What do you like about the vehicle you drive and would you have changed anythin about it?
Realized that with my new job I’m at $500/month for gas. Starting to seriously consider a hybrid or electric but damn they expensive. Either way might just need something more reliable than my 320k+ car.
100kms round trip commute in a 2009 Volkswagen Rabbit. Also doing 300km round trips on the weekends a couple times a month so that don’t help.
It’s supposed to be fine on gas and to be fair I’ve been having check engine light and some tire issues that have been affecting mileage but before I invest too much in fixing those wanted to check out other car options.
That’s a lot of KMs on the poor car. I’m a little confused on the price and gas monthly cost because of the “$”. I was thinking those were dollars. I assume, those aren’t $500 dollars a month?
So that’s roughly 600km per week, 2400 per month? Damn dude, that is a lot. A hybrid won’t help you much because electric motors are mostly used at low speeds, like to get going from traffic lights in a city, which saves a lot of fuel. They don’t do much on highways.
Pro: good gas mileage, manual transmission, cheap maintenance, comfy seats. I can go ~700mi on a tank. Costs me $40 to fill. I fill it maybe 8-10 times a year assuming no road trips. It’s about 60-70MPG.
Cons: slowest car I have ever driven so I have to plan merging onto highways/motorways very precisely. Literally my only complaint.
Another con: it only has two seats. Doesn’t hurt my use cases where I generally drive solo, or at most with my love, but for some that may pose an issue. (Think about it, though, most people who drive only drive themselves, generally to and from work.)
I've a wee 2016 1.2tsi manual skoda fabia. I really like it, think the dashboards layed out perfectly, everything intuitive to use, the AC is simple to adjust, its reasonably efficient, and is the right size for me.
I'd prefer insurance companies to stop taking the piss with the prices, I've never hit anything or got any points, its literally just because I'm a young man. I'd also prefer there to be a little more space between the clutch and side wall in the footwell as I have wide feet and its easy to clip the clutch when putting my left foot on the foot rest.
Christ Jesus, 500 a month? I might not even pay that much and I literally drive the work day (Amazon flex, Uber eats, etc) for my job. Do you know how to drive gas efficient? If your RPM’s never pass 2K and you cruise to stop lights etc you can still drive a decent speed and get much better gas mileage. Stop idling at long lights - if you’re going to wait more than 10 seconds, shut the car off. Perhaps invest in some fuel injector cleaner as a cheap alternative to a proper tune up.
unless you drive for a living you should definitely get that way down, (unless you live in california AND commute 3 hours a day or something, in which case you have bigger problems)
yes, but not global in this case, I saw their unit of currency was dollars and was correct to narrow it down to North america. my flaw was assuming the US and ruling out our friendly neighbors to the north
New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Brunei and even Cuban and Chilean peso use $ symbol. It’s also common to use dollars to explain a quantity of money in general if you’re not from Europe. “I pay 500$ for gas” is simply the easiest way to say “I pay this amount of money for gas” in a conversation where the audience is global.
this is probably gonna sound subtly racist but, with everything taken together, including their use of the English language it just made most contextual sense that it was an American. I’m still trying to normalize the fact that some cultures call it petrol.
I should have specified that wasn’t in freedom dollars, $500 Canadian. So moneys worth probably only like $300USD and gas up here costs over double, if what someone else in the thread said is right.
oops, my bad. how Yankee of me to assume you were down in the states.
300 USD still sounds pretty high to me for someone who doesn’t drive for a living but I don’t know what the petrol situation is up there for y’all right now.
I have an escape plug in hybrid. I get about 40 miles all electric, and about 500 miles on gas. I just took a camping trip where I towed a trailer, so my average mpg is down to about 50. Normally it rides around 70-80, since most days I drive less than 40 miles.
I like my fuel efficiency, and that I can plug it in to charge. I wish I had a little more cargo space, since I’m just shy of “project” capacity, and more “flat pack furniture”. I dislike that the towing capacity is low, since the hybrid drivetrain is more complex, and the car just weighs more, so I can only tow about 1500 lbs, which limits your choices for campers and such.
I originally started the buying process because I needed a new car, and I had a three hour round trip commute. Now I’m working from home, and it’s even better because I basically never use gas, but haven’t sacrificed range. Only my poor, beleaguered bank account. Which I don’t regret.
Almost the same, but the RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid. 50mi electric range, AWD, we almost never have to fill it and there’s free slow chargers in our town!
I don’t have a car because I’m a college student, but I do have a 2006 Suzuki GZ250, a small cruiser motorcycle. It’s my first vehicle that I own. I absolutely love riding it, even though a Prius is faster, this feels much faster because it’s a manual transmission motorcycle, and gets better mpg.
Unfortunately, I need to replace the battery soon as it seems to have some parasitic loss when not ridden for several days. I want to DIY it to save money, but I can’t unscrew this impossibly tight worn screw mounting the cover to access the battery.
