1995 Honda Civic Del Sol

[SilverFire]

Buying a used car on a limited budget your priorities should be low purchase price, low mpg, low insurance cost, and high reliability. IMO a toyota corolla will be what's best for your wallet.

I actually forgot about the Toyota corolla. Don't they get around 32-36mpg?
It would be nice having the extra seats.

 

[The Lightning Stalker]

Just wait till you get a little older and
your back starts aching from digging out
all that snow every time you get stuck.
Meanwhile everyone with a 4WD will be
passing you by pointing out their window
and laughing.

 

[SilverFire]

Just wait till you get a little older and
your back starts aching from digging out
all that snow every time you get stuck.
Meanwhile everyone with a 4WD will be
passing you by pointing out their window
and laughing.

:crackup:

True, but we don't get much snow here, and when we do, not very much.
Though, this last winter, we got a surprising 5-6 inches or so of snow.
We used to live in Washington state where it snowed A LOT.
We had a fwd Volvo wagon and we would mount cables to the tires every year and it got up snowy hills FAST. The funny part was that there would be a bunch of trucks and cars stuck at the bottom of icy hills from time to time and you would see a car or 4x4 just race on up with cables and chains mounted and then laugh at everyone who wasn't prepared.
Down at the beach, no one has ever seen metal cables on a vehicle before so this last time it snowed hard, no one was prepared. We still had our old cable kit and just went right through traffic and we got a lot of stares.
I might just keep a snow kit in the car if I do buy one.
But yes, 4x4s can get though thick snow slightly better than the typical car, but they suck just as bad when braking. Actually they are worse.
They are bigger (more momentum) and usually have wider wheels which tends to slide faster on ice or thick snow (unless you have spikes or chains)

You do have a good point though, cars do tend to get stuck in really deep snow on rough terrain due to smaller wheels and small ground clearance. But I won't be going offloading any time soon

 

[Blarg King]

I guess they should take all of the semis off the road then.

There are many things that couldn't be done if it wasn't for pickups. My brother, step-dad and myself finally convinced my mom here and my step-dad should buy a truck. Now she wishes it had been done sooner. She'd haul all kinds of crap around in vehicles not meant for that type of stuff. The back of the interior turned to crap.

Okay then, if you NEED a truck, get one, because then it serves a purpose. But buying a track simply as a machine to get from point A to point B is wasteful.

Just wait till you get a little older and
your back starts aching from digging out
all that snow every time you get stuck.
Meanwhile everyone with a 4WD will be
passing you by pointing out their window
and laughing.

"Little older"
I'm 20. I've got a long way to go before my back starts aching. Also, been through 3 Canadian winters driving my mothers tiny little Kia and it never got stuck. And now I've got my own pontiac G6 which is much bigger and has more power, so I doubt I'll be getting stuck anytime soon. A good pair of winter tires is all you need and a 2 wheel drive works fine.

Matter of fact, I've only ever seen one car spin out in the winter, and it was a Jeep.

 

[Cyparagon]

...all that snow every time you get stuck...

Aren't the roads plowed where you live? I live in wisconsin, own a front-wheel-drive car, and have gotten stuck maybe thrice in the last decade.

Us commonfolk have to shovel our driveway anyway, truck or no truck.

 

[crazyspaz]

I personally wouldn't buy anything older than 2005.

Also, even if it can get 37 MPG, if the exhaust is dirtier than a modern car than its not much better for the environment.

Though if I had it my way I wouldn't even own a car, so perhaps I'm not the person to ask.

Don't buy a truck. Do you tow or carry stuff on a regular basis? If the answer is no, then get a car, and save your gas. 20 MPG is absolute shit compared to any car made in the last 5 years. Heck even my father's 2003 ford focus got 27 MPG.

People and their stupid trucks when they don't need them...

Also I don't know where you get your information, but I've been driving for 3 years and I haven't hit anything. So maybe just be a good driver and not burn twice as much fuel as a car by driving a truck.

Less than 30 MPG and its useless and shouldn't even be allowed to operate.

Under the absolute worst conditions for fuel efficiency, my car will still get 30 MPG, and at its best gets around 40. My cars worst is still better than a trucks best.

I'm going to love seeing automakers scramble to make their trucks actually efficient once governments start making stricter and stricter minimum MPG requirements.

Substitute "useless" for "Massively inefficient" then. It still shouldn't be running.

So what I'm gathering from this is that you drive a prius.
Not everyone can afford new cars, and besides that, its personal preference, why do you care?
And telling him not to get it because its "dirty for the environment" is stupid. You honestly think one car will make a difference? It would take approximately 3.7459 shite-tons of cars being replaced with "clean" cars to make a dent in anything.

