New Family Hauler Needed

[LarryHoward]

Well, took today off and went car looking around and test driving. Wasn't really planning on buying anything today, but then this happened...

20191004_182820.jpg

2020 Subaru Ascent Limited. It's pretty fancy.

Very nice and likely the choice I would have made if in your position with younger kids.

Be interested in your experience as you get used to it.

[BeauV]

I've heard very good things about those.

[Slick470]

It came down to the Ascent and the Highlander. I could have gotten a much better deal on a 2019 Highlander, but I feel like I got a fair deal on the Ascent and it is a bit bigger and has a lot more features. I also fit comfortably in the 3rd row, where it was a bit cramped in the Highlander.

Lots of new tech to learn. This thing is way more complicated than any of my older cars.

[slap]

Friday was an expensive day for me, too. I have an old Sable wagon with 255K miles. The transmission gets funky when hot, the AC died several years ago, and the car is a time bomb of costs. A great car for hauling "stuff" - I can fit 10' 2x4s completely inside the car.

Friday I broke down and bought a VW Alltrack. My 5th wagon, and it's a manual. VW is dropping the Golf Sportwagen/Alltrack after MY2019, and they are the only manual wagons left.

#savethemanual
#savethewagon

My wife calls my Miata the "little red car". The obvious name for the new car is the "big red car".

[BeauV]

Cool! I love station wagons!! (IMHO, SUVs are just a remarketed station wagon with high seats to assuage people's fragile egos.) We had a '63 Chevy wagon that went for nearly 400,000 miles (three motors). It was a comfortable version of a suburban. I miss it!

[kimbottles]

For quite a few years now we have only had wagons, mainly VW Passats and Jetta’s
(I count the Touareg as a wagon.)

[LarryHoward]

Once again, I got shown the utility of a minivan. Saturday, we helped move a lot of stuff out of a friend's family home. Her mother (in her 80's) is moving into a waterfront condo and the house is up for sale. Drop the 3rd row into the stow position and fold the middle seats forward and people hauler becomes box truck. Yesterday, it got loaded full of stuff from a storage shed that is headed to a charity donation tomorrow. Most days it sits in the garage and Lynne drives her S2000 "3 season" fun car. Van comes out in rainy weather and all winter when summer tires don't work very well and convertibles are not reasonable. Keeps the salt off of the S2000 as well. Seems every time we get to thinking about a replacement for the 14 year old, 140K mile Sienna AWD, it gets used for something that "needs" a minivan. It must sense me looking at Model 3's and Model Y's online.

Periodically, I see BMW or Audi "Shooting Brakes" on BAT. Tempting, particularly the S or RS variants.

[Audrey]

Well, took today off and went car looking around and test driving. Wasn't really planning on buying anything today, but then this happened...

20191004_182820.jpg

Do you keep all your cars pinned up like that?

[Slick470]

Do you keep all your cars pinned up like that?

Not usually. The gate is kind of a pain to use, so usually it's just the truck in the driveway and the daily drivers on the street. Sarah has decreed that the Ascent will live in the driveway for a while. Over the years we've lived here, we've had a few intentional scratches, kids riding bikes into, eggings, and getting clipped by shitty drivers while parked on the street, so I'm ok with it.

Congrats on the big red car Slap!

[Tim Ford]

Nice buys both you guys!

I miss the old SAAB wagon....turbo'd, it was a wolf in cheap clothing.

I prefer the idea of a station wagon, too. I even like the name: "station wagon." It has the ring of a well-kept Connecticut house frau out of Cheever's world, pulling into New Canaan 3NC to pick up her long-suffering hubby after a rough day on The Street.

The SAAB got 32 highway, but now the small Mazda SUV gets 33 (even after 100K) so I don't feel that bad about my carbonic foot print.

[BeauV]

My family and I lived at a friend's house in Darian, CT for two weeks while I did a series of interviews and tried to get my family to move back there. I would have worked in NYC.

My X-wife literally drove me to the train station each morning and picked me up each afternoon in a Ford station wagon with faux wood on the sides. I think that drove her nuts!

I had a ball in the Bar Car. My buddies had said: "Make friends, they are a friendly lot." LOL!

I approached some guys going in, they didn't look friendly. I waited until the first day's return trip and tried again. "Hi, I hear you guys have a poker game each night," I said, looking at the dealt cards. "Ya, so what." was the most friendly response. "I like poker." I volunteered, and was greeted with, "How much do you have on ya?" Now, I was getting somewhere.

"I've got five hundred. What's the buy-in? "

"Five hundred"

I laughed and sat down. "OK, here." and I put five hundred on the table from a stack of hundreds. That caused a reaction!

"Put that away! Jesus Christ, we were just jerking your chain."

"I figured that", I said, "But, I'd still like to play."

"How much are you willing to lose?"

"In a straight-up game, all of it. Is this game straight?" I looked around grinning at them.

"What an asshole, he accuses us of cheating and we don't even know his name." said another.

"OK, you can play. But no crying about how much you lose, and no more cash on the table." said the first guy.

We played every night for the 10 days I rode the train. Some of those guys are still my friends. One of them is one of the best friends I have. We still play cards, and I was really surprised that it was a straight-up game. Only 4 aces in the deck when it was my time to deal.