I’m in northern Ontario, so I’m in the bush quite frequently. I pull trailers, haul 4 wheelers, wood, and other things in the back, and it does it without issue. Decent on fuel, being a truck and it’s mostly reliable… Older though, so I’ve had things break on me, but nothing I couldn’t fix myself.
The S4 is a hella fun car. I drive to Toronto a number of times throughout the year, and its handles the 24hr round trip with ease. Decent on fuel if you stay off the gas. Quite reliable, but the car is known to have a few rather expensive problems. One of which is the PCV, which I plan on replacing next summer as preventive maintenance, along with some other minor maintenance items. Hoping I don’t have to do the timing chain and tensioners any time soon, but it is a 200k km car. This is a 6 speed, so it doesn’t have the issues the DSG models have. It’s also lowered and has an exhaust… It is quite raspy unfortunately. Would like to install a resonator to help get rid of some of it.
I’ve replaced wheel bearings on both. 4WD actuators, some coolant hosing, O2 sensors, fixed the wire harness in the rear doors, patched the cab corners and a handful of other things on the ford (I’ve owned it longer than the S4).
I could go on forever about these two vehicles, but overall they’ve been good to me, and I haven’t had any major issues or have been left stranded (though I almost was a couple times with the ford, but I was able to get home).
I’d say with most vehicles, as long as you take care of them, they’ll take care of you, although there are some exceptions.
I went from £400 a month fuel spend to just over £100 going to hybrid. My insurance came down from £700ish to £450 p/y (all the anti collision toys etc). The services were 4-600 a year now 250-300. It’s been 4 1/2 years and I’m keeping it. It cost me about 10k more than I’d normally pay for a car and I reckon I’ve made my money back and then some. That anti collision stuff has also saved my arse a couple of times.
Getting 4 to 4.5 miles to kwh out of what is quite a large car by European standards. Costs approx. 9p a kw in the UK on an EV tariff so it costs a fraction of what an ICE car would cost to run.
350kw charging, I rarely wait longer than 20 minutes to charge from 20% to 80%
Tons of space.
Single pedal driving is awesome
Tows my 1400kg caravan with ease due to 100% of torque from 0 rpm and weighing 2 ton (more the car weighs compared to the trailer the better towing is, assuming enough torque). Even big Range Rovers aren’t as smooth towing from stand still.
Same trait means its quick when driving round town or from a standstill. Above UK legal speeds its average for its price point.
Its also much much quieter than its ICE competitors.
Comfy on a long journey, like driving round sitting on a sofa.
Dislikes
Weighs 2 tons. Car it replaced was 1500kg and similar external size. Would like it to weigh less, but all new cars the same size, even ICE, are pretty fat these days. A brand new ICE 3 Series is also almost 2 ton with a few options on it and comparable usable space/purchase price.
Handling when hustling is compromised by the car being aimed at comfort and how fat it is. If you want handling buy the new performance model, its also stupid fast as it has 640bhp.
UK spec for this year has no heat pump for the battery even as an option, would be useful for improving winter mileage. Irish version of the same car has it as standard (at least for my model year and trim level), despite Ireland being warmer during the winter than the UK. Heat pump is now available as an option.
UK spec Premium cannot have memory seats, have to upgrade to a much more expensive trim level that has a ton of stuff I do not want or need. Same with the 360 cameras, I only get rear camera. Locking stuff behind a much more expensive trim level is a dick move.
I drive a 2011 nissan note wnd it’s comfortable. I can get a lot of shit in it, including wheelchair. But it’s absolutely fucking hideous. So probably that.
And maybe a fifth gear, the automatic only has 4. Oh and my radio is broken so that too.
Wife and I got a Mazda CX-90 PHEV and last mileage at fill up it on a 1/4 tank it had gone 600+ miles. She goes 45 min one way once a week. If it weren’t for that she’d get well over 1000 miles on a tank as she almost always drives it in EV only around town. It goes 26 miles on the battery. 2.5kWhs (not the best) and 36mpg on gas at the moment (that can go a lot higher depending on how you drive it).
Get a hybrid or PHEV for sure. EV really depends on how far you need to drive and how much electricity costs. During peak hours (4p-8p here) our rate (33¢/kWh) for our vehicle is equivalent to gas at $3.98/gal (not cheap in the US). Off peak the rate is $11¢/kWh and is much cheaper.
Just wish the battery was larger at ~50 miles and didn’t cost so much. Other than that, it’s an incredibly fun vehicle to drive, has a great interior, and has an easy to navigate and use infotainment system.
I don’t like how my 2014 Hyundai Elantra turns on the air conditioner all the time. Something is wrong with the controls, and it keeps engaging the AC when I turn on the car, no matter what the climate controls are set to.
I’m driving transit, and I love not burning a(nother, nowadays there are many different holes) hole in my bank account, and also being able to fuck around on Lemmy or my steam deck on my way to work and back
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