I have a car I enjoy driving. That hasn't always been the case, which got me thinking....
In high school there were a couple of cars I learned to drive with. There was a greenish five-speed Mazda GLC sedan (1982 or '84?) and a big boat station wagon.
The first car I owned was a gold Mazda 626 coupe. I recall thinking at the time that it looked a little sporty. Amy tended to disagree on that one. Whether it looked it or not, it wasn't.
After that came a Honda Accord LXi lift-back style coupe. It got good mileage and was comparatively zippy by my standards at the time. On a couple of occasions Amy enjoyed driving it too. We were doing a lot of Civil War reenactments at the time. One involved a trip to Tennessee. We toured the (still relatively new) Saturn plant while we were there.
The reenactment was at a farm field that wasn't in use. It rained--a lot-- before we got there. It was bad muddy. There were National Guard volunteers there helping get people out. There was at least one snapped axle on a van, and quite a few vehicles towed. We got out, although the muffler was in the car with us before we left. We stopped on the way home and had it welded back on.
That led us to trade it for a Nissan Pathfinder. I wanted some ground clearance, dammit. The two best contenders at the time were that and the Toyota Forerunner. The Toyota was great, but felt narrow in comparison. I was very happy with the Pathfinder. We towed it behind the motorhome. We got to play with it. I wasn't terribly gentle with it. I had to replace some brakes and rotors, but that was the only repair it ever needed (other than the tube-style running boards rusting apart until I had to sledge hammer them off...).
I had that car for quite some time. Eventually the A/C died. The belt broke. I bought a replacement, but it was such a pain to get to I just never bothered. I rolled the windows down in the summer and didn't worry about it. But after a while of long commutes, it just wasn't as comfortable for an hour at a time between Elgin and Bensenville.
So that eventually got traded in for a '96 Infiniti I30t. That was a fun car. Actually zippy, comfortable to drive. When Dad and I drove it to Canada (2003?) it got decent mileage and was comfortable at 80 (or sometimes more).
Then the time came to trade Amy's car for the SUV she had been jonesing for, an '01 Infiniti QX4 (upscaled Pathfinder). Amy's car was newer than mine at the time, and was going to hold on to its value longer. So we traded mine instead.
I then got her '99 Infiniti G20. It was a perfectly decent sedan, if not as fun and without most of the bells and whistles of the I30. They both got about 24mpg (although either would have done better if my driving habits were different at the time, but that came later). In retrospect, I wish I had kept the I30.
Two crashes later (one partly my fault and one totally not) I used insurance money to replace it with a "cheap" car. It was a mistake. It was self-punishment. It was stupid. I shouldn't have done it. (Have I made that clear yet?)
That car was an '01 Nissan Sentra. Burgundy. Only the kids called it red. There was nothing sporty about it. It was pretty scratched up, once the thick coat of wax wore off. Oh, where to start with this piece of crap. I could get as much as 40mpg out of it if everything went right. The radio didn't work. Whole sections of dashboard lights didn't work. The A/C didn't work. No remote opener. The trunk pull didn't work, so the trunk would only open with the key. There was no spare key, and the passenger door lock was stiff enough that I worried about the key breaking off in it. The trunk leaked. The driver-side front door leaked and dripped on my arm when it rained. No matter how much I tried to clean it I couldn't get the cigarette smell out of it (I wasn't able to smell it at the dealership, but I never figured out what their secret was). My eyes itched whenever I ran the heat (or just whenever I drove it too long). The engine had been replaced, and it had the wrong dipstick. Dad had to make a notch on it for where full was supposed to be. Foil and a rubber band were the wasther fluid cap.
In the end I hated that car. It was NOT a nice car to drive an hour and a half each way. Then the catalytic converter started clogging. It started gradually, and I didn't even notice at first. It just started getting more and more under-powered. Then suddenly it was having real trouble getting up to freeway speeds at all. That was when I got the catalytic converter diagnosed. It was not going to be cheap to fix. Coming home from the shop it wasn't able to get above 45. On-line car shopping commenced that night. Fortunately that was a Friday. There was no way the car would get me to work.
Saturday we left it at home and Amy took me car shopping. We found my new car. Getting the Sentra to the dealership to trade in took a long time. There was one stretch where it got above 35. Down hill. I think there was a tail wind. I drove in fear of stop signs. Just zero-to-thirty took about three minutes. It took us almost an hour to get to McHenry. (The return trip took about 20 minutes.)
So now I have a red '03 Toyota Celica GT. Everything works. It's fast. It's fun. It's technically not the most comfortable touring car. The suspension is a bit sport-tuned. But it is dramatically more stable around corners. It'll do a corner securely at 50 that the Sentra started slipping at 40. It gets to highway speed almost a little too easily. I'm not driving it ultra-conservatively like I did the Sentra, and yet this morning I got about 36 mpg coming to work.
I get to enjoy music without headphones. I stay dry in the rain. There's no puddle in the trunk. I still get a little warm when I brush my hand along it in the garage. I *like* my car. I think I like it more than I've liked any car I've ever owned. I like that feeling.
Posted by fictionman at January 2, 2009 09:39 AM | TrackBack (0)