Ask Lemmy

Ford focus RS.
My old car was sporty (RX8), and I wanted another sporty car, but I wanted AWD because I was done with RWD in the snow. I needed a 4 door, because I was planning to have a kid. That really limited my options.
I liked the AWD system in the focus over the WRX STI or Golf R.
I don't really like it anymore, though. It's a really rough ride, and the seats are uncomfortable for long trips. And it's kind of a boring car when it's not snowing.

My wife has an Hyundai Elantra GT. It's pretty much the only car we use now, it's way more comfortable to drive.

We're probably gonna sell both of them and get an Ioniq 5.

Daily: 2018 2.5 Outback. It's nice, comfy, reliable, and overall an amazing daily driver.

Fun car: 1994 Mazda Miata. It's a Miata.

A bike is my preferred method of transport. Just a simple 3x7 steel hardtail mountain bike. It keeps me in shape and can go just about anywhere.

When I have to drive, a manual Subaru tends to be my ride: Capable, reliable, and fun I guess. I also use an ebike if I have to haul a lot but don't want to drive.

If it's going to be in city only, the old Honda Fit is hard to beat functionally: Easy to park, very maneuverable, and lots of storage.

1997 Mazda Miata. Simple, reliable, easy to repair, incredible aftermarket support, huge community with a ton of knowledge, and an absolute joy to drive.

Plus the headlights go up and down.

Ford ranger - it was $500

I live in a walkable city and I am an insufferable snob about it. It's really nice being able to just go outside and get groceries. No traffic. No parking. No fuel. No insurance. No maintenance.

I drive a 2018 Subaru Forester. I got it because I wanted a SUV with AWD and a turbo charger. My previous vehicle was a Camaro, and while I loved driving it, having a RWD car in the winter sucks, and I had recently bought a house, so having a vehicle that can carry more than just groceries made sense.

I was driving the Camaro around Xmas time and there was a light dusting of snow on the highway. I hit a patch of it and started to fish tail, and that scared the hell out of me, so I traded it for the Forester the following fall. The Forester has handled any conditions I've come across so far like a champ, including heavy rain, snow, ice, and muddy hillsides.

Trading the Camaro in and getting the Forester marked the transition (in my mind) from being a young adult, to becoming an older, more sensible one. I was driving home from work one day, and a Camaro passed me on the highway. I couldn't help but sigh and ask myself why I had to get old. The Forester is a good vehicle and very nice (got the XT Touring package), but the Camaro was way more fun to drive, and I still miss it. I'd like to get another sports car in the future, but we'll see if that happens.

Proton Saga 1.3

Unless you buy a domestic car, there's an import duty of 70-100% in Malaysia, so if you want to avoid that you can basically decide between Proton and Perodua.

I don't care about cars whatsoever, so was checking for used models of either brand (less than 4 years old, max 30k km down) and found a good deal on this one.

Subaru forester and I'm not a lesbian. It's just a solid if boring car.

2021 Chevy Bolt. Traded in a 1999 beater for it during the gas pipeline crisis. It's a wonderful, simple, cheap car. I haven't had any issues with it - it just gets the job done. I charge it for free at work every week or two, so I don't even have to pay for fuel. I figure I'm gonna drive it til the bottom rusts through or the batteries die.

Toyota Hilux. A nice blend of not too uncomfortable but will carry me anywhere I choose to go. Seen a lot of places that thing.

2001 Toyota MR2 Spyder. Bone stock except for a LSD I dropped in when a bearing grenaded in the transaxle. It was my daily driver for a long time.

2003 Subaru WRX. It was my daily before the MR2, but I blew the head gaskets around 200k miles and got the MR2 while I rebuilt it. It's now lifted, running a 2.5l ej25 with the stock 2.0l heads. It's become my fun car that I use to tow stuff with and take out when the snow makes the 2-seater convertible impractical.

But now we mostly drive my girlfriends 2022 Honda Accord Hybrid. It's bare bones low end model, but she likes it.

Scion FR-S

It's just so fun and pretty

No car - don't need nor want one.

The one I own, people get upset when I take theirs.

Honda Fit. It's tiny but mighty. I call it a bisexual car because it fills all the holes when looking for parking. City car, but it gets around.

