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My partner and I are the proud owners of a Toyota Corolla CE 2003. We often joke about how it has to be the most nondescript car ever made. It has no extra feat

My partner and I are the proud owners of a Toyota Corolla CE 2003. We often joke about how it has to be the most nondescript car ever made. It has no extra features (with the exception of the CD/radio stereo perhaps), it just drives, really well, it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight, it requires very little maintenance, and when it does we can go pretty much anywhere and it's very cheap. There'll come a day when we have to replace it, and I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable, but will attempt to squeeze yet more "value" out of me. The corporatization of everyday goods and services at the expense of consumers absolutely sickens me. I can't go to the movies without having to watch 15 minutes of ads, even though I already paid for my seat (and tickets are more expensive than ever). I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used. I have to regularly remind my ISP/phone provider to stop trying to push more crap and use me as some sort of advertizing platform for my friends. And so on. People complain about Facebook, Google, etc. all the time for their underhanded tactics, but at the very least I haven't already paid for the product before being amalgamated into it... For all the people on HN who work for these companies and help them implement these things, I do have to ask, how do you sleep at night?

DanFeldman 8y ago
I've got a Toyota Camry 2006. It's such a functional car. mid-early 2000s was such a beautiful time for car user interfaces. No crazy screens, no touch UI to control radio volume with millions of menus, no painfully slow third party navigation systems that became deprecated by the time cell phones came out. The only modification it has is a bluetooth receiver instead of the CD part of the radio. It's so wonderfully low-tech that the key fob doesn't even work anymore, only manual keys for me. I bought it when I could have purchased a new vehicle for a similar price using a GM employee discount. Never regretted the decision, and now seeing all this coming out, I feel even better about my camry. I'll drive it until it dies and then hopefully never own another vehicle.
stareatgoats 8y ago
I've come to the conclusion that ads will, if not countered, invade every space that has any potential of human attention. It's not hard to see the trajectory for one who's been around since the 1950's. This is probably going to demand a new type of GMO human, one that can concentrate on main content while at the same time processing ad content. Or, we can stand up as the humans we are and demand that ads be banned from being shoved down our throats at every juncture. In lieu of legislation (don't have much hope there): some sort of manifesto that specifies how ads be displayed (i.e. exclusively behind a 'show ads'-button), coupled with shaming of the corporations that violate such an advertising 'code of conduct'. It should really be tried.
- username223 8y ago
  We actually had a pretty decent truce with ads in the pre-commercial-web days of the 80s and early 90s. Newspapers had some black and white ads next to the articles, which didn't flash or move around. They also sometimes had a pure-ads color insert, which you could take out and throw away with hardly a glance. Magazines sold their subscriber lists to junk-mailers, but sorting junk mail was similarly painless, and delivering it helped fund the postal service. TV had commercials, but we had VCRs with a fast-forward button that couldn't be disabled. In other words, the ads were easy to ignore if you weren't interested, everyone understood that, and they were priced accordingly. There was money in advertising, but not enough that the CEOs of ad companies were competing to see who could be the first to shoot some poor human sucker at Mars on a branded rocket. Then advertising turned toward all-out war, first with annoyances like animated GIFs and pop-ups, then with surveillance-based ads that started with DoubleClick (a.k.a. Google, a.k.a. Alphabet). Advertisers became some of the richest men on the planet, somehow convincing people that tracking every single mouse movement on every webpage made advertising unimaginably valuable. What really scares me is what the surveillance companies turn to when slinging micro-targeted ads doesn't make enough money. Google+23andme health insurance, anyone?
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Advertisers became some of the richest men on the planet, somehow convincing people that tracking every single mouse movement on every webpage made advertising unimaginably valuable. Ad-men have been some of the richest men on the planet long before the word 'mouse' referred to something other than a small furry critter.
perl4ever 8y ago
"it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight" My impression is that the most stolen cars usually fit that description, surprisingly enough. Old, reliable, nondescript cars are exactly the ones that have a thriving market for parts and are relatively easy to steal. I remember for instance, late 90s Honda Accords being on the list of top most stolen models at one time. The other reason I see not to keep an old car forever is that I don't trust old airbags, especially since the Takata fiasco. Nothing lasts forever, and originally I read that airbags were supposed to last 10 years, so how do you trust a 15 year old explosive device aimed at your face?
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  You are right, the most stolen cars list always includes the top sellers, Civic, Accord, Camry Corolla(#8). https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/2017-hot-wheels-report https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/2017-hot-wheels-repo... It might just be because those models sell the most, so there are more around to be stolen, or maybe there is more demand for stolen parts because they sell more.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    I just can't fathom a huge market in stolen car parts. I do a lot of my own work and always just go to NAPA or maybe rockauto.com and buy any new parts I need. Maybe there is a sizable black market of major parts (engines, transmissions, body panels) etc. to unscrupulous repair shops?
