About a month ago, I bought a car. I know: big deal, me and the rest of America, right? Kind of, but not really. Unlike the average person, I didn’t have to face the dealer alone. I had access to the writers behind WIRED’s automotive coverage. So I asked them for a little guidance.
Now, those of us who write about cars here aren’t just working our day jobs; we’re obsessives. We write about cars because we talk about cars—incessantly, to the annoyance of everyone around us. So it’s not surprising that my emailed plea devolved into a rambling, novella-length thread about the state of the auto industry, douchebaggery, and a surprising number of stories about Jaguars. (No, I did not buy—or even consider—a Jaguar.)
Anyway, we thought we’d share. So here it is, unedited and uncut:
Fri 3/13/2015 7:51 AM
From: Brown, Joe
To: Sam Smith; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
I sold the Saab yesterday. Guy didn’t even haggle me, knew what he was getting.
So… now I have no car. A recap of what I want:
A lease less than $400/month
Comfortable
Decent fuel economy
Able to accomodate a motorcycle on a hitch rack
NO CVT
Brown interior (I do not like black interiors)
Here are my options, so far, I think. Help, though, because there has to be something I am missing.
– Audi Q3
notes:
– dealers are a bag o’ dicks, tryna get me to put down a deposit because “there are so few in California.”
– Seemingly impossible to get one with a brown interior
– VW Tiguan
notes:
– Love the interior config/feel
– Test drove, and it was a dog, but I haven’t driven the R-Line yet. Is there a difference in performance?
BMW X1
notes:
– I sorta don’t want to be the guy who drives a BMW, especially the cheapest BMW—feels like social climbing.
Mercedes-Benz GLK
notes:
– expensive.
Help!
***
From: Jordan Golson
To: “Brown, Joe”
Cc: Sam Smith, Chuck Squatriglia, “Davies, Alexander”
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
From my little brother the car designer, I gotta agree on the V60.
Volvo V60 or V60 Cross Country. Less than $400/mo, gorgeous Beechwood brown interior with the nicest seats you will experience this side of a Maybach S-Class, all the tech and safety you could want, superb looks and build quality, good mileage, sport enough, lots of room… etc. I personally wouldn’t even bother test-driving anything else, but I’m a big Volvo wagon guy. Here are some other options:
BMW 328d or 328i Sports Wagon, if you can get yourself a good deal. Great mileage, lots of space, great build quality, but definitely pricey
Mercedes GLA. On the small side (Audi Q3/BMW X1 competitor), but also on the cheaper side. You’d be able to get yourself a nicely spec’d one.
Jeep Cherokee. Polarizing styling, but it’s a great bang for your buck and has one of the best infotainment systems out there. Also seriously roomy, and seriously capable.
MINI Countryman. Kinda speaks for itself, really.
Dodge Durango. BIG, powerful, very roomy, and not too thirsty. Kinda of an oddball choice, I love them.
***
From: Chuck Squatriglia
To: “Brown, Joe”
Cc: Sam Smith, Jordan Golson, “Davies, Alexander”
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like the new Ford Explorer. Nice styling, AWD if you get the EcoBoost V6, loads of torque and towing capacity, under $40K (unless you go for the Sport model, which is $43,100) and 17/24 mpg.
I don’t know if it’s significantly bigger than anything else you’re considering. And if you can somehow get the Interceptor police package, hot damn. Got any friends at Ford?
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Chuck Squatriglia
Cc: Jordan Golson, “Brown, Joe” , “Davies, Alexander”
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Dammit, Chuck, I’m going to disown you.
And this thread was going so well. The Explorer is terrible. It’s a Taurus jacked up in the air, and the Taurus is a bad car to begin with. Terrible terrible terrible fuel economy, massive footprint, massive curb weight, impossible to see out of, crap cabin materials, crap powertrains unless you spend for the Ecoboost (and it’s too much money), crap build quality, crap transmissions. The SHO is maybe marginally OK but even then that’s a stretch. The Police Interceptor pack just gilds the turd—spring rate, reprogramming, better dampers and bushings and shit. I’d rather have a Crown Vic. I’d rather have a Camry. I’d rather have a bullet to my frontal lobe.
