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One thing I feel like we discuss rarely here is cars.
I drive a late 90s/early 00s German sedan. When I made less money, I spent a good amount of time wrenching on it. I wanted to have some minimal competence and understanding of the car, and it was a great way to save money.
It still would be a great way to save money - I won't kid myself there - but the stress of preparing for a maintenance job, buying the specialized tools/parts, and working in my extremely cramped garage has lost some magic. I still feel accomplished doing little things but when I'm constantly under pressure to be doing work or parenting, there's less magic in DIY. Bike maintenance provides a similar dopamine hit with far less commitment.
That said, I just picked it up from the mechanic this week after a month-long absence and some significant work being done. I truly do not understand how people put up with newer cars.
This thing is absolutely sublime. It strikes a perfect balance between the precision and feedback from all of its systems while driving and what you'd define as "luxury" and comfort. I splurged on an aftermarket exhaust that fades into the background on the highway and absolutely rips when I'm driving like I stole it late at night on more empty roads.
Not to mention how it looks. Of course, any car you see as a teenager is what you base everything else on, but the slightly angular design language of this period right before everything turned into aero blobs for fuel efficiency and crash standards just really gets me going. I absolutely still look back at it when walking into the office and find myself getting excited when I step back into it after a long day.
Whenever I'm on the road watching hundreds of drones driving dirty shitboxes without using their turn signals or trying to drive efficiently, I fall into such a superiority complex. How could you care so little about something you do so much? For a country supposedly in love with its cars, it would be tough for Americans to give less of a shit about how driving feels and how they perform at it. For all I'm made fun of about the time and money I've invested in an older car, when I spread that out over the time I've used it and the joy I derive from it it seems like an obvious trade.
I simply don't give a shit. I bought a nine year old Prius and drove it into the ground. Then I bought a four year old Prius which I am currently driving into the ground. 60 miles a gallon. Maintenance manual recommends oil changes every 15k miles. That's about all it needs to work flawlessly for 150+k miles. It even has a volume knob.
How much do you care about your pillowcases? You presumably spend more time on them then in your car.
It's not a great analogy. I understand valuing reliability and low cost of ownership at different levels. Ironically I kinda enjoy driving Priuses - Hybrid powertrains are fun.
I don't know.. I've driven around big comfy cars with hydropneumatic suspension 200kw engines and I've driven the second shittiest ComBloc era car ever - Škoda 120 and if I didn't need to drive long distances I'd buy and use the Škoda.
The extra money doesn't seem like much. Sure you can't overtake in a slow car, but I don't mind driving a bit slower. It's never that slow.
Honestly if I wanted a car I'd want something like a beat up Hilux converted to run on LPG. Saves some on gas (tax is lower still), you can (gently) crash into people and not give a fuck and it's reasonably safe. If it had AC and massive bumpers so running into things at low speed wasn't a worry, each end it'd be ideal.
Looking at my dad go nuts about every new scratch on his shiny new hybrid semi-SUV seems crazy. It's a car - if you have to worry every time you go shopping some cretin will hit your doors with his doors.. ? Is having navigation, a bunch of black boxes that phone home, an integrated cellphone(to phone home) a fucking electronic voice reminding you to use a seatbelt spending an extra €10-15k at the very least?
I don't think so.
You're optimizing your hypothetical car for something besides "niceness", but this is still car-optimization way beyond normie levels and way beyond " used Prius". (Though maybe not as far beyond normie levels as it would be in the US.).
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