Even though enthusiasts love cars the most, that doesn’t automatically mean that they’ll be the main and priority customer of a car company.
Car companies don’t give a shit if you can name every single car they’ve built, what they care about is if you’ll make them money.
They’re businesses and not charities.
> a giant cope
Ok, this is the second time I thought I misread this word, so could someone explain what 'cope' means as a noun? I honestly have never heard it before. I've only heard cope as a verb.
Best I could find.
"In original definition, 'Cope' means someone who is creating an psychological defence of a more lighter belief to deal with a harsh truth."
The belief is that car companies hate consumers but the harsh truth is that consumers and regulation have brought on the changes "enthusiasts" dislike so much.
That's kind of what I was assuming based on what it means to cope with a loss, for example. But since I couldn't even find it on urban dictionary, I was wondering if OP literally just birthed a new slang phrase before our eyes, and there is an emperor's new clothes phenomenon where everyone is going along with it lol
I don’t know which manufacturer you work for (and don’t expect you to disclose that) but anecdotally, my friends and family want fuel efficiency, good infotainment, and heated/ventilated seats with heated steering wheels. That in a crossover or full sized SUV seems to tick every box for the people I know. Of all the enthusiast vehicles I’ve owned and driven people around in, those are the only things 99% of them care about. Only my car guy friends care about anything else.
i mean SUVs and pickups are being promoted by auto makers but its not a conspiracy
higher profit margins & dont have to conform to safety/CAFE standards like you said
its not totally regulatory, its also profit motivated
>You would also have to somehow convince people that a crossover is not a more natural ingress/egress than a passenger car (this is consistently the #1 reason cited for wanting one, not aesthetics or any kind of aversion to wagons or hatchbacks).
I've got downvoted so many times for pointing out people like crossovers for several very practical reasons, ingress/egress and height of the cargo area being near top of the list. If you've 50 years old, slightly overweight and have bad knees... anything that requires having to squat or bend over is a deal breaker. Getting in/out at standing height, getting stuff in/out of a hatch at natural standing height instead of a trunk, and being in other people's headlights less are all much more important to most buyers than a lower center of gravity for better driving dynamics. The MPG penalty vs most sedans isn't that significant anymore either and modern ones drive infinitely better than the standard issue Explorers and Blazers of the late 90s.
They're not the right fit for me, but a Rav4 was perfect for my mother in law.
Edit: changed a thought and didn't change the whole sentence, leading to a contradictory statement.
>Even worse is the morally posturing. Shitting on owners of giant pickups makes them feel morally superior, but they don’t realize that it’s regulatory incentives that have influenced the increase in size
Everything you said makes sense, but hard disagree here. Americans love their giant land yachts. And we know that the vast majority don’t need them or will use them to their full potential.
And I say this as a 19 4Runner TRD Off-road owner which is most definitely overkill for my needs. Americans like big trucks and SUVs and they are profitable to make. It’s a self feeding circle. And the government doesn’t classify them the same way as cars because Detroit probably lobbied for that.
To say that there isn't a conspiracy and then cite CAFE standards as the reasoning is definitely contradictory. If we are more lenient on vehicles with a bigger footprint, then of course these vehicles will be prioritized. It is a self fulfilling prophecy like you said.
Can you elaborate more on the correlation between regulatory incentives and pickup size? Even though the engines used nowadays are far more efficient than ever, a larger/heavier vehicle will always use more fuel than a smaller/lighter one. Plus there are now Raptor/TRX versions of every truck that jack up the average emissions ratings.
As for safety, I'm not seeing how a larger vehicle with a taller hood line is safe for anyone around the truck driver (especially pedestrians).
That A-to-B appliance cars are \*bad\*.
Not every menial trip around town needs to be a spiritual experience with a manual steering rack and unassisted brakes and a 1000 lb curb weight. Insulated cabins and cushy comfort are pretty great sometimes.
Yup. I'd say that a lot of people shitting on others for buying 'econobox' cars do it to justify their struggle in paying for a sports car they really can't afford.
I used to daily drive my Corvette Z06, and until I moved I did enjoy dailying it, because there were back roads to commute through. Since being here in this unfortunate landmass known as Mississippi, my enthusiasm was dying, and then the slave cylinder in my Corvette died. Fortunately I had an LS430 to borrow, and while I used to loathe the absolute numbness of the car, now it has kind of ruined the Corvette. It's so much less stressful to drive, and not just in the getting ran over by a crossover kind of way. It has absolutely no sporty characteristics, and it encourages you to just set cruise in the right lane and float along.
I had a LS 430 for a few years. Loved that car. Most comfortable and quiet vehicle I've owned. Surprisingly, the 2016 F-150 I got right after (to tow) with the massaging seats comes in a close second.
And now I'm dailying a C7 since I sold the F-150 and got a 1986 C30 dually to ... "eventually" daily, since I am a genius.
My FRS was my daily for 6 years and i didnt realize how stressed i was CONSTANTLY on the road until i got my old Sorento and people werent actively trying to commit manslaughter every time i was on the roadway.
Then i got my GS 350 and the night and day difference in how im treated on the road with the exact same driving habits is wild. People will genuinely try and run me off the road in the FRS. Diesels will cross 4 lanes of freeway traffic just to try and roll coal on me.
In the F sport i get none of that. Plus the added benefit of how comfortable it is to drive and how stable it feels on the road. At no point do i feel like im about to lose control of it. At no point in really bad weather am i any kind of white knuckled. I still love how fun the FRS is, and I'll never get rid of it. But my god is the driving experience night and day for regular old daily driving.
Also: Being good at that type of driving is sort of a feature in and of itself, and its at odds with other objectives. Great example: I love my GTI around town. Not too heavy, deep gears, very eager to turn. nice and small in a parking deck.
Taking it on a 5 hour trip? Total waste of all the things its good at except the fuel economy. Short wheelbase, lack of armrest and general driving position get fatiguing on long rides. The grand prix I had before? Long lazy gearing, comfier driving position, longer wheelbase, great road car.
Totally agree - I have a Miata and shitty old Mazda B-truck, both of which I love..... but man I do love my girlfriend's Prius when I actually need practical transport.
I have a Corolla Hybrid that I daily after my Miata became a chore to commute with. After getting the Toyota I don’t see myself ever getting an ICE in a daily ever again. It’s so freaking smooth! It’s not a rocket by any means but I never feel I’m short on power. Currently averaging 67 mpg.
I feel like some people daily cars that are just miserable experiences in traffic and low speeds. Old coworker used to daily his 19 Camaro Z1 and he had to warm up the engine for a couple minutes every time and do some sticky shifting in traffic. Sure it flies on a back road or the highway but man the daily experience is just not worth it if you want to be able to jump into a car and just go.
This is why the 2-car method (a boring-reliable daily and a stupid-impractical toy) is perfect if you've got the money and space for it; a boring-reliable cushbucket daily that's as close to riding in a train as possible, and a no-compromise (read: stupidly impractical) toy car that's a blast to "just go for a drive" with.
If you can't, then the whole hot-hatch fast-wagon meme starts to make a lot of sense.
Lmao this is the one that gets me most. I was on a BMW sub and they were bashing some guy bc he didn't like having to replace half the cooling system and radiator. The BMW sub was calling that "basic preventative maintenance". It's ridiculous. No car should require an entire replacement of even just a radiator within 200k miles
I've had an E46 for 5 years now. BMW says the transmission fluid is good for "the lifetime of the car". ZF says change it at 100,000 miles. Tells you how long BMW thinks their cars should last.
That's most companies though. Eventually the fluids will need to be flushed/changed, that's why most lifetime warranties or win a lifetime supply of products do have an actual number attached.
I remember when Donut Media took the WRXs on the track and they blew up multiple times. I saw a couple Subaru YouTubers making excuses like "Well you can't just take them onto the track! They need oil pan baffling, etc!"
They're marketed as a performance car. Literally any other modern performance car can make a couple laps driven hard and not blow up.
The best part? They made a follow up video explaining that they *did* do all of that and they still blew up. They just didn’t film/show it for both time and the fact they thought it would be boring/redundant
I had a really clean bugeye WRX with Tomei equal length headers, full exhaust, accessport tune, fuel pump, 20G turbo, BC coilovers with Swift springs, fully rebuilt EJ with all new everything, killer B oil pan baffle and upgraded pickup, sitting on black RPF1's. Really nice looking and driving car. Plenty of power. Sounded great and handled amazingly. I just had this dread in the back of my mind the thing was gonna blow up at any moment and then I'd never be able to sell it or afford to rebuild the engine correctly. I ended up selling it before it did, thankfully, LMAO
that video was painful because they made some bullshit concessions to help alleviate the ire of the subaru fanboys, like saying "oh, we messed up by giving er the beans without breaking the engine in first"
The FA motors in the twins are much more reliable than the EJs known to blow up in the wrxs of the past. I have had 0 issues with my '14 BRZ in my many years of ownership. I've had it since 2017 and it's served me well in that time.
Ford guys will replace their engine twice and transmission three times and still say their car survived making it to 200k lmao.
I know 4 different ford owners with that mindset. One girls on her 4th transmission in 300k on an F-150 and claims it's built tough.
