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by ionwake6 hours ago |
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upvoteby SoftTalker6 hours ago|
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Agreed. You can buy a lot of gas for the price difference between an old economy ICE car and an EV. Plus cheaper insurance and in many places, cheaper registration fees.
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upvoteby wilg5 hours ago|
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The problem is you burn that gas and put carbon into the atmosphere which warms the planet.
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upvoteby sellmesoap5 hours ago|
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But only a mini amount, how much energy do we spend making the new car vs maintaining the old one. Young people need opportunity to buy cars as well, but the price jump can be too big for many. My experience with transit around Vancouver is great unless you need to get to the next spoke over, or went for a drink downtown and then have to walk an hour to get home in the evening (not solved by having a car obviously, but a shame there isn't an affordable responsible option after 8pm)
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upvoteby jazzyjackson5 hours ago|
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Yeah both use significant energy in both moving the 4000 pounds around and maintaining the millions of miles of highways.

The real win for environment would be building cities and towns to support not having to drive everywhere.

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upvoteby drnick11 hours ago|
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People generally aspire to live in single family homes, and that is incompatible with not driving a car.
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upvoteby SoftTalker3 hours ago|
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Well we live in the real world. We're not going to be rebuilding cities anytime soon. And most people like being able to drive, it allows you to live your life and not be confined to a couple of square miles or the limits of a transit system.
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upvoteby ionwake5 hours ago|
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[flagged]
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upvoteby Slothrop995 hours ago|
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The average car in the US is 12.8 years old. The used car market has adjusted to the fact that many of them go for 20 years/200K miles.
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upvoteby erxam5 hours ago|
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> 20 year old Mini

> it works great

I have a feeling that you can and do work on it, because maintenance otherwise would easily be triple the market price of that car yearly. That significantly changes the economics of old cars.

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upvoteby ionwake5 hours ago|
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you can just ask me lol.

In 20 years: I got a garage to replace a radiator after a stone hit it, for $600 Also 2 tires once, for like $200.

I might not drive as much as you all, but when I do its at a relaxed pace and the roads are good where I live. I have a manual transmission and Im always careful how I accelerate and how I brake and change gears. It has about 100k on the mileage now

Its a Mini Convertible if anyone cares

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upvoteby AlexandrB5 hours ago|
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$6k maintenance per year? That's crazy high, where are you getting that number?
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upvoteby erxam5 hours ago|
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What do you mean crazy high? The amount of shops that will take an old European car like that are few and far between and they'll certainly charge you a premium for it.

Say, you go for the cheapest option and get minor services done at around 500-700$. Okay, a medium or major service is going to be over 1K and you're bound to have one. Down 2-3K if nothing goes wrong, at all.

But if something breaks, you're going to be down 2K at minimum for the part itself (not counting labor) and your car is going to be in the shop for two months while the part that broke is imported, and that's if you bought a Chinese replica. Original parts might as well equal the total value of that car.

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upvoteby ionwake5 hours ago|
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To me this sounds so crazy.

In England if I go to my local garage and ask them to replace something like A radiator or water pump it will be like $200 for labour plus maybe $250 for the part ( unless I get it myself off ebay for like $30 and install it myself ).

For example a plastic fender came off, I just bought it for $15 and all I need to do is click it in place when it arrives by post. Im not a mechanic.

EDIT > Incase you all think Im crazy I did the numbers as Im not "a poor man" and quite fancy a cool new car even if 2nd hand, if I get a 2nd hand Landrover Hybrid for 40k, the MPG will be double my old Mini, ONLY if its charged at home, I dont stop at petrol statinos etc, otherwise it would be more!

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upvoteby antod5 hours ago|
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Wat? We have a 2005 Toyota and a 2005 Mitsubishi. We've had them for 12 and 8 yrs. They don't need anywhere near that much maintenance. And if something really expensive came up that exceeded their value, we'd replace them with another 10yr old car.

I assume you're in the US? Are things that much worse there?

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