Car update
Mar. 19th, 2012 07:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckCutting and pasting from note to the spammers because I'm running on 4.2 hours of sleep.
OK, so the car thing. I really didn't plan to buy a car yesterday, but I had done my research during the week and even though I was thinking I should go and see four cars, I was pretty sure that the one I wanted was the Volkswagen. I sent out my Costco e-mails right before bed on Saturday, and the Hyundai (Elantra Touring gets good marks for being very good value for the money) guy called me back and e-mailed me before 1pm. So I wanted to go down there to eliminate the Hyundai. I was worried about it for two reasons - legroom and being an *exotic* car still. The Car Talk guys recommend against getting cars that may get more difficult to service in out-of-the-way locations. Of course, I realize that is in direct conflict with my Volkswagen interest, so I set that aside as a real concern and went to check out Hyundai.
I was very pleasantly surprised and I see why the Elantra Touring gets the good reviews. It was actually HUGE inside, and even though it was a normal sized car, the seats sit very tall. It had good features and was CHEAP. However, it had a very utilitarian feel - probably because it is a very utilitarian vehicle. Another detraction is it doesn't have fantastic fuel economy, which is a thing for me. But I liked the value for the price, just like the reviewers said I would. However, I walked away from there thinking I would definitely give the car a good review to Husband.
Since the Volkswagen dealership Costco put me with was just around the corner from there, I decided to stop there before going home to check out the Jetta Sportswagen, which the reviewers adore. Plus, I have an uncle who is a car guy (weridly he is currently rebuilding a PINTO from the chassie, up), and he is totally about turbo diesel. When he was selling it I instantly liked it as an idea better than hybrid. I have worries about hybrid batteries and that the technology is still too new for me to be 100% comfortable with it, and the turbo diesel gets comparable results for fuel efficiency. I still planned to go look at a Toyota, because I come from a Toyota family and my parents were always very happy with their Toyotas, but they Toyota and the Volkswagen were similar in price and I was pretty sure if it was a toss-up I'd go with the turbo diesel.
I was also going to look at Subaru, but mainly because I was worried it was the only car that would end up being big enough from the group to be comfortable for Husband and AG33 to both ride in it. They don't have fantastic fuel economy and their price is the same as the Toyota and Volkswagen. They do have the all-wheel-drive going for them, but seriously, that would only be really a big deal to me maybe 5 days out of the year, if that, so it was not critical to my decision-making.
Long and short of it, I let the guy sell me the Jetta. I got a couple of hard sell lines, like "The TDI is hard to get, we only have two, you better jump on them they may not be here in a month" and "If I could get you $800 or $1000 in trade for your basically worthless tradein would you do the deal TODAY?" I gave a couple of accidentaly hard catch lines - I'm in the early stages of my shopping, I need to look at the hybrids over at Toyota and also drive a Subaru. He said, go on, drive it up to Reston, get Husband to jump in it and see what he thinks. When I did that, he was so confident he had sold me that he had them pull the other one out of the show room - I was driving a white one, the showroom color was grey.
Husband rode in it, and found it to be pretty good. We talked about whether it was what I really wanted. We checked a few things about the other three cars online, then he sent me back to talk numbers.
The price differential between the Hyundai and the VW was about $8000, but the VW comes with the first three years of all normal maintenance free, so some of that difference will be made up by that. VW has a couple of features I really like - full-size spare, bluetooth speakers for my phone. It has a six-CD changer, which is definitely on the luxury checklist, but Husband has been bitching about the sound system in the Ford since we got it, so that will be a big plus for him, in addition to the other stuff, which I think both the Hyundai and the other cars in consideration also had. Stupid thing comes with stupid iPod compatibility, which we will probably never use, but also has a place to plug in a memory card for music, which I may sell to Husband as the best way for him to have all the music he wants in the car. I'm sort of selling myself on that, becuase The Barbarian likes to have LOTR on my little portable, and all of LOTR will not fit on my portable. I might really enjoy having a little memory card library. LOTR on one, yoga music for night drives on another, Husband music on one.
Anyway - shiny new toy! If VA ever has a cell phone law I'm now ready for it. And my car no longer uses oil and it actually has a working suspension and will drive if there is .25 inches of snow on the ground! Whoo hoo!