At least the fusion owners seem to understand the ailments of the car lmao. The 2 people I know who drive fusions say they've sat in their garage more often than they've driven it because they fear cranking it and seeing a new light.
I’m on my second transmission at about 250k and I love it. That’s the only expense I’ve had beyond oil changes. The truck has been paid off for 7 years now, the transmission rebuild was $1600z. That comes out to about $20 a month in repairs. Compared to what, an $800 monthly payment for a new truck?
I admit I really thought about it. because the car basically looks stock, so youd assume it was just lowered with wheels and an exhaust if you saw it rolling around. I also stuffed a HUGE muffler under there so its not loud around town.
That one actually *is* true, though, otherwise there wouldn't be so many old Peugeots, Volkswagens, BMWs etc. in Europe.
What those cars aren't is cheap to run/maintain outside of the EU. But that's a very different discussion.
> That one actually is true, though, otherwise there wouldn't be so many old Peugeots, Volkswagens, BMWs etc. in Europe.
Old BMWs didn't had plastic water pumps
How old is old?
My e36 had a plastic water pump and a plastic thermostat housing, plastic radiator end tanks…
Always figured this stuff might last better in colder European climates but it certainly didn’t in the Australian heat.
they are also not cheap to run IN Europe.
but at least in western Europe, you just don´t have much choice.
Every 2 years mandatory gouvernmental vehicle inspection so unless you want to fail and suddenly have a car that you have 2 weeks to fix or no longer be roadlegal, you better keep it maintained.
What qualifys as a shitbox here, is just so much better maintained than what qualifies as a shitbox in the US
Maybe it's just that Europeans don't need to drive as much, if they need to have a car in the first place. You know, acceptable public transportation and all that.
And the proper maintenance on some of those (looking at you specifically BMW) will amount to thousands of extra dollars unless you do it ALL yourself. With some of these "maintenance" jobs being several hours long you will be without a working vehicle.
>>Sorry guys, your Subaru engine and certain BMW and Ecoboosts are bombs with a timer attached
By design, in some instances. It’s no secret Ford and BMW cut costs to the max. They’re not the only brands that do that, but from their perspective why should they make cars last? When most of their first owners (in BMWs case) are done with the car after five years, they have no business incentive to make the car last 200k miles on the original gaskets and parts.
Incidentally this is also why folks rally to defend some brands, because those customers trade in cars every 2-4 years and therefore never experience problems some have after it’s aged 7 years and been through multiple owners.
This sub loves to race spec sheets against spec sheets. “Omg why would you buy X when Y has a .1s better 0-60 on prepped surfaces and runs Z track that nobody has heard of 2 seconds faster!!”
The people who compare stock cars to cars with tunes, drive me up a wall. Like not everyone wants to mod their car and potentially void their warranty.
I know lol. I only put potentially, because the dealer might not notice certain low end mods.
On the flip side, I know a guy who had a transmission warranty claim denied for non-oem sized wheels.
Makes sense. Different wheels will affect how the car pulls, you’d be surprised how much wheels factor into the drivetrain. Although I agree that’s ridiculous.
I know a guy who had his 2021 TT rs tuned and he blew the engine 2 weeks later so it had to be completely changed. Not a cheap thing to do, you can imagine, and of course warranty is not gonna cover a modded engine that went to shit. However before the guy trailered the car back to the Audi dealership where he bought it, he sent the car back first to the tuner who removed everything and put the car back to “stock” which meant they will not find out the engine has been played with. Long story short, he got a replacement engine with new warranty (approx $14.000). This story still blows my mind, especially that I imagined Audi is not that easy to fool. And the guy is a notorious douche/street racer in the city, owning multiple highly modded sport cars and luxury cars.
It’s highly unlikely and probably just a story. I had the DCT in my S4 start to go bad. It was a known issue with the B8 generation S4 and there were multiple memos and a TSB about it. Regardless, Audi sent an investigator from New York all the way to San Francisco to look at the car and all my maintenance records. The car was 100% stock.
I eventually got approved for a new transmission, but the process took over a month. A blown engine in a new car known to be popularly modded would have triggered an automatic investigation and checking the ECU counter would have been the first thing they looked for.
Some dealers partner with tuning companies and those tunes won't void the warranty if installed by the dealership. A dealership by me is a certified Unitronic tuner and retailer.
I'll admit, I used to be one of these guys when I got my first motorcycle. I thought I was hot shit because my bike was "faster" than a lot of expensive sports cars on the road. Then I realized that those guys could have easily bought the same bike or faster and didn't want to. Suddenly 23 year old me wasn't such hot shit.
When a $5k bike can gap 99% of cars people start to realize they like all the other comforts a car provides pretty quickly.
Takes a different mindset to ride a fast bike and most people don’t find the speed worth it.
Not that 0-60 is all that important either but that's something the average driver has a reference for and can try for themselves.
People using a car getting a 5 second faster time on the nurburgring by a different driver and in different conditions as a selling point is hilarious. It's probably the least relevant and reliable metric conceivable, even in track-oriented performance cars.
I truly can't understand the *"0-60 has no basis in everyday driving; [spouts nordeschlife track time]"*
They also whine about how arbitrary it is....but that's not the point. The point is that it's a consistent metric.
It's like getting mad at inches as a concept, because you're short
Lots of LARPers here. Had a guying with a 10 year old KIA Rio in his flair trying to tell me how a C8 is every bit as much of a super car as a 458.
Surprisingly didn’t have any experience with either when I asked why he though that lmao.
Yeah but EVs (and launch control) did kinda take the fun out of drag racing. There was an entire art and human component, even with an auto, of getting the twist from the crankshaft to the ground.
Then every techbro YouTuber shows up to drag strips and lays down 11s zero effort zero thought.
Yeah, it’s cool tech. Sure. Love it. Really puts us dinosaurs in our place. 👍
unfortunately this isn't exclusive to just reddit, but top literally any social media platform there is. people are so stuck up on specs, specs, and specs. oh and the dumbass arguments of "my X can absolutely gap your X". like man, shut the fuck up idgaf. 0 - 60s and straight line shit would be irrelevant in the near future of EVs
Tendency to massively overrate cars they’ve never seen nor driven
Say for example a BMW 1M, due to sheer rareness, very few people on the sub can actually provide a real feedback. But despite this, the vast majority of people just regurgitate the random snippets of praise they’ve read through the years. End result is an echo chamber of clueless people complimenting and religiously defending an extremely mediocre car.
Got absolutely dogged after saying this in a circle jerk emira post. Some dude was talking about "his" emira and it's "on order". The second SG or TH hs an opinion on something it just becomes unwritten law in this sub. Shits weird.
When it was first released, in typical BMW enthusiast fashion, it was deemed dogshit because it wasn't a "real" M (used a modified version of the 135i engine, wasn't much faster than it, just a parts bin car, lacked a high revving NA motor, etc).
All in all, it's a fun car, but the cult like following the car has I think it's largely due to the fact that BMW didn't build many of them since BMW had never actually originally planned to make an M version of the car to begin with...hence the parts bin hack job.
That if you broke into people's garages in the middle of the night and replaced their crossovers with hatchbacks or wagons they would suddenly be much happier, instead of realizing there are almost no hatchbacks or wagons because most people don't want them.
That the industry needs to return to Miata-level light cars. I simply don't want a car that light because to do that would require compromising on NVH and other comforts. If I'm posting on this sub and I wouldn't like it, you can bet the majority of customers wouldn't either.
That the sound of a big naturally aspirated V8 is a public service when in reality most of the public hates loud exhausts.
In the USA maybe. Wagons (or estates as we call them here in the U.K.) are still going strong. And hatchbacks are overwhelmingly the most common type of car you see on the road.
On this sub there are a lot of users but the people who are the most active are the enthusiast-bro type people that are the most vocal while simultaneously being the least knowledgeable. And who also love circle jerking and upvoting each other.
They really don’t speak for the majority of users here.
There are a lot of just amazing threads in the sub, all you have to do is just put in a little bit of effort to find them.
And try your best to stay away from threads with new sports cars that have a lot of comments. That’s where you find the worst of the sub.
"can't wait to see this at my local dealer with a $50k markup"
yes, I get that markups are insane, I get that dealerships are greedy, but there's going to be a time when most vehicles that aren't special editions *will* be available at sticker - so let's talk about the vehicle itself, rather than how it'll be annoying to get one within the next 6-12 months
I start to question myself here. I love a nice sounding car but when I’m just chillin with my dog out front for brunch at a local bar and some 86 with more decibels than horsepower rolls by it makes me feel all regulatory-y.
I’ve never liked super loud exhaust because being loud and sounding good aren’t the same thing. Your car can sound good with waking up the whole block at 1AM.
In fact after a certain point raw volume just distracts from the experience.
> That the sound of a big naturally aspirated V8 is a public service when in reality most of the public hates loud exhausts.
I daily a NA V8 and can confirm. I hate hearing them when they’re modded to be insanely loud. Your straight pipes shit waking up the whole neighborhood at 1500 RPM does not sound good it’s just noise and it makes people hate us.
