Chevy Volt

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

Guess I will have to go pretend I am gonna buy one so I can drive it

[[JiF]Mike]

Just be careful, you will probably like it lol

[[JiF]Mike]

Found this time lapse video of the Volt assembly line. Kinda neat.

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

Little doubt about that.

[[JiF]Mike]

This is real world use. My personal best so far!

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

Wow.

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

I finally got my wife to go out and look at some cars. We were gonna test drive the Yaris and the Soul.
Forgot dealers don't open here on Sunday until noon
We only got to the Yaris. We drove one of the 5 door LE models
The Yaris is what you would expect from the lowest end Toyota car. Not as scary to drive as my old 3 cylinder Geo Metro .I bet it's no joy in winter going up the highway.

Unfortunately I seemed to remember the salesman and I could not quite remember where I had seen him. We mentioned the Kia and he started to trash it and mentioned he had worked at a BMW dealer next to Kia dealer we were going to. After we left it hit me. A few years back we had gone to a local Honda dealer as my daughter and I were both looking for cars. The salesman was the same one. He was a pain in the ass then and is now. Honda does not seem to have anything I want so I never got far there. My daughter worked on a deal with this guy for an old Civic. The deal fell through and this guy was a major pain about it. I ended up giving her a deal on my Saturn Anyway this guy has been at at least 3 dealerships in a relatively short time period. Probably not a good sign.

Ran out of time as I had to go to work so we are going to try and take a look at the Soul on Tuesday. It should be fun I will definitely try to remember to wear my hoody and take a picture

Thing is most Toyota and Honda cars are really no brainers as far as reliability go. Kia is an unknown to me. Makes it a little more risky although I hear they are improving every year Looked up a one year test drive on a Soul. They pretty much said it was flawless and a great little car.

We are pretty slow car buyers who have no problem leaving a lot. In fact I kinda like leaving the lot empty handed. It makes me feel powerful It could take years

[[JiF][AARP]Tissueman]

We are pretty slow car buyers who have no problem leaving a lot. In fact I kinda like leaving the lot empty handed. It makes me feel powerful It could take years

Tissuema'am and I went to look at Camry's in 2008. We still haven't bought a new car. We are driving 1993 and 2002 Camry's now. Perhaps this is the year for a new car.

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

Ya know they add new stuff all the time, so just wait till next year
We have a 2002 Chevy Venture van that is now pretty rough, maybe unsafe. It won't make it through state inspection which is due this month and I don't want to put any money or time into it. I will have to do something. I will miss the van it's sooo versatile and comfy, but we only need little cars now and gas is getting pretty pricey
I was shopping used cars, but the prices on those seem absurd. Not that new ones aren't. Back in the day if you had a car with over 100K miles on it you gave it away. Now they cost $10K and up

[[JiF]Lt Gav]

How much is your gas these days?
Last fill I paid the equivalent of $8.8 per Gallon (US sized gallon, not Imperial UK sized)
Always made me laugh when we hired in the US & a big SUV cost a fraction of what I paid at home to fill my car.

[[JiF][AARP]Tissueman]

I've been paying just under $4 a gallon in the Midwest.

[[JiF]KellysHero]

To continue the thread hijack, my wife has a 2011 Kia Sorento and she's put about 20k miles on it since we bought it new. Overall it is a pretty good SUV and seems to be holding up rather well to date. The nice thing is it came with a lot of features standard that would be an upcharge for other similiar small SUV's we were looking at. The one downside is it doesn't get as good of gas mileage as it had been rated. It has the 4 cylinder engine and front wheel drive but she'll only get about 22/23 mpg instead of the 26/27 we thought we'd be getting. Granted I do think a lot of that has to do with her driving style. She's in sales and on the road a lot and has a tendency to stop and work in her car with the engine running. Idling in park will kill mpg when the m is 0!

We tend to keep our cars a long time, my previous Tacoma was kept for 12 years and sold with 223k miles on it, my wifes Galant 11 years with a 190k miles on it. We are hoping for the same longevity in the Kia as well.

[[JiF]Mike]

Grimp I have heard the Chevy Cruze is a pretty good small car, and it's American made!

The wife and I took the Volt down to visit family this weekend in southern Mass. Stopped at a Chilli's for some lunch and they had a charging station. I got about 10 miles worth of charge in the hour we were there. When we came out and unplugged, the Manager of the place came out and talked to us about it for a few minutes. lol Later, on the highway someone actually took our picture. Passed us, slowed down so I had to pass them and took our picture as we passed! Then in the driveway of our relatives someone yelled "Is that a volt?" as they were driving by while I was plugging it in. It attracted a lot more attention than I thought it would! People are very curious about it.

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

Good to know the Kia's don't just fall apart Ya, they give more toys for the money than most makes.

$8.8 per Gallon

MY GOD! You need one of Mike's cars! We are around $4 per Gallon here and people are already stealing it out of your car At least I hear they are. So are hybrids and electic cars getting popular in GB?

[[JiF][AARP]Grimp]

Ya, I have looked at the Cruze online even drove in one the someone had rented. I looked at a lot of cars. I started with American made cars first. I just can't find one made here I want.
I want a mini van and if I was going to get one it would be the newer Dodge/Chrysler. I don't care for the others. Hard to tell where they are all made now though:) Gas mileage too low and they are above our target price for new

If I can't have a Volt What I am looking for is a hatch back on the lower end of the price scale with good MPG. I don't want another sedan and we have a Corolla already. I would drop the hatch requirement for a Volt, but it's not really an option for us. A Prius would do too, but it's out of our range and not US anyway. So after looking around the only two that seem to make me happy are the Yaris and the Soul. Turns out both the Yaris (Japan) and Soul (Korea) are from overseas. I think I will like the Soul better for the room, the height and options, but won't know for sure until I get in one. I use to like the Scion XB, but only the original. I personally don't like what they did to it.