I am now the proud owner of a 2011 Honda Accord V6 coupe!
Giving up my RX-8 was definitely bittersweet, but I’m really happy with my new ride. I just need to adjust to how freaking big it feels compared to the '8.
I happen to love them, but my budget does not. For a few brief happy moments I was considering an Audi A5 coupe: if the trimline I wanted had been in stock at the dealership near my office, I might have walked out of there an hour ago with an $800/mo car payment instead of walking out of the Honda dealership an hour ago with a $600/mo payment.
Tell me about it! I had no idea it would be so hard to find. The finance manager at the dealership told me that she just bought a V6 coupe in November and didn’t even know that stick was an option – I explained that the trimline she got (with the navigation system, which is the only other difference between her car and mine) is only available with an automatic.
Only. A V6 that’s only available as an automatic. shakes head
I’ve heard speculation that it won’t be many more years before manual transmissions are special orders, and no longer “standard.” Now I believe it.
I had a 1998 Ford Contour V6 5-speed, that was a sleeper car for sure. I had to drive 100 miles or so to get the V6 5-speed. It handled great, had decent power, and with the SVT Contour exhaust sounded good.
But it’s such a *happy *little car. (Srsly, I’m with ya. I like the Mazda3Speed, but it’s a little goofy lookin.')
Interesting that the 3Speed is only in manual, while the V6 6 (which I’m also interested in) is only available in automatic. I find that beyond weird.
Sorry about your unreliable car. I’ve got one of my own, an '85 Corvette. It’s better than it was, but that’s only after I spent about $3K on it last summer. Not sure how much longer I’ll keep it, although I do love it.
I LOVE the A5. It’s so damn sleek and gorgeous - and I hate 2 door cars, by nature (the other exception is the V6 Accord - really!) If I ever move down south and don’t need ground clearance/AWD…the A5’s mah car. Until then…it’s a Legacy or an A3.
The price of the TT is part of the reason why I drive a GTI. At 10 years old, it is probably time for me to start looking around at what is on offer and what prices are these days.
I used “breaking up with my car” as the title just for poetic reasons, but it actually is feeling like that: there is no doubt in my mind that I had to get rid of it, and I do love lots of things about my new Accord, but emotionally I’m still making the adjustment. Physically, too: the new car is bigger (it just fits in my garage at home), and the shifting is completely different – I feel like I’m just learning how to drive a stick! As I was parking at work this morning I saw an RX-8 that looked like mine, and felt a little twinge. Sigh.
I can’t speak to ground clearance, but the A5 is available with AWD.
This is mostly unrelated, but I got rear-ended in my little Scion Xa last Sunday and my insurance company put me in a rental.
Its a 2011 Ford Fusion SEL, and man is that a nice $20,000-ish car. 240hp V6, black leather interior, satellite radio, 17-inch wheels, power everything, etc.
Nicest rental car I’ve ever driven. I’m accustomed to something more like a Kia Rondo. Now that is an ugly car!
Hah! I knew from your description that it had to be a Tercel. We have a '99 Tercel that is being replaced (most likely) with a new Mustang this year, but we’re going to keep the Tercel as a possible winter car.
When we bought the Corolla in 2005, we were looking into buying a Hyundai Sonata - I quite liked the car, but it was’t available here in a manual transmission. I test-drove the automatic version, and that ruled it out because it was so sleepy and boring to drive. I test-drove an Elantra, too, and loved that car - I actually tried a couple of times to buy one, but the dealerships were such rampant assholes that we ended up with the Corolla (and I have no regrets about it).
I have a '97 Grand Cherokee that refuses to idle when the engine is cold and the ambient temperature is below freezing. If it’s stored in a garage, it starts and runs fine. (The dealership was initially able to replicate the problem, and cleaned the fuel injectors. A later attempt to determine the cause of the cold weather idle issue failed…no codes are being produced, and they could not replicate the idling issue after the injectors were cleaned.)
Either my description, or you’ve read this post before…I think I’ve been talking about running this car into the ground since about 2005 or so. The only thing that changes is the mileage each time I write about it!