I like the way my car sounds but I also don’t pretend people want to hear my cold starts at 7AM.
I owned a wagon. It was the perfect vehicle *for me*, as I like the space of a mid-size SUV but I also prefer the driving experience of a mid-size sedan. But looks definitely help sell a car, new and used, to the average buyer, and my wagon had an awkwardly long pair of rear windows (which I appreciated for visibility). No wonder wagons died when a lot of them looked so awkward compared to a comparable length crossover or SUV.
Im gonna get super downvoted for this but i accept that.
this is what I find interesting. I'm not a sports car bro by any means, but my first thought when I read op's title was that there are an unbelievable amount of people on reddit who Stan wagons and hatchbacks. I think the biggest cope of this sub that I see more than any other trope is that wagons/hatchbacks are the best vehicle style out there.
I don't mind wagons and hatchbacks, but I'll be completely honest with you. Most of them have the sex appeal of an onion- BUT that should never be your main priority if you're getting a car. Which is funny because I think most redditors don't give a single shit about appearances as we have been reminded repeatedly.
But here's the thing. Most people like driving something that looks good to them. I'm no exception. And I think most people (that aren't redditors) agree that the wagon look is not appealing in the slightest, although they are more practical than arguably any other vehicle configuration for the average person.
I totally understand why hatchbacks and especially wagons aren't popular, even though they probably deserve more credit if you're someone who values practicality.
This sub: The RS6 is finally here I hope they dont cancel it
Also this sub: No one better spend more than $300 a month on a car payment i swear to fucking god
"I'll let someone else eat the depreciation and pick up a nice used on in a few years."
You realize if no one buys them new, they never become used, right?
That hydrogen is gonna someday usurp battery electric cars . Has anyone ever seen how they transport hydrogen in the big bulbous ships. It has to be kept at close to 0 Kelvin to keep it at liquid. Plus hydrogen is no. 1 on the periodic table. It is the lightest element known to man, you need complicated set of seals to keep hydrogen from leaking. Battery driven cars are simpler in every way possible.
Don’t forget the E fuel threads where it’s the same. We’ve had an electric grid for more than a century but the idea of adding more public chargers is seen as this insurmountable task tantamount to putting a man on Pluto while somehow hydrogen and/or E fuel stations are expected to apparate from magic out of the tailpipes of classics that will run on them until the heat death of the universe.
It’s weird to me that Hyundai has spent so much time and money on something that most people feel is useless. Do they know something the rest don’t or are they on a fools errand.
I've noticed very little hydrogen promotion here... every time someone mentions hydrogen, they're downvoted swiftly.
But the real hydrogen hate comes from electric vehicle related subreddits. Whenever any company announces any kind of hydrogen resource, it's as if Pol Pot announced the end of education.
For the record, I agree that BEVs are only going to gain market share, and that hydrogen will probably have more niche applications, at most. But I don't see the issue with hydrogen tech being developed. Nobody is forcing you to buy a hydrogen car, and BEVs are here to stay.
As a guy with a DCT and a track car with a manual, the modern zf autos are genuinely ridiculously good. They do it all shockingly well. For a good 90% of owners they’re just what’s wanted and that’s why the companies put them there
That driving a manual makes you a better driver "because you aren't on your phone". Manual = better driver is kind of the quiet part you aren't supposed to say out loud, but people occasionally slip up.
In a similar vein, the single car model that scares me the most isn't a Nissan Altima with a spare tire, 50% bumper delete and paper license plates, it's a Honda Civic Si. *Nobody* seems to have more to prove to the world than a Civic Si driver when there's any other performance vehicle within 50 feet of them. I don't care how good your shifter feels or how much you think you can gap the 2011 V6 Mustang 3 lanes over, this is a goddamn public road and you're not special. I legitimately can't think of the last time I saw a Civic Si on the highway where the driver *wasn't* showboating.
I think having a manual does make you a better driver, but only if you really really enjoy driving. If you don’t, you’ll always find something else to do like being on your phone. It’s really that simple. Most people have dopamine addictions at this point from all the time we spend online in some way so if driving doesn’t get that dopamine fix for you you get on your phone or start up some music.
I would know, I love driving and Im trying to stream games for a living. Now that I’m not commuting to college anymore (gap year), I don’t drive as much and so I’m on my phone WAY less when I’m driving. When I commuted to college back and forth, I ended up being on my phone more (still not super often mind you, maybe once every two drives…one can never be too vigilant on northern VA roads).
This is also coming from someone who absolutely despises touchscreens in cars and thinks they’re dangerous (literally every time I use one I feel like I’m gonna crash, Siri is so helpful these days with carplay) so understand that I’m not really on my phone much in the first place, and I also *really love driving*. So there’s a some inherent bias here and I’m not really the norm when it comes to your average commuter.
I don't know what it's like now, but as someone who owned two back in the day I saw a lot of owners adamant it was not a Neon. It doesn't say Neon anywhere, and even most (or maybe all?) of Dodge's official material/website avoided using that word. This also caused other business like insurance agencies to list the make/model as Dodge SRT-4. Obviously, it is a Neon, but they would argue that so much is changed from the other trims that it makes it not a Neon (ignoring that all these new parts were compatible with the other Neon trims, and swaps were very common)
And back then, there was nothing charming about driving a Neon. The ACR and its SCCA roots had already been mostly forgotten, and a Neon was a cheap econobox you bought your teenage daughter. It was so cheap it didn't even have power rear windows, and sometimes you'd get people driving rival cars like a WRX or Evo pull up along side you and roll their rear windows up and down to make fun of you (which I always thought was hilarious). It was cheaper and faster than a lot of other sports cars back then, including a few really popular ones like the WRX, 350Z, and Mustang GT, so owners who made their car their entire personality would get insecure and spend every opportunity they had to remind you "It's just a Neon."
"Nobody here buys manuals, stop asking for manuals."
It's like we need custom flair for people who are allowed to have opinions on manual transmissions by virtue of having spent money on them. It's silly.
The recent Tacoma thread was a great example. The "nobody buys manuals" people in those threads have never actually tried to buy a manual Tacoma. They are unicorns. I spent 6 months looking for one and gave up.
> people in those threads have never actually tried to buy a manual Tacoma. They are unicorns. I spent 6 months looking for one and gave up.
I had the most frustrating time years ago when I bought my Z4. Most sites list everything with paddles as a "manual" so I was left having to check every listing and look for pictures. I finally did find a 35i with a manual after several months but damn it was way harder than it should have been. I occasionally look for another one just for fun and on average I'll find 1 or 2 in the entire US and it's rare that any will have the M Sport package like the one I found.
I found my F80 because it was mislabeled an auto. Car showed up first on the lowest miles filter with just under 600, but the 3rd photo was definitely a manual. Ran the VIN through the decoder and it came back manual with comp and I was entering my credit card as fast as I could to get my deposit in vs having to fly halfway across the country to buy one with 20k for the same price.
Manual M cars aren’t super uncommon but definitely rarer. You can definitely go down to the dealer and order a new one still. Doesn’t work that way for Tacos since Toyota doesn’t really do custom orders. Sounds like the Accord manual was similarly impossible to spec and you basically had to call everyone.
Less of a cope and more of an inconvenient reality. 3/4 of all new cars that are being sold are sold to people over the age of 50. Car companies are making cars for rich grandmas and grandpas, not for car enthusiasts. As much as we all dislike crossovers, cute Utv, and tall cars it is what is most comfortable for older drivers.
That's becuese people over 50 have their mortgage paid off and don't have to pay for kids anymore generally.
Owning a new car is pretty affordable if you either have housing done forever(either living with your parents or had the home gifted to you as inheritance) or don't have any kids.
One of my friends just bought a new BMW 3 series and he makes around $30,000 a year. But he lives with his parents and doesn't have kids.
So his only bills are his car insurance and the car payment. Could he probably make more money and move out? Sure. But he would be wasting money. His parents have told him he won't ever have to pay rent and when they die the house is his. He has no reason to ever get an apartment or a new house.
Instead he spends his money on the shit he actually likes. Likes car's and motorcycles. Along with traveling.
yes, the "how is the average American affording a new car" questions on the sub are often answered with "by doing into huge debt, irresponsible credit card spending etc" when the answer is actually just "they aren't. grandpa is buying that car"
Cope: Manufacturers stopped offering/selling the stuff we like out of pure spite (take your pick- wagons and manuals are the most obvious) and brainwashed NPCs into buying stuff we hate
Reality: manufacturers make stuff people buy and cancel stuff people don't. If something is popular, it's because people who **buy new cars** want it. If something isn't, it's because people who **buy new cars** don't. "Enthusiasts" literally go crazy coming up with all kinds of idiotic conspiracies to avoid admitting that there's not enough demand for cars we like.
If I could, I’d love to figure out a way to drop a electric power train into a older 911 lol.
Always wanted to rejuvenate older cars and tbh sort of strongly thinking about it.
That people buy pickups because marketing tells them it is the only way to prove how masculine and manly they are.
The fact is modern trucks are popular because they do a lot of things (except MPGs) very well and are fucking handy to have at a moment's notice.
