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I have owned a car for 30 years, and never got close to $50,000. I once made the poor decision to buy a brand new $19,000 VW in 2009, never again. Only suckers buy new cars.
How much have you spent on maintenance, repairs, fuel, insurance, fees, taxes etc for your cars in those 30 years?
I had to get something to pull a small trailer (like 2,900 dry weight). The literal cheapest option in 2023 was a Jeep Grand Cherokee and it was 44k sticker. I wish I could find an older pickup but people realize what they have and are charging so damn much for them.
I know the used market can vary by region, but if you live in the US I find it hard to image not being able to find a running 90s f-150/250 for under 5k, or a mint condition one for under 10k
If I could buy a 90’s F250 for that price I wouldn’t have just purchased my 2011. It took me six weeks of 4+ hours a day of searching to find a truck that wasn’t silly. The car market is bad, the truck market is worse and if you live in the Midwest you get a price bump too.
Been searching since I had to get that Jeep, most of them in my state (Georgia) are insanely priced because everyone is searching for them. It’s probably just the rural nature of this state though.
I managed to find an '01 Tahoe before the pandemic, but my son adopted it as his first car.
The car I bought new in 2017 just ticked over 100k miles. I estimate I’ve spent $50k over these 9+ years on car payments, interest, gasoline, maintenance/wear items, mods, and insurance for something that is parked for 95+% of the time. Ride share cannot beat $0.50/mile yet, I’m hoping my current car can last until it does.
I’ve taught car maintenance and repair to single soldiers for almost two decades. The issue with the Internet’s default to buy used is unless you can repair it yourself or have someone that can work on your car cheaply it might not be the best call.
Hell, even being able to diagnose problems a bit can help avoid being scammed by places recommending unnecessary repairs or maintenance.
Oh and as someone who worked as the guy who told you all the stuff that needed to be done at a shady dealership, they will definitely recommend whatever they can. And then its $180 and hour for labor and its .5 hours of labor to change an air filter. I couldn’t cut it in that world…
For soldiers? So Dodge chargers and Ford mustangs? Ya those will fall apart after a couple years. There are plenty of reliable brands, most of which are not American or European.
Shit, I won’t buy a vehicle that’s not Japanese. Kawasaki for my bike and Toyota/Subaru for my cars.
Listen, I agree in practice.
But I would not quote “Unusual Whales” for economic advise. This is an AI account that posts “hot tips” for attention.
The deliquency rate for auto loans has been in headlines since at least March. This is a big show slow ship and it’s bait to assume some AI account is going to tell you the day it goes down.
yep AI has gotten so good that even people that hate it can’t even detect that it’s an AI account.
Someone not paying attention screenshotting a quote of a quote is not AI being good enough to evade detection, it’s someone not bothering to check if it’s AI.
Ban cars from populated areas? That is anti-freedom! This fantastic game lets you explore they joys and freedoms of car ownership: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/Car_Park_Capital/
Honestly they just need to make car parking a real constraint in sim city games. That would do more to show people what a blight cars are than anything else.
What I’m reading there is that there’s going to be a 2008-style Crash (this time on auto debt instead of realestate) alongside a 2000-style Crash (this time on Generative AI instead of a Net bubble).
Mind you, it will be centered in the US and other countries will mainly feel side effects.
Indeed and that mofo is going to be steam roller too.
2008-style Crash (this time on auto debt instead of realestate)
The 2008 crash was also an auto debt crash. That’s why you had Cash-For-Clunkers rolled out in 2009 followed by Obama and Romney arguing over an automotive bailout in the 2012 election.
Also the reason you can’t buy a new Mercury/Pontiac
Combine that with a crash of the USD itself. Also commercial and industrial real estate never got the same protections as home loans post-2008 so there’s a shit ton of 2008 style shenanigans concerning offices and industrial plots ready to also blow up.
There’s no more road to kick our can down. We must face the can. The can is our reckoning.
Well, the supposedly “temporary” ultra-low interest rates that were the “solution” for the Crisis following the 2008 Crash only really postponned the day of reckonning.
