Cars

From time to time, I like to pause and update what’s going on with our car fleet. As of last May, we’re a 100% “Toyota” Family so it’s interesting. For 2 of the 3 I have long-term fuel economy I track via the excellent Fuelly app, so I can represent long-term ownership costs

As an aside, I really wish I had a license plate this cool:

The Hanger Queen – 2016 Lexus GX460

Seems like yesterday we went to San Antonio and picked-up this 2016 Lexus GX460 CPO, then immediately took it on a 3000 mile round trip to Estes park colorado with a Stowaway hanging from the rear hitch and a Thule bag strapped to the top.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” - 1 Corinthians 13:11 (KVJ)

I’ve had a subscription to some sort of car magazine, blog, etc. since I was ten years old. I used to covet and read car magazines like more well-adjusted boys used to secret Playboy magazines. (November 1994 was a classic of that particular tome, but I digress.)

What happened in 2019?

I like to do year-in-review posts every year or after specific milestones, like changing jobs or having big projects finish.

So, if 2018 was a triumph, 2019 was its hangover.

Family

Both my parents are still alive, and are ornery as ever.

Throughout most of 2019, our relationship with our son was estranged, most acutely when we flew up to Kentucky in May to see him graduate Franklin County High School when he refused to see us before, during, or after graduation.

Context: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/05/war-footing-toyota-ceo-unleashes-seven-samurai-bid-survival/#more-1625584

“With our rivals and the rules of competition also changing, a life-or-death battle has begun in a world of unknowns,” [Toyota CEO] Toyoda said during a fiscal update last week. “Cost reduction is crucial. It is a fight to restore our original strength.”

Dear Toyota USA

I read the article below and it sickens me. You are a great company well on the way to being FCA if you take your eye off product and think only of Expense controls.

I’ve toyed with the idea of doing a video review of this car.  If you’d like one, leave a comment
So, I’ve had a 10th Generation 2018 Honda Civic since April 24th.  I had a little car trouble and found myself in need of a car.

Crap.  Nothing like buying a car in the middle of Spring, when everyone else is buying a car thanks to Tax Refunds.   Middle of the model year.  No incentives.  Yaaaaay.

Dear Ford Motor Company,

My 2010 Fusion Hybrid crashed today. No, I didn’t smash into anything…the electric traction system in my car crashed in the computer sense as I was rolling towards a stop sign. I was left without power brakes. Thankfully this was at ~5 mph so just stomping really hard on the pedal yielded a stop.

As I approached the stop sign in electric drive mode (engine off), my dashboard lit up light a Christmas tree, displaying warning lights I didn’t know I even had. The display shouted ‘SERVICE ADVANCE TRAC SYSTEM’ and my brake pedal went almost to the floor.

After a brief spate of car fever, I did some research on (say) a Chevy Cruze Diesel or a Chevy Volt.  What with the recent flooding in Houston, I convinced myself that buying used might be a bad idea, so I decided to check out incentives and options out there.

The short version: Math doesn’t lie.

Let’s say you finance a $30,000 at 0% interest for 5 years.  That’s 60 months, so the math’s rather obvious: $30,000 / 60 == $500 / month.

I haven’t bought a car for myself since 2008, at which time I bought an eighteen year old car I never should have sold.

In the intervening ten years, I’ve had two cars, both welcome hand-me-downs from my wife:  The Camry-of-Doom and Sparky, my current 2010 Ford Fusion.

Having moved to Austin, paid-off my wife’s Sienna minivan, and begun to sock-away some funds for a new ride, it seems time to consider what’s next.

Dynamics?  Yes, dynamics.

1. In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic (staccato, legato etc.) or functional (velocity). The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicatedynamics.

 I’ve read Peter Egan obsessively for years:  I have dead-tree copies of 2 of 3 Side Glances compilations, and one edition of Leanings that stoked a motorcycle obsession I’ve had since 2008.  Prior to that, I’d pick up copies of Road & Track in the Winn-Dixie in my hometown, read the Egan article and then place it back on the shelf above the sign, “IF YOU READ THEM BUY THEM. THIS AIN’T A LIBRARY [sic].”

There aren’t really pics to go with this.  Sorry about that.

It began simply enough:  A dog days Saturday that promised mild temps and good weather.  Car parts in two separate boxes in my garage.  “I’ll probably have this done before you guys get back from the hair place, " I said.

I set myself two tasks:  Kill the Check Engine light in the Camry that’d been on for two years and 5 days, and give my 1995 truck a tuneup–plugs, wires, rotor, distributor cap.  I had all the parts, and plenty of hand tools.

[Exterior:  3am as the Snow falls]

[Garage door rises]

Fusion: Psst….hey, Camry of Doom.

CoD (annoyed): Don’t start what you cain’t finish, Sparky.
F: Mmmm….looks mighty cold out there in all that snow.  I’d offer you a place in here, but this is only for the cars they like.

CoD:  Yeah, yeah….I’m fine out here.  I don’t need no sissy garage.

F: But it’s been frackin’ cold forever it seems like.  Doesn’t it hurt?