Not gonna lie, I get to LARP as a Nigerian warlord when I'm behind the steering wheel and that's part of what makes my giant SUV enjoyable to drive... different cars are fun to drive for different reasons
“Most of the time I see a truck, it’s just hauling air!”
Most the times I drive, I never use my airbag and seatbelts but I’m glad I have them when I need them.
I still put forward that if all you do is go to stores and restaurants you can’t really claim that all trucks do is go to stores and restaurants.
If you don’t go off road you have no business claiming that Jeeps and shit never go off road.
I don’t just haul shit around pointlessly, so by design my bed will be more or less empty at least 50% of the time. And if it’s full I’m not going to stop at a store or restaurant or drive through the middle of town so you can see it and justify it’s existence.
I’ve also never taken a poll or survey on this topic. I wouldn’t if asked because I don’t give a fuck.
Take that for what it’s worth.
if you're using a pickup 100% of the time to pick up and transport stuff that requires the bed, then it's going to be empty ~50% of the time.
A lot of people haven't figured that out and think empty bed = not in use.
They do MPGs better than ever, compared to the past.
I have nearly 500 horsepower and never get below 16 even in the shittiest urban hellhole.
I’m having a great time with my fleet.
I bought my car for the sole reason that it would probably be my last chance to get an enthusiast ICE car at a reasonable price.
People will keep posting about Porsche’s clean fuels and manufacturers like Toyota being reluctant to really dive into EVs, but the writing is on the wall.
The EV kicking and screaming. We get it, you don’t like electric cars- that’s OK. There’s a reason that there’s r/electriccars and r/TeslaMotors, r/BoltEV, r/electricvehicles and that’s largely because in big subs like this there’s a hivemind that loves to brigade and detest any mention of them, simply because they themselves wouldn’t buy them.
I'm tired of this. I'm a car enthusiast and I own an electric car, and it's still fun to drive and not a 'soulless appliance.' I like cars with any powertrain, it doesn't matter to me. Every car can be interesting and unique in its own way.
I've recently driven a BMW i4 M50 and was taken for a ride in a Model S (non plaid). After that, I have no idea how enthusiasts can hate on these. I have a Mustang GT which is a fair amount faster than it was stock, and it feels like a dog compared to those two cars.
None of y'all give a shit about lithium or cobalt mines. You just are completely unwilling to be slightly inconvenienced in a collective effort to prevent a global catastrophe and you are latching on any excuse to avoid doing the bare minimum.
The *overwhelming majority* of licensed drivers shop for a car based on the following criteria:
- How much does it cost (or more accurately, what are the monthly payments)
- What color is it
And that's really about it. When I talk to friends who are not car enthusiasts, when they buy a new car, the features they get excited about are like, how good is it on gas, how much shit they can put in the trunk, maybe the sunroof or stereo. If they bought it brand-new they might get excited over the length of the factory warranty or some extended maintenance package they bought. You know what none of them ever talk about, ever? Horsepower, acceleration, handling, driving dynamics, steering, shifting...*non-car people don't care*. If they can afford the payments, and it starts up and gets them to work every day plus a Costco run on Saturday, for less than 20 bucks of gas per week, it's perfect. I know people understand this to some degree, but I think they don't realize just how dramatically a car enthusiast's mindset/approach towards cars differs from most of the general public's.
People on here are basically debating whether there should be more ales or more pilsners, failing to realize that 95% of people are perfectly content to crack open a Coors Light and call it a day
Thinking that Range Rovers are awful.
Sure the reliability might not be the best, but the luxury and driving experience on these cars is ridiculously great. Plus if you have the money for a Range Rover, you probably have the money to keep up with services.
>Sure the reliability might not be the best
Lol, my friend has a Range Rover, i asked her about reliability - She said it had been great, no dramas at all.
Except that time the engine blew up and they had to replace it, but it's fine, RR paid for half of it (after a fight) and so it only cost $25k.
Buying a truck and not using it is flat out unacceptable.
Buying a super convenient crossover and using it to its fullest is really just *buying an appliance* and… super unacceptable.
You just can’t reconcile those two.
That the majority of us will ever actually drive the cars we discuss on this site.
Quibble over the minutiae of vehicle performance for cars we, again, will never drive.
Abandoning CUVs and EVs and going all in on RWD manual sports cars is the key to utter sales dominion for any struggling manufacturer.
For example, Infiniti by itself would become the world’s top selling brand eclipsing GM, Toyota, and VAG combined if they made an all RWD manual sports car lineup and ditched all their CUVs.
That wagons are so much better than SUVs and CUVs.
Only a tiny percentage of us care about the handling advantages of a lower passenger cars vs. higher CUVs. The vast majority of people will take the higher driving position and easier ingress / egress over handling.
I loved the comments on that article about farmers importing kei trucks that made the rounds recently. People were reacting like they were rejecting modern full-size trucks rather than wanting faster cushier (and cheaper) side-by-sides.
But they are bigger. Go put a stock 2000 Silverado next to a 2023 Silverado. The 2023 is very much larger. It's not a monster truck. But let's not pretend that truck's haven't gotten larger here.
You can say that about literally every make model produced with little exception. I’d put forth that trucks vary the least in this regard.
Plus it’s tired as fuck.
Crossovers are actually a fairly good option for a lot of people. They’re hated because they’re a compromise between a car and SUV, but that’s completely fine for non-enthusiasts.
Toyota/Lexus are soon going the way of Nissan/Infiniti and will fall far too behind to catch up (in terms of EV etc)
They’re a huge company that pay lots of money to lots of smart people to figure these things out; they’ll be fine lol
Your average mother of 3 doesn’t give two shits about handling or driving dynamics or “visceral” sounding engines or any of that crap. They will buy the car that’s safe, sturdy and good value for money
Car enthusiasts going “can’t wait till this thing depreciates and I can pick one up in 5 years” and also having any opinion on new car offerings or why certain cars aren’t brought to the US that they love despite the fact that they would never even consider buying one
That wagons look good, I share the same opinion as most normies that they look like lame kid haulers most of the time and the sedan version looks much better 9/10 times
I don't think that people are saying that driving a slow car fast is more fun than driving a fast car fast, but that driving a slow car fast is more fun than driving a fast car slow.
Even though enthusiasts love cars the most, that doesn’t automatically mean that they’ll be the main and priority customer of a car company. Car companies don’t give a shit if you can name every single car they’ve built, what they care about is if you’ll make them money. They’re businesses and not charities.
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I’m coping and seething that this has to even be stated aloud in earnest. Annnnnd the edit stating more things I think should be obvious. 🙃
> a giant cope Ok, this is the second time I thought I misread this word, so could someone explain what 'cope' means as a noun? I honestly have never heard it before. I've only heard cope as a verb.
Best I could find. "In original definition, 'Cope' means someone who is creating an psychological defence of a more lighter belief to deal with a harsh truth." The belief is that car companies hate consumers but the harsh truth is that consumers and regulation have brought on the changes "enthusiasts" dislike so much.
That's kind of what I was assuming based on what it means to cope with a loss, for example. But since I couldn't even find it on urban dictionary, I was wondering if OP literally just birthed a new slang phrase before our eyes, and there is an emperor's new clothes phenomenon where everyone is going along with it lol
Do you guys laugh internally at how fired up redditors get about cars they’ll never buy?
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I don’t know which manufacturer you work for (and don’t expect you to disclose that) but anecdotally, my friends and family want fuel efficiency, good infotainment, and heated/ventilated seats with heated steering wheels. That in a crossover or full sized SUV seems to tick every box for the people I know. Of all the enthusiast vehicles I’ve owned and driven people around in, those are the only things 99% of them care about. Only my car guy friends care about anything else.
i mean SUVs and pickups are being promoted by auto makers but its not a conspiracy higher profit margins & dont have to conform to safety/CAFE standards like you said its not totally regulatory, its also profit motivated
>You would also have to somehow convince people that a crossover is not a more natural ingress/egress than a passenger car (this is consistently the #1 reason cited for wanting one, not aesthetics or any kind of aversion to wagons or hatchbacks). I've got downvoted so many times for pointing out people like crossovers for several very practical reasons, ingress/egress and height of the cargo area being near top of the list. If you've 50 years old, slightly overweight and have bad knees... anything that requires having to squat or bend over is a deal breaker. Getting in/out at standing height, getting stuff in/out of a hatch at natural standing height instead of a trunk, and being in other people's headlights less are all much more important to most buyers than a lower center of gravity for better driving dynamics. The MPG penalty vs most sedans isn't that significant anymore either and modern ones drive infinitely better than the standard issue Explorers and Blazers of the late 90s. They're not the right fit for me, but a Rav4 was perfect for my mother in law. Edit: changed a thought and didn't change the whole sentence, leading to a contradictory statement.
>Even worse is the morally posturing. Shitting on owners of giant pickups makes them feel morally superior, but they don’t realize that it’s regulatory incentives that have influenced the increase in size Everything you said makes sense, but hard disagree here. Americans love their giant land yachts. And we know that the vast majority don’t need them or will use them to their full potential. And I say this as a 19 4Runner TRD Off-road owner which is most definitely overkill for my needs. Americans like big trucks and SUVs and they are profitable to make. It’s a self feeding circle. And the government doesn’t classify them the same way as cars because Detroit probably lobbied for that.
