The press photos show the yellow paint but you can't pick yellow in the online configurator, sad. The currently shown paint colors look too boring, we need some fancy colors, Ineos! There were reports that said the frame would be galvanized but it seems from official documents just the body is. Curious what levels of rust protection they're baking into the frame, suspension, and axles on this thing. Dealing with galvanized vehicles sounds hard from a body shop point of view. ... View more

It'd be nice if the Pro trim came with a cloth seat option like the XL trim on the normal F150 has. I'm not a big vinyl seat fan, but $40k (before state and federal rebates!) for a full size cloth seated truck is a damn good deal. Being from somewhere it's cold half the year, it would have been nice to see a heat pump in there, too, but my cold weather driving is almost entirely less than 100 miles per day or trip. Summer is a different story and then the 230 mile range could then become a problem, but if more public charging stations pop up that would mitigate it a bit. ... View more

For a daily driver I feel an EV makes tons of sense. It can heat/cool itself before you get in (ICE can do this too with remote start), most EVs have enough range for daily activities, don't need to stop at a gas station, and the maintenance is supposed to be a bit less (we'll see if this is true in the long run). For a replacement of a commuter car, an EV seems like an easy choice. For autocrossing, an EV also makes a lot of sense, all wheel drive, tons of torque at lower speeds, low center of gravity, that's exactly what you want. For longer drives, racing, towing, reducing initial purchase price, and feeling connected to the car, clearly current EVs are lacking compared to ICE vehicles. There's no reason you can't like both kinds of cars. They each excel at different things. Horses for courses, etc. ... View more

Are the pictures here of the short or the long wheelbase? Is the long wheelbase similar in interior size to a Transit Connect or to a Metris? ... View more

These camera-based rear view mirrors are interesting to me, especially with shrinking rear visibility due to smaller and smaller rear windows and higher trunks. But is there any regulation which says that when a rear view mirror is digital that the camera needs to have a washer which regularly cleans it? Driving in winter weather up north makes the rear of any car disgustingly covered and renders any rear mounted camera pointless, this is not OK if it *IS* your rear view mirror. ... View more

One side of synthetic fuels which I think is so far not discussed is that using them would potentially separate the cost of fuel at the pump from the cost of oil, and from all the other things which use oil and hence compete for price in the oil market. If your cost to manufacture synthetic gasoline which uses wind/solar/small nuclear/etc power is only based on your capital cost to create the manufacturing facility and then the local labor rates, you'll potentially disconnect the price consumers pay at the pump from other global events and markets. If smaller synthetic fuel manufacturing sites can be built for local markets, the transportation cost for the fuel to reach the pump will also be much lower, again reducing fluctuations in the price. The main driver of gas prices then will just be the consumer demand. This may stabilize gas prices, which is a valuable thing, even if it's at $8/gallon. ... View more

Oh wow! I didn't know that Honda started using ZF transmissions! That's amazingly good news, Honda has quite a crap record of transmission issues on previous larger vehicles (especially the Odyssey). Hopefully the ZFs help to sort out that reputation! ... View more

Crosswinds are definitely a concern, but getting a lower roof version can help reduce that risk and all the manufacturers have fancy steering assist things now. But yeah, definitely going to be more concern than a pickup. And crash tests don't seem to happen for commercial level vehicles, trucks or vans, nearly to the same extent as normal cars. Googling around shows the full size van crash tests don't look that bad. And as long as you get a factory installed 2nd row (and beyond) or seats which specifically come with a FMVSS compliance record, it should comply with all crash test requirements in the USA. If you're modding your cargo van and bolting in your own seat, yeah, might or might not be that safe. ... View more

When I bought my Colorado crew cab long bed (6' 2" long bed) I looked at the Ridgeline. My dad has a Ridgeline. I liked the wider rear seat for my kids and the swing out tailgate and bed trunk are both quite handy. But to get AWD and heated seats (a requirement for me) made the Ridgeline about $7k more than my Colorado at the time. If there had been a Ridgeline EX trim with heated cloth seats for Colorado money, I probably would've gotten the Honda. ... View more

Currently the best fit for my desires seems to be a gasser low roof 144" wheelbase 4x2 Sprinter cargo van and then getting upfit with a Snoeks 2nd row crew seat, windows, interior trim, and bulkhead. I estimate the Snoeks upfit to be somewhere in the $6k-8k price range but don't have any hard numbers as I'm just dreaming now. In the USA CrewVanCo is the distributor for Snoeks: https://www.crewvanco.com/sprinter ... View more

You can get 4x4 capability on the current generation Sprinter vans but only with the diesel engine. The Ford Transit has an AWD offering. For 2023 Sprinters might switch to a more SUV-like AWD system, probably somewhat similar to Ford has now. There appears to be quite the aftermarket for lift kits at least for 4x4 Sprinters and lots of people putting chubby rubber tires on after lifting. The whole "van life" thing has made the commercial van aftermarket a niche but decent sized thing the past few years. ... View more

