My coworker lives in a downtown apartment with a cramped parking garage and bought a full size pickup to drive 1.5 miles to the parking garage at our workplace to write code. I’m embarrassed for them and keep telling them to buy a bicycle
Driving 1.5miles twice a day everyday is a sure way to drain the car battery and multiply the wear and tear on the engine. Short trips are fine occasionally, but sooner rather than later the check engine light will pop up.
It depends. The battery issue is a nonissue, but the short trip can absolutely have an effect. It takes longer for your engine to reach true operating temperature than the oil/water coolant to get to temp. There’s videos out there that can explain the equations for larger engines, but if the drive is less than 15 minutes, it’s likely he’s building up carboxylic acids from nonvaporized water in the pistons. That ain’t a good thing.
Look at the owners manual in your car, and it will say trips less than a couple of miles are considered severe duty, and the oil needs to be changed more often. Your can get condensation in the engine that can break down the oil faster.
Cold starts are where most of the wear and tear occurs.
I believe it comes from a saying that most wear is in the first ten minutes of driving.
Which I also believe assumes you don’t “wait for the car to warm up”
That saying. I still find some truth to it. While modern cars can adjust fuel mixture to different conditions. There still is an unavoidable few minutes where the engine runs in an open loop and wear is greater.
That said, in my vehicle when I listen for the engine to “close” it happens in less than 5 minutes.
Jesus. And I felt guilty for my commute only taking about 10 minutes down a highway. However, I didn’t have a choice because the only access to the industrial park where I worked was from that highway. I still felt bad about it.
As long as you’re in Europe. Those things could be useful in North America but I can’t see how they will ever get approved in Canada or in the US. I don’t know about micro cars in Mexico and their laws but in Canada, everything between a full fledged car and an e-bike is considered “too dangerous, unsafe, not serious, toy-like” and is generally forbidden to go on roads and/or bike paths.
For example, in Quebec, it’s illegal to use an e-bike under 18 years old without a scooter licence. So the Ami has no chance at all here, unfortunately.
They are very different “vehicles”. The class which allows Ami to operate in most European countries does not exist in most North American jurisdictions. A Smart is classified as a car and is road legal but an Ami is considered a quadricycle and as such is usually not considered road legal in most of North America.
Where I live it’s not considered as any type of valid vehicle. If it sticks to quadricycle, the law is going to require pedals, limit it to 25 kph and a helmet for the passengers.
There are places in the US that have some “neighbourhood EV” laws that make these legal on local roads, but it’s far from being common.
So if you are successful in importing one, you will most likely only be able to use it on private land.
Also, no insurance company is going to want to insure it.
And, to top ot all, the dealer, Stellantis, is apparently much more interested in selling pick-ups to North Americans.
…don’t expect to get one through Canadian or USA Stellantis dealer networks. They are 100% obsessed on moving EV versions of Jeeps, RAM pick-ups, the new Airflow crossover and their ProMaster truck offerings.
I used to own an HR-V. They’re good cars, but slow as stink. They took something with the wind profile of the CR-V and put the same engine in it as the '06 Civic. Still did like high 30s/low 40s on gas most of the time. So that was cool. Plus, it’s pretty spacious. It just needed like 40 more hp. Or a manual. Or both.
It was built on the same platform as the Fit so it’s got the neat rear seats that flip up. Seriously useful small car. I once hauled a whole ass 60" countertop halfway across the state in it. I guess they just decided the American market wants to go upsize. The Fit is probably one of the best suburban cars ever.
I wouldn’t know, riding a bike around here would be a death sentence. Roadrage can often end in a drive-by in Oklahoma if the news is to be believed and drunk driving is a pretty common sight in the area I live. There’s also no bike lane, usually no sidewalks and long stretches of road without a crosswalk in sight.
Having a vehicle that emits more pollution, does more damage to roads, and is more likely to kill pedestrians is pretty fucking selfish and deserving of hate.
The responsibility of pollution is not on individuals. The pollution from mega corps compared to the every day man is a staggering exponential difference.
More likely to kill pedestrians? All vehicles can kill pedestrians. How is this even a talking point you idiots parrot back and forth.
It’s way more likely to kill pedestrians. Trucks and SUVs have terrible sight lines for pedestrians, especially children, and especially in front of the vehicle. They also are more damaging to pedestrians in an collision, and have much higher rates of injury and fatality than sedans, station wagons, and coupes. The X factor here is that a higher percentage of the less secure, less capable drivers buy larger vehicles to insulate themselves from other vehicles on the road, and they drive with that same mentality around pedestrian-rich areas.
