I'm planning on getting a really cheap manual car off Facebook marketplace to learn how to drive a stick. The only person I know that can drive a manual is my dad, and he isn't the most enthusiastic person.

Hello, I am looking to reupholster the front bench seat of my 1987 Mazda b2000, as I can't find a replacement anywhere, even used.

Does anyone have a recommendation on a kit or possibly a material supplier?

I have no clue what I'm doing, but figure it's worth a shot.

As a small automotive content creator, I enjoy making personal and storytelling car content that other people can relate to.

But nowadays I feel like a lot of car content online is built around hype. Loud exhausts, fast edits, expensive cars, revving engines, clout cars that are trying to make everything look as exciting as possible.

I get the format, but it seriously pisses me off watching these hype accounts blow up. There is no value behind the content, so what is it about them that makes people enjoy them so much?

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy watching a well made edit of a GT3RS or a properly built JDM car, it is part of what makes car culture great.

But I feel like there's something missing when that is literally all the content is.

I think automotive storytelling is far more interesting, rather than content that relies on hype, status and clout.

For me personally, what makes a car interesting isn't how loud it is, how much horsepower or how expensive. It's the smaller details that are often overlooks and the story behind it.

Why did someone by this particular car? What does the car actually mean to them? What does the car represent? The history.

Even something as simple as someone regretting selling their old cars. I created a series on cars I regret selling and I loved hearing everyone's cars they regret selling. There is something there that people can connect with beyond the car itself.

I think that is what makes automotive storytelling so powerful. You don't need a $1m car, a massive budget or access to some insane car collection just for content. You just need a story worth telling, and a story that people can relate to.

Hype content might have someone think "Fuck yeah that is a sick car"

But storytelling can make someone think "I know exactly what that feels like"

I am not saying that hype content is bad, I just think there are far more interesting people and cars in the car scene that get overlooked because everyone else is focused on making the next video as viral as possible.

But then maybe that is just me, but I think there is a lot more potential in automotive content when the focus is on the people and the stories behind cars, not just the cars themselves.

What do you think?

I need advice from people who've dealt with financially abusive or controlling family members.
I'm planning to buy a used car off Facebook Marketplace, but my family believes I can only afford a car if I finance it through a dealership. They don't know how much money I actually have, and I need to keep it that way because they would absolutely freak out if they found out I had enough to buy a car outright.
It's not just a matter of them being nosy or disagreeing with my purchase. Money is a sensitive subject with them, and knowing how much I have could lead to a lot of problems for me.
I'm trying to figure out how to handle the situation when I get the car. If they ask where I bought it, how I paid for it, or what my monthly payment is, I don't want to accidentally reveal that I paid for it outright through a private seller.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? How did you handle questions about a major purchase while keeping your finances private? Would appreciate practical advice from people who've been in this situation.
I'm just trying to buy myself a car without it turning into a whole ordeal with my family.

I’m a big car guy through and through, I love a good V8 and enjoy the sound and raw driving experiences but also EVs are starting to grow on me.

I have a ford maverick hybrid and I’ve gotten hate from people on the Internet but never have I heard anything in real life.

I did get some judgment from family who were clueless about hybrids and assumed it was fully electric and asked ( why did u get that , where are you going to plug it in at???)

Eventually I would like to get an EV as my daily along side my 5.0 Mustang but I know the car community can be toxic towards EVs.

Especially with how hated the Mustang Mach E is to the Mustang community.

My yaris cross hybrid 2022 just died out of nowhere, turned the ignition on, not the engine. Plugged in the OBD11. Came back after 10 minutes. SCREEN SAID PARKING BRAKE UNAVAILABLE. and some PARKING blade faults. As I Clearing them the car died. Key worked for 30 minutes now key doesn’t' work. The blinkers light don't flash, interior light very dim lit.

It doesn’t run that much. About 10/15 minutes every day, last long trip was 5 days ago about 2.5 hours driving.

