I was fortunate enough to take a trip to the Los Angeles area for the first time and snagged a Model 3 on Turo for the weekend. I have some thoughts...

The Turo experience itself was outstanding. The Tesla was actually cheaper than most airport rental cars, as well as nicer than most rental cars. As for the Tesla itself, I came away amazed and disappointed. The powertrain and battery tech in the car is unreal. We did probably 220 miles in the car and still showed 90 miles of range left. I loved on pedal driving once I got used to it and the instant power was intoxicating. I fully believe in the electric future after experiencing that. The rest of the car, however, was utter crap.

The biggest disappointment was ride quality. My 2014 Mazda6 with 75k miles rides better. It was shockingly unrefined, rough, and loud over any bump. Anybody who considers this a luxury car couldn't have possibly driven one. I also could not stand the center screen and lack of gauge cluster. How can a car this modern not have Android Auto and Apple Carplay? The navigation constantly took me longer routes than Google Maps was on my phone. My final gripe is with "Autopilot." It's very clunky to turn on and off in the Model 3. The adaptive cruise was alright, but the lane keep assist seemed to struggle more than my Subaru with Eyesight. Just a total disappointment of a system. I didn't feel it was any better than the rather basic system Subaru uses.

I will end my thoughts on a good note, which is that not having to really have a key or start button was really nice. The electric future is bright.

Figured I'd also share a couple favorites from the Petersen...

Delehaye 1938 Delahaye Type 145 was my personal favorite. Highly recommend reading the book about Lucy Schell and her quest to build a car to beat the Germans in the early 20th century.

I had to move my wife's car to allow some junk pick up people to clear some stuff from my garage and it barely started and gave me the AFS Off light. If anyone here has owned a recent Mazda, you may know that AFS Off (which actually refers to the steering headlights) generally indicates a dying battery. The battery in the car is 3 years old now, which isn't too bad, but it doesn't like sitting for a long time. With my wife now working from home, her car hasn't moved much in the last 10 days.

Fortunately, I figured this would be an issue, so I have a trickle charger on hand that should hopefully help extend the battery another year or 2. It's also nice to have the car back in the garage after getting rid of all the junk that was filling it up.

Basically what the title of the post says. Wife was driving home from the grocery store and got rear ended while sitting at a red light. Supposedly the cop said the person that hit her was at fault.

Fortunately she's okay and the car isn't too bad, but holy cow is a car accident inconvenient. She's without a car now since my company doesn't allow her to drive my car. I filed a claim with the other person's insurance company, but I have a feeling this won't be a simple process.

I'm just lucky with all the driving I do that this is the first time I've ever had to deal with my car being hit. Wish me luck with dealing with insurance!

@carsoffortlangley Subaru offers an STI shift knob for the CVT WRX.

Wordle 215 2/6

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This one worked really well with my usual starting word. First time getting in two

@ibrad I haven't read much Jalopnik since OG Oppo was shut down, but I figured I'd venture back to read the farewell article. Torch was always one of my favorite writers on the site so I hope to see him pop up again somewhere soon.

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a35218197/tested-five-1992-4wd-minivans-vs-alaska/

I've been checking the Car and Driver website more frequently since they begun sharing some older stories. The one linked above really caught my attention. Taking minivans to the Arctic!? That's a wild way to test minivans and I can't imagine anyone short of the Grand Tour doing something like that these days. It's a fascinating read, not just about some old minivans, but also about what it's like to travel to such an extreme place.

I also can't believe how the Previa placed. They really didn't have many complaints about it, yet ranked it poorly. I won't spoil the story too much though. Also was amused to finally see a 0-60 time for the Previa: 12.8 Seconds. My family had a 92 Previa and I never thought it felt that slow. It's a spunky van, but still slow apparently!

I was recently watching Demuro go over the new Taycan Cross Turismo and noticed the car has directional wheels. I personally cannot stand directional wheels, since usually the wheels are facing a different direction on each side of the vehicle, which just looks silly. My hope is that with this being a $160,000 vehicle (these wheels being a "$3750 option), they took the time to make sure the wheels are facing the same direction on each side. Well Doug never shows the passenger side, so to satisfy my OCD, off to Porsche USA's website to configure my own.

Well, it turns out they also only show the driver side of the car...

Alright, I'll try Google. Still can't find a single picture of this car with these wheels. I'm fortunate that these are the stupid things keeping me awake at night, but it really is driving me a little insane.

Side note, while playing with the configurator, I discovered the wheels below are the "Offroad design wheels." Yeah, no. Those aren't off road wheels.

My father in law recently leased a former loaner car BMW 330i and ended up with a red car because it has the options he wanted. However the chrome grill on it is really a bit much, with the chrome also seeming out of place. There's no chrome anywhere else on the car. Fortunately a black grill from BMW is pretty cheap and surprisingly easy to install. A few plastic clips and suddenly the car looks a lot better.

I also learned BMW offers logos for the wheels that are always upright, like Rolls Royce logos.

Verstappen had no business winning that race.

@Gabriella I still get Car and Driver and Motortrend every month, as I have for at least the past 20 years. I just enjoy the print format. It's nice to sit in bed and read an article in the magazine versus just staring at a screen more than I already do.

@Boxer_4 nice!! I actually saw one driving down the NJ Turnpike Friday. It was going the opposite direction, so I only got a brief glimpse, but I was shocked to see one on the road.

@Snakesm13 599,999

@davesaddiction I'm thinking it will take an additional 5k-10k drop in costs until that can happen.

Thinking about it now though, it's wild that Ford can even offer the work version for in the 40k range, considering every crossover EV is 45k and up with AWD. I'm wondering if Ford was able to save significant on costs by using more shared parts with the gas powered one.

I quite like it. They avoided trends of big grills and lots of cladding and made something that I think looks sleek and simple. They knew the shape and proportions mixed with the modern RR styling elements was enough

@WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAthenGTInowA4 I rented one for 2 days in LA and remember being so frustrated with the directions from the built in gps. I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and it had me on a route 10 minutes quicker. Sure, it looks nice, but it's hard to beat the crowd sourced data of Google and Apple Maps.

@farscythe this grid walk has been a hilarious disaster. Zak Brown made it sound like this won't be a particularly exciting race though in the one actually F1 related interview.

@Tripper I think most elite athletes have to kind of be assholes to get to where they are.

Also Norris seems like a cool dude too. McLaren overall right now seems like a good group.

@farscythe that's a great looking cookie. I just baked 3 dozen cookies and they don't look nearly that good. Taste amazing though.

@liam Wordle 319 1/6*

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Holy shit they used my starting word lol

My wife got it in one once before and she's held it over me ever since. She's gonna hate this.