Just get a Tesla already. (I have actually road-tripped in one, and the stops are pretty much when you would stop for bathroom etc. breaks anyway, especially with kids in the car).
American company, though. (Which seems an odd stricture. Some American cars are terrible; some are good.)
Ogged is a treacherous Persian. What do you expect?
We lease through Costco, and take the low mileage expectation. This keeps our cars new, which has become important to my wife even though she suffered with marginal vehicles for years, and gives us all the car we need. Toyota Corolla, once a small but now a mid-size family sedan. We're on our third now.
2 - I thought Tesla was hq'd on Mars now.
I think collision-avoidance systems are pretty awesome from a safety point of view (we have a Subaru Forester with their version, called EyeSight). As a bonus, you tend to get adaptive cruise control, which is also great for road trips.
In-car infotainment systems range from OK to terrible but are marketed way too heavily since you're probably just going to put your phone on the dash anyway for navigation and/or music.
You could get one with autopilot, which means you don't have to pay attention when you are driving.
Our minivan is almost 11 years old, currently mothballed while we're away. Not American but it's been pretty good aside from a few recalls that were free repairs.
An acquaintance likes his Traverse but I think that's considered an SUV.
1: What if you didn't piss right in front of the car?
I don't know if they're good anymore, but I've always wanted a Cadillac.
I read that wrong. If not from an American company, just go get a Lexus already, like all the rich doctor families.
Oh, I missed that, I also thought it was from an American company. If not, and you still want a minivan, Odyssey and Sienna I think are still considered leaders in minivans.
A generalized relictance to buy American is pig-ignorant at this point. That said, what are you looking for? Two kids, right? Is this the family's only car and will you need space to haul stuff? Do you actually want to go fast or just avoid feeling like a broke loser in a shitty minivan?
My inclination is to say get a wagon. We've talked about the V60 and the Polestar, but you could also just get a used post-2012 or 2013 3 Series Wagon which is rad. If you value going fast your choice (or mine if I wasn't on a "no spending on cars budget") would be a pre-2015 WRX hatch, super fun and room for your kids and stuff. But with two kids and not a ton of need for hauling you could also get any sedan, or you could just say fuck it I want DVD players for the kids and tons of space in which case just get an Odyssey or a Pacifica.
Anyhow, on features I haven't spent much time in a car with collision avoidance but I guess that's a good thing though it feels intuitively lame to me. I really like back-up cameras, another feature that feels intuitively lame but I find super useful once you get used to it. I would probably pay a small premium for a backup camera though all of these things pale in comparison to the car basics.
Also a used Acura TSX wagon might be a good choice if you can find one. I forget the last model year they made a wagon.
Finally, if you're thinking electric I would wait until next year and get the Chevy Bolt on a lease.
Like Kevin Drum, I've trained myself to ignore the backup camera when actually backing up, reverting to cranking myself around and looking out the backlight like I was taught. I only use the camera for assessing how close I am to other objects, otherwise not so easy as the corners of a modern car are much harder to see than they were on (much) older models.
Back-up cameras are genuinely great. Adaptive cruise control is wonderful if you do a bunch of highway driving. Having a relatively simple and easy-to-use touchscreen for various controls (which my V60 does not have, by the way) is a plus. Overall, though, cars are SO MUCH BETTER now than they used to be, that it's really quite amazing.
Is there a story about how perfidious Toyota manipulates the stats so Lexus tops the quality ratings so often (i.e. the two or three non-sequential years I checked)? Maybe those were flukes.
I'm extremely partial to anything with enough of a hybrid drive to avoid burning gas at low speeds/idle, but I don't know how many high-performing larger cars match that description. Also, the two certified used cars I've bought from a dealer have worked out well for me.
Right. They're best thought of not as "now I never have to turn around again" but as "now I can get a really precise sense of 'how close am I to that.'" That's still really useful, I find, a source of anxiety in the car reduced.
If a 3-series diesel wagon hadn't cost the moon, I would have bought one instead of the Volvo. Getting close to 50 mpg on the highway was nice (I had a diesel Jetta Sportwagen -- if you can't trust German industrialists, who can you trust?), and diesel is often cheaper than gas in CA, but the $20k price difference made it seem impossibly stupid.
I'm just always afraid there is a kid behind my car that I can't see, even when I know I'm not near any kids. I'd really like a back-up camera.
What do you mean by fast? Presumably you're not planning to do much more that 20% above the limit, and pretty much any car that you can realistically expect to do road trips with kids in is built to do twice that these days. Are you after good acceleration? Or efficient performance at speeds below the maximum?
Wait to buy a fully electric car until the national charging infrastructure isn't laughably inadequate. Is the Bolt going to be the tipping point? (Also the Chevy Tesla-competitor muscle car will have to be the Colt, right? Or the Jolt? (Gullwing electric monstrosity for eccentric Hungarian count: Zzolt))
Yeah, back-up cameras are weird. I do glance at it before I turn around, in case there's something/someone close to the car I can't see, but the utility there seems marginal. It's much more useful for parking, and for that I almost wish I had a front-facing camera at the same close-to-the-bumper height.
