JCC Brag About Your Car Here

Cleaner emissions than you'd expect from a vehicle that size, comfy-enough seats & lots of leg room!

 

Let us put this nonsense to bed.

Americans drive with their car on right side of the road, and with their wheel on the left.

Britons and their loyal subjects (effing Canada) drive on the correct side of the road, with the wheel on the right as per what God really intended - Dieu et mon droit.

 

It's called the right side of the road because it's the right side to drive on. You got played by your own language. The Lord works in mysterious ways. The prosecution rests.

 

You usually do this

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when it's Americans doing it.

 

No tune yet, I'm going to wait on that until it's broken in. As for mods, I want to swap out that awful black honeycomb grille for some shiny horizontal bars ASAP, and I have an oil separator for the PCV line so I can keep my turbo from getting gummed up. I've also got a throttle body spacer and intake manifold spacer; those will also wait for the break in. I'm also thinking of carbon fiber drive shaft, cold air inlet, and exhaust. (You know that deep throaty V-8 rumble that you get from a real Mustang? My 4 banger sounds more like a 2-stroke weedwacker on crack.) A strut tower brace is supposed to make the steering more precise, and I'd love a carbon fiber hood, though that's awfully pricey for just saving a few pounds.

 

Except, the Queen has a tea with God at least once a week and was appointed by god, and so if we drive on the left side of the road it must be because that's correct.

 

It's a dream that will never come true, but I have a 460 c.i.d. block, crankshaft, pistons, connecting rods, and the D0VE-C cylinder heads in my storage space. C-6 transmission too. My poor '71 Mustang . . . .

 

Well fortunately the turbo helps to cut down some of the noise from the exhaust so it doesn't sound like a bunch of angry bees. What's the hood made out of normally? Sheet metal, aluminum, unobtanium, fiberglass? The strut tower brace helps with body flex as well. No suspension mods?


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Changing spark plugs and coil pack worked a treat; the old iron chariot is running really well now. Drove out to Exmoor and went for a bit of a walk.

 

slightly_unhinged Very nice, shiny and clean. Looks like it's ready for that vinyl wrap Ender was threatening you with. Looking forward to that!

jabberwalkie OE hood is sheet metal, I'm guessing over 40 lb, maybe 50. The carbon fiber hood I want is 17 lb, and $1800, unpainted. If I go that route, it will probably be the last mod I do. As for suspension, the performance pack comes with a stiff set of springs, and I drive on enough rough roads that I don't want to make it any stiffer. And there's enough snow in my neck of the woods that I don't want to lower it.

 

I'm assuming because it's an American muscle car, it understeers like the day is long Sarge?

 

I have snow tires on, so I haven't forced the issue of cornering hard yet. Judging by the driver reports I've read, the 4 cyl understeers a lot less than the 5L V-8; the front end is about 200 lb lighter. When the weather turns warm and I get summer tires on, I'll let you know.

 

I have a new-to-me car! It's a 2004 Dodge Neon. It sounds like a jet engine and vibrates when you drive it, but it RUNS! This is a 3rd car for our family of 4 adults. Life will be much easier now.

 

NM the car, I want to hear more about the polyamory.

 

It's just me, my sister, brother-in-law, and 19-year-old nephew.

Oh, and my beloved, Yorga the Goat Goddess. I didn't count her as an adult because she's a child bride.

 

I used to have a 2010 Prius (base model). It was my first car with those convenient steering wheel buttons, and the car's visual interface was pretty spaceship-like. However, I thought it felt too sluggish and the advantage in mpg wasn't enough to offset the benefits of my next car:


a 2012 Hyundai Elantra (limited trim). For about the same price as the base Prius, I got an Elantra that came fully equipped with a tech pack, leather, moon roof, etc. And while the Prius was averaging about 45-50 mpg, I was scoring about 40 mpg with the Elantra, and it was certainly more peppy. The curvy look of the new Hyundais was head-turning, imo, and the interior gave a sporty feel (even if it lacked sporty performance--the turbo version wouldn't come until a couple years after).

But the new Prius model is definitely eye-catching and I'm sure that the '13 is great.



After the Elantra, the addition of my son to the family and a larger stroller, more bags and junk to lug around made it encouraging to switch to a SUV. So from there I went to the newly redesigned 2013 Santa Fe Sport (from which the current gen Hyundais took their styling cues) with the leather interior, tech pack, and turbo engine.



The sacrifice in mpg from the Elantra to the Santa Fe was a loss of about 10-20 (certainly more glaring from the Prius), but the turbo added a noticeable sense of fun to what's basically just a commuter vehicle. Plus, the Bluetooth capabilities were so much better here than in my previous cars, with the Santa Fe being able to send and read texts over Bluetooth via Cortana from my phone. The computer screen is able to provide a keypad in case you want to dial numbers yourself, though I find that using the Santa Fe's own digital assistant is superior. The touch-screen interface also allows you to jump to certain points in tracks while listening to music (something I just recently discovered).

