by default it installs as admin only. This is so you can configure it before releasing it to the users.
ACP->Settings->Options->Garage General Settings
Change Garage Menu Button from Admin Only to Enabled

Is there a way to make the featured vehicles on the home page and maybe a way to vote on the featured vehicles to get the vehicle of the month.

There are a few different options for setting the front page vehicles on the Garage General Settings vboptions section, featured vehicle is one of them.
I'm working on a way to nominate and vote on vehicle of the month for 2.2.x

So, basically just follow the "quick and dirty" install, and everything should work fine, right?

I'm trying this tonight.

yes, if it's in the forums directory it should work. Only repeat issues I've seen is having to set the images/garage/attach folder to 777 if you get permission errors uploading images and sometimes having to set the Garage Files URL field in the Garage General Settings

this is what i got

what does this mean??

I did change the attach folder to 777

What garage files URL? what do I post there?

who is the owner of images/garage/attach? Changing it to 777 usually works.
The Garage Files URL wouldn't cause this problem, it has to do with the folder ownership.

EDIT:
Also, is safe-mode on?

I'm not sure If i understand your Q. what do you mean who's the owner?

I uploaded the files in the "Upload" folder to the server under mysite.org/public_html/forums, right? did all the steps as stated and changed the permissions to 777 to the "Attach" folder. Am I missing something?

And no safe mode is not on. The forum is active and perfectly fine.

Safe mode is a php function, you can tell if it's on by going to ACP->Maintenance->View PHP info
Look for the safe_mode setting.

If you look through your ftp program it should tell you who the owner/group of the attach folder is.

under acp>maint>view php I found this:

safe_mode:

Local Value: On Master Value: Off

safe_mode_include_dir

Local Value: /usr/local/lib/php/ Master Value: /usr/local/lib/php/

on line 1730 in the /includes/garage_func_var.php, this is what I found:

How do I adjust this?

MY hosting company doesn't use FTP. I log on to access my files using 6thgenmaxima.org:2222

The only confusion I might think of is when I uploaded the contents of the "upload" folder, I made all the contents into a zip file, uploaded that zip file onto my forums directory, then extracted it. Should I have uploaded the Upload folder itself or only the contents of it?