27 - he means the feeling of driving fast, which can be accomplished through acceleration and car design. "Slow car fast." Probably the Fiesta ST is the fastest "feeling" car on the market for that. But there's a tradeoff between that kind of fast feeling and the feeling of being in a big comfortable powerful cruiser for roadtripping with kids. A "faster" wagon would give you some of both.
The Volvo has front sensors (and maybe a front camera one can turn on?). They warn me of things all the time. They seem very anxious.
It's a bit like driving with my grandmother. She survived Hitler.
"Trump's campaign has revealed that something over 40% of the U.S. electorate is openly racist."
I've got a little Hyundai Accent that feels hella fast. Its all about the engine/weight ratio. You don't need a big engine if the car is super light.
Also, its a manual. That's important.
My dad once had an absurd little Geo Metro. That was very light and really fun to drive, unless you had to go very far.
The Geo Metro was basically made out of paper and rode terribly but it was light and fun. Because it was so light it got better MPG than most hybrids do today.
fuck it I want DVD players for the kids and tons of space in which case just get an Odyssey
Exactly. About a year and a half ago we got a slightly used 2013 Odyssey EXL and I love that thing. It's a road trip machine.
The best was driving it on empty roads after a snow. Unless the snow was really deep, the front wheels had enough weight on them to get traction but the rear tires never did. As long as you could accelerate enough to keep the front of the car ahead of the rear, you were fine.
My dad had that car. It used to get blown around. On the plus side, sometimes you could park in between metered spaces.
I hated it on the interstate. Fortunately, Nebraska is very good at not having many interstates.
My car is old enough that it doesn't have any electronics. When the Russians launch the EMP I'll wave to you from the road.
I am driving a Mini Countryman lately, which I like, if anything it handles/accelerates too smoothly. This is after years of driving a Saab 9-3 which I loved like a child. I could give a fuck about the backup camera, and miss a very specific feature on the Saab which is that for night driving you could dim most of the control lights WITHOUT dimming the speed indicator. And maybe the gas gauge? Don't remember.
I am driving a Mini Countryman lately, which I like, if anything it handles/accelerates too smoothly. This is after years of driving a Saab 9-3 which I loved like a child. I could give a fuck about the backup camera, and miss a very specific feature on the Saab which is that for night driving you could dim most of the control lights WITHOUT dimming the speed indicator. And maybe the gas gauge? Don't remember.
I am driving a Mini Countryman lately, which I like, if anything it handles/accelerates too smoothly. This is after years of driving a Saab 9-3 which I loved like a child. I could give a fuck about the backup camera, and miss a very specific feature on the Saab which is that for night driving you could dim most of the control lights WITHOUT dimming the speed indicator. And maybe the gas gauge? Don't remember.
I'm just always afraid there is a kid behind my car that I can't see, even when I know I'm not near any kids
Strap a kid to the back of your car and then you'll always know there's a kid behind your car.
Couldn't you just put those little spikey things they have on awnings to keep the pigeons away?
48: and they can function as a warning system!
45-48: When I first saw one of those I thought, "Huh, a Mini for people who hate Minis."
for night driving you could dim most of the control lights WITHOUT dimming the speed indicator. And maybe the gas gauge?
Yes! Gas gauge when it got below a certain point, and the outside temperature gauge if it was below freezing, I think, so you knew to be careful for ice. Had forgotten that completely (briefly had a much-loved Saab 9-3 a decade ago; still regret giving it up when I moved back to a car-optional city) but it was surprisingly great to have that little extra darkness.
32: I love my Fiesta ST, but it's not the smoothest ride for passengers (especially if you're making the most of it) - imagine it would be hellish with carsick children. Although our U.K. country roads are pretty twisty.
Re features I can no longer live without: heated seats. Sounds like a silly luxury, but now that I have it, I love it. Similarly the heated windscreen, but IME it's only Ford that fit those
Surprisingly great if one listens only to the Jedi; but theirs is not the only wisdom.
37 My Honda Civic Si (only comes in manual) was zippy and hella fun to drive. If they sold them here I'd probably just buy one and bury my dune-bashing four-wheeling desert expedition plans for good. OTOH traffic here is unreal.
This is so timely! The OP is exactly our situation, except ours is a 2006 minivan and we've probably got a year or so left of patience with it.
I got a new car with a right side view camera and backup camera. Right side view camera is pretty good to have and makes merging a lot easier. Push to start is also surprisingly a nice feature.
Having driven a glorified Transit van for nearly 7 years, I'm still (8 months later) finding electric windows that you can close even after you've taken the key out and opened the door to be the height of luxury and really quite thrilling.
