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We have 6 vehicles. There are nearly 4 drivers in my family. My youngest will finally start driving this summer. We own all our vehicles so maintenance, insura

We have 6 vehicles. There are nearly 4 drivers in my family. My youngest will finally start driving this summer. We own all our vehicles so maintenance, insurance, and fuel are the only real costs of ownership. Since I have lots of tools accumulated and skills learned over more than 40 years of driving I do a lot of my own maintenance and upgrades. All but one of our vehicles has more than 230k miles on the odometer. The exception has 110k miles and is 6 years old. The other vehicles range in age from 10 years old to 46 years old. We bought 4 of these vehicles new, of the other two one was a gift and the other I bought at auction for a pittance. I prefer older vehicles without all the safety stuff, electronics, etc. They are simple to work on and maintain and will last a long time without having to be molly-coddled. I do appreciate the skills needed by the new vehicle designers to fit all that crap under the hood, inside the dash, etc. and make it all work. The drawback is that this does make some maintenance work a lot more difficult than it should be as things have to be moved out of the way to fix relatively simple problems. I don't see airbags and things like that as necessary features. I only have 3 vehicles that came with them and all 3 have had bags recalled. As long as I have space to store the vehicles and the option to start and stop insurance coverage (shift from daily driver to stored vehicle) with 24 hours notice I will likely keep all of them since we own them. I have a hard time getting excited about spending $30k or more for a vehicle that will monitor everything I do, how I choose to do it, where I go, etc. You will never own that vehicle like I own mine. I am not one of those redneck dipshits who disables emission controls, lifts the body and buys larger tires. I use OEM parts for everything when they are available, aftermarket parts if they aren't. All my vehicles except one are or could be daily drivers for anyone. My wife and my kids drive them so they have to work right and be safe with no mechanical issues that could leave them in a bind. Over the years I have had to upgrade my maintenance skills to be able to troubleshoot electronics, sensors, etc. That is probably the one thing that I appreciate most about newer vehicles, that I have been forced to learn new things and to buy new tools. Who doesn't like new tools? I have also learned a lot about several manufacturers and the corners they cut or the extra steps they take to improve the ownership experience. Cars are pretty great. Trucks are pretty greater. I am excited to finally see wide adoption of electric vehicles. It can't come soon enough. I think Musk might have said that part of the reason he started building cars was to try to drive the old guard companies into a shift to electrics. With Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, etc getting on board I think he has satisfied that goal and we will all benefit. As someone who worked 40 years in the oil and gas business I just want to see all that ended. Regulate it out of existence or do as investment houses are doing and just cut off funding for new exploration. Where would that leave all my older vehicles? Well, I would have great platforms for conversion to electrics or I could scrap them and let their materials become something else useful. Like the rocks, everything changes with time.

