That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Thank got I live in Florida.

I was convinced the e-brake was a line lock, but it isn't. It's mechanical, so that's a relief. Still, the deal with starting while being parked with the e-brake and... I have no idea what situation they are talking about, but they have some added feature that seems completely arbitrary and unnecessary.

And the salesmen wore my ears out talking about all the tech features. What I’m thinking is that about half of them would be beneficial and the others will just be more expense to fix when they break.

had just one. It's a manual transmission with key start and locks and crank windows. It's got a AM/FM radio.

An older friend has a prius, and tho I've been invited to, I never drive it; hate the rear window, for one thing.




p.s. I drive Dad's '93 Toyo wagon.

Then I HATED it. I kept thinking it was dying on me when it wasn't. It didn't feel like real driving to me. I didn't like the rear window either; it was hard to see out. No thanks.

warning lights when there is an object in your blind spot. backup cameras, lane assist. Voice commands

My husband won't let me test out the pedestrian warning system.

my best laugh of the day.😀

The one in my new truck saved me from plowing into a pedestrian as I was backing out of the driveway.

He just won't let me test it to see if it works.

I tested the collision avoidance system, just not intentionally. A car in front of me stopped suddenly (ok, I may have been following a tad too closely.) An alarm went off and the truck stopped. All the technology paid for itself and the truck was only a couple of months old.

that thing wouldn't let me get away with ANYthing!

With my phone plugged in and Waze on the dashboard screen I could see speed traps and accidents ahead and red light camera warnings. It physically slowed me down from changing lanes unless I signaled, it slammed on the brakes once as I was swinging too fast around the curve of an on-ramp and they guy in front slammed on his breaks. It blinked at me whenever anything was in my blind spot. It even chirped at me sternly whenever I went over a pre-set speed limit (which I found out later I could adjust. SO now I only need to know if I'm going over 90).

But all in all it was a very comfy ride and we had a blast in Key West. My truck doesn't do all that stuff but I can plug my phone into it and see maps on the dash screen. It will read me my text messages and let me use voice commands to reply.

it's no coincidence my username has "Geek" in it. Word to your motherboard.

3 hours of driving maybe 50 MPH. Beautiful scenery. Great food everywhere.
I go to Big Pine Key every summer for the lobster mini-season. My boss told me I couldn't go one year so I quit on him. Nobody gets in the way of my Keys trip.
My cousins drag their boats down from Osprey and we do our thing and then snorkel out at Looe Key while the kids spearfish hogfish. Then we take the fillets to the Hogfish Bar ("A great place if you can find it".) and let them cook it up for us.
Good times!

I want to start doing it at least every other year. Cruise one year, Keys the next.

I wonder how much it would take to retire there...

The last Airstream Club trip my grandpa ever took was to Big Pine Key. He loved it but when he got back he realized he was tired. (He was into his 90s by then).

too many bells and whistles that don't always work. My sister's GPS told us to take the nearest exit and return to where we started. It was entered correctly.
She had to restart the car a few times just to get it into the garage because the car thought she was going to hit something - it was a tight fit but it did fit.
The loud fan turns on when you get into the car because it is trying to adjust the temperature inside the car - immediately. Loud!
She had to get a new key and it was $250!

I use GPS on my phone. I hate our quasi-new 3yo car. Hate it!!

to show me the engine and stuff, and I didn't recognize anything in there. I once had a car that would stop running because the butterfly valve on the carburetor would snap shut, and I could get it going again by taking off the air filter and sticking a screwdriver into the carburetor to keep the butterfly valve open. Obviously that sort of thing is no longer possible.

that did that, as well. I used a plastic fork.

Traded our 21yo car in 3yrs ago for a new one & have cussed it ever since.

It makes no sense to me at all...

And so damn expensive! I will never buy new, I refuse. I'll buy a car with 30K miles on it and let someone else take the depreciation.

Simple,easy to work on, fun to drive,Good looking, and parts are not a problem to find or afford!