Aren't the roads plowed where you live? I live in wisconsin, own a front-wheel-drive car, and have gotten stuck maybe thrice in the last decade.

Us commonfolk have to shovel our driveway anyway, truck or no truck.

Agreed...Never gotten stuck. Slid around like a mofo, heck yea, but not stuck. Last winter sucked hard, the roads would get plowed but since it snowed SO MUCH it all just packed into ice. I'm just glad I fixed my ABS before the winter really kicked in.

I wont drive anything that cant tow less than 8000 lbs..... cars are just scrap metal to me. First vehicle should be a truck or SUV that will protect your when you crash becuase 90% chance you will hit something, vehicle or object it will happen. I took out an entire brick wall with my truck and only got a small debt ib the bummer. Do that with a csr and its totaled plus you are hurry bad

Err...heard of safety standards? My Passat (which is by no means big) weighs over a ton and a half- that is a LOT of steel around me. Heck even teeny little mini coopers can take a surprising impact, and the driver will walk away...Someone rolled their little Hyundai outside my house a few weeks ago (1AM, just rolled there car on a country road- pretty weird). Their airbags didn't even go off, and they were fine. You don't need 16,000lbs of truck around you to be safe.

 

[Blarg King]

I care because its everyones planet to share and I would rather not continue damaging it. And no, one vehicle doesn't make a difference, but if maybe this whole "I need a truck for the sake of having a truck" went away, then suddenly its a lot of cars.

The whole attitude of "its one car, it won't make a difference" is extremely damaging for pushing more efficient vehicles.

Its the same thing with sports cars. Nobody needs a sports car. Why would anyone spend an extreme amount of money on a car that has less seats, no trunk, made of flimsy fiberglass, is useless in the winter, and gets awful fuel efficiency? So you can boast that is goes from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds? Or that it has a top speed of 300 Mph? You never get to legally go that speed, so why burn so much fuel when you can achieve the same results for a fraction of the fuel consumption? My pontiac G6 will get anywhere just as fast as a Ferrari, because we're both capped at 110 Kmh.

Its just a car. Its not a measure of someones worth. Fuel economy trumps horsepower any day.

 

[NightExplorer96]

I care because its everyones planet to share and I would rather not continue damaging it. And no, one vehicle doesn't make a difference, but if maybe this whole "I need a truck for the sake of having a truck" went away, then suddenly its a lot of cars.

The whole attitude of "its one car, it won't make a difference" is extremely damaging for pushing more efficient vehicles.

Its the same thing with sports cars. Nobody needs a sports car. Why would anyone spend an extreme amount of money on a car that has less seats, no trunk, made of flimsy fiberglass, is useless in the winter, and gets awful fuel efficiency? So you can boast that is goes from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds? Or that it has a top speed of 300 Mph? You never get to legally go that speed, so why burn so much fuel when you can achieve the same results for a fraction of the fuel consumption? My pontiac G6 will get anywhere just as fast as a Ferrari, because we're both capped at 110 Kmh.

Its just a car. Its not a measure of someones worth. Fuel economy trumps horsepower any day.

I agree with you on the point that it's good to take care of the environment 100%.

I don't agree with that fact that all cars are just cars though. I myself, like SUV's. I know the gas mileage is horrible & one can brag that they can tow a tiny car around but I like the shape SUV's have, plain and simple.

Relating to your example of a sport car. Im sure there are people who buy them just to brag about their speed, but it isn't fair to say there aren't people who buy sports car as a collection item for example(if that's what they are into). Same as my SUV example, some people buy Ferrari's, Lamborghini's simply because they have the money & like how they look etc..

Just my $0.02

-Alex

 

[Blarg King]

Well then I wish the damn automakers would make a nicer looking yet fuel efficient design. If theres one thing going for sports cars, its that they are nice and lightweight and aerodynamic (though in my opinion too lightweight to be sufficiently durable) but all that is negated by slapping a big engine inside. Get the nice aerodynamic body of a Ferrari and slap a nice 1.6L turbo in it.

 

[Dr_Evil]

Some sports cars get 30+ MPG... The new Corvette has an EPA rating of 29 MPG highway and it has a big V8 in it. I'm sure it get do even better if you take it easy on the gas.

If a vehicle has the option of a I4 or V6, getting the 4 cylinder isn't always better. People will mash on the gas more to get going quicker because it doesn't have the V6 power. Same thing for going up hills or if you have it heavily loaded. That usually offsets the better fuel economy.