Further, those and other government measures rewarding Asset Owners (read: the rich) on the backs of those whose Income comes from Work, caused inequality to explode, which means more “unused money” around (every additional €1 of income for the wealthy goes almost entirelly into savings, every additional €1 if income for the poor and working class goes almost entirelly into consumption) and all that extra money was seeking investments, any investments, which was visible in the markets by lower interest rates on treasuries (for example, the famous negative German bund interest rates), lower bond yields (meaning higher prices for the same level of risk), higher stocks and so on up the risk scale, a pumping up of lots and lots of extra investment money which ultimatelly inflated several bubbles at the same time.
Further, the ultra-low interest rates also made it cheaper to leverage one’s investments (i.e. invest with loaned money alongside one’s own money), further adding money to those bubbles given the way money is created in the modern monetary system (mainly created by banks when they give loans, with only a small percentage actually created by central banks).
This, by the way, also explains things like the crypto bubble.
I really only mentioned the biggest ones I’m aware off, but I bet we’ll have a lot of bubbles of all sizes exploding as soon as the first big bubble blows and causes a credit crunch and investment retraction.
a crash of the USD itself
A crash into what alternative? If people are trading away their USDs, what are they trading them for?
There’s no more road to kick our can down.
I’ve been hearing people say this since Reagan. “This is the end of the road! The End of History, even!”
But what’s the alternative? Does the US just pop out of existence? Do all those creditors take a massive inflationary haircut on their outstanding loans? Does the US suddenly shift to an export economy to get… Japanese Yen? Russian Rubbles? Mexican Pesos? Nigerian gold bars?
A crash into what alternative? If people are trading away their USDs, what are they trading them for?
Why does there have to be an alternative for the USD to implode? Why would a lack of an alternative sustain an unsustainable system which appears to be cracking under it’s own weight right now? The US govt being forced to issue debt at unsustainable interest rates is the only cause of death you need if people don’t think they’ll get their money back. They will figure out an alternative in that situation.
USD’s supremacy isn’t just from being the “safest” asset you can hold but also that you need it to buy energy from the middle east, since they agreed to only trade in USD in exchange for US military protection. Also because everybody else uses it. I doubt BRICS will be the alternative though, even if it is a half hearted attempt to get around SWIFT and USD.
And right now it seems to be gold. China has been dumping US treasuries since 2020 and moving heavily into Gold. France did the same. Althought thats not a viable alternative… there simply isn’t enough Gold. In an ideal world we would move towards a Keynsian basket of goods as the international unit of exchange instead of a domestic currency but we’ll probably pick the dumbest, least painful in the short term, most painful and debilitating in the long term answer… nobody plants trees anymore.
Why does there have to be an alternative for the USD to implode?
Because value is relative. In order for the value of the USD to fall, the exchange rate has to rise. And that implies people are trading a surplus of USD for another thing.
What is that thing?
The same goods and services but massively increasing amounts of USD diluting its own value because interest rates are so high for US treasuries they enter a death spiral borrowing more (printing) to pay for the borrowing they already did, especially as debt rolls over from 1-2% to 5%+?
It’s not looking good… there’s no debate that the debt is growing faster than the US economy. Trump blew up the tacit deal requiring USD for energy. Now UAE and others are willing to trade oil in chinese yuan or rubles. Their security agreements with the US apparently weren’t worth the paper they were printed on considering the US did the exact opposite of what they promised to those OPEC nations, in fact they actively caused this dumb war with Iran that’s destroying plants and infrastructure in the gulf. Thats worse than reneging on your security promises…
Do you think the USD is headed in a positive direction? What do you think is going to happen?
The same goods and services but massively increasing amounts of USD
Who has a super abundance of USD that wants to purchase such enormous volumes of consumer goods?
Lets stay on the topic of your original gripe with my comment, which implied that without an alternative the USD system can’t collapse, and you’ve heard these complaints since the 80s. Why do you think that is? Why can the USD system only fail in one way? You never addressed that besides going “nu uh”
Who has a super abundance of USD that wants to purchase such enormous volumes of consumer goods
Historically that would be the US itself since they hollowed out domestic industry since they could import everything with their exorbitant priviledge. What would stop them from printing even more to keep doing that if it’s also the expedient answer? Which is also the core of my whole point here… they’re cutting down the trees planted for them by prior generations and we’re at the can now.