I have spent the morning dealing with all the CRAP I pulled out of the Crown Vic when I gave it away yesterday. Did not take as long as I thought to deal with, so I am pleased. I thoght it would be at least two mornings' work. I am trying to be inspired to keep this car beautiful, at least for a couple of years.
OK, so the car thing. I really didn't plan to buy a car yesterday, but I had done my research during the week and even though I was thinking I should go and see four cars, I was pretty sure that the one I wanted was the Volkswagen. I sent out my Costco e-mails right before bed on Saturday, and the Hyundai (Elantra Touring gets good marks for being very good value for the money) guy called me back and e-mailed me before 1pm. So I wanted to go down there to eliminate the Hyundai. I was worried about it for two reasons - legroom and being an *exotic* car still. The Car Talk guys recommend against getting cars that may get more difficult to service in out-of-the-way locations. Of course, I realize that is in direct conflict with my Volkswagen interest, so I set that aside as a real concern and went to check out Hyundai.
I was very pleasantly surprised and I see why the Elantra Touring gets the good reviews. It was actually HUGE inside, and even though it was a normal sized car, the seats sit very tall. It had good features and was CHEAP. However, it had a very utilitarian feel - probably because it is a very utilitarian vehicle. Another detraction is it doesn't have fantastic fuel economy, which is a thing for me. But I liked the value for the price, just like the reviewers said I would. However, I walked away from there thinking I would definitely give the car a good review to Husband.
Since the Volkswagen dealership Costco put me with was just around the corner from there, I decided to stop there before going home to check out the Jetta Sportswagen, which the reviewers adore. Plus, I have an uncle who is a car guy (weridly he is currently rebuilding a PINTO from the chassie, up), and he is totally about turbo diesel. When he was selling it I instantly liked it as an idea better than hybrid. I have worries about hybrid batteries and that the technology is still too new for me to be 100% comfortable with it, and the turbo diesel gets comparable results for fuel efficiency. I still planned to go look at a Toyota, because I come from a Toyota family and my parents were always very happy with their Toyotas, but they Toyota and the Volkswagen were similar in price and I was pretty sure if it was a toss-up I'd go with the turbo diesel.
I was also going to look at Subaru, but mainly because I was worried it was the only car that would end up being big enough from the group to be comfortable for Husband and AG33 to both ride in it. They don't have fantastic fuel economy and their price is the same as the Toyota and Volkswagen. They do have the all-wheel-drive going for them, but seriously, that would only be really a big deal to me maybe 5 days out of the year, if that, so it was not critical to my decision-making.
Long and short of it, I let the guy sell me the Jetta. I got a couple of hard sell lines, like "The TDI is hard to get, we only have two, you better jump on them they may not be here in a month" and "If I could get you $800 or $1000 in trade for your basically worthless tradein would you do the deal TODAY?" I gave a couple of accidentaly hard catch lines - I'm in the early stages of my shopping, I need to look at the hybrids over at Toyota and also drive a Subaru. He said, go on, drive it up to Reston, get Husband to jump in it and see what he thinks. When I did that, he was so confident he had sold me that he had them pull the other one out of the show room - I was driving a white one, the showroom color was grey.
Husband rode in it, and found it to be pretty good. We talked about whether it was what I really wanted. We checked a few things about the other three cars online, then he sent me back to talk numbers.
The price differential between the Hyundai and the VW was about $8000, but the VW comes with the first three years of all normal maintenance free, so some of that difference will be made up by that. VW has a couple of features I really like - full-size spare, bluetooth speakers for my phone. It has a six-CD changer, which is definitely on the luxury checklist, but Husband has been bitching about the sound system in the Ford since we got it, so that will be a big plus for him, in addition to the other stuff, which I think both the Hyundai and the other cars in consideration also had. Stupid thing comes with stupid iPod compatibility, which we will probably never use, but also has a place to plug in a memory card for music, which I may sell to Husband as the best way for him to have all the music he wants in the car. I'm sort of selling myself on that, becuase The Barbarian likes to have LOTR on my little portable, and all of LOTR will not fit on my portable. I might really enjoy having a little memory card library. LOTR on one, yoga music for night drives on another, Husband music on one.
Anyway - shiny new toy! If VA ever has a cell phone law I'm now ready for it. And my car no longer uses oil and it actually has a working suspension and will drive if there is .25 inches of snow on the ground! Whoo hoo!