[Tim Ford]

That's a great story, Beau!

I've been playing with the same 7 or 8 guys since 1986. F1 progeny weddings are more about the "poker guys" than the bride and groom for most of us.

We even put a float in the Towson 4th of July parade about 15-20 years ago. Played with real money and had adult beverages on the table, cigars in our mouths. One of our players was/is an attorney with his practice and home in Towson. No one batted en eye, even the BCPD.

Only, one lady did reproach us loudly for "smoking in public."

[slap]

Nice buys both you guys!
I prefer the idea of a station wagon, too. I even like the name: "station wagon." It has the ring of a well-kept Connecticut house frau out of Cheever's world, pulling into New Canaan 3NC to pick up her long-suffering hubby after a rough day on The Street.

The Europeans have some interesting names for them - In the UK a popular term is "Estate" and in Germany a popular term is "Variant".

[kdh]

My mom had this car.



I beat the shit out of it. Loved it. So much room! My girlfriends appreciated it, and a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood fit in the back, which was required to move around my rock band's drum platform.

[slap]

My mom had this car.



I beat the shit out of it. Loved it. So much room! My girlfriends appreciated it, and a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood fit in the back, which was required to move around my rock band's drum platform.

Most current pickup truck beds are too short to carry a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood unless you leave the tailgate down.

[kdh]

Slap, that's true of our truck. I think the bed's only 6' long.

[Charlie]

My mom had this car.



I beat the shit out of it. Loved it. So much room! My girlfriends appreciated it, and a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood fit in the back, which was required to move around my rock band's drum platform.

We had the same one. A 1974, I think. Ours was the darker green, and had the rear seats that faced each other.

Memories of family trips from Ohio to our cabin in Ontario. 10 hours, family of six, no AC, AM radio.

[slap]

We had the same one. A 1974, I think. Ours was the darker green, and had the rear seats that faced each other.

Memories of family trips from Ohio to our cabin in Ontario. 10 hours, family of six, no AC, AM radio.

My parents bought a 1964 Chevy Bel Air wagon - no air, etc. It took us (family of 5) from Michigan out to Arizona and California in the summertime. Went from California to Wyoming in one looooong day of driving.

They had bought it in my mother's home town and drove both cars back - Dad in the new wagon and Mom in the old car. It was a 180 mile trip, and one of my sisters and I rode with Dad. We dropped the back seat and had the entire back of the car to play in. You would get arrested for that now.

[Tim Ford]

We had this one until we got the 1959 version. Like in the commercial, we did carry an 8 foot plywood dinghy. Mom wasn't a blonde though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9H8hQt3D6U

[Jamie]

Nice buys both you guys!

I miss the old SAAB wagon....turbo'd, it was a wolf in cheap clothing.

I prefer the idea of a station wagon, too. I even like the name: "station wagon." It has the ring of a well-kept Connecticut house frau out of Cheever's world, pulling into New Canaan 3NC to pick up her long-suffering hubby after a rough day on The Street.

The SAAB got 32 highway, but now the small Mazda SUV gets 33 (even after 100K) so I don't feel that bad about my carbonic foot print.

Ha! To get a station parking spot in CT at a metro-north is a several year wait - up to 10yrs for some. A couple of towns are first-come-first serve, so you show up in your lawn chair at 3am. There is a definite caste system to the parking too. You can always tell who needs to be in-town for the morning meeting and who are the traders. Soft consultants and corp drones like me go on the later trains. Once you have your permit, then you go buy a station car - something you don't care if they ding it to -death. We had an Jeep Wagoneer for that. Still better than the LIRR by a long shot.

I like my commute now. I walk down the intracoastal.

[BeauV]

Here's the car I bought from my God Father, he bought it new. I bought it when it had about 160,000 miles on it and hauled trailers, dinghies, trailers full of firewood, and eventually the Moore-24. It had a 327, no smog, 4 barrel carb, and got 10 MPH. But it would haul the 2,000 lb Moore-24 up to Lake Tahoe at 70 MPH without overheating.

[Tim Ford]

Assuming you mean MPG!

I had a 1961 4-door Impala that my neighbors gave me. (I thought they didn't like me, to be truthful) It had 125,000 on it when I got it. Chevy 283. I took 5 people, a hefty black lab and all the camping gear, tents, bags, stove etc to Ocracoke Island one year and the damn thing still got 20 MPG. Cavernous trunk, you could not fill it! We tried.

Sad day when I sold that car to the junkyard. I still miss it. Heaven is a place where you get reunited with all the old wrecks you loved....hell is where the lemons reside...there's a VW Fox I do not plan on ever seeing again

[BeauV]

LOL!!! Yes, I meant MPG. The Wagon never got good mileage, big carb. But it was worth it because it could pull anything. I believe it had a 2 speed automatic.

Tim, you're right about the fond memories. That wagon was used to haul me, my best friends, and a gaggle of other kids to the beach each Saturday from when I was about 11 or 12 until I started going to college. Sunday mornings it took us all to church. There would often by 6 kids behind the rear seat and six adults in the seats. I get a little choked up about this because between the Vietnam war, a few accidents, and old age only two of those kids and none of the adults are still alive. But, those were GREAT times!