The pickup died at 195K and I have to unload it and buy a new...er different one. One of the tasks I like least. I'm not sure I need a pickup anymore, might be able to go with a minivan so long as I can pile a bunch of boxes in the back. It will likely mean I'm not teaching the granddaughters to drive a standard after all. Life changes.
Update: 7 comments and counting. Odd how the throwaway posts sometimes draw the most attention, while ones I spend hours on pas without comment (though I hope not without notice. I tell myself that I clearly must have said everything important, and that's why no one adds to it.)
And further update: And it doesn't much matter. I put few miles on a vehicle now and only need the ability to carry a lot of stuff once a month and seldom have a second passenger. Handling in snow and ice is a concern, but not like it was when I was going over the mountain to work all those years. My only other need is not to buy something that turns out to be a nightmare. I know a few places where they won't rip me off too badly, and I might just go there and see what they've currently got.
15 comments:
In my teen years one of the youth-group leaders/parents was horrified to learn that I'd never driven anything but an automatic. I gather that it lowered his opinion of my parents quite a bit. We were en-route to a youth group backpacking trip, and one of the vehicles in the convoy was his turquoise VW bus.
At the next rest-stop, at an interstate highway rest area, he made me take the driver's seat and with the help of my peers in the back - including a few extras from the other vans - he coached me through about 4 loops around the parking lot. This turned out to be all the teaching/coaching on the issue that I've ever needed, I've had no trouble driving any manual transmission that I've needed to since -- and there have been many.
I've since found that "who taught you to drive a manual transmission" & "what was the first manual transmission vehicle you drove" are standard group icebreaker questions, so it's nice to be able to say 11 long haired friends of Jesus, and turquoise microbus as my answer. Not that anyone gets the reference anymore.
I traded for a minivan when I could no longer get my husband's wheelchair out of my sedan trunk. The only thing I dislike about it is that it is not comfortable for longer drives (3+ hours). It also took some getting used to as there is not much visible hood from the driver's seat -- the length of the vehicle is all behind me -- and I had to readjust my parking techniques. It will make a u-turn in 2 lanes and 1/2 a shoulder, so that's a plus.
You will definitely be able to pile a bunch of boxes in the back. And in front of the back seats. Unless I have passengers, the cargo space is excellent, except for height. I also like being able to load and unload from the sliding passenger doors. Three passengers are easy, 6 is okay if 3 of them don't have long legs.
There are 10 cupholders, sunglass compartment, large console between the front seats (it's always a surprise what I find in there), 2 usb ports, cigarette lighter port, large glove compartment, CD player for back seat (never used), luggage rack supports on roof, sunroof (also never used, it's too small) and probably some features I don't know about. It's also almost 7 years old... newer minivans might be even better.
In case you didn't notice, I really like my minivan. The best moments are when my *I will never drive a minivan* offspring ask to borrow it.
The Stow-n-go feature on the Caravan/Voyager is nice for storage--we've carried a lot of stuff-n-lumber that way. OTOH, they rust easily and you get transmission issues more often with them--that bit us recently.
I hate minivans. There are many things to hate about them, from the front wheel drive causing the engine to be set sideways in a too-tiny engine compartment, to the lack of a real transmission, to the lack of real power. Especially if you might want to work on it yourself, they are no fun.
You can get a Jeep with a manual transmission easily enough, but there’s a lot to be said for another old pickup truck.
https://youtu.be/RWK8GgWD4uA
Oh, Grim. I've owned my share of pickups and manual transmissions and loved almost all of them. But I'm old now and I want ease of use. My hands are no longer strong enough to open a tailgate. My left leg is no longer reliable enough to operate a clutch. Aging sucks and I'm grateful for all the mechanical, electrical, and design improvements that allow me to be independent now.
But back in the day... I remember some blogger about my age several years ago posting that he'd only owned six vehicles. And I started counting the ones I'd owned and ran out of digits to count on, including my toes. I didn't even consider the equipment I could operate, forklift, dozer, knuckleboom loader or that I first drove an 18-wheeler at 14.
That said, I'm glad my son-in-law intends to teach my granddaughters how to drive a stick shift and that he's letting them help him fix the transmission in the jeep he bought for that purpose.
I will have my Subaru Solterra soon.
An astonishing car that may be the nicest thing I have driven. Its a dedicated EV and is extremely stiff and it's centre of gravity is almost 4" lower than any of their other SUVs. Feels like a tank, but handles like a sports car. I drive a Subaru BRZ now and know whereof I speak. Its very quick, like all EVs and is quite large inside.
The crash tests are ridiculous. It gets 5 out of 5 in all its EU tests, a first. It also has radar braking and will not run into things that pop out in front of it. The same radar can be used for cruise control as well. It has cameras all over, won't let you open the door, if something will hit it. It will park its self if you want. ;)
Perfect for this old man as I need an SUV, the BRZ sits me about 6" off the ground and is getting a bit harder to deal with as I age. I don't put a lot of miles on a car, so just plugging it in to a regular 120v socket will get me back 100 Km in about 20 hours. It should cut my fuel bill from $200+ a month to about $30, and visiting my daughter and granddaughter, about a 130 Km rounder will cost me in the $3.50 range.