All of your negatives are why I've been researching commercial "crew" vans lately. Payload ratings to rival 3/4 ton trucks, towing equivalent to a mid-size truck (which is plenty for many but not you), a larger (and covered lockable!) "bed" than any pickup, seating space for 5 as comfortably as a full size truck, fuel economy of a mid-size SUV, a load floor which even a small child can step up into without assistance, a wheelbase/length/width of a 1/2 ton crew cab pickup, tighter turning radius than many mid-size SUVs, and a price comparable to a low trim 1/2 ton pickup. Fitting 3 motorcycles or 5-6 mountain bikes in the cargo area behind the "crew" seat is easy. Getting in and out via sliding doors is a godsend with kids. ... View more

The Core trim seems to explicitly say it will have 5 person seating but info on the Circuit Edition doesn't clearly state how many seats it will have. Any info on if the Circuit Edition will in fact have a back seat or what kind of back seat? ... View more

So someone in Toyota's marketing department DOES actually understand the enthusiast market! That's nice to see. Dear Mr/Ms. Toyoda, please promote those people! The world needs more actual Toyota cars (not just rebadged BMWs or Subarus) which create excitement! ... View more

My main gripes with the Colorado interior are around the HVAC and infotainment. The HVAC knobs for fan speed and temperature click as you turn them, but if you turn them quickly then the number of clicks does not match the number of changes of the fan speed or temperature setting. You have to turn them slowly. This is infuriating. Then the infotainment just seems to have a mind of its own, especially with bluetooth and my iPhone. The forums are filled with "fun" infotainment problems. It seems GM could have just made the radio be a radio in this truck, even without Carplay/Android Auto and that level of radio system would be fitting for the age of the platform. Oh well. ... View more

I'm excited about the future of cars! I feel like right now, with the supply constraints, the crazy high prices, the mad dash to EVs, and with the stupid amount of "consumer tech" being pushed into "infotainment" in cars that the modern car has lost its way. I'm rooting for companies like Honda and VW to get back to their past successes and make cars that people WANT to buy, WANT to drive, and are at prices which normal people can afford. I don't really care if it's electric, gas, hydrogen, or whatever powered, I just want to be excited about cars I can actually afford again. I think that's coming and that's a good thing! The current Civic and Maverick look like they're going in the right direction to me. Can we have more of that? Please? ... View more

In 2021 I tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a fleet ordered red Chevy Tahoe. The dealer had like 5 of them sitting on their lot, must have had a fleet order fall through for a fire department. Dealer told me I would have to show proof that I was a government agency in order to buy one. I couldn't get a straight answer out of the sales person as to why only government agencies could buy a vehicle which had sat on their lot for weeks. It's not like it had been upfitted with flashing lights or anything, it was still stock from GM. ... View more

The Dodge Charger with the V8 Hemi and all wheel drive is only offered for fleets. The Ford Explorer with 3rd row delete is only offered for fleets. Lots of paint colors from lots of manufacturers are only offered for fleets. I'm sure there's plenty more examples. ... View more

It's really too bad that there's still such a discrepancy between fleet and non-fleet sales options at many automakers. There's often very utilitarian and functional reasons why a non-fleet customer would very much like to buy the fleet version of certain cars, the Lightning Pro is just the latest iteration. $35k after tax rebate for a full size truck with 200 real world miles range is an astonishing offering, especially if gas stays >$4/gallon and electricity prices don't get jacked up in the near term. ... View more

This is a great looking box on wheels! I'm honestly excited. But sadly, I think VW is making a big mistake trying to make a long wheelbase 3 row model be the only one to come to the USA. Also, still no volume knob. Electric cars, for the average middle class family, are still very much 2nd vehicle kind of cars. They're not good for long family trips (have you ever sat at a rest stop for an hour with 3 young kids waiting to "refuel" your car? does grandma have a level 2 charger you can use when you arrive?) so won't be the primary 3 row vehicle. But they can be an excellent and economical choice for a 2nd car for the family to use. 3 kids in the 2nd row is fine and 200ish miles of real world cold and hot weather range for shorter trips is plenty. ID Buzz solves like 95% of the middle class family vehicle problem, but that remaining 5% is what prevents it from being able to actually replace the main 3 row SUV or minivan. VW, please don't screw this up. Bring the short wheelbase 2 row model with AWD here to the USA. I think you'll be surprised at how many you sell. Market it as a 2nd vehicle which is economical and functional and actually big enough for a middle class suburban family with 2.5 children. Sliding doors are amazingly nice to have with younger kids even if sliding doors look dorky, the functionality angle is what will sell this. ... View more

