Car Wish List

[cjsmith]

What I want in a car. This is mostly for my own reference.

[LJ_CUT TEXT="Here you may clicky to see how I'm picky"]

CLIMATE CONTROL

- Heat and air conditioning controls should trigger the heater or air conditioner, and do only that. No weird interlocks with a "defrost" button or something.
- When I direct airflow to certain vents, the airflow should be directed, and only that. No weird interlocks with the heater or something.
- Side vents near the door should be able to be closed. Fully closed. I hate drafts.
- Recirc is a must. No weird interlocks with the vents or the heater, no "recirc only exists when the fan is on", none of that crap. I require a recirc control that switches cabin-air intake from the outdoors to the indoors and does only that.

STUPIDITY

- No timer turning the rear window defrost off for me!
- No locking or unlocking anything on the car except by direct user command!

LIGHTS

- Ideally, hazard lights would be easy to use and easy to stop using again. Most newer cars I've seen seem to pass this test.
- No headlights that are technically legal but make me an asshole on the road. Sorry. Nobody wants to see cars like that coming at them, and I don't want to be the kind of consumer who will buy one.

SEATS AND VISIBILITY

- Headrests have to be either completely removable or completely comfortable for a short chick with a ponytail. This is not negotiable.
- I must be able to see all dashboard indicators. It's incredible how many cars fail this test.
- I must be able to see well enough out the rear left and rear right, by turning my head and looking out the windows, to feel safe changing lanes.

SEAT BELT

- Sure would be nice if I'd stop getting red scrapes on my neck from the seat belt.
- No automatic seat belts. Cars made in 1990 are right out.
- Sure would be nice if the physical layout of the seat and steering wheel put me that last quarter inch over the line so that I could legally disable an air bag. I don't want to be on the borderline.

CONVENIENCES

- Must be able to play cassettes and CDs.
- Must have at least one cup holder. I've seen cars that fail this test.
- Ideally, the rear seats should fold down for trunk access.
- Intermittent windshield wiper capability would be nice.
- Must have the ability to pop the trunk and the gas cap cover from the driver's seat. A keyfob whose trunk control is disabled when the key is in the ignition does not count.
- I don't prefer, but would be willing to put up with, electric locks.
- I don't prefer, but would be willing to put up with, electric windows.
- Automatic transmission. Snotty comments about this will be deleted -- this is MY wish list.

SIZE

- 4-seater. I don't want to be the kind of driver who says carpooling to lunch is someone else's problem.
- Must be able to fit in my small garage next to rfrench's Toyota Solara and leave room for me to open the door and get out. This puts me pretty solidly in the subcompact range; it means a four-door; it probably also precludes adding a right-side rearview mirror.
- Must have enough trunk space to fit all the square dance calling equipment. Ideally, would have as much trunk space as a 1989 Toyota Corolla. It's incredible how many cars (larger cars, even) fail this test.

HANDLING

- Sharp turning radius. I don't have a measurement on this, but most cars' inability to turn well can really piss me off after driving my Corolla.
- When I push the pedal it should go. Here's where my current car has trouble.
- When I push the other pedal it should stop. Early anti-lock braking systems would annoy me, so they're out.

Comments

[eichin.livejournal.com]

I can see some of those things being hard to shop for - they're simply *bugs* but you have to poke at the car a bit to tell if it has them. (We're about at the tech level where build a cad-model of yourself, seating it in a cad model of the car you want, and figuring out ponytail and line-of-sight and airbags could *easily* be done on a desktop, but getting the data and expressing the personal constraints are still challenging.)

ZipCar had a Toyota Scion xA (the one that looks sort of like a Mini, not the xB which looks sort of like a schoolbus) that I poked at a bit, it is on my short list for "sensible commuter" car. Surprising headroom and legroom for that class. If you want to carry people and stuff *at the same time* it might not serve, but it did have some space when full of people. (Other vehicles on the shortlist: a prius, but only if I can get the priusplus wallcharging mods; it's kind of "eh" without them; a lotus 7, in the "screw all'y'all, I want to drive something fun" category, though I did see someone building an electric 7 which scores nicely in the ecohotrod niche; *maybe* a jeep. But my constraints are very different :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

they're simply *bugs* but you have to poke at the car a bit to tell if it has them.

Exactly. I'm disappointed at the seeming complete lack of short people in the car industry -- you'd think they'd have at least one tester who is as short as the supposed average height for a woman in the US -- but I'm not at all surprised.

I like the cad model idea. There will come a time when the data collection is semi-automated (stand in between this screen and this light please, [click] ok thanks).

Our physical constraints are indeed pretty different, and I suspect so is the amount of money we're willing to throw at the problem. :-) I also don't drive enough to convince me to get a Prius just yet, even if it'd fit in the garage, which it won't.

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

I'm disappointed at the seeming complete lack of short people in the car industry

Mass production and low-end vehicles probably results in designing for the spot in the middle and accepting that people at the ends will be poorly served.

It's not just height, but torso/leg ratio that can affect comfort - someone of identical height may have a very different experience if they're not laid out the same way. And when buying my first new car, I noticed that although the putative interior measurements on many compacts were almost identical, there were dramatic differences in how well I actually fit in the different models. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true for the other end of the height spectrum as well.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I take it you're particularly tall? :-) I've seen tall folks "try on" cars just like we "short" folks have to do.

