Acura has what you might call a Lincoln Problem.

If GM’s board had simply hired away the entire management team at Hyundai back in ’08 – and fired everyone at the Renaissance Center in Detroit – it would saved taxpayers a lot of money.

Minivans – traditional minivans – are becoming scarce. GM and Ford don’t even make them anymore. That leaves Chrysler (Town & County – and its lower-rent Dodge sibling, the Caravan – which is also re-sold by VW as the Routan), the Honda Odyssey, Toyota’s Sienna – and the Nissan Quest, subject of this write-up.

Cue ’80s-era Queen… another one bites the dust. 

Do-it-yourself repair work can save you time and money – in addition to giving you a lot of satisfaction. But doing it wrong can end up costing you more in time and money than you would have spent farming the work out to a professional mechanic – and sour you on the idea of ever getting under the hood yourself again.

The Kia Rio I just spent a week driving  around is an extremely fuel-efficient little car – one of the very best in its segment, actually. And not just on paper, either. Out in the real world, in real-world driving, it lives up to its EPA billing: 30 city, 40 highway. I averaged 32.2 according to the car’s computer. But you’d never know it if you went by the gas gauge – which drops  from “F” to a quarter-down almost as quickly as the gas gauge in my ’76 Trans Am – and it gets about 12 MPG. Of course, my Trans-Am has a 21 gallon tank – so its rate of consumption is appalling. The Kia’s isn’t – but seems like it is – because it only has a 11.3 gallon tank.

The obvious often isn’t until someone makes it so.

If you’re new to bikes, you may not be hip to some of the routine checks – and adjustments – that are important to do (and keep track of).

If  “you didn’t build that” – then you might be interested in driving this: The 2013 Infiniti Q56.

I’ll probably get in trouble. After all, I write new car reviews. Advising people not to buy new cars is not what you’d probably expect. But, here’s the fulsome scurvy truth: I – and every car journalist I know – drive used. Because we know. And now, I’m gonna spill the beans, give you the Straight Dope – so that you’ll know, too. Here goes.

Function matters – but form does, too. Especially when you’ve got a choice.

It took guts for Land Rover to actually build a vehicle like the Evoque. Not as a concept car – but as an actual production car.

A couple of weeks back, my better half learned that FWD hybrid cars aren’t very good off-road.

It had been raining – hard – for more than 24 hours. The ground was a gushy mess. She made the mistake of trying to turn a hybrid Lexus ES around by briefly (or so she thought it would be) driving onto the gushy ground – whereupon the car sank to its rocker panels in said gushy ground, as helpless as Ned Beatty in that scene – you know the one.  Now, there are several ways to get a stuck car unstuck – “by the book” and otherwise.

Mustang people will recall the hollow point bullet that was dodged back in the early ’90s when Ford almost ruined the iconic RWD American pony car. By turning it into an import-style FWD car. That car, by the grace of Elvis, ended up being sold as another car – the Probe – and in 1994, Ford brought out a new Mustang that harkened back (stylistically) to the original ’64 Mustang – and which was based on the same solid axle/RWD layout. But Ford management had given serious thought to slotting in the the Probe as the “new” Mustang.

The two-door layout might just do it. Buyers who in past years would probably have never considered a Kia or Hyundai – much less a Ford or Chevy – over a car as blue chip as the Honda Accord now frequently do consider it. Toyota’s got the same problem as far as the Camry. People are starting to consider their options.