woven into what will be part T3-3RH, part A-pillar, part roof support

This 5 chapter series gives you unprecedented access to the LFA Works in Motomachi. Here, 500 LFA supercars are being handmade by 170 people, and you can watch how they do it.

The baking happens in the autoclave next door. Picture it as a garage-sized pressure cooker. Pieces in the autoclave are covered with foil, then vacuum is applied that presses the layered piece into its mold. Two bars of pressure is applied to the autoclave, and at a constant temperature of 150 C, the parts are cooked to perfection.””

Chapter One: From A Bar To Bar None. How the LFA was born, and why it is made from carbon fiber.

The strongest parts of the LFA are made in a clean room. Our hair is covered. We wear long white coveralls. Booties go over our shoes. Someone vacuums me from top to bottom.””

Chapter Two: In The Clean Room. Where the LFA is made from the strongest and most expensive type of carbon fiber available.

Building the body of one LFA takes four days, we race through it in three hours. On the fourth day, there is what is called a body-in-white in the car making industry. Except that in the case of the LFA, it is a body-in-black. In a shiny, glossy black that we usually associate with carbon fiber.””

Chapter Three: Call Me Names. How the LFA really received its name.

Some likened the sound to “the roar of an angel”, some to “an F1-inspired tune.” Lesser poets could compare it to the sound of a circular saw.””

Chapter Four Balance Of Power. We watch the V10 engine go into the LFA.

What will happen to the LFA Works at the end of the year? Will Tanahashi, now 59, simply go into retirement? Will the 170 associates who make the LFA go back to making Crowns, Corollas and Camrys?
Tanahashi collects his thoughts, then says:””

Chapter Five: Exam Week. We examine Chief Engineer Tanahashi about how the LFA influences future cars, and what will come after the LFA.

This coming week is LFA Week. From Monday, July 9 through Friday, July 13, TTAC will run a five-part series documenting the production of the Lexus LFA. Readers of TTAC will receive unprecedented access to the LFA Works in Motomachi. You will receive a behind-the-scene look, exclusive, never before published proprietary pictures, and a glimpse into the future. Here is a preview: Read More >

“This place smells like a distillery!” roared the Dealer Principal, hurling a previously useful phone book across the office. The veins in his neck popped out like redwood trees and I thought he was going to have a coronary right there on the spot.

“Clean yourself up or you’ll be looking for another job by 5 o’clock!”

In reality, his rage was not directed at me but rather at a co-worker who, by all accounts, seemed to have rolled into work that Saturday morning straight from the downtown bar district. Read More >

After a look at those (surprisingly few) models that sold over a million annual units, after traveling 20 years back to the year of the Taurus and the much-anticipated May World Roundup, today we’re going back to basics and put the spotlight on the good old US market.

Bored with home? That’s ok, because you can check out the best-selling cars in 167 additional countries and territories on my blog. They’re all there and they’re waiting for you so click away!

Back to the US.

In June the Chevrolet Malibu sold 31,402 units, the nameplate’s highest monthly volume in… 32 years!

Read More >

This article is the second in a series wherein—after thrashing manufacturers for doing their worst—I do a quasi de facto “equal time” summary of ten automotive mechanical technologies I believe are their best efforts, to date.

To review the guidelines I’m holding to in assembling this list: these are technologies that are pretty well universally accepted and are currently being used by the majority of auto manufacturers. They also have been popularized and proliferated during my automotive repair career. I’m covering them more-or-less in the order that they have achieved that status.

IT’S NOW BIN TIME! Read More >

After yesterday’s Junkyard Find, which was AMC’s answer to the very successful Chrysler Cordoba personal luxury coupe, it seems only right that we look at the car that inspired AMC’s marketers to start searching maps of Spain for car names: the Chrysler Cordoba. Here’s a ’79 that I spotted at a Denver self-serve yard last week. Read More >

A couple of days ago, I accompanied a friend on a journey to pick up a couple of Rabbits at a mysterious not-open-to-the-public yard that sprawls across a couple of square miles of prickly-pear-covered prairie east of Colorado Springs. I’ll tell the story of that adventure soon, but I just couldn’t wait to share this car that I spotted during our visit: one of the finest examples of Malaise Era special-edition marketing madness in the history of the universe! Read More >

The United States will report China to the WTO tomorrow, Reuters says. The contention: China’s decision to impose extra duties on more than $3 billion worth of cars imported from the U.S. According to Reuters, “the complaint comes as President Barack Obama campaigns in Ohio, where auto plants have been affected by the duties.” The Prez goes on a “Betting on America” bus tour. Read More >

It was 1986. One of the cruise ship’s ports of call was Puerto Rico.  At a local gift shop, a 9-year-old boy received his first “nice” car model, a 1:18th scale Ferrari Testarossa.  He’d spend far too much time in his stateroom, with no lights but the small bedside reading light, turning the model while admiring how the light danced over the curves and edges of Ferrari’s most influential car: a World Car in every way. The vehicle that refined the Super Car. It defined a decade, and warped the minds of several generations of car enthusiasts. And it took this boy to a Motown design school, and eventually to a little car blog called TTAC.

Sergio Pininfarina once called the Testarossa “an exaggeration in flamboyance.” A fitting quote for what must be the most famous vehicle to leave his design studio. And while he might be right, compared to today’s flamboyant Fezzas, the Testarossa was veiled in understatement and modernist modesty.

So let’s dig deep into the Mehta Brothers garage, and check out Dr. Mehta’s 1989 Testarossa: a car we’ve wanted for decades. Read More >

This contest closed today, Wednesday, July 4^th 2012 at 2 pm Eastern Time.

Please stay tune for the results. Read More >

D-Day (June 6 1944) was a turning point in WW II. 160,000 Allied ground troops hit the beach that day and casualties were high.

This Willys Jeep survived that day. Read More >

Despite the Golden State being 16 billion dollars upside down and spinning towards bankruptcy, its legislators still find time to concoct regulations to confound the thousands of franchised and independent auto dealers within its borders. These statutes are always enacted to “protect the consumer.” That may not be the case this time. Read More >

When did Americans start thinking the car-guy grass was greener on the other side of an ocean? Was it Tokyo Drift that did it, or was it David E. Davis’ thinly-veiled advertising copy for the BMW 2002 in the pages of the as-yet-un-revered Car and Driver? Perhaps it was the majestic Mercedes W108 that turned the trick, or James Dean’s Porsche, or the image of the overpaid, oversexed American aviator carelessly flinging an MG down a British B-road in the Lend-Lease era.

Regardless of when it happened, we all know that it did happen. Nearly every young automotive enthusiast wishes he could drive the ‘Ring, storm the Stelvio Pass, or deliver some tofu in a sticker-speckled hachi-roku. We’ve all imagined ourselves as steely-eyed arbiters of lane discipline on the Autobahn or standing-mile madmen nonchalantly betting a hundred grand on our chances down an Armco-lined two-lane on the dismal outskirts of Moscow.

Don’t be fooled. The United States of America has been, and continues to be, the greatest place in the world for a regular guy (or girl) to fall in four-wheeled love. Here’s why.

Read More >