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Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#111

Post by quickthrowman »

bsenftner wrote: post #102
BerislavLopac wrote: post #100

> 1. Internet connectivity. If the car is connected, it's tracking me. Just because you can't connect to the Internet from your car doesn't mean that the car is not being tracked. Pretty much all cars built since 2016 or so have built-in infrastructure to collect various telemetry and send it to the manufacturer; prior to that there were dongles that were installed by various parties (automotive clubs, insurance comp…

Bingo: pre-2016 cars. Get a pre-Internet, pre-subscription Subaru; Foresters and Outbacks are both known to last 300K miles. Great in snow. Great resale too, far better than an EV.

One note on Subaru, you might be putting a quart of oil in every 1,000 miles after 100,000 miles. Certain models burn ungodly amounts of oil.

I don’t drive Subarus now due to the above, I switched to Toyota.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#113

Post by brudgers »

avar wrote: post #99
brudgers wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son has a 1996 Buick and there is no problem getting parts Hopefully the airbag in the steering wheel is not integrated with the horn in a vinyl housing. The vinyl shrinks with age, and eventually to the point where there is sufficient pressure to continuously honk the horn. When that happened to the 1997 Le Sabre I bought for my kid, the options were disconnecting the horn or replacing the airbag. The replacement…

That's a weird issue I hadn't heard of before. Wouldn't a simpler and cheaper solution be to run an extra circuit to the horn? You'd then honk it by pressing a new button (or use an unused one) in the dashboard. The difficulty mainly depends on how hard it is to get a pair of wires from the horn across the firewall into the dashboard. On some cars this would take no more than an hour in total.

After I got the horn disconnected so the neighbors would stop hearing it and so the car could be driven…that’s the theory this dad had, too.

The thinking about it reality was horn current is switched through relays, there aren’t obvious places to mount the new in-cabin portion of the horn, there aren’t well considered off the shelf options for the horn triggering system, and the horn is a critical safety system.

And I didn't have a garage; never wrenched as a vocation nor much as a hobby; and my most motörhead friend lived in another state.

Keep in mind the center of the steering wheel is designed to explode in an accident so hard objects attached to it will missile around the cabin if the airbag triggers.

The dash was a lot of curved soft surfaces covering ducts and wires were it wasn’t instruments and controls.

Cars ain’t what they used to be.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#114

Post by bsenftner »

quickthrowman wrote: post #111
bsenftner wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo: pre-2016 cars. Get a pre-Internet, pre-subscription Subaru; Foresters and Outbacks are both known to last 300K miles. Great in snow. Great resale too, far better than an EV.

One note on Subaru, you might be putting a quart of oil in every 1,000 miles after 100,000 miles. Certain models burn ungodly amounts of oil. I don’t drive Subarus now due to the above, I switched to Toyota.

The 2014 models are the last year Subaru had oil leakage issues. Looks like the 2015-'16 models are the sweet spot, as '17 is when they went with the rest of the industry and added Internet, app capability and all that nonsense.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#116

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

stacktraceyo wrote: post #108
WWLink wrote: post #39

You can get a 2023 or older wrangler, and replace the radio with anything else. Without the factory radio there's no internet connection. The 7" and 5" radios don't even have the modem to begin with (although apparently some 7" come with a 'telematics module' to give them internet). You can swap them out for any double din radio that fits (There's a kit or two) but the dashboard doesn't offer much space so it'd have…

Don’t buy a Jeep wrangler

Or any Chrysler, Dodge, or Ram product. Or whatever their parent company is. Inferior parts that fail more rapidly than other car brands. Especially as the vehicle ages. They might be fun to lease though where everything is covered under warranty but that is usually not a good financial decision.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#117

Post by humanistbot »

austin-cheney wrote: post #110

I like my Kia Soul. It’s a sedan frame in the shape of an SUV. Mine is gasoline averaging 33mpg but there are electric versions. I bought one of the last models with a 6 gear manual transmission. Shifting is super smooth. This is the best security money can buy. There is no touch screen of any kind. The stock radio supports Bluetooth and MP3 via USB stick. I use a physically tiny 256gb USB stick currently containing…

The Kia Soul and other Kia models can be hotwired in 30 seconds by popping off a plastic panel housing the ignition, inserting something with the dimensions of a USB A male plug, and turning it like a key. It is a huge trend on TikTok for the "Kia Boys" to steal Kias and go joyriding. My insurance company stopped insuring Kias in my area and cities and states are suing Kia over the rampant theft problem caused by bad design.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/01/30/kia-hyu...

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#118

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

lokjhfvvv wrote: post #112

So many weird “you don’t need AWD” takes. Like it’s a badge of honor to use an inferior tool for a job, as long as you get the job done? Bizarre.

You don't need AWD if you drive in a tropical/sub-tropical city or suburban environment that will ostensibly never see snow or muddy conditions.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#119

Post by yial »

PaulHoule wrote: post #50
rpmisms wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the part of my life when I lived in an intensely snowy climate, I never had a vehicle with four-wheel drive, and never had any issues. Four-wheel drive is a crutch to get you into situations your brakes can't get you out of.

I’ve had all kinds of problems in the snow but I’m a New Yorker so I cope. I dig other people out more often than get stuck myself. The AWD vehicle has a more complex drivetrain, will be more expensive to maintain and probably get worse gas mileage. Friends of mine swear by Subaru but I think they are crazy. If I wanted AWD I think I’d look for a small SUV like a Ford Escape.

I really would highly recommend Infiniti's AWD options.

I took my G37x to just shy of 300,000 miles with no major issues, and it wouldn’t get stuck until the snow was above its bumpers.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best car without undesirable features?

#120

Post by soylentcola »

humanistbot wrote: post #117
austin-cheney wrote: post #110

I like my Kia Soul. It’s a sedan frame in the shape of an SUV. Mine is gasoline averaging 33mpg but there are electric versions. I bought one of the last models with a 6 gear manual transmission. Shifting is super smooth. This is the best security money can buy. There is no touch screen of any kind. The stock radio supports Bluetooth and MP3 via USB stick. I use a physically tiny 256gb USB stick currently containing…

The Kia Soul and other Kia models can be hotwired in 30 seconds by popping off a plastic panel housing the ignition, inserting something with the dimensions of a USB A male plug, and turning it like a key. It is a huge trend on TikTok for the "Kia Boys" to steal Kias and go joyriding. My insurance company stopped insuring Kias in my area and cities and states are suing Kia over the rampant theft problem caused by bad…

Does Tiktok also have "learn to drive manual" videos? Because I've yet to meet a kid under 18 who knows how.
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