josephcsible 5y ago
> I prefer older vehicles without all the safety stuff > I don't see airbags and things like that as necessary features. Those points contradict this one: > My wife and my kids drive them so they have to [...] be safe
- doodlebugging 5y ago
  It actually isn't a contradiction because all the vehicles we own are safe when they are properly maintained and when the person driving has had appropriate driving training. Airbags don't make you safer. They simply absorb and dissipate damaging energy thus preventing many serious injuries when drivers become involved in accidents. Safe drivers drive defensively and practice traffic hazard and conflict recognition and avoidance which minimizes the likelihood that they will become involved in someone else's malfunction. You won't need those airbags.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    You can be the best driver in the world, but if the driver in the other lane is drunk, you're still going to get in an accident.
    - doodlebugging 5y ago
      I disagree with this based on my own personal experience. Maybe it would be better phrased to say that you're more likely to be involved in an accident. Personally, my wife and I have commuted up to 37500 miles annually, each. That's about 75k miles annually on two vehicles. In more than 30 years of driving since we have been married we have owned and driven vehicles all over the US from the east to the west coast thru major cities, rural areas and off-road for recreation. Combined, I can document more than 1.5 million miles we have driven and I can say with confidence that too many of our fellow drivers on some of those roads were not in a condition to drive. In all that time, we have only been involved in three accidents. All three of those accidents occurred in the last 5 years and involved the same vehicle. That vehicle was a 2013 VW Passat. It had all the fancy stuff on it to keep you safe in an accident. The main failure though that contributed to two of the accidents was an illumination failure. The headlights on that vehicle were narrow LED lights that even on high beams could not illuminate the highway in front of the vehicle far enough for the driver to react to objects or animals in the roadway when they are moving at highway speeds. Modern slit lights do not have the illumination reach that older lights offer. In addition, modern lights may be keyed to your steering wheel so that when you turn the lights they follow thru the turn. Since the lenses on the lights have a sharp cutoff at the top they cannot illuminate relatively moderate slopes as you ascend hills. You are met with a sharp cutoff instead of being able to see up the hill you are driving over. This results in you over-driving your headlights at highway speeds because you will travel farther than your lights can illuminate in the time it takes you to recognize a hazard in the road or beside the road. This is simply not safe. Our Mazda has this problem. The third accident involved another driver who had a red light and a distraction in their hand and they jumped into the intersection t-boning the car hard enough to knock the front wheel under it. That sent the car to the junkyard after a brief trip to the dealership to sell it into the dieselgate buyback since it was still drivable and qualified. Insurance totalled it the day before the buyback ended so we got lucky. When we have encountered drivers who are distracted or obviously impaired I use the skills defensive driving taught me to create a gap to separate myself from the problem. If there is an opportunity then I have a passenger call 911 to report a dangerous driver. I taught my wife and kids how to improve their driving using pin flags to mark a course on the back part of our property. They drove several vehicles with the goal being to understand where you are in space through the whole drive. I placed cans in the path and had them drive the course until they could consistently crush the can in any of our vehicles using either the driver or the passenger tire. That skill allows you to look at something like a parking spot or a gap between vehicles and know instinctively whether your vehicle will fit without issue. It also helps you understand your limitations at high speed on the highway when an object is in your lane. You have a feel for exactly where you can shift to avoid it without affecting any other drivers on the road. I have tried to be a safe driver and to make sure my wife and kids are too. A safe driver is the most important thing that any vehicle can have in it. The driver needs to be aware of where they are, they need to be alert, and they need to be in a dependable vehicle. Fancy gizmos, screens, airbags, touch-sensitive features, sensors to locate hazards in adjacent lanes - these are things that either distract a driver and make them less safe or they are things designed to mitigate the consequences of failing to be a safe driver and to save the lives of the people in their vehicles so that this person who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to traffic around them can get right back on the road and do it again. Laws don't fix this. Cars that drive themselves might be a solution. In the meantime, the safest vehicle is a vehicle that is well-maintained and that has a safety-conscious driver behind the wheel. Sorry for the book and the rant but I've put a lot of miles on vehicles of every description - off-road only vehicles, cars, pickups, SUVs, 18-wheelers and smaller OTR trucks, moving vans, etc. You protect yourself on the highway and in the process you keep everyone else safe. Someone else's inebriation does not make you less safe unless you are not watching your fellow drivers for potential inattention issues that could cause a collision. With that said, I hope you understand why I disagree with the conclusion given in your previous statement.