    - mdgrech23 8y ago
      I suspect most stolen parts would either be sold through Craigslist of junkyards. The old timers still rely heavily on junkyards for parts. I've been to quite a few, they tend to be shady.
    - sean2 8y ago
      I've always owned 10-20year old cars, and frequently replacement parts aren't available; I have to find them on ebay or craigslist and I've no way to know weather these were scavenged legally or stolen. I've also used Craigslist because new parts can be 5 times more expensive than used parts. You may buy all your items new, but most of the working class people on my block, who are constantly upgrading their cars, probably can't afford it. So, I have no problem imagining a large black market.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jonknee 8y ago
> I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable Toyota's are still very reliable, even more efficient and a lot safer... You'll be fine.
chocolatebunny 8y ago
In Canada, Nissan sells a car called the Micra. The 2018 base model comes with manual transmission, rollup windows and no AC. But next year they have to add a backup camera. To me this car seems like the last vestige of a bygone era in North America.
- ip26 8y ago
  You can still get a Tacoma like that, I believe.
- Sgt_Apone 8y ago
  I actually own the SV model of this with the backup camera already. It's an incredibly simple point A to B type car, but I love that about it. I can change the oil and filter without even having to jack it up, it's fuel efficient, and no touch screens. It kinda blew my mind when I was perusing new cars and there is nothing even remotely close to the Micra in terms of cost/value.
bigiain 8y ago
As I read the article I thought smugly about the three motorcycles in my garage with no more sophisticated electronics that the ignition modules - all run carburettors, one doesn't even have a tachometer... They aren't collecting _any_ marketable data on me (well, I guess the odo readings from the yearly inspections...) But then I ride them around with a smartphone in my pocket snitching me out to the cell providers (and any nearby stingrays), slurping up gps signals and wallowing in wifi and bluetooth bands... (And with a license plate being snapped and OCRed probably hundreds of times a week...)
pard68 8y ago
I feel the same way. I have an '01 Subaru Legacy. One day it will die, and it will be because of rust, not because of poor craftsmanship or engineering. And when I have to replace it, I don't know what I will do. I'm tempted to buy another one while they still exist and garaging it until needed. Because I don't want to own a car that is doing things I don't know about, or talking to someone else about me.
fipple 8y ago
Wow, dramatic much? They probably sleep at night by realizing that the car they are selling you is far less likely to be its driver’s place of death than the 2003 car you’re driving.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Unless it gets hacked. Vehicle hacking is very real.
  - slavak 8y ago
    You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a regular old car accident than you are as a result of your car being hacked. I'm as concerned about insecure computers in cars as the next tinfoil-wearing conspiracy theorist (that is to say- very, very much), but let's not overstate the actual numbers. A modern car getting hacked is a real risk that needs to be handled, but the actual occurrence of it in the wild is extremely low, and likely to remain that way for at least the next few decades.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      Averages are great until you're the one targeted.
      - slavak 8y ago
        Being targeted for hacking only adds to the risk of being involved in a regular old accident, not replaces it; and no matter who you are, your odds of eventually being involved in a non-hacking related crash are pretty high. The difference in severity of injuries and risk of death in a car accident between a 2018 model and a 2003 model is considerable. So unless you're Snowden and someone is actively trying to kill you, citing the risk of hacking as a rational safety-based reason to drive a 15 year-old car just doesn't hold water. And if you are Snowden, physically tampering with a car or just forcing you off the road is so easy, hacking probably doesn't increase the risk profile much either. Granted, it's slightly more convenient for your would-be murderers.
Tim_Norton 8y ago
You're missing many of the reasons why you buy a more modern car. Too funny.
ridgeguy 8y ago
I'm with you. I hate being monetized, and there's increasingly no escape. A suggestion. When it comes time to replace your Corolla, buy an older used car and use the price differential between your "new" oldie and the newer car you might have bought to return your oldie to zero time. New engine, trannie, new hoses & tubing, wheel bearings, retrofit LED lighting...etc. Or you could do this with the Corolla you have now. You'll sacrifice newer bells & whistles and some safety features, to be sure. But you won't have to listen to ads unless you voluntarily tune them in on that FM/AM radio. Edit to add: And your car won't be reporting on you to whoever put up a few pennies for your life data.
4d66ba06 8y ago
> I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used I've subscribed to Abine Blur to be able to generate separate masked emails for sites I'm wary of, as well as have a masked phone number.
Spooky23 8y ago
I just replaced my 2003 Honda Pilot with a 2016. What a nightmare... touchscreen controls running some bastardized Android 4.1 platform.

