QOTD: Got Me Drove

The news cycle has been rife with stories about delayed travel and upended plans thanks to the wild weather being experienced across much of the U.S. and Canada. One harried traveler in Canada chose to rent a car and drive the 2,000 miles (plus a seven-hour ferry ride) to his home rather than wait three or four days in uncertainty for his rescheduled flight.


Here's our question to you: How far would you drive if an airline left you stranded?

Read more
QOTD: Ultimate Blizzard Vehicle

A huge percentage of the country is under some sort of winter storm watch or warning right now. Here in Chicago, it appears the amount of snow we're going to get will be easily manageable but the temps are supposed to be very, very cold.

Read more
QOTD: Ready for Winter?

I saw snow was flying in parts of the country over the weekend. Here in Chicago, I think I saw reports of a dusting of flurries in some parts of the metro, but I saw nothing in my 'hood. It was just cold.

Read more
Piecing Together the Winter Tire Puzzle
We've partnered with the TDot Performance tires team for a closer look at winter tires, from compounds to treads, that 3PMSF symbol and more.
Read more
QOTD: Hello, Winter

We don’t know about the rest of you lot, but the vast majority of us who toil at this august publication reside well within the snow belt. Starting around this time of year, shovelling, bundling up, and generally cursing at cold weather is a daily occurrence for most of the masthead.

Modern cars are virtually maintenance-free these days — save for vital fluids, of course — especially compared to the Bad Old Days when one had to gap plugs and set points in order to get to church on time. Despite this, are there any particular ways in which you prepare your car for winter?

Read more
2019 Subaru Ascent Limited Review - Quirks & Quarks

Subaru landed on these shores with a raft of cars and totally-not-trucks (thanks, Chicken Tax) that were certainly capable when shown a rough road but were, in a word, quirky. Since then, the Pleiades brand has filtered out some of its weirdness in an attempt to capture more customers but – as we will learn – still marches to the beat of its own drummer … or at least to the beat of a flat-four.

What’s changed since our first drive of the Ascent eight and a half months ago? Anything? Did the big Subie acquit itself well during the Polar Vortex? Does our Associate Editor wear army boots?

Read more
QOTD: Hot or Cold?

Last week’s ball-shattering polar vortex flash froze much of the U.S. and Canada, sending Netflix viewership soaring and no doubt spurring a mini baby boom in nine months’ time. While it may have been toasty in your home (sorry, Michigan gas customers), your car’s engine block found itself in a climate POW camp.

Hailing from the Great White North, I know all too well the prayers muttered while twisting the ignition key, knowing all too well your oil’s as thick as fudge and hoping with all your might that good wishes can be converted into cranking amps. Now, let’s say you succeed in firing up that ice-cold engine. What next?

Read more
QOTD: Much Ado About Winter Aesthetics?

If you’re living at low altitudes in the Southeastern U.S. or a partial day’s drive from the Gulf Coast, this Question of the Day is not for you. Barring exceptionally wacko weather, denizens of these temperate climes needn’t worry about traction loss caused by the solidification of moisture below 32F. In other words, snow, slush, and ice of both the regular and insurance-hiking black variety.

For those of who who do live in regions where Mother Nature delivers an annual cold shoulder, we’re getting close to decision time. What’s your style: turn your beautiful, meticulously upkept vehicle into a cheap-looking rig for the duration of winter with a set of bare steelies and meaty donuts, or keep style and handling alive with a snazzy set of low-profile winter tires wrapped around sporty aluminum hoops?

Read more
Piston Slap: Portal Protection for an Erratic Winter?

TTAC Commentator Arthur Dailey writes:

Sajeev,

As I look outside a the terrible weather, I felt it was opportune to ask you (and the B&B) a relatively simple yet timely question about preventing car door freezing: door handles, windows, etc, during the freeze and thaw cycles that we are increasingly experiencing.

On Sunday our temperature reached a record low of – 22C but on Thursday we had driving rain and a record high of + 10C melting all the snow. Friday we are dropping to – 13C with high winds and freezing rain/sleet/snow. All of these freeze thaw cycles play havoc with our autos.

The high temperatures combined with the salt used to keep the roads less icy results in rusting. Perhaps less serious but just as frustrating are the freezing of windows, doors, door locks and door handles.

Read more
QOTD: What's Your Major Malfunction?
As I type this, the icy tentacles of major cold snap are beginning to be felt in the Midwest and Northeast, sending frigid residents from Montana to Maine to their computers in search of cheap timeshares in Tampa. Meanwhile, forecasters in this neck of the woods — who smugly called for average to above-average temperatures for the duration of the winter — magically get to keep their jobs.The onset of a deep freeze stirs up so many memories, none of them good.Let’s see, there was the Plymouth Sundance with sticky valves that turned over with a series of small explosions on especially frosty mornings. Then there was the ’89 Prelude with a driver’s side window that stopped four inches from the top of the frame. How can one forget the drive home on a morning where the windchill factor hit minus 47 Fahrenheit?
Read more
QOTD: Are You Getting Away With Not Having Grip?

