Car trouble

[drscott]

Since I left home at 18 to go to school in Boston, I never needed to own a car until I left there for British Columbia in '89. I flew into Seattle, stayed in a Motel 6 near the airport (and did my daily running along the Green River where the eponymous serial killer left his victims), and bought my first car, an '86 4WD Toyota Tercel wagon, at a dealership near Lake Union in Seattle. I drove it up to Vancouver and eventually registered it in BC, giving up my gorgeous Mount Rainier plates. I drove that car into the bush, over mountains, back and forth across the country twice, down to California, and finally sold it to a dealer who had bought one of the lots I sold when I subdivided my land on Bowen Island. I never had a minute of downtime with that car.

When I moved to California in '97, I bought a '94 Geo Prizm (a clone of the Toyota Corolla from the same assembly lines at the NUMMI joint venture plant in Fremont.) It, too, has been trouble-free, with one exception: the starter motor/solenoid. I've had it replaced twice, and yesterday when I went to start the car to go to the gym, it just clicked at me. Having been through this twice before, I repeated the diagnostics and tried jumpstarting it. Nothing; same problem. The part is buried so deeply in the engine area you can't even get to it to whack it with a hammer, which sometimes fixes dead spot problems long enough to keep it running. So during dinner time the tow truck driver arrived in one of those huge flatbed tow trucks, turned on his brilliant landing lights, and pushed my car out into the street and up to his truck. I had never seen the entire procedure, which involves 1) attaching a winch to the underbody hooks in front, 2) lowering the rear end of the flatbed so it forms a ramp; 3) pulling the car up the ramp, 4) attaching 4 corner cables to hold the car in place, 5) bringing the flatbed back up. All of this took place while I stood in the spotlight from the lamps, feeling like an extra in Close Encounters, knowing half my neighbors were watching this spectacle of noise and light in our normally dark, quiet neighborhood. The driver promised to drop my note to the mechanic and the key in the shop's dropbox, and when I called this morning it had, indeed, arrived. For $35 a hunky guy drives up to your door and uses a $100K piece of equipment to put on a 15-minute show, then follows your orders for another 15 minutes. Really a good deal.

Now I'm thinking of buying that great engineer's toy, a Prius. It's impossible to justify financially, and I would feel guilty about owning one when it would be better used by someone who drives much more than I do. But then I'm encouraging thereby production of more of them, so.... [goes into rationalization mode]

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I agree completely with your last paragraph, right down to "encouraging production". My '89 Corolla is still ticking along, so I suspect what I'll really do is wait for the Corolla to die and hope Toyota has produced a slightly smaller hybrid by then. (They're planning to make several.)

[goldibehr.livejournal.com]

$35 is a good price! It cost us $80 to get the same done here (New Jersey.)

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

$35 is indeed a great price for a flat bed tow, or a tow of any kind for that matter.

My old Honda is still ticking along at 180K+ miles on the clock even if it looks a little battered in places.

I'm awaiting word on a used tired from Discount Tire so I can get my front tires swapped to the back on the old heap, however, the right front tire is showing tread seperation, hence the used tire and I don't want to sink anymore money into this car than I have to right now.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

You mention so many places and topics that I want to respond to in this post. I had never heard of Bowen Island until a couple of years ago when I found out a friend of mine had stayed at a B&B there and it was run by a "triple", one of whom was the uncle of a woman I was working with right then in Boston in summer stock. Two years later, my friend got legally married on Bowen Island!

I'm looking at your list of cars ...two ... and then tried to remember how many vehicles I've owned since 1976. I think it's somewhere between 12-14:)

If I could afford it, I'd get rid of my big four-door pick up and buy a Prius. You can get a $3000 tax credit for purchasing one in CA and also drive in the HOV lane by yourself. I plan to get something much more economical next time out!

Good luck with your decision! Hugs!

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

There are certain annoying complications to using a Prius in the car pool lane in the Bay Area, namely having to sign up for a FastTrak account (which I would rarely use, since I don't need to cross a bridge) and being required to permanently stick on really ugly stickers on all sides of the car. And the tax credits aren't a big motivator.