Overall it seems to me that you’re arguing swans can only be white as all swans are white, and there’s no evidence of black swans existing. You don’t make an alternative to the USD if the USD is working well… I think you have it backwards. An alternative will be made to get around the USD whicj will kill it. Not because of the alternative existing but because the USD failed in it’s promises to those that use it. But thats not the only way it fails…
Besides, any time a reserve currency has been replaced historically there usually isn’t anything waiting to take up the role right away. It develops after the global trade currency devalues so much it stops being useful for international trade. The pound failed progressively over decades and was replaced with domestic forex temporarily until Bretton Woods solidified the USD as the replacement post WWII.
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These threads are always full of people saying, “why don’t you just…” The problem is you are suggesting coping methods for a plethora of problems, in a vacuum individually. You’re failing to put all of the problems of cars, trucks, and their requisite infrastructure together as the awful, smothering whole that it is.
Ban cars from
populatedareas.Or ban cars from Gaia.
The US auto industry is absolutely to blame for pushing gigantic gas guzzlers on people. But the people who buy those monstrosities and get hugely into debt to do it are very much to blame too.
I think its the EPA for not regulating truck emissions as stringently as they do for normal cars.
DOT is in charge of CAFE regulations. The original law specified standards that were for “passenger vehicles” and “automobiles which are not passenger automobiles”.
DOT interpreted that as trucks, which made sense back then. Unfortunately, every manufacturer just declared their cars to be trucks (invention of the SUV) and the DOT let them.
Then they made it worse by scaling fuel economy to vehicle size, so manufactures just made cars have a larger footprint to be allowed to have worse fuel economy.
It’s also the auto industry for regulatory-capture of the EPA. It’s an ouroboros of corruption with plenty of blame to go around.
They passed a fuel economy law that had to do with vehicle weight, auto industry response was make bigger heavier vehicles to get around new fuel economy requirements. That’s the reason all of the reasonably sized personal trucks got massive like 15 years ago.
I’ve seen quite a few videos about “rolling negative equity” and didn’t even know it was a thing. Also, you hear someone threatening the car dealer for suggesting they buy a car for ONLY $20K when he’s never been seen something in less than a beamer and being in debt so they have to take a loan for the down payment (which doesn’t even make sense to me)… I hope these videos are fake 😢
The first time I heard about rolling negative equity I gasped audibly.
Cars are a depreciating asset unless they’re very rare. They’re always going to have negative equity. This is financial flim-flammery disguised with fancy corpo words.
I just want a manual awd wagon. But I’m not allowed. Wrx was the last one. America gets shit for cars.
Look for a VW Alltrack they were made from 2017-2019
Definitely look for that. I had a Rabbit before so the Alltrack was a tempting next step, but was able to get a new 2021 Crosstrek with a manual. It’s somewhere between a lifted hatch and a wagon. Managed to fit some 8ft 2x2s in there so I’d say it’s pretty functional.
Shit how awesome didnt know this existed. May have to sell my car and get one
I’ve had mine for four or five years, its my forever car since you just can’t get cars like it anymore
amazingly they seem to still be normally priced!
They weren’t when I bought mine so act if you find one you like
But think about what we get instead: massive diesel trucks!
Expensive to own, ass to drive, impractical!
Dont forget road noise!
I did not ask for even more interesting times, but the car loans and car insurance industries have some pretty interesting interactions with rising oil prices and climate change.
I don’t really like that I’m paying $15-20 more a tank than I did a couple years ago, but I have no sympathy for the price of diesel and the guys with dumb ass monster trucks.
The issue with diesel is farm equipment and shipping. Basically everything we need to survive is impacted.
I don’t feel bad for the idiots that bought a lifted truck that gets 9 miles to the gallon though. They got what’s coming
The issue with shipping is that it could have been partially avoided with more reliance on rail and less on long-haul trucking, but that’s a choice that was inflicted on us rather than one we made ourselves.
Unfortunately freight rail often uses diesel as well. It is more efficient of course pound for pound, but the cost is still felt. Even nations with better rail are feeling the price because of this
Yeah, but electrifying rail didn’t require technological innovation the way batteries capable of long-haul trucking did. We could’ve had electric rail freight decades ago if the political will had been there.