Joe—just to clarify—this needs to be something new, right? (Nothing wrong with that, just limits the options. Especially with the motorcycle thing—that kind of tongue weight knocks out a lot of stuff.) Leasing or buying?
Random thoughts, your mileage may vary:
Tiguan: R-line is just trim stuff. And no matter how you spec it, it’s not quick.
X1: Too expensive if you spec it right, interior sucks, and the four-cylinder is atrocious. (Six is great, but way too much money.) You don’t want one of these, I promise. And any BMW is going to give you less than the competition for more money, and most of them don’t drive well enough any more to justify it. Reliability is also not great.
Q3 probably makes the best sense. Drives well, decent resale, looks good, nice interiors. Just pleasant. But they’re selling like crazy. I’d believe dealers are running out of their allocations, but I don’t believe there are “so few.” If you really want one and the dealers are being terrible, consider calling Audi PR. Not to cut a deal—screw that—but because they can just suggest a dealer who has a car to sell and won’t dick you over.
Jeep: Big problems with the ZF-sourced nine-speed automatic, which they still haven’t sorted. Little space inside. Drives well, though. Personally, I can’t get over the looks.
Mini: Most of their stuff is, unfortunately, not built very well. Can’t say I’m a fan of anything they’ve done in the past few years, but that’s just me. And I’d stay away from the all-wheel-drive stuff; it’s known for coming apart.
Durango isn’t that bad. Same bones as the Grand Cherokee—old Mercedes ML—but a third row and more length.
Thought about a stripped-out or slightly used Grand Cherokee?
Volvo is nice—screwed together well, drives well, and dealers can’t sell them, so you could probably get a deal. But have to assume the tongue weight of a motorcycle wouldn’t do it favors—assuming it could handle it.
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith
Cc: Jordan Golson; Brown, Joe; Davies, Alexander
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Going forward, I’m just gonna keep quiet when these conversations come up…
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Chuck Squatriglia
Cc: Jordan Golson, “Brown, Joe” , “Davies, Alexander”
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Whoops, phone rang and hit send without finishing that sentence. On Durango, meant to say “Wouldn’t think it’d be difficult to get a good price on one.”
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
What do you guys think of the Ford Escape? I like the size, the ground clearance, that I can load that fucker up with everything and still come in under the base price of a Q3; I like that it’s American, and that I can roll up into a small town with looking like a rich asshole.
Sam, have you driven?
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Escape is pretty damn decent. Basically a Focus underneath, and the Focus is a great thing to drive. (And lease. Wouldn’t own one long term if you paid me.) Relatively light, decent mileage, you can see out of it. Sync has improved greatly—it’s still bad, as Jordan says—but if you ask me, it’s now good enough that you won’t drive yourself nuts over a lease term.
Check to see if it can handle the tongue weight? And just for the record, how heavy’s the bike?
***
From: Jordan Golson
To: Brown, Joe
Cc: Squatriglia, Chuck; Sam Smith; Davies, Alexander
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
I would wait on any Ford until the Sync system is gone. That thing is fucking terrible.
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Oh, right, re: Sync: Avoid the MyFord Touch part, which (just checked) is only on the Escape Titanium. Sync as a voice-activation system and media/phone/nav integration isn’t bad. Touch is the terrible haptic-feedback dash/screen combo.
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Towing capacity is 3,500 lbs, which means that tongue has gotta be at least 350, right? And since the thing is AWD it will at worst just send all the power to the back and fuck my mileage up if I overload it a scosh—as opposed to lifting the fucking front wheels off the ground in a pathetic spin as would happen in my Saab. Bike hasn’t been bought yet, but I like the KLX250 (275lbs wet + 80 lb hitch rack = close enough for rock and roll) and will likely buy a CRF150 (240lbs wet = no problem) first.
Damn, sucks that the Titanium has that awful system on it, because I like all the other options—the safety stuff, etc. Is it really that bad? I’m used to plugging an iPhone into an aux jack…
***
From: Brown, Joe
To: Sam Smith; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Also I hate the Cherokee. Feels like you’re driving in a coffin.
