What cars do you drive ?

[Ed Oscuro]

*gets out the hacksaw*

y'aint never gonna hear any complaints 'cuz this is gonna be fixed on the down-low

[el chuddo]

The whistle tips have aged like wine. This thread has become priceless.. Time to up the value with a link to the soundboard: http://www.millerarts.com/interactive/B ... Board.html

[stryc9]

R33 Skyline

[Ed Oscuro]

The whistle tips have aged like wine.

"If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't."

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

I did drive a 1990 Cadillac Deville but I took it to the metal recycling place yesterday. Had about 170,000 miles on it before it went kaput. It gave me a lot of problems. Recently it started leaking oil really bad so I gave up on it. Not sure what I should get next.

[drauch]

Honda CRV, aka Honda Cool Radical Vehicle. Never will get rid of it. Best car I could ask for.

We just got rid of a 1997 CRV with like 225,000 miles, still working great!

Yup! Mine's actually a '97. Driving this thing till the grave.

[ED-057]

I still drive the same car I did when we had this thread http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14469

I put Megasquirt on it and made it run awesomely. But the pistons didn't agree with the block apparently, bores got scuffed up and it got thirsty for oil. So I put in a DOHC 325i engine and a 6-speed manual box.

I also have a 1980 3-series that I bought on ebay. I used the 528e to tow it 500 miles to get it home.

[el chuddo]

The whistle tips have aged like wine.

"If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't."

Have you seen the whisle tip video that popped up online about a decade ago?.. If not, I highly recommend a watch. While your at it, check out the leprechaun in Alabama video...To be clear.. I mean: The whisle tip video was comic gold then.. got funnier with subsequent watches.. and 10 years later, I am still laughing my ass off harder than ever at the same shit.. Especially with the genius delivery that Joe T. Has repackaged and presented to the lucky readers of the thread. I was trying to comment with a little sudlty to enjoy the illusion that Joe T. Is installing these on his bimmer..while letting him know how great his sense of humor and the joke was.

[CMoon]

2002 Ford Focus



Gas mileage is questionable for a small car. Got about 75K on it and am hoping for another 4 years. Unless something changes radically with the car market, I think my next vehicle will be a Honda Fit or some kind of Suburu. Edit: Actually, looking at the small hatchback market, I might even spring for the Prius-C. At $4/gal gas, a couple thousand more on the price tag seems pretty insignificant.

[trap15]

... Mercury Mystique GS...

It was cheap, ok?

[Ruldra]

Well, white is awesome for cars anyway.

Gets dirty too easily.

My city is full of black and silver cars, I'm sick of those colors. I always pick a colored car when I can. My previous one was red, current is dark green (actually "Hades Green", which sounds awesome). Hoping to pick a blue car next time.

Also, I presume everyone here can drive a manual?

[Ed Oscuro]

The whistle tips have aged like wine.

"If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't."

Have you seen the whisle tip video that popped up online about a decade ago?.. If not, I highly recommend a watch. While your at it, check out the leprechaun in Alabama video...To be clear.. I mean: The whisle tip video was comic gold then.. got funnier with subsequent watches.. and 10 years later, I am still laughing my ass off harder than ever at the same shit.. Especially with the genius delivery that Joe T. Has repackaged and presented to the lucky readers of the thread. I was trying to comment with a little sudlty to enjoy the illusion that Joe T. Is installing these on his bimmer..while letting him know how great his sense of humor and the joke was.

Aww, here I was hoping to really have some whistle tips showin' up in my hood.

Also, I presume everyone here can drive a manual?

Hmm, haven't learned how actually. I've only driven automatics so far. I did try out a 4x4 a little while back, didn't completely master the gearing.

Seems easy enough in theory though. Shifting up and down is easy to remember, it's mainly the start and stop procedures that require some details to remember.

You know, I think that automatics are probably pretty rare around here, because most everybody's got their tail lights on as soon as they start coming to a stop, and never seem to disengage it until they take off again.

[hail good sir]

on

[Ruldra]

Pretty common not to know how to in America, at least among the people I've known.

I've always wondered if it's a worldwide thing or if it's isolated to the US. We're getting an increase of automatics in my country but the vast majority of cars are still manual. And it's mandatory to drive a manual for your license test.

[gct]

I drive a manual, and the next car I buy must have manual. My car has 5 speeds but I think I'd like 6 speeds next; I still rev too high at fast highway speeds in 5th gear, but I guess I would have to look up the drive ratios to see if it actually increases the top end or just adds more ratios in between. Manual is also nice because the standard transmission tends to be cheaper than automatic or CVT options on a new car. If I ever get married, wife will just have to learn standard if she doesn't know how already.