1999 Ford F350 crew cab, long box diesel. I sometimes need to tow a heavy trailer and turns out most rental trucks don't allow towing, getting them scratched or any of the other reasons to own a truck. I have had it for about 15 years and put maybe 40k miles on it, so it isn't worth having any other car. Besides that 7.3 is the best engine Ford ever made.

2022 Polestar 2 with all the options. I think the Polestar is super cool, and I didn’t want to replace my Tesla with another Tesla. I got it used last August for $36k, because used rentals were flooding the market. This car goes for $70k new, but it is not worth anywhere near that

Bicycle, because fuck traffic.

2009 Audi A3 sportback, it was my first “nice” car.

I keep it around despite the small fortune I’ve spent in maintenance because it’s fun as hell to drive.

2017 Subaru Outback 3.6r

It's reliable and convenient and has every feature I need or want.

It's got pretty good adaptive cruise control, good cargo capacity, including seats folding flat so that my large dogs can fit comfortably. It's got AWD and additional traction and hill features. It can tow my boat. It's got a pretty good sound system. Heated seats and steering wheel (a necessity for those of us with Raynaud's ). Two buttons for memorizing seat settings. Backup camera. High clearance. All kinds of pros and the only con is mediocre gas mileage.

I expect it to last for a very long time. It's just practical all around. And I don't need to drive it terribly much, so the gas mileage isn't a big deal for me.

2019 Škoda Fabia Monte-Carlo Edition.

It's a relatively small car, but bigger on the inside, allowing my 6.5 feet (1.98m) and considerable bulk to sit comfortably and commute a route where sadly public transit isn't an option. It's only drinking 5.5l per 100km (~~4.277~~ 42.77 mpg) and I have had good experiences with that model in the past in regards to the cost of maintenance.

I can go 200km/h (125 mph) (downhill and with a tailwind) and the sporty features (manual transmission, sports suspension, sports seating, stronger engine and spoiler) are really nice when going quickly around corners on country roads or speeding down the Autobahn.

I haven’t driven in over 20 years—my current personal transportation is a pair of freeskates.

I have a 2021 Seat Leon FR PHEV Hatchback.

It is basically a Spanish VW Golf.

I got it one and a half years ago as my first car after getting my license at 35.

As a first car it is very luxurious, as a daily driver at 35 it is comfortable but highly annoying (every cabin control is either in the infotainment, or on touch surfaces (some without lighting) which forces you to take you eyes off the road to set cabin temp, Turn on heated rear window, turn on heated seats and more).

It is mine because I bought and paid for it.

Daily: 2011 Subaru STi wagon. It’s fun, speedy, has excellent traction for the mountains and snow where I live, and can transport 4 people with snowboarding gear.

Fun: 1955 Caddie. My great uncle bought it new so this is nostalgic.

Moto: 1982 Yamaha XS650. I use this for joy rides in the mountains and to save on gas

2008 BMW 328i. I bought it used back in 2011 and it still cost almost as much as I made in a year at that time, but I really wanted it and otherwise I lived very modestly.

It's such a fun car. I have the manual transmission and the sport suspension, and I love driving it. With that said, it's not a practical car. Only I can drive it because no one else in my family knows how to drive a manual, and the sport suspension makes the car quite uncomfortable when going over any bumps. (I tell passengers "I paid extra for that" while driving through rough areas.) Oh, and forget about driving it in snow. I tried that and spun off the road several times before learning my lesson.

This car is almost 17 and while it was quite reliable for most of that time, now it's at the point where everything is breaking all at once. I refuse to replace it because I can't justify buying another rear-wheel-drive manual-transmission sporty car (one of the very few models still built like that) either to other people or to myself, but I still want to own that sort of car. I guess I'll keep spending more than it's worth on it... I just spent $340 that way today.

2015 Honda Civic SI - best sports car I could get for the price. Great value car; still running perfectly almost 10 yrs later (afai~~k~~ct). The interior was also much better compared to others.

Probably not getting a new car ever due to all the "smart" features cars come with that I really don't like.

A 2005 Seat Leon TDI. It was cheap, uses little fuel and is reliable. In the summer I drive our 1988 Trabant 601. It's fun and tiny, but definitely not reliable.

Though after moving to a bigger city from the countryside, my main modes of transportation have become my bike and a tram, the car is only for when I visit my parents where no public transport goes

Currently no car and relieved I don't need one any more. Before that - Suzuki Vitara. As far as new cars went in 2019, it was the best choice for a small AWD SUV.

