some shopping, I particularly loathe

[kaigou]

At Nissan dealer. I mention I used to have a Porsche 914. Turns out our salesman used to have two, a '68 and '71; mine was a '70. Naturally this led to...

Salesman: It's such a great car, and no reason to spend all that money on Porsche parts, it's just a Volkswagon engine!
Me: A Bus-4 engine, at that -- parts are a dime a dozen! I had a mechanic tell me the Porsche clutch cable'd be a hundred bucks, so I walked across the street to the local Buggy Barn and picked up a replacement VW cable for $10!
Salesman: Oh, yeah! I did the same thing when I had to replace my brakes, all that money for just having Porsche stamped on it!
CP: *cough*
Salesman: And the best part is you have tons of friends when you have a Targa!
Me: Oh, no, way, I switched out the shocks and put in Bilsteins, tightened them up to the limit, and all it took was one ride and none of my friends would ride with me after that!
Salesman: What, they didn't like being in a car that's only two inches off the ground?
CP: *COUGH* We're here about a new car...
Me: Not when the ride's that tight! Man, I miss that suspension!
Salesman: And it was so easy to work on, and so much you could do with it! I upped the butterflies and recalibrated the sparks to just a micro wider and that engine just roared!
Me: I put in dual Dellorto racing carbs!
Salesman: That's awesome! Nothing like having to balance--
CP: *COUGH* New cars. You two can geek out later. Right now we're--
Me: Carbs! With the little mirror over it so you didn't get a backfire--
CP: --for a--
Salesman: --and burn off your eyebrows--
CP: NEW CAR. *POINTED LOOK*
Salesman: Uhm. *looks sideways*
Me: Uhm. *looks sideways*
Salesman: *opens mouth*
Me: *opens mouth*
CP: *EYES NARROW*
Salesman: *shuts mouth*
Me: *shuts mouth*
CP: *looks satisfied*

A little backstory, perhaps: clutch cable broke on veedub; decision was made (while veedub was out of earshot) to, hrmm, maybe, y'know, consider a second car. Requirements: must be as gas-savvy as possible, must be able to roadtrip sweetly, must be quick and spunky and maneuverable because we live in the land of Oblivions and it's better to avoid if you aren't big enough to plow through. Also: must not have the freaking console in the MIDDLE OF THE DASHBOARD.

(Aside to car interior designers: who the hell ever designing the Cooper ever thought it was a good idea to put a speedometer in the dashboard -- where the RADIO is on most cars -- and a speedometer that's approximately 10" across with numbers about 1" high? Is this so the people in the car behind you can also see how fast you're going? Was the designer a parent who wanted to be able to back-seat drive permanently? Ignoring of course that there isn't really much of a backseat in a Cooper, anyway.)

The Honda Fit is cute, meets most requirements, and... the base version has nothing. The next-grade Fit has the security, windows, blah blah blah, along with ridiculous nonsense like a spoiler (dude, I know spoilers, and believe me, a three-inch piece of plastic across the top back window is not improving the drag coefficient half so much as it's just creating a nifty place for DIRT TO HIDE) and plastic thingies along the side/belly of the car. Rates a big whatever. Also, it's a 1.5liter engine. The Harley has a 1.5liter engine. The veedub has a 2.0liter. Do I really want to be stuck driving around a car with an engine barely bigger than your average riding lawn mower?

Hmmm... The Yaris has that dashboard-in-the-middle thing; the Scion is not just an abbreviated shoebox, it's also an abbreviated shoebox 6" higher off the ground, between car-floor and car-seat, than my veedub, which creates the unnerving sensation of driving in a highchair. The Nissan Versa has a number of nice features, but again, driving in a dining room chair. (CP: "While sitting on a phone book.")

While at the Nissan dealer, however, we got into the topic of possible used cars. A Honda Fit ('08, 29K) had just arrived, and I said I'd give it a look. Oh, the salesman says, we also have a Cooper.

Me: A Cooper. No.
Salesman: It's a convertible!
Me: Then pretty much no.
Salesman: And it's bright red!
Me: Then ABSOLUTELY NO.