Trucks and SUVs are terrible, and you should only buy one if you need one, otherwise you look like a fucking jackass.
Make sure you grab some “I did that” Biden stickers to slap on gas pumps. Really lean in to that “I make poor decisions and blame the wrong person for the consequences” energy.
Because I disagree with you about vehicles you think I’m a MAGA dude? Get a grip.
Trucks are available for purchase in America. Americans love them. It is what it is. If you don’t like it, move or push for legislative change.
Truck owners sure as shit don’t care about your talking points and will buy another, and another, and another. Nobody’s going to be convinced by pedestrian safety statistics or mpg concerns.
Trucks are so deeply woven into America’s culture I think guns would be banned sooner.
It’s also on individuals, our purchasing choices shape what corporations decide to make. if people only bought fuel efficient vehicles companies wouldn’t build these idiotic mega polluting trucks.
And trucks are vastly more dangerous for pedestrians than other vehicles. they have massive blind spots, and weight a shitton more. As trucks have kept getting bigger, pedestrian deaths have gone up, that’s why we bring it up.
There’s someone at my work that owns a huge truck and they park at a turning corner inside the garage every single day. The garage is already cramped as it is, and then you’ve got a huge truck blocking off visibility when you turn the corner.
This shit happens in the parking garage I use too and it amazes me. I drive a small sedan and I refuse to park in those spots bc I’m terrified some idiot will sideswipe me (I have actually seen this happen to other vehicles). I can only imagine it’s some sort of flex bc people have to avoid their oversized tiny-penismobile.
We need to find a new way to hate on stupid vehicles without body shaming.
The guys with small dicks never did anything wrong. I’m sure some of those truck drivers have massive cannons the diameter of a coke can, but that doesn’t excuse their stupid wasteful vanity machines.
Guys with pointlessly big trucks have sexual hangups relating to their parental figures. Boom.
Slaps roof
“This baby can fit so many of my father’s hugs in it, but it won’t because he left my mother and I, and although I had to live with him and my stepmom from ages 13 to 18 due to my behavioral issues, I can’t bare the thought that I’m anything like him and that my mother began drinking to numb the pain of having to raise me alone, so I find solace in lashing out against women that treat me well, and will stop at nothing until I can repeat the generational cycle by having a baby with a woman that looks and acts like my mother so I too can abandon my child, because I hate myself.”
Does the remaining 1% get resold by shady people in back alleys? “Hey you, you want a deal on 1% of some produce from a farmer’s market? Fell off the back of a Prius.”
I’ve been seriously considering getting a hitch and a light trailer. It would be more than sufficient for nearly everything we do, especially if it could haul a motorcycle when needed.
See that’s what gets me. You need a very specifically large load that is (in my experience) extremely rare. In the gas savings alone you could just rent a truck when you need to move gravel or large furniture and not scratch up your $90,000 truck.
It costs like $30 to rent a box truck from home depot to take a big load home. I can get a few sheets of plywood on my Outback with a couple ratchet straps and not going over 40 lol.
The people I know with expensive trucks still get everything delivered anyway. There’s always some excuse why their super versatile amazingly useful truck isn’t quite the right tool for the job, but somehow it’s always the right tool to drive around town to their office job or the grocery store. Literally makes zero sense, ever.
I feel like a pretty good vehicle for a lot of people like that who need a truck sometimes and don’t want a second vehicle could be one of the new small diesel trucks, like the ram ecodiesel. 30mpg is more than even most compact SUVs get, it’s still a truck for people that like that, and it can haul/tow more than a compact suv as well.
A big problem with 2 vehicles instead of 1 is often that insurance costs so much more, even if you’re driving the same number of miles as when you had 1 vehicle. Registration fees too.
How’s the legroom in the second row? I love the aesthetic of the Santa Cruz and that it’s not an obnoxiously large truck while still capable of hauling and towing stuff. I did notice that the space inside looks pretty tight.
It’s really not bad. I’ve had people sit behind me (6’3") comfortably. It’s actually the first vehicle I’ve driven where I had to scoot the seat up a bit.
I’m pretty sure it’s just the Tuscon with a truck bed instead of a trunk.
It’s rated at 22 city 26 hwy, do you really get that much?
The super short bed looks a little less than useful but I do like the idea of an actually small truck because every truck these days is monstrosly large.
Yup, but it mostly depends on the road inclination. If there’s a lot of uphill it’s more like 26/30.
And the bed is pretty useful, especially with the tourneau cover you can get. I did end up getting a bed extender to let me carry stuff like plywood sheets.