I thought it was nearly dead a couple of weeks ago. Weird rattle and vibration, I was sure it was the end of the car. Turned out to be a loose exhaust bracket. It got welded back into place, and that was it. Unkillable, I tell you!
I have no idea what I’ll look for next, though I’ll definitely look at more Toyotas. I like smaller cars here in the city, and the Yaris appeals to me, though I haven’t tried it. Who knows? I’ve decided that I’m not “trading in” or selling my car though - it’s going to scrap, with a guarantee it will be broken up. I can’t stand the thought of selling it and passing it on the road one day…
I usually have no attachment to inanimate objects, but really, 2 university degrees later, and the fact that without this car I wouldn’t still be with my husband, who I adore… it’s hard not to get emotional about it!
I am still driving a 1994 Camry that I bought new. No car payments, and only about $2000 in actual repairs (not maintenance) in 13 years. I will drive it til it stops.
It is still reliable. It gets 32 mpg on the highway (and everywhere past my 3 mile gravel drive is highway). The AC still works. I just bought a new stereo because the CD player stopped working on the one I had put in around 1998… and I wanted the aux and usb plugs.
Hopefully I won’t see another car payment for a few years yet.
Yep. I have a 1999 Toyota Solara that I bought at the end of 1998. Around 4 years ago it began to exhibit some pretty serious problems, and I was taking it, and sometimes having it towed, into the shop seemingly every few weeks. If it wasn’t the head gasket, it was the clutch, or the alternator, or the breaks, or a series of other issues. At one point I began making plans to replace it. One day, after its latest repair, I added up all my receipts and realized I’d spent over $3700 over the last 7 months, and said that’s it; if anything else major occurred, I would use that as a sign that it was finally time to get something new.
Since then, inexplicably, I haven’t had a single issue with the car. I’ve decided I’ll be driving my Solara until it can no longer run. After 12 years and over 280,000 miles, I know I’m on borrowed time, but at the beginning of every year I always say “One more year, baby. Just give me one more year” and, so far, it’s obliged. This is the longest I’ve ever owned a car.
Yeah, I’m really concerned about this. I have never owned an automatic, and in my 30-year driving history, I’ve only been behind the wheel of one 4 or 5 times in rental situations. I find the driving experience very disconcerting as I constantly reach for a shifter whenever starting, stopping, or approaching 3500 RPMs. My feet don’t know what the heck to do and I’ve almost gotten into accidents more times than I care to remember when I inadvertently depress the gas and break pedals with both feet, simultaneously, when coming to a stop as my feet reach for a non-existent clutch pedal.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll have to have my next car imported from Europe in order to get one with a manual transmission. In any case, there is no way I’ll ever own an automatic. I’d rather not drive.
Heh, after I posted that I thought “I bet the A5 actually does have AWD…” and went off and found that it does indeed. Still not enough ground clearance for a city that refuses to plow:( After every major storm I see a few Porsches and TT’s trying to run around in the snow; they end up getting stuck due to sheer volume of snow.
You didn’t miss much not getting the 2005 Elantra. I had one very briefly and got rid of it because I felt like I was blowing across the highway anytime it was windy and also because of this persistent airbag problem - the passenger front airbag light would turn on (and therefore disengage the airbag) if there were a passenger under 80 pounds, essentially supposing there was a child there. In practice my 125 pound girlfriends couldn’t get the light to turn off. Hyundai refused to acknowledge the problem even though it happened on other Elantras I knew of; they finally acknowledged and “fixed” it and any little bit of shifting of a girlfriend still resulted in the light coming back on. Not safe at all.
The dealership problem you mention is also the case here - to replace a 2007 Sonata taillight on future MIL’s car they wanted $100 or $150, some outrageous number. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back in getting her to independent mechanics. She found a reputable guy by asking around; he charged her $20.
on a car is rather cute.
(The dealership was initially able to replicate the problem, and cleaned the fuel injectors. A later attempt to determine the cause of the cold weather idle issue failed…no codes are being produced, and they could not replicate the idling issue after the injectors were cleaned.)