My car (yes I’m still driving the same car since May 2001) is doing the best it can. It’s 15 years old (that’s 75 in Buick years) and starting to complain a bit. I take it for it’s daily run to work and home twice a day, and I give it rest for the most part on Saturday and Sunday. The check engine light keeps popping on for a bit, but never long enough to get a darned diagnostics code so they can figure what’s wrong. The gas mileage is not the best either. On a good week I can get 17mpg. That’s if I get on the highway a couple of times. Normally I get 14 in the summer and that drops down to about 9 in the winter. It’s also almost as long as the van with out the storage capacity. We’ve been looking for another car.
The Buick just needs to last another 18 -20 months.
We put a reservation down on a SMART.
I had initially looked at getting one a few years back but I couldn’t justify the $25,000 price tag to get one shipped over. Now that they are in production here at an affordable price point they look even more inviting. The best part is that I’ll be able to leave my workbench out and still pull into the garage.
I also kind of like the idea of having a manual transmission that I don’t need a clutch for. I have visions of driving around town pretending I’m in a formula one car with the paddle shifters. :-)
I also thought about making a giant wind up key that rotates as I drive around town.
Ok, SMARTs are very very very cute, but they are also very very very small, and you are a tall man. Have you been *in* one? Because the little cars here are–which are largely bigger than SMART cars–are too small for me and Ted to sit comfortably next to each other in, nevermind the headspace for Ted. I mean, we literally knock elbows and shoulders. So be wary of the size and don’t buy one untested, ok?
We’ll be driving one for a bit in September when we are in Michigan. The main headquarters is in Bloomfield Hills and they’ve set demo time up for us. When I looked at the ‘engineering’ marketing they had up, it looked more like a full size car without a backseat, trunk or hood. According to the advertisements (which NEVER lie) I should not be able to reach the gas pedal, and I’ll be safe from monster attacks. I am a bit worried about the side to side, but we did deal with the VW Rabbit for a couple of years.
The biggest downside I can see so far is that there is nowhere to mount an Ion Cannon.