My family calls that "police-invigoratin' red" for a reason, buddy. (And Nissan either gets points added or taken away, not sure, for calling its red, "Alert Red" -- and they wonder why I declared that I will absolutely not, under no condition, in no way, ever purchase a red car. Sheesh. Let alone a red convertible! I pay enough in taxes. I'm not helping the state out more by funding half their programs on my speeding tickets alone.)

Then another the salesman thought of, not sure if it was in our price range. I said, well, if I can reasonably expect the car will make it to 200K miles (and hopefully beyond), then I'm willing to pay a bit more knowing I'll get a good ten years or more driving from it. With the caveat that if it's used, it must be low years and high mileage, because short of complete driving/maintenance records, that's the only way to be assured the car got predominantly highway driving. I just don't trust the majority of drivers out there when it comes to brakes and clutches; those things are the most dangerous when they go down, and they're also the most likely to be damaged by bad or inexperienced drivers, and they're also issues that can be fixed for little enough that you can't justify ditching the car but still expensive enough to fix that it's a burden. Or maybe I just hate having to clean up after a driver who screwed up a car because the driver just didn't know how to freaking drive.

Which brings us to:

Salesman: It's a Subaru.
Me: I've never heard of a Subaru making it past 85K.
Salesman: They're not that bad.
Me: Okay. 90K if you're very very good.
Salesman: It's fully loaded!
Me: You see that car right there, in the parking lot? That's a '96 Veedub. You also know I drove a 914 for several years. Do I look like someone who cares about 'fully loaded'?
Salesman: It's got GPS?
Me: This town's so small I can drive north to south in fifteen minutes! Why would I need a GPS when I'm never more than fifteen minutes from home? I can get lost as much as anyone but when I never get more than twenty miles from home, if I'm getting lost then, I deserve whatever I get.
Salesman: It's got turbo?
Me: That's the kiss of death.
Salesman: It's a really awesome driving experience?
Me: What's the mileage per gallon?
Salesman: *checks paperwork* It's got 12K on it.
Me: Mileage per gallon.
Salesman: Oh. Let me check on that.
Me: Weight?
Salesman: *blinks* Heavier than the Versa. *starts to rattle off safety features*
Me: Two years old, was probably exclusively in-city driving stop-and-go, weighs more, its miles-per-gallon is going to be a lot worse and on top of that, I've got to wonder about clutch and brake wear. Not interested.
Salesman: *wheedling* You could at least look.
Me: Uh. Hunh.
CP: *returns* What's this?
Salesman: *chipper again* A used Subaru! Fully loaded! Come this way!
...we get to the car...
Me: It's black.
Salesman: It's not red!
Me: It's black with black interior. Black leather interior.
Salesman: ...
Me: Have you noticed how hot it is today?
Salesman: ...there's just no pleasing you, is there.
Me: No. No, there's not, unless you have a blue or silver BMW 325i convertible--
Salesman: --uh--
Me: --that's a hybrid.
Salesman: ...
Me: *waits*
Salesman: I don't think those come in hybrid.
Me: I rest my case.
Salesman: ...
Me: But in the meantime I still won't buy a black car with a black leather interior in a state where July temps range in the upper 90s.

Eventually word comes around that the just-arrived used Honda Fit (a trade-in) was cleared by the mechanics, who'd seen no need for any major work other than an oil change. (And, I figured out today, possibly four new tires, sometime in the next few months.) Here's where it's really crazy: they're willing to loan us the car, for a day or so. Just to see what we think. (What? Can they do that?) I tell them I'll take it to a nearby mechanic to give me a second opinion, and then we'll get back to them -- after doing a good hour's highway driving outside the city, of course, though to be really testing it, I should take it into the hills and see how it handles my favorite kind of twisty roads.

Keep in mind that through all this, each time I said I would not, under any condition, buy a red car, someone near by would make some comment about the old joke about the wife who doesn't care what car it is, so long as it's blue. (Yes, I have met women like that, and yes, I am at least diplomatic enough now that I can grit my teeth and let the inanity pass by without comment.)

This morning it occurred to me -- in the bright cheerful morning sunshine -- that the color of this particular car sitting in our driveway is really very... blue. You might even say it's a noisily self-declarative blue. Yep, that's blue.

