Yeah my wife’s payment is in this range at 1.9% and 36 months, it’s gross. Gonna drive my Civic until it dies at the side of the road (just hit 200k and needs brakes and probably a battery soon, but hopefully that’s about it for a while…fingers crossed). We can swing two car payments but I really don’t wanna do that.
I’ve had my new car for a couple weeks now. This is going to sound weird but adaptive cruise control is without a doubt the piece of technology that has done more for my mental health than any other in my life. I am an aggressive driver with a tendency for minor road anger when stuck in traffic. With adaptive cruise, driving has totally changed for me. It’s totally relaxing now! I have no aggression or anger at all. It’s kind of a miracle.
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I’m hoping this does the same for me some day but right now I have it in a Toyota and even on the lowest setting it’s so conservative that it’s near useless. In any kind of traffic people rightfully pull in front of me in the massive gap that the car leaves then it needs to aggressively slow down to readjust. It is nice on more rural highways with only one lane in each direction, also I’ll use it on a nearby 2 lane highway if there’s sparse traffic, which is often the case.
Right now is the best time in history to sell your Civic. Obviously you’d need a good plan if that’s your only ride right now but worth considering.
You use it in traffic? Like stop start? I’ve only been using mine on long highway stuff and it’s great.
Yep mine works at any speed. It’s really cool. Steers too under 40km/h.
So. Not sure where to put this. But probably the best place.
How frequently have you been in accidents or had near misses?
I nearly got into an accident on Saturday and it could have been pretty bad. It’s got me really rattled. It was entirely my fault and just a dumb brain freeze moment.
I figure a near miss is probably a very good warning I should be doing something different.
My new plan is to create a habit every time I drive to a) review potential risks and things to focus on before I start. And b) review any learnings before I get out of the car.
I.e. car driving is both a risky activity and a learnable skill and in should be consciously treating it like such.
And because this is worthless without paint.
I was trying to turn right across two lanes of traffic. (Rememeber. We drive on the left in aus)
I looked right and saw three cars in the closest lane. And I thought they were all turning.
I then looked the other way as I pulled out. Watching for traffic coming from the other direction. It was pretty tight but I had space.
Next thing I know. Theres a car right in front of me and we both slam on the brakes. He stops about 4 inches short of my bumper.
In hindsight. I can only assume that either I missed a car in the second land. Or more likely. That he changed lanes after i looked.
Either way. Complete mistake on my part, and I’ve been beating myself up about it for the last two days.
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So I’m getting a new vehicle in the near future and I’m wondering about the utility of wider tires/wheels.
Does 19" vs 20" really make much difference on a sedan?
No, and you might actually prefer 19" wheels for comfort but honestly if you drove both you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Bigger wheels with lower profile tires is just the preferred cosmetic style these days.
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Also if you live somewhere you I have want winter tires you want smaller tires.
I keep my winter tires on their own rims so I can swap them on and off myself.
As a life long Minnesotan I’d never owned winter tires until last year but they’re awesome and I will continue using them going forward. Expensive upfront purchase but they will help my main tires last longer and they make driving so much better in the snow and ice.
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You may have already fixed this, but I was having a bunch of problems with overcast and CarPlay, and the most recent ios update seems to have fixed everything.
Thanks. Ya it seems to have fixed.
There is no way to delete episodes in CarPlay right?
The apple podcast app is so bad that I wonder if they want people to delete / not use it. When I switched to Overcast it was transformative.
I don’t think so, but I’ve never tried. The fact that they auto-delete after finishing means that I only have to manually delete the ones I want to end mid-way through.
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Thanks. Does 19 vs 20 make a difference on any vehicle? SUV, minivan, muscle car?
Theoretically smaller wheels pair with taller sidewall tires, the difference of course is that tire sidewall is much more flexible than whatever your wheel is made of. The only time I can think of where you would want the rigidity of more wheel is improved cornering agility under very high loads. Like actually racing through turns. Tire sidewall can be made much stiffer than it used to be though and you’re talking about a difference of an inch, it’s not an effect you’re going to notice on the street unless you’re really getting crazy.
Smaller wheels with more tire means potholes don’t hit as hard, you can touch a bit of curb or even drive up on it when parking without damaging anything, and anything rougher than smooth pavement is going to be much more navigable (offroading in a truck/SUV is obviously better with more tire but gravel or dirt roads in a sedan is better too).
You can also fit bigger brakes under bigger wheels which is never bad to have, but if you’re choosing 19 vs 20 as an option on a vehicle you’re not going to get bigger brakes with it, it will just be extra space. But I think that’s what generally drove the trend towards bigger wheels on higher priced vehicles so it’s at the point now where I think people who don’t even know things about cars will subconsciously judge if it’s a nice car based on the wheel size.
We got a minivan fairly recently. Wife it to the dealer for an oil change and it was $100 after tax with a fucking coupon.
Did we just get gouged or is that the going rate. It’s a Chrylser Pacifica and apparently it needs synthetic oil. I’m sure DIY is cheaper, but what’s the going rate for a non-Jiffy Lube place to do it for you? Actually, while I’m thinking about it, is there anythng wrong a Jiffy Lube type place. Maybe I’ll try that next time.
about $70 for synthetic at my local mechanic.
I wouldn’t go the jiffy lube. Find a good mechanic and give them the business. This way you have an established relationship with them when shit starts to go wrong. Also, a good mechanic won’t badger you to do a bunch of nonsense on your car.