One thing that bugs me is in my city/province we have some mandatory air pollution emissions test and my car is always on the verge of failing. I wonder if the technician does like 80km/h in 3rd gear or something...

I think I'm pretty decent at driving standard smoothly, but for some reason I just can't do it on a motorcycle anywhere that isn't a parking lot.

[Ed Oscuro]

wife will just have to learn standard if she doesn't know how already.

I realize the importance of knowing how to learn a manual if you're likely to drive one, but for most people I don't think there's any gas mileage benefits, and plenty of potential downsides and even danger if you wear out your clutch, or do something careless and stall out. That's my perception of it, anyway.

[system11]

2004 facelift Jaguar S-Type R

[Vexorg]

It's getting to the point these days that manual tranmissions are a bit of an endangered species in the US. Even so, there's still a vocal minority out there that prefers them.

To be honest, I don't have a whole lot of experience with manuals, although I can drive one if needed. Not sure I'd want to try it in Downtown Seattle (hills all over the place) though.

[system11]

Manual is easy. I drive an auto now because it's less hassle in traffic, but if you want to really drive a car, a stick is the way to go. Get a big engine and you won't be changing much anyway.

[CIT]

...if you want to really drive a car, a stick is the way to go.

I never understood this. Here in Germany most people drive manual too, and you always hear things like "you can't feeeeel the car with automatic transmission", by I really don't see any difference. One is just more convenient, while the other is more fuel efficient, that's all as far as I'm concerned.

[system11]

A modern automatic often makes better economy decisions than a driver, but you do get a better feel for the whole car using a stick.

[Ed Oscuro]

One is just more convenient, while the other is more fuel efficient, that's all as far as I'm concerned.

Wikipedia agrees with this characterization, mostly (there is a qualifier about losing energy while accelerating constantly through gears) but there is another view: The main things that can be done are to use computer timing to eliminate the human advantage over gear shifting in automatics (both on finding the moment to shift, and timing the shift to happen more quickly than a person can), and using a mechanical clutch to actually couple the parts, rather than having them slip through a fluid. And pretty much every automatic transmission owned by forum members is new enough to take advantage of these advances.

Even the very early automatic transmissions were very popular, with a vast majority of some makes being fitted with them, and this despite those early transmissions being huge.

"Feel" of the car is nice, but even in racing I don't see the use if you can't constantly accelerate through gears, as you would in an automatic.
I think the stick focuses attention on the RPMs and speed of the car in relation to the gear chosen, but of course if you pay attention you'll feel an automatic shifting as well. You don't directly control it but the electronics aren't just making shifts based on efficiency demands, but power demands as well. As far as I can tell, the main problem with automatics is that the shifting through the narrow power bands of many gears can be somewhat jarring, though still efficient (more efficient actually), at least with continuously variable transmissions. DCT (also called dual shaft gearbox sometimes, apparently) seems promising. Oh, and faster shifts than the usual current automatics as well.

[louisg]

Sometimes I want to downshift, but the automatic transmission is slow on the draw. On the other hand, when I'm driving around hills, I'm happy to have an automatic

[gct]

Sometimes I want to downshift, but the automatic transmission is slow on the draw.

This exactly is how I felt on my first long road trip with a lot of highway driving in my father's automatic, compared to driving my own standard. Needed to downshift to overtake slower cars but the car was hesitant to do so unless the pedal was all the way down for 2 or 3 seconds. The other thing is that my preferred cruising speed happened to be just about right at the threshold of auto gear changing, so just as I reached my cruising speed, the car would gear up, making me go faster, but then that was too fast for me so I had to back off the gas and the car would gear down, then I'd be going too slow, so I'd give it gas and then as I reached my cruising speed the car would gear up again, etc etc etc. Manual car is just much more obedient, I put it in the gear I want and it stays there.

I am absolutely terrible at parallel parking on a downslope though, having to reverse uphill. That IMO is the worst part of driving standard.

[AweOfShe]

An old hand-me-down, which I sank some money into, to fix up. Also paid to switch it from auto to stick, since the old transmission was getting really FUBAR'd.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Also, I presume everyone here can drive a manual?

Yeah I can. My first car was a manual (1989 accord). I miss having a manual sometimes. It alleviates some of the boredom of driving to me. Manual transmissions do seem to be really uncommon around here these days though.

[Skykid]

Whenever I get the opportunity:

[xbl0x180]

2007 silver Toyota Corolla CE that I bought new back in December 2006. I have a little over 120K miles in it and it is running tip-top. For work, this vehicle makes me money... I also have a Razr cell phone from around that time, which I still use to this day

[Blackbird]

I drive a sick Camry XLE.


...from 1992. Haha . The thing has a ton of miles on it, but still runs great.

[xbl0x180]

I used to have one of those and ran almost 200K miles on it