Come to think of it, so is this. And they even have similarly so-boxy-it's-cute sort of shapes.

Me: I just realized, the honda's color reminds me an awful lot of a Tachikoma.
CP: That right there is reason enough to buy the car!
Me: You so did not just say that.
CP: We can call it the Tachikoma!
Me: ...
CP: We can say, I'm taking the Tachi out for a spin!
Me: *facepalm*

Comments

[drich]

Hey, don't go dissin' my Versa. It's got enough power that I'm regularly passing Altimas & Maximas on the Baltimore hwys. But those drivers probably have no clue how to push their car's limits. As the car is white, my plates are WNG GNDM. I love my gundam.

And *major* cargo space! I just brought home a multi-level cat tree condo that my brother built like a tank to handle an earthquake. Or my 3 rambunctious cats. It was 2'x2'x6' and took both of us to get it into the car, but in such a way that it would only take me alone to get it out. Up the stairs and into the apartment is another story.

I also just hauled home an outdoor fountain, still boxed so it measured a couple inches larger than 2'x2'x4'. It fit comfortably sideways on the back seat.

This car has made driving fun again. I may have even said this here before.

Other specs: would have preferred stick but I'm in morn/night Balt rush hours hence automatic, 30-33 mpg city, 36-40 mpg highway long tripping, ABS takes getting used to esp. when you have to unlearn or control your ingrained weather compensation, some bells & whistles but not as many as are now available, 2007, bought new, 48k, looking forward to getting 500k out of it just like my Sentra.

[kaigou]

I did no dissing! The Versa's interior room is only a little less than the Fit, though its backseat has a few inches more legroom; it weighs about 250lbs more (safety features, I 'spect), and its base model does come with more than the Fit's base model.

However, the facet of sitting in a high-chair to drive is a deal killer for me, even after I lowered the seat as much as I could. That's partly because I've spent so many years driving low-slung sportscars that I'm uncomfortable feeling so 'perched' while driving, but also because the posture is different. How to put this in pixels, with no picture? With my knee bent at nearly 90' angle, this puts my foot on the gas pedal at nearly vertical when I'm in-the-city and not lead-footing it. That means my ankle-bones are ultra-compressed, because of the angle of the foot to lower leg, and since I have next to no cartilage in pretty much all my joints, ultra-compression is actually a painful thing; holding my foot that way for too long will actually make my foot start to fall asleep, because the compression is preventing blood from circulating. Ergo, I've learned to avoid positions/situations where I've got to ultra-compress any part of me: squatting on my ankles, having my forearms pressed to upper arms, having my legs against my torso, or having my hands or feet at an angle that's not as close to normal/straight as usual. That's a lot of what makes a longer laying-down-sort-of posture in a car much more comfortable for me, too.

This isn't to say it's not also true of the Honda; it's just that the Honda's seat isn't quite so high, so it's not quite so exaggerated an issue, but it's still there. I came back from the highway-road test with the news that if we get the car, I will never give an unqualified 'yes' because (short of major internal modifications) it will never truly be comfortable to drive, not at any great distances. It will never be a road-trip car for me (except as passenger) because I just can't sit with my shin nearly perpendicular to the ground and the flat of my foot almost vertical as well for more than fifteen minutes at a time.

(I should note: the veedub's gas pedal can trigger this if I'm riding the pedal very softly, because that means having the foot raised over the pedal. Otherwise, the veedub has far more resistance on the pedal, and it's also a downward motion, not a forward motion. Just slightest difference in engineering, not to mention the fact that in the veedub you literally do have to have a leadfoot to get the same amount of oomph as you'd get from another car: the pedals are tighter, heavier, and require some serious stomping -- which means that on top of the leg position, my foot is also farther from vertical in the veedub just to achieve a base speed, while the Honda and Nissan don't require that stompage so my foot remains vertical for much longer.)

[drich]

Ah, I think the ergonomics of the car work for me as most of my height is in my legs. A lot of people comment on how far back I sit from the steering wheel thus keeping my shins stretched out.