DanFeldman 8y ago

I've got a Toyota Camry 2006. It's such a functional car. mid-early 2000s was such a beautiful time for car user interfaces. No crazy screens, no touch UI to control radio volume with millions of menus, no painfully slow third party navigation systems that became deprecated by the time cell phones came out. The only modification it has is a bluetooth receiver instead of the CD part of the radio. It's so wonderfully low-tech that the key fob doesn't even work anymore, only manual keys for me. I bought it when I could have purchased a new vehicle for a similar price using a GM employee discount. Never regretted the decision, and now seeing all this coming out, I feel even better about my camry. I'll drive it until it dies and then hopefully never own another vehicle.

stareatgoats 8y ago

I've come to the conclusion that ads will, if not countered, invade every space that has any potential of human attention. It's not hard to see the trajectory for one who's been around since the 1950's. This is probably going to demand a new type of GMO human, one that can concentrate on main content while at the same time processing ad content. Or, we can stand up as the humans we are and demand that ads be banned from being shoved down our throats at every juncture. In lieu of legislation (don't have much hope there): some sort of manifesto that specifies how ads be displayed (i.e. exclusively behind a 'show ads'-button), coupled with shaming of the corporations that violate such an advertising 'code of conduct'. It should really be tried.

username223 8y ago
We actually had a pretty decent truce with ads in the pre-commercial-web days of the 80s and early 90s. Newspapers had some black and white ads next to the articles, which didn't flash or move around. They also sometimes had a pure-ads color insert, which you could take out and throw away with hardly a glance. Magazines sold their subscriber lists to junk-mailers, but sorting junk mail was similarly painless, and delivering it helped fund the postal service. TV had commercials, but we had VCRs with a fast-forward button that couldn't be disabled. In other words, the ads were easy to ignore if you weren't interested, everyone understood that, and they were priced accordingly. There was money in advertising, but not enough that the CEOs of ad companies were competing to see who could be the first to shoot some poor human sucker at Mars on a branded rocket. Then advertising turned toward all-out war, first with annoyances like animated GIFs and pop-ups, then with surveillance-based ads that started with DoubleClick (a.k.a. Google, a.k.a. Alphabet). Advertisers became some of the richest men on the planet, somehow convincing people that tracking every single mouse movement on every webpage made advertising unimaginably valuable. What really scares me is what the surveillance companies turn to when slinging micro-targeted ads doesn't make enough money. Google+23andme health insurance, anyone?
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Advertisers became some of the richest men on the planet, somehow convincing people that tracking every single mouse movement on every webpage made advertising unimaginably valuable. Ad-men have been some of the richest men on the planet long before the word 'mouse' referred to something other than a small furry critter.

perl4ever 8y ago

"it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight" My impression is that the most stolen cars usually fit that description, surprisingly enough. Old, reliable, nondescript cars are exactly the ones that have a thriving market for parts and are relatively easy to steal. I remember for instance, late 90s Honda Accords being on the list of top most stolen models at one time. The other reason I see not to keep an old car forever is that I don't trust old airbags, especially since the Takata fiasco. Nothing lasts forever, and originally I read that airbags were supposed to last 10 years, so how do you trust a 15 year old explosive device aimed at your face?

WillPostForFood 8y ago
You are right, the most stolen cars list always includes the top sellers, Civic, Accord, Camry Corolla(#8). https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/2017-hot-wheels-report https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/2017-hot-wheels-repo... It might just be because those models sell the most, so there are more around to be stolen, or maybe there is more demand for stolen parts because they sell more.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I just can't fathom a huge market in stolen car parts. I do a lot of my own work and always just go to NAPA or maybe rockauto.com and buy any new parts I need. Maybe there is a sizable black market of major parts (engines, transmissions, body panels) etc. to unscrupulous repair shops?
  - mdgrech23 8y ago
    I suspect most stolen parts would either be sold through Craigslist of junkyards. The old timers still rely heavily on junkyards for parts. I've been to quite a few, they tend to be shady.
  - sean2 8y ago
    I've always owned 10-20year old cars, and frequently replacement parts aren't available; I have to find them on ebay or craigslist and I've no way to know weather these were scavenged legally or stolen. I've also used Craigslist because new parts can be 5 times more expensive than used parts. You may buy all your items new, but most of the working class people on my block, who are constantly upgrading their cars, probably can't afford it. So, I have no problem imagining a large black market.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jonknee 8y ago

