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#11
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"Fx199" wrote in message
... How many people "need" a subaru with AWD? These cars gat as crappy mileage as a small SUV, in the low 20's. I'm one of those Subaru drivers. In fact, there was a recent reference in the paper to "liberal Seattle women with hairy armpits driving Subaru wagons " and I decided I'd better shave :-) I don't think I need an AWD vehicle. I do want a manual transmission, though. I had a minivan before and was deeply unhappy with it. If you're looking for a vehicle with some cargo capacity and a manual transmission, the Subaru Legacy wagon I believe is a decent choice. You're right about how it uses gas: 23 mpg in the city, 30 mpg on the highway (with no bikes on the top -- that really drags down the mileage). Like most 'mericans, we have two cars. One's a little hatchback, and the other is the station wagon. With those two choices, you can choose the car that fits your needs. When I drove to the megamart last week with just one kid, the hatchback was fine -- even with a week's worth of groceries and 12 cubic yards of beauty bark. The week before, when we were on a family trip to Vancouver Island, we used the passenger and cargo capacity of the wagon. For getting to work in the morning, though, we've not been like most 'mericans -- the cars usually sit in the driveway or the garage. When I'm not hauling 12 cubic yards of beauty bark on a shopping trip, I'll often take the bike. It's fine for a trip to the drugstore, bank, library...but I'm preaching to the choir on this one. If everyone who owned a car -- a Subaru wagon, a Honda hatchback, or a Cadillac Escalade -- also used a bike, it would matter less what the gas mileage was of any of the vehicles -- don't you think? -- Warm Regards, Claire Petersky please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply Home of the meditative cyclist: http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/ See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky |
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#12
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He has a different sense of community responsibility and citizenship
than lots of us; unfortunately there are many millions of others who think like he does. Each one of them does not inflict so much damage to be of great concern (except to the people who are killed and maimed in collisions with them, and their loved ones), but collectively, they are a pandemic social disaster. Chalo Colina And you've shown yourself to be a smallminded, success-envying, racist. |
#13
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Mark loves his gas hog so much he drives it less than five miles to work-- twice-- every day. Hey dummy, if that's the case he uses less gas than someone in a small car or even a damned prius who drives 60. |
#14
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"Claire Petersky" wrote:
that fits your needs. When I drove to the megamart last week with just one kid, the hatchback was fine -- even with a week's worth of groceries and 12 cubic yards of beauty bark. Feet. Cubic feet. There are 27 of those in a cubic yard. My sweetie borrowed a friend's little VW truck not long ago to move gardening supplies, and the thing would only accept a generous half cubic yard of loose compost. Chalo Colina |
#15
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Before I call you liar, what minivan is it that gets 40 mpg highway?
I have no idea what Baker is talking about, but you could do it with a stick shift 1984 Dodge Caravan. A diesel Vanagon would be right up there too. Very doubtful. Around 84 there were a few cars getting over 40mpg, like the Omni or LeCar, but todays cars have 3 times the HP and don't get anything close to 40 conventially, Perhaps the Echo. TDI dieselwise of course. Everything's a gas hog nowadays, they're just small with V-6's in them. Full size trucks are getting 20+ per gallon on the highway and we have cylinder deactivation and variable valve timing coming up. SUV's are just hot topic scapegoats because of the size, the mileage difference is an exageration. Consider the waste if a conventional V-8 is driven slightly versus a new car being produced with better mileage...and all the energy it takes to produce a car period...compared to driving a "used car" into the several hundred thousand mile range. In today's market, I don't know of anything, unless you want to call a Toyota Matrix a minivan. Mitch. A matrix? what are you smoking, it isn't even as big as a small station wagon. |
#16
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"Fx199" wrote in message
... Very doubtful. Around 84 there were a few cars getting over 40mpg, like the Omni or LeCar, but todays cars have 3 times the HP and don't get anything close to 40 conventially, Perhaps the Echo. I had a 1985 Ford Escort that got about 40 mpg with its little 1.6L motor. Very underpowered and not real safe on the interstate because of its inability to accelerate very quick. I would never want another vehicle with a power to weight ratio this low. |
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#18
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Who's "Sheist"? Is that a word in a language spoken by someone
besides yourself? Ever heard of German, Professor? I understand your point, but I don't think it's relevant to what I was saying. I used the Beetle as an example because it's a particularly good climber and it's a very lightweight car. While it emits a lot of foul stuff compared to, say, a New Beetle or even a new Excursion, it weighs barely over a ton, and it uses less gas than an SUV despite its engine being inefficient for its power output. The point I was trying to make is that it doesn't take a 4x4 truck to climb a dirt road. If I were more familiar with the climbing abilities of new small cars I might have used one of those as an example. Chalo Colina Yeah you could climb it with your own 2 feet. You don't know how much this guy even drives his suburban, you just automatically assume he's wasting tons of gas. Why would he want to buy a "new car", thus wasting money and resources, and energy producing that new car, when what he has works? |
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#20
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On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 02:29:15 GMT, "Mark Jones"
wrote: I had a 1985 Ford Escort that got about 40 mpg with its little 1.6L motor. Very underpowered and not real safe on the interstate because of its inability to accelerate very quick. I would never want another vehicle with a power to weight ratio this low. Well, I drove a Saab station wagon on the freeway almost entirely and the gas mileage eventually worked up to just under 34mpg. Pretty much the same as the sedan (which finally got up to just over that on a trip to Kansas). I'll settle for that if it is even close when I trade in my wife's Vibe, which has problems getting quite that high. OTOH her Vibe stays around 30 mpg in normal driving, while the 9-5 drops down to around 27 mpg. Her's is the one that gets the dirty looks because some people figure it to be a SUV. Curtis L. Russell Odenton, MD (USA) Just someone on two wheels... |
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