We did, check out the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension. About 2/3rds of the rail line between Chicago and Seattle was electrified from roughly the 30’s until the 70’s. It was slated to be closed down in 1973 and the oil crisis gave it another year or so.
It was always profitable, but the Milwaukee Road execs didn’t understand it, and didn’t like that it was different from the rest of the network using diesel. Real disappointing stuff.
a nice side effect of diesel prices on shipping is that I’m seeing a lot more electric delivery trucks on the road, it’s gonna suck for long haul, but maybe that will move to rail.
They’re working on hybridization atm
Yes, it’s the victim’s faults! They had no choice but to buy these things thanks to lack of alternatives , therefore they are to blame!
The guy who buys a luxury RAM 1500 to pick up groceries definitely had alternatives.
The Hyundai Venue is $20k and can get 50mpg highway.
People have a choice of what vehicle they buy.
But how is that going to help with your petromasculinity?
I like this sentiment the most. I worked in the oil and gas industry for a long time. (Ethically opposed the entire time, but thats not my point here.) And drove a subaru, worked with guy that drove a prius. Lots of Honda and Toyota sedans… the people doing the “manly” work aren’t even driving big personal vehicles because there is nothing to prove.
This is a funny part about being a carpenter. The new carpenters buy huge trucks to try and impress people. Meanwhile my boss who has been doing this for decades drives a Honda Civic to work lol
And abuse victims have the choice of leaving their abuser.
What a monumentally stupid comparison.
The poor person about to spend $100k+ on a truck, tearfully signing the papers at the dealership: sniffle And could you do that thing where you raise the truck up a few more feet and put monster truck wheels on it? I can’t believe you are making me do this.
lol This is exactly how some people picture it. Poor Americans. In hypercapitalist America, consumers just have no agency at all. Maybe your culture really is gullible and stupid?
Aw, those poor people had no choice but to buy that F-150!
The other guys at the construction site will make fun of them if they aren’t in six-figure debt for a truck that never tows or hauls anything!
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, but judging by the replies it seems like everyone is assuming that by “people have no choice but to buy a personally-owned vehicle” you must have meant “people have no choice but to buy a giant gas-guzzling truck.”
It’s a crazy leap and a strawman and precisely the kind of lack of nuance that makes it all but impossible to have intelligent discussions about issues that matter. But then again, this is the internet…
I was specifically talking about gigantic gas guzzlers in my original comment. Not even in the US do all cars fall into that category. People do have choices and they choose the monstrosities. I was not in any way trying to blame people for owning a car.
Okay I get it, I was reading the comment in light of the post which talked about “mandatory expensive vehicle in order to be employable because we abandoned trains.”
Like, you’re right, nobody needs those giant trucks.
But also, even relying on smaller, more efficient POVs as a society is still a bad thing, and being required to buy something in that category is still an injustice that individual people don’t have much agency in, at least if they want to be able to get a job without uprooting their lives (and usually living somewhere more expensive in order to have pedestrian access to public transit)
No argument there. I was just pointing out that people do have choices and unfortunately many people make dumb choices.
Yeah you can always just buy a civic
I mean, given the comment the reply is to it’s not a crazy leap in logic or strawman considering the comment itself specifically was talking about gas guzzling vehicles and not having sympathy for people who bought them.
Perhaps as a reply to the original post it would be read differently but the context it’s in makes it so it reads the way it does.
Ah, yeah, I read it as if it were a top-level comment. I see the connection now.
I’ll still give her the benefit of the doubt and say she likely meant it in the broader sense, because her takes are usually fairly reasonable.
But yeah, the giant trucks are unnecessary in probably 98% of cases. Honestly even in the 2% where one is needed, a smaller one will do. But those are harder to find these days.
The problem of compulsory POV ownership more broadly though is systemic in the US, and people trapped in that situation don’t really have an alternative option.
Sounds like a lot of people were convinced to borrow way more than they could afford for a status symbol no one should care about. Financial literacy should be taught in middle school.
I have 20k in debt just buying a Toyota corolla. I think there is a lot of people who bought status symbols, but there are a lot of people who just need a car that isn’t going to break. If I bought used and something happens that would cost me 5k, which can easily happen, Im screwed. I dont know what the answer is. A few years ago, I had a job two blocks away, now I have a job 50 min away. I have to get there somehow and its not like my job is going to be ok with me saying “I need a week off because my car broke”
Never in my live did I expect to live through an Economic Crash related to Penis Compensation Devices …
Yes, there should be accounting and financial classes in middle/high school. However, then the (predatory) loan industry would have less prey. They “love the poorly educated.”
