Back in 2007, a 14-year-old me booted up a satin white Xbox 360 for the first time and inserted its first game: Test Drive Unlimited. One of my first cars in the game would be one that I ended up driving quite a lot. It was a yellow Saturn Sky and over the course of a couple of years or so I racked up thousands of virtual miles taking digital road trips around Oahu, Hawai'i.

Growing up, my dream cars were often cars that I had Matchbox diecasts of and played with in videogames. Another notable example is the first-generation Audi TT Quattro. I made the Audi a reality in 2020 and now yesterday a little yellow Saturn followed me home.

It's a Sky Red Line. Under the hood is a 2-liter four making 260 hp and 260 tq, driving the rear wheels through a manual. Yeah, it's a fast little Satty! But my favorite part is the torque. Want to pass some slow traffic while climbing through the Ozarks? Yeah, it'll do that without even requiring a downshift.

It isn't perfect; it will need some paint retouching in the back and probably a new front bumper, but at $8k, I'm not really complaining. Most Red Line asking prices are like $11k+ right now.

We drove some 600 miles southwest to pick it up in Branson, Missouri. I drove most of the way back top-down. And yeah, it came with matching shades!

It drove flawlessly on the way home and the dash doesn't even have a warning light on. I even scored around 28 mpg going a sustained 85 mph.

Of course, bad news has a tendency to follow me and this time is no exception. Sheryl's Prius began giving an intermittent oil pressure light. It usually came on while stopping or while trying to keep up with me on the highway.

The oil level is full and it's clean on the dipstick (she got an oil change 3k ago). It also tastes like good ol' synthetic. I'm hoping it's just the oil pressure sensor dying in an intermittent manner???????? Annoyingly, doing a pressure test requires getting the car up on jack stands. And if I'm doing that I might as well replace the sensor while I'm under there.

Another explanation could be an electrical gremlin. The car's been acting weird lately with the clocks changing themselves, traction control system giving random warnings, and more. Maybe I'll start by replacing the old 12V battery in back.

Anyway, Saturn Sky Red Line: It's the coolest car to ever wear the rings of Saturn on it.

And how else am I going to get started than to do a huge fleet update.

https://www.theautopian.com/im-mercedes-and-i-own-somewhere-between-17-and-19-vehicles-including-a-bus/

I woke up this morning thinking that I had just 17 vehicles, but about an hour-ish ago I discovered it's actually 19. I'm not counting the Prius or the Gambler van as those belong to my fiancée.

Over a year ago, one of my lovely neighbors decided that they didn't like me and didn't like my cars. I mean, they to this day call me "it." They told the condo association to have all of them towed. The condo association obliged, making up reasons to tow my cars that neither indicates anything illegal, or anything that breaks the very clear bylaws.

The tow company hired for the job didn't have a license, didn't have insurance, didn't have a tow yard, and had family and friends towing cars. These people weren't employees or even contractors.

My Volkswagen Passat W8 was pulled across a parking lot in gear. The doors were unlocked and the car has the rare six-speed manual option, so the guy who towed my car (who wasn't an employee) was just being lazy. It was never answered -- even in court -- why they felt the need to drag the car so far in the first place.

At any rate, when I tried to retrieve the car I discovered it to be unable to leave the "tow yard," an unfenced, unprotected residential backyard. It would not shift into or out of gear with the engine running. It would only shift with the engine off. If you tried to force it, oh man you were met with so much grinding. I drove the car the day before the tow and it was fine. I tried to bleed the clutch on the spot in a wasted effort, thinking maybe air was somewhere. It made no difference.

A sticker affixed to the driver window indicated that the car didn't have a parking pass nor a license plate. It had both. The condo association's management company didn't have an answer for how its employee missed them.

My Passat TDI wagon was also pulled across the lot, in park, of course. This car would not get out of park. The sticker on the driver window didn't give a reason for the tow and none was given to me.