I'm very excited about the Grenadier! I don't really have any good reasons to be excited about it in terms of my needs from a vehicle but it seems like it could make for a good long term ownership experience as a family hauler and do-anything-er type car. Hopefully the reliability will be good (BMC turbo engine + ZF 8-speed, not exactly what I think of for reliable). It feels like a working-class price and feature set but Merc G-Wagon level capabilities and size. Slightly bigger inside than a Wrangler Unlimited and differently functional. ... View more

I've been using the Venom gloves for a few years, I'm able to find them at Lowe's fairly often. The price has definitely gone up during COVID, I swear they used to be like $23 for 100 pack at Lowe's but now they're more like $23 for a 50 pack. They're the best disposable gloves I've used so far and they fit my L-to-XL sized hands well. ... View more

A yard of gravel is likely to easily fit in any truck bed, including a Maverick. The hard part is having enough payload to haul a yard of gravel. A yard of gravel is easily over 1 ton. ... View more

My use case is I have 3 kids. They easily fit 3-across in the back of my Colorado crew cab and I suspect for local trips they'd even fit 3-across in the back of a Maverick. So when we go biking as a family all 5 of us fit in the cab and all 5 bikes fit in the bed draped over the tailgate. The Maverick isn't that much narrower on paper than the existing mid-sizers and I've not seen a Maverick yet in person. ... View more

For comparison, I can rather easily fit my family's 5 bikes (2 adults, 3 kids) over the tailgate in my Colorado and everyone in the crew cab. It'd certainly be easier in a full sizer, but works without a problem. For this year I've gotten a big Brute container strapped into the front of the bed to shove all the helmets and other gear into so it's not crowding the cab. ... View more

The key is having 'extra' cars and a motivation to learn and do it yourself. I'd love to read more detailed versions of the stories you mentioned here! With pictures! The internet needs more blog posts about fixing things from people who aren't experts and are willing to show the failures and mistakes they make. Watching a YouTube of a skilled mechanic do something teaches me how things should work, but reading/watching a DIYer (with good editing!) fail 7 times doing something that should have been simple shows me all the things which might go wrong and probably has good brainstorm ideas on how to recover. That's way more valuable! ... View more

How many bikes can fit across the bed, when draping over the tailgate? Most of the mid-sized truck tailgate pads have space for 5 bikes. Do the mid-sized tailgate pads fit on the Maverick? Can you actually get 5 bikes across given the slightly narrower wheel well width in the Maverick? ... View more

Toyota, please make a 4x4 2-row with a bench seat in the back SR5 trim with heated seats and heated steering wheel! This SUV with 3 rows leaves you with horrible human space in the 3rd row and no cargo space behind the 3rd row. A factory option to delete the 3rd row would make a great hauler and with such a wide 2nd row could easily fit a family of 5 very comfortably. The outgoing LX offers a 2-row model, as did the previous gen Tahoe Custom... ... View more

That giant touch screen is horrible to use. The older style knobs and switches HVAC and seat heater controls in the Forester Wilderness is much much preferred. Plus the Forester Wilderness is about $8k cheaper, mostly because it lacks the turbo engine. Interior space isn't that different between the Forester and Outback. If I was going to buy a butched up Subaru with orange exterior trim, I'd spring for the Forester variant over the Outback. ... View more

I sadly don't have hobby cars, but when storing cars in someone else's garage or building, how are rodents and insects controlled? I have a cat so don't have rodents inside my house but my shed in my backyard is always full of them because I don't go in the shed all that often (couple times a week, max, during warm weather). I'm sure the cat gets some of them when they venture out but the cat can't go in the shed by himself. We all enjoyed the articles about cleaning out the mouse fun in the truck, but what kind of preventative measures do(es) you and/or your new storage area take? ... View more

If Honda wants to be successful with the Ridgeline, I hope they will keep the formula similar but offer better value. They need a AWD Ridgeline EX trim level with heated cloth seats to come in under $35k MSRP once we get out of this auto shortage. Then it'll differentiate itself from the full size trucks better as well as price itself more reasonably against the new small trucks. Most of the reason the Maverick seems popular stems from its price, $20k to get a useful "truck" is a darn good deal, and you can get a nicely optioned one for under $30k MSRP. Shoppers seeing a comparable Ridgeline at $40k+ aren't going to give their money to Honda no matter how gold the wheels are. ... View more

I've always run friction snow tires in the winters here in western NY but this year I got myself a set of studded Nokians. We haven't had much snow yet this winter but I'm really curious if I will be able to tell the difference or not as compared to past experiences with friction snows. Time will tell. The first like 250 miles the studs were pretty loud but they seem to have quieted down now, or I'm losing my hearing because of them or just getting used to it 😉 ... View more