[apis_mellifera]

I can report that 2007 Versas perform very well in crashes--I was going about 40 mph when a car was rear-ended into my path and I t-boned them. Air bag went off, front end crumpled up, and the worst injury I had was bruises. And the car wasn't totaled--I should be getting it back sometime next week. Which I'm still sort of amazed about because I was sure she was a goner.

Which transmission do you have? I have the CVT and I think it's fantastic. It's a bit sluggish when I have 4 full-sized adults in it, but once she gets going, she stays going. And I was able to fit a 42" LCD television in the back seat last summer. Boo-yah.

[drich]

Yep the CVT. I've noticed that sometimes it doesn't shift when it should so I back off the gas, give it a moment and then foot back on gas. It's brain gets the hint and all is better.

I've amazed people not only with the sheer amout of stuff I can pack into the Versa, but the size too. My mother and I were the only ones who knew that the cat tree would fit. Even my brother had his doubts but we got it in while the rest of the family gawked. I got my packing gene from mom.

Congrats on walking away from the crash and getting your fixed car back.

[apis_mellifera]

Yeah, mine does the same thing--after a while, the backing off and re-accelerating thing becomes habit. The worst part about having a rental car the last few weeks has been dealing with the standard automatic transmission; it feels jerky and just generally less efficient overall.

I have the sedan and the joke is that you can hide at least two bodies in the trunk, if not three if one of them is very small.

[kaigou]

The hold-off-then-press is actually a good trick for any automatic, when you want a bit more power. Applying gas then removing prompts the car to down-shift, because it reads the sudden lack of gas as lack-of-power, and correspondingly downshifts to get more power from what little gas it's getting.

As for cargo-space... the Versa actually has slightly less cargo space than the Fit, but (apples to pears!) it has a larger back seat by like 4" or so. The Fit takes away that back-passenger leg room and puts it into the trunk-space, instead. The Versa is also about 10" longer than the Fit, but its internal overall capacity is less than the Fit, so my guess is that the Versa's design adds that length in its larger forward and rear bumpers (while the Fit's forward bumpers aren't so pronounced).

One reason I actually said no to the Versa was because of the rear-seat fold-down position. I tend to put things in the trunk and then shove them towards the front, to make room for the next, and the way the Versa's back seat folds down means you can only shove so far, then you must lean into the car and lift the box/item up to get it onto the laying-down part. Or you come in from the side and do the same, and that's hell on your back, and back-issues are a major issue for CP, so I prefer to avoid anything that might do that to him. Much easier to just drag a heavy object across a flat folded-down area, over to the door, and tilt it out, rather than lift while bending over. Actually, I just found out today this is also why my sister decided against the Versa, because her artwork requires a large flat space when moving it, and the Versa's trunk area is not flat when seats are down.

What I find amusing, though, is that the VW's cargo space is much greater than even the Honda's. I've packed 36 cases of books in that car -- with room to still see passenger-side mirror! On other days, up to 17 2x4s, and even twice now I've carried a quarter-ton of rockbase in the trunk area. It's my little workhorse... but that's one big reason to keep it: so the new car doesn't have to bear the dogs-to-vet, lumber-from-yard, rock-from-quarry, grocerystore/hardware trips. Not because the new car can't, but because those kinds of things mess up the interior, and given the veedub's already a little woodshed kinda boy, there's no reason to muss up the new to us car Tachikoma as well.

(Incidentally, we did buy the car today, and CP has already labeled the car paperwork for filing: "TACHI".)

[dragonhand]

I love you. My plates are GUNDM 02.

[kaigou]

Personalized plates are really expensive in my state... so instead I kept the old tags from the car I learned to drive on -- HY-001 -- which meant nothing at the time but crack me up, now.

[branchandroot]

*vastly entertained* Yeah, I'm just not happy with the way they've chopped down the Fit's power. Gimme my old Civic hatchback SI.

[kaigou]

I will say they seem to have done what they could to adjust for it -- the 5th gear is almost certainly the overdrive, based on what I could tell from the gear ratios while driving. I mean: in the veedub, in 4th gear at 3000rpm, I'm probably doing around 50-55 mph. Same rpm in 5th gear, and I'm at 60mph or so. In the Honda, I was at 3000rpm in 4th and just barely doing 50, so I think the speed/gear ranges have been tweaked to compensate as much as possible for the otherwise smaller engine.