Obligatory link about the awesomeness of the Honda Odyssey: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/soccer-moms-revenge/
Backup cameras are good for making sure you're not about to run over a kid. I initially assumed we'd get a minivan, and the Odysseys are really nice, but then I thought, fuck it, I want to drive fast* and enjoy it, and there has to be something that can do that and still have room for the kids. I'm looking at the V60/3-series Wagon/Audi Allroad triumvirate, but they have tons of options that I'm disinclined to get, and I don't want to be a stupid grump about something that's actually useful.
*both good acceleration, and top speed. I mean, I'm not a crazy person, but I could drive our Prius over 100mph in New Mexico, and I'd like to do things like that but feel a little safer (not with the kids in the car, obviously).
Electric cars, at least for now, don't really scratch the "go wherever the fuck you want" itch that cars scratch for me. There were two gas stations in friggin' Crown/point, NM. Pretty sure they won't be getting a supercharger anytime soon.
The Audi Allroads were famously SO unreliable for so long that I'm prejudiced against them given the cost. They are certainly better now but still.
Why yes, I do drive a Honda Odyssey.
Audi Allroads were famously SO unreliable
Good to know! The 2017s look nice, but I haven't done a ton of research on them yet.
You, personally, should either get another Odyssey or abandon some of the children and get a cooler car.
54: in fact my then-gf's kid used to call it Darth Vader's car, thought the interior looked like his tie fighter--gratuitous array of black knobs and buttons on an all-black panel, sinister yellowish glow from the gauges.
The features of our current car I miss when I drive a rental without them: blind-spot warning; keyless entry/pushbutton start. Backup camera is nice but not necessary. After a year of getting beeped at when there's a car in the lane next to me, I find it hard to trust my eyes alone when changing lanes now. And having to dig keys out of pocket/bag has become intolerable.
Keyless is very nice, it's true. Out Prius has that. I feel like the side warning systems aren't necessary if you set up your mirrors properly.
No idea why 45-7 posted so many times--probably bc I just REALLY liked that Saab--but all the points therein stand. I eyerolled at the idea of a big Mini too (it's my parents' car), but it handles/feels like a much smaller car partly because the chassis is low. My problem is that (1) I like just a little a bit of resistance when accelerating which it doesn't have so I'll be up to 80 before I even think to check speed and (2) the hood is too curved so I have less of an idea of what space the car is taking up than I like to have.
I think my objections to the backup camera may be unique to me but it actually leads to me to mix up brakes and gas which is... not good.
68.last Drive a manual, Stabby. Adding a third pedal will help you keep the other two separate.
I used to have a push to start car for a while but it turns out that if you park it on a hill no one has to push at all
69 my refusal to learn to drive stick is the only scrap of rebellion against my family I have left.
67: definitely not necessary, but I find the extra assurance soothing enough that I miss it when I don't have it.
Other feature of the current car I would not give up--but only relevant on a manual--is "launch assist", which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds but still very nice: if you're stopped on a hill, it'll give you a second or two of brake after you take your foot off the brake pedal to give you a chance to get in gear without rolling backwards.
B...b...but isn't getting into gear fast enough to not roll backward one of the big pieces of flair you can get in manual driving?
I have an Odyssey as well. My younger kid, three years old, doesn't like it because the rear windows are the kind that don't roll down all the way, unlike the ones on my wife's car.
How does a Subaru Outback feel to drive?
73: yeah, I almost preemptively acknowledged that having that feature makes me less of a man (though to be clear, this is a joint car and my only role in choosing it was to veto the ridiculous subcompact we otherwise would have ended up with). It's still nice, so that I don't have to worry about the jackass behind me leaving 3 mm between his bumper and mine at the light.
How does a Subaru Outback feel to drive?
How would I know? I'm not a lesbian.
The gf has an Audi Q5. Comfortable and powerful, but don't get one.
Have had, yes. Sporty new model.
those little spikey things they have on awnings to keep the pigeons away
Nixalite. My favorite brand name, bar none.
80+ comments, and no one's suggested Ogged get a bicycle instead? Standards, people.
There's a Subaru Outback LL Bean edition if you want to go full lez. Since you live in Chicago, I would throw in a free Rachel Maddow haircut for free.
How does a Subaru Outback feel to drive?
I love my Outback. But: I don't know anything about cars, and I don't mind being a stereotype (though some of the Subaru "love" ads are a bit much).
81: Named for the Hindu fascist movement?
Buy matching hers and hers Subarus and we throw in the golden retriever for free!
I did not love test-driving the Outback, even compared to a Forester. It felt big and boaty.
Yes, in all seriousness the current version of the Outback is dumb. The Forrester is better these days if you want to have that lesbian feeling. The Crosstrek is an abomination unto the Lord.
(I wanted to love the fake-paddle-shifters that control the CVT, but that didn't make up for feeling big and slow. I suppose that's why there's a 3.6L version, yikes).
The Crosstrek is an abomination unto the Lord.
Wow, really? I could almost covet a Crosstrek (though I'm perfectly happy with the Outback, and I wouldn't say no to a golden retriever). Why am I wrong?