A lot of people choose a car even when it is just worse.
My bike ride to work is 8km and takes 20-25 mins. Yet I know people who live and work near me who drive the same route which takes almost twice as long mostly sat in traffic. They spend more on their car than I do on my mortgage and that is before maintenance, insurance, oh and fuel too because despite choosing such an expensive car and never driving over 10km, oh yeah gotta go for ICE.
Suppose at least with such short distances driven that fuel lasts a while. Doesn’t stop them moaning about it though. I should start responding with the cost of Cornish pasties to power my bike.
This was kinda the reason I went back to cycling to work when I lived in London (I had lived in The Netherlands before and there it was pretty normal to do so) - it turns out that it was faster to just cycle through half of Zones 1 and 2 than to walk to an catch the tube (at least London actually has a subway, by car it would’ve been even worse because of traffic, not to mention parking).
This was back when cycling facilities there were a bit of a joke and there were but a few people doing the same as I did.
Further, even though I was doing it in a big city (so air polution was a consideration), my health actually improved from it (more so when I discovered a site with a polution map of London and switched to a route that minimized time in big avenues with lots of traffic and polution).
I would if i could. I hate driving, but I would get killed if i biked to work. Hell, I’d possibly die just trying to get to the nearest grocery store. I need a bike lane.
There’s the trick. Cyclists know that.
We’re just making our hate for existing on this planet a bit more honest.
Used to cycle a lot, first in The Netherlands, later in London (Britain), but where I am now (Portugal) it’s very dangerous because drivers here are in my experience some of the worst in Europe (let’s just say that, for example, most won’t signal their intention to change direction when turning right, which is very dangerous for cyclists), but in a way I’m in a priviledged position, so I chose to live in a small city close where I work, so I just walk to work (about 15 minutes each way) which even has the upside that I’m guaranteed my 30m+ exercise each day, which a study some years ago showed decreases the risk of cardio-vascular problems by 70%.
Yeah, the car lobby really vetoed walkable and cyclable cities to… sell cars.
How are the bike lanes where you are?
Every lane is a bike lane, just ride in the middle of it and take the lane like you are supposed to.
So a jacked up truck trying to go 80 behind me is bearing down on me, swearing and flailing their arms around? I have no problems with this in quiet residential streets, but bikes just are not compatible with most North American roads. They’re too slow to play with cars, they’re too fast for sidewalks and pedestrians, and too useful and fun to ignore, so bike lanes are the best answer we have.
I’m not that brave.
If they spend most of their time sitting in traffic then that gas tank won’t last very long at all.
I’ve spent only 9,000 so far on purchasing cars in my life. You do not need to spend 50k. I find the cheapest, most gas efficient beaten down used cars I can and ride them until I can’t anymore.
People really fall into wanting a “nice” car, but if you treat it as a tool to take you from point A to point B and not a status symbol then you can actually find half affordable cars.
I’d love not to have a car, but public transit is nonexistent in my area. If I attempted to bike I would either get ran over or some asshole in a lifted truck would roll coal on me for fun
On purchasing, sure, but how much have you spent on maintenance?
(And also, roughly how old are you? Having spent only $9k in your life if you’re 20 is a very different claim than if you’re 50.)
I’ve been driving for 9 years and one car was totaled in an accident otherwise I’d still have it.
So if we got technical and I count the insurance payout that reimbursed the first car I’ve spent 4,000 on purchasing cars. Second car was cheaper than the insurance payout.
My current car is from 2007, I’ve had it for 6 years. So far it’s only had 1 major repair that costed about 1,000. Otherwise just the normal maintenance at appropriate intervals. It’s sub-compact so the tires are small and quite cheap and it holds less oil than a standard sedan. When I do the oil changes myself this also saves me some money.
I expect the car to last at least 1-2 more years at least. At that point I either have to start pouring money into it or buy another.
Edit: Fixed a math error. Thanks /u/HubertManne@piefed.social
I’ve been driving for 9 years and one car was totaled in an accident otherwise I’d still have it.
