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Sep. 23rd, 2012 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chhotiiI haven't decided what kind of car to buy.
I test-drove tb's nearly new, but slightly broken in, Fit. The reaction was neither OMG I love this car nor well, that rules that out. Interesting factor to consider: apparently the Fit Sport has better mpg than the generic Fit. The Fit Sport comes in pumpkin orange (yes!!!) but tb says that the spoiler messes with the rear-window visibility (boo!!!!!!).
I've discovered this useful website for generating a list of candidates, especially since I want to consider fuel economy first and then rule out based on other factors. Just a couple of minor quibbles with their otherwise neat searching feature: One, the don't have number of doors as a search criterion, and thus my results get cluttered up with items such as the Scion IQ which are complete non-starters. Two, although you can restrict your search results by price (MSRP), you can't sort by that criterion.
There are tons of electric and hybrid cars now. Not just the Insight (which looks like it must have a bad case of the rear window visibility blues) and the Volt (too expensive) and the Prius (irritating in all kinds of ways from what I have heard). So I have to make a decision on whether I could possibly be interested. I heard an On Point discussion some time ago: these people, who specialize in figuring out the total environmental impact of various products over the entire life-cycle of the product, said that it still wasn't clear whether electric/hybrid vehicles are a net win overall environmentally. Yes they are very energy efficient, but they have these big batteries, see, which contain all kinds of exotic metals. Until and unless the environmental benefit of a electric vehicle is compelling, do I even what to bother?
So if I rule out electric and hybrid vehicles, various diesel-powered VWs pop to the top of the list. Interestingly, Consumer Reports claims that the reliability of the VW Golf is quite good. Really? Seriously? Apparently there are tons of Golf owners out there who are quite pleased. However, this might have just been over the first few years of the lives of the cars: maybe VWs typically do great for a couple of years and then die. Another interesting thing, the same report in Consumer Reports reported very poor reliability for the Jetta. I suspect that the true state of affairs is that the variability in reliability among any type of VW is really large, and that therefore the difference in average reliability that CR saw between the Golf and the Jetta is just sampling error, rather than reflecting any real difference between the Golf and the Jetta. But, anyway, I'm happy enough deciding that if I do consider any VW, it will only be Golf, just in case. So, do I want to risk getting another Golf? Hrm. They are cute.
The Hyundai Accent and the Kia Rio pop up as among the better-mpg four-door regular-gasoline options. I would have never thought to consider these. Is this just snobbery, because these cars are kind of generic, or is this disdain based on something real? Wonder what CR says about them...
The Toyota Yaris and the Nissan Versa are reported to have the same mpg values. The Yaris is a hatchback, which theoretically I like, but it's a bit ugly. Rich has a Scion, maybe I don't need a hatchback? Then there's the Honda Civic HF and the Ford Fiesta, which are both pretty cute.
I'll see what Rich thinks of getting a second opinion from Lou's Custom Exhaust on my car. But that will at best postpone the new-car decision a bit; I probably can't punt it entirely.
I test-drove tb's nearly new, but slightly broken in, Fit. The reaction was neither OMG I love this car nor well, that rules that out. Interesting factor to consider: apparently the Fit Sport has better mpg than the generic Fit. The Fit Sport comes in pumpkin orange (yes!!!) but tb says that the spoiler messes with the rear-window visibility (boo!!!!!!).
I've discovered this useful website for generating a list of candidates, especially since I want to consider fuel economy first and then rule out based on other factors. Just a couple of minor quibbles with their otherwise neat searching feature: One, the don't have number of doors as a search criterion, and thus my results get cluttered up with items such as the Scion IQ which are complete non-starters. Two, although you can restrict your search results by price (MSRP), you can't sort by that criterion.
There are tons of electric and hybrid cars now. Not just the Insight (which looks like it must have a bad case of the rear window visibility blues) and the Volt (too expensive) and the Prius (irritating in all kinds of ways from what I have heard). So I have to make a decision on whether I could possibly be interested. I heard an On Point discussion some time ago: these people, who specialize in figuring out the total environmental impact of various products over the entire life-cycle of the product, said that it still wasn't clear whether electric/hybrid vehicles are a net win overall environmentally. Yes they are very energy efficient, but they have these big batteries, see, which contain all kinds of exotic metals. Until and unless the environmental benefit of a electric vehicle is compelling, do I even what to bother?
So if I rule out electric and hybrid vehicles, various diesel-powered VWs pop to the top of the list. Interestingly, Consumer Reports claims that the reliability of the VW Golf is quite good. Really? Seriously? Apparently there are tons of Golf owners out there who are quite pleased. However, this might have just been over the first few years of the lives of the cars: maybe VWs typically do great for a couple of years and then die. Another interesting thing, the same report in Consumer Reports reported very poor reliability for the Jetta. I suspect that the true state of affairs is that the variability in reliability among any type of VW is really large, and that therefore the difference in average reliability that CR saw between the Golf and the Jetta is just sampling error, rather than reflecting any real difference between the Golf and the Jetta. But, anyway, I'm happy enough deciding that if I do consider any VW, it will only be Golf, just in case. So, do I want to risk getting another Golf? Hrm. They are cute.
The Hyundai Accent and the Kia Rio pop up as among the better-mpg four-door regular-gasoline options. I would have never thought to consider these. Is this just snobbery, because these cars are kind of generic, or is this disdain based on something real? Wonder what CR says about them...
The Toyota Yaris and the Nissan Versa are reported to have the same mpg values. The Yaris is a hatchback, which theoretically I like, but it's a bit ugly. Rich has a Scion, maybe I don't need a hatchback? Then there's the Honda Civic HF and the Ford Fiesta, which are both pretty cute.
I'll see what Rich thinks of getting a second opinion from Lou's Custom Exhaust on my car. But that will at best postpone the new-car decision a bit; I probably can't punt it entirely.
