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  #11  
Old September 11th 04, 06:53 PM
Claire Petersky
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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  
Old September 12th 04, 12:08 AM
Fx199
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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  
Old September 12th 04, 12:14 AM
Fx199
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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  
Old September 12th 04, 12:47 AM
Chalo
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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  
Old September 12th 04, 02:25 AM
Fx199
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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  
Old September 12th 04, 03:29 AM
Mark Jones
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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.


  #18  
Old September 12th 04, 02:04 PM
Fx199
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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?
  #20  
Old September 13th 04, 03:17 PM
Curtis L. Russell
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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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