Last Commented Automotive Blogs (377)

COVID knocked out car manufacturing worldwide. New cars, factory parts, after-market parts. Everything.
If you were lucky enough to 'get in line' for a new car, the wait (in the beginning) was months. Because of this, the value of used cars went up.

No secret here. It's supply & demand. Cars that are 3 years old selling for the same price as when they were new.

I don't 'need' a car, but I've been eyeing the market and shopping for a 'future car' as the one I currently own should easily last 10 years, I'm just considering something a little larger.

Visiting a dealer for a model I wanted to test drive, they only had one to demo. It's not for sale. They are taking orders on it that are approximately 6 to 8 weeks out depending on the color and options.

I asked the price and was told some 'strange code' like 6250. I asked what is a 6250 and the salesman mumbled something. Figuring where he was going, I clearly asked "Are you charging $6,250 over sticker price" his response was "It's negotiable"

An associate of mine sold cars and told me the hottest SUV right now is the KIA TELLURIDE at a sticker price of over $42,000.
Currently, there are bidding wars with people paying over $10,000 sticker just to get one!

I went to the KIA site to check availability, but I was unable to get information on this model. It's not found in inventory for all the local dealerships.

At some point, chips and cars will become available and the demand for new cars will diminish. Those inflated used-car prices will begin to level out too. That means (just like house buying) if you paid too much for a car now, in a few years your devalued used car price will be giving you sticker shock!

Truck tires are treated differently than car tires. Car tires usually get discarded or chopped and recycled into other rubber products. Big truck tires for 18-wheelers are more expensive and get recapped when worn. The process takes a worn tire and puts a new layer of tread shaped and glued to the original core. The process is safety approved, but not perfect. Sometimes, the entire retread tire belt begins to delaminate, bits shred off and breaks loose from the tire core. Considering the numbers of trucks on the roads and you've done highway driving, you've probably seen parts of truck tires on the roadway.

While driving on the highway a few weeks ago, the car adjacent to me hit some shredded pieces of truck tire that flew up and hit the front of my car just under the bumper and grill. One piece was so large that it flipped around the tire and pulled away some of the cowling in the wheel well.

I reported this to the Highway Patrol and also my insurance company who assigned it to an authorized body shop near me. Dropping my car off, they arranged the rental company to pick me up to get a rental car covered under my insurance plan.

I'm into a Toyota Camry this week that's got 46,000 miles and very acceptable as a rental. I did a short highway trip and was totally surprised to be getting 41 miles per gallon! It didn't have all the features that my car has (like map & GPS, mirror warning lights when cars are approaching on my blind spot, keyless entry) but my last car didn't have those features either.

This week I've got several outside appointments and should be okay with gas mileage.

I pulled up a YouTube video of the process used to retread truck tires. The part I didn't like is the seam where the join at the wrap. Until I saw the video, I would have expected the entire recap to be one seamless piece pulled over the old core. It's deemed as a safe process.

I caught a local news story about the driver of a Lamborghini who was speeding and ran a stop sign. He was T-boned by a Nissan SUV that caused the Lamborghini to flip an land on a house.

A mistake in the reporting:
(1:45 seconds) "the person in the 2nd car who was hit by the Lamborghini..."
No lady HE hit the Lamborghini, not the other way around.

The driver of the Lamborghini fled the scene, which is a felony in the state of Florida.





Link to Yahoo story:

No lines for auto fuels where I live but costs increases seen every day. Store shelves for home goods going bare though.

A driver’s education teacher in Iowa dies in crash when his 14 year old listed as a 'StreetSmarts Driver’s Ed student overcorrected when entering the shoulder of a highway, crashing with an oncoming SUV.

The 71 year old teacher was pronounced dead at the scene and others were taken to a hospital with injuries.

Maybe 14 is too young to learn to drive.



Story link:

Czinger 21C is a 950 horse power hybrid sports car built with many 3D printed parts. Only 80 are planned for Q1, 2023.