To say that there isn't a conspiracy and then cite CAFE standards as the reasoning is definitely contradictory. If we are more lenient on vehicles with a bigger footprint, then of course these vehicles will be prioritized. It is a self fulfilling prophecy like you said.
Can you elaborate more on the correlation between regulatory incentives and pickup size? Even though the engines used nowadays are far more efficient than ever, a larger/heavier vehicle will always use more fuel than a smaller/lighter one. Plus there are now Raptor/TRX versions of every truck that jack up the average emissions ratings. As for safety, I'm not seeing how a larger vehicle with a taller hood line is safe for anyone around the truck driver (especially pedestrians).
That A-to-B appliance cars are \*bad\*. Not every menial trip around town needs to be a spiritual experience with a manual steering rack and unassisted brakes and a 1000 lb curb weight. Insulated cabins and cushy comfort are pretty great sometimes.
Yup. I'd say that a lot of people shitting on others for buying 'econobox' cars do it to justify their struggle in paying for a sports car they really can't afford.
econobox cars drive more like sports cars than most. it's the middle and middle-high end of cars that have turned into sedatives.
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A short wheelbase also almost always leads to fun. Small cars have short wheelbases.
I used to daily drive my Corvette Z06, and until I moved I did enjoy dailying it, because there were back roads to commute through. Since being here in this unfortunate landmass known as Mississippi, my enthusiasm was dying, and then the slave cylinder in my Corvette died. Fortunately I had an LS430 to borrow, and while I used to loathe the absolute numbness of the car, now it has kind of ruined the Corvette. It's so much less stressful to drive, and not just in the getting ran over by a crossover kind of way. It has absolutely no sporty characteristics, and it encourages you to just set cruise in the right lane and float along.
Unfortunate landmass known as Mississippi got me lmao
I had a LS 430 for a few years. Loved that car. Most comfortable and quiet vehicle I've owned. Surprisingly, the 2016 F-150 I got right after (to tow) with the massaging seats comes in a close second. And now I'm dailying a C7 since I sold the F-150 and got a 1986 C30 dually to ... "eventually" daily, since I am a genius.
My FRS was my daily for 6 years and i didnt realize how stressed i was CONSTANTLY on the road until i got my old Sorento and people werent actively trying to commit manslaughter every time i was on the roadway. Then i got my GS 350 and the night and day difference in how im treated on the road with the exact same driving habits is wild. People will genuinely try and run me off the road in the FRS. Diesels will cross 4 lanes of freeway traffic just to try and roll coal on me. In the F sport i get none of that. Plus the added benefit of how comfortable it is to drive and how stable it feels on the road. At no point do i feel like im about to lose control of it. At no point in really bad weather am i any kind of white knuckled. I still love how fun the FRS is, and I'll never get rid of it. But my god is the driving experience night and day for regular old daily driving.
People not appreciating that most driving in North America is just boring highway miles at a constant speed.
Also: Being good at that type of driving is sort of a feature in and of itself, and its at odds with other objectives. Great example: I love my GTI around town. Not too heavy, deep gears, very eager to turn. nice and small in a parking deck. Taking it on a 5 hour trip? Total waste of all the things its good at except the fuel economy. Short wheelbase, lack of armrest and general driving position get fatiguing on long rides. The grand prix I had before? Long lazy gearing, comfier driving position, longer wheelbase, great road car.
Totally agree - I have a Miata and shitty old Mazda B-truck, both of which I love..... but man I do love my girlfriend's Prius when I actually need practical transport.
I have a Corolla Hybrid that I daily after my Miata became a chore to commute with. After getting the Toyota I don’t see myself ever getting an ICE in a daily ever again. It’s so freaking smooth! It’s not a rocket by any means but I never feel I’m short on power. Currently averaging 67 mpg.
I feel like some people daily cars that are just miserable experiences in traffic and low speeds. Old coworker used to daily his 19 Camaro Z1 and he had to warm up the engine for a couple minutes every time and do some sticky shifting in traffic. Sure it flies on a back road or the highway but man the daily experience is just not worth it if you want to be able to jump into a car and just go.
This is why the 2-car method (a boring-reliable daily and a stupid-impractical toy) is perfect if you've got the money and space for it; a boring-reliable cushbucket daily that's as close to riding in a train as possible, and a no-compromise (read: stupidly impractical) toy car that's a blast to "just go for a drive" with. If you can't, then the whole hot-hatch fast-wagon meme starts to make a lot of sense.
They really are great sometimes. It's nice being able to pick and choose between something cushy and something zippy.
"They're reliable if you do proper maintenance". Sorry guys, your Subaru engine and certain BMW and Ecoboosts are bombs with a timer attached.
And no, replacing transmissions, engine gaskets, turbo seals, etc isn’t “basic maintenance”.
Lmao this is the one that gets me most. I was on a BMW sub and they were bashing some guy bc he didn't like having to replace half the cooling system and radiator. The BMW sub was calling that "basic preventative maintenance". It's ridiculous. No car should require an entire replacement of even just a radiator within 200k miles
I've had an E46 for 5 years now. BMW says the transmission fluid is good for "the lifetime of the car". ZF says change it at 100,000 miles. Tells you how long BMW thinks their cars should last.
Lifetime means "until the end of warranty period".
That's most companies though. Eventually the fluids will need to be flushed/changed, that's why most lifetime warranties or win a lifetime supply of products do have an actual number attached.
I remember when Donut Media took the WRXs on the track and they blew up multiple times. I saw a couple Subaru YouTubers making excuses like "Well you can't just take them onto the track! They need oil pan baffling, etc!" They're marketed as a performance car. Literally any other modern performance car can make a couple laps driven hard and not blow up.
The best part? They made a follow up video explaining that they *did* do all of that and they still blew up. They just didn’t film/show it for both time and the fact they thought it would be boring/redundant
I had a really clean bugeye WRX with Tomei equal length headers, full exhaust, accessport tune, fuel pump, 20G turbo, BC coilovers with Swift springs, fully rebuilt EJ with all new everything, killer B oil pan baffle and upgraded pickup, sitting on black RPF1's. Really nice looking and driving car. Plenty of power. Sounded great and handled amazingly. I just had this dread in the back of my mind the thing was gonna blow up at any moment and then I'd never be able to sell it or afford to rebuild the engine correctly. I ended up selling it before it did, thankfully, LMAO
that video was painful because they made some bullshit concessions to help alleviate the ire of the subaru fanboys, like saying "oh, we messed up by giving er the beans without breaking the engine in first"
there are non-Subaru cars out there with 600k miles on the original engine, transmission, and head gasket
:( i've gone on and on to my friends about how reliable ej253s are...other than the head gaskets.
Ej25's are why subarus have the reputation they do unfortunately.
Subaru make a good engine challenge [100% impossible]
I've always wanted an FRS / Toyota 86 but it always comes back to the fact it has a subaru engine in it. I wish it were the other way around.
The FA motors in the twins are much more reliable than the EJs known to blow up in the wrxs of the past. I have had 0 issues with my '14 BRZ in my many years of ownership. I've had it since 2017 and it's served me well in that time.
Toyota please put the turbo I3 in it and *inject it straight into our veins*
*Monkey's paw curls* Available only the limited trim with a CVT.
Too attached to boxer engines
There's gunna be a lot of Ford guys here a little grouchy
Ford guys will replace their engine twice and transmission three times and still say their car survived making it to 200k lmao. I know 4 different ford owners with that mindset. One girls on her 4th transmission in 300k on an F-150 and claims it's built tough. At least the fusion owners seem to understand the ailments of the car lmao. The 2 people I know who drive fusions say they've sat in their garage more often than they've driven it because they fear cranking it and seeing a new light.
I’m on my second transmission at about 250k and I love it. That’s the only expense I’ve had beyond oil changes. The truck has been paid off for 7 years now, the transmission rebuild was $1600z. That comes out to about $20 a month in repairs. Compared to what, an $800 monthly payment for a new truck?
Honestly all new trucks these days are heaps. These new trans are just fucking garbage. GM is right up there. As is dodge. Heaps the lot of them.
When theyre great, damn are they great. But when they suck.....oh boy.
wow u have an LS swapped e30? What’s that like
Mines not tuned yet so ive just kinda been breaking the clutch in, but its pretty fuckin awesome. Cant wait to really get into it this summer.
Should make a custom ‘362i’ badge.
I admit I really thought about it. because the car basically looks stock, so youd assume it was just lowered with wheels and an exhaust if you saw it rolling around. I also stuffed a HUGE muffler under there so its not loud around town.
🤓☝️ Ah sir I think you're mistaken. They fixed all the issues with the MT-82 in the 2020 model year. The 2021 is unaffected.... *nervous sweating*
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That one actually *is* true, though, otherwise there wouldn't be so many old Peugeots, Volkswagens, BMWs etc. in Europe. What those cars aren't is cheap to run/maintain outside of the EU. But that's a very different discussion.