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith; Brown, Joe
Cc: Jordan Golson; Davies, Alexander
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Screw all this. Get a Land Rover Defender and crush everything in your path. Yes, they’re old. And expensive. And have zero safety gear. But they’re cool as hell, go anywhere and it’ll always have resale value.
***
From: Brown, Joe
To: Sam Smith; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
I was thinking about that new entry-level land rover that’s coming out—what is it, the Discovery 2? And also, we haven’t touched on the Renegade yet. Worth waiting for?
***
From: Jordan Golson
To: Brown, Joe
Cc: Squatriglia, Chuck; Sam Smith; Davies, Alexander
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Towing capacity on the Renegade is just 2,000 lbs with the big motor. Discovery Sport, I think the LR is called. Evoque is pretty nice too, and if you wait a year it comes in a convertible! *ducks*
***
From: Davies, Alexander
To: Sam Smith; Squatriglia, Chuck; Brown, Joe; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
If the douchiness that comes with a German make bothers you, I’d steer clear of all things Range Rover. The LR2’s a candidate, though—not bad looking, dece milage (24 combined), it’s tow 2,000 lbs.
Re: Evoque—I tried to make an “in the land of the blind” joke, but the point is it’s ugly and no one should buy it or see it.
***
From: Sam Smith
To: “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson, “Brown, Joe”, Chuck Squatriglia
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Ugly’s in the eye of the beholder, right? Me, I don’t find it attractive or unattractive. But regardless: They sell a lot of those things to brodouches and douchebros and the buy-it-for-my-little-girl car-buying fathers of teenage girls. Pretty much helped the brand stay afloat.
***
From: Sam Smith
To: “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson, “Brown, Joe”, Chuck Squatriglia
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Also: I worked as a parts guy at a Jaguar dealer in Chicago, in the early 2000s, for almost a year. Everyone makes fun of Jaguar mechanics. I literally watched a car catch fire on a lift because it was a Jaguar. I saw an XJ get towed in because the diff had, no lie, fallen out of it. I saw one X-Type get four replacement driveshafts. The stories go on. The cars were frustrating, short-lived, great but not great. Jaguar techs have a great job, because they’re never hurting for work, but also a terrible job, because it’s ridiculous work.
The only guys the Jaguar techs made fun of were the Land Rover techs. Because they were the only ones who had it worse.
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith; Brown, Joe; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
True story…
For reasons I will not bother you with, a few years sago I (very briefly) came into possession of a Jaguar X-Type. I knew it was a mess, so I took it to a Jaguar specialist to get an idea of just what it needed. The mechanic called me a few hours later and said, “Are you sitting down?” Seriously. He actually said that, and he was not being ironic. He then proceeded to rattle off a list of things the car needed that ran 1.5 pages long when I was done writing it all down. He also said, “We have never seen an ECU throw so many fault codes.”
The bottom line: a car worth about $4,200 needed about $9,000 in work if we were going to do everything on the list. Taking off the shit that could wait (right rear window motor, that sort of stuff) and limiting ourselves to the shit that had to be done brought the tab down to something that was still more than the car was worth. The guy flat-out said, “The best thing you can do with this car is push it into the Bay.” Of course, this says more about the guy (who shall remain nameless) I helped out by paying off this heap than it does about Jaguar. But still. Jaguar. /shudder
***
From: Brown, Joe
To: Sam Smith; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
My grandfather bought the first XJ6 in America back in the 60s, and now he is dead (unrelated).
– mobile
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Heh. That’s both awesome and terrible. For the record, I have a lot of X-Type stories. Most of them require drinking.
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith; Brown, Joe; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Don’t all things Jaguar require drinking?
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Almost two years ago, I acquired a ’99 XJR with 100,000 miles. It was free, and had just had $15,000 worth of work, including a new engine. It took me a week of research to convince myself that it was worth it to take this (wonderfully driving, extraordinarily pleasant) car, for free, and park it in my driveway. Eventually guessed it would be something like 10,000 miles before I had to fix it, and maybe 15,000 before it cost me so much that I would have to cut bait and give it away to some other sap.
Also, the battery exploded immediately after I got it home, the moment I put it on a charger. I took this as a sign.
