I thought this was summer? In the last three days, BangShift Mid-West HQ has received at least five inches of rain, quite possibly more, and at the rate we are going, I might start filling the Imperial with spray foam in case we have to shift into Ark survival mode. Meanwhile, Chad is road tripping to the start of Rocky Mountain Race Week and will be live streaming the whole deal as he goes. We are still going, and we are still whipping up the Scrapple for you, using the best bits of throwaway news. We make no promises that next week’s batch might taste a little fishy. And no, we aren’t taking animals aboard the S.S. Malaise two-by-two.
1. The stink from the back, and we don’t mean from the brats.
The NHTSA is investigating reports of the smell of exhaust fumes entering the interiors of 2011-2015 Ford Explorers. Over 150 reports of fumes have been submitted, with owners expressing concerns about levels of carbon monoxide. There isn’t a determined cause and as of press time, there is not a recall, but watch this one closely…not to make too much light of the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning, but the only way we want to see people falling asleep inside of an Explorer is of pure boredom and nothing more.
2. What, no diesels now?
The ball of shi good news coming down from Volkswagen’s massive screwup is freight-training down the proverbial hill and doesn’t show any sign of stopping soon. How do we know? This week alone: VW has announced that they plan to launch thirty electric vehicles in ten years…
3. Speaking of bad news…
…hack forty other models, possibly including trucks…
4. …and yet again.
…and that new Audi V8 is probably the last that VW will invest in, ever. Congratulations, Volkswagen. You did it to yourself and have nobody else to blame.
5. If it is sold in Germany, they will call it “Fliegender Ziegelstein“.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee myth known as the Hellcat-powered “Trackhawk” has been in the works for a while. It’s no myth, the ultimate middle-finger SUV is coming. And the fine folks at Autoblog have caught it undisguised…they claim. We can’t show you the photos. All we can say is that we hope the all-wheel-drive system is able to survive press launches. Not the shows…what we fully intend on doing with one should we ever get the key fob.
All I want to know is if VW is going to sell all of those low millage diesel engines from the buy back program? There are lots of Suzuki Samurais that could use a solid heart transplant!