The Crosstrek is just a stupid heavy shell over the body of the Impreza, which is a fine car (and in many ways closest to the old Outback).
So you have a heavy, slow, stupid car for no reason. Crossover!
The boatiness of the Outback is universally attested by friends who have driven it.
Von Wafer, T5 or T6? How do you like it?
Well, I guess I don't know about the reason for any of this. I don't doubt your assessment, Tigre, I just honestly don't understand the grounds on which you assess.
When it comes to cars, I'm ignorant and shallow, and therefore extremely vulnerable to a clever, or even to a laughably clunky, aspirational advertising campaign (when it comes to car-buying, I'm the equivalent of a Trump supporter, in other words). I want to believe, say, that my car can easily transport a kayak or a canoe (not that I often, or even ever, need to move a kayak or a canoe, admittedly: like I said, aspirational). And the Crosstrek ads are all about golden retrievers and kayaks! whereas the Impreza ads ... er, I guess I've never paid any attention to an Impreza ad; but maybe I should?
More seriously, I sometimes think I should take one of those auto-mechanics-for-clueless-car-owners classes (you know, one of those adult night classes at the local high school, or something). Whenever something goes wrong with the car, I'm the one to take it into the shop, and I feel very uncomfortable (like a helpless female, really) at the auto body repair shop.
I have no idea how to fix almost anything on a car and mostly you can't fix anything of significance anyway because of modern computerized systems.* I just like to waste time on the internet reading about cars, know some auto journalists, and occasionally like to go and test drive random ones.
*most at-home enthusiast work on cars these days is either (a) repairing extremely old collector cars or (b) adding modifications of various kinds, many of which are dumb, some of which are super cool, but almost all of which will kill your car's resale value. As in many areas, the traditional practical masculine pursuit of car maintenance is these days mostly either a display of pointless nostalgia or notably stupid consumerism.
For a while last year, my 14-year old son was in a texting, social media "friendship" with a guy called Rocco (the older cousin of an age-appropriate friend, who lived with his mother in the apartment upstairs from said friend) who was into auto modifications that were apparently super cool and quite obviously hyper-masculine. I put the kibosh on this texting-based relationship when the 21-year old Rocco told my 14-year old son that he was a dating a girl he had met at the gym, who was into "golden showers" (at which point, I deeply regretted ever having moved to New Jersey in the first place: I mean, I like to see myself as tolerant and broad-minded, but I'm still a Catholic, after all). The masculine culture of cars and their maintenance remains a deep mystery to me.
76: the bed death stuff isn't mandatory, you know! My 2003 still keeps me very happy and the kids want more space (like Lee'a BMW SUV, nope) so I guess a vanlike future awaits. Even just a 7-seater allows them one friend apiece.
I once said, 100% in jest, to a woman I was having carnal relations with (by which I don't mean mid-coitus), "I want to pee on you." And she responded, 100% in earnest, "Ok, but not on my face." Now that's being game. (I did not pee on her, because I'm a feminist pee shy.)
I don't repair cars, but I've replaced bulbs and handles, and by extrapolation I say that it's extremely satisfying to 1) save a bunch of money 2) finish a discrete task and 3) puzzle out a complicated system.
i drive a 15 year old Lexus which still runs great, even though I don't take good care of my cars. It doesn't have a lot of miles, though.
I'm hoping the Lexus quality is actually good, and not a trick, cause running ok for a really long time is my chief requirement for a car.
Changing light bulbs and not peeing on anybody are also two of my activities.
I can also change a car battery and not engage in fecal play.
I've been very pleased with the Hyundai Elantra I got at the end of June. I sprang for the middle set of options. Features I love--keyless entry/push button start, keyless trunk (it senses that I'm standing there and opens--awesome when you've got two hands full of groceries, blind spot alarms, multiple driving modes (I try to stay on Eco, but drop into Sport occasionally). I really enjoy Apple CarPlay, but it's early days--needs more apps and to work over Bluetooth. One that I haven't had to use but makes me happy is the forward-looking sensor that will auto-brake if I'm about to run into something at high speed.
Two features in the next package up that I wanted but was unwilling to spring for--lane guidance and variable cruise. Oh well. This is probably my last car before something fully automatic, so I guess I'll just miss those.
One feature that I like but cost me a ticket is the damn thing rides so smooth at highway speeds that I routinely find myself going 20 or even 30 mph over the speed limit if I'' not paying attention and there's no traffic. Oops.
I was shopping for a car that was small, sporty SUVish type thing with AWD. I looked mostly at 3 year old cars. I hadn't owned a car since 2009, and that was a 1995. Wow, cars are different. I didn't like the Audi Q5 on the grounds of "not sporty enough." The seats were also kind of soft and wide for my taste. My favorite things on the car (I got a BMW X3 and yes I kind of hate me, too) are the panoramic sunroof, keyless entry, and the lights on the door handles, interior and exterior. Not sure whether all keyless entries are like this (since my last was so old), but to unlock, I just grab the handle and it unlocks all the doors, and to lock, I touch the top of the handle with one finger. When I walk up to the car after dark, the door handles light up. Same for putting it into park with the interios handles. It's nice that nobody fumbles to get out. I do wish I had seat heaters adaptive cruise and blind spot sensors and a backup camera, but since it was used, I didn't have all possible options, and it's a really fun car.
