January 10, 2020 at 4:14 pm
You should probably own at least one electric car in your life. It was a bucket list thing for me.
I bought a Tesla Model 3 and it has been great so far. It is wild all the cool new features that get added in the software updates, including a 5% power boost with nothing but a software change. Unreal.
Thinking about it. The Tesla is a little too much $$$ for me, at least right now. Might look used, or another. The Leaf/etc. is interesting from a run errands standpoint as a second car.
January 10, 2020 at 4:22 pm
Tesla is fascinating, but "range anxiety" is real....
Range anxiety is real, and I have it, but it's also a little overblown. If you had another car, it's not generally an issue. Take the other car if you worry. I've tracked mileage, and 99% of the time, 200 miles gets me anywhere in a day. For me, there are some ski days where I'd be pushing that, which does worry me.
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my ex boss had a tesla model X - the damn thing could out accelerate anything - he drove like a loon taking me to a corporate meeting in "reading" from "derby" - its about 130 miles each way - after 260 miles on the motorway we still had nearly 40% reported power.
I must admit I was watching the charge level from the passenger seat
MVDBA
January 10, 2020 at 4:24 pm
For trips, yes range anxiety is a thing for sure. For my use case of commuting it works perfectly. My wife's gas SUV is a much more comfortable trip car anyway.
Jeff
January 10, 2020 at 4:41 pm
I've been thinking about buying an electric moped/scooter for my 2.3 mile commute to work - we have charging stations at work, but I looked at the insurance - it's five times more than my Harley (they get stolen a lot)- for now, the bikes are play things, I use the bus for my commute - it's pretty much door to door and a month long season pass taking me anywhere in the area is £47 - I can't think of anything that will cost you less than £500 per year (I have 4 weeks paid holiday so I don't always buy one) - petrol, insurance, tax, depreciation, servicing..... cars are money pits
and I can have a coffee and read the paper on the way to work 🙂
MVDBA
January 10, 2020 at 4:51 pm
Hubby had a '70 GTO that unfortunately got destroyed when a drunk hit him head on, back in '78. He also owned a '67 Corvette when our kids were young - looked very cool but was not a comfortable ride!! I loved my '79 VW Rabbit, fun car with a lot of spunk. Other various cars over the years, but for the last 10 they have all been Subarus - love 'em! Hubby just got a 2019 Outback with the 6 cylinder (last year it was available), loaded with all the options - it's great. I drive an 2013 Impreza hatchback for my commuter. Great in the upstate NY winters!
January 10, 2020 at 7:34 pm
You guys have a much more interesting driving history than I do. My first car was a 1965 Buick Skylark Convertable with a 300 2 barrel and 2-speed transmission. That car was a lot of fun to cruize around in. It rusted out so bad the frame was flexing so I bought a 1974 Plymouth duster with 1 198 straight-six and 3-speed manual. Then I went through a couple of Mustangs, an 81 and an 88, both four-cylinders but fun to drive. My first new car was a Saturn SL then upgraded to a decently loaded LS which cruised at 90MPH really nicely but I was too afraid of a ticket to take it up higher. Then I had minivans for kids and now I have a 2015 Chrysler 200 which is a really good freeway car. I like the sports sedans but would love a Tesla Model 3 as my drive to work is 3 1/2 miles.
January 10, 2020 at 7:48 pm
2001 blue ford focus zx3 aka "The Blue Teardrop". First car (well it was my older brothers, actually it was my oldest brother's, then the other brother's, then mine) , first love. Many teardrops fell from my eyes the day it rolled away. I really miss breaking down and waiting for a ride, I felt those were the best times you could go into deep thought.
Jake.
In my last position I worked with a young lady from South America who pronounced the Ford Focus name as 'Ford Fucus'. After a good laugh we told her she might want to change that.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
January 10, 2020 at 8:01 pm
I don't blame you on this one, I'm still driving my 11 year old Hyundai Sonata, still drives nicely and can't beat the fact that it's been paid off for years. (I did manage to find a manual transmission one too!)
One of my best car deals was a 1988 Buick Century with only 32K miles that I bought for $2000 in the early 2000's from my cousin when my uncle passed away. I did a minimum of 30 miles a day, so this saved lots of miles on my newer car.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
January 10, 2020 at 8:05 pm
skeleton567 wrote:Karl-463336 wrote:One of my favorite cars to have owned was a 1972 Opel GT. sight lines similar to a corvette, but on a smaller scale. It was a lot of fun to drive, especially on the winding roads of New Hampshire. Presently I drive my 9 year old reliable Toyota Camry. Boring, but a comfortable ride. None of the bells and whistles (excuse me, safety features) you see in today's cars.
Karl, that is interesting because I had at one point a brand-new 1968 Opel station wagon and it was absolutely the worst vehicle I ever had. The problem was that when the weather was rainy or cold it would not start. Dealer couldn't find the problem. That was the point in life where my finances were the tightest, changing jobs, starting a family, and I many times had to jog from 1600 North Johnson Street to 2600 South Michigan Street to get to work by 7:30 to 5:30, then back to a second job from 6:00 pm until 10:00 PM, then home, even through northern winter .
Now, of course, I wish I COULD jog like that!
My 2008 Opel (sold by Saturn in the US when Saturn existed) Astra that I bought new in December,2008 is about to turn over 200,000 miles and has been very reliable for me. There have been a few more costly repairs but I certainly have gotten my money's worth...