My Ford E-350 Power Stroke was also dragged across the lot. It was also in park. Thankfully, it did drive out under its own power, but there were some horrible driveline vibrations. The reason given for towing this one was that it had spray paint on it. Once again, the bylaws made no mention of how your car has to look.

I do not live in an affluent neighborhood. Cars are so rusty out here that parts fall off just when sitting. Every other car here has an expired plate, flat tires, and no parking pass. Shoot, a Nissan sat on jackstands for weeks. There is a Dodge Caravan that has been abandoned here for longer than I've lived here. A teenager spray painted his tires and gave his car spray painted racing stripes. None of them have been towed.

Because of all of that, I sued, and just over a year later, I won.

Not only did the condo association and the tow company have to pay me for illegally towing my cars, but they had to return the cars that were unable to leave under their own power.

Thus, I got both the W8 and the TDI back today, covered in dirt and sticks from overgrowth of some kind.

Yes, these cars were basically stored in David Tracy's backyard mud pit.

I got both cars to start and even got the TDI out of park, but it's making no oil pressure. That was a problem before the tow that I was contemplating on fixing, but I've already replaced the car.

The W8's transmission issue persists. Both have already been sold to become parts for other Passats. As for the van, it got vandalized by someone trying to get it towed again, likely my neighbor or friend of the tow company that sent me a death threat. Then it was stolen during the court case by meth heads. They destroyed the van so bad that I had to scrap it.

You'll read more about this in the coming days and weeks!

One of the few diesel-powered Smart Fortwos in the United States, now all mine!

$6,000 and came with records going back to the original Canadian owner, three sets of wheels and a catalog of newly installed parts.

This means that at least for now I own five Smarts.

The time has finally come! I drove out to Washington state and hauled my new kei car home. It needs a really good detailing and a couple of repairs (what 30 year old car doesn't?), but the car is a dream come true!

Huge recommend to The Import Guys. They made the importation of this thing easier than buying a new car, seriously!

Did my first mod, the sweet shift knob by @CobraJoe ! The knob is waaaay better than the factory one, which you could really only fit a few fingers on. lol

Oh, and I have a mini warehouse, now! Electricity and enough space for six cars and all of my motorcycles.

My tow vehicle was stolen and subsequently destroyed (that's going to be a wild story), so I replaced it with something really stupid. The car that brought my Beat home is a suspiciously cheap Volkswagen Touareg that somehow didn't break in the 4,200-mile trip. lol

A year ago I bought a 1999 Triumph Tiger. It's my first Triumph and my first adventure bike. I adore the alien vibes and the 900cc triple's soundtrack hits like a drug. I've even taken it off-road! But its electrical system has been decidedly English.

When I bought the bike its odometer flickered on and off, the headlights were dim, and the horn sounded weak. The seller told me that it needed a new battery, and I used my jump pack to start it and get it home.

I bought one of those cheap flooded batteries from Walmart, filled it with its electrolyte, charged it, then chucked it into the Triumph.

To my surprise it didn't start. It didn't even turn over. Now, this battery was smaller than specified, but it was still fully charged and brand spankin' new, so I expected it to do something. But I got nothing.

For the time being I just rode the bike by jumping it with a jump pack. I put a good 1,000 miles on it like that. During that time the flickering, dim lights and whatnot didn't cease. It did very occasionally start with its battery, and that should have been the clue.

I did test the alternator, and it put out 13.5 volts to the battery. So I've read on forums for this bike, these older fuel injected Triumph triples will put out about that much voltage at idle, so that's fine.

Eventually I did get a proper battery for it and that resolved the starting issue...sorta.

See, it took me all of the way until a few weeks ago to learn that these bikes won't even turn over unless the voltage is high enough. And stuff like a flickering odometer is a sign of too low voltage.

I shot myself in the foot with the too small battery. And while the new battery was big enough, if it dropped voltage enough, say, before a winter cold start, it would fail to even turn over the bike.