I have spent the morning dealing with all the CRAP I pulled out of the Crown Vic when I gave it away yesterday. Did not take as long as I thought to deal with, so I am pleased. I thoght it would be at least two mornings' work. I am trying to be inspired to keep this car beautiful, at least for a couple of years.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 02:02 pm (UTC)Now...to keep the gummy bears, Captain Crunch, or whatever it is my future daughter in law is nibbling on these days from getting ground into the back seat!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 02:30 pm (UTC)I'll be curious to see what your experience is with the VW. Three years ago when I was buying it was between the VW and the Prius for me because fuel economy was my top concern, reliability number two, and I went in the Prius direction.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:10 pm (UTC)At any rate, my mpg varies between 38 and 51 depending on time of year. If the car is too cold or too hot when I start it up, it uses more fuel, and obviously if I run the heater or AC while driving. There are just those few sweet-spot times when I can get up to 50 or 51! I'd say I'm generally running around 43 during summer or winter and 48 in spring/fall.
The only difference I know about diesel engines is that it may need warming up somehow in winter? Is there more?
The thing that really intrigued me about the TDIs was the possibility of using biodiesel and getting out of petroleum completely. Biodiesel is supposed to be SO clean that in older diesel cars with gunk it can scour out the gunk so fast it clogs up the filters. The only other thing I know is that some states mandate clean diesel (to reduce dangerous air particulates) although Arizona's highway lobby is so powerful it never passes here. :-/ I don't know whether clean/dirty diesel makes a difference in the tank or engine or just emissions. At any rate, is NC's husband talking about gas or diesel? You can try googling about it. There are a bazillion car forums on the web.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:29 pm (UTC)The thing I didn't realize was that diesel forms a wax film when it gets below a certain temperature. So the fuel itself needs to be heated a bit, or it will clog the fuel filter, and at a certain point, around 5 degrees F, it doesn't really work at all. So there is a little preheater deal-y to warm the fuel filter before you start the car in cold weather (adding an extra step to starting the engine that I only heard about from New Cellmate - from looking at my manual, I think maybe my car does it automatically so I don't have to stop and wait before turning the key all the way - will ask when I take it in for it's first service), and apparently something warms teh fuel after the car is started, but you have to be sure to get "winterized" fuel if it is going to be severely cold, or keep your vehicle inside. It is rare for us to get down that cold here, so hopefully will be a non-issue. Supposedly in winter the engine will be a lot louder until it warms up. However, the VW people can't emphasize enough that it is NOT good to sit and idle the engine. Much better to get moving and bring engine temperature up as quickly as possible, which I thought was really interesting.
I don't know about bio-diesel. The VW engine runs on ULSD - ultra-low sulfer diesel - which apparenty is a US and Canadian fuel only and apparently THE WORLD WILL END AND I WILL GO TO HELL if I put any other fuel in the tank. :D They say to be careful if the car is being taken out of the US and Canada, because I may not be able to get car food abroad. Also, I have now realized that not every station in the neighborhood has diesel, and have done a little research to find out all the places in the areas I travel. There are plenty that are convenient, but I can't just drive in anywhere.
Apparently diesel fuel packs a lot more punch, so diesel engines are overall 20-30% more fuel efficient than gas engines, and they also have more zip. The internet promises me a very sporty performance from my engine. Also, apparently diesel engines are impossible to kill, with 250k being a typical expectation, and many lasting 300k or more. So that's cool.
Diesel is more smog producing, but has far lower CO2 emmissions, so that is a trade off.
And there ends my current knowledge of diesel. *hugs the internet*
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:46 pm (UTC)Okay, I had to go look up the latest. Ultra low sulfur diesel is clean diesel, and the EPA mandated it nationwide so it is available everywhere. \o/ The Arizona legislature can suck it! The new fuel definitely brought down the sulfur dioxide emissions, so that's good.
Mmmmmm ... sporty! I have heard that diesel engines are super hardy. (And electric motors apparently have no moving parts so they go forever, too.The new Leaf and Volt seem intriguing. Why are gas engines so fiddly?)
Enjoy your new baby!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 04:07 pm (UTC)The answer - plastics. Wait, no! Spark plugs! :D Diesel engines use an air compression and fuel injection ignition system. Also, to make the diesel engine workable with the high pressures the system requires, the engine parts are much stronger than the parts of a gasoline engine.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 05:44 pm (UTC)And congrats on it being a VW. Because you thereby just paid 0.000000001€ of my wage or something like that :D
no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 05:45 pm (UTC)