hooniverse whats your automotive news

What Was Your Automotive News for the Week?

This seems to happen every year. A bunch of the year’s biggest new cars drop during the Geneva Motor Show and hardly anything happens in the week or two after it. The news out of the industry this week was all pretty minor and not all that interesting, or at least not interesting enough for me to cover it in any detail…. so here’s this week’s news blips:

  • Ford announced the new GT500 will be capped to 180 mph for airflow/cooling reasons, triggering all the people who weren’t planning on buying one anyway.
  • Tesla is unveiling the new Model Y tonight (too late to make it in this post) but it’s basically going to be a taller Model 3 that nobody will be allowed to criticize because it’ll be the best car ever.
  • GM claims the C8 Corvette is delayed because it has too much power and they told us that with a straight face.
  • And sadly, F1’s Race Director, Charlie Whiting, unexpectedly passed away this week, just days before the start of the F1 season. The outpouring of love from the motorsport community speaks volumes for the kind of character he was. I suggest reading Bradley Brownell’s Charlie Whiting obituary on Jalopnik to learn more about his pivotal role in the sport.

With it being a relatively light news week, I’ll pass it off to you. If you saw anything, fixed something, broke everything, or otherwise did anything even remotely car related that you want to share with your fellow hoon, sound off in the comments.

Have a good weekend.

[Image © 2019 Hooniverse/Greg Kachadurian]

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16 responses to “What Was Your Automotive News for the Week?”

  1. onrails Avatar
    onrails

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9010b47b933004bb7555258f90a5111fc6a064babe2b95bc140a3f8e52a14b47.png Hotels are booked, NASA memberships are renewed, current-gen Hooniverse stickers arrived from Blipshift, and I’m studying in-car footage from the tracks while I eat lunch. My partner in crime for this knows someone willing to help us out with use of a tire mounter and balancer so it’s tire change weekend for us. Sounds like it’ll only cost us a 6 pack of the guy’s favorite IPA and some pizza instead of the $30/tire that the local shops want. Depending on if I can con one of my kids into pumping the brake pedal a bunch of times, I’m hoping to bleed the brakes and change the oil this weekend while the car is up in the air. We’re almost done with the things that can be taken care of early. After this weekend hopefully the only things left to do are the ones that have to wait until it’s nearly time to head to South Bend. 7 weeks to go!

  2. Smaglik Avatar
    Smaglik

    Two days and 900 miles into the road trip, and all is well. Had a small pucker moment day before leaving, low oil light Turned out that I was idling downhill with a lower, but still in range, oil level. Ah, bmw and no dipstick. Topped it off, age doesn’t appear to have burned anything since.

  3. Jeff Glucker Avatar
    Jeff Glucker

    Paint work… I need to be way more patient and involved. I didn’t properly prep the bolts or end caps for my bumper and the paint work is super sloppy.

    I’ll revisit and fix this very soon.

    (I’ll be posting pics of the updated bumper on my Instagram here in a few minutes)

      1. 0A5599 Avatar
        0A5599

        License plate: Pissed Off! 86’ed! NO!

  4. GTXcellent Avatar
    GTXcellent

    So does sending a recall notice, when there is no actual fix available, absolve auto manufacturers from liability? It happened with the Saab (air bags), it happened with the SS (seat belts) and now I’ve gotten a notice on the pickup that apparently the transmission can decide on it’s own to downshift from 6th to 1st – I imagine that’s an eye-opener! Anyways, I popped by the dealer today to schedule a fix. Surprise, surprise, no software update is available for the Ecoboost, only the 5.0. No idea when they’ll figure out the 3.5.

    1. onrails Avatar
      onrails

      I’m not sure on the timing thing. Don’t think it used to be like this but maybe post-Takatapocalypse I think once a problem has been identified the prudent thing to do is at least let people know about it, regardless of if a solution exists or not. It didn’t help you because your car was built by then but I know my SS build was delayed until there was a fix with the seatbelt recall.

      1. GTXcellent Avatar
        GTXcellent

        I’m sure you’re right – I’m not a lawyer, but I’m sure there is a legal definition for ‘better safe than sorry’

        1. Batshitbox Avatar
          Batshitbox

          sideffectsmayincludebutarenotlimitedtorapiddecellerationrapidaccellerationexistentialdreadpoorvisionovertherightshoulderandfleekyeyebrows. Ifyouareexperiencingadesiretoapplymascaratokyliejennerwhileturningbrodiesinarallyfighter…see your doctor!

    2. Zentropy Avatar
      Zentropy

      Send them a notice that they’re covering your car loan payments until the issue is resolved.

    1. nanoop Avatar

      Would he be required to get a licence for heavy vehicles?

    2. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      – How are the aerodynamics?
      – Yes, it has plenty of space for them.

    3. dead_elvis, inc. Avatar
      dead_elvis, inc.

      That makes me think of the VW Fridolin. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RXMir-rLrCo/maxresdefault.jpg

  5. Scoutdude Avatar
    Scoutdude

    Well after about 6 weeks I was finally able to drive my MKZ again. I got hit hard by the Seattle area snow with a good 3′. I had moved it to a deep position before it snowed because I was going to have my daughter’s and her finance’s cars here while they went on a trip and I needed a truck at that time anyway. Then the snow came, came again and again. I was only able to get the 4wds out of the driveway for several weeks and once the driveway was clear there was still a wall behind the car. I was able to finally dig that out last Mon. I had forgot how to drive it and kept pulling at a shift lever that wasn’t there.

  6. JayP Avatar
    JayP

    We had 70+mph winds last week which dumped a significant branch onto the GT.
    Not terrible, livable for normal people. Take it in for an estimate Friday.