Shiny Bits of Life

Yes, I love this car. I’m selling it because we already have two cars. And it’s not our car. (I’m selling it for a family who left the country to live in Southeast Asia.)

Here’s my description in the Craigslist ad: 2.4 liter 5-cylinder. EXCELLENT condition!! Loaded with leather, sunroof, & 3rd-row seat. 178k but VERY well-maintained, many service records, recently new tires, timing belt changed at 108k. Recent work: replaced front struts & bushings, replaced front CV boots, upper engine mount, right front ball joint, new windshield, front brake rotors turned & new pads.

I’m asking $5,400. The only one I could find listed out there in internet-land is one from Washington state with 118k miles – at $8,950!

Update: A family bought it. They love the car. It was a pleasure to see their joy.

The 2012 Mercedes S-Class sedans will have 9-speed transmissions. The idea is for them to have the smoothest and quietest shifts you can get.

To me, it’s overkill. Yes, refinement is great, but it is worth the extra expense? Our Honda minivan has a 5-speed transmission, which is wonderful. At highway speeds, it’s purring along at a very low rate of rpm’s. Our Toyota sedan makes do with just a 3-speed. That bothers me a bit, knowing that it would save some fuel if the engine spun at lower rpm’s in top gear.

I remember 10-speed bicycles being an innovation in the USA. My 1972 Gitane road bike came with a 10-speed. I upgraded it to a 12. Today most road bikes have 27 speeds. I’d be happy with 18. (Actually, I am happy with 12 – but I’d appreciate the difference 18 would add to my cycling experience.)

Top: The forth-coming Audi A8. Notice the resemblance to the front of a train. That design trend started in Europe because their pedestrian safety laws forced vehicle fronts to be more horizontal and less pointy.

Bottom: Matte-finish paint seemed to be popping up in a few places among the cars we saw at the Denver Auto Show. My son Jay and I both liked the visual effect. (Left is a Lamborghini and right is a Lexus.)

Last weekend, my son Jay, his friend Taylor and I went to the Denver Auto Show. It was great!

A highlight was seeing the Honda CR-Z in real life. It’s a small 2-seater that’s the grandchild of my favorite car that I ever owned, a Honda CRX. They both have a great combination of fun driving and excellent fuel economy. The CR-Z updates the formula by adding hybrid drive. (And of course the cost will be about four times what the CRX was, not adjusted for inflation.)

The lowlight was the new Jaguar XJ. For more than $72,000, it did not deliver anything close to my expectations. Admittedly, I did not get to drive one. But I sat inside and played with all the knobs and controls. I was completely unimpressed at how one of the rear passenger lighted mirrors did not come on like it was supposed to. And from this pic, you can tell that they stylist chose a clock that would have been more at home inside a 1980 Cadillac. It also looked like I could have bought one off a vendor in the streets of Nairobi for about $20.

My only regret about the show was that John could not join us. (He’s in Germany.)

Why hasn’t a Prius owner somewhere sped down a highway and then, after the police stopped them, claimed it was unintended acceleration? (When it wasn’t.)

(Photo courtesy of yewenyi on Flikr.)

Obvious competitors.

Acura is winning the race, in terms of their literature. Notice the size difference between their brochures. And the Acura brochure’s design is far nicer than that of the Mercedes. It has more pages as well.

The cars themselves? I can’t say that I have ever driven an Acura, though I have driven (and owned) several Hondas. I have driven a few Mercedes cars. The feel of quality is in the same ballpark.

Mercedes had a very dark time in the 90s. I remember when their ML-Class SUVs were at the very bottom of the JD Powers survey in the UK. But supposedly their quality has improved. Maybe leaving Chrysler behind has allowed them to focus a bit more. But Mercedes still has the edge in terms of their image and name. Honda made the mistake (in my opinion) of launching a separate brand in the USA. (Acura does not exist outside the borders of the US of A – whereas Lexus, Toyota’s equivalent, does.) And what’s the brand of choice for any African dictator? Mercedes.

I just wondered why Mercedes decided to cut their brochure budget. Maybe they feel secure enough that they don’t think they need brochures to sell their vehicles.

So I looked at the letters page, as I always do. Yay! My letter made it!

(By the way, the shot shown is not the cover – obviously. They didn’t want to show that shot again.)

Thanks, Automobile Magazine.

Car magazine has a section at the back that lists all the new cars sold in the UK. That could be a boring list of facts and tables.

No.

They injected it full of life and fun. Each car is categorized as being either “Good”, “Bad” or “Ugly”. Read the fine print here. Each brand (or UK-speak, “marque”) is described as if it were a rock band. And the descriptions of each car can be hilarious. (These are two random cars in a row.)

They make it very easy to pick a good car. If you trust their judgement.

Takeaway: How can you inject life and fun into what might otherwise be a boring aspect of your job of life?

By the way, an interpretation for those of you in America… A “Zanussi Twin-Spin” is a washing machine.

This appeared in the American edition of the new Honda Crosstour ads. (That’s a new car that is basically a bloated Honda station wagon. I like it on some levels and hate it on others. The same footprint could yield far more utility than the Crosstour delivers.)

Incidentally, the ads are really unappealing, design-wise. (My suggestion? Use regular color when visually describing a product.)

And by the way, there is a much cooler Honda in a similar vein that one can buy if they live in Japan: the Stream. It doesn’t have America’s unfortunate SUV aspect in its flavor mix.

This lovely door handle broke. Toyota took almost two months to ship us a replacement. I thought that length of time was amazing.

Sometimes the “western world” has disadvantages compared with the “developing world”. If I had a broken door handle with this same car in Kenya, I could have gotten a replacement the same day. (Our Corolla is perhaps the most common vehicle on their crowded roads.)

Having said that, if we had an obscure vehicle in Kenya, we could have waited a year for the replacement. One of the aspects of my job when we were there last was to advise people about which car to buy. I always said go for the most common model… parts are easier to get.

The problem with having lived in a different country is that you can never experience the best of each place at once. I guess that is why there’s heaven to look forward to.