• 8 Posts
  • 45 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • I will at least point out, that unless it’s a safety or moving violation you can’t get something like a window tint ticket in Virginia if your car is registered in North Carolina because the window tint laws are different.

    Also, in rare cases, if the vehicle comes from the factory with super dark tint, you can’t get a ticket period because it is federally allowed. See the GM Pontiac fiero rear limo tint from the 80’s.

    And this is just one aspect of a vehicle across state lines. So yea, it’s chaos and the police will give you a ticket anyways, especially if you’re a visitor.





  • I never thought about a sudden change in brake compound affecting the AEB system and its calibrations. I’ve always tried to stay OEM or comparable aftermarket pads. For example, I swapped my pads on my GTI for some EBC’s mostly because of brake dust. They performed very well, but I also had sticky tires. I have noticed I was able to find parts much more easily with that car than I have my Mazda. And with how many parts revisions I’ve seen for that one car I’d believe that they demand a lot in parts manufacturing. I guess it comes with the territory when they do something like the global MQB platform where parts are so easily shared.

    In 6 years and 150,000 miles I only had one incident of a false positive where the car braked for whatever the system saw as an obstacle. Fortunately, no one was behind me but it was a route I traveled every day and it happened early on (~40,000 miles). My newer Mazda has the whole camera setup etc and definitely triggers if with the adaptive cruise if someone in the lane next to me brakes or slows down so I can see the overly sensitive reactions making people angry.

    For the headlights, I don’t think factory cars are much of an issue. Now that matrix style lights are making their way here we should be able to learn a lot from Europe.

    Thanks for the insightful reply! It’s cool to see stuff like this.






  • I had a 2015 golf and 2018 GTI. The gti was hands down my favorite vehicle I ever owned. That being said I did not get a MK8 when it got totaled.

    I went with a Mazda3 awd turbo. Reason being physical buttons. I could not comfortably use the controls on all the test drives I did and the infotainment was terrible. Mazda has the superior infotainment of the two.

    The golf r is literally just a budget Audi. All the parts are stamped Audi because it’s an MQB Evo platform. They’re all the same.

    I wouldn’t say Vw isn’t quality, but I could not justify the expense. I paid less for a 2024 turbo premium plus awd Mazda than the dealer was asking for an SE GTI.








  • The 3.0 3VZFE from Toyota was always mocked as the “fuel efficiency of a V8, power of a 4 cyl”. The motor was a joke and the 5VZFE that came later was much improved.

    Ford does decent with their V8 cars (they’ve had most issues with the 1.0, 1.5, and 2.7 ecoboosts), although the EPA ratings are tight. To get a good idea you’d have to compare equally, like finding another 5.0L, 480hp car that weighs 4,000 lbs (or at least that ballpark). they’re not terribly common.

    I think the most common failure on a mod family V8 was either cam phasers or spark plugs. Which thankfully they fixed on the coyote. Other than that the car will die before the engine.

    When I bought my 2016 mustang, I got 27.5 mpg on the trip home. I’ve averaged 30 before. They’re efficient if you stay under 3k rpm’s most of the time. City driving they’re ok, I get 18. Averaged over the life of the car I have got 24 mpg total. Which for a 3,800lb 435hp car is pretty damn good.

    Throwing that Americans get bad mpg out of V8’s is a bit skewed. Gas is cheap here (relatively) and they’re mostly in trucks/suv’s and not cars. Like currently it’s $2.50/gallon at my Costco.

    Not to mention, heavy duty “light trucks” like the F250 or GM2500 and up, do not have to adhere to any mileage standards and are exempt.