Some owners on forums have various remedies for this from shortening the battery cables to hooking up the battery to a tender every night... even solar panels!

I have to go through this thing's electrical system one day. It probably has some bad connections here and there, maybe even a frayed wire or two. But until then I decided to try something new. I went nuclear and picked up a Noco NLP14.

This lithium battery is the equivalent of a BTX14-BS but at a fraction of the weight. And of course, the battery chemistry means strong voltage even if the charge isn't at 100%.

I slapped it into the Triumph and my Buell Lightning. The Buell's performance was incredible. It turned over faster than it ever did before. And the Triumph?

Its lights, both dashboard and the beams, were brighter than I have ever seen them. And all of those low voltage gremlins have taken a hike.

I'm impressed, to say the least. It's like having a jump pack permanently installed to the bike. It hasn't died yet so I can't comment on longevity without the engine running. But I also haven't tried to see how long it could last.

The fit and finish is also pretty incredible. The plastic is really nice and I love the attention to detail. You get these little spacers to size up the battery for your bike.

I'm going to film a comparison between this and a new lead acid battery because the before and after is just that awesome. Or at least it is if you're running old junk like I do.

I now have the urge to get lithium batteries for the cars. But uh, since this little guy was $120 I don't even want to know what a car-sized model would cost. Maybe I'll go lithium for the delicate ones like the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI.

Sidebar: Any subject that I would write on Jalopnik will be written on Oppo until further notice! I am feeling a bit out of it, so I'm sorry if it's not as energetic as you would expect from me.

The last two weeks have been hectic. I've been wanting to go out with a bang and things worked about exactly as I wanted them to.

I got out a story that I had a TON of fun writing and investigating, did a few reviews, and even got to hang with my now former co-workers one last time.

Now, I'm off to somewhere else with a huge stack of stories that I have on the table to write, including a motorcycle restoration project.

Herb man says that you can't do goodbye posts anymore, so mine is quite low-key.

https://jalopnik.com/take-a-trip-without-a-destination-it-could-change-your-1848995503

If you're looking to get your foot in the door of auto journalism, Jalopnik is looking for two writers. The working environment is currently a bit different than typical Jalop, but if that doesn't scare you, I think it's a good opportunity to expand your horizons.

But fear not, you'll see my byline somewhere awesome real soon.

My Japanese imports are so close that I can almost taste them!

Against the great advice of Oppo, I decided to go full steam ahead with my plans of importing cars by myself with the help of my fiancée.

The first car is a 1991 Honda Beat. I paid $1,910 at auction for it then had an importer, The Import Guys, handle the rest. It has arrived in Washington state, is now legal with a title, and is ready for me to pick it up. Total cost thus far is $4,700!

It'll need a few cosmetic repairs, mainly to some faded paint and minor corrosion. Otherwise, it's ready to daily!

For a short cost breakdown:
$1,910 for the car.
$1,000 ocean shipping via RORO.
$1,100 flat fee to The Import Guys.
The rest went to land transport to port in Japan and a bunch of fees, totaling $4,700.

Note: According to The Import Guys, my auction actually went a bit over budget. However, the extra it went over was low enough that they just discounted that from my total so it stayed on budget.

The second vehicle is the one that we're handling mostly ourselves. I used Japan Car Direct to handle paperwork in Japan, place my bids, and to arrange transport. The rest is on us. It's a 1989 Suzuki Every Turbo RX. I spent $1,250 at auction for it and at the moment, I'm in $3,200.

Like the Beat, the van needs some cosmetic fixes, but nothing too big.

For a short cost breakdown:
$1,250 for the van.
$620 to Japan Car Direct.
$1,000 ocean shipping via RORO.
$350 land shipping to port + auction fees for a current total of about $3,200.

Now I make a fun trek out to Washington to pick up the Beat! Stay tuned for further shenanigans. Next, I do an ISF filing for the Suzuki for its journey to America.