Put $500 down in March and we are just starting to get our cars now. Very pleased indeed.
It depends on your use cases. We had to pack 7 in a single vehicle more often than we had to haul furniture, and some of us got used to and preferred minivans. I liked the way our custom cruiser handled the road and wind, but the mileage was terrible and they didn't make cars to last as long back then.
And I figured that being used to a system had some payoff in safety--and insofar as it depended on us, and not other people blowing through stop signs, it may have.
We bought a new Sequoia this year when I learned that Toyota is no longer making V-8s, the latest in a string of incredibly bone-headed directives issued by people that nobody likes, believes, or trusts, but nevertheless whose edicts are saluted by politicians and steamrolled into CAFE regulations.
Our first one went 220+K miles in 10 trouble-free years. It runs down the road at 80, and about 2000 rpms. We find ourselves constantly using the available space, and the darn thing makes U-Turns in 2 lanes, comfortably. The new ones for 2023 are lead sleds. Like many modern cars, they're built big because Americans like big. But the engines are tiny now, so they're spinning them up with turbos to pretend that's the same as a V-8. Now Toyota is going to add an electric motor between the (small) engine and the transmission, because of the consequential turbo lag.
So with all those extra new parts all spinning at double the rpms it's highly unlikely people will lope along to 200K miles with their new cars, like they did with their V-8s. But we'll all feel much better about our smog. My pickup is 26 years old now, going strong still. I would say, stay with the pickup - but you have winter to consider. My mom used to get amazing amounts of stuff into her minivan, but I don't know if it'll swallow a sheet of plywood.
WRT the Update: Parkinson's Law, Chapter 3
And I have noticed that some of the longer posts cover the matters thoroughly enough that I often have nothing to add--perhaps a quibble that isn't worth minuting.
@Donna:
My mother was an early adopter of the minivan, so poor Dad was the chief mechanic for several of them. I reflect that I probably know more about engine and vehicle maintenance now than he ever taught me, but it took this long to get there and he still knew more than I do now.
But I worked on them with him, as well as his own cars and, eventually, my own. They are a singular pain to maintain.
If you’re not going to maintain them, though, they may be —as you say — good for some applications. I find them hopeless in these mountains even for highway driving because their transmissions don’t allow manual control even as an option, and they are underpowered. Therefore you’re either burning up the brakes going down or struggling going up! I don’t know what you’d do in the snow on an incline. Chains maybe.
But if you want it for driving on flat, well-maintained roads, and you plan to hire the garage work, well, my mother liked them a lot.
@Aggie: I slipped 4 sheets of 1/2" 4x8 in our current minivan, though it was a bit of a squeeze, and I'm not sure 2 more would have fit. Curving sides... I coveted a pickup that afternoon.
Just a note, as I did try to link a picture of a Solterra and failed. I imagine that is curtailed here.
Anyway if you have any interest at all, search for the snow video and the crash test. Both are quite amazing, its stupid good in the snow.
AVI: When daughter #1 was in college and needed a "new" car to replace one totaled in an accident we went by the lot of a dealer there in Goffstown. We didn't find anything suitable in his inventory but I'll never forget the dealer's slogan on his business card: "Might as well buy from us." It seemed to be to be about the most laid-back marketing slogan I had ever heard of. We didn't take his admonition, but hey, maybe he's still in business!
@Grim: Our last two Caravan/Voyagers had transaxles that allowed manual control from the Drive position (tapping the lever sideways), which was indeed useful in the mountains. I doubt that it is more intuitive than a standard, but it's possible to use it.
FWIW, one of my wife's cousins confided to a friend that she didn't know how to drive, so her friend offered to teach her. He took her to Going To The Sun Road to learn about shifting.
@ Grim... no doubt a minivan is a PITA to work on. What vehicle manufactured in the last 15 years isn't? Pickups included. I grew up, and learned to drive, in the San Juan mountains. My family regularly vacations in north Georgia and the only thing I have a problem with is that anything very much south of Blue Ridge is a suburb of Atlanta and we all hate driving there in any vehicle. North Alabama and north Georgia does not tax the horsepower of my minivan at all. My parents' 50s model station wagon could handle all but the logging trails and so can my current minivan. I'm curious as to the make and model of the minivan of which you speak!
As for braking, one of the first things I was taught was to downshift on a grade and my 2016 model minivan allows me to easily do that with an automatic transmission. In fact, I do it almost every time I have to drive "over the mountain" to get to Huntsville. That mountain is a mere foothill of the Appalachians, but I cringe when I'm behind someone constantly riding the brake.
I had to pass my Dad's driving test before he would "turn me loose on my own" and that was to change a tire, change the oil, check all fluid levels, know how to add fluids if needed, etc. I'm not the least bit ashamed of paying someone to maintain my vehicle now.
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