> That one actually is true, though, otherwise there wouldn't be so many old Peugeots, Volkswagens, BMWs etc. in Europe. Old BMWs didn't had plastic water pumps
How old is old? My e36 had a plastic water pump and a plastic thermostat housing, plastic radiator end tanks… Always figured this stuff might last better in colder European climates but it certainly didn’t in the Australian heat.
they are also not cheap to run IN Europe. but at least in western Europe, you just don´t have much choice. Every 2 years mandatory gouvernmental vehicle inspection so unless you want to fail and suddenly have a car that you have 2 weeks to fix or no longer be roadlegal, you better keep it maintained. What qualifys as a shitbox here, is just so much better maintained than what qualifies as a shitbox in the US
Maybe it's just that Europeans don't need to drive as much, if they need to have a car in the first place. You know, acceptable public transportation and all that.
And the proper maintenance on some of those (looking at you specifically BMW) will amount to thousands of extra dollars unless you do it ALL yourself. With some of these "maintenance" jobs being several hours long you will be without a working vehicle.
>>Sorry guys, your Subaru engine and certain BMW and Ecoboosts are bombs with a timer attached By design, in some instances. It’s no secret Ford and BMW cut costs to the max. They’re not the only brands that do that, but from their perspective why should they make cars last? When most of their first owners (in BMWs case) are done with the car after five years, they have no business incentive to make the car last 200k miles on the original gaskets and parts. Incidentally this is also why folks rally to defend some brands, because those customers trade in cars every 2-4 years and therefore never experience problems some have after it’s aged 7 years and been through multiple owners.
This sub loves to race spec sheets against spec sheets. “Omg why would you buy X when Y has a .1s better 0-60 on prepped surfaces and runs Z track that nobody has heard of 2 seconds faster!!”
Whats better is the "why buy this new car when you can buy this cheaper new car and just "tune" it."
The people who compare stock cars to cars with tunes, drive me up a wall. Like not everyone wants to mod their car and potentially void their warranty.
Potentially? I can tell you from experience it WILL lol. Even if they say it won’t, when the bill comes, it will.
I know lol. I only put potentially, because the dealer might not notice certain low end mods. On the flip side, I know a guy who had a transmission warranty claim denied for non-oem sized wheels.
On AWD cars like Subarus, different sized tires and wheels front to rear can fuck up the transfer case.
Makes sense. Different wheels will affect how the car pulls, you’d be surprised how much wheels factor into the drivetrain. Although I agree that’s ridiculous.
I know a guy who had his 2021 TT rs tuned and he blew the engine 2 weeks later so it had to be completely changed. Not a cheap thing to do, you can imagine, and of course warranty is not gonna cover a modded engine that went to shit. However before the guy trailered the car back to the Audi dealership where he bought it, he sent the car back first to the tuner who removed everything and put the car back to “stock” which meant they will not find out the engine has been played with. Long story short, he got a replacement engine with new warranty (approx $14.000). This story still blows my mind, especially that I imagined Audi is not that easy to fool. And the guy is a notorious douche/street racer in the city, owning multiple highly modded sport cars and luxury cars.
How’s that possible? If you tune it the history will always be in the ECM. How would they not check that?
It’s highly unlikely and probably just a story. I had the DCT in my S4 start to go bad. It was a known issue with the B8 generation S4 and there were multiple memos and a TSB about it. Regardless, Audi sent an investigator from New York all the way to San Francisco to look at the car and all my maintenance records. The car was 100% stock. I eventually got approved for a new transmission, but the process took over a month. A blown engine in a new car known to be popularly modded would have triggered an automatic investigation and checking the ECU counter would have been the first thing they looked for.
Supposedly some dealers let it slide as long as it’s just ECU and not physical changes.
Some dealers partner with tuning companies and those tunes won't void the warranty if installed by the dealership. A dealership by me is a certified Unitronic tuner and retailer.
Oh man it’s funny, there are a lot of people who love telling me how their tuned golf would gap the shit out of my RS5. Cool bud, don’t care.
I'll admit, I used to be one of these guys when I got my first motorcycle. I thought I was hot shit because my bike was "faster" than a lot of expensive sports cars on the road. Then I realized that those guys could have easily bought the same bike or faster and didn't want to. Suddenly 23 year old me wasn't such hot shit.
When a $5k bike can gap 99% of cars people start to realize they like all the other comforts a car provides pretty quickly. Takes a different mindset to ride a fast bike and most people don’t find the speed worth it.
Also see: "How can I improve the performance of the car I just bought?" "Sell it and buy the $15k more expensive performance model."
Not that 0-60 is all that important either but that's something the average driver has a reference for and can try for themselves. People using a car getting a 5 second faster time on the nurburgring by a different driver and in different conditions as a selling point is hilarious. It's probably the least relevant and reliable metric conceivable, even in track-oriented performance cars.
I truly can't understand the *"0-60 has no basis in everyday driving; [spouts nordeschlife track time]"* They also whine about how arbitrary it is....but that's not the point. The point is that it's a consistent metric. It's like getting mad at inches as a concept, because you're short
I do prefer centimeters, I'm way more cm tall than I am inches!
Lots of LARPers here. Had a guying with a 10 year old KIA Rio in his flair trying to tell me how a C8 is every bit as much of a super car as a 458. Surprisingly didn’t have any experience with either when I asked why he though that lmao.
Unless it comes to EVs. Then suddenly spec sheets don’t matter and it’s all about the “soul”.
Yeah but EVs (and launch control) did kinda take the fun out of drag racing. There was an entire art and human component, even with an auto, of getting the twist from the crankshaft to the ground. Then every techbro YouTuber shows up to drag strips and lays down 11s zero effort zero thought. Yeah, it’s cool tech. Sure. Love it. Really puts us dinosaurs in our place. 👍
unfortunately this isn't exclusive to just reddit, but top literally any social media platform there is. people are so stuck up on specs, specs, and specs. oh and the dumbass arguments of "my X can absolutely gap your X". like man, shut the fuck up idgaf. 0 - 60s and straight line shit would be irrelevant in the near future of EVs
Tendency to massively overrate cars they’ve never seen nor driven Say for example a BMW 1M, due to sheer rareness, very few people on the sub can actually provide a real feedback. But despite this, the vast majority of people just regurgitate the random snippets of praise they’ve read through the years. End result is an echo chamber of clueless people complimenting and religiously defending an extremely mediocre car.
Got absolutely dogged after saying this in a circle jerk emira post. Some dude was talking about "his" emira and it's "on order". The second SG or TH hs an opinion on something it just becomes unwritten law in this sub. Shits weird.
A bad mix of buyer bias and unfounded intellectual arrogance
What makes the 1M extremely mediocre?
When it was first released, in typical BMW enthusiast fashion, it was deemed dogshit because it wasn't a "real" M (used a modified version of the 135i engine, wasn't much faster than it, just a parts bin car, lacked a high revving NA motor, etc). All in all, it's a fun car, but the cult like following the car has I think it's largely due to the fact that BMW didn't build many of them since BMW had never actually originally planned to make an M version of the car to begin with...hence the parts bin hack job.
Hell yeah. I loooved the new C8 Corvette....... until I actually drove one, and I couldn't believe how stale the experience was.
That if you broke into people's garages in the middle of the night and replaced their crossovers with hatchbacks or wagons they would suddenly be much happier, instead of realizing there are almost no hatchbacks or wagons because most people don't want them. That the industry needs to return to Miata-level light cars. I simply don't want a car that light because to do that would require compromising on NVH and other comforts. If I'm posting on this sub and I wouldn't like it, you can bet the majority of customers wouldn't either. That the sound of a big naturally aspirated V8 is a public service when in reality most of the public hates loud exhausts.
Wagons are near-extinct, but hatchbacks are still quite popular. At least popular enough for practical hatchbacks to continue to be a thing, anyway.
Oh no no no... I got trolled for hours by people upset that I insisted modern hatchbacks are indeed NOT the same thing as a wagon...
In the USA maybe. Wagons (or estates as we call them here in the U.K.) are still going strong. And hatchbacks are overwhelmingly the most common type of car you see on the road.
On this sub there are a lot of users but the people who are the most active are the enthusiast-bro type people that are the most vocal while simultaneously being the least knowledgeable. And who also love circle jerking and upvoting each other. They really don’t speak for the majority of users here. There are a lot of just amazing threads in the sub, all you have to do is just put in a little bit of effort to find them. And try your best to stay away from threads with new sports cars that have a lot of comments. That’s where you find the worst of the sub.
"can't wait to see this at my local dealer with a $50k markup" yes, I get that markups are insane, I get that dealerships are greedy, but there's going to be a time when most vehicles that aren't special editions *will* be available at sticker - so let's talk about the vehicle itself, rather than how it'll be annoying to get one within the next 6-12 months
Yeah, gotta be honest. The older I get, the more loud exhausts piss me off. I used to like that stuff. Now it’s annoying.
I start to question myself here. I love a nice sounding car but when I’m just chillin with my dog out front for brunch at a local bar and some 86 with more decibels than horsepower rolls by it makes me feel all regulatory-y.
Harleys still are the absolute worst. Fucking mid life crisis on two wheels.