Yeah, that sounds 'bout right: short enough that you can still have an artificially-rosy impression based on luck that nothing major has broken yet, especially since the collision replacement reset the clock. For all you know, that car might’ve been destined to blow its engine the day after it was totaled.
I’ve been driving for over two decades, and even owning almost entirely old cars (with only one exception, and that was one I didn’t pay for), I’ve spent much more than $9K on them. And that’s despite both doing most of my own maintenance and being willing to just accept flaws that other people would pay to fix or scrap the car over.
I’m not saying it’s a bad strategy, for those who must own a car. I’m just saying that even the optimal strategy still adds up eventually.
For all you know, that car might’ve been destined to blow its engine the day after it was totaled.
I 100% know that would not have have happened. I’m not a mechanic, but I know enough to assure you that is not the case.
Even still if it did die the next day that would be back to the 9k.
And I wouldn’t call it pure luck, I did a ton of research and shopped around for a couple weeks before I found something acceptable. It’s held up as expected
I 100% know that would not have have happened. I’m not a mechanic, but I know enough to assure you that is not the case.
I would also swear up and down that each of my old cars was reliable, until suddenly it was not.
I say that not to scare or discourage anybody from owning an old car instead of a new one, but just to have realistic expectations. And maybe encourage people to have a good roadside assistance policy.
The car that got totaled was in great condition and had absolutely no issues.
The car I’m driving today sure that one could go tomorrow or in a couple of years.
Cars definitely give you signs they are getting ready to give out. You just have to recognize them. Sometimes they are subtle and it can definitely be a waiting game, but once the signs appear it can be tomorrow or 2 years.
I haven’t owned many cars personally, but my family has only ever driven clunkers. You learn the signs and which ones are worth the gamble to ignore.
wait so you paid x for car1 and got a y payout and paid z for the second car and your saying x+z-y is -$1000 because that is what im reading. Are you sure you did not come out 1k ahead on car one and then car2 cost that and more?
The payout on car 1 was 5k and the cost of car 2 was 4k.
The economy was doing weird shit to the used car market when I got the first car and it held it’s value quite well.
I don’t remember the exact numbers anymore and I know I’m rounding so maybe it’s closer to -800, but I do remember coming out nicely ahead with the insurance payout.
Either way car 2 was cheaper.
so you paid 200 for car 1 and it ran for years with no maintenance?
Ah wait, I see my math error now big time. God I’m tired. So 4k on cars as first car was fully paid off by insurance.
Thank you for pointing that out I’ll fix my numbers
yeah sorry I replied fast to the last one but that makes more sense now.
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that market just doesn’t exist anymore in my province, especially with the more thorough safety inspection standards.
they’ll let you have lowbeam headlights so bright that they’ll make a pedestrian in a crosswalk entirely invisible to oncoming traffic at a four way stop, but oh hell no you can’t have a tiny rust hole that could cut somebody if they walked up and stuck their finger into it and wiggled it around.
the cheapest cars that will pass safety in my area will run you at least $3000, at absolute bare minimum, and you’ve still got $500 in tax and licensing, plus $500 for used tires soon enough. and then the maintenance for brakes and worn/broken suspension parts… rust is a killer up here. I wish they’d stop salting the roads
Honestly its possible to just keep a car going forever if you get the right one. Get someone with a reliable track record and just make sure to spray down the frame so it doesn’t rust, keep up with maintenence, and you can drive it for 50 years. Even the big stuff that comes up (like rebuilding a trans) is cheaper than buying a new car.
Cries in state that needs, and applies, road salt 😭
You should be applying treatments to protect your frame. Regularly.
Unibody joys. It’s very unrealistic to try to cost the inside of your doors and trunk/hatch.
That’s not to say it’s not worth doing anything - it absolutely is. It just slows the rust down though, it can’t stop it.
To the extent that we need cars (since our infrastructure would take years to change even if there was the political will to do it) we need to start copying the Cubans and learn to keep old cars on the road longer. Bonus: they don’t spy on you like new cars do.
What they need to do is go back to interchangeable parts and stop letting manufacturers make so many fucking different pieces that do the same shit. A car is a simple machine, stop adding gizmos and all kinda of shit to it to clog it down and bog the cost
Bring back standardized headlights
I have just reached this point myself.