[excessor.livejournal.com]

Get the Prius. You know you want to.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Well, I've been exceptionally pleased with my Prius, especially the built-in GPS. Comfortable, affordable, and reliable.

If you don't want to wait several weeks for one, and don't want to pay more than list price for one ... join any credit union (I use Tech CU) and use their car-buying service. Most CU car buying services go through fleet purchasing managers. fleet purchases have separate allocations from consumer purchases ... at least for my Prius, they did. I paid less than invoice or street price for my car, and got it in 5 days, start to finish. They drove the new car up to the house, and took away my old car in exchange. Very slick, smooth and easy.

However ... if you really need to rationalize this ... grab Randy and discuss it with him. He knows more about cars than anyone except perhaps Click & Clack, and is VERY good at suggesting highly appropriate car models for people to look at. He can also tell you the repair history and cost history of every car currently being marketed in North America.

You're also welcome to test-drive my Prius some time if you'd like.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I'm annoyed that you don't seem to be able to get the GPS without a lot of other options I don't want which jacks up the price $3K. If I were a commuter, or visited client sites regularly as you do, I'd be willing for the satellite traffic data etc., but I'm not sure I want to pay that much for occasional use.

Thanks for the ideas -- going through the credit union is a good trick. I won't need financing, of course. And I'm two blocks from Sunnyvale Toyota, which allows test drives, but I appreciate your kind offer. And that Randy is pretty handy, hmm? I'm just toying with the idea for now....

[furfairy.livejournal.com]

You're in luck in that Honda and Toyota have many more hybridi cars in their pipeline. A hybrid camry is coming soon. But I think the Prius is cool looking as it is. It's also a nice size, not too big not too small. If you like small cars (like I do) you may want to check out the 2006 civic. It's a new body design and is very jetta-like without the VW reliability problems.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Even smaller would be fine. Most of my driving is to/from the gym! Seems pointless to haul around thousands of pounds of metal for that.

[furfairy.livejournal.com]

Here's the Edmunds.com spec page for the 2006 civic. Honda claim 30/40 mpg for it. I haven't seen better numbers for any non-hybrid.

The Toyota/Scion xA gets similar numbers, with one point better for city driving, at 31/38. It's smaller than the civic. One very nice thing about the Scions is that they're made in Japan and reflect that quality. Another nice thing is its short length, at 154.1 inches, making it a breeze to park in the city. Here's the Edmunds.com spec page for the xA. The xB has very similar numbers. I really liked driving the xB I rented a few months back.

[ricksf.livejournal.com]

The Prius is as you note, a technogeeks dream vehicle and definitely an environmentalists love child. And, being a Toyota product, likely be hellishly reliable in comparison to other hybrids. However, the elegant and complex running gear suggests that it'll be less reliable than a tried-and-true gasoline engined conveyance. And if you don't drive much, watching the Prius depreciate in the driveway could be painful in the long run. Just my $0.02 yen comments as a unrepentent car junkie.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

The latest initial-year quality survey puts the Prius on top, with 4% (from memory) reporting a need to repair something in the first year. The battery warranty is long enough to reassure me, and the lower stresses on a smaller engine run more consistently would argue for longer life. But it's true you won't know until 10 years have passed whether it will compare to, say, a Corolla in longevity.

[sfmini.livejournal.com]

When I purchased the MINI I used a car a lot more than I do now. Now I can't justify owing it at all, save my desire to have the freedom it provides. But at 150 miles a month usage I'd be better off with a '94 Geo.

If you don't drive that much, I suggest buying as little car as your needs require. You'd certainly never recoup the additional investment in the hybrid technology in gas savings.

Cars are such a personal thing. For me it's more emotional than practical, thus I pay a hefty premium on that. If I had more sense I'd get a more practical car. Nobody ever accused me of having a lot of sense!

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

Get a motorcycle!!!!