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Thread: New Car

  1. #31
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    I'm 6 foot on the nose, but I had plenty of room in both of my mazdas. I don't think I even had the seat all the way back when I would drive. My new car has adjustable pedals, but I've never messed around with moving them.

    Gaz, I'm pretty sure if I did more in town driving and stop and go the mileage would drop like a rock. My drive is about 15 miles each way to work and all but about 1.5 miles are freeway. In the colder months if I would warm it up for 5 minutes before leaving home I would be just over 20 mpg, but I bet with even 25-30 more miles of city driving per tank it would drop like a rock. The last three tanks have all be warmer weather and I've been just over 24 on each of them. I was pleasantly surprised with the mileage for sure, I was expecting that it would be closer to the 17 mpg city mileage that they put on the window sticker before I bought it.

    If any of you are OCD about mileage like I am, www.fuelly.com is a great website for tracking your cost per mile. I haven't missed entering a fuel up on that site for almost 3 years now.

  2. #32
    Senior Member slgrieb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gazzak View Post
    That's interesting as I was sure it would be quite a bit lower than that. Obviously over here the cost of gas means cars that can get good MPG are a priority for most people, (my own does 50MPG + but is not something I enjoy driving). I don't usually like U.S. cars but I have to say if I lived over there or if the cost of fuel was half what it is here then I absolutely would be going out looking at one like yours. It's a stunner.
    I generally don't like American cars so much either. Back in my younger days, I leaned towards Fiats and Alfa Romeos. I had a few buddies that owned a TR-4, a Lotus Elan, a Sunbeam Alpine, and a Jensen Healey,an MGB and they were all fun to drive, but I really liked the Italian stuff. Cars these days are mostly multinational and don't really have the character they used to have. We are looking at buying another Kia, but I wouldn't be adverse to a Ford Focus or a VW Passat diesel. Still, I gotta admit I would probably kill several people to own a Jag XKE.
    Yes, Mr. Death... I'll play you a game! But not CHESS !!! BAH... FOOEY! My game is...
    WIFFLEBALL!

  3. #33
    Senior Member Gazzak's Avatar
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    I bought a Ford Focus with all the toys 10 years back when I was driving all over London. Heated leather seats, heated windscreen, a really nice drive around town. Without doubt one of my favorite cars ever.

    I got it privately at a year old, and the depreciation from new was huge, (think I paid 8000 for it when the lady owner got it new for 14K). The seatbelt had a faint whiff of her perfume, and it was a very nice perfume too. I still remember pulling the belt over and getting whiff every time and I still smile at the thought.

    Had to sell it when I changed jobs and still regret it.

  4. #34
    Senior Member slgrieb's Avatar
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    I've made many, many bad decisions in my life, but selling my '69 Alfa spider is certainly near the top of the list. Super reliable, even though it was Italian, had a top you could put up and latch one handed, and I loved driving it. Should have kept it forever, and current prices for the model are roughly 14 times what I paid for the car when it was only 2 years old.

    This is kind of a cheap shot, but I can't resist. "Why do the British drink warm beer?" "Because they have Lucas refrigerators." I liked the Hell out of the Alpine and the Elan though.

    The Alpine just never broke, until it threw a rod one day. My friend managed to find replacement parts, and all it really needed was new bearings, a connecting rod and a piston. He replaced all of that stuff with the engine still mounted in the chassis, and then welded up the engine block. It ran just fine. Back in the day, living here in the middle of nowhere, parts for imports were really hard to find and he had bought the car without a top. However, he had some thick plastic duct-taped to the top's frame, and if you got caught in the rain, the passenger's job was to pull up the frame and hold it in place.

    The Elan was a blast to drive or ride in, but every time I road in it, something broke. It was never the engine or tranny, or anything serious, but you would have one of the window winders fall off, or a gauge quit. My least favorite thing was that the door on the glove box frequently fell open and whacked me on the knee. Somehow, this always seemed to happen just when my buddy was braking for a hard turn, so I also got the door ground into my knee after it fell on me.

    The other weird quirk about the Elan was that it had retractable headlights that were operated by manifold vacuum. The lights were held down by springs and raised by vacuum. So, if you climbed a hill or passed somebody at night, the head lamps would gently roll over and disappear. That was fixed in the second year of production by reversing the system; springs raised the headlamps, vacuum pulled them down.
    Yes, Mr. Death... I'll play you a game! But not CHESS !!! BAH... FOOEY! My game is...
    WIFFLEBALL!

  5. #35
    Senior Member Pinnacle-Project's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Larommi View Post
    Never sat in a Mazda I fit in. Are you guys like 4ft tall?
    I had a 1981 Mazda RX-7 in college. I am 6' 2" tall. There is no back seat. It felt good to me. Of course, I was thinner then.

  6. #36
    Senior Member slgrieb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pinnacle-Project View Post
    I had a 1981 Mazda RX-7 in college. I am 6' 2" tall. There is no back seat. It felt good to me. Of course, I was thinner then.
    Huh. I remember being able to stand up and still see my toes.
    Yes, Mr. Death... I'll play you a game! But not CHESS !!! BAH... FOOEY! My game is...
    WIFFLEBALL!

  7. #37
    Senior Member JaxSon's Avatar
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    What's really bad is having one of them dickey-doo bellies.
    What's that, you ask?
    That's where your belly sticks out further than your dickey-doo.

  8. #38
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    Update....had my car tuned about two months ago, added about 65 horsepower and 70 ft/lbs of torque, which puts me around 430/430 at the crank. 0-60 went from around 5.5 to 4.6 seconds. It is a beast. Had to drive to new york city last month for work, I held back for one entire full tank going only 65-70 mph for the whole tank and was able to get 29.6 miles to the gallon. The rest of the time I'd go 75-85 and only got 24-25 mpg.

    Shortly after returning home, I discovered this wonderful thing called plasti dip. It's like spray paint, except it goes on sort of like a skin, and if you get tired of the look you can peel it off easily. Since I got the car I wasn't a huge fan of the chrome wheels, I'm a black wheel kind of guy, so I figured I might as well try the stuff out on my wheels. It's amazing how good it turns out with such minimal effort. I also did the chrome around the tail lights, it was starting to peel off anyhow so I figured what the heck. No sanding, no real prep other than wiping it off with rubbing alcohol real quick to clean it. It looks like it was professionally painted, and I absolutely suck at painting. Used about 3 cans doing the wheels, so the price going from chrome to black was bout 25 bucks including the painter's tape I bought.




  9. #39
    forum fool 3fingersalute's Avatar
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    Very impressive job, I like it much better than the original!
    "Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." - Jim Morrison

  10. #40
    Junior Member Semper Fi's Avatar
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    That's a hell of a tune job...quite a bit more power!

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