By the time I coasted my ailing new Beetle down Abbot Kinney Boulevard to Wabbit Wepair, my dashboard was lit up with more warnings than a tilted pinball machine. Punching my accelerator to the floor gained me roughly 10 mph per half-mile, despite my having just paid $1,073.49 to a well-meaning mechanic who'd ignored my request for a new fuel filter and installed a new intercooler on the advice of a "scan code" from a diagnostic computer. My front-end grill had been dragging so long that I'd... More »