When you buy a vehicle at a dealer, they often issue a temporary tag until they can get the permanent tag issued. For years, I've heard people reference this as a 'paper tag'
The paper tag is usually good for 2-3 weeks giving enough time for the dealership to process the official tag or sticker to validate the new or existing tag.
Today, I found there is an official name for the paper tag... it's called a DRIVE-OUT TAG.

In the news, a man and woman in Memphis, Tennessee were arrested for creating fake drive-out tags. Police found 236 of them!

Memphis Police Department found printers, tags, plastic laminator machine, a rifle, handgun, bag of marijuana, digital scales.

Each were charged with 236 counts of forging evidence of title assignments.
Among that, a list of other charges ranging to drug paraphernalia and possession of a weapon.

The Shelby County Fugitive Task Force passed the tip to the Memphis Police Department who made the search and arrests.

Fraudulent drive-out tags...

In Vancouver, Canada, in late May, a Tesla Model Y burst into flames while the driver was waiting for a light at an intersection. He had to kick out a window to escape.

Around the same time, a new Tesla burst into flames in Brooklyn, Illinois, and a week before that a Model 3 caught fire in California City, California, while it was parked in a driveway.

In April, a deadly lithium-ion battery fire occurred in a Tesla car crash in Houston.

Last year, a Tesla caught fire while charging overnight in a garage, which the Washington Post described as “one in a string of recent examples showing what can happen when electric cars are left parked in garages to charge overnight” and which promoted electric vehicle (EV) makers to warn “owners not to leave the cars charging unattended in certain circumstances, or sitting fully charged in garages.”




Tesla recently ordered a recall of almost 130,000 cars because of an “infotainment” system issue that threatened to overheat during “fast charging.”

We’re not trying to single Tesla out here. It isn’t the only one having problems with its lithium-ion batteries.

A March 31 house fire in Damascus, Maryland, caused by a charging Chevy Volt resulted in $350,000 worth of damages.

Last August, GM recalled all the 110,000 Chevrolet Bolt cars it had sold “due to the risk of the high-voltage battery pack catching fire” and warned owners to park their cars away from buildings and other cars. As of April, GM had replaced the batteries on only about a quarter of the recalled cars.

Chevrolet recalled about 110,000 of its Volt EV model years 2017 to 2022 for potential battery fire issues.

In France last month, two electric buses spontaneously exploded, resulting in all 149 electric buses being pulled from service.



Electric scooters in India have been catching fire, and let’s not forget about the Samsung Galaxy 7 phone that had to be recalled after its lithium-ion battery started catching fire.

Shippers are increasingly wary, too. Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines is the latest to say it won’t transport used EVs on its cargo vessels.

But don’t worry, we’re told. Electric vehicles result in far fewer fires than their gas-powered cousins.

From 2012 to 2021, Tesla reports that there was roughly one Tesla vehicle fire for every 210 million miles driven, which compares to one fire per 19 million miles driven for all vehicles.

“The difference between Tesla and the average is 11:1, which is a big win not only for Tesla but in general, for electric cars,” writes Mark Kane in InsideEVs.

Read more:

Yeah, they're called frits. The perimeter of a car windshield (windscreen if you are in England) has a series of graduated dots that transition into solid black. The graphic pattern is enamel that is baked to the glass and used as a primer to hold the windshield to the adhesive that secures it to the frame of the car.
Primer is part of the function as the graduated pattern hides the glue line of the adhesive making a nice aesthetic finishing touch.

Last year I had a cracked windshield (probably from a stone on the highway) and the insurance company offered me an aftermarket windshield that was readily available, or an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) from Toyota that would take a few days to get. Since the crack wasn't through the glass safety laminate and I had time, I opted for the OEM glass and the frits were the same.

What you see in this video is an electric car with a shorted cell at a charging station setting off all the rest.
Note the time it took to destroy 3 cars. The first car was destroyed in about 38 seconds.
The fire cannot be extinguished with water.