I recently switched from a Suzuki Spacia to a Nissan Sakura.

In Japan, the roads are narrow, so a Kei car is very convenient.

Toyata Matrix. It gets me around. Keeps me out of trouble.

2017 Ford Focus 1.0L with 18k on the clock when I got it. It was free.

None. I have a license but driving stresses me the fuck out. I have an old bike.

When I was stationed in Germany with the US military in 2010, I wrecked my car in a blizzard. It was totaled; I couldn't drive it anymore and I needed to get to work every day, so I dropped cash on a used 2006 Mazda 3. It was a 5-speed manual and was in immaculate condition. The former owner had detailed journal entries and receipts for every bit of maintenance they'd ever done. They were only selling it because they had more cars than they needed at the time and they needed some quick cash.

Fast forward to 2020... I was stationed in Nebraska and my Mazda 3 was finally showing its age. I had driven it across most of Europe and half of the US, and its mileage was approaching 200K. I was in the market for a new car.

I found myself "deployed" to South Carolina for 4 months during the pandemic, and while I was there, my wife called me up and asked if I wanted her to buy a new car for me. Apparently, some married friends of hers bought a brand-new 6-speed 2017 Mazda 3 Touring Edition as their daily driver to college classes. But their entry to college was delayed a few years, then the pandemic hit and all classes moved online. So it was just cluttering up their garage. They had 5 cars and hardly drove any of them, so they decided to sell 4 of them during the pandemic.

The 2017 Mazda 3 had only 7,000 miles on it. And they sold it to me for $17K cash. It was a helluva deal! I sold my 2006 Mazda 3 to a coworker and my wife bought the 2017 version for me. And I've been driving it since. It's way nicer than my older version, and the previous owners had even paid for some upgrades to the base car.

I'm retired now, since 2022, and I don't need to drive as much as I used to, but I always take my 2017 Mazda 3 when I leave the house. I enjoy cruising around in that car. It's not a super fancy luxury car, but it's the nicest car I've ever owned. I'm hoping I can get a solid decade or more out of this car before I need another one.

My legs.

But, if I was forced to choose, I'd go with an RV, and then live out of it. No in-between. Why?

I have two preferred modes of living. One is without a car in a walkable area. The other is with a car, and my house is attached to the car. Everybody already gets walkable cities, but having an RV would warrant the freedom to be able to bring all of my possessions anywhere I want, whenever I want. For practicality, I'd use a motorbike for travelling after parking the RV. This is the only way I could own a motor vehicle--it must serve a purpose beyond merely moving a few people and objects between point A and point B. Else, I don't want one.

The only cars I've been at all interested in otherwise are old Honda Stepwgns, the Peel Trident, station wagons, and, indeed, motorcycles. Still see no point in these when a hypothetical RV would be much better for a solo road trip, and when I can go on a vacation via plane or another friend's car. I'm not going out alone.

I don't like single-use items. I prefer everything I have be as multi-purpose as possible.

EDIT: I should probably clarify I would live out of an RV. It's not just a hypothetical alternative, it's something I'm considering.

2016 Hyundai Accent. It was cheap and what I could afford. I will run it into the ground before I get another one. She works and she's tough. She got me across country with a full trailer attached to her and is just fine. She's filthy, but she is mine. And I love her.

2022 Chevy Bolt EUV. EV with plenty of space and comfortable. Good mileage and never pay for gasoline again.

Our family car is a 2005 Acura MDX. Best snow car I've ever driven, seats 7. Got it in 2013 with 68k miles. Now has 152k, only work I've had to do to it is routine maintenance. That did include the timing belt replacement and I wish every motor was engineered like that one.

We got it because of the "seats 7", known good safety and AWD performance, and low mileage. The price was right and it remains one of my favorite purchases yet. It's not very efficient but it's powerful as hell which is really nice in the Colorado mountains.

We were until recently a one car household (my wife and I both work from home). So I drove a 2019 Toyota Camry. Why? Because that's what my wife wanted.

My sister got a new car so I bought her old one off of her so I could have a backup on the rare times we needed two. It's a 2012 Ford Fiesta. Why? Because it was cheap ($2k) and it gets good gas mileage. I also like the car because I'm a minimalist at heart. It's very simple and I like that.