New Car

[yourscaryfriend]

With gas prices what they are, I've been in the market for something a bit more economical than the king-cab Ford F-150 I currently drive. I've been out in the Honda Civic, the Mini-Cooper, the Mazda 3, the Toyota Corolla, and the Ford Focus

Comments

[silent_ic_river]

We love our Mini. How far are you from Charleston? We bought ours there. Do you have a BMW dealer near you, 'cause they'll service the Mini.

[silent_ic_river]

I'm about an hour and a half north of Charleston. I live right off I-26. I'll have to look into the Beemer dealership idea. That might work for me. I really love the Mini.

[7leaguebootdisk]

15 years ago, my family had two 1975 cars, a Ford Granada and a FIAT 131. The FIAT could hold four big adults in comfort, and another in the trunk (never tried it, but it was big and square, so it looked like plenty of room (the trunk in the Ford was about the same volume, but very flat, and had a tire in the midle, making space very oddly shapped)) unlike the Granada, where I did not want to sit behind me, got twice the MPG, was faster 0-60, and much more fun to drive. Ford pulled it together in the early 1980s (1986 Taurus/Sable was the first sign of that) but seems to have been sliding back down after that.

GM still seems to have a nasty habit of fucking up the first two model years of new cars.

We had a 1976 Pinto for quite some time too. I hated that car, no power and sucky gas milage.

[7leaguebootdisk]

It's a bummer about GM. They have a really sexy sportscar coming out for the 2006 model year: The Pontiac Solstice.

http://www.pontiac.com/

check it out. damn, I would look good in that car!

[7leaguebootdisk]

And in 2008, it'll be much better! Granted, this is mostly from the 1980s, but every so often I hear stuff to make me think they are still shipping cars that are in beta. And no free upgrade to the final version. For examples from back then, the new 1984 corvette had a suspension that was very hard, it was softened in the next year, and even more the year after that (when they could make real changes). 25% of the first two model years of Pontiac Fieros had engine fires, when you have lost the high school market due to reliabilty problems, you know you've blown it.

[dweezie]

Civic's cool. Have you also looked at the hybrid Insight?

I've had a Saturn for the last three years and I LOVE it. It gets great gas mileage and they're very well-made. Mine's seven years old now and has never had a problem beyond ordinary wear and tear.

Here's a picture of my baby:

[dweezie]

I drove a couple of hybrids at the Toyota and Honda dealerships. They didn't inspire me with enough zoom-zoom. They do get great milage, but a Consumer Reports article this month showed that they don't get enough additional milage to make up for their poor performance and higher cost. check it out http://www.consumerreports.org/main/content/display_report.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=772749&bmUID=1126607586431

[dweezie]

Yeah... I mentioned it because my stepmom got an Insight a few years ago. It still had a lot of kinks and a lot of things kept going wrong with it, so she ended up taking it back and forcing them to make it an even trade for a Civic. She kept her Civic for a long time and got really good mileage out of it. I just didn't know if maybe they'd improved the works of those hybrids since then. I guess they still have a ways to go with 'em.

[soulofajedi]

Why not look into Hybrids? Granted, in my area there's a waiting list, but I'm currently whittling myself into the highest FICO score to get the best loan to get one.

[yourscaryfriend]

I like the Matrix. It looks cool. Part of the problem is though that the 2006 models are about to come out and the dealerships are running out of 2005's. The Toyota dealership didn't have any Matrixes to test drive when I was out there