That said, it did okay on the highway for semi-adequate acceleration, and did a little better if I shifted down to 4th before trying to get any sudden bursts... but it'll never match my veedub's 2.0 when it comes to going from 65 to 90 at the drop of a hat without even changing gears.

On the other hand, it's possibly a good thing I'm not actually buying that 325i, because me + 2.5 liter engine could be seriously hazardous to a lot of the Oblivions around here...

[sharibet]

I've never heard of a Subaru making it past 85K.

Subarus are unreliable? ::blink blink:: That's honestly the first I've ever heard of it...Subies out here have the reputation for lasting pretty much forever. I still see mid-1970s Brats cheerfully trundling along the roads.

Purely anecdotal evidence: My own manual-transmission Subaru, Forester Grump, is ten years old and at 120k miles, the only repair cost I've ever had (outside of normal maintenance items for the major milestones) was replacing the NOC sensor at 80,000 miles. The gas mileage is not as good as that of my beloved 1991 Honda Civic (32 city, 40 hwy) but it's pretty decent for an all-wheel drive vehicle: 25 city, 30 hwy).

I love, love, live driving it--engine is peppy, seats are firm but comfortable, and everything is scaled for someone at my 5'7" height (though, admittedly, I have not driven a BMW or Porsche, so I don't have an accurate comparison).

And it's red. :-)
(Okay, to be fair, I wouldn't buy a black car with black interior, either.)

[kaigou]

I think the common saying about Subarus was mostly limited to the lower-end of its line, and it wasn't that the cars necessarily died (although the hyperbole of implying such makes for a nice flat statement) -- it was that Subarus would go and go and go without the least issue and then as soon as the odometer hit 80K, you were pretty much in for some bizarre and continuous issues: the wiring harness, the ignition system, the fuel injectors... like built-in obsolescence or something. Which was pretty much what happened to our Subaru (a little 4WD Justy) -- I think we made it to about 83K and within the next thousand miles we lost the gas gauge, the rear windshield wipers, the odometer, then the speedometer (all signs of the wiring harness going bad, actually). Like every two hundred miles, poof!

Of course, then someone ran a stopsign and took off the front foot and a half of the car, so there wasn't much reason to worry about repairs, after that.

BMWs and Porsches are most definitely designed for long-legged drivers who don't mind slouching just the tiniest bit. Korean cars are okay for short-legged or long-legged, but definitely (like many of the Japanese cars) are designed for short-torso drivers. I don't mean in terms of head-room, but in terms of proportion of seat-to-steeringwheel-to-gearshift-to-pedals. I mean, I'm 5'6" and in test-driving the Honda, I couldn't see the top half of the controls on the console -- I could see the needle for rpms until about 2500 and then the rest was hidden behind the steering wheel! Definitely preset for a shorter-torso driver, but with allowances for longer/American heights via the steering-column adjustment.

Actually, in driving various Porsche, Volkswagon, and BMW models, those are the only cars where setting the seat at a distance good for me didn't also mean having the gearshift knob at barely fingertip. In other words: the pedals are set forward, rather than the seat being set back, if you get what I mean. In Asian cars, the pedals are closer proportionally to the steering wheel, such that moving the seat means you're farther away from everything, while in German/Swedish cars the pedals are farther into the engine compartment, with the steering-wheel and gear-shift at the midpoint, so moving the seat up to reach the pedals can put the steering-wheel right in your lap, if your legs are really short.

Never driven a Saab, though I really did like the design and reported handling of the 93 series. CP turns his nose up at the 93 body design, so that was pretty much out of the question, anyway. Now, if I really ruled the world, I'd have an Audi TT, because it's the most adorable jellybean design, hiding a viciously awesome driving experience. Take that over the BMW Z3 any day, actually -- the Z3 is just too smooth, like you're disassociated from the road or something. It's eerie.

[sharibet]

Interesting observation about the interior ergonomic scaling of cars--I suppose I have a short torso, because I've found that Japanese cars are the best-scaled to my body. (I can see everything, reach everything, and the windows and stanchion are placed in such a way that I feel like I have good peripheral vision.)

