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I didn't know where to put this. It probably belongs here. Before having the tires (see post above) put on, they were fairly worn, hadn't been aligned in a long time, and were out of balance, with a slight vibration coming through the steering wheel. Now, with all that new tread, as well as optimal alignment and balancing, the car seems to show little rolling resistance on the freeway and unknowingly gets up to 70+ mph without even being aware of it. I'm loving the way it drives. I will be taking it on a medium-haul run in a few weeks and it will be a good time to check the mileage. "Fresh" Michelins have always fetched fairly impressive fuel mileage for me.

What did I do to my car today? A lot. Today was the day for the new Michelins! They are the latest Defender 2 design, branded a specific way for Costco. With the current sale, the package deal for everything was a nice thing to have in these inflationary times. Instead of going "Cafe 1.50," I went "Cafe 2.69," because I had a slice of pepperoni pizza and a soft drink while I waited. "Costco lunch" pickings were slim. I started out with that. As I got near the place, I drove the car around a couple more miles and pulled it up to the tire department when the tire life was at exactly 72,000 miles. OCD much, eh? The guy told me I still had about 4 mms on the middle treads, but clearly not at the shoulders. Still, that's impressive. I then went to get them aligned at a small shop I happened upon a year ago and really like, and then went for a belated birthday dinner for and with a friend. Between brand new tires, and their being balanced and aligned, the car drove as if it had less than 50,000 miles and reminded me of the incredibly quiet motoring on smooth asphalt between Portland and Seattle during the car's "early years."

Had the Jeep in at the dealer for oil change, tire rotation, front and rear axle fluid replacement, transfer case oil change a couple weeks ago. Today, got a set of Westin Oval 4" side steps installed. Running great at 69k miles.

There might be better options, but Tesla is the only one with any production scale. You have to wait for a Hyundai or Kia because they can only make like 50,000 a year globally. They should be making 500,000 a year, but they can't. So all these car companies keep advertising EV's and getting people interested, then they have no supply, so people just go buy a Tesla.

I am just saying if GM wants to capitalize, they need to scale up faster than VW, Toyota or Ford do or before the Chinese cars get here. And the same can be said for anyone else, whoever moves too late or slow will be left out.