Mass production and low-end vehicles probably results in designing for the spot in the middle and accepting that people at the ends will be poorly served.

Yeah -- my point was that I AM in the middle (of over 50% of the US population). But the way mass production seems to define "middle" is the average *male*.

Ah well. Can't be changed, so I gotta accept it. Still makes me shake my head though.

It's not just height, but torso/leg ratio that can affect comfort -

Oh, absolutely. I'd need to sit in 'em. Same for aircraft; I can fly many Pipers, can fly only some Cessnas, and Mooneys are right out.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I'm disappointed at the seeming complete lack of short people in the car industry -- you'd think they'd have at least one tester who is as short as the supposed average height for a woman in the US -- but I'm not at all surprised.

they don't cater to the tall people much, either. i had a good laugh watching my 6'4" heavyset (but not hugely overweight) brother try to get in and out of a brand-spankin-new Corvette. he threatened to remove the roof and just climb in Dukes of Hazard style. ;-) sadly, he only had the car for the night. i'd have loved to have opened her up on the highway...

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

I also don't drive enough to convince me to get a Prius just yet

I'm now insanely curious what is so scandalous about not driving that I can't see it. Is it about getaway cars at bank robberies or something? :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* Nah, it just had a bunch of financial detail in it and was thus on a tighter filter. I analyzed whether a Prius was a bad financial move for someone who drives only 8Kmiles a year (average!! including the year I drove across the continental US!) and the answer, unsurprisingly, was I'd be an idiot to buy a Prius.

Sadly, driving less doesn't give me Smugness Points that I can show off to my friends. Ah well. :-)

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

Wow, makes me wonder what else is out there that I can't see. Anything completely scandalous?? I promise not to beg, but I do like to think of people on my friends list having scandalous sides. It makes me happy for some very strange reason to think people have wild sides. :)

So, okay, yeah, moving on from the "way too much information about Brian" department...

That makes sense. I've never done any analysis to determine what percent of the overall (10 year, say) cost of a new car is attributable to gas, but I'm guessing it's reasonably low (maybe 30-40%?) even at normal mileage averages and high gas prices. So if you were to double your gas mileage you could spend... what... another 15-20% on your car and come out even? That seems too easy, I suspect I'm oversimplifying things, but my brain is fried. But, anyway, you definitely have to look at both together. :)

Oh, for one thing, I was assuming you pay cash for your car. Finance charges and interest would definitely lower the percentage that's attributable to gas. :(

[harpwolf.livejournal.com]

Driving less certainly does give you Smugness Points, if you think about the environment, or about transit use, or sustainable living. My teacher routinely gets hassled for driving an enormous SUV -- he responds that he drives it less than 5 miles a day and fuels it once a month, "And how often do you drive your ___??"

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can get smug about it, but smugness points just aren't half the fun when no one else "gets it". :-)

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, do you mind a question? I'm confused by the excitement (and you aren't the only person I've talked to who has it) of the wall-charging mods, but perhaps I don't know the particular complete set of mods you refer to. I own a Prius, so I have some familiarity with the stock operation. With the existing (2004) Prius battery pack you're looking at at best a couple miles of range on battery-only. Apparently the "give me electric only" modification is not particularly difficult, although unless you do lots of very separated, very short, low-speed, low-acceleration trips I can't see it as a killer application, staying in electric only below 40 on flat surfaces isn't a difficult trick to learn in a stock Prius once it has warmed up a minute or two.) I'm not even certain that wall-charging is cheaper at current market electric prices, if you have your own solar that might be different.

(Of course, I'm assuming you're not changing the battery pack, this assumption might be in error, but there are other ramifications of a battery pack large enough for significant electric-only range. The weight difference of the mods I've heard suggested offhand have been extraordinarily punative.) Anyway, any enlightenment you might provide about why it would be desirable would clear up some confusion on my part, and would therefore be appreciated.

[eichin.livejournal.com]

http://calcars.org/priusplus.html is the particular mod set I had in mind. True, the basic electric-only-mode is just a matter of turning on a feature that is *already* on in non-US prius models; the far more interesting bit is adding a bunch of LiIon cells in some dead space (and that avoids the weight issues too.)

Just as the normal prius *isn't* primarily about fuel economy (otherwise a TDI jetta would be competetive choice, at least in earlier model years), it's about low-emissions, a wall-charged prius isn't really about being cheaper (the price of the mod isn't even going to pay off for a long time - although the Rav4-ev rated "100mpg" price-equivalent, ie. you paid as much for the electricity as you would for gas if it got 100mpg), it's about not burning oil outright, or at least that's my take on it.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

...it's about not burning oil outright, or at least that's my take on it.

That depends on where your wall electricity comes from. But yeah, it's a
lot more than just a price thing for me, emissions is important, and I do
drive an awful lot (26K miles the first year), and I do think that oil
prices will go up over the next handful of years--but quiet is important,
and driving the technology curve is as well for me. Many of these things
apply as well (to to full-electrics.)

The PriusPlus conversion looks good so far, and when/if it's offered, I may very well
look into taking a conversion myself, depending on where it ends up on
cost, weight, and any impact on cargo space. Thanks for the link!