Car Saga is done (hopefully!)
I reported on a car accident that we had recently. I just wanted to followup and say that the other driver’s insurance company came through and totalled our car. We got a pretty fair settlement and spent a weekend car shopping. I think what convinced them to total the car was having me meet them in person and talking about the situation. They called back later on that day and said that they had rechecked and the car was now going to be totalled. I expect that when they first looked at salvage value they had neglected to mention that it was a diesel (VW diesels are in high demand), and meeting with them got them to look at it again. In the end the adjuster at the insurance company really did seem to be on our side, and that was helpful.
I hate car shopping. Our car is an expensive item that I personally don’t care too much about, but I also don’t want to end up with an expensive lemon. We were buying used (it’s hard for me to justify the cost of a new car) and it was 3 days of chasing ads on Craigslist, trying a variety of cars, and getting over the fact that we wouldn’t be buying anything that had similar fuel economy to our old TDI (which got around 30mpg around town and 45mpg on the highway). I didn’t sleep well for 3 nights because I kept wondering stuff like “should we buy X or Y?”, “is car A too old and going to be unreliable for us?”, “do I like VWs just because they seem familiar?” and “can we fit our kayaking or camping stuff in a sedan instead of a wagon?” (wagons are harder to find).
We ended up with a Subaru Forester. This is the first car that I’ve bought which burns gasoline (instead of diesel) and which isn’t made by VW. We got a nice deal on a 2006 model that looks like this (this isn’t our actual car, but it is the same color). It’s comfortable, holds lots of stuff, isn’t too big, is fun (perhaps too fun) to drive,and gets average (ie. bad) fuel economy:
If anyone in Seattle is looking at used cars I can recommend a good mobile car inspection service that we used. It is called Kar-Chek and the owner is named Jim. For $100 (price probably going up a bit soon) Jim came and gave the car a thorough inspection. He was available on weekends (which most garages are closed) and did a good job of checking everything over,finding a number of issues (all small) that I had missed. I hope we don’t have to buy another car anytime in the next decade, but if we do I’ll use his services again.
Fuel economy rant: 15 years ago Honda Civics got fuel economy close to or exceeding what the current Civic Hybrid gets. The Forester that we bought is moderately small (about the size of our old Jetta Wagon) and it sounds like we can expect around 20-22mpg in the city and 25-27 on the highway. That’s pathetic.Current versions (and the current Impreza, which is smaller) are even worse. Even the small cars like the Smart, Honda Fit, and Toyota Yaris get worse fuel economy than the best small cars made 15 or 20 years ago (such as the 50mpg Honda Civic VX). None of the small/midsized wagons that we considered (VW, Subaru, Volvo) were rated for more than 30mpg on the highway. I hope that turns around before we buy our next car.
The odd part is that when I do the math, MPG is a small deal for us because we don’t drive much. We were driving 7000 miles per year and getting 35mpg over the year, so using 200 gallons of fuel per year. The fuel that we used (biodiesel) cost $5/gallon this year, so about $1000/year. Now we’ll probably drive 7000 miles per year, get roughly 23mpg, and buy fuel that costs $4/gallon. That is about $1200/year. $200/year is not a big deal in the total costs of car ownership. Giving up on using a renewable fuel (biodiesel vs petroleum) and the idea of driving a gas guzzler is worse than the economic reality of driving a gas guzzler.
Anyway, this blog will now return to it’s normal discussions that aren’t about cars. I have a few bike projects starting up again, and some new fun tools on the way.