I bet a lot of vehicles would have better fuel economy if it wasn't fuel some of the government regulations. Diesels are worse now than they were 5-10 years ago.

Until they can find a way to power cars without fuel or electricity, they will always cause pollution. Even solar powered cars aren't really environmentally friendly.

 

[Blarg King]

They're still friendlier.

Electric vehicles don't need oil, so theres even less oil used. Parts last longer, so less manufacturing, and less waste. And theres less parts, so again, less manufacturing. Not to mention no coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, or any other kind of fluid to leak out or need replacing.

So no, maybe theres no 100% green car, but it is still massively better than an internal combustion powered vehicle.

Plus an electric motor will almost always beat an internal combustion engine of the same horsepower when it comes to acceleration.

 

[RYDorDIE278]

my estimate says fuel is cheap in U.S. compared to New Zealand, it costs $2.13NZD per litre -> $8.06NZD per gallon -> $6.39USD Per Gallon
So $6.39USD Here VS $3USD (GUESStimate)
You guys are LucKy!

 

[Dr_Evil]

They're still friendlier.

Electric vehicles don't need oil, so theres even less oil used. Parts last longer, so less manufacturing, and less waste. And theres less parts, so again, less manufacturing. Not to mention no coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, or any other kind of fluid to leak out or need replacing.

So no, maybe theres no 100% green car, but it is still massively better than an internal combustion powered vehicle.

Plus an electric motor will almost always beat an internal combustion engine of the same horsepower when it comes to acceleration.

You still need lube of some sort. The Tesla still has quite a few fluids. Might want to check this out. Model S: ANY fluids? | Forums | Tesla Motors

The air might not be getting polluted while the vehicle is running. There's all kinds of other waste made during manufacturing and battery disposal. That amount of crap released into the atmosphere when any hybrid or electric vehicle burns up is insane.

 

[The Lightning Stalker]

Aren't the roads plowed where you live? I live in wisconsin, own a front-wheel-drive car, and have gotten stuck maybe thrice in the last decade.

Us commonfolk have to shovel our driveway anyway, truck or no truck.

The snow can fall faster than they can plow
it sometimes around here. There are some
roads that can go for days without being
plowed because all the plow trucks are on
the main roads trying to keep up with it.
There are also a lot of people who don't
shovel their driveways very often.

When I had the little Honda, I was
inevitably getting stuck somewhere or other
what seemed like every couple weeks.

 

[Reiign]

I care because its everyones planet to share and I would rather not continue damaging it. And no, one vehicle doesn't make a difference, but if maybe this whole "I need a truck for the sake of having a truck" went away, then suddenly its a lot of cars.

The whole attitude of "its one car, it won't make a difference" is extremely damaging for pushing more efficient vehicles.

Its the same thing with sports cars. Nobody needs a sports car. Why would anyone spend an extreme amount of money on a car that has less seats, no trunk, made of flimsy fiberglass, is useless in the winter, and gets awful fuel efficiency? So you can boast that is goes from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds? Or that it has a top speed of 300 Mph? You never get to legally go that speed, so why burn so much fuel when you can achieve the same results for a fraction of the fuel consumption? My pontiac G6 will get anywhere just as fast as a Ferrari, because we're both capped at 110 Kmh.

Its just a car. Its not a measure of someones worth. Fuel economy trumps horsepower any day.

I do agree to an extent. But the same reason of why does anyone need a laser pointer? Its a hobby same with trucks etc. Also they have come up with ways to stop damaging the ozone layer so that wont really be a problem soon. I am 22 and have owned around 26 cars. I used to compete in drifting and have owned 5-6 s13's If you can make almost uny car awesome on fuel if you got it tuned to be good on fuel.

 

[SilverFire]

Aren't the roads plowed where you live? I live in wisconsin, own a front-wheel-drive car, and have gotten stuck maybe thrice in the last decade.

Us commonfolk have to shovel our driveway anyway, truck or no truck.

Yes the main roads are plowed on snowy days but the hard part is getting out of our large neighborhood which isn't plowed, or is plowed last if it keeps snowing. This last winter was the first time I drove in the snow.
Our Volvo wagon was made in Sweden (they get a lot of snow) but it weighs about 3300lbs. (it has a lot of steel in it.)
We mounted cables to the car and it got through snow fast. It actually felt like a tank. But I do have to say, that it is a pain to mount cables or chains to tires when you don't have a little space to move the car back and forth once or twice.