josephcsible 5y ago

> I prefer older vehicles without all the safety stuff > I don't see airbags and things like that as necessary features. Those points contradict this one: > My wife and my kids drive them so they have to [...] be safe

doodlebugging 5y ago
It actually isn't a contradiction because all the vehicles we own are safe when they are properly maintained and when the person driving has had appropriate driving training. Airbags don't make you safer. They simply absorb and dissipate damaging energy thus preventing many serious injuries when drivers become involved in accidents. Safe drivers drive defensively and practice traffic hazard and conflict recognition and avoidance which minimizes the likelihood that they will become involved in someone else's malfunction. You won't need those airbags.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  You can be the best driver in the world, but if the driver in the other lane is drunk, you're still going to get in an accident.
  - doodlebugging 5y ago
    I disagree with this based on my own personal experience. Maybe it would be better phrased to say that you're more likely to be involved in an accident. Personally, my wife and I have commuted up to 37500 miles annually, each. That's about 75k miles annually on two vehicles. In more than 30 years of driving since we have been married we have owned and driven vehicles all over the US from the east to the west coast thru major cities, rural areas and off-road for recreation. Combined, I can document more than 1.5 million miles we have driven and I can say with confidence that too many of our fellow drivers on some of those roads were not in a condition to drive. In all that time, we have only been involved in three accidents. All three of those accidents occurred in the last 5 years and involved the same vehicle. That vehicle was a 2013 VW Passat. It had all the fancy stuff on it to keep you safe in an accident. The main failure though that contributed to two of the accidents was an illumination failure. The headlights on that vehicle were narrow LED lights that even on high beams could not illuminate the highway in front of the vehicle far enough for the driver to react to objects or animals in the roadway when they are moving at highway speeds. Modern slit lights do not have the illumination reach that older lights offer. In addition, modern lights may be keyed to your steering wheel so that when you turn the lights they follow thru the turn. Since the lenses on the lights have a sharp cutoff at the top they cannot illuminate relatively moderate slopes as you ascend hills. You are met with a sharp cutoff instead of being able to see up the hill you are driving over. This results in you over-driving your headlights at highway speeds because you will travel farther than your lights can illuminate in the time it takes you to recognize a hazard in the road or beside the road. This is simply not safe. Our Mazda has this problem. The third accident involved another driver who had a red light and a distraction in their hand and they jumped into the intersection t-boning the car hard enough to knock the front wheel under it. That sent the car to the junkyard after a brief trip to the dealership to sell it into the dieselgate buyback since it was still drivable and qualified. Insurance totalled it the day before the buyback ended so we got lucky. When we have encountered drivers who are distracted or obviously impaired I use the skills defensive driving taught me to create a gap to separate myself from the problem. If there is an opportunity then I have a passenger call 911 to report a dangerous driver. I taught my wife and kids how to improve their driving using pin flags to mark a course on the back part of our property. They drove several vehicles with the goal being to understand where you are in space through the whole drive. I placed cans in the path and had them drive the course until they could consistently crush the can in any of our vehicles using either the driver or the passenger tire. That skill allows you to look at something like a parking spot or a gap between vehicles and know instinctively whether your vehicle will fit without issue. It also helps you understand your limitations at high speed on the highway when an object is in your lane. You have a feel for exactly where you can shift to avoid it without affecting any other drivers on the road. I have tried to be a safe driver and to make sure my wife and kids are too. A safe driver is the most important thing that any vehicle can have in it. The driver needs to be aware of where they are, they need to be alert, and they need to be in a dependable vehicle. Fancy gizmos, screens, airbags, touch-sensitive features, sensors to locate hazards in adjacent lanes - these are things that either distract a driver and make them less safe or they are things designed to mitigate the consequences of failing to be a safe driver and to save the lives of the people in their vehicles so that this person who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to traffic around them can get right back on the road and do it again. Laws don't fix this. Cars that drive themselves might be a solution. In the meantime, the safest vehicle is a vehicle that is well-maintained and that has a safety-conscious driver behind the wheel. Sorry for the book and the rant but I've put a lot of miles on vehicles of every description - off-road only vehicles, cars, pickups, SUVs, 18-wheelers and smaller OTR trucks, moving vans, etc. You protect yourself on the highway and in the process you keep everyone else safe. Someone else's inebriation does not make you less safe unless you are not watching your fellow drivers for potential inattention issues that could cause a collision. With that said, I hope you understand why I disagree with the conclusion given in your previous statement.