*most at-home enthusiast work on cars these days is either (a) repairing extremely old collector cars or (b) adding modifications of various kinds
There's also the reproduction builds, which are nuts these days. You can just get online and buy a brand new steel body kit for, say, a '56 Chevy and then start perusing crate engines right on Chevy's site.
102.last: The boyfriend got a ticket the second time he drove mine. I warned him it was easy to miss how fast the car was going. He was pulled over less than five minutes from where we live, going 60 in a 40. I have a speed warning set at 80 to try to keep from a "reckless endangerment" (or whatever it is here) speeding ticket.
I can't fix a car but I can recite all of Mona Lisa Vito's dialogue, which is even more useful.
Honda Fit! We love ours and once got applauded by strangers in a Home Depot parking lot when we managed to fit a box in the back that nobody thought we could possibly get in there.
IMX the best features on my Toyota crossover-thing are the perimeter cameras and the high-speed cool-down from the AC even when it has been sun-baked in Burbank. IMX parking without using the "Keep backing until you hear crunching" technique is much easier.
Because we lease now, I mostly don't practice my life-long habit of do-it-myself auto work as much as I did. Exceptions include the mirror my son knocked off one of our leased cars, which I ordered a genuine factory replacement for and we disassembled the door and replaced, and the work I've done on my son's and daughter's cars. Also fixed a truck while on a weekend getaway at a friend's house earlier this summer. So maybe a half dozen repairs a year, family cars mostly. My wife's tough-guy WWI-vet grandfather once said to me "You're lucky she's only got two brothers!"
I've been hearing that the days of home repair are over all my life. People were saying cars had become too complicated in the 60's, 70's and 80's too. It's true that engines now have software and sensors to adjust themselves—so that hopping-up is sometimes more like hacking than traditional hot rodding—but the fundamentals remain the same.
Basically I always owned old and cheap cars, so that I had very little money in them. I was also dis-inhibited, with no warranties or resale issues, so undertook whatever they needed as a part of car-ownership. I've driven hundreds of thousands of miles in such cars, often after major repairs I performed myself. I used to do this on the streets of Chicago, so that when I bought a house with a garage, I felt like I'd gone to heaven.
Limited slip differential, independent rear suspension, and metallic mint green paint.
I once said, 100% in jest, to a woman I was having carnal relations with (by which I don't mean mid-coitus), "I want to pee on you."
No judgement. No harm, no foul. But don't you even think about texting my boyo. And if your name is Rocco, I might even consider calling your mother.
I like my cars like I like my women. Limited slip differential, independent rear suspension, and metallic mint green paint.
I like my cars like I like my women. From before 1980 and with a seat covered in leather.
I like my women like the car from Tom Waits' "Soldier's Things": good transportation but the brakes aren't so hot.
Today I saw two women in leather pants. Or leather-looking. Is that coming back?
I like my cars like I like my men. A little bit fast, but well-oiled and over-insured.
Be careful when murdering somebody who has you as the beneficiary on their life insurance.
I leased for the first time this year, expecting that maybe we'll have really big technological changes in the next 3 years.
I like my women how I like my cars - always ten years away from full autonomy.
Today I saw two women in leather pants... Is that coming back?
It's really up to you to do the research before you go making changes to your wardrobe like that.
Today I saw two women in leather pants. Or leather-looking. Is that coming back?
I dunno for sure, but I definitely saw a lot of people wearing leather pants on Sunday.
There were two gas stations in friggin' Crown/point, NM. Pretty sure they won't be getting a supercharger anytime soon.
Two gas stations! Lap of freakin' luxury, I tell ya. (Though you are of course right about charging stations.)
To respond to other old comments, I drive an (old) Outback. It drives like a station wagon.
I have nothing to say about leather pants.
I have a lot to say about leather pants but none of it is information about whether they are coming back. I did see black leatherette gauchos on an Art Teen this week. They worked on her.
Since Stabby is here, I can also note that I did a lot of driving my mom's Mini on our camping trip the past couple of days. The low chassis is a challenge on rough dirt roads with lots of big rocks, but she doesn't seem too upset that I hit one and smashed her center taillight. (She does definitely want to get it fixed soon, though.)
I leased for the first time this year
This comment by someone about leasing seems obvious once you read it, but he's right, none of the online advice columns take it into account. I give it a solid "hmmm."
128 Tell her it's her own fault for scrapping the Saab which yes the electronics were fucked, but it had another 50,000 good miles in it.
My dad used to drive a car into the ground. That oil change indicator light? Eh, that's just a suggestion: keep driving!
