When I was a little kid, I consider motorcycles to be kewl. I had an Evel Knievel action figure (boys don’t play with dolls) with the requisite motorcycle. I moved up to G.I. Joe and all the military gear, including the bikes. My parents rightly figured I would not grow to be a violent psychopath.
Now I wonder where’s my mind that I’m seriously consider purchasing a motorcycle as my next vehicle.
One of my colleagues was quite jazzed by Honda’s new subcompact, the Fit. He and his wife had found their Infiniti G35 prohibitively expensive for their daily drive. He read all the Fit’s stats and test drives and even bugged me for some ‘insider’ info. (I had reviews but was prohibited to discuss them until the embargo was lifted.) Finally, the Fit arrived at a nearby dealership and he scheduled a test-drive.
He’s now looking to purchase a Mazda 3.
I’m debating about getting a hatchback, either the Mazda3 5-door, Mazda6 5-door, or even the Dodge Caliber, as one of my future vehicles. However, I’m concerned that, being in my late thirties, that I’m too old to own such a “youth oriented” vehicle.
Ah, spring. Opportunity to outfit one’s offspring with their first vehicles so they can drive to school so you can sleep in or work on weekends so you’ll have the house to yourself. Several automotive sources, such as Cars.com and DriversEd., has listed their creme dela creme of best cars for teens: Honda Civic, Mazda MX-5, Volvo S40, Nissan Frontier, etc.
Who the fudge do these companies think they’re fooling?
Greg over at der5er took exception to my post, Why are you asking that here?. He pointed out what he considered the fallacies of my points on vehicle complexity and costs to repair. Good stuff and I urge you to read them.
But want I want to address is his last point. Here’s the excerpt:
But it’s more than that. It’s more than money, and it’s more than time.
It’s about being able to say “I fixed it.” If a friend helped me, then we had a good time. Don’t knock the noob’s on the message boards, they are just getting started. If you told me 4 years ago when Joel and I worked together at that telecom company that I would be fixing my own cars, I would have laughed at you–I had many of the same opinions as Joel on this subject. I was/am a computer geek. But now, that’s not all. I’m a car geek, too. I can fix my own car, and I can probably fix yours too.
At the LA Auto Show, Toyota unveiled its new Yaris subcompact to the U.S. market for the first time. (It’s been available in Canada and other parts of the world for years.) Later this month, the new Honda Fit subcompact goes on sale here as well. Finally, Nissan’s releasing their Versa by year’s end. And GM will bring the new AVeo for sale around the same time.
I frequent a fair number of forums on-line as well as manage several blogs. Recently I noted a good number of posts in both sources to be people requesting help on their vehicle. While many of the questions seem simple enough (e.g., I’m leaking either a green or black fluid under my car), some strike me as absolutely as ‘WTF’ (e.g., there’s a ‘Check engine’ light on. What’s the code for that?)