Sorry Guys, Not Hatin' On M'new Car Yet. (If These MPG #'s Hold, I Never Will)

General Discussion
81

@“common sense answer” “I’m not into selling, but I know others who are, and they would no doubt disagree with your assumption.” YOU could be correct. I tend to forget that the majority of people are sheeple and easily led, i.e. manipulated. I have a VERY HIGH sales resistance, I could tell a few interesting stories about that, but don’t have the time now. I’m kind of a “lone-wolf” type person.

Didn’t someone post on another thread that Scion has the same take-it-or-leave-it sales model? Of course Scion is going away also. . .

Yeah, in commission sales its a fine needle to thread between being aloof and being an officious p***k. It greatly helps if you’re selling a product everybody wants. When I got the solar panels, the salesman said he had the easiest sales job around, people who are interested are REALLY interested, the kind of people who think that far ahead generally have EXCELLENT credit, and at the time there wasn’t yet a whole lot of competition.

@cwatkin , yeah, I went for the ES basically because I wanted the cruise control and the 6 way adjustable seat. Now, the fog lights, alloy wheels, and push-button start are growing on me also. All in all, well worth the extra $636 dollars, about $127.20 per feature, and I think there’s another thing or two I’ve forgotten about. (I’m still not clear on what exactly ‘bluetooth’ is?)

I haven’t told anyone in the Festiva group about my purchase. They have a forum like this one but I mostly stay off there because its so laden with rules / restrictions. i.e. DO NOT ask a question that’s already been asked, DO NOT do this, that, or the other or you WILL be kicked off the forum, you don’t have authority to post in the off-topic forum until you’ve made “X” amount of posts in other areas of the forum (which it then tells me I don’t have authority to post to either). This place is MUCH MORE user-friendly!

@cwatkin , I thought you DID buy the red one? Am I missing something? I wanted the blue, with the plasma purple as my second choice (he told me I could get that one, then came back and said no, that’s gone too) so I ended up with white. I tell myself, well, maybe the blue one was a lemon anyway, things happen a certain way for a reason perhaps. . .

Showed a few co-workers a picture of the plasma purple one I took on my phone on my 1st visit, to a man they all said, yeah, they would have ragged the **** out of me had I bought a “pink” car. So perhaps its all for the best. :smile:

I was thinking of the reverse psychology angle. I’m so secure in my masculinity that driving a pastel purple car wouldn’t bother me.

82

Well, I’ve said it before, a car is NOT an asset, its a liability, because it costs money to keep it going. I laugh when I hear the terms “equity” or more commonly, “negative equity” in regards to a vehicle. Equity? Really? I’m glad I bought the cheap car, because I’m starting out closer to “O”. People say buy a Honda or Toyota because they hold their value better, but when I get rid of a car, its worth very little over scrap metal value.

Last night I was looking over my receipts for the repairs I’ve had done to my Jeep over the past several years - - and I AM EMBARRASSED. I’m literally afraid to grab my calculator and add up all these receipts, because it will PROVE what a fool I’ve been. I’d be happy and relieved to sign over the title to that Jeep.

THOUGHT I’d be posting that I’d sold the Jeep today, but they offered me $300, he said MAYBE $400 but not for sure. I said don’t even bother asking your boss, I’m not even pressed over that little bit of money. Anything less than $500 I’d rather take it into the woods and light it on fire, maybe I can get a viral video on YouTube! (I’m told that junkyard I always talk about isn’t even offering the $400 for “any complete car” anymore because scrap metal prices are down. ) I’m not trying to GIVE my old Jeep away.

There’s always Craigslist, but I detest the idea of dealing with a bunch of crazy people, bottomfeeders, and the “something-for-nothing” people @cwatkin has described so well previously. Like I said, I’m not pressed over a couple hundred dollars. Then you’ve either gotta let these strangers know where you live, or go hang out in some hot sweaty parking lot all afternoon waiting for random strangers. . . . I see why people donate their cars to NPR or other organizations. . . .

Its one thing if you buy and sell cars like this as a side hustle. As I said, I’m more of a lone-wolf type, I like my privacy (as you all know all too well), I prefer to be left alone to my privacy rather than have a bunch of strangers traipsing around my home. . .

83

Just my thoughts but I don’t appreciate game playing by sales folks, but I do think that a car is too complicated a purchase to just have a single bottom line price. First regardless of how prepared I am, there is the sticker shock issue to get over. There’s the legitimate trade value that I always think should be higher and they always think should be lower. I have to understand that there are costs involved in getting a car ready to sell, maintaining it in inventory, and then making a few thousand on the deal in order to stay in business. My cars are cream puffs but with more highway miles than others. Still how many buyers really care that oil has been changed etc?

