Ask Lemmy

I live in a walkable city and I am an insufferable snob about it. It's really nice being able to just go outside and get groceries. No traffic. No parking. No fuel. No insurance. No maintenance.

1997 Mazda Miata. Simple, reliable, easy to repair, incredible aftermarket support, huge community with a ton of knowledge, and an absolute joy to drive.

Plus the headlights go up and down.

2022 Polestar 2 with all the options. I think the Polestar is super cool, and I didn’t want to replace my Tesla with another Tesla. I got it used last August for $36k, because used rentals were flooding the market. This car goes for $70k new, but it is not worth anywhere near that

Bicycle, because fuck traffic.

My legs.

But, if I was forced to choose, I'd go with an RV, and then live out of it. No in-between. Why?

I have two preferred modes of living. One is without a car in a walkable area. The other is with a car, and my house is attached to the car. Everybody already gets walkable cities, but having an RV would warrant the freedom to be able to bring all of my possessions anywhere I want, whenever I want. For practicality, I'd use a motorbike for travelling after parking the RV. This is the only way I could own a motor vehicle--it must serve a purpose beyond merely moving a few people and objects between point A and point B. Else, I don't want one.

The only cars I've been at all interested in otherwise are old Honda Stepwgns, the Peel Trident, station wagons, and, indeed, motorcycles. Still see no point in these when a hypothetical RV would be much better for a solo road trip, and when I can go on a vacation via plane or another friend's car. I'm not going out alone.

I don't like single-use items. I prefer everything I have be as multi-purpose as possible.

EDIT: I should probably clarify I would live out of an RV. It's not just a hypothetical alternative, it's something I'm considering.

2013 Toyota 86. My parents bought it for me when I lived in Perth. Love it to death: the looks, the way it drives everything. Since moving to Melbourne It's been sitting in a parking spot for 6 months. I feel terrible for it. If anyone knows any nice places to take it for a day trip or a couple day city getaway I'd love to know.

So much makes it mine but if I had to pick one thing it's the work I've done on it. I've done services, given it new wheels (after crashing and wrecking the old ones lol) and replaced parts. One particular thing I really enjoyed doing was getting a replacement throw-out bearing for it. A big moment for me was arguing with my dad about what was causing problems; listening to my gut over his advice and doing a massive job of taking out the gearbox and clutch. Im still riding the high I felt when I saw that rusted fucked up throw-out bearing. So happy that I managed to do such a big replacement part job without any issues.

Subaru forester and I'm not a lesbian. It's just a solid if boring car.

I've got a Seat Alhambra. It is basically a VW Sharan, but cheaper, and I bought it for space. Seven seats if needed, five with quite some space for transporting things, and down to two seat and a lot of space if that is needed (and I ran this configuration twice in the last three weeks, so it is not something once-in-a-cars-lifetime like.

It also has a trailer hitch which allows me to pull 1.8t. That's a feature I have only tried to see how it works out, pulling a trailer around the block and doing some reversing and parking with it to see how it works, but the hitch was included and might be needed next year, so I'm fine with that.

I originally wanted to buy an electric car, but at that time, most electric cars were overpriced matchboxes on wheels, so they were simply useless for me. At the moment, the VW ID Buzz is one electric model that would do size-wise, but it is way, way too expensive, and it is ugly as f-ck to boot. If prices and design have reached acceptable levels, maybe the next one will be electric.

Honda Fit. It's tiny but mighty. I call it a bisexual car because it fills all the holes when looking for parking. City car, but it gets around.

2022 Porsche Taycan 4S Cross Turismo

• It's electric and electricity is cheap in the Seattle area, especially from 11pm to 7am for me when it's $0.044 per kwh
• It charges very quickly on roadtrips, up to 270 kw or 5%-80% in about 20 minutes (did Seattle to Vegas and back in it!)
• it's a wagon so it's very practical. both our big dogs fit in there and we've taken them on some shorter roadtrips. I even got a roofbox for it, and it didn't impact the range as badly as I'd feared
• the driving experience is wonderful. it's not even close to the fastest Taycan but the 4S even at second lowest trim is without question fast enough, but the real enjoyment comes from the handling on top of that, it's just so so so good
• keeps up with GT3 RS at the track, though that might be more about GT3 RS owners babying their cars than anything else
• its comfy and quiet and communicative

While I'm not exactly thrilled about the massive depreciation, I don't see any other car now or in the foreseeable future that can also do all the things it does well without being a fucking SUV or crossover or truck.