> I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable Toyota's are still very reliable, even more efficient and a lot safer... You'll be fine.

chocolatebunny 8y ago

In Canada, Nissan sells a car called the Micra. The 2018 base model comes with manual transmission, rollup windows and no AC. But next year they have to add a backup camera. To me this car seems like the last vestige of a bygone era in North America.

ip26 8y ago
You can still get a Tacoma like that, I believe.
Sgt_Apone 8y ago
I actually own the SV model of this with the backup camera already. It's an incredibly simple point A to B type car, but I love that about it. I can change the oil and filter without even having to jack it up, it's fuel efficient, and no touch screens. It kinda blew my mind when I was perusing new cars and there is nothing even remotely close to the Micra in terms of cost/value.

bigiain 8y ago

As I read the article I thought smugly about the three motorcycles in my garage with no more sophisticated electronics that the ignition modules - all run carburettors, one doesn't even have a tachometer... They aren't collecting _any_ marketable data on me (well, I guess the odo readings from the yearly inspections...) But then I ride them around with a smartphone in my pocket snitching me out to the cell providers (and any nearby stingrays), slurping up gps signals and wallowing in wifi and bluetooth bands... (And with a license plate being snapped and OCRed probably hundreds of times a week...)

pard68 8y ago

I feel the same way. I have an '01 Subaru Legacy. One day it will die, and it will be because of rust, not because of poor craftsmanship or engineering. And when I have to replace it, I don't know what I will do. I'm tempted to buy another one while they still exist and garaging it until needed. Because I don't want to own a car that is doing things I don't know about, or talking to someone else about me.

fipple 8y ago

Wow, dramatic much? They probably sleep at night by realizing that the car they are selling you is far less likely to be its driver’s place of death than the 2003 car you’re driving.

acct1771 8y ago
Unless it gets hacked. Vehicle hacking is very real.
- slavak 8y ago
  You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a regular old car accident than you are as a result of your car being hacked. I'm as concerned about insecure computers in cars as the next tinfoil-wearing conspiracy theorist (that is to say- very, very much), but let's not overstate the actual numbers. A modern car getting hacked is a real risk that needs to be handled, but the actual occurrence of it in the wild is extremely low, and likely to remain that way for at least the next few decades.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Averages are great until you're the one targeted.
    - slavak 8y ago
      Being targeted for hacking only adds to the risk of being involved in a regular old accident, not replaces it; and no matter who you are, your odds of eventually being involved in a non-hacking related crash are pretty high. The difference in severity of injuries and risk of death in a car accident between a 2018 model and a 2003 model is considerable. So unless you're Snowden and someone is actively trying to kill you, citing the risk of hacking as a rational safety-based reason to drive a 15 year-old car just doesn't hold water. And if you are Snowden, physically tampering with a car or just forcing you off the road is so easy, hacking probably doesn't increase the risk profile much either. Granted, it's slightly more convenient for your would-be murderers.

Tim_Norton 8y ago

You're missing many of the reasons why you buy a more modern car. Too funny.

ridgeguy 8y ago

I'm with you. I hate being monetized, and there's increasingly no escape. A suggestion. When it comes time to replace your Corolla, buy an older used car and use the price differential between your "new" oldie and the newer car you might have bought to return your oldie to zero time. New engine, trannie, new hoses & tubing, wheel bearings, retrofit LED lighting...etc. Or you could do this with the Corolla you have now. You'll sacrifice newer bells & whistles and some safety features, to be sure. But you won't have to listen to ads unless you voluntarily tune them in on that FM/AM radio. Edit to add: And your car won't be reporting on you to whoever put up a few pennies for your life data.

4d66ba06 8y ago

> I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used I've subscribed to Abine Blur to be able to generate separate masked emails for sites I'm wary of, as well as have a masked phone number.

Spooky23 8y ago

I just replaced my 2003 Honda Pilot with a 2016. What a nightmare... touchscreen controls running some bastardized Android 4.1 platform.