Often the more costly repairs are better in the long run than borrowing money and buying.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
January 10, 2020 at 8:18 pm
I currently drive a 2008 Porsche Cayman S which I bought new and it is still a thrill to drive, whether it be around town, on a winding back road, or on a track. Also have a Subaru Forester, which is pretty much the antithesis of the Porsche and that's fine. It's a reliable work horse and I appreciate its simplicity: everything you need and nothing you don't. Before the Cayman I had a purple (Northwestern alum) 1996 BMW M3 (awesome handling and a bullet-proof engine) and back in the 70s had a Datsun 240Z. The 240Z was unique back then in that it was a reliable sports car. Its styling resembled an XKE Jaguar but without the headaches that came with the Jag.
Picking a dream car would be tough only because there are so many that get me stoked.
The list would, for sure, include a Porsche 911 Turbo, Audi R8, a Mercedes AMG, classic Shelby Cobra, Audi A8, and maybe a Mercedes G-class.
January 10, 2020 at 10:46 pm
I have owned and driven in more cars and trucks that I can remember.
I owned a Mitsubishi Montero some years ago. It was a good 4-wheel drive vehicle. Pretty comfortable to drive. But the gas mileage was fair at best. I did a little bit of off roading with it, but I had to be careful since it was our only car.
Our organization had a Chevy Impala that was a very comfortable car to drive (provided you didn't get the one with over 200,000 miles on it).
I currently have a 2012 GMC 4-wheel drive truck. It has the crew cab since we have family we have to haul around. Fairly decent gas mileage for a full size truck.
January 13, 2020 at 8:33 am
Mondeo Mk3.
Bullet proof.
January 13, 2020 at 12:57 pm
I'm way too young (still) it seems when reading through others' car list.
I've owned two cars myself and both of them gave my heart and Soul much fun.
First off my now deceased Ford Fiesta 5 Door Hatchback from 2009, this was my first car and I paid it in full right away - that was 6 months after starting my first DBA Job. It still is one of the most awesome cars I've driven at it's price. Titanium Spec and the 1.6l Duratec engine (which was rated for 250+ BHP and was the engine used on the last gen Ford Fiesta ST) with "just" 120 BHP, I even got the "S" Airbox later on which added another 7 BHP. Man this was so much fun to drive, Forget the 120 BHP, try 1050 kg curb weight as a factor instead. At one point on the Autobahn I measured 220 km/h (factory claim was 193 km/h!)which was not via Speedometer but via GPS because Ford is / was awesome and didn't limit revs on the last gear, in fact when I was going that fast even a Porsche Cayman S just let me pass because I think either the car was literally screaming at him at 6700+ RPM or he couldn't believe a Fiesta would be able to drive that fast - back then there was no Fiesta ST yet available.
But leave that Porsche aside, while I drove back from Croatia (which is my family's origin) I was while still on twisty back roads approached by a german (sigh!) M3 E92 with that infamous V8 under it's bonnet in my Fiesta I decided not to accept such a fat and (imo) ugly car in my close rear view Mirror. Initially there was 1 car length distance, by the time the next straight bit came which was about 3 km later I've increased the distance to 5 car lengths, and the local guy in front of me in his whatever old car, too!
Ofcourse that Bimmer Fanboi was utterly mad at us so he took that 1 km straight to overtake both of us in his (*yawn*) V8 just to right away leave the motorway for the next gas station. Needless to say I didn't have to stop for at least another 200 km so I never saw him again.
I also got me a 2010 Ford Focus RS in that awesome green color, despite having much more power (last we've measured was 357 BHP up from 306 BHP Stock without even touching the ECU or injectors, there were other Upgrades in place to make that happen, tho - including a custom made set of HRE Wheels) having a LSD and being able to turn off driving aids - there wasn't even an ESC off button in the Fiesta, yet it allowed me to do alot of very silly things including power drifts without a blink of interruption - today you'd call that a "AI based whatever stability control depending on your skills" - to the point that under extremely hard braking it would feel almost not distinguisable to a proper Motorsport ABS System. On twisty roads you could easily keep up with a Nissan GT-R as they have to brake waaaay earlier than you do.
I did unfortunately crash the Fiesta, the RS has taken a different route meanwhile. It's a custom build still in progress purely for racing / track day purposes and it should once finished have north of 700 BHP output at the wheels.
In the meanwhile I've driven only rental cars (I usually only need a car for the weekend, no point in buying and maintaining a car for that) but amongst those the most honorable mentions would be:
and to mention the least adorable drivers' car from a rental: Volvo XC90 man, this was wobbling even if you were going simply straight without any real bumps anywhere on the road.
The most powerful car I've driven would've been a Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 which at that point was running at 650 BHP on the selector (10 driving modes between 350 and 1000+ BHP rolling road ECU Mappings just a click from your hand away!). The most powerful drive I was in was a (losely related in Hardware) Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 with a power output of 1 BHP / kg with selectable AWD / RWD (one click, of course!) mode, or to put it into a different perspective: 1200 bhp and kg means you are a sh*tload faster from 0 - 300 than a Bugatti Veyron - there the Veyron would pass but that's just because of the gearbox rating chosen. The measured 0 - 300 time was 11 seconds flat, and that's before you start cornering (that's the part which you'd want to avoid with a Veyron).
If I'd want to buy a new car right now it would be something between the Shelby GT350R (130k € over here in Europe :-(( ) the AMG GT-R modified with a flat-plane crank or the Alfa Romeo Giulia QV. I don't need the space for kids or even rear seats (I'd even throw out the passenger seat - no more "would you take me out on a ride pretty please?!" - "NO!") as long as I can fit a box of beer (24x0.33l to 0.5l) in the car I got all the cargo space I need, wether for shopping or going on Holiday, if the rest would be otherwise preferrably used by T45 welded round steel going from the front damper mountings all the way to the back damper mountings I'd have enough of a "ok, this is safe enough to drive" feeling.
January 13, 2020 at 4:52 pm
HAHAHA the old wagon with wood paneling. Classic 🙂
If you do look for a 928, find out when electrical work was last performed. They are notorious for their electrical bugs.
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