How is Ford still alive?  If I look back even 10 years ago, Ford seemed to be completely on the ropes.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

Ford’s 2004 product line:

• Crown Victoria: Chevy ceded the Police/Fleet market to Ford when it killed the Caprice in 1996.  That’s the only reason this relic was still being sold.  It had a boat-anchor 4.6L Mod motor pushing out barely over 235 hp and a gas tank that could kill you in a rear-end accident.
• E150/E250 Econoline.  Same mod-motors but terrible transmissions.  Still, they were the cheapest boxes on wheels to carry stuff, so they endured, getting 12 mpg lumbering in the slow lane dropping transmissions along the way.
• Escape CUV.  Reasonable little trucklet, but an also-ran compared to the RAV4/CR-V that dominated.
• Expedition.  The best large SUV ever made, overseen by John Krafcik, including an independent rear suspension.  Krafcik would go on to bigger things.  The Expedition would not; SUV sales were beginning to tank as a decade of higher gas prices and recession (culminating in 2008’s Financial Crisis) set-in.  Still saddled with the mod-motor lump, but good package otherwise.
• Explorer.  The Explorer never recovered from the rollover debacle in at the turn of the millenium.  People finally wised-up that they didn’t need an ungainly, thirsty vehicle to carry 4 people and stuff.  (They’d like an ungainly vehicle that wasn’t thirsty, and that’s how we got the CUV.)  Ford rode the Explorer much too long before trying to find a replacement.
• Ford Explorer Sport Trac:  It’s an automotive mullet.  Business in the front (Explorer), party in the back (F-150).  Handled about as well as you’d think it would given those Frankenstein origins. 
• The F-150.  It’s a testament to the innate goodness of these trucks that an effeminate redesign (1996) and a truly underpowered set of motors (yep 1996, too) couldn’t dislodge it from selling like beer in a college town.  Well, that…and an incredibly loyal customer base, the crushing ineptitude of GM, and the perennial also-ran status of everyone else.  But, that’s another story for another day.  The F-150 carried Ford, and still does.
• The Focus.  Ah, the remnant of Jac Nasser’s “World Ford” initiative of the 90’s.  Auspiciously the same car they got in Europe, but less reliable and cheaper.  Increasingly uncompetitive with a flock of Koreans, and it couldn’t touch the Corolla or Civic for refinement or reliability.  See a theme here?  “Also ran.”
• The Freestar.  Ah, mini-vans.  They used to make those, didn’t they?   Freestar was a barely redone Windstar, a van that couldn’t compete with Chrysler, let alone the contemporary Sienna and Odyssey.  Granted, it could hold 8 in relative comfort.  Too bad it couldn’t hold transmission or head gasket integrity.   Another convenient Ford theme:  Awful motors.
• Mustang.  The last hurrah of the Fox body Mustang.  Or, if you like, the 26th (!) year of a platform that dated back to the Ford Fairmont in 1978.  
• Ranger.  The 3.0 V6 in there powered the Taurus.  The ORIGINAL Taurus.  “Fresh” from its redesign in 1996 (!), the Ranger would ironically be the 2nd best compact pickup you could buy until its demise because the factory tooling simply forgot how to make something so old.
• The Ford Taurus.  Yes, really…this refugee from the Ovoid disaster of 1996 was still being sold and tried to compete with the new Accord and Camry.  Aside from interior space, the it was painfully out of date, and its Duratec 3.0L was underpowered, comparatively thirsty, and unreliable.
• Thunderbird.  It was ugly, slow, thirsty, pricey, and stemmed from the compromised DEW98 (Jaguar S-type, Lincoln LS) platform.   Another sad theme: Mediocrity.

So, there you have it.  At best, you have outdated nameplates; at worst, you have products that never should’ve existed.  If GM was dead-at-the-wheel, then Ford was surely asleep at it.  So, how did they grow and thrive through the toughest financial conditions in the last half-century?

Forgive me, I’m recovering from learning today that Peter Egan is retiring from Road and Track.

What I’m about to write is Dharmic revenge for my actions as an 16-25 year old: Ten years on from that, I hate shopping for anything durable.   I don’t mind shopping for food, theatre tickets, or the average temporal thrill, but when it comes to something that’s going to take-up residence at my house, I’d rather not.

I remember distinctly being in Don Napier’s 6th grade Language Arts class in Sebastian Middle School in Jackson, KY and getting one of those writing assignments everyone hates.  

Write an essay arguing a position.

It was the early days of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in Kentucky.  The Supreme Court of Kentucky (SCOK) had decided that the education system in Kentucky was unconstitutional, that our perennial position just above Mississippi on every aptitude test was not good enough, so out with the old, in with the new.

You know how you go out looking for the right car, with a checklist and a list of requirements?  I’ve been doing that for the better part of two years.  I’ve driven every small car known to man at intervals, trying to find some reasonable personal transportation when the Camry of Doom goes kaput.

What I’m *really* looking to do is duplicate the love I had for the 1998 Impreza 2.5RS, a car with All-Wheel Drive, a sweet 5-speed manual transmission and the turn-in responses of a B13 Sentra SE-R.  I still remember the test drive I took at the now-defunct Oldhan’s Subaru in Nicholasville Kentucky back in college, and whoo boy, was it FUN.  Pity I had no job at the time. :-)

What do cars and electronics have in common?