I still own it. My wife calls this “non-circular thinking.” Also “a sign that you have problems, and that I am not going to let our child ride in that damn car.”
She’ll come around.
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith; Davies, Alexander
Cc: Jordan Golson; Brown, Joe
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Semi-serious question: The primary reason you want something big is so you can haul a motorcycle and go camping and stuff. How often are you going to do that? A couple of times a month, max? So why not buy a clean fourth- (1984-88) or fifth-gen (1988-97) Toyota pickup for hauling motorcycles and such and lease a car for everything else?
I know the lack of safety features in an old truck is an issue, but there is a certain irony to being concerned about safety equipment in a car when we ride motorcycles…
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Fair question, and I would totally buy a GTI and a used pickup (2003 Tacoma would be my choice) if parking weren’t an issue. But it is: I live in Noe Valley and am very lucky to have a 1-car garage.
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith; Davies, Alexander
Cc: Jordan Golson; Brown, Joe
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Leave the truck at the WIRED garage…
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Started out the day at the Volvo dealer, because everyone here seemed to like the V60. Christine liked the way the XC60 looked, so we drove that. She loved it. It was $50,000. I shoved her into the trunk and drove to the Ford dealer, where we drove an Escape. The sales guy was literally 19 years old and the Escape that had the shit I want—leather, moon roof, 4WD, tow package—was almost $40,000. OK, that’s reasonable because I’d heard that they’re nice cars.
Nope! What an embarrassing piece of shit, layered in chintsy plastic and I think a music-box monkey under the hood turning the tires with his poor little monkey-hands. Makes me ashamed to be an American. If Renault weren’t at-this-moment busy destroying all memory of Red Bull dominance at the Australian Grand Prix, I’d move to France.
Then we drove the 4Runner, which we liked. It wasn’t trying to be fancy, it had plenty of pep, and looks like an apocalypse car in black. (Bonus trivia about me: I’m a prepper.) I have this thing, though, where I hate black interiors. I don’t know what it is, they make me feel on edge. I want tan leather. There is apparently not a tan leather 4Runner in all of America, so the salesguy suggested we buy the one we drove.
Amazingly, I caved a little, and was like,
OK, screw it, I’m exhausted from driving from dealership to dealerhip and hearing the [YourBrand]-and-please-meet-my-manager spiel a hundred fucking times over the course of the past few months (Jeep, Subaru, Audi, VW, Mazda Toyota, Volvo, and more I’ve probably forgotten) that I am just going to buy this car with black leather interior and it is going to be fine. Because it has everything else, right [SALESGUY NAME REDACTED]?
[GUY] Yes, sir. 4-wheel-drive and a towing package.
[ME] OK, how much?
[GUY] Let me go ask my manager
~ 5 minute interlude ~
[GUY] OK, I have some bad news. That car is front-wheel drive.
[ME] The 4Runner doesn’t come in FWD…
[GUY] brb
~ 5 minute interlude ~
[GUY] OK, yes, it is rear-wheel drive. But if you come with me, I can take you to drive a 4WD one.
[ME] Can we just talk money first? Like, how much is the *RWD* one, and how much is the 4WD one?
[GUY] Absolutely, sir, let me go talk to my manager.
~ 5 minute interlude ~
[GUY] So I have some good news. We can actually put beige leather seats in that car you drove for only $1,800
[ME] How much is the car, 36-month lease, $3,500 down, right now, as is. Same question for the 4WD one?
[GUY] Let me ask my —
[ME] Leaves.
We were so sick of driving around the Peninsula that we walked to the Volvo dealer. We loved the vibe there, and we loved the XC60. It was too expensive, but I was pretty sure we could make a deal.
Already-long-story-a-little-bit-shorter, we got a V60 because Volvo intro’d a 2015.5 version that has nav standard, so they knocked $8G off the 2015 V60 and made it cheaper to lease than a Ford Escape. It has the towing cap that I need, and, after a lengthy drive, it felt very familiar to us. Hmm, a sporty Swedish wagon, eh…
Pics coming tomorrow. Thanks for your help.
JB
***
From: Squatriglia, Chuck
To: Sam Smith; Davies, Alexander
Cc: Jordan Golson; Brown, Joe
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
This should be a post… The entire thread.
