The time has come. Again.
Jan. 24th, 2024 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I am shopping for a car.
Immediately after saying this to
scrottie, he started to look for things on my behalf, which is great. In a first round of looking, he found a couple used Nissan Versas and Honda Fits to consider. Manual transmission, which will be fun to practice again.
My main thinking is that I'm looking at a cross-country drive and fieldwork this year, again. I could rent something, but renting is stressful and expensive anyway. This vehicle would get a hitch put on it, in order to tow boats. That would really help with towing boats to various bodies of water out here. Also camping and hiking expeditions.
Last year involved a lot of time and hassle renting cars to get to brevet start locations. It's definitely useful to have that information to look back on.
So I guess maybe I'd better put all the car-related budget categories into my budget now, after all, ha!
General priorities: good gas mileage, long life, used. We shall see how this all goes.
Immediately after saying this to
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
My main thinking is that I'm looking at a cross-country drive and fieldwork this year, again. I could rent something, but renting is stressful and expensive anyway. This vehicle would get a hitch put on it, in order to tow boats. That would really help with towing boats to various bodies of water out here. Also camping and hiking expeditions.
Last year involved a lot of time and hassle renting cars to get to brevet start locations. It's definitely useful to have that information to look back on.
So I guess maybe I'd better put all the car-related budget categories into my budget now, after all, ha!
General priorities: good gas mileage, long life, used. We shall see how this all goes.
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Date: 2024-01-24 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-24 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-24 03:50 pm (UTC)I love manual drives! But when I decided it was time to go hybrid, I couldn't find a hybrid with a manual drive.
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Date: 2024-01-24 09:35 pm (UTC)And, yeah. It's hard to know what to pick when it comes to vehicle options.
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Date: 2024-01-25 03:28 pm (UTC)In this case, I think we're guessing not many miles will be put on the car each year, so the extra expense and manufacturing resources of hybrid don't make sense economically or environmentally. TinyHouse certainly hasn't had many miles put on her each year or over her lifetime (70k miles in 45 years, only the last several years being owned by me).
There seems to be some niche for a kind of short-range electric coupled with underpowered gas, that did like 40 miles on a charge, but also had a gas engine with like 30hp, so you're either limping under electric or limping under gas, but no one makes that (tho I saw an amazing youtube video of someone putting an 18hp Kubota diesel lawn tractor engine in maybe a Geo Metro and being able to do highway speed but only just and getting 80mpg).
Anywho, https://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/rowboats/sliding-seat-rowing/annapolis-wherry-row-boat-kit.html puts the hull weight of I'm guessing the single at 65 pounds. Riggin's adds to that. https://www.youtube.com/user/fossilfool built a small sailboat he has been sailing in the San Francisco bay and towing by Brompton bicycle. The wheels to tow it get inserted in holes in the hull while the boat is in the water and float, so there's essentially no trailer, just a tow arm and wheels. That boat probably weighs more than this wherry tho a trailer would probably weigh more than the boat to the wherry. (Huh, may have to put together this trailer kit I have and send R with it).
The little sailboat I have here, https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/javelin-14-fox/ , is listed as 475 pounds, which is a heck of a lot more than the wherry but should still be reasonable for non-freeway hauling for a small car. TinyHouse has a 2.4 liter engine and was built exactly to the chassis capacity, at 4600 pounds, and hauls the 475 pound Javelin just fine as long as you aren't trying to go freeway speed (which doesn't happen very well anyway). The little cars look to be coming in at 1.6L but fuel injected vs carborated. My opinion is the little Fits and Versas are horribly over powered.
If I had my way, I'd argue for a Subaru Sambar kei van: https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/classic-cars/a39960919/when-kei-van-dreams-become-kei-van-reality/ . But reports I'm seeing is that NY has cracked down on allowing these to be imported and registered. By Japanese class designation, these are limited to 0.6L/600cc. They do freeway speed just fine not towing but the aeodynamic drag of towing anything probably wrecks that.
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Date: 2024-01-25 06:48 pm (UTC)https://www.adirondackrowing.com/trailex-sport-utility-trailers-2/
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Date: 2024-01-25 07:04 pm (UTC)I don't see an address for them on their site but given their name, if you pick it up here, you could save shipping costs, if you go that route.