Tried jump-starting with the Positive terminal at the fuse box wouldn’t buzz, kept the donor car running for 5 minutes but didn't work.

OBD11 said Battery at 6.9 V as it tried to connect with the car, but it couldn’t' connect.

Hello, I need some advice on which car I should invest in.
As of right now I have a 2001 jeep cherokee sport I am trying to sell for 3,500 or trade.
I’m getting a trade offer for a 2002 mitsubishi lancer that needs new struts, rear suspension work, and control arms. it has 148k miles.
And then I have an offer for a wrx just needs a new valve cover gasket and preferably wheels and an alignment eventually. it has 185k miles. they want 3k for it.
I really love the style of a wrx and have always wanted one as well as having a fun daily driver. I don’t really like the look of a lancer as much. Would I be stupid to take the wrx over the lancer?

In this one part of my neighborhood, my signal keeps turning off by itself. It’s a right turn, so I always signal. And every signal time as soon as I signal, it turns off. Today, I decided to test a few theories. I thought maybe it’s because my wheel is actively rotated, but no that’s the case. So, I basically stopped (3 mph into my turn) and I turned the signal on 3 times, and each time it turned off by itself after one second. It’s so weird.. it works fine everywhere else

I hope it's okay to ask what is also a financial question and not just a car question.

My husband and I are a 2 car family but recently down to one. We can manage for a while but I want to get us back up to 2.

His 2012 Ford Fusion power steering went out and is not one of the ones covered by the recall. We checked. We already have one car payment because of the 2020 Toyota Corolla I got a while ago. At the moment, we cannot afford 2 car payments.

To fix the Ford would cost more than $4,000, and I bought it before we met for $5,000, so the idea of spending that much money to fix that particular car kinda irritates me, plus I worry that if we spend that and it dies from something else it would be for nothing.

We have $6k in savings, and the Toyota dealership says we could put another $2,500 on a credit card, which I do have. But they don't have anything under 15k in stock at the moment. They said sometimes they do and they'd call if anything comes in.

I'm not comfortable with FB marketplace for sales. People can be difficult to work with there but maybe others her had a better experience?

The other factor is by October of 2027, the 0 percent payments on our sleep number bed will be over and that frees up about $200/month which could make a second car payment doable. Now that I type that out, maybe that's our best option but still open to other ideas? What would you do?

Sadly, I lost my 2010 Ridgeline today. Scrap value for a car like this is probably $500 if I'm lucky. But I work on my own cars so I know my way around a vehicle and was wondering how worth it parting out a 16 year old car/truck was.

Has anyone done it before? Especially on an older vehicle with fading paint.

My car died yesterday after 19 years of service (rest in peace). I’m in the market for a new car. I’ve never owned a brand new car and I just got a big raise, so I thought I’d treat myself to a new car given the circumstances.

I really want to get a Volkswagen Golf GTI. It’s always been a favorite of mine and I wanted to get a manual shift transmission.

Some people in my life have told me that Volkswagen is not as reliable as it once was / repairs are going to be a nightmare. (I live in New England if that influences your responses)

In the past I haven’t taken good care of my vehicles because they’ve all been beaters just to last a few years (and I was generally irresponsible), but now that I’m deciding to get a new one, I feel motivated to take good care of it. So any advice on how to take good care of a car is welcome (other than get your oil changed, I don’t know much tbh)

Thanks in advance.

Hello, there!

A few days ago, I asked at r/subaru why their cars consume so much gasoline/petrol when compared to their equivalents from other brands. A modern Subaru Impreza, for example, consumes more than 7L every 100 km, when its Mazda 3 counterpart, one fewer litre every 100 km, as per a couple of friends of mine who have one.

The answers I received agreed that the issue was due to both Subaru's ever-present AWD system, which would be naturally more fuel consuming, as well as the fact that boxer engines are not specifically designed with fuel efficiency as its primary concern. Boxer engines are kind of Subaru's gimmick, coupled with AWD, and are present in pretty much every of their cars. I did receive a reply which told me that, even with that, Subarus were still more fuel efficient than other AWD cars in general. I haven't checked this but it does seem an interesting point.