Also if Taycans get cheap enough for more people to get into them, I hope more people do, cuz even the absolute lowest spec, zero options, smallest battery sedan is a solidly excellent car

Ford focus RS.
My old car was sporty (RX8), and I wanted another sporty car, but I wanted AWD because I was done with RWD in the snow. I needed a 4 door, because I was planning to have a kid. That really limited my options.
I liked the AWD system in the focus over the WRX STI or Golf R.
I don't really like it anymore, though. It's a really rough ride, and the seats are uncomfortable for long trips. And it's kind of a boring car when it's not snowing.

My wife has an Hyundai Elantra GT. It's pretty much the only car we use now, it's way more comfortable to drive.

We're probably gonna sell both of them and get an Ioniq 5.

2001 Toyota MR2 Spyder. Bone stock except for a LSD I dropped in when a bearing grenaded in the transaxle. It was my daily driver for a long time.

2003 Subaru WRX. It was my daily before the MR2, but I blew the head gaskets around 200k miles and got the MR2 while I rebuilt it. It's now lifted, running a 2.5l ej25 with the stock 2.0l heads. It's become my fun car that I use to tow stuff with and take out when the snow makes the 2-seater convertible impractical.

But now we mostly drive my girlfriends 2022 Honda Accord Hybrid. It's bare bones low end model, but she likes it.

Daily: 2011 Subaru STi wagon. It’s fun, speedy, has excellent traction for the mountains and snow where I live, and can transport 4 people with snowboarding gear.

Fun: 1955 Caddie. My great uncle bought it new so this is nostalgic.

Moto: 1982 Yamaha XS650. I use this for joy rides in the mountains and to save on gas

2019 Škoda Fabia Monte-Carlo Edition.

It's a relatively small car, but bigger on the inside, allowing my 6.5 feet (1.98m) and considerable bulk to sit comfortably and commute a route where sadly public transit isn't an option. It's only drinking 5.5l per 100km (~~4.277~~ 42.77 mpg) and I have had good experiences with that model in the past in regards to the cost of maintenance.

I can go 200km/h (125 mph) (downhill and with a tailwind) and the sporty features (manual transmission, sports suspension, sports seating, stronger engine and spoiler) are really nice when going quickly around corners on country roads or speeding down the Autobahn.

Scion FR-S

It's just so fun and pretty

Tesla Model 3. Didn't know Elon was a raging nazi back then.

The one I own, people get upset when I take theirs.

2017 Ford Focus 1.0L with 18k on the clock when I got it. It was free.

2016 Hyundai Accent. It was cheap and what I could afford. I will run it into the ground before I get another one. She works and she's tough. She got me across country with a full trailer attached to her and is just fine. She's filthy, but she is mine. And I love her.

None. I have a license but driving stresses me the fuck out. I have an old bike.

2022 Chevy Bolt EUV. EV with plenty of space and comfortable. Good mileage and never pay for gasoline again.

2013 VW Golf-R - it's paid off and runs like a champ but I'm looking forward to replacing it some day with something like a used Tychon. Never buying an ICE car again with any luck. I love the Golf-R because it's fast enough to be fun but still somewhat economical and handles well enough as a daily. It gets me around town and up to the mountains without any trouble.

A 2005 Seat Leon TDI. It was cheap, uses little fuel and is reliable. In the summer I drive our 1988 Trabant 601. It's fun and tiny, but definitely not reliable.

Though after moving to a bigger city from the countryside, my main modes of transportation have become my bike and a tram, the car is only for when I visit my parents where no public transport goes

2009 Audi A3 sportback, it was my first “nice” car.

I keep it around despite the small fortune I’ve spent in maintenance because it’s fun as hell to drive.

1999 Ford F350 crew cab, long box diesel. I sometimes need to tow a heavy trailer and turns out most rental trucks don't allow towing, getting them scratched or any of the other reasons to own a truck. I have had it for about 15 years and put maybe 40k miles on it, so it isn't worth having any other car. Besides that 7.3 is the best engine Ford ever made.

We were until recently a one car household (my wife and I both work from home). So I drove a 2019 Toyota Camry. Why? Because that's what my wife wanted.

My sister got a new car so I bought her old one off of her so I could have a backup on the rare times we needed two. It's a 2012 Ford Fiesta. Why? Because it was cheap ($2k) and it gets good gas mileage. I also like the car because I'm a minimalist at heart. It's very simple and I like that.