When I joined Jalopnik back in 2020 it was a dream come true. I thought that I would be there forever, but times and circumstances change. In my case, I have decided to go in a different direction than where the ship is currently sailing.

I'll punch the clock a final time at the end of the month, then you'll see my byline and face in what is likely to be more than one place.

Of course, I'll still be a reader. Jalop has been an integral part of my life for over a decade, just as Oppo has.

Here are some pictures from a recent ride on what's more or less the only driving road in southern Wisconsin!

And a couple of days ago I got to ride Janus Motorcycles' whole line. They ride like vintage machines with modern brakes and suspension, but that's pretty much what they are.

We made it halfway to Tennessee before I got a call from the local PD. Apparently, someone tried to claim that I stole all of the cars that I park at home and attempted to have the police tow them. This is an interesting follow up to a previous accusation that I run an illegal car dealership. LOL

We ended up turning back and going home. I'd rather miss out on a rally than come home to no cars. Today, we decided to move the remainder of my fleet to my storage areas. It's inconvenient to drive to my warehouse just to drive something different, but screw it, I'm so done with this.

Sadly, the home search isn't going well, so we're still at the apartment until that changes. We even considered just moving to a different apartment, but rent is absurd. Hopefully, removing all but my beater Touareg, the Triumph, and her Prius from the property will ease the Karen-ing.

Anyway, also decided to use this extra time to wrench. Specifically, I wanted to get my 2012 smart back on the road. My mobile mechanic got it running again, but it wasn't driving.

To rectify that today, I removed the beat up and flat TSWs and replaced them with some new (to me) Lorinsers.

Then I stuck a crowbar into the engine bay and forced the car out of Park. I finished with an oil change and a new battery.

And after 2.5 years of sitting? The car drives fantastic. The engine had a little knock at first, but it went away as I exercised it. The brakes--which had just 1,000 miles on them back when I parked the car in 2019--cleaned themselves up.

It also got its first wash since 2018.

And after a bunch of redline runs the car drives just as good as it did before it was parked. There were a TON of stored codes, but all of them appeared to be from when the car was sitting. I cleared them and they didn't come back.

Why was this car parked in the first place? Well, back in October 2019 the alternator seized. I couldn't find any mechanic willing to touch it without an estimate more than the little car was worth. Even Mercedes-Benz dealers gave me crazy quotes.

So I resolved myself to just fix it myself. Eventually days turned to weeks, those weeks turned into months, then before you know it the car hadn't run in over a year. Getting to the alternator requires lowering the engine, and that was just beyond my comfort zone.

My lifesaver came in the form of a new local mobile mechanic. This fella not only did a dealership-quality job, but did it on the cheap. I now have him fix everything.

As for the little smart, I'm going to restore it to its former glory. Some new panels, an interior detail, and hopefully some subframe rust removal.

@EssExTee HOLY CRAP

Yeah I do! Imagine daily driving those adorable things.

I think I agree with the folks saying that maybe your interest is waning because thus far, you can only enjoy cars from afar. But here's one out from left field: maybe writing about cars is sapping your love for them?

I used to love computers so much that for a short while I ran a computer rescue. I bought old, neglected machines and gave them some love. I also had a thing for building budget flight simulator rigs.

At the same time, I had a career in tech, involving advanced tech support for SQL-based servers running poorly coded Java programs. Before that, I kept an entire enterprise's tech working like a well-oiled machine. On good days, I had a blast. On bad days, I wanted to cry. Heck, I did cry on those days.

Rinse and repeat for nearly a decade and it burned me out. Not only did I hate my job, but I hated computers.

Now that I work with cars, I've been getting back into computers again. It feels nice to enjoy them without strings attached.

It was a similar situation with my wife and baseball. She has been a lifelong baseball fan, and at some point became a baseball writer. Her baseball journalism was so good that she won an award for it. But like with me, the job pulled her away from her love of baseball, and just made it feel like work.