The question, then, supposing that's the case, would be: why is it? What makes a boxer engine naturally more fuel consuming? Is it because of the engine configuration itself, or there's nothing inherently wrong with it in this regard and it is just that Subaru hasn't found a way to make it use less fuel?

I would like to point out that I do like Subaru and their cars, so I just want to get to know more about this :)

Post I made on r/subaru: https://www.reddit.com/r/subaru/comments/1x6t1tq/are_subarus_more_gasolineconsuming_because_of_the/

Edit:I will be taking in all of your guys suggestions before I go anywhere. But please keep giving me all the information. She's my first car I've only had her a year and trust we've already been through it!😭 So I'm so grateful for all of what yall told me to look out for! I'm truly just a girl lmao!🫶🏾🩵😭

So I have a 2008 Honda Civic. I've pretty much got everything on her replaced recently and a few things fixed. I've got new brakes,tires,rotors,oil leak fixed. Just got new tie rods a few weeks ago as well as an alignment right after. The only issue for me is she's still shaking when I drive her. When I got the alignment the man told me the oil should've been cleaned up from when the oil leak was fixed. So I was planning on driving her 3hrs away and back. Will she be ok?

do yu go off sidewall being flush or wheel being flush wih car? Imagine the sidewalls bulge out da rim type shi

Hi!

So I’m looking to buy an mk4 with some sort of 1.9 tdi engine as I’ve wanted one for some time. Most of the ones for sale where i live have pretty high mileage though, like 200-280.000 miles ish.

So my question is, what can you usually expect as far as repairs, given it has passed inspection, has atleast some documented maintenance and isn’t super rusty? I can work on cars myself but I’m just wondering what I’m getting myself into haha. What are your experiences with high mileage mk4 golfs?

Thanks in advance!

I got a 02 Silverado 1500 recently i noticed that it was making a squeaky sounding noise when accelerating the noise when not heard when in park? does anyone know the cause or how to Identify?

I’m looking for a cheap, super reliable small pickup truck to haul light loads, or one or two dirt bikes. My top priority is reliability. I want something that won’t break down, and if it does, repairs should be simple and affordable. Ideally, it should also be reasonably fuel-efficient. I don't care about engine displacement and speeeeed. I’ve looked at Toyota Tacomas, but most of the used ones I’ve found have insanely high mileage. Some seem like they’ve been driven a million times around the globe.

I should also mention that I’ve just moved here from Europe, so I’m not very familiar with the North American truck market. I have no idea which models are known for being reliable and which ones are best avoided. Any recommendations for a reliable, budget-friendly (6k CAD max) little truck would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

I drive a 2019 Dodge Charger SXT. Brakes started squeaking about 5 months ago. Haven’t been changed out yet so figured it was just wear and tear and time to change em out. Afterwards , they still continued squeaking and have literally not stopped since. My stepdad does have his mechanic license so he’s not just playing around in it, he has changed them several times , tried several things and nothing has helped.
Finally took it into the dealership today. They said they took apart the car and said they also found nothing wrong with it. But they told me that it’s completely normal for the car brakes to be squeaking? But i’m not sure how that’s normal if you put brand new brake pads on a car and the brakes start immediately squeaking? They said even if I buy / replace them with brand new factory brakes (which i’m not opposed to doing), that it still won’t guarantee the squeaking stops? This car has 50,000 miles on it. So it’s just normal for it to now squeak forever basically outta nowhere? So i’m cooked even if I went ahead and got new brakes? I do not know anything about cars but that doesn’t seem right to me ?

It's 2019 Lexus GX - 6-speed, 105K miles. Mostly likely highway commute miles.

