• orca ( orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts ) 
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    2 months ago

    I love my manual 2015 Fit. Over 212k miles and still going strong. I bought it a few months ago. 1 owner before me. Had to put a little work into it but it was all general maintenance stuff (brakes and a bad fuel injector). Not quite 20 years old but still.

    • caurvo ( caurvo@aussie.zone ) 
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      2 months ago

      Yellow hatchback club 💛

      I bought a 2014 Swift Sport but the CVT had too much distance and was clearly a time bomb. Moved it on but loved driving a non-monochrome car so much, I ended up with a slightly newer model with a normal torque converter (ZC33S) and still in yellow at 1/6th the distance.

      • orca ( orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts ) 
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        2 months ago

        I’ve always heard CVTs were a bit of a gamble. The manual was a challenge to find, but the upside was that most people were looking for automatics anyway, so the few manuals I found weren’t getting a ton of clicks. I was originally looking to get a Civic hatchback, but they were too old and there were too many half-baked project cars.

        Those Swift hatchbacks are killer! I love Suzukis. My friend in high school had one of those little 90s Vitaras. We would ride to the beach in it to go surfing. So much fun to whip around town in.

        My wife and I are both all in on the anti-monochrome club. Our other vehicle is a 2021 Kia Sorento turbo AWD in sapphire blue. The colors compliment each other nicely in the driveway 😂

      • mrgoosmoos ( mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca ) 
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        2 months ago

        lightweight cars are fine in the winter. just get snow tires and drive well

        source: drove a Tercel in the winter for years, did it later on with a Yaris as well

        I dislike heavier cars because they have so much more momentum. hard to change direction with little traction and you run into things with more energy. little cars you can just spin the wheels, find some traction, and go where you’re pointing.

      • Sailing7 ( Sailing7@lemmy.ml ) 
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        2 months ago

        Agree to the other guy next to me. Light cars are no bad in snow. Just wear winter tires. No all season crap.

        And actually lighter cars sometimes are even better in the snow. They usually have thinner tires as for example a heavy suv. More pressure on thinner area. More space for snow and walter to flee towards.

        Also because of the heavy weight of suvs and such such heavy cars are more likely to slidder. Just imagine a wet floor in a shop. Now imagine yourself as a kid sliding over it and how far you would go. Now imagine the same as an full grown adult - but with the same speed. You will go further. Wayy further.

        Also if you have suuuper much snow under your tires - lets say you slided and went off the road into a field that has tons of snow.

        Your small car wont weigh down in the snow that much. Making it not sink that much. Wich makes the chance higher that you will be able to recover/drive back to the road by yourself higher.

        All around lighter car? Better for winter.

  • Cars used to be made to get you somewhere. Now they cost 4 times as much and are full of government-mandated surveillance equipment and random gadgets that are expensive to fix when they break. And they’re twice as heavy.

    The only thing that’s gotten better is safety.

    I miss when cars were cars

    • Now they cost 4 times as much

      Pricing on cars with similar features and performance have been going up slower than general inflation, but as you mention they keep increasing the features/performance of the base models.

      When I was really getting into cars in the 90’s, it seemed like the base models of economy brands were pretty barebones. But over time what previously was optional became standard: air conditioning, automatic transmission, power locks/windows, floor mats, a decent car stereo, cruise control, etc.

      And the things that used to differentiate luxury brands/models just became standard over time: traction control, good acceleration/handling, clear coat over the paint, rust resistance. In the 90’s, it was still possible to buy a vehicle that took more than 10 seconds to accelerate to 60mph (~100km/h).

      And of course, a bunch of safety stuff became standard in large part because of regulation: airbags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, backup cameras. And fuel efficiency has gotten much better on the engineering side, for any given level of performance and vehicle weight. Emissions have similarly improved by regulation.

      So cars have gotten so much better, while basically getting more expensive slightly slower than general inflation. So it’s hard to compare apples to apples between decades.

  • adarza ( adarza@lemmy.ca ) 
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    2 months ago

    awhile back i saw a toyota prius hybrid with ‘collector’ plates that are used by classic and antique car owners (and cheapskates that want the cheaper plates in exchange for some use limits).

  • That audi is around 2008-2011 (15-18yrs), but one gen before that, yes 20 years old.

    And cars don’t really age that terribly anymore (at least the 1.9 TDI era). My 2002 golf is (if we ignore the reliability and the swimming pools) way better than the newer 1.6 TDIs I’ve sat in, and it will probably outlast them.

      • Water in my boot door. Great.

