"How many other people would have needed to call into a car company's customer service (and that many times!) to finish a simple test drive?"

If you saw last night that you had a full tank of gas, and woke up this morning and saw the tank was empty, wouldn't you call the car company? If you saw any other critical fluid mysteriously drop in level, wouldn't you call the car company? I've done this multiple times with strange sounds and other things I never expect to happen.

If I were in Broder's situation and saw strange things happening with the range indicator, I absolutely would be calling. Especially if it's a test vehicle -- the courts have decided that journalist drivers are responsible for the cars: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/you-break-it-you-bought-it...