Many trades still have unions but auto techs don't seem to have any such group which they can be a member of who can push for changes on behalf of many workers across employers. Sure, there's lots of problems with unions, but some good comes from them, too. At least local to me, your quoted "electricians, utility workers, or welders" are all heavily unionized trades. Starting a union isn't exactly easy, especially today where there seems to have been major consolidation of "independent" (ie: Firestone/Monro/JiffyLube/etc) and dealerships who would likely resist and have lots of power to successfully resist. But it seems unfortunate that the tech schools don't try to band together to make things better in the industry for their graduates. As kids hear about how they can make more money doing other things, they're not going to sign up for auto tech school and that's how vicious circles gain strength. ... View more

Am I looking at the wrong Corolla in that Instagram pic? The black and white camo one in the background is the GR, so the mention of "massive rear diffuser, chunky roof spoiler" is a bit confusing to me. Maybe there's other Instagram pics which I can't see? ... View more

I'm curious to see what used pricing on the 2-row base models of this SUV are like in a few years. The 2-row seems like a much better fit for the length of this thing, and it's significantly less MSRP than your tester but has pretty much every luxury feature I'd ever want. ... View more

Awesome to see a REAL review of the Bronco, including real off-roading and mishaps! Keep reviews like this coming, it's a breath of fresh air in today's media scene and for people who are actually wondering about the real capabilities of vehicles, it's a great additional source of info beyond reading through hours and hours of forums. ... View more

If the new Ranger has a fancy bed and tailgate like the Maverick, and hence an easy way to make dividers and to load sheet goods, that would be neat. Seems like plastic truck beds is going to be a thing, wonder if it'll have one of those, too? ... View more

Sorry to hear about the damage, glad to hear no serious human harm resulted. Good luck buying any truck today, new or used! Your financial calculations do not account for the difference of having to own *A* vehicle, for normal every day needs, and then on top of that renting a truck when needed. Sure, your example of running a race season and renting a 3/4 ton truck is a bit extreme, but even for normal people who buy a $50k MSRP full size 1/2 ton instead of buying a $30k sedan and then renting a truck 3-4 times per year for Home Depot runs, the finances likely come out a wash and renting is such a huge inconvenience to deal with. Even at $50k MSRP, trucks are not more expensive on the whole than the alternatives for lots of people, and they're *WAY* more convenient to own. ... View more

Dear Honda, please offer the next Civic Si without a sunroof. Everyone who wears a helmet in them and/or is tall will thank you. ... View more

trials runs, not trails runs, thanks autocorrect! ... View more

Good luck! And we'd love to see video of your trails runs if you take any! ... View more

Now someone needs to do this with a camera mounted on the car! 🙂 ... View more

There's no concern with hooking a good conventional battery directly to an AGM battery that's over-discharged? Won't the AGM battery draw a *TON* of current from the conventional battery at first? ... View more

The Tundra seems like Toyota listened to all the complaints and addressed pretty much all of them. It'll be interesting to see what the real-life payload ratings are, especially on CrewMax with 6.5' bed trucks, as the existing CrewMax Tundra was often put to shame regarding payload even by the Honda Ridgeline. ... View more

Queue all the squatting trucks getting mods to keep the squat but moving the rear fenders up higher! ... View more

Some important questions: 1. Does it still have the screw mounts above each door for the roof rack to mount to? The Impreza always impressed me with this feature, such a great way to do a roof rack mount! 2. Can you get the fancy Recaro seats without having to take the sunroof? 3. Who on God's green earth thought that 2 screen setup on the base model would be a good idea!? Seriously, mismatched horrible cheap plastic with some knobs would be a million percent better than that! ... View more

This is excellent! Please do keep giving us all updates and more pictures as the mouse-truck project continues! Given the copious warnings, I really expected the pictures to be worse than they were. Maybe I've been desensitized in my youth? Whatever, it looks like that "new" headliner and all your cleaning really made a huge difference. ... View more

If the new Tundra gets decent fuel economy and has payload ratings which don't trail too far behind the big 3, I think it has a decent chance at selling well looking like that (assuming the non-TRD Pro ones don't look like manure). It looks rather similar to the current GM and Ford styling. ... View more

I'm interested to see what electric minivans are like in a few years. We'll be due to replace our current Honda Odyssey with a new van-shaped vehicle probably around 2024 and if full electrics can offer more convenience (ie: no gas station stops, overnight charging at home) for everyday driving and not induce too much pain for longer family trips, then they'll be on my shopping list. That VW looks a bit smaller than an Odyssey, though... ... View more

The multi-position tailgate looks cool, and would be useful on every truck with less than 4 feet between the wheel arches. The pricing seems quite good and the MPG should quiet the "trucks are evil" people somewhat. I'm surprised there's not more photos of bikes, skis, and surfboards but maybe Hagerty didn't include those glamour shots here? The Hyundai can't fit more than 1 real mountain bike in the bed, can this? ... View more