I'll never forget being somewhere between Ottawa and Montreal with the gas tank on empty. Sacrament! There aren't a whole lot of rest stops en route to Montreal, it's not like driving in New Jersey. And my dad was so uncharacteristically pessimistic that I felt obliged to be uncharacteristically Pollyanna-ish and optimistic. Also, I was the one driving the damn car, and I had to pretend to not be freaked out by the Decarie Blvd (where "they drive like fools," in the immortal words of my mother). Later that night, my dad took me out to dinner in Old Montréal, and we had a grand old time. I had to drive me and my old man back to Ottawa in the morning, though.
130: That's not really how we roll. She bought the Mini after her Forester was totaled (or something; I forget the exact details of what happened). In our family we don't get rid of functioning cars. The 1989 Nissan pickup I drove in high school is currently in the shop for repairs that should be done on Monday.
That oil change indicator light? Eh, that's just a suggestion: keep driving!
To be fair, in my family we do maintain the cars. That's how they last so long.
129: Sadly, my takeaway from that comment is I don't have 720/month, so whatever lease/buy comparison I'm going to do will be on a shittier car (or loan). On the other hand, I still can't imagine leasing.
This reminds me I should get my car serviced next week. It's overdue and it has 140,000 miles on it.
I mean, we still drive them into the ground. But it takes a long time if they're properly maintained.
Idk my folks are frugal af mostly but go figure, not about cars and I reap both the joys and pains of their choice.
I also spend 80% of my days talking myself out of buying a 1978-9 El Camino because what the fuck am I going to do with that.
I'm curious about CS's thoughts re: leather pants.
I rented a fairly recent car last year while at a conference and it was a bit disorienting. There was a backup camera, which I did find useful for knowing when to back up, but it also had a bunch of alarms and warnings that kept distracting me. Like if a car was near in a neighboring lane, something would light up and there might even be a sound. I'm sure if I'd gotten used to it, I'd have found it safer, instead of periodically wondering "WTF is going on? is something wrong with the car?"
There are lots of things one could do with a 1978-9 El Camino. Cruise it up and down the strip on a Saturday night, for example, maybe swing by a burger joint.
138 they are mostly a mistake, unflattering and uncomfortable but not in a good suffering for sexiness way. And they lose shape in bizarre ways. Anything leather pants can do black jeans can do better. I did have a cream colored pair that it was fun to play Disco Mom in but that wears thin.
HOWEVER. Leather accents on tight fabric pants especially leather seat/knee/side panels on riding pants-as-daywear are excellent. I don't know about menswear but I think there are some lines based on motorcycle gear that have this sort of thing. Deth Killers maybe? Though they may just do synthetic. Furthermore, back to womenswear--wide-legged high waisted suede or suedette pants in tan are almost indispensable, worn with an untucked oxford or a cropped tee. Except for me since I have dispensed of everything except Mean Old etc etc smock.
I guess one thing you can do with a late 70s El Camino IME is lose your virginity in one in Iowa, but I don't think you get a shot at that every time you get a new El Camino. And even if, I don't want to deal with street parking/alternate side rules.
I have no other connection to Iowa.
Wow, I completely disagree with that assessment of leather pants (though I can't speak to shape-losing), and am puzzled by how one can express the opinion in 141.1 and then claim that pants made of suede, which is just flesh-side-out leather, are indispensable.
Catching up on the Subaru hate above, I drive a 2002 Forester and I like it fine. I didn't like the Impreza I got loaned when my car was being worked on (but this was years ago), and the Crosstrek actually looks ok to me, partly because it''s not as expensive as other cars, but I haven't driven it. Having AWD and a SUV-ish car was good when I was in Canada and the east coast and even out here I'll go hiking places where I drive down dirt roads.
Yes, you could probably have more "fun" driving winding roads with other cars, but my experience driving lots and lots of winding roads is that there's not much correlation between people's cars and how well they drive. Lots of people are way better with the accelerator than with the steering wheel.
That said, I'm not opposed to getting some non-Subaru car, but I'm not getting a big SUV or a non-hatchback.
Also, I find it almost personally offensive to see people in fancy cars on winding rural roads not driving quickly-but-safely. Why TF did you even take that car out? But I guess as long as you don't pass me on a straight stretch because I won't drive 75 in a 55 zone and then hit the brakes before every damn turn when taking your foot off the gas will do, I don't really care.
The suede pants have to be wide-legged, this is key. That's also why they look good in suede not leather, drapey leather has sheens and looks like limp bat wings which is fine in many contexts but not in pants. Do you actually think they look good on people or is it just a very amplified I AM WEARING OSTENSIBLY SEXY PANTS signal?
Several times I have seen leather pants look good on people.
Is it possible to train yourself to handle winding roads at reasonable speeds (let's say Highway 1 through Marin and similar)? I find it physically intolerable to take them above the minimum viable speed; I'd estimate that every other car on the road goes faster than I do, and most cars around 50% faster. It feels wildly unsafe and irresponsible to go the same speed as other traffic, like taking a 90 degree turn on a residential street at 60 mph. And it's not my car(s): I routinely get passed by shittier cars, or cars identical to mine.