        It actually leaks trough the adhesive between the glass and metal. Not really enjoyable. It sounds like a swimming pool on every road except the highways. Will have to add some silicone (or putty) to hopefully stop it (since glass reattachments are expensive.

        Also: it’s the car of the Dieselgate era. Those are (in my opinion) the strongest and most reliable diesels ever made. Maybe VW was onto something when cheating the emission tests (well probably they could just add better filters, which would make them less money), but that doesn’t make the cars bad.

      • Wow, I heard of Hondas. In the EU, the VW 1.9 TDIs are known for lasting into the similar teritories. But mine is under 200.000Kms and will probably rot away before reaching high mileage. But if I can, I’ll keep it good as long as I can.

      • watson ( watson387@sopuli.xyz ) 
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        2 months ago

        Especially now that they’re turning them into sports cars, like everyone needs a 3 ton speeding death machine that they can’t see over the dashboard in.

        • boonhet ( boonhet@sopuli.xyz ) 
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          2 months ago

          In what world are crossovers (what was likely meant by “the SUV thing”, since everyone’s making those) practical if wagons have more cargo space for the same amount of euros and feel better to drive?

          Get an SUV or a wagon if you’re looking at crossovers. SUV if you actually need proper ground clearance, wagon if you need space but drive mostly on roads. Don’t get a crossover, they’re shit. Minivans obviously are the epitome of practicality IF you need 7+ seats or tons of cargo space, or the option to have either.

          Audi in particular is known for making wagons of varying price and performance, including in the age pictured in OP. I’ll agree that minus the additional comfort of having an enclosed trunk (less noise) a sedan isn’t “better” than an SUV or a wagon though. But a crossover is the worst of both worlds between SUVs and wagons or hatchbacks.

          I have one of these, also 20 years old, it’ll beat pretty much any bullshit crossover in both off-road performance and on-road comfort. While having cargo capacity up the wazoo and towing capacity of nearly 2 metric tons. Of course there are better ones if you only drive on roads, I like having the freedom to go where most SUV drivers don’t dare and most crossover drivers simply can’t. It’s also got more cargo space than the similarly priced Audi Q5 crossover. Loses to the Q7, but that’s a big behemoth with a much bigger price tag, it’s largely the extra width and length that give it more space, not just the extra height from being a crossover.

          But you could also have this one, actually the same chassis, just won’t go as tall as my Allroad’s max setting. Has a biturbo V10:

          Or if you’re shopping crossovers that don’t try to pretend they’re big SUVs, you could have the A4 Avant, smaller than the A6/RS6 chassis pictured above, but still more trunk space than many crossovers. Can be had with some pretty tiny engines, nearly as small and dinky as your average crossover, with pretty good fuel economy. Or go as big as a 4.2 V8 in older models in the RS4 spec. You’ve got options.

          And of course many other manufacturers still offer wagons too. You don’t have to get an expensive (or formerly expensive) one.

          And you can even get EV wagons nowadays, no longer are EV buyers stuck with ugly crossovers that have no reason to exist:

          • TBF crossovers basically replaced compact-ish cars like the later VW Golf generations or Ford Focus. The added SUV shit is obviously counterproductive, but the length is IMO a pretty good compromise between outside dimensions and cargo space/adults actually being able to sit somewhat comfortably in the back seats, especially when roadside parking is the standard in your area.

        • rumschlumpel ( rumschlumpel@feddit.org ) 
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          2 months ago

          Other way around IMO, the additional possibilities don’t weigh as heavy as the impact on the environment and traffic infrastructure (worse road safety for other traffic participants, especially pedestrians, bicyclists and people in small cars, more spaced used on roads and for parking, higher weight, worse fuel efficiency) and some of those issues affect the SUV drivers, too (worse visibility = more accidents, harder to find parking, more money paid for fuel). Minivans are different IMO because they solve the “I need a big car for all the people and luggage I’m transporting”-issue with much better road safety and space efficiency.

            • I didn’t talk about trucks, but my opinion on them is pretty similar. No one picks an SUV over a lorry truck, and there aren’t that many people who genuinely need a pickup truck instead of a (often smaller) van or regular sedan/station wagon types of cars, especially if it’s not for their job. IMO, even if a pickup truck is sometimes useful, it rarely makes sense to use it as your day-to-day vehicle instead of buying a sedan and renting a bigger car when you actually need it.

      • JillyB ( JillyB@beehaw.org ) 
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        2 months ago

        Luckily the first gen Audi TT managed to avoid it. I had one that I bought for cheap and all my coworkers though it was much newer and more expensive.