If you can get ahold of a maverick hybrid at msrp, there’s that. But it’s limited to 2,000 lbs. the ecoboost with towing can do 4,000 but then you’re right back in the same spot as the Hyundai minus the theft issue lol.
There’s an EV ute-sized truck I saw going for sale soon in the EU and I want it so badly here in the US
Don’t need a big pickup truck by any means, but I DO need something that can haul a couple hay bales 10 miles every few weeks or so and tow something in a pinch
Currently I just manage with my Leaf cuz fuck paying for gas, but the market is def there as I’m not the only one in my area that would love it
If you need a truck sometimes just get a MPV. Citroen Berlingo in XL version has 850 liters of cargos pace. The biggest Ford Raner has 1050 liters. If someone thinks they will actually carry things in their pick up I can’t fit in my Berlingo they live in a fantasy land.
The dumbest thing I see is people using SUVs as family cars. MPV will be cheaper and 100x more practical for this. But people don’t buy tracks and SUVs for practicality. They buy them for looks and to brag.
I keep my paid off subie around, but I do like driving the camp converted van around because I can just sit and relax without having to go all the way home.
I’m getting old and am a whitewater kayaker. You have to go where the water is which means a lot of long road trips and long weekends. Setting up and tearing down camp constantly wears you down. Now I pull in. Sleep. Can drive part way and sleep at a truck stop. Much nicer. Mine has the bed over the garage so bikes and snowboards can just live there all the time too. Most creek and freestyle boats fit inside too until I get around to putting the racks on. Then I’ll also have an awning and solar.
No problem with that. I think the meme is referring to people who spent 100k on outlandishly large and glitzy trucks to spend 100% of their lives on paved suburban streets.
My sister in-law? Broke as fuck, came across a windfall from an accident that never came up before, spent more than a third of it on... a fucking F-150 platinum. Still deep in debt, living in low income housing, doesn't have a job.
Dont forget to tailgate then hang next to the car you were tailgating for a few moments before flying past you just to end up at the same stop light down the road.
I’m a school bus driver and many of my fellow drivers talk or surf on their phones while driving fucking kids around. It’s illegal and every moment on our buses is recorded (audio and video) but somehow nothing is said or done about this by the people in charge.
There’s likely already a shortage of drivers and they can’t get more because they don’t pay enough. Blow the whistle. It’ll end up getting you paid more if you can stay secret. If not, they’ll fire you and you can sue and get paid A LOT more.
It’s a gamble to get a used car you know nothing about when you have a truck you know is at least a bit reliable. My family grew up playing used car roulette and it’s pretty damn hard to come out ahead in this scenario. Best to run the thing until it dies while saving up for a new or like new vehicle.
Makes completely sense to drive your car to the tomb. I live in Europe and try my best to dodge European cars. I’ve been lucky with my used Prius since 2014, aiming at keeping it as long as possible
Then you don’t know cars as well as you say you do, because you can check for a whole lot more than that without pulling the engine lmao. Maybe stick to the dealership if you don’t feel like you can effectively evaluate it’s condition.
Switching costs money. From what he said money might be tight. I buy and sell my own vehicles. It is a job. Most prefer to give up a few grand to not have to do it (you never get paid full market value on a trade in). Even if someone decided to do it themselves they run the risk of losing big time if they’re inexperienced. Even though I’ve been doing it for years even I lose on some of these. When I lose, it’s usually close to the cost of the vehicle. I can afford that and in the end I average out really well.But the majority of people can’t do that. I get all the hate new big trucks get and I agree. As someone who works in construction I wish station wagons would make a come back. But it’s really easy to say “just do x y or z” it’s not so easy to do.
I get your feeling. It’s a shame the market is built so that people buy more and more useless guga-trucks while most people would do perfectly well with a small family car.
Yeah even in just local traffic, your body really doesn’t do well against a jarring 30mph throw or tons of solid steel pressing up against you. I’ve thought about buying a cheap motorcycle to go to the stores near me for awhile (Yes, I’m in the US. Yes, there’s no public transportation. Yes, I own a car) but honestly seeing drivers around me just driving my car once a week makes me not want to do it
My brother was riding his motorbike when a car turned across his path having not seen him, he was doing 30mph and was launched off the bike, flew over the car, and landed directly on his elbow.
9 hours of surgery rebuilding his arm and now it’s half metal and has about 30-45 degrees of movement. There was serious talk about amputation early on so he kinda got lucky (also lucky to land on an arm rather than his head obviously!)
Motorbikes may be fun and economical but fuck driving them around other cars, eventually you’ll run into a bad driver and if you’re unlucky that could be the end for you.
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