West County Auto Plaza

By: Zach Bowman

Here's a useful tip for all you would-be Chevrolet Corvette thieves out there: If you happen to find yourself in a Vette with the windows up and the doors locked when the battery goes dead, there's an actual mechanical release for the door mechanism squirreled away inside. We won't tell you exactly where it is, because, well, that sort of takes the fun out of things. Just ask one would-be joyrider in Price George, British Columbia. The 21-year-old man saw a Corvette idling with the door open, hopped inside, rolled up the windows and locked the doors. What he didn't see was that the owner had just put away his battery charger. When the thief stalled the car trying to back out of the driveway, he found himself in one very dead piece of American engineering with no way to escape (that he knew of). Despite his efforts to break the side glass with a hatchet and pry open the door with a screw driver, police arrived on the scene and were happy to help him out of the vehicle and into a cell after charging him with multiple theft and weapons offenses.

By Liz Opsitnik

The federal government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Office of Defects Investigation has opened a preliminary evaluation of Mini Cooper S vehicles from the 2007 and 2008 model years. The models under investigation include the 2007 and 2008 Mini Cooper S, Cooper S Clubman, Cooper S Convertible and 2008 Cooper Clubman S. The ODI says it has received 12 complaints of engine compartment fires, with five complaints of "engulfing fires resulting in a total vehicle loss." Of the 12 complaints, eight said that the fire started while the vehicle was parked and the ignition was off. "NHTSA said no injuries or crashes have been reported as a result of the fires," The Detroit News reports. If you own one of the about 36,000 affected Mini Cooper S vehicles, you can visit safecar.gov and search NHTSA campaign ID number PE11036. If the federal government's investigation leads to a recall, BMW North America will notify owners of affected vehicles.

By: J Sabatini

Think you're paying too much at the pump? Perhaps you are, but not as much as those gassing up in Maine. No, the Pine Tree State doesn't have the highest gas prices in the land (that would still be Hawaii), but it does have a problem with out-of-spec gas pumps. According to state inspection officials, several stations have been found with multiple pumps delivering less fuel than customers are paying for, some of them so inaccurate that the agriculture department has had to order them immediately shut down. Worse yet, the state lacks the resources to determine whether gas stations owners are purposefully shorting customers or these problems are just random occurrences. While officials say one out-of-spec pump that's not delivering enough fuel might be balanced by one that's flowing more freely than it should, recent inspections have discovered pumps operating up to seven times outside the allowable margin of error. Yet the state can't readily analyze the data it collects during inspections because of outdated computer systems, and a staff of only nine inspectors. Maine politicians are understandably upset about the issue, but in these times of widespread deficits and budget slashing, it remains to be seen whether they will do anything about it. Of course, Maine is probably not unique in having an overworked weights and measures staff, so we wonder whether we might notice this issue popping up in other places around the country?