General car talk

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
501

My 2000 Suburban is the same size as 2025 Toyota Tacoma, the smaller of the Toyota pickups. The Tacoma is wider and taller, but the Surbuban is a bit longer. Just making cars bigger seems to be the automakers’ primary way of updating cars.

I think this is the primary reason the value of the GMT800 based trucks have gone up. They’re modern enough that you can put a cheap OBDII scanner on them and find out what is wrong, but old enough that you don’t need a dealership computer to program any parts you do replace.

Mechanical parts are readily available, though less so for trim pieces, and there is a big aftermarket if you want to customize or add go fast parts.

502

As the owner of a 4th generation MX-5/Miata, I will observe a moment of silence for Tom Matano.

503

These high tech new cars can have some big problems:

Jeep just pushed a software update that bricked all the 2024 Wrangler 4xe models, including my Willys. The future is going great.

This is chilling (from https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/2024-4xe-loss…):

> On my drive home I abruptly had absolutely no acceleration, the gear indicator on the dash started flashing, the power mode indicator disappeared, an alert said shift into park and press the brake + start button, and the check engine light and red wrench lights came on. I was still able to steer and brake with power steering and brakes for maybe 30 seconds before those went out too. After putting it into park and pressing the brake and start button it started back up and I could drive it normally for a little bit, but it happened two more times on my 1.5 mi drive home.

If that happened on the highway I could easily see people being killed.

504

Not surprising, but we have bought two cars in the past 2 years, one new, one 2 years old, both for just over $30000 so it is possible.

505

Huh? stickers over 50K have been common for decades. Not on cheapos, but on higher end cars.

Reading the article, they meant, but did not say, that average stickers are now exceeding $50K. Crappy writing.

506

And 3 years later Dodge is bringing back the Ram ProMaster City van.

507

Just replaced the battery in my 91 Ford Ranger. I installed the old one in May 2018. I bought it as an OEM battery from the local Ford dealer, and it came with a 36 month full replacement warranty and a 100 month pro-rated warranty. So it made it 94 months. Here in the desert heat, almost eight years is long time for a battery.

So I mentioned this 100 month warranty at the parts counter, and the guy working the parts counter said that no, the warranty is only for 36 months. But I said it said so right on the battery, and he could see for himself when I brought in the core (I actually had it the core with me, but I don’t bother to lug it to the parts counter until I verify they have a new battery in stock). I figured that I wasn’t expecting much on the pro-rated part, but they knocked $10 off the new $200 battery. Fair enough. And the new battery has a 36 month warranty, no mention of any warranty beyond that, so I can see why he was sceptical of my mention of the 100 month warranty.

Eight years ago the battery was $130, today it is $200. Previous to getting the OEM battery from the dealer, I was getting Duralast batteries from AutoZone, but they would only last 4 or 5 years, and at the time (and now as well) they were not much cheaper than the OEM part. Since then, I have only bought OEM batteries for my other cars (Hondas), and now for my Ford. The Honda OEM batteries have been rock solid as well. So if you need a battery, don’t overlook getting one from a dealer, they are competitively priced and in my experience better quality than other options, including an Interstate battery that was in my 2001 Accord.