Sadie, I think with the patch installed the car freeze has been worse.
Big lots take a bit longer to load. Pre-patch my game took about 7 or 8 minutes from start up to neighborhood screen. Entering a lot took about 2 to 3 minutes more. Now it takes almost 15 minutes for the same play. I have loads of D/Ls (of course). At this time I have 4.4 GIGS of D/Ls!
My PC is far from anemic. It is 4.6 GHZ, 2 Gigs of RAM, ATI 1650 Pro. All I can say is GRRRRRRR!
OMFG! I'm starting to think my sims don't need jobs! I'm so tried already about the car lag thing. I think it's funny though that this is worse after the patch and it's even an issue at all. In all the EPs since nightlife when has lag due to the cars ever been an issue?