I find that really hard to believe. Is this a known issue or a one-off that’s unique to your vehicle? I’m obviously not calling you a liar. Did you or your SO hit a curb or something?
2008 BMW 335i. I love it and now have my eyes on the 335 convertible…maybe 2013.
180 votes and nary a Porsche to be found (I thought Dopers as a whole were pretty upscale or at least some were). <shrug>
But-- you’re depriving yourself one of the great joys of living in DC. Road rage is practically a recreational activity!
I’m in Colorado, so by law I have a Subaru Outback. It also usually has two dogs in the back, in accordance with the prophecy.
At 7000 miles, no such squeaks so far (but thanks for the heads-up). It even handles reasonably well in the snow (dedicated snow tires probably help).
Bummer.
2006 diesel jetta. I would kill for the same car but in a straight stick, I am not overly fond of automatics, they are boring =( and the funky automatic with manual sort of function is just strange.
Actually what I want desperately is a Ford Kuga in manual diesel like we rented over in Germany. Good milage, comfortable ergonomics let my 6’ tall friend ride in comfort, and I absolutely adore the defroster wires in the front window. Though I think I would like to try driving the 4WD instead of the 2WD we rented just to try it out.
2010 Honda Fit (Sport) - Blackberry Pearl (which is a gorgeous deep purple colour).
Well, just the once…
Apparently it is a known thing. I’m passing this off to my husband who drives the car and has done more research into this. 
Yeah, we have snow tires on ours, too, and it has done surprisingly well this winter, for a rear-wheel drive car.
I’ve pushed it at times to close to the limits of my nerves, but I don’t think anywhere near the limits of the car. My last car was a Toyota Tercel, so I’ve very much gotten into the habit of driving like I’m in a gutless subcompact.
When the squeaking started to present itself, I checked it out online and, yes, the bushings are a known issue. While it doesn’t seem to be completely commonplace, they do apparently get squeaky and either need a real good regreasing or to be replaced, depending on the circumstances. If replacement is the correct fix, the bushings and sway bars are a single unit as a part replacement, so you wind up getting the whole thing done.
Happily the car is well under warranty, although I’ll be getting a little perturbed if this becomes an dongoing issue that needs to be addressed every 6-8 months for the life of the car.
Our baby has handled the winter driving conditions like a champ. The only way I can get the back end to kick out is to shut off the traction control. I’ve been very, very happy with that part of the driving experience
'06 Ford Explorer
Wow, really? My '08 GT isn’t like that. In bad weather the traction control is useless under heavy throttle…easily defeatable just by giving it a half-pedal or more of gas in first gear. It does help under normal acceleration though.
I can defeat mine on dry pavement too, although I’ve only done it a couple times. I don’t like to do it because it causes the rear end to judder really badly as the rear brakes fight against the throttle to keep wheel spin from happening. Having the traction control on also prevents tasty burnouts…not that I’d know anything about what that’s like.
ETA: having the traction control off under any bad weather circumstances is suicidal though.
1998 Jeep Cherokee. Just hit 197,000 miles.
There will be an American version of the Kuga in the form of the 2013 Escape, so you might just get what you want in a few months. It won’t have a diesel, but it will have Ford’s “ecoboost” engines which should get pretty good economy (though there’s no official figures yet). Still, you can still get AWD and a 6-speed.
What Infiniti box? Maybe I’m blind, but I’m not seeing it…
Roddy
I have chirped the tires a couple times in real aggressive acceleration with traction control on (I love doing that when shifting to second!), but the system reigns everything in immediately. One chirp and it’s over.
Same goes for quick turns on snow and ice – the back end might slip out a hair on me, but falls right back in line once the system engages and the car won’t let me accelerate with any force no matter how hard I stomp on the gas until everything is 100% under control. It seems with my car that it drops the power off the back tires, rather than engaging the brakes, as you describe. So perhaps they’ve tweaked up the traction control a bit in the last couple years, 'cuz I’ve got just as much horsepower under the hood as you do and I can’t do doughnuts at all on icy parking lots without turning it off.
Nope, diesel manual or nothing. I am sick and tired of the american emphasis on gas and automatics. And I seriously doubt I would be able to get the window defrosting wires in the front instead of the assinine gas wasting air defrosts.
Look, I get a dependable 42-43 miles per gallon on a bog standard diesel jetta. I do not want the bullcrap gas crudtastic mileage, I do not want the stupid expensive batteries that have waste stream pollution at the front and back end [I used to do hazmat, and I know the crap that battery manufacture kicks out in manufacture, and the crap in disposal.] When bombing around Germany and Holland in an SUV, we were getting 40-41 MPG and I was doing autobahn minimum of 85 MPH and higher, and getting that kind of mileage.
Fair enough.
Huh? If anything, the resistive heater will use a lot more energy than the usual air heater, where the heat is “free” and basically comes from a small secondary radiator. That heat is going to be generated by your engine no matter what; turning on the heater just redirects some of it to the cabin rather than to the outside. The only non-free power drain is from the heater fan, which only needs a few watts. A resistive heater will use much more “extra” energy.
I drive a 1985 Ford LTD Station Wagon.
I bought it Dec/99 for $1,000. It turned over 100,000 miles Jan/00. It now has 181,960.
I am retired, and do little local driving since groceries are less than 0.5 miles away
and most friends are within 3 miles. However, the car took me from Greensboro NC
to DC and back (~750 miles round trip plus local) 3 times last year no problemmo.
Going back a bit to 2007 it took me from Greensboro to Akron OH to DC back to
Greensboro without a hitch, and if you think that must have been an easy, level
drive you should take a look at the I-77/West Virginia Turnpike some day.
Engine repairs were under $1,000 last year; beats the f*ck out of car payments, and
I could not care less what the damn thing looks like.
Hey, I bought one of those new, fully loaded. Within a year the torque converter crapped out. Luckily it was under warranty. I went from loving that car to hating it within three years and sold it in Germany to an Irishman who wanted to take it home to the auld sod to drive his dogs around in.