Then they never seem to knock as much off the new one as I wish they would. So bottom line you are $5000 or so apart and need to start throwing stuff in like floor mats, options, maybe a loyalty discount, and so on. Its not an easy project to overcome and takes some back and forth discussion of the realities of what I’m going to have to pay. So all in all you sit down and work the numbers without playing games and eventually decide to pull the trigger or walk away and look at a cheaper model. I’ll have to honestly say that I’ve never been happy with what I have to pay but that’s sometimes the reality of buying a car. I’m not one of those who talks about what a great deal I got on a car. Just a fair deal and that’s about all that can be expected.

OTOH its worth some to know that your wife can take the car in for service or whatever and they are going to treat her the same as me and not have to worry. It after all is a relationship thing to them.

84

I got an “Infrared” one, better known as plain ole’ red. “Red Wine” or whatever is a different color. It is more of a purple color, not pink. I would have also bought a pink one had it been cheap enough but it wasn’t and colors I like better were available. I once was in a big hurry to leave and put on one of my girlfriend’s shirts. It was the same color as one of mine and didn’t think anything of it. She suddenly starts laughing when she realizes what I had done. She said people will think I am French or something. We still laugh about that today.

Bluetooth is a way of connecting electronic devices. For you and this car, it is a way to make the car able to talk through your cell phone. You should see a button down to the left of the steering wheel with a phone and an up/down symbol. All the ES models have this. Most modern cell phones support this feature. It is nice.

The Geo Metro forum is very laid back. There is a Suzuki Swift one too but I understand it is a little more uptight so have never messed with that one. The Swift and Metro are basically the same car so many join both. There was also a Pontiac Firefly version in Canada. Worldwide, it also comes in many other flavors.

You wouldn’t think a Festiva forum would be uptight.

85

“You wouldn’t think a Festiva forum would be uptight.”

I’d be surprised if there were many people who are still driving Festivas who actually own a computer…

;-))

86

@vdcdriver, is that a comment about the mindset of a Festiva owner, or the economic circumstances? Perhaps many Festiva drivers are too poor to own computers.

87

Many who want a barebones economical car for cheap seek out the Metro and others like it. They are the ones signing up for the Forum such as for the Metro or Festiva, not the owners who run them into the ground. People like me pick them up with a ton of problems and bring them back from the dead! I will say it is kinda nice not to have to worry about this with the Mirage. You just drive that one and do normal maintenance.

88

“is that a comment about the mindset of a Festiva owner, or the economic circumstances?”

It was intended to be a comment about Luddite-like mindsets. I wouldn’t make fun of people who are in genuinely limited economic circumstances.

89

There are 2 Metros in my neighborhood, both owned by well off families. One has a large 5 bedroom house, a motor home and 2 other large cars. The son, a college student, likes his Metro which seems to start in any weather!

The other family is also not too poor and just like having this thing around as a grocery getter.

90

I have always heard from mechanics that mechanically, the Metro is a better car than the Festiva. The bodies rot off the Metros really bad where I guess there is more rust protection on the Festiva. The last used engine I got came from a car like this. The engine was spotless and well-cared for. It has great compression with no oil use so they changed the oil. Unfortunately they neglected the body and one of the front control arms separated from the subframe while they were driving. This must have happened at slow speeds as the car was relatively intact and the occupants survived!

91

@“Ed Frugal” There are rare occasions where a car, even a new car is indeed an asset. For example a 2004-2006 Ford GT had a sticker price of around 125k-150k. If you pre-ordered yours and paid sticker for it. Upon delivery you, could’ve turned around and sold it for $200k easily. Or if you held on it until around 2012, you could get over $300k if you happened to opt for “Heritage Edition”

Also if you have a classic car, it can be an appreciating asset. A 1969 Dodge Charger (440) stickered for around $3600, which in today’s money would be $17.5k . Today that car in good condition will cost you around $50k, to around $70k for nicely restored example. Not the greatest investment of all time, but still certainly an asset more so than a liability.

92

Thanks for the clarification @vdcdriver. I know that you are a straight up guy.

93

True, a new car without issues nickel and diming you to death can be a good thing. Also, the new car has more safety and luxury features than the old one. Even this cheap car has many airbags, antilock brakes, stability control, and the like. My Geo Metros have none of that and I assume the Festiva is much the same. It may not be the safest car on the road by the standards of today but it is worlds ahead of what we have been driving.

