QOTD: What Did You Learn?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Tim Cain’s Thursday rundown of observations and conclusions about the automotive industry spanned the gamut, and yours truly couldn’t agree more with his view that extended cab pickups boast the most pleasing profile in the segment. Few things look odder to these eyes than a full-size crew cab with a 5.5-foot bed.

He’s bang-on about the Acura RDX, too.

Unlike that 30- or 40-something friend whose politics remain frozen in time from their first semester of college, the passage of years normally brings about an evolution of views. Things change — allegiances, likes, dislikes, and even guilty pleasures. Discoveries abound that alter how we think. Each calendar year brings about at least a few realizations about society, the world around us, and how we interact with it, and the same goes for something like the auto industry.

With 2019 nearly at an end, what have you learned this past year?

It needn’t be something technical; rather, your discovery is far more likely to be of a personal nature. Something about yourself. Maybe you really didn’t want a manual after all. Maybe — just maybe — you’ve discovered the pros of an automatic outweigh the cons in daily driving.

Perhaps your long-held dislike of nerdy electric vehicles and the green-tech fan club that surrounds them fell away when Ford introduced an electric crossover with a pony badge. Unlike this time last year, maybe you can now see yourself in one. Perhaps the looming EV surge has you more than ever planning to buy that budget classic you’ve always wanted, in the hopes that whatever future government comes into power will at least let you keep that one ICE vehicle. Seeing what Europe’s up to these days, it’s not a crazy thought.

It’s possible new model introductions over the past year generated newfound respect or admiration for an automaker you previously wrote off as something that would never find a home in your driveway. Just as easily, you may have fallen out of love with an automaker that made one too many poor product decisions.

So, B&B, as you relax with your meatless burgers and Bud Prohibition Brew, what thoughts stand out from 2019? What did you learn about the industry… or yourself?

[Image: General Motors]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Cognoscenti Cognoscenti on Dec 23, 2019

    I learned that I really like to have more than one vehicle. I just love cars too much to accept only a single driving experience the whole year long. I love my primary car, yet I will still deliberately choose the wife's SUV or Grandma's old Accord regularly, just because I can.

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    • R Henry R Henry on Dec 26, 2019

      I suffered MMS for A LONG time (Multiple Motorcycle Syndrome (usually four at a time)). Becoming a father and NOT wanting some other guy raise my son was the only way I was able beat it. As for cars, a tight budget is the only way to beat it back, but (hopefully) such periods are only temporary!

  • HotPotato HotPotato on Dec 31, 2019

    I learned which kind of snow cables fits my car's wheels. I learned that they're horrifyingly expensive. I learned how to put them on. I learned that they'll fling themselves right back off again into the pines if your tires are spinning fast on ice. I learned that driving in winter suuuuuucks, and I don't begrudge people whatever people think they need to get through it: AWD, snow tires, chains, sand, salt, shovels, mini pickaxes, scrapers, brushes, magic spells, a one-way ticket to coastal California.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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