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
How many automotive journalists does it take to buy a car?
– mobile
***
From: Jordan Golson
To: Brown, Joe
Cc: Squatriglia, Chuck; Sam Smith; Davies, Alexander
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Excellent! I drove an XC60 for a week when I was in Boston. It was wonderful.
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
This email is a riot. And congrats, Joe. (And for the record, no fucking way in hell is an Escape of any flavor worth $40k.)
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
Epilogue:
On our way down to sign the papers on the Volvo this morning, we bought an Acura. We had passed by the dealer a couple times, and it was clear they were trying to move RDX stock. There were some pretty juicy lease deals. A quick auto-show-Googles brought up the ’16 RDX, due in dealers soon, outfitted with trendy LED “jewel” headlamps and a touchscreen control scheme instead of buttons—but otherwise unchanged from the ’15 model. Same engine, AWD system, sequential-ish automanual (not bad!), and everything else.
We stopped in, and they had like a million of them with beige interiors. These are my people, I guess. We test drove it, liked it, and they offered us a fully loaded one—like, literally everything—for four bucks a month more than the base model V60 we were on the way to get. We signed.
I feel pretty good about it, but awful about new-car buying (or leasing, whatever). This was my first new car, and I went into the process really excited. I love cars! I make a good living and have worked hard for my sterling credit. The lot was my oyster.
But even armed with more than a decade of professional knowledge and an email thread jammed with the expertise I lack (except from Alex, oddly; earn your keep, dude), I couldn’t make a decision. I drove everything I’d be comfortable driving in public, and, in the end, true to my joke about settling for a Honda, I just got the least offensive option.
The RDX is a great car, and I really enjoyed the stint up the highway home. It’s smooth and quick. It has Bluetooth that I used before I even got out of the lot to call my dad and exclaim I BOUGHT A BRAND-NEW LUXURY CAR EVEN THOUGH, 15 YEARS AGO, WE WERE ALL SURE I WOULD BE A FELON BY NOW! I checked the weather on its voice controlled screen, and the next time we take it out, I will prank my wife by clandestinely turning on her seat heater. Best of all, unlike our beautiful, pristine, best-example-of-its-model Saab, I am 100% sure that the RDX will get us where we’re going every time.
But it’s no Saab. It’s not as fast; it’s not a stick. You can’t even get a stick shift in a car with electric windows anymore. But none of that is what bugs me.
The worst part for a car guy like me, is that this car says absolutely nothing about me—and I can’t find one that does. I can hand the keys to a parking attendant without adding special instructions about putting the stick in reverse before taking the key out, or warning against touching the brake bias dial. I can pull up to a restaurant invisibly, parked next to another crossover of vaguely the same shape. When someone asks me what car I have, I probably won’t bother to mention the year—or even the model.
Because with a new car, the higher years are better, and the model names all blur together. My name is on the lease of this RDX, but I feel no ownership of it. I got a great deal on a great car, but when my wife and I went out to lunch afterwards, it was not so much a celebration of the car as it was of the whole awful process being over.
And we are super lucky. The lower end of the car spectrum—where we started looking, because spending a lot of money on a car is fucking stupid—is genuinely depressing. Midrange new car lots feel like the plastic-bin section of Target now. There’s no gravitas, nothing to aspire to; the accessible brands all make several different flavors of $20,000 car, each kittable up to around $40k, at which point you are better off clamping your teeth around its cheap-ass tailpipe and letting the salesguy drag you down the road on his five-minute freeway test drive.
The affordable end of the car spectrum feels stagnant and unchanged from when I bought my first car almost 20 years ago. That’s because it is. I had this moment when I realized that, 19 years later, I was again looking primarily at 4-cylinder cars that got 30 miles a gallon.
Obviously this is changing; electric cars are making their way into different segments and price-brackets. Hybrids are already commonplace. When my lease is up in 3 years, I might very well have the option of an electric car for someone who likes to leave cities and main roads. I sure hope so, because otherwise I am going to freak the hell out.