I have a short fun drive to work, enjoy it as a way to clear my head, and I even had a manual transmission WRX a long time ago. I have been checking up on the current models and there are some pretty good looking options whether manual + AWD or maybe a dual clutch setup, etc.
But right now I’m driving a basic car that we bought new like 14 years ago. It still looks good, it’s fun to drive (the automatic is shiftable and has lockup clutches while in gear), and it seems mechanically sound with very low miles for the age.
Just the other day I made a conscious decision to stop reading and watching car reviews, and I have been getting back into working on my own car. I have some supplies on the way to change some fluids and shine up the exterior.
Having a fun car helps the drive as long as there’s not too much traffic. I almost don’t mind driving my kid to school (because there’s not enough buses) because my GTI is fun.
Yeah, and that is one of the big intangible benefits of my current job. I do a lot of work in-office even though I’m a software guy, and my “commute” is a 6 or 7 minute drive where the middle two miles is a twisty and hilly country road with very few houses on it. And, if the weather is really really bad, there is a slightly shorter alternate route through a much more populated area but it is perfectly flat roads the whole way.
A GTI would be an absolute blast. Does it have the DSG and if so, how do you like it?
My car is an old Mazda3 from when they first introduced their “Skyactiv” branded tech. The 6-speed auto transmission doesn’t quickly snap through shifts like I imagine a dual clutch would, but since keeps the lockup clutch pack engaged as often as possible, when in gear it kind of feels like a manual. I can do the whole twisty road stretch of my commute in 3rd gear and have a pretty fun time hovering between 3k and 5k RPM.
The engine is a 2.0L 155hp, and every time I drive to or from work I think to myself that if I got a new “fun” car it would have roughly double the power and only be a few hundred pounds heavier (unless I went for an MX-5 or a BRZ/GR86 instead of a sedan). I would like it, sure, but the car I am currently sitting in is great fun and it is FREE versus $20K-$40K.
Mine has a manual but I owned one a while back with a DSG. Shifts are basically instant and it’s quicker than a stick, I just like feeling like a race car driver
We also need better public transport and to be promoting things like mopeds as a viable alternative to cars.
Amen!
If we did that you wouldn’t be able to see a block through the smog in some places.
Depends on how far back you go. Cars from the late 90s and early 2000s are still pretty clean.
Also, a lot of cars can be converted to electric with some knowhow and welding. This could become a cottage industry.
In California, all cars newer than 1975 must pass a smog test.
Converting ICE vehicles to electric vehicles is a cottage industry. While looking for a mechanic recently I found two places that do it.
People power!
I remember watching a show on SPEED that was just one shop doing custom EV conversions.
Of course it was in Cali.
'90s diesels can arguably be less polluting than modern “clean” diesels, depending on which pollutants you care about and if you’re running bio-diesel instead of dino-diesel. (Old diesels can run B100, which is carbon-neutral and emits zero SOx, but it’ll destroy the high-pressure fuel pump on a modern common-rail diesel.)
This is the way.
For simple® car designs, I anticipate that 3d scanning, 3d printing, and even mail order custom parts/manufacturing are going to be indespensible once available parts dry up. Until then, there’s no end in sight for replacement Corolla parts.
“We destroyed?” - it was car industry, no? I remember there was something about car industry buying public transport just to shut them down late.r
Eisenhower interstate system in the US was the start of the downfall. It’s a very cool system, but it cost us the trains. I dont know that it can be justified. I like driving and having the freedom to do so, but I would also like to not have to: plus there are a shit load more people who directly suffer because they simply can not drive.
I hope the next wave of logistical genius incorporates more mass public transit, while still supporting some highway network.
Hub style, like airport parking esque, but for bullet trains and light rail. New building would need to require parking as part of the footprint (incorporated decks) to save on space that can be used for public benefit.
Easy to expand on, the counter argument is always “but the cost?!” Like wtf do you think a highway costs per foot? The answer is up to $2,000 per god damn foot. You can buy a lot with that.
That is indeed the case; I believe “we” here refers to society, and functions as a synecdoche for the auto industry
Synecdoche. Haven’t come across a good new word in a while, thanks!
