Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

Yes.
 
I think I'm cursed.

So I'm actually very confident and comfortable in my driving ability. Any time I'm in a rental car, our toyota, our old honda, or whatever I can drive it and all my passengers safely and have no problems.

However with this new car that we bought in December of last year, I feel like I'm cursed.

So since we bought the car:

I reversed from a parking spot and some douchebag reversed without looking to see where I was, I scraped my bumper and side with his bumper at like 2 mph or less. This caused him to blow up and be an asshole about it and report it to my insurance (which is brand new btw, we switched companies).

I have gotten a ticket for a stop sign offense which wasn't really that big of a deal. I slowed to 3 mph, saw that no-one was coming (it was 9:30 in the night), I had my high beams on because the streets were a little bit dim, and of course there was a coppa there that I totally saw but thought wouldn't stop me. I haven't gotten a single moving violation since 2004, which wasn't entirely my fault, the signs were poorly placed and the police officer understood this and lowered my penalty.

I get 18 - 20 mpg from a car that's supposed to give me 25 in the city.

I just came from picking my mom up from work, since she said she was feeling flush and sick. I was worried so I rushed over, picked her up, carefully took her back home, and then went back to work. Upon parking my car, I realized I was a little too far back so I slowwwwwwly nudged the car forward, and of course, I feel a slight bump as my car hits the metal pole in front. There's now a white streak on the front bumper.

I'm sure there are a couple of other issues but that's all I can remember for the most part. I've never had any of these issues with any of the old cars or the other cars and I've been BEGGING my dad to take the honda and drive it instead of me. He refuses partly because he doesn't want to accrue too many miles and increase the insurance (his commute is farther than mine), and partly because he can't smoke cigarettes in a brand new car, and of course he's going absolutely ape shit in the toyota, and I can tell whenever I step into it that I've stepped into a fucking ashtray.

What the fuck should I do? I've driven the thing as if it's a priceless old Bugatti (aka very very motherfucking carefully and slowly), and I've driven it like I don't care (because I felt that caring too much about it has caused me to overfocus on things).
 
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I know how you feel. I drove for three years without curbing a rim. I purchase some nice flat black painted rims, with a thin red stripe around the edge, and it looks badass. Within months I had ruined two of them, one of them I scraped off almost half the red stripe.... shiny metal scratches look horrible on flat black. But what can you do? I am now verrrry careful around curbs. And I advise anyone against convex rims.

Where was I going with this?
 
I know how you feel. I drove for three years without curbing a rim. I purchase some nice flat black painted rims, with a thin red stripe around the edge, and it looks badass. Within months I had ruined two of them, one of them I scraped off almost half the red stripe.... shiny metal scratches look horrible on flat black. But what can you do? I am now verrrry careful around curbs. And I advise anyone against convex rims.

Where was I going with this?

Into another curb if you don't pay attention :p
 
The Cayenne and the Panamera are VWs not Porsches as far as I'm concerned. They're merely cock-mobiles in my eyes.
 
I think I'm cursed.

So I'm actually very confident and comfortable in my driving ability. Any time I'm in a rental car, our toyota, our old honda, or whatever I can drive it and all my passengers safely and have no problems.

However with this new car that we bought in December of last year, I feel like I'm cursed.

So since we bought the car:

I reversed from a parking spot and some douchebag reversed without looking to see where I was, I scraped my bumper and side with his bumper at like 2 mph or less. This caused him to blow up and be an asshole about it and report it to my insurance (which is brand new btw, we switched companies).

I have gotten a ticket for a stop sign offense which wasn't really that big of a deal. I slowed to 3 mph, saw that no-one was coming (it was 9:30 in the night), I had my high beams on because the streets were a little bit dim, and of course there was a coppa there that I totally saw but thought wouldn't stop me. I haven't gotten a single moving violation since 2004, which wasn't entirely my fault, the signs were poorly placed and the police officer understood this and lowered my penalty.

I get 18 - 20 mpg from a car that's supposed to give me 25 in the city.

I just came from picking my mom up from work, since she said she was feeling flush and sick. I was worried so I rushed over, picked her up, carefully took her back home, and then went back to work. Upon parking my car, I realized I was a little too far back so I slowwwwwwly nudged the car forward, and of course, I feel a slight bump as my car hits the metal pole in front. There's now a white streak on the front bumper.

I'm sure there are a couple of other issues but that's all I can remember for the most part. I've never had any of these issues with any of the old cars or the other cars and I've been BEGGING my dad to take the honda and drive it instead of me. He refuses partly because he doesn't want to accrue too many miles and increase the insurance (his commute is farther than mine), and partly because he can't smoke cigarettes in a brand new car, and of course he's going absolutely ape shit in the toyota, and I can tell whenever I step into it that I've stepped into a fucking ashtray.

What the fuck should I do? I've driven the thing as if it's a priceless old Bugatti (aka very very motherfucking carefully and slowly), and I've driven it like I don't care (because I felt that caring too much about it has caused me to overfocus on things).

Ouch.and...you have mileage based insurance? o_O

I haven't really had bad luck in regards to damaging my car's exterior. Only thing that really got messed up were my outside mirrors from college pranksters (many people were affected) but i haven't run into anything yet.
 
Don't the postal RHD Cherokees have some totally ghetto RHD conversion set-up?

I haven't looked, but they did sell RHD ones in UKania.
 
Thanks to Top Gear, I've been looking at E-Types in classifieds. A thoroughly restored Series 1.5 convertible will cost around $55k....that's amazingly cheap for that kind of classic.
 
i think the problem is not that the car is cursed, but that the car is new and naturally you're much much more careful with it, who knows how many times thevictor crubed his old rims and never bothered to notice, who knows how many people dented the mitsu before its paint job and I didn't noticed.

But I'll find whoever bumped into the back this past week and torture him a bit
 
Not necessarily if it were in Europe; but as it's a German car in USA it'll have magically started to fall apart. :p
 
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Avoid. Nothing on that is cheap. Buy a 2WD Cherokee.

It was mostly a joke but noted! :p Does a Cherokee drive as shittily as a mid 90's/early 00's Blazer?

If so, I'll have none of it. *shudders at Blazer flashbacks*
 
It was mostly a joke but noted! :p Does a Cherokee drive as shittily as a mid 90's/early 00's Blazer?

If so, I'll have none of it. *shudders at Blazer flashbacks*

The Cherokee is more car than truck and has good road manners.
 
The Cherokee is more car than truck and has good road manners.

Awesome, just what i wanted to hear, as they look pretty good. :)
 
The Cherokee is more car than truck and has good road manners.

Indeed. I spent a good hour behind the wheel of an '00 Sport Classic 4x4 on the highway and I have to say it's very well behaved. Even the brake pedal is nice and firm, for being an off-roader box, it drives very well.
 
It was mostly a joke but noted! :p Does a Cherokee drive as shittily as a mid 90's/early 00's Blazer?

If so, I'll have none of it. *shudders at Blazer flashbacks*

Having driven both, and owned a few cherokee's, I can tell you that the Cherokee drives 10000x better than the blazer.

The blazer feels top heavy and wollowy, the cherokee feel planted and responsive. (comparatively)
 
And unlike the Saturn's engine, it is hard to kill an AMC L6.
 
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