12th Dec 2005, 16:16

You betcha Honda goes to great lengths to point out the safety features in their car. It's a sales brochure, and because safety has become nothing more than a marketing ploy, they are going to tell you how their car is the safest car out there. Every other car maker is going to tell you the same thing, but in the way that makes them look best: best in frontal crash test, best in side impact, most crumple zones, rated highest in rollover. They're trying to convince you that the more air bags a car has, the safer it is: "I have 6 air bags; oh yeah, well I have 8, so I'm better!" They also want to distract you from thinking too much about why you're paying 25 grand for a puddle jumper. "Oh, we have to charge these high prices to meet safety standards, but think how safe you'll be!" But we can't be too hard on the car makers because they were forced into this by lawsuits, when somebody cries "The manufacturer knew that going 105 could be dangerous, but they did nothing to prevent my baby from hurting himself! Something must be done!!" And then to mollify the insurance industry, they are forced to act like they are really "getting behind this important safety issue." But all that misses the point that the safest car is the one that never gets into an accident.

The car makers need to hear this, because they probably aren't getting it in their focus groups. There are a lot of us who haven't been brainwashed yet. We want to see a return of cars like the Volare. We don't care about ABS, airbags, or crumple zones, and we sure don't want to have to pay 10 grand extra for something we never wanted in the first place, and something that no hokey insurance industry statistics can show is doing us any good. On every vehicle I've ever been in that had the option to turn off the airbags, the owner had turned off the airbags. Doesn't that tell you that people don't want to be encumbered with this junk, even if you force it on us? We would rather that the engineering effort be put into making a car that starts every time, and gets us where we need to go for a minimum 7 years (5 years while making payments, plus 2 to enjoy what you've been paying for), and gets good gas mileage. If the manufacturers don't respond to our wishes of making simple, reliable cars that don't have repair bills as large as the monthly payment, we'll keep on driving our Volares, Caprices, Galaxies, LTD's and old trucks, and when they wear out, we'll pull more out of the weeds or off the rock pile and drive them.

12th Dec 2005, 18:57

I totally agree with you. Who wants to drive around all of that "technology" only to have it fail when you least expect it. I would gladly pay top dollar to have a new car from the 70's or 80's that was built to last, safe by design and that didn't have a computer control it's every move. At least an older car has a soul and can be had with an interior that isn't tan or gray!!!

12th Dec 2005, 20:34

Here are a few statistics:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2005/html/table_01_11.html

Passenger car registrations:

1975 106,705,934

2003 135,669,897

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2005/html/table_01_37.html

Passenger car mileage:

1975 1,954,166

2003 2,624,108

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2005/html/table_02_01.html

Passenger car fatalities:

1975 25,929

2003 19,460

12th Dec 2005, 21:24

No one has been saying old cars are safer than new ones. Any vehicle old or new can be a hazard to others operating on the roadway if the person driving it is incompetent.

Also, I doubt there will be many 2005 Honda Civics and other such cars will be around in 29 years. The amount of electronic controls on these cars is staggering. Because there is more technology in today's cars, they will be in the long run more expensive to run. Simply put there is more to go wrong. More parts also equals more maintenance cost.

True, modern cars have more safety features, but then that really wasn't the point. The original argument was about simply driving a car until it outlives its usefulness. Also lets say everything under the hood was replaced on a 2005 Honda Civic, guaranteed it would cost many times over what it would for the 76 Volare.

The main thing is when people want a new car, it has nothing to do with safety, cost of mantainance, or insurance, it is only because they wish to look good. Cars with ABS, airbags, and fuel injection were available 15 years ago. Such cars can be had for 2 grand or less, yet the poster on the 8th of December chose a new Chevy Aveo.

The complaint is about how much money was spent on the BMW, yet the owner of that car decides to spend just about the same amount on a new car. This bars the logic that saving money must have been the goal. There is more money over the initial purchase price of that vehicle, such as maintenance, and full coverage insurance if there is a loan on it, over what the BMW would have cost. Therefore the primary goal must have been to simply have a newer car for the sake of having a newer car. There wasn't a real need, just a want.

However lowly the Chevy Aveo is on the car food chain, in most people's minds it would be better to have that than say a 1990 Oldsmobile. Why? It can be said in one word "Image". People unfortunately look at cars and divide people out into social classes based on what they drive, so in turn this drives others to buy new cars so they are not thought of as less than other people who do own new cars.

I think it is funny how the poster scoffs at a Chevrolet Celebrity as being a boring uninteresting car that no one wanted to drive new, yet the poster buys a car that in today's terms is below the Chevorlet Celebrity. Certainly no one wanted a Chevrolet Nova in 1988, as well as the Chevrolet Celebrity, by using the poster's logic. The Nova is simular to the Aveo in its intended customer base, people looking for a cheap new car. A little bit of status that is easy enough for the less privileged to afford.

So how is buying a Chevrolet Aveo equal to a fun to drive car that everyone likes? It doesn't. People buy them for one reason it is cheap for a new car. That is the same reason why people bought Novas and Celebrities when they were new as well. If the poster was really concerned about driving enjoyment why wasn't the vehicle a new BMW, or a Nissian Z, Corvette, Mustang, GTO? Certainly those are all fun to drive cars. But then they are pricy. To sum it up the Aveo wasn't bought because it costed less than what the BMW costed to mantain, it was bought because it meant a little higher rung on the social strata over an older used car.