As I type this, the first flakes of this winter’s first real dumping of snow are falling lazily outside my window. By morning, the landscape should resemble the countertop in a Studio 54 bathroom. Then the real fun begins.

Carefully gauging your braking distance and leaving more room between your car and the car ahead, wondering all the while if that Rogue you can’t see around is hugging the back bumper of the car in front. Wondering what’s going to break loose first on a highway off-ramp — the front end or the rear. Trying to coax frozen wiper blades off the windshield without leaving the rubber strip behind. Downshifting at the top of hills. Trying to clear freezing rain off your windows without turning into William H. Macy in Fargo.

Never mind what happens in the ritzy ski lodges of Sweden and the Alps. Winter sucks. The only perk is it’s a lot easier to make a U-turn, assuming there’s no cops around and your vehicle’s e-brake isn’t of the electronic kind.

Depending on where you call home, you’ve probably switched your seasonal rubber by now. Or have you?

Read more
QOTD: How Do You Prepare for Winter's Wrath?

Alert readers will have noted by this time that I have lived my entire life in the refrigerator that is Eastern Canada. Snow appears early, sticks around like an unwelcome houseguest, only to begrudgingly depart sometime after Cinco de Mayo. My father often says his retirement plan consists of loading a snowblower into the bed of a pickup truck and heading south. The first place he stops where someone asks “What’s that?” is where he makes his new home.

On Friday, I regaled you with my tale of finally paying off a car (thanks for the kind words in the comments, readers). Since I’ll be keeping the Charger, and live well into the snow belt, I will soon need to get it ready for winter.

Read more
Freaky Friday: Russians Just Know How to Have a Good Time, Period

Maybe it’s the cold, the dodgy economy, or lingering memories of decades spent lining up for milk. Whatever the motivation, Russians don’t seem to need the latest and greatest high-tech gadget to help them pass the time. Nope, just grab a few friends, spend a few rubles amassing a collection of ancient hatchbacks, and hit the ice.

The winter of 2017 has brought an inventive new sport to the frozen wastes of the Motherland, and locals can thank a plethora of worthless, Soviet-era crapwagons for the entertainment. Apparently, there are automobiles worth less than stones.

Read more
QOTD: What's the Best Winter Car Recipe?

Weather forecasters deserve our scorn, and Northerners know why. They call for one to two inches of snow, update the forecast to four to six inches later in the day, and you wake up the next morning to find eight to twelve inches of fresh powder blanketing your driveway, your car, your life, your fragile psyche.

It happens every winter, but a good insurance policy against aorta-popping fits of rage (and exertion) is to get yourself a good winter vehicle. Something that eats snow and ice for breakfast and comes back for more. Ideally, it’s a low-cost, no-commitment “beater” that throws itself in front of winter’s bullet to spare your pampered summer ride, but not always.

Read more
Trackday Diaries: The Final Flurry After The First Flurries

For the time being, we can still call it “Indian Summer.” Maybe not for much longer — my alma mater, Miami University, bent the knee to social-justice pressure on this issue a few years ago. We had been the Miami Redskins, but after a prolonged siege by the forces of manufactured outrage the university agreed to change us to the Miami Redhawks. It is worth noting that the Chief of the Miami Tribe in no way objected to the old logo or name; he thought it was used in a reasonable and dignified manner. But when faced between the choice of respecting the opinion of an actual Native American or listening to the incoherent babble of their own privileged white-girl hearts, Miami’s students of course chose the latter.

I kind of like the bird they chose — it looks angry, although to my mind it is not distinct enough from the Bowling Green Falcon, and that’s a shame because BG is an emphatically third-rate university and Miami is only second-rate. Angry is good. It’s easy to picture such a red hawk flying above the muted palette of the Ohio late fall forest, two-lane roads with orange and red leaves disconnected from stems by a killing morning frost then resurrected in impromptu whirling whorls set to spinning above the tarmac by the Vettes and ‘vertibles of all sorts, the lumbering Harleys and white-trash sportbikes and adventure-cuck bikes taking brief but permitted nonsense trips to nowhere. We can get these magical weekends every once in awhile, right at the end of the season, and this past Saturday was the perfect example — 76 degrees and a panoply parade of pleasure vehicles out for the last sorties of the year.

Now it’s 28 and I’m the only bike on the road to work this morning, flash-frozen on the freeway, every joint hurting and the tires chilled to a sort of bitter truce with the road surface, chittering at the hint of a lean.

Read more
  • B-BodyBuick84 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport of course, a 7 seater, 2.4 turbo-diesel I4 BOF SUV with Super-Select 4WD, centre and rear locking diffs standard of course.
  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
  • Tassos Jong-iL Communist America Rises!
  • Merc190 A CB7 Accord with the 5 cylinder
  • MRF 95 T-Bird Daihatsu Copen- A fun Kei sized roadster. Equipped with a 660cc three, a five speed manual and a retractable roof it’s all you need. Subaru Levorg wagon-because not everyone needs a lifted Outback.