Friday, September 02, 2005

post://112569052891958302/

I took a Honda Insight for a test drive yesterday.
I was impressed. It drives really well, accelerates rather quickly, and held the onramp quite nicely. I had heard some really bad things about it, the small engine, maintainence... but I'd recommend it.

It's only got two seats. That's a big drawback. I couldn't replace the stereo without voiding the warranty. That's a HUGE drawback. I wouldn't be happy with audio CDs only, that just doesn't cut it for me. I'm spoiled with my 7 speaker MP3 playing stereo.

It accelerated good enough, it just didn't want to go above 75. Everything is power assited, which felt somewhat odd. The clutch was like a switch but I was able to go through the gears without a problem. It had all the necessary dials (RPM) and a nifty looking dash. It was roomy for a small car, and had quite a bit of storage space. The underside was absolutely flat. You could see everything, like the exhaust, but I imagine for aerodynamics it was all contoured to fit around the exhaust and suspension, everything was even and had quite a bit of clearance -- again, for a small car (with 14" tires).

If you want good fuel economy, don't mind 2 seats (or if you have an alternate car), and are looking for something around $20,000 -- go for it. At 65-70mpg for the manual transmission... you can't beat it. (If you don't want manual, kiss your power goodbye.) At 3 X traditional gas mileage, it's like you're paying $1 a gallon.

It's also got an 8 year, 80,000 mile warranty - but only 3 year on the battery. I imagine the battery's got to be rather expensive, I'm thinking 1-2grand but they didn't have an answer for me when I asked about it.

Now... why am I looking to trade in my sporty speedster? I have to use premium, the premium means I pay a 20 cent premium on each gallon of gas that I buy. $1 for every 5 gallons, about $2.50 a fill up. About $10 more a month. That's at gas prices as of today - about $3.30 for premium.

I figured I'm going to be spending about 300 a month for gas with the prices as they are currently. I wanted to see if turning my car in could save me money. It's impossible to get a used Insight at this point, and even if it wasn't it wouldn't be much cheaper. I could have saved $75 a month in payments for an '05 but I would have had to get a 72 month loan. I have a 60 right now, that's good enough for me. I didn't even know they -had- 72 month loans. What kind of shape is your car going to be in 72 months? I am all for paying things off ahead of time, which is why I have about 8 grand of equity right now: the difference between what I owe and what it's worth. It's got a good resale value because it's a rare car, but it just wouldn't have been worth giving up a car I love, for a new car that's just as expensive and limited.

A dealership just can't give me enough, for what I've spent on aftermarket stuff I'd want to get $13-15,000 for it. I'll certainly entertain any offers. It's an '03 limited edition Mazdaspeed Protege with 55,000 miles. It's got the front end of the Protege5 (wagon), so it has a really low front end with large foglights, without all the reflectors and funky stuff. It's got sideskirts, and a lower rear bumper as well. Intake is improved over the traditional Protege, tuned to the larger exhaust which helps the turbo push a bone-crunching 7psi. It's enough to bring a 135 2.0 to 179hp, though. It makes a differece.

I love it, it drives well, but it's not the type of car that lasts forever -- I've had my fun, and if it meant that I could save some money and stop feeling like I'm chipping away at an iceberg... I'd be all for it. It seems all my debt it unrealistically high, like I'll never pay it off. I wittle away at several credit cards every month, barely able to shrink the balance, even on the cards I haven't used in a year. The interest doesn't seem like all that much $15 here, $18 here -- and yet they dont' get any smaller.

How can this be? How did I get here? Who charged all this shit to my credit cards?
I haven't been using them, can't use them... but I'm getting nowhere and I hate it.

Calgon... take me away, or someone buy my car, at least. I could pay off quite a bit with $8000.
Anyone need a giggalo? I'll have to make sure it's ok first, but if it's enough money -- anything's possible.
=)

posted @ 15:48

-x-

(0) comments | Post a Comment

Twitter Updates

">

Movies

Music

I had to put all the links here so they could still be robot'd since I was having issues with the whole dual click nature of the modern browsers. music recommendations links discuss (no longer in service) ...mysterious pictures mobile archive