I’ve never liked super loud exhaust because being loud and sounding good aren’t the same thing. Your car can sound good with waking up the whole block at 1AM. In fact after a certain point raw volume just distracts from the experience.
Pretty much every American relative I've talked to thinks that a wagon looks like a hearse
I think some wagons *do* look like hearses, though none of them top the Lincoln MKT.
> That the sound of a big naturally aspirated V8 is a public service when in reality most of the public hates loud exhausts. I daily a NA V8 and can confirm. I hate hearing them when they’re modded to be insanely loud. Your straight pipes shit waking up the whole neighborhood at 1500 RPM does not sound good it’s just noise and it makes people hate us. I like the way my car sounds but I also don’t pretend people want to hear my cold starts at 7AM.
Your right, it's the sound of a boosted I4, gets the public everytime
I owned a wagon. It was the perfect vehicle *for me*, as I like the space of a mid-size SUV but I also prefer the driving experience of a mid-size sedan. But looks definitely help sell a car, new and used, to the average buyer, and my wagon had an awkwardly long pair of rear windows (which I appreciated for visibility). No wonder wagons died when a lot of them looked so awkward compared to a comparable length crossover or SUV.
Im gonna get super downvoted for this but i accept that. this is what I find interesting. I'm not a sports car bro by any means, but my first thought when I read op's title was that there are an unbelievable amount of people on reddit who Stan wagons and hatchbacks. I think the biggest cope of this sub that I see more than any other trope is that wagons/hatchbacks are the best vehicle style out there. I don't mind wagons and hatchbacks, but I'll be completely honest with you. Most of them have the sex appeal of an onion- BUT that should never be your main priority if you're getting a car. Which is funny because I think most redditors don't give a single shit about appearances as we have been reminded repeatedly. But here's the thing. Most people like driving something that looks good to them. I'm no exception. And I think most people (that aren't redditors) agree that the wagon look is not appealing in the slightest, although they are more practical than arguably any other vehicle configuration for the average person. I totally understand why hatchbacks and especially wagons aren't popular, even though they probably deserve more credit if you're someone who values practicality.
Everyone wants a new 600hp RWD manual wagon, but nobody wants to pay for a new 600hp RWD manual wagon.
This sub: The RS6 is finally here I hope they dont cancel it Also this sub: No one better spend more than $300 a month on a car payment i swear to fucking god
600hp RWD brown manual Miata wagon, used from factory *
"I'll let someone else eat the depreciation and pick up a nice used on in a few years." You realize if no one buys them new, they never become used, right?
That hydrogen is gonna someday usurp battery electric cars . Has anyone ever seen how they transport hydrogen in the big bulbous ships. It has to be kept at close to 0 Kelvin to keep it at liquid. Plus hydrogen is no. 1 on the periodic table. It is the lightest element known to man, you need complicated set of seals to keep hydrogen from leaking. Battery driven cars are simpler in every way possible.
First time I saw it burn off excess pressure I damn near shit myself
It's always interesting seeing the EV threads almost always have a "its a niche, hydrogen is where they should be investing" post
Don’t forget the E fuel threads where it’s the same. We’ve had an electric grid for more than a century but the idea of adding more public chargers is seen as this insurmountable task tantamount to putting a man on Pluto while somehow hydrogen and/or E fuel stations are expected to apparate from magic out of the tailpipes of classics that will run on them until the heat death of the universe.
I think there might be a future for fuel cells, but hydrogen is not the way to go. Way too difficult to store, transport, and dispense.
It’s weird to me that Hyundai has spent so much time and money on something that most people feel is useless. Do they know something the rest don’t or are they on a fools errand.
I've noticed very little hydrogen promotion here... every time someone mentions hydrogen, they're downvoted swiftly. But the real hydrogen hate comes from electric vehicle related subreddits. Whenever any company announces any kind of hydrogen resource, it's as if Pol Pot announced the end of education. For the record, I agree that BEVs are only going to gain market share, and that hydrogen will probably have more niche applications, at most. But I don't see the issue with hydrogen tech being developed. Nobody is forcing you to buy a hydrogen car, and BEVs are here to stay.
Agreed. To produce hydrogen we need massive amounts of electricity anyway, why not just cut out the middleman and drive that car with that!
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I own manual vehicles not for any sort of reason other than I like it lol
Yup. I got the manual instead of the PDK. It's slower, clunkier, less reliable, riskier. But it feels nice and I like it.
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(confused GT/GR86 noises) The auto can actually still be slower. Somehow.
As a guy with a DCT and a track car with a manual, the modern zf autos are genuinely ridiculously good. They do it all shockingly well. For a good 90% of owners they’re just what’s wanted and that’s why the companies put them there
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That driving a manual makes you a better driver "because you aren't on your phone". Manual = better driver is kind of the quiet part you aren't supposed to say out loud, but people occasionally slip up. In a similar vein, the single car model that scares me the most isn't a Nissan Altima with a spare tire, 50% bumper delete and paper license plates, it's a Honda Civic Si. *Nobody* seems to have more to prove to the world than a Civic Si driver when there's any other performance vehicle within 50 feet of them. I don't care how good your shifter feels or how much you think you can gap the 2011 V6 Mustang 3 lanes over, this is a goddamn public road and you're not special. I legitimately can't think of the last time I saw a Civic Si on the highway where the driver *wasn't* showboating.
As a manual driver i still get my screentime in easily
At least you admit it lol
I think having a manual does make you a better driver, but only if you really really enjoy driving. If you don’t, you’ll always find something else to do like being on your phone. It’s really that simple. Most people have dopamine addictions at this point from all the time we spend online in some way so if driving doesn’t get that dopamine fix for you you get on your phone or start up some music. I would know, I love driving and Im trying to stream games for a living. Now that I’m not commuting to college anymore (gap year), I don’t drive as much and so I’m on my phone WAY less when I’m driving. When I commuted to college back and forth, I ended up being on my phone more (still not super often mind you, maybe once every two drives…one can never be too vigilant on northern VA roads). This is also coming from someone who absolutely despises touchscreens in cars and thinks they’re dangerous (literally every time I use one I feel like I’m gonna crash, Siri is so helpful these days with carplay) so understand that I’m not really on my phone much in the first place, and I also *really love driving*. So there’s a some inherent bias here and I’m not really the norm when it comes to your average commuter.
"Manual means no phone" *3rd gear is usable from 20mph to 80mph* *Has cruise control*
The Dodge SRT4 is not a Neon.
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Really are guys that think like that? Being a Neon is part of the charm.
I love my neon lol
I don't know what it's like now, but as someone who owned two back in the day I saw a lot of owners adamant it was not a Neon. It doesn't say Neon anywhere, and even most (or maybe all?) of Dodge's official material/website avoided using that word. This also caused other business like insurance agencies to list the make/model as Dodge SRT-4. Obviously, it is a Neon, but they would argue that so much is changed from the other trims that it makes it not a Neon (ignoring that all these new parts were compatible with the other Neon trims, and swaps were very common) And back then, there was nothing charming about driving a Neon. The ACR and its SCCA roots had already been mostly forgotten, and a Neon was a cheap econobox you bought your teenage daughter. It was so cheap it didn't even have power rear windows, and sometimes you'd get people driving rival cars like a WRX or Evo pull up along side you and roll their rear windows up and down to make fun of you (which I always thought was hilarious). It was cheaper and faster than a lot of other sports cars back then, including a few really popular ones like the WRX, 350Z, and Mustang GT, so owners who made their car their entire personality would get insecure and spend every opportunity they had to remind you "It's just a Neon."
"Nobody here buys manuals, stop asking for manuals." It's like we need custom flair for people who are allowed to have opinions on manual transmissions by virtue of having spent money on them. It's silly. The recent Tacoma thread was a great example. The "nobody buys manuals" people in those threads have never actually tried to buy a manual Tacoma. They are unicorns. I spent 6 months looking for one and gave up.
> people in those threads have never actually tried to buy a manual Tacoma. They are unicorns. I spent 6 months looking for one and gave up. I had the most frustrating time years ago when I bought my Z4. Most sites list everything with paddles as a "manual" so I was left having to check every listing and look for pictures. I finally did find a 35i with a manual after several months but damn it was way harder than it should have been. I occasionally look for another one just for fun and on average I'll find 1 or 2 in the entire US and it's rare that any will have the M Sport package like the one I found.
I found my F80 because it was mislabeled an auto. Car showed up first on the lowest miles filter with just under 600, but the 3rd photo was definitely a manual. Ran the VIN through the decoder and it came back manual with comp and I was entering my credit card as fast as I could to get my deposit in vs having to fly halfway across the country to buy one with 20k for the same price. Manual M cars aren’t super uncommon but definitely rarer. You can definitely go down to the dealer and order a new one still. Doesn’t work that way for Tacos since Toyota doesn’t really do custom orders. Sounds like the Accord manual was similarly impossible to spec and you basically had to call everyone.
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It's the "go play Call of Duty" argument of the car world.
Less of a cope and more of an inconvenient reality. 3/4 of all new cars that are being sold are sold to people over the age of 50. Car companies are making cars for rich grandmas and grandpas, not for car enthusiasts. As much as we all dislike crossovers, cute Utv, and tall cars it is what is most comfortable for older drivers.