More charitably, anytime I try to speed up, there are violent complaints of carsickness from the backseat.
Ok but BETTER than black jeans would have looked? I've been skimming pictures and while very narrow hipped women can rock them once you have enough of a waist-hip ratio that you have to pour yourself into them, the sheen starts distorting weirdly. I mean look you're getting into it with a woman who throws out old Sonia Rykel but keeps several pairs of flared overalls just in case so you're probably right.
149 if you wear the pants in 141.2 you will drive fast but perfectly.
El Caminos are for the puny because Chevy. Vehicle of choice, the 1972 Buick Riviera. Basically unsteerable, shitty GM transmission that lurches enough to prevent rolling a joint if you're flooring it, approximately like a rlumbering rocket that looks very nice. complementary threads
Well, the particular woman I have seen most often wearing leather pants was indeed relatively narrow-hipped, but to be perfectly honest, most of the people I've seen wearing leather pants have been men. And I will go with yes, better than black jeans (better than waxed black jeans is an interesting question), though not as widely wearable.
149: I'm definitely not the fastest car on the road, and I do see a lot of cars where I think "aren't they subject to the same physics I am?" But I also don't use the brakes much, stay at the speed limit when it's safe to do so, and don't pass people and then drive slower than I did the whole time up until passing them.
Also, not all leather pants are black!
Wow, there are like 6 different typefaces in that ad, and the action pose leaking into the text column, artisanal hand trimming with maybe a hand-printrd negative with a burned-in edge? The baked dudes from Mad Men, pretty definitely.
I also put some effort into driving in a way that leaves me alone between groups of cars so I can drive however I want. Especially in scenic areas I don't go to often, I'll drive more slowly if I'm not holding anyone up.
A couple of years ago, some beat-up looking pickup passed me on Highway 1 near Fort Ross in a place where they had to cross the double yellow to get by. That seemed legitimately insane.
No and as granted, cream colored were relatively tolerable. Brown/gray meh, still shiny, other colors are clown nonsense. You could not convince me to buy a pair, but it's ok you don't have to.
Also you cannot say I am wrong about the leather paneled riding pants? Surely some common ground there.
I can conceive of attractive maroon or possibly even oxblood leather pants.
Slightly battered/scuffed men's oxblood leather pants worn as a nod to Nantucket Reds I would respect.
152 ok but I AM puny and ergo look awesome driving an El Camino.
Does the Crosstrek hate still apply if you want a car that is smaller than the Outback but has high clearance?
I'm very far from owning a car but if I do a crossover appeals just cos I need the clearance for accessing backpacking trails, but I don't care for the extra space of a full SUV.
Let's all buy Crosstrek's and spin the wheels on Tigre's lawn.
149 - yes. I will bet $5 that the problem is where you're looking. You're not looking far enough into the distance and at the end of the curve. Instead, you focus on some closer object, like right in front of younor maybe a tree at the bend of the curve. You feel like you're going too fast, and panic/slow down/refuse to drive any faster than a speed that can accomodate the jerkiness. Instead, just look as far forward to the end of the curve as you can and trust that you will just naturally steer towards the end of the curve without having to think too much about it.
164 - get an AWD Mazda CX-5, or if you must own a Subaru because you're a lesbian, a Forester.
167:
Ah, so the hate is Crosstrek-specific rather than directed to all crossovers.
I can't even picture what suede wide leg pants would look like. I mean ok, I do have a picture in my head, but it is completely ridiculous. The only way to go with leather pants is skinny legged and shiny.
I'm in one of the few careers where leather pants are considered appropriate work wear for women. The first class I took as an undergrad in my particular subfield was taught by a professor who owned like, 10 pairs of leather pants in different colors. In fact, I'm not sure she wore anything but leather pants. She was a 40 something Israeli-Argentine woman and a pretty awesome dresser all around.
http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/womens-pants/leather
Nor dstrom's has some wide legged cropped leather pants, which probably looks good on .1% of the female population. Also, no leather pants are less than $800, apparently.
He just surfaced over in the politics thread. I assume he's been working on his bunker.
167: I don't know how driving licenses work in the US and what you have to do to pass them, but learning to ride a motorbike made me a much better and safer - as well as faster and smoother - car driver. It's a positive sum game! Plus you can ride motorbikes afterwards, which are objectively better and more fun than cars. (Albeit perhaps less practical for large families.)
172: thanks. I'd actually found myself worrying, as odd as that sounds
Mossy - is roc island to the south of somewhere with a long history? One place, that roc island is both is a part of, and yet is different from in certain important regards? Because if it's there, I'm going to be there from tomorrow for golden week (and a friend's nuptials)
My other car is a Nissan Tiida. If shitty, underpowered is what you are looking for, its perfect.