She got out of baseball journalism and thankfully, that love of baseball came back. We even recently went to an Indy league game and she's been teaching me baseball stats.

Falling out of love with something can and will happen in life, but it'll be up to you to figure out why.

Thanks all!!! ️

@RallyDarkstrike At $50k? Hard pass. I haven't checked into that exact Flxible model, but unless it's something really special, it's really worth a fraction of the ask.

@Old-Busted-Hotness said in Some observation from commuting with bus:

Hop aboard an ancient GMC fishbowl driven by a 14-year-old wannabe racer, with a boom box on the dashboard blasting salsa, and hang on. Buses obey even fewer traffic laws than normal Mexicans.

Sounds like a blast, sign me up!

@100percentjake Firstly, holy crap that's some stunning photography. I thought those were automaker photos at first. Second, those have aged very well, I hope it treats you well!

@EssExTee An E90 with a huge leather bench up front? YES

I don't know how you go through this without imploding. When my van was stolen I felt violated, and my sense of security got all jacked up. I now have security cameras everywhere, and store my vehicles away from meth enthusiasts, but I still look over my shoulder.

Sadly, your decision makes sense. I store all of my best vehicles off-site, which not only drives up expenses but means that a fun day with a certain car or bike starts with a 30-min drive to get said car or bike.

@Shop-Teacher I'm glad someone got pictures! I don't get my preview pix from the photog until sometime this week, and the real deal pics until a month or so from now.

Thank you so much for coming! I'm glad you had a great time! Honestly, I was so worried that something horrible was going to happen, but the wedding worked out fantastic.

Sheryl and I even got to tour the museum after most of the guests left. We intentionally avoided touring the museum during the planning visits and during AirVenture just so we could do it during the wedding.

Also, I'm not sure that Flxible is worth 50 large, but it sure is a beauty!

@CarsOfFortLangley said in Why does anyone rent from Hertz now?:

The fact that they're not looking to drop the charges or cases indicates some level of information that isn't being relayed.

Eh, businesses and people will fight a losing battle all of the time. I mean, both of the companies that I sued in 2020-2021 maintained their side of the story until the very end when I kicked both of their butts. And in doing so, they opened up a huge can of worms that will allow others to sue them.

Currently, my wife is about to destroy the largest slumlord in Chicago, a guy who owns roughly 77 buildings. You'd think the guy would have given up after... gestures to a mountain of evidence ...but the guy has decided to ride it out for years to the end. It's going to cost him everything. His son even had political power, and he lost that, too.

There's actually a strategy in sticking to your guns. As wifey says, sometimes the person suing a business runs out of money before they can win. So there's a potential benefit in intentionally dragging out a case as long as possible. Or if the person is old enough, maybe they'll even die (happens more often than you'd think). And there's always the non-zero chance that despite the evidence, you'll still win, anyway. Or maybe the other side gets tired of years of litigation and settles for way less than the case is theoretically worth.

And sometimes, a corporation is just petty, see Nissan Motor v Nissan Computer. And sometimes, a business is just legally wrong, see the original case for Business Casual Holdings v YouTube.

The best way to see if there's more to a story is to look at the court documents. You get way more juicy details than any news story will give you.

Welcome back!!!! I know that I don't always comment on your stuff, but I adore your magic and love reading about it. Fantastic ride, too, of course!

@Future-Next-Gen-S2000-Owner Let go.

The short version of the story is that The Drive's owner bought up a bunch of media properties, intentionally growing at a rapid, unprofitable rate. Apparently, the goal was to sell off the whole empire as a package deal before things went downhill.

That didn't happen...and here we are. To make matters worse, I know of at least one writer that was given an ultimatum. Their content was making a certain kind of reader mad, so they were told to write only news or quit. So yeah...turns out there are more herbs out there than originally thought.