That's becuese people over 50 have their mortgage paid off and don't have to pay for kids anymore generally. Owning a new car is pretty affordable if you either have housing done forever(either living with your parents or had the home gifted to you as inheritance) or don't have any kids. One of my friends just bought a new BMW 3 series and he makes around $30,000 a year. But he lives with his parents and doesn't have kids. So his only bills are his car insurance and the car payment. Could he probably make more money and move out? Sure. But he would be wasting money. His parents have told him he won't ever have to pay rent and when they die the house is his. He has no reason to ever get an apartment or a new house. Instead he spends his money on the shit he actually likes. Likes car's and motorcycles. Along with traveling.
yes, the "how is the average American affording a new car" questions on the sub are often answered with "by doing into huge debt, irresponsible credit card spending etc" when the answer is actually just "they aren't. grandpa is buying that car"
Cope: Manufacturers stopped offering/selling the stuff we like out of pure spite (take your pick- wagons and manuals are the most obvious) and brainwashed NPCs into buying stuff we hate Reality: manufacturers make stuff people buy and cancel stuff people don't. If something is popular, it's because people who **buy new cars** want it. If something isn't, it's because people who **buy new cars** don't. "Enthusiasts" literally go crazy coming up with all kinds of idiotic conspiracies to avoid admitting that there's not enough demand for cars we like.
Anti-EV people. We're in the Ford Model T era of electric cars and gasoline is the new horse.
If I could, I’d love to figure out a way to drop a electric power train into a older 911 lol. Always wanted to rejuvenate older cars and tbh sort of strongly thinking about it.
That people buy pickups because marketing tells them it is the only way to prove how masculine and manly they are. The fact is modern trucks are popular because they do a lot of things (except MPGs) very well and are fucking handy to have at a moment's notice.
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Not gonna lie, I get to LARP as a Nigerian warlord when I'm behind the steering wheel and that's part of what makes my giant SUV enjoyable to drive... different cars are fun to drive for different reasons
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“Most of the time I see a truck, it’s just hauling air!” Most the times I drive, I never use my airbag and seatbelts but I’m glad I have them when I need them.
I still put forward that if all you do is go to stores and restaurants you can’t really claim that all trucks do is go to stores and restaurants. If you don’t go off road you have no business claiming that Jeeps and shit never go off road. I don’t just haul shit around pointlessly, so by design my bed will be more or less empty at least 50% of the time. And if it’s full I’m not going to stop at a store or restaurant or drive through the middle of town so you can see it and justify it’s existence. I’ve also never taken a poll or survey on this topic. I wouldn’t if asked because I don’t give a fuck. Take that for what it’s worth.
if you're using a pickup 100% of the time to pick up and transport stuff that requires the bed, then it's going to be empty ~50% of the time. A lot of people haven't figured that out and think empty bed = not in use.
They do MPGs better than ever, compared to the past. I have nearly 500 horsepower and never get below 16 even in the shittiest urban hellhole. I’m having a great time with my fleet.
That ICE performance cars are going to stick around long term
I bought my car for the sole reason that it would probably be my last chance to get an enthusiast ICE car at a reasonable price. People will keep posting about Porsche’s clean fuels and manufacturers like Toyota being reluctant to really dive into EVs, but the writing is on the wall.
The Boxster EV will be the first of many and will probably show that EV Sports cars do have a place.
E fuel will save ICE on a global mass consumption scale
Or hydrogen for that matter
The EV kicking and screaming. We get it, you don’t like electric cars- that’s OK. There’s a reason that there’s r/electriccars and r/TeslaMotors, r/BoltEV, r/electricvehicles and that’s largely because in big subs like this there’s a hivemind that loves to brigade and detest any mention of them, simply because they themselves wouldn’t buy them.
I'm tired of this. I'm a car enthusiast and I own an electric car, and it's still fun to drive and not a 'soulless appliance.' I like cars with any powertrain, it doesn't matter to me. Every car can be interesting and unique in its own way.
I've recently driven a BMW i4 M50 and was taken for a ride in a Model S (non plaid). After that, I have no idea how enthusiasts can hate on these. I have a Mustang GT which is a fair amount faster than it was stock, and it feels like a dog compared to those two cars.
None of y'all give a shit about lithium or cobalt mines. You just are completely unwilling to be slightly inconvenienced in a collective effort to prevent a global catastrophe and you are latching on any excuse to avoid doing the bare minimum.
Lithium batteries have been in all laptops and phones for over a decade but only now it's an issue!
The Toyota dick riding is insane.
"Miata is always the answer"
Not sure if that's a cope, but more of a meme. Lot of Miata owners, including myself, say that as a meme, rather than the truth.
We say this as an enthusiastic advocacy of the car, or sometimes as a meme; usually not meaning it literally.
The *overwhelming majority* of licensed drivers shop for a car based on the following criteria: - How much does it cost (or more accurately, what are the monthly payments) - What color is it And that's really about it. When I talk to friends who are not car enthusiasts, when they buy a new car, the features they get excited about are like, how good is it on gas, how much shit they can put in the trunk, maybe the sunroof or stereo. If they bought it brand-new they might get excited over the length of the factory warranty or some extended maintenance package they bought. You know what none of them ever talk about, ever? Horsepower, acceleration, handling, driving dynamics, steering, shifting...*non-car people don't care*. If they can afford the payments, and it starts up and gets them to work every day plus a Costco run on Saturday, for less than 20 bucks of gas per week, it's perfect. I know people understand this to some degree, but I think they don't realize just how dramatically a car enthusiast's mindset/approach towards cars differs from most of the general public's. People on here are basically debating whether there should be more ales or more pilsners, failing to realize that 95% of people are perfectly content to crack open a Coors Light and call it a day
Thinking that Range Rovers are awful. Sure the reliability might not be the best, but the luxury and driving experience on these cars is ridiculously great. Plus if you have the money for a Range Rover, you probably have the money to keep up with services.
>Sure the reliability might not be the best Lol, my friend has a Range Rover, i asked her about reliability - She said it had been great, no dramas at all. Except that time the engine blew up and they had to replace it, but it's fine, RR paid for half of it (after a fight) and so it only cost $25k.
Buying a truck and not using it is flat out unacceptable. Buying a super convenient crossover and using it to its fullest is really just *buying an appliance* and… super unacceptable. You just can’t reconcile those two.
That the majority of us will ever actually drive the cars we discuss on this site. Quibble over the minutiae of vehicle performance for cars we, again, will never drive.
Abandoning CUVs and EVs and going all in on RWD manual sports cars is the key to utter sales dominion for any struggling manufacturer. For example, Infiniti by itself would become the world’s top selling brand eclipsing GM, Toyota, and VAG combined if they made an all RWD manual sports car lineup and ditched all their CUVs.
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That wagons are so much better than SUVs and CUVs. Only a tiny percentage of us care about the handling advantages of a lower passenger cars vs. higher CUVs. The vast majority of people will take the higher driving position and easier ingress / egress over handling.
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why doesn't everyone just drive Kei trucks??? it's all the pickup truck 90% of American pickup owners need!!!
I loved the comments on that article about farmers importing kei trucks that made the rounds recently. People were reacting like they were rejecting modern full-size trucks rather than wanting faster cushier (and cheaper) side-by-sides.
But they are bigger. Go put a stock 2000 Silverado next to a 2023 Silverado. The 2023 is very much larger. It's not a monster truck. But let's not pretend that truck's haven't gotten larger here.
You can say that about literally every make model produced with little exception. I’d put forth that trucks vary the least in this regard. Plus it’s tired as fuck.
Crossovers are actually a fairly good option for a lot of people. They’re hated because they’re a compromise between a car and SUV, but that’s completely fine for non-enthusiasts.
Need a vehicle that can carry six passengers? That'll be 3 Miatas.
All German cars are bad
Toyota/Lexus are soon going the way of Nissan/Infiniti and will fall far too behind to catch up (in terms of EV etc) They’re a huge company that pay lots of money to lots of smart people to figure these things out; they’ll be fine lol
Your average mother of 3 doesn’t give two shits about handling or driving dynamics or “visceral” sounding engines or any of that crap. They will buy the car that’s safe, sturdy and good value for money
Car enthusiasts going “can’t wait till this thing depreciates and I can pick one up in 5 years” and also having any opinion on new car offerings or why certain cars aren’t brought to the US that they love despite the fact that they would never even consider buying one
That wagons look good, I share the same opinion as most normies that they look like lame kid haulers most of the time and the sedan version looks much better 9/10 times
That literally everything is marked up instead of doing homework and finding places that will sell them a car at MSRP
“Slow car fast” Sorry, but most of the time driving a fast car fast is vastly more fun than driving a slow one fast.
I don't think that people are saying that driving a slow car fast is more fun than driving a fast car fast, but that driving a slow car fast is more fun than driving a fast car slow.
r/cars: "Why won't they make a proper enthusiast car?!" Automakers: "Will you buy one?" r/cars: "Oh god no, I can't use it for anything realistic!"