Pornography improves the breed.  

More generally, both benefit from something that captures the imagination and drives obsessive behavior and improvements to the delivery medium.  For electronics, this was VHS, DVDs, HDtv, internet, streaming video, etc.  For cars, this was racing.

Where did most of the technology we use today come from?  Rear-view mirrors, synchromesh transmissions, fuel injection, electronic engine controls, high compression/high rpm operation, turbochargers, ABS, traction control, stability control, all derived from the singular, “Racing improves the breed.”

The best feature of a Toyota Camry XV20?  External temperature gauge.

Yes, the car’s practically perfect, in that annoying Mary Poppins way, but I love clicking that button on the dash and seeing the outside air temperature.

Ruminations for today:

• It’s a crime there’s no site where you can put in reasonable search criteria (“manual diesel wagon”) and have it monitor AutoTrader, eBayMotors, Cars.com, Craigslist, etc. Sort of like Kayak.com does for airline tickets or Mint.com does for finances. Corollary thought: Some techno-geek/gear head like me invented just such a program, but loved it so much never left his Mom’s basement. Plurality of choice sucks.
• Both ‘cancelled’ and ‘canceled’ are correct English. The single-L form makes my brain want to explode.
• So, okay…until we invent telepathy, we’re stuck with language of some form to communicate ideas. Each language has its own strengths and weaknesses: brevity, density, beauty, expressiveness. Could we come up with something BETTER THAN ENGLISH, please?!
• Corporate communications is where English majors go to die.

In no particular order, here are the new cars I want to test drive:

Since March 22nd, my family’s been tooling around in a Nissan Cube.

Let’s be honest: We hate it. We miss our Honda Odyssey and look forward to its return. Heck, this thing makes me yearn for the consistent handling, quiet competence of my 10 year old Toyota Camry.

Yep. This brick is Hello Kitty with wheels, and yikes has it overstayed its welcome.

For those who don’t know, a Nissan Cube is a Nissan Versa with a different body. A Nissan Versa is the smallest Nissan automobile sold in America, featuring a coarse 122 hp 1.8L engine and a Continuously Variable Transmission. Pic of the versa:

I’ll get some pics up soon…just some thoughts from attending the 2010 Louisville Auto show

• It’s much better going with your 3 year old daughter than with your 1 year old daughter. Maria was my wingman…er…wingdaughter. Awesome!
• The Ford display triumphed. They had position right in front of the entrance, and the cars were great. They (understandably) didn’t have the 2011 5.0 Mustang GT on display–who would by the 2010 4.6?
• The new Taurus is incredible. Great styling. Sumptuous interior. I can’t believe this platform began as the VW Passat-derivative Five Hundred. It’s a completely different car just when America’s ready to return to cars after gorging on SUV’s for 20 years.
• That being said, the new Fiesta’s too small. Unless they can make money on this car at $14k or less, forget it. People will buy the redesigned Focus instead.
• Toyota’s display, right next to the entrance as well, was a ghost town. I felt sorry for these guys as there are some superb cars in the lineup. Maria loved the Scion xD, and I thought the the new Prius to be the perfect replacement for my 2000 Camry–only it gets double the mileage.
• BMW has lost its way, big time. I though things were bad when Bangle took over, but $100,000 UGLY, IRRELEVANT cars (X6? 5 series GT?). Those posers snatching-up the Beamers are BROKE, you Bavarian Dullards. Those who remain are the hardcore faithful, and you’ve given them nothing but complicated, overpriced, ugly cars that break with British regularity. ::sigh:: Still want an E39 530i Sport. Probably a 2001 model. :-)
• Honda: WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING?! The Oddysey withers on the vine, the Civic is a disaster, and the Accord remains ugly (as it has since 1998). Meanwhile, we get the Accord Crosstour.
• Meanwhile, the Fit remains a joy. Pity it’s overpriced and lacks taller gearing for the highway. Still, play with those folding rear seats, work that snick/snick shifter, and feel the quality of the controls–this is Honda Motor we-can-engineer-better-than-you Company at its best.
• Jump in a Mazda 6, then into a Hyundai Sonata, and tell me why Mazda’s still in business.
• The Mazda 2 won’t sell. It’s an uglier Fiesta, with less space.
• GM is still the “too many divisions, too many nameplates” company. And the new Regal (a rebadged Opel offering only a 4-cylinder engine) is too small.
• Finally got in a Camaro. Maria liked it because it’s red. It has so little headroom and such bad outward visibility, I felt like I was in a coffin. I don’t see that car having even the legs of the 4th Gen Camaro/Firebird. GM has a talent for useless styling exercised (SSR, anyone?) This feels exactly like that.
• Acuras make BMWs seem attractive. Yikes.

So yeah, I feel like an old fart–I like reasonable cars, with good styling, interior appointments, and room. I dislike gimmicks and needless complexity–they seem like sleight-of-hand to hide bad engineering.