Worst interior ergonomic experience was the Chevy Cavalier I was forced to rent on a business trip. It was approximately the same size as my Civic, but everything--levers on the steering wheel, knobs on dash, seats, windows--felt really "off" to me, as if the car had been designed for someone six feet tall. For example, my hands were too small to comfortably turn the wipers on and off without lifting my hands from the steering wheel.

And, yes, the Audi TT is awesomely fun to drive. My best friend owns one, and she lets me take it for a spin occasionally.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

LOL @ Tachikoma notion. *80% of the rest of the car talk goes right over the head*

[kaigou]

Ehehehe. Next time you go buy a car, tell the salesperson you want a car with synchro-mesh transmission (but try to say it with a straight face), then wait to see if it trips the person up. If the salesguy gets all impressive about having it, blow him (or her) off and get someone else, but if the salesperson doesn't know what it is and takes it seriously, at least you know s/he won't snow you on matters s/he doesn't know that well. A'course, if Salesperson gets the joke, then s/he will probably treat you fairly.

Synchro-mesh transmission is standard on all cars these days. It's like asking for a car with a brake pedal. (It's the mechanism that allows you to shift a car on-the-fly without having to double-clutch.)

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Good tip, thanks - although I hope I won't need to use it anytime soon. :)

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

My dad tried to teach me to drive stick -- on the MGA. No synchromesh between first and second. Needless to say, that didn't last long; it was too hard on his nerves to continue. Learned to drive stick later on that Honda civic hatchback, which was my own car.

Re car colors -- my sis's Mini is that eye-blinding blue. With the boot stripe. It's not a bad color. They're thinking of getting a Fit -- and, I'm sorry to say, considering getting it in the burnt orange color, since Toby is back teaching at UVA. That's just a bit too much school spirit, IMO.

[maire]

Wow. Most of my energy when looking for a car has always gone on finding one in our price range that wasn't physically uncomfortable for 184 cm husband and 167 cm me to drive. Either the hand brake is in a position I can't comfortably reach when the chair's forward so I can reach the brakes, or it's too small for him.

[kaigou]

Your heights are a smidgen taller than me and CP, but the proportion's the same -- height-wise, that is, but I have very long legs (my jeans have a 86cm inseam) such that our leg-length is the same, but CP has a longer torso, which means head-room is an issue for him but not for me. We can both handle the Honda okay, ignoring the compression/angle issues which have nothing to do with height/length -- and the Veedub worked for both of us, as well.

Volvo, not so much, because (per reply to Sharibet, above) the pedals are so far into the engine compartment that getting my feet within range meant the steering wheel was literally in my lap. ...What other suggestions? Hmm, there's a VW that's available only in Europe that's like a station-wagon-ized version of the Golf, and it was an awesome drive with a huge amount of cargo space. But it didn't feel like a station wagon, when I drove it -- it drove like my little Golf, all spunk and spitfire and zip, not like some stodgy family-wagon. Man, I wanted one, so bad, and every VW dealer keeps saying the same thing: "VW doesn't intend to make an American version of that car." Me: WHY NOT I WANT ONE. *sigh*

Other than that, I'd say a nice 911T ought to do you fine, but I suppose that's kinda on the impractical side, eh. Maybe if you plan ahead and get one for your mid-life crisis?

[maire]

The main problem for me is that I am the average height for a woman my age, but my arms are quite long in proportion. Adding Rodger's height into the equation seems to leave us with Toyota, basically.

I can't imagine having two-door car again at the moment, with the parenting of a small child going on, sadly.

[dragonhand]

*bemoans my lack of technical knowledge* I don't know much, but I'm glad you got a Tachikoma. That's a bright blue, but hey, it'll be easier to find int he parking lot. XD

I got my car with 60,000 on it. The Odometer broke at around 181,000. I got it replaced with one at 120,000 or so, and then it broke, too, when it got around 180,000. And that was maybe a year ago? Or two?? I have no idea how many miles my poor, ghetto gundam has on it, but it's still working well. I can't track my mpgs anymore, but, you know, it's still working. And my folks were worried it wouldn't make this most recent trip from UT to VA.

May this pretty blue Tachikoma just keep working for you.