Tho there is nothing wrong with a numbers matching L-78!

I guess that there was a concern that cars could shift out of gear while parked and start rolling so the automakers have now made it much harder to put a car in neutral - I discovered this when looking at the manual - you literally have to break plastic to get to a release button and have to go through a bunch of complicated steps in order to allow the car to shift in to neutral - and I'm thinking back to a time years ago when my car broke down in traffic - I'm very glad that THEN putting a car in neutral took one second so I could quickly push it out of the way of traffic - today, if a person has never put a new car in neutral before, it's probably going to take them 15 minutes minimum looking at the manual to figure out how to do it!

Currently in the process of replacing the fuel pump, the fuel injector, the power steering pump, the radiator and the alternator. I don't even need to replace them, the current ones work just fine. I'm just gradually replacing all the major components because I want the car to last a long time. Already replaced the timing belt, the water pump, the fan belt, the air compressor, and the brake pads.

When I hit 180,000 miles, I'm going to replace the transmission and engine as well, and do a full power train rebop. Already have all the spare parts picked out on Autozone.

Why not just get a new car? For the same reason as you, I hate new cars. They are unnecessarily complicated, when something does go wrong, they cost a fortune to fix, you have much less control over what they do. I have a friend who can't even turn the headlights off on his new car because they go entirely by light sensor. So if he wants to park in idle at night but not turn his engine off, he has to have his headlights on the whole time.

What I love about my Escort is it's simple and yet tough as hell. It's 18 years old, has 111,000 miles on it, and it runs like a champ. I've had it smogged, and it always passes with extremely good numbers. It's a very low polluting vehicle. If something does break, and that happens very rarely, it's very affordable to fix. I can work on it myself without needing the latest supercomputer to do it.

Yup, screw new cars.

I’ve come to appreciate electric windows and AC and cruise are standard nowadays. I thought the backup camera was a bit too fu-fu but I’ve come to like that too. And I like the Bluetooth. It’s automatic of course. All in all I like it, but do you notice everything is grey, white or silver? And all the low end sedans look alike. I’ve tried getting in the wrong car multiple times.

but I know all to well what you mean and if it's not your thing, i totally get it.

like second parents to me a little...

anyway...

They both like the new car, but he giggled as he said,
"Janet (name changed) made me turn all the bells and whistles off, because she can't stand all that."

Once in a while there's an annoying something-or-other or something that's tough to figure out, but that's always been true. I remember when I got a mid 90's Saturn and couldn't figure out how to open the gas flap.

Anyway, most of the weird stuff I can turn off and I will never, ever, have a car without satellite radio or Bluetooth again.

10-15,000 miles between oil changes, Never, ever having to adjust point gap again, plugs that seem to last forever...

Comfortable seat, brakes that work, electric rack&pinion steering...

Turbo fours giving decent power and great gas mileage...

The list goes on.

(And I'm well over 40)

Never going back to gasoline. They are just too much fun to drive.

1997 one-ton Chevy dually. Beat up as hell, but Farm Truck extraordinaire! Try hauling 30 bales of hay in a Prius.

I had the cruise control set for 30 mph with the Eyesight (automatic braking feature) engaged, and the dealer told me not to step on the brake as we approached stopped cars at the light, and let the car brake itself to a stop.

It did stop safely without my assistance, but it wasn't part of the test drive I enjoyed.

Yet not a single modern car incorporates such a simple beneficial item.

Drive a 73 VW Van with hyperdrive. And would be confused in anything newer than 90's cars. Prefer wind up watches & pocket watches.
And have never owned a cell phone but have purchased many of them for my family.

MSD 6-A, Protronics electronic ignition in a .050,slightly milled heads,notched pistons,Chevy Small Block rods,solid lifters with roller rockers and a mild Engle cam,spaghetti exhaust with a 24 inch Cherry Bomb muffler tucked underneath the rear bumper.

Needless to say going down I-5 was a blast...the looks I got as I passed people were priceless!