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Date: 2024-01-25 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-26 01:39 pm (UTC)Mine is a 2011 Pri. I don't think it could tow anything. 😀
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Date: 2024-01-26 04:21 pm (UTC)https://www.autoblog.com/2023/05/17/junkyard-gem-1979-toyota-longbed-truck/ pegs the 1979 Toyota 20R engine at 90 hp, which I remember being correct. Princess TinyHouse, that I currently use to pull that 475 pound Javelin, is built on that chassis.
https://www.nrvclub.com/_files/ugd/ddc872_8f5c3eb88d3c4245ad90169b57a43523.pdf (the second in the brochure, Stretch 500) lists a 4600# gross vehicle weight. Huh, that's not that much more than the 3042# listed for the Prius that year. (The camper has a kind of horrible foam sandwich construction with incredibly thin plywood, in attempt to build as large of a camper as possible on that poor Toyota chassis.)
You have 50% more hp than I do and I weight 30% more than you do and the camper pulls the Javelin fine.
This is another thing that's been fascinating to me working in software, but a huge amount of how car feel is handled in software. I've rented Kias a few times that have tiny engines but are programmed to do absolutely everything they can to simulate a much larger engine. I found myself having to barely tap the accelerator while the thing was in Eco mode on the free to keep it from just accelerating up to 90mph, but in a midsized car with a smaller engine than the subcompacts I'm looking at. The Prius kind of does the opposite, and the engine pretends that it just can't. And that's a big part of where the fuel economy comes from. The non-hybrid Camry I rented recently I did 40mpg with and it did a similar thing in Eco mode, of just kind of sandbagging all of the time, which is perfect and what I wanted and the opposite of those f'n annoying Kias.
600# is basically three passengers. I've had two passengers in my 600cc Honda Z600 and there was no significant difference in acceleration. Most likely the software in the Prius would maintain a fairly linear level of squishiness while compensating for the weight (and using a bit more fuel). It probably wouldn't feel significant worse than usual even though the usual is reluctant and mild.
I'm now also trying to push https://www.hvnyimports.com/0130---1995-subaru-vivio-rx-r on poor R, which has a (as legally permitted in the Kei class) a 660c (0.6L) engine and my prediction is that that would pull the 60 pound wherry fine at around 55mph. With a car with that little weight and power, aerodynamics becomes much more significant (TinyHouse does not have that in her favor so 65 is about top speed with no headwind on a level road).
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Date: 2024-01-30 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-25 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-25 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-25 03:45 pm (UTC)Subaru had the same problem as a lot of Japanese manufacturers in that they used to be legendary but then things slipped a lot and there were a lot of complete messes. Subaru has had a long running issue with headgaskets. Toyota after the 20R engine in TH slipped a lot there too so that needs to be redone every 60k miles. That's not the worst engine failure but it's still a pretty significant expense. And when it fails, it's sudden, and you lose engine power. After it got popularized that Subarus were having very few failures and people dug in more, people figured out that Sabarus aren't more or less reliable than other cars, but lesbians are really, really good at keeping up with their engine maintenance and like their Subarus which is imo amazing and hilarious. Auto dealers were recommending head gasket replacement before failure and they say "ok, do it".
Honda has had some major duds too. The Fits had a design flaw that was extremely expensive for Honda to recall and repair especially given the inaccessible engine but they seem to have the Fit design sorted out and kept making them. Other Hondas have been duds but American brands churn out duds at a much higher rate. It's mostly coincidence that Honda's small car isn't a dud. Nissan tends to be more expensive but more stupidly overpowered and more reliable but they and all of the other auto makers are having a terrible time with adding computers to their cars and problems from that. But the Subaru Sambar would be my #1 pick. Would completely support that pick.
I just didn't get that far, but the small Mazdas have a great maintenance record too. Think I didn't look at those just because there are more Fits out there and for sale than Mazdas but definitely worth looking at. And my boat friend might still have a Mazda 3 he's sitting on and kind of wanting to sell in New Mexico (tho liking small stuff I'd otherwise lead towards the Mazda 2).
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Date: 2024-01-25 03:52 pm (UTC)There are some small cars that have been legendarily bad... VW Rabbit. Some US Peugots. The N600/Z600 only did like 50k but they still have a cult following (as you said about motorcycle engines). The Yugo was legendary stinker. It's frustrating that a big reason that a lot of people apparently instinctively avoid small cars is because so many were made that were complete trash. People buy more expensive just to get quality even tho they don't necessarily really want the larger that comes with that.
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Date: 2024-01-25 04:09 pm (UTC)For a long time, there was the "Geo" brand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_Metro ... "a joint effort of General Motors (GM) and Suzuki". Those were fantastic little cars for the price. You could get the Geo Metro in 3 or 4 cyl. The modern small car design really follows from what they did with the Geo Metro for maximizing interior space, including on the Chevy Volt carshare cars. Haven't looked at the Suzuki Esteems lately but that may be an option too. Their reputation is pretty bare bones cars without power steering, power locks, etc.
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Date: 2024-01-27 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-27 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-25 05:17 pm (UTC)