2007 Toyota Prius because it gets 45mpg and I have to drive about 45 miles to get to work

2006 Nissan Frontier for when I need a truck. It has the same specs as the Tacoma, just as reliable, and a lot cheaper in the used market.

2015 grand caravan. Great family car, two reason it's not a Honda or Toyota, 10 000$ price difference at the time that my low mileage does not justify but the main point is the stow and go. It turn the family car into a light cargo in seconds.

When I was stationed in Germany with the US military in 2010, I wrecked my car in a blizzard. It was totaled; I couldn't drive it anymore and I needed to get to work every day, so I dropped cash on a used 2006 Mazda 3. It was a 5-speed manual and was in immaculate condition. The former owner had detailed journal entries and receipts for every bit of maintenance they'd ever done. They were only selling it because they had more cars than they needed at the time and they needed some quick cash.

Fast forward to 2020... I was stationed in Nebraska and my Mazda 3 was finally showing its age. I had driven it across most of Europe and half of the US, and its mileage was approaching 200K. I was in the market for a new car.

I found myself "deployed" to South Carolina for 4 months during the pandemic, and while I was there, my wife called me up and asked if I wanted her to buy a new car for me. Apparently, some married friends of hers bought a brand-new 6-speed 2017 Mazda 3 Touring Edition as their daily driver to college classes. But their entry to college was delayed a few years, then the pandemic hit and all classes moved online. So it was just cluttering up their garage. They had 5 cars and hardly drove any of them, so they decided to sell 4 of them during the pandemic.

The 2017 Mazda 3 had only 7,000 miles on it. And they sold it to me for $17K cash. It was a helluva deal! I sold my 2006 Mazda 3 to a coworker and my wife bought the 2017 version for me. And I've been driving it since. It's way nicer than my older version, and the previous owners had even paid for some upgrades to the base car.

I'm retired now, since 2022, and I don't need to drive as much as I used to, but I always take my 2017 Mazda 3 when I leave the house. I enjoy cruising around in that car. It's not a super fancy luxury car, but it's the nicest car I've ever owned. I'm hoping I can get a solid decade or more out of this car before I need another one.

2023 Kia EV6

I was driving a 2004 Chevy cobalt, it was paid off and the motor wouldn’t stop working, that’s all the good that could be said about it, everything else was falling apart. One day the AC stopped working, so I went to roll the manual window down, and the handle came off in my hand. I decided I was done. I knew I wanted at least a hybrid, preferably a plugin hybrid, maybe a full EV if the price was right. They are way more efficient than a traditional ICE, and with less maintenance. I knew I also wanted cooled seats, summer’s in the southeastern US can be brutal.

It happened to be near the end of the year, the dealership was in the process of unloading the 2024 model cars, and they only had 2 2023 models left that fit my requirements, so I got a brand new car with options for less than base MSRP, and I completely skipped the hybrid / plug in hybrid phase.

I haven’t driven in over 20 years—my current personal transportation is a pair of freeskates.

I'm driving an orange MG4.

I moved back in France almost a year ago and needed a family car, I wanted a car that would serve me for at least the next decade.

For me anything else than an EV was not making sense so I got the second cheapest EV I could get at the time.

I got it new because at the time second hand EVs were almost or even more expensive than getting a new one.

I have a 2021 Seat Leon FR PHEV Hatchback.

It is basically a Spanish VW Golf.

I got it one and a half years ago as my first car after getting my license at 35.

As a first car it is very luxurious, as a daily driver at 35 it is comfortable but highly annoying (every cabin control is either in the infotainment, or on touch surfaces (some without lighting) which forces you to take you eyes off the road to set cabin temp, Turn on heated rear window, turn on heated seats and more).

It is mine because I bought and paid for it.

2004 Nissan 350Z Roadster Touring.

Bought it because I don't fit into a Miata. I like having a more powerful engine too.

I'd like to eventually buy an EV, but modern cars suck. They're too big and handle like shit because of their size and electric steering. I want something small and nimble that is reasonably fast and handles like a dream; the 350Z checks all of those boxes. Literally point the car where you want to go, and it just goes there, even with all the driver assists turned off. I see why it's a popular drift car.

Toyata Matrix. It gets me around. Keeps me out of trouble.

motorbikle.

I recently switched from a Suzuki Spacia to a Nissan Sakura.

In Japan, the roads are narrow, so a Kei car is very convenient.