IMX the best features on my Toyota crossover-thing are the perimeter cameras and the high-speed cool-down from the AC even when it has been sun-baked in Burbank
That's one reason why Toyota continues to dominate the GCC market. Toyota and Nissan both have great AC and it's a major consideration here. A friend has a Volvo SUV here and its AC is as you would expect for a Scandinavian climate.
I'm still struggling with what kind of car I should get. Something small and zippy and fun to drive as is my wont but which won't survive a collision with a Fremen-driven Land Cruiser, or some kind of 4x4 SUV for the occasional desert expedition. I don't want anything to big and really don't like 4 doors. I also have a thing for hatchbacks. Tigre, help a fellow out.
175: I think it would be helpful if you popped "ROC" into an acronym finder.
139 (and the rest of FA's oeuvre): I have a newish Accord, which has the "lane deviation warning" sensors that annoyed you. They annoyed me too, such that I turned them off. They were pretty cool on the test drive because we mostly drove on the highway, where there are well-marked lanes. Once I got it on the haphazardly and incompetently marked lanes on the local roads it was a constant interruption and annoyance. The "collision warning" sensor is sometimes useful though (not even sure you can turn it off, but you can adjust the forward distance it cares about). As for the right blind spot camera, I love it for merging, as was previously mentioned. In MA we have a custom where most people speed up to make sure you can't merge, so the camera gives the edge back to the merger.
I hated the backup camera at first but have come to love it, especially for making sure I'm perfectly situated in a parking space. (OCD much? Why, yes!) If you turn around to look, as we were all taught to do (but many don't), you won't see the kid behind the car unless the kid is already in youth basketball. The backup camera is good for that too.
Seeds: Roc island is to the south east of somewhere with a long history, which it is different from in certain important regards, unfortunately including the nonexistence of golden week. Have fun with the waishengren!
177 - have you thought about a WRX or a Lancer EVO (used in both cases)? Sounds like what you really want is a rally car, which is actually what pretty much anyone who lands in the stupid crossover category actually should want. The AWD Focus RS would also be insanely awesome if not cheap. Prob some other similar options where you are. I mean these aren't truly offroad cars that will get you up a sand dune but they'd be awesome on a dirt/sand road. And incredibly great on paved roads. If you want to go truly offroad just rent a true offroad car for a special expedition.
How the hell does a Ford Focus cost $36,000?
This is not your rental car company's Focus. It is an insanely insanely great car.
Like, a regular AWD Focus would really appeal to me in terms of practical, reasonably priced car for driving in shitty conditions. Like a less expensive Subaru that's maybe less bloody expensive to repair and hopefully with better gas mileage. Instead, they tweaked the thing out for performance, and stuck a monster engine in it, with a commensurate inflated price tag. Sad!
The CX-5 seems ok, and probably more similar in size to the car I have than recent Foresters, which have gotten closer to full SUVs.
I also put some effort into driving in a way that leaves me alone between groups of cars so I can drive however I want. Especially in scenic areas I don't go to often, I'll drive more slowly if I'm not holding anyone up.
When I used to drive the Lincoln Highway over the Alleghenies, this was roughly my strategy: pass the coal trucks in front of me, then cruise beyond at a speed that would open up space, yet not cause me to catch up with the last car that had passed them 10 miles back.
Also here are wide leg suede pants, you yahoos.
Regarding wide-legged pants, have I mentioned that this fall has revealed to me that, for the first time I'm aware of, the fashions of my youth have returned? Wide-legged pants and long cardigans are back, ex nihilo afaict*. I've seen claims that something or other from the '90s had made a comeback, but no actual garments resembling what I saw in my 20s had previously passed my path IRL.
*it's reminiscent of when I showed up at school on the first day of iirc 7th grade, and all the girls were wearing jeans jackets with rhinestone "medals" on them, and I didn't understand how they all knew to wear them, since they hadn't been in school for months, so how else would they find out? I'm fairly certain I've mentioned this here before, and that nobody else ever saw this trend. 1984 or 1985. Anyway, the last time anyone sane would wear clothes that would cover their limbs, nobody was wearing wide-legged pants or long cardigans.
187 I'm afraid they'd make my ass look big.
and that nobody else ever saw this trend. 1984 or 1985.
I totally remember the mid 80s rhinestone trend. It wasn't a thing all over the country?
190: Specifically in the form of pseudo-martial medals?
Maybe I'm misremembering that people here didn't remember it.
Huh. Looks like the East Coasters have gone home for the weekend, and the slack is only being picked up sporadically.
187
Ok those suede wide legged pants would look good on only women over 5'9". Leather jeggings FTW.
173: Motorcycles! Yeah! The utility of smooth transfers to cars nicely IMX. So does the increased situational awareness one needs to survive.
My mom raised me to be a good driver, which I think made me a better cyclist, which in turn....
187: I would call those "not skinny suede pants". They aren't notably wide!
Well imagine them wider then.
196
If you're willing to commit you could have these made for you with suede.
