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We have two cars, mine and my wife’s. My car... - is paid for (the single best thing about it) - is a 13-years-old Mitsubishi Spyder Eclipse that’s done ~50k
by spacedcowboy 6y ago
We have two cars, mine and my wife’s. My car...
- is paid for (the single best thing about it)
- is a 13-years-old Mitsubishi Spyder Eclipse that’s done ~50k miles and runs like a dream
- has been a bastion of reliability over the years
- has never failed to start, even when left standing for 6 months due to CV19
- still has great pick up and is fun to drive
My wife has a much newer car, with far more technology in it, backup cameras, satellite radio, tire pressure sensors, Bluetooth, built-in gps, etc. etc. etc. Her car
- has the saving grace of also being paid for
- always seems to have something wrong with it, some minor sensor is broken, or false-alerting, or something. Most-recent is the passenger seatbelt-not-being-worn chiming away, when there’s no passenger.. which apparently needs the $$$ entire seat being replaced.
- does not have the innate reliability of my car,
- has had its battery replaced a couple of times
- has needed to be charged three times now, after being left for a few weeks at a time due to CV19. We just plug it in every weekend now.
- was significantly more expensive (admittedly, bought 7 years later) than my car
I’m not sure, based admittedly on anecdote, that the trend towards ever-more-complex and consequently ever-more-expensive cars is a great one. The cynic in me thinks that minor sensors going wrong and needing major parts replaced to fix them, is a good way for manufacturers to make a fair amount of money on the sly.
Anyway, I can’t see myself replacing my car any time soon, for me they’re a way of getting from A to B, and reliability is the prime concern. The spyder is “nice enough” that I don’t want to risk the reliability.
- toper-centage 6y agoI'm happy never buying a car until significant right-to-repair laws are passed. We need to be able to get our cars fixed anywhere and car makers need to be pushed to more standard practices and parts.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y agoRussia and post society states used to have that car you want. It ran like garbage and required constant repairs. It was basically like buying a windows XP machine that you only had an OEM version of the OS before the days of enumerable freeware we do today. Meaning, good luck when you got a virus...might as well start learning Assembly.
- tomatotomato37 6y agoWhile I do generally agree with what you are saying, you never mention what your newer car actually is. The strength of your argument changes if you're comparing against another Mitsubishi versus a British roadster or anything made by GM.
- spacedcowboy 6y agoSorry, meant to say, its a VW Jetta
- slaw 6y agoWhat is the other car?
- spacedcowboy 6y agoSorry, meant to say, its a VW Jetta.
- thatsamonad 6y ago> has never failed to start, even when left standing for 6 months due to CV19 Aren’t there other reasons beyond just the battery draining to start the car and drive it a bit at least once every few weeks? I’ve been working from home but still take my car for a short drive every two weeks to avoid things like flat spots on my tires, fuel spoilage, seals and gaskets drying out and becoming brittle, etc. For most cars if I left them sitting for a month or more I’d expect to jumpstart the battery and don’t think that’s totally unreasonable.