{"id":10841,"date":"2007-06-18T21:05:09","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T04:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/06\/18\/considering-the-unthinkable.html"},"modified":"2007-06-18T21:05:09","modified_gmt":"2007-06-19T04:05:09","slug":"considering_the_unthinkab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/06\/18\/considering_the_unthinkab.html","title":{"rendered":"Considering the unthinkable"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was driving home today, listening to an NPR article about car companies and fleet mileage, and how they seem to have all the technical bugs worked out for their European sales (which meet much stricter standards, albeit at a not-insignificant surcharge) but keep claiming that the know-how and smarts just aren’t there for the domestic auto manufacturers to build cars that get decent mileage here …<\/p>\n

And it occurred to me that (a) both of the vehicles we’re considering in our car choice get 18 mpg, highway, and (b) do we really, truly, honestly need a vehicle that large?<\/p>\n

What if we bought a Subaru Legacy, for example (the model better known, in its most common hatchback dress, as the “Outback”)?  Well<\/a> …<\/p>\n

For example, a Subaru Outback Limited wagon has roughly the same interior dimensions as a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited.  They both have full-time all-wheel-drive and they have the same luxury equipment.  The Jeep costs about $8000 more than the Legacy (most of it profit for Daimler-Chrysler).  However, that’s not the only difference between them.  The Legacy averages 28 miles per gallon on the highway, while the V-8 powered Jeep gets 60 % of that (17 mpg).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I got home and broached this with Margie.  She said she’d been thinking sort of the same thing. <\/p>\n

Consider our requirements:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. All Wheel Drive<\/strong>.  Well, that’s my requirement, and Margie isn’t kicking over that.  But there are plenty of vehicles of a smaller size that offer that (e.g., other Subarus).<\/li>\n
  2. Can fit five in relative comfort<\/strong>.  A sedan-sized vehicle isn’t going to be as comfy as a mini-van, but the times we travel for any more than half an hour with five in the car are going to be few and far between.  Does that fail the “drive to Grand Junction with the grandparents in the vehicle” test?  Well — it becomes a bit more snug, but, then, we do something like that maybe once a year.  And the space issue has gotten easier since Kitten started being able to ride (in some cars) without a booster seat.<\/li>\n
  3. Transport full-sized sheets of plywood<\/strong>.  Which I don’t think we could do in the Tribeca, but could do in the van.  But, again … how many more full-sized sheets of plywood (drywall, etc.) are we likely to transport in the future?  Not many, I suspect.  And …<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There’s this great concept called rentals<\/em>.  Transporting large things (like full sheets of plywood and lumber) from Home Depot?  Pay $15 to rent a truck for 45 minutes; you can make that up in fuel costs in a week, easy.  Having the grandparents in and going to Grand Junction?  Rent <\/em>a van.  Etc.<\/p>\n

    Or, alternately, if we’re a group of six or seven … maybe we take a second car.  That costs extra money, too, of course, but it’s also an ad hoc <\/em>sort of thing.<\/p>\n

    Note that a smaller vehicle would also fit in the garage more easily.<\/p>\n

    Now, of course, going this route does come with some significant disavantages.  Largest of which is that it throws the field back open, a field in which we’ve been dithering for months (perhaps out of a sense of submerged guilt).  But, heck, that may be a small price to pay.<\/p>\n

    Pondering …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was driving home today, listening to an NPR article about car companies and fleet mileage, and how they seem to have all the technical bugs worked out for their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17891,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/07\/18\/its-not-quite-a-new-car-yet-but.html","url_meta":{"origin":10841,"position":0},"title":"It’s not quite a new car yet, but …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 18-Jul-10 12:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it was supposed to be a quick errand. After all, we had a Busy Day today, getting ready to head out to California, to pick up Kitten and go to the San Diego Comic-Con, and all that.\u00a0 Packing and tidying and all that jazz. But ... Well, we used\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18605,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/18\/the-new-car-2010-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":10841,"position":1},"title":"The New Car (2010 Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 18-Sep-10 8:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After a few months of fiddle-farting around (and, really, honestly, about 3-5 years of Hey We're Really Seriously Considering It Now procrastination), we finally bought our replacement for the van. As a recap, we've had the 2000 Toyota Sienna since before Katherine was born -- in fact, we got it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/outback-kay-margie.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/outback-kay-margie.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/outback-kay-margie.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/outback-kay-margie.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18604,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/18\/new-car.html","url_meta":{"origin":10841,"position":2},"title":"New car!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 18-Sep-10 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Our new 2011 Subaru Outback. Our long familial car hunting nightmare is over.","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22956,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/03\/unblogged-bits-mon-3-oct-11-2330.html","url_meta":{"origin":10841,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Mon. 3-Oct-11 2330)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Oct-11 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... sassythought:Justice League of Peanuts by ~corinoteclol,... - Poor Charlie Brown ... Dear Emma B - This is a fantastic \"letter to a kid\" on a scientific topic. 2012 Subaru Impreza: First Drive - Was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/14\/vroom_vroom.html","url_meta":{"origin":10841,"position":4},"title":"Vroom-vroom","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 14-Jun-03 3:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As part of the Fathers Day weekend festivities, we went car shopping today. Volkswagon Passat: It's amazing, dismaying, and a bit annoying when a particular car model has versions that...","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128669,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/10\/on-driving-stick-for-now.html","url_meta":{"origin":10841,"position":5},"title":"On Driving Stick — for Now","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Nov-15 9:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"I love the manual transmission in my Subaru Impreza. When I need to get up and go, or when I'm maneuvering in a mountain setting, it's lovely and comfortable and just how I want to drive. Even in suburbia, downshifting to use engine compression rather than breaking feels much more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}