Sorry to ramble. I have wasted enough of your time—and it’s time for me to buy a hitch-rack for the dirt bike. Speaking, of which, I’m in the market for a motorcycle hitch-rack. Two-inch. Has to be able to hold at least 250 pounds, but I don’t want something that’s a pain in the ass to install. I’m sure you guys have opinions…
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
And so you have landed on the reason why literally everyone I know who cares about cars has done one of three things:
1. Buy something older that suits personal wants/needs (manual, chain-drive, wagon, school bus, polka-dot seat heaters, whatever) and deal with the inevitable repair bills
2. Spend between $45,000 to $150,000 for emotional satisfaction, or some semblance thereof, and acknowledge that your purchase wasn’t worth the price. And that the car is basically disposable, because it was designed to be used through a lease term and not much longer. Because weight, complication, more plastics, overdesign/underengineer, cost creep, blah blah.
3. Settle. With the feeling on delivery day inevitably something like “Eh, it’ll do.”
I’m not exaggerating. Every person I know who even remotely likes driving—and this runs the gamut from single moms to private-jet owners—falls into one of these camps.
In the new-car world, the greatest casualty of the past 20 years has been the demise of the car that’s affordable, fun, cool, and practical. There are exceptions—mostly small hatchbacks from VW and Ford—but that’s what they are. Or you can leave out the “cool” thing and have something like a Honda Fit, which is cool to me but almost no one else.
It’s enough to make a guy feel like a Luddite. Only reason I know I don’t hate all new things/progress is that I want a lot of other new shit. Airplanes, motorcycles, instruments, gadgets, furniture, stereo equipment, whatever. A fucking alterable genome on the fly, from a smartphone, so I can fucking teleport already and not have to deal with airlines ever again. But very new few cars do it for me. Involvement is down, complexity is up, durability is up but also down (stuff lasts longer in duty cycles, but there are more nonrepairable parts in use, etc.) That’s not even touching the complexity/intimidation factor of the sales process, or how difficult it is to find unbiased, educated, third-party, non-engineer opinions about the product. The buff books certainly don’t do it. Consumer Reports is barely there but virtually unreadable. Or how annoying and terrible almost every dealer/car salesman is. Nobody likes buying a car, it’s never easy, and almost everyone in this country has to do it.
The 30-mpg four-cylinder thing is, yes, frustrating. The hold-steady is largely because cars weigh roughly twicewhat they did 30 years ago. Drag coefficients are way down, gearing and driveline efficiency is up, powerplant efficiency is WAY up. But weight drags it all back down again. Comfort is part of it. But crash is the greater culprit. Vehicle structures are now crash-optimized in ways they never were before, and fewer people are dying because of it. Which is good. But there’s no getting around the fact that more durable, crashable stuff weighs more if you make it out of metal. And that crash tests are getting harder to pass. More weight in the impacting vehicle, more offset tests, less cabin intrusion every year. (This is why everyone from BMW to GM is chasing the mass-produceable carbon-fiber unibody: It’s virtually nonrepairable in a major accident, but you can give it the crashability of a steel or alloy structure, or greater, and lighter weight if you engineer it right.)
But now I’m rambling. Glad you found something. And have to admit, I laughed when I read the Acura note, because I read Volvo one and was like, “oh, well … that ended … easily?”
-s.
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
And sadly, I know diddly shit about motorcycle hitch racks. Last one I touched was in college, during the summer I spent as a factory Vespa mechanic.
Which we will never speak of again.
***
From: Sam Smith
To: Brown, Joe; Squatriglia, Chuck; Davies, Alexander; Jordan Golson
Subject: Help, dammit
Also, please forgive me for the crazy number of run-on sentences in that last email. Or the ones that ignore the rules of grammar. Or the number of times I start a sentence with a preposition. Or or or.
If you’re curious, I blame the fact that I spent two and a half hours at IKEA today with my wife. Plus another couple hours driving there and back. I hate IKEA. My wife hates IKEA. You don’t want to know why we were there for two and a half goddamn hours.
I am going to go have a beer.
***
From: “Brown, Joe”
To: Chuck Squatriglia, Sam Smith, “Davies, Alexander”
Cc: Jordan Golson
Subject: Re: Help, dammit
I think this is why people think car guys are so weird.
No comments:
Post a Comment