Totally did not expect that car to be the winner... but if you read through this highly detailed and descriptive article, you'll understand why that car won. Really good read, especially if you are a car enthusiast.
When it came to lap times, we enlisted a licensed club racer with no Thunderhill experience: me. We did this for a reason, and it wasn’t to build my ego. Most of our readers are not pro drivers. When you buy a new car, a professional’s lap time at any track is an interesting metric, but it’s rarely reflective of a normal person’s experience. We wanted to stress accessibility and adaptability. How easy is it to get up to speed in a given car? How communicative is the car? Is it hard to learn the quirks? Under the watchful eyes of our testing staff, every PCOTY contender got a quick warm-up session to set tire pressures, then no more than seven timed laps. Just enough to establish a representative lap and suss idiosyncrasies, not enough to set a record.
I love that. More car magazines/publications should follow suit.
A surprisingly, pretty good read on struggling to justify the love of automobiles in the face of climate change. Written from a car enthusiast point of view. Not something that I expected to read from a car magazine.
But. How else do you go anywhere in America? Outside a few select corridors, our public transit is patently terrible. And at the risk of sounding like a selfish ostrich, I like driving. You control a satisfying machine. Travel independently and with minimal restriction. In this vast country built by and for the automobile, the machine too often makes sense.
This is definitely a problem here. I've a tried a number of times to find a way for me to cycle to work, but it just won't work. My ride would force me into roads with inattentive drivers who drive with their eyes glued to their phone screens. Yeah I'm not risking my life riding my bike alongside drivers like that. Which is unfortunate, because I think cycling is a better, more environmental friendly alternative to internal combustion engines than electric cars are, as far as work commute goes.
Speedhunters has a great post featuring the iconic Ferrari F40. If you're a fan of the F40, you'll love the numerous great looking photos in that post. If you're a fan of cars in general, you'll find plenty to like on their website.
I returned the 2019 Mazda3 AWD Sedan loaner car last Tuesday. I miss it already. These are my final thoughts on that wonderful car.
For my first impressions on the car, you can refer to this post. I will be quoting some of my initial observations from that previous post, so as to give more context to the findings I’ve noted down in this post.
This is the only decent photo I have of this car. I wished I took more pictures of it, but ever since I've been on my digital minimalism journey, I've neglected having to take photos of a lot of other things as well. Mostly because I don't feel the need to share them online anymore.
I unexpectedly got a loaner car today after I took my Speed3 to get the front and rear brakes serviced. It is a 2019 Mazda3 Sedan, with all-wheel drive, with the Select Package if I'm not mistaken. I wanted to write down my thoughts on it while I have it for a few days.
First off, the interior is indeed really nice for a $25,000 car. There are soft-touch materials almost everywhere in the car. The center console is padded generously and is a great place to rest your elbow.
The car only came with “Leatherette” seats, but the seats are comfy and fit my body well. The seats in this Mazda3 fit me better than the seats in my Speed3. My only issue with it is that it somewhat sticks to the back of my shirt when driving. That usually doesn't happen with cloth or leather seats.
The new 8.8 inch infotainment center is nice. It is a higher resolution screen than the one in my wife's 2016 CX-5. The backup camera feed looks great with the higher reso screen, though I feel like it is less of a wide angle backup camera compared to the one in the wife's CX-5.
Nearly got into an accident on my lunch break today. I was turning left on an intersection that had two left turn lanes. I was on the second left turn lane, which was a left-turn/pass-through lane. The driver on the leftmost left turn lane, was only supposed to turn left (because it was a left turn only lane), decided to drive straight through. He nearly ran over my car as I was trying to turn left. The only thing that saved me from that accident is that I performed a lifesaver/shoulder check as I was turning left.
The lifesaver/shoulder check is a defensive driving check that you do when turning. The reason for doing so is to make sure no one is trying to pass you on the side that you are trying to turn to. It is called a “lifesaver” because doing so can literally save your life if you're riding a motorcycle or a bicycle. It is something that I learned, which turned into a habit, while riding motorcycles a decade ago.
Just to add some context, my car is equipped with blind spot monitors. It did beep as we were entering the intersection. I also could see the car on my driver side mirror. Of course just because my blind spot monitors beeped and I could see the car in my mirrors, doesn't mean that the driver was going to drive straight through. He could have been just close at that point and then eventually would turn left. Which is why it is still critical to actually do a shoulder check right before or as you are turning, to make absolutely sure no one is going to run into you.
This was originally posted on dinobansigan.com, which years ago was my dev blog.
I love listening to music in my car using the Spotify (or occasionally Pandora ) app on my iPhone 6S. Unfortunately, most of the time, my iPhone will start playing music from the Apple Music app as soon as it establishes a Bluetooth connection with my car. Sometimes it will auto-play music using the Spotify app if I was using it prior, but most of the time it defaults to Apple Music. So I would have to manually open Spotify to switch to the music I want to listen to.
For some reason I've simply put up with this for years now... Well not anymore. I eventually got tired of having to manually open the Spotify app, so last week I spent time trying to come up with a solution.
One of the good suggestions I saw online was to turn off music streaming via your phone's data (LTE). This made sense to me. No music streaming access, would mean no auto-playing of music. I also barely had any music stored locally on my phone, so it should work.
This is the only decent photo I have of this car. I wished I took more pictures of it, but ever since I've been on my digital minimalism journey, I've neglected having to take photos of a lot of other things as well. Mostly because I don't feel the need to share them online anymore.