The seats are heated and have much more power than the heated seats of the Elantra (your butt will become instantly sweaty, but your lower back will feel great) and are able to adjust the level of cushion inflation for the bottom and back.

The AC system is a bit tricky sometimes, as I feel like the car's computer decides what the interior temperature should be and puts up a fight if you try to change the settings. But apart from wrestling the computer on rare occasions, the AC is fantastic, and the added vents for the rear passengers are a nice plus. Interior lighting also adjusts automatically depending on how dark/gloomy it is. It's a nice, subtle touch that took me a while to notice. I thought I was imagining it at first.

There's also plenty of room for storage, and outlets for phone chargers, etc, all over the place.




I got into an accident a few months ago (a pretty rough one that was incredibly scary; the electronic braking system kicked in to regain control of the car, but either because of that or in spite of it, there was a wild spin across three lanes of busy highway traffic). Surprisingly, the car emerged nearly unscathed (it won top points for safety features) and while I was shaken up, I was alive and well. Insurance covered the mechanical repairs from the spin and collision, and the car's like brand new again.

While it was in the shop, I went through a few rental vehicles, from Toyotas to Dodges, and none of them felt right to me. The Dodge Journey SUV I was given, while extremely large, felt sluggish and paled in comparison to the tech in my Hyundai. The Toyotas had a handsome tech pack, but also lacked pick-up (though they definitely felt nicer than the Dodges). Needless to say, I was excited to get my own car back.

People can knock Hyundai all they want (given their less than stellar reputation in the past), but my experiences with them have been great.

 

i own a car but i would never brag about it. when people trot out the tired "cars kill as many people as guns, should we ban those too?" argument, i'm one of the rare nutjobs who says, "um yes, absolutely".

 

Until fairly recently, I would've agreed. I cycled/took public transport everywhere until recently but, in a rural location, I think cars make life a lot better. Public transport is about as much use as a handbrake on a canoe out here and cycling on narrow country roads is suicidal, even compared to central London. My quality of life has substantially increased since I got a car.

I agree with the parallel with guns. Both cars and guns are dangerous equipment that can easily - accidentally or otherwise - take human life or lead to life changing injuries. Both, in my opinion, should be stringently licensed. Comparing road deaths per 1000 between the UK and India is very much like comparing gun deaths per 1000 between the UK and Trumpland.

 

don't get me wrong, i also enjoy the convenience owning a car provides. but if there was a ban i would happily go along with it. the exact stats are hard to pin down but fatalities from automobiles are over a million a year worldwide. it's like holocaust levels of death, not to mention the destruction to the environment, and it's crazy to me that this is somehow acceptable collateral damage because we want to move fast.

 

1999 Nissan Quest. Over a 150,000 miles with a broken off handle on the driver's side sliding door and a broken driver side door handle. It has only broken down on the road once due to a busted alternator. I need to also repair the air conditioner but it's still running strong.

I love having a car I don't need to worry about in terms of being scratched or damaged by nicks or pings from road debris or other car door openings.

 

Having lived in Canada and now in Florida, the need for a personal vehicle is obviously dependent on one's location. Up north, the public transportation was ubiquitous and I barely did any driving.

But upon moving to Florida, I had to drive everywhere. Public transportation was still in growing pains down here, and cycling was dangerous as many Florida drivers are tourists blindly following their GPS into opposite lanes, other cars, pedestrians, etc. I used to do a lot of biking in Canada, but Florida forced me to retire my bike. It was seriously scary, even in the designated bicycle lanes.

I suppose Uber and Lyft can make an argument against the need for personal vehicles nowadays though.

 

I bet you would if you had a transformer car. One that transformed into a robot and a gun.

 

The way to understand why a car might be braggable or loved or the like is best explained by I know, I know, Jeremy Clarkson.



Talking to Eric Bana as part of the making of Bana's documentary "Love The Beast", about his first car (XB GT Ford Falcon) that he still races. It's a lot of Clarkson being Clarkson but listen from this point on.

My GTI Golf is not my first car. It's about a second slower to 100km/h than Sarge's car, but lighter and even with FWD understeer the diff will give me exponentially better grip in corners (not even contemplating adjustments to sway bars or suspension stiffness etc). The red trim, the GT steering wheel squared off at the bottom, the six-speed dual clutch automatic transmission. The sound.

It's not a people mover. It's not an economical family hatch. It's arguably not even a sensible car. But it's beautiful to look at. It drives like a dream.

That's what it is about cars that do this. If you've ever had one that wasn't just an Ordinary Car, then you'll understand. However, if you've never desired to own something like that, then you perhaps never would understand - I don't know.

Truth be told I fear the idea of self-driving cars because there's nothing like taking a fast drive through the country and pushing the limits of grip.

 

So you start off with a video of that ****wit, and finish by comparing yourself to Willard Smith in I, Robot.

What's happened to my ender?

 

What's wrong with Eric Bana?