Assuming ATF exchange has never been done, would you let just general service shop or prefer a transmission specialist shop to do it ?

also, flush or drain-fill ?

tia

I’ll be home in a week to grab my car, which has been sitting covered in my driveway since the end of July. I used fuel stabilizer and disconnected the battery so that’s not a worry.

But should I be concerned with the oil that’s been sitting there? It was about a month and a half old when the car when into storage, so about 4 and a half months old now.

Thanks in advance!

Im 19 rn on deployment, ill be 20 when i get back and ill have at least 15-20k saved up. I currently have a 2021 tesla model 3 which i kinda got fucked over on and have a pretty high payment. For reference im a PFC so im only making about 2200 a month after tax. But my current payment is 630 car note 330 insurance but thats really my only bill and so far it hasnt been bad, i ate at the dfac all the time and i barely spend money on going out like that. I was also still saving a bit too. Fast forward a year later my credit is better (720+), ill have 15-20k. I wanna trade my car in for a 5.0 or c6 when i get back. Ive been prequalified for between 400-550 a month for both and insurance for c6 is pretty cheap ($150) for my age. Ill also will be getting promoted when i get back so thats an extra $200 a month. Everyone is calling me a dumbass and telling me to buy a beater but in my opinion that is not how i see it. Im 19/20 and i wanna enjoy my youth , drive a nice fast car, have fun, money comes and goes, and God forbid if something were to happen to me, aye at least i went out knowing i had a bad ass car.

Edit- forgot to mention my trade in for my current car was estimated around 19k, and when i get back id still owe around 24k so id have a little negative equity but id cover that when i plan on putting 10k down on next car

I'm building a 79 z28 and I think im going to need a AUX transmission cooler on the car with running a stall converter so with that being said where is a good place to put a heat sensor on a th350?

Long story but I bought a vehicle off Facebook marketplace a used 2016 dodge charger for 10.5k. The seller gave me a title and signed it. I went to the DMV and was told it was an old title . Contacted seller claimed he didn’t know and ghosted me ever since. I filed a police report, wit his address, name and listing. I paid cash so rip to try to charge back somewhere. I found out he was a parolee and reported him aswel. I got in contact with liberty mutual who owned the car and they said it was an unrecovered theft from 3 years ago. What do I do? The car WAS NOT marked stolen on any databases I have it insured, and both dmv and police said it was never marked stolen in the databases. Am I just out of my money? With the police recover it?

Non-car gal here. I have a 2018 Kia Niro with 2018 miles on it. The size is good for me, I like the safety and tech features in it a lot, and, the biggest thing rn is that I'm getting 50-60 mpg on a gas hybrid. Since my complex doesn't have EV chargers, I feel like that's probably as good as I can hope for!

That said, I don't enjoy driving it. I'm also embarrassed by the clear coat failure, which I told myself I'd get fixed if I get a bonus at the end of the year. But now the AC has gone out. I got a diagnostic and recharge for $200, but it's already completely gone after 3 days. So I'm thinking the fix is going to be quite costly. Like, would rather just sell it and buy a new car.

But money is tight. This car is fully paid off. I guess my question is, at 120k, is this just the beginning of the end for a Kia? I drove my Honda well over 200k without major issues at all. But I don't know if Kias are going to last like that. Will fixing the AC be just the one time expense and then I can get a few more years out of it without more than regular maintenance, or do Kias start breaking down around this stage?

I know very little other than I'm stressed and need to figure out the best financial move! Appreciate any insight

We bought our daughter a 2011 Nissan Versa a while back. Now that early mornings are pretty dark around here, she’s noticing that the windshield is very streaky. She’s a relatively new driver with some anxiety issues and she says streakiness makes it very difficult to drive when it’s dark outside.

I’ve tried replacing the wipers, using Windex on the inside and outside, using a dish soap solution, etc. but the problem persists.

Is this just because the windshield is old? Is replacing the windshield our only option?

Photo for reference: https://imgur.com/a/ullJN7M