You also know the door handles and windows will work correctly.

With this deal, no one even tried to sell me gap insurance. There was a year old used one selling for the same price as my new one. While the car may not be worth more than the loan value for long, this was a really good deal.

I am happy with mine as is the GF. This may not be the fanciest car in the world and certainly isn’t for everyone but is a pretty nice deal for the money. The manual transmission will definitely smooth out for you after 1000 miles or so as it breaks in.

I personally found the mileage sucked on my first tank of gas while the GF seemed to get great mileage right from the start. Maybe they didn’t fill mine up all the way or used some cheap crappy gas. I seem to get horrid mileage and performance whenever I buy Casey’s gas so avoid them. Maybe the dealer filled this up with that as they are usually a few cents less than the others. The forum members all say not to really start measuring mileage until you are two tanks into the car. They may say the car is broken in at the factory but there is obviously still some breaking in to do. The mileage improving and the transmission smoothing out seems to indicate this.

94

@cwatkin , Well, I HOPE you’re right regarding the transmission shifts smoothing out after 1000 miles or so. Not entirely happy with what I have termed “crunchy” shifts, but I’ve kind of chalked it up to not much engineering thought going into manual trans since few want them. Glad I didn’t get the CVT though. As my colleague pointed out, it accelerated nicely from stoplights, but, tachometer darn near redlining to do so, and the slight gap between engine revving up and the car moving forward felt “odd” at the least.

With MY first tank of gas, I wondered if possibly the dealer topped off the tank before they handed it over to me (doubtful) OR, perhaps the first tank contained pure gas as opposed to the “diluted with 10% ethanol” gasoline sold around here.

Just bought my second tank of gas this morning. 306 miles on 7.730 gallons of gas for a MPG of 39.586 miles per gallon. Lower but still respectable. There was a lot of back-n-forth to work on that one, plus I’m starting to use the air conditioning more, I’m told that using a/c reduces mpg always. I notice on the highway the trip mpg calculator creeps higher and higher into the 40’s. Looking forward to some time off from work soon to take a road trip in my new car.

95

@cwatkin quote, “You wouldn’t think a Festiva forum would be uptight.”

Let me say, I have met many of these people at the annual gathering of Festiva enthusiasts, and they are some of the friendliest, most generous, knowledgeable, open-minded people you’d ever want to meet. Most of them are also pretty hard core gearheads who could disassemble and re-assemble a Festiva blindfolded with nothing more than a simple set of hand tools! :smiley: I am quite obviously out-of-my-league there!

90% of what they talk about goes right over my head. I’m told they have a section of their forum called the arena where they argue politics and everything else under the sun, but you have to establish your credentials by making a certain number of posts before you get access to the arena.

Well, I’m sure everyone here has realized I have very little in the way of technical skills. My interest in cars is from the perspective of driving and being on the road. I got to reading these boards some years ago and eventually came to a point where I feel like I kind of know you guys (and gals). So I signed up and joined the discussion. The Festiva forums are a lot more technical / mechanical in the discussions, and a lot less traffic (i.e. stuff to read). So I kind of said to myself, to heck with it.

I’d probably be more at home on a forum focused on personal finance and investing. Clark Howard has a forum that looks interesting to me, but I cannot look at his website for more than a few minutes before I start getting all kinds of error messages, "A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding, yada yada yada. . . " No matter how many times I click “Stop Script” I keep getting the same message. So I kill time here, instead of doing my chores. :wink:

96

Finance? Why not. I used to teach the Boy Scout Personal Management badge that included finance. After proper check writing, Federal Reserve and banking, it was if you always spend less than you make, you will never get into trouble. Hard to do but pretty simple.

97

@Ed Frugal
"…Well, I HOPE you’re right regarding the transmission shifts smoothing out after 1000 miles or so. Not entirely happy with what I have termed “crunchy” shifts, but I’ve kind of chalked it up to not much engineering thought going into manual trans since few want them."

“Crunchy” and “Shifts” don’t belong together in the same sentence in a paragraph about a new car. Ed, have you driven another manual, new vehicle, at a dealership to compare with yours? I think I would.
CSA

98

I found them to be smoother after 1000 miles. Does this sound about right for manuals to have a slight break in period? They weren’t bad at first but have definitely gotten better. I never really found anything on the maker of this transmission, just the CVT. Anyone where know who makes it?