New Car
 

Rich Levys Personal WWeb Site

I have just purchased my 6th new car in 25 years. This counts the Mitsubishi Galant which was totaled after 2-3 months, so my true average is a new car every 5 years.

Numbers 2 and 5 were Chevys. After dealing with GM and finding out about hidden recalls and other "we know theres a problem but we're not telling unless you make a fuss", I almost gave up on American car manufacturers.

I am taking a leap of faith with Ford, but I am a) covering myself with an extended warranty for the 'dead zone' between 36 months and 5 years where I have had to replace catalytic converters, radiators, etc. b) creating a web site documenting my entire experience (see link above).

My wife was able to personally vouch for the service department of the local Ford dealer, so I decided to go for it.

While I will save on gas by giving up my Chevy Blazer SUV, I will be punished by my insurance company for picking the compact American car with no side airbags instead of the Hyundai Sonata mid-size. Having been rear-ended by a full size Blazer when my Mitsubishi Galant was totaled, I can sort of understand the thinking on this but I believe that a compact wagon should be much better than a compact coupe than the difference in premiums suggests.

Going from a 1996 Blazer to a non-ABS equipped 2002 Sonata with side airbags would have cost me $75 extra for 6 months from AllState. An ABS equipped 2003 Focus coupe would be $181 extra for 6 months and the ABS equipped Focus wagon I picked will be $207 extra for 6 months. I'm not sure how much the model year, car class, and airbags affected the rates. I will be shopping around for a new insurance company real soon.

Anyway, check out my site. It turns out Comcast does not handle Frontpage extensions so I am still trying to figure out how to get a Guest Book/Feedback form up. I might end up taking my site to Geocities.

Why did I put the money details out? I want everything out on the table. If I'm unhappy in 4 years, I want everyone to know what I put into this.

BTW, if I weighed 75 pounds less and was an inch shorter, I would have seriously considered the Toyota Prius. If you believe in being truly patriotic, which to me means opting for energy conservation instead of trying to seize parts pf the worlds oil supply, then a hybrid or a fuel cell is the way to go. Of the hybrids, the Prius is really the least polluting and most fuel efficient. I even heard that it counts for a tax incentive.

START RANT
Of course, if the new depreciation rules go into/have gone into effect, than anyone who uses a vehicle for business (including doctors, lawyers, and accountants) may be lining up for SUV's since they may have better depreciation rules under new/proposed tax changes. If this administration becomes any more pro-oil and anti-conservation, we may have to take over the entire planet. I was never a big conspiracy theorist, but considering the adminstrations efforts to shut down the GAO inquiries into the energy policy pow-wows with various energy executives (including ex-Enron), who wants to guess that one of the "strategies" discussed was the invasion of Iraq to a) stabilize the region or b) blatantly acquire the oil. That would explain the administrations fierce and successful attempts to shut down any inquiries.
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Nice site Rich. We're looking casually at new compact wagons right now ourselves, although we may not buy for a while. I'll have to call my insurance agent as that cost slipped my mind. We have a crazy driveway which is being improved and rural roads which aren't, so we are leaning AWD maybe Subaru Impreza. We had been talking VW Gulf hatchback for a while since the mileage is so impressive. I'm impressed that the Focus as small as it is is comfortable for a big guy. Good luck with the Focus and keep us informed good or bad.

If you decide to look at the Focus make sure that you get the package which includes ABS and traction control. I had my first drive into work today and I gunned it at a green light to try out the acceleration. One of my wheels started to slip on the road salt and I felt a slight pull to the right. The little yellow traction (I think they call it Advance Trac or something like that) light on the dashboard lit up and the car straightened out. Cool.

BTW, the 6-CD changer rocks, although it does not have a 'Blaupunkt' label like the single CD player in the coupe. I'm checking into that, just so I have the correct info for the web site.

I've driven Fords since 1979, starting with a Pinto (it was all I could afford). I followed that up with two Mercury Lynxes (a Ford Escort with nicer upholstery and trim, so they count), a Mercury Topaz (same deal as a Tempo), a Ranger pickup and I've been shoving around a Windstar van for the past four years. I've had excellent service from all of them with the exception of the Windstar, which had numerous and various problems, but were mostly covered by warranty. Without exception, I have gotten very high mileage out of each of them.

I had a Focus sedan as a rental for a few days once, and I liked it very much, BTW.

Our beater is a Ford Escort wagon with about 153000 miles on it. We are patiently waiting for it to collapse but its not burning oil and gets almost 40mpg, so we're sticking with it. That is our first Ford and we're impressed but they dumped the Escort model.

I have a 1984 Toyota Supra with 265,000 miles on it. It smokes a tiny bit til it warms up. They don't make 'em like thay used to. It's silver, a color that police cannot see [I don't know why, but it just seems to work].

Although I pick on 'em all the time, I can't really complain about Fords...my family has owned as many of them as Chevys (we've had 8, including 5 Escorts from '81-'94). Overall, we've had pretty good success with them (except that those older Escorts liked to blow their aluminum heads at 85K). My mom's '94 wagon had a few warranty problems back in the early days (airbag light, gear shifter), but it has 90,000 miles now and runs great.

The Escort still exists, although only as a ZX2, which is not a bad little car.

I've considered the Focus, but I'm more partial to the Cavalier/Sunfire. I definitely want a car with more room (we currently own a Metro, so I'm sure you understand).

Re: New Car
 

It was never about American vs foreign. It was always about GM vs VW vs Hyundai vs BMW vs Ford vs Toyota vs Fiat.... Notice even here - massive difference in the quality of Ford vs GM. 30 years ago, that was completely the reverse. But GM has continued to be among the highest failing vehicles in the world. So high failure and so expensive that GM products cannot be exported from America in significant numbers.

A GM car, comparitively equipped, costs more to build than a Mercedes Benz. And still the GM fails more often. In order to sell vehicles, GM runs to SUVs because they cannot compete in the car market. Bad engineering because top management did not even have driver's licenses.

To get the same technology engines found standard in Hondas and Toyotas, one must buy a Cadillac with the Northstar system - pay more money for equivalent technology.

We finally decided that good used was the way to go. We picked up a beautiful 99 Impreza for well under blue book. Nice rig, great in the snow, lottsa pep... [wishful]maybe it'll be our last non-fuel cell car.[/thinking]

Wow! This was our first serious storm since picking up the AWD Subaru. Its very stable in the snow, great traction, braking etc... I was a little worried about the AWD not being intuitive and throwing off my driving. That was totally not the case. The car behaves as you would want it to. We wanted a car we could strap the kids in on nasty days (since our local government school takes every snowy day off) that wouldn't have the dangerous seating situation my 4x4 pickup puts them in. We got what we were looking for. Cool.