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Reasons to love your new car By Eric Peters, AOL Autos  |
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It's easy to get nostalgic for the "good old days" -- and the way cars used to be. But we often forget the not-so-great things about the cars of the past -- and don't appreciate just how good we've got it now.
For instance:
* Excellent gas mileage-to-power ratio -- Despite all the yakking about gas pig SUVs, the fact is modern vehicles are remarkably fuel efficient, especially when you consider the power/performance they offer. For example, today you can buy a 300 hp mid-sized sport sedan capable of doing 0-60 in under 7 seconds that still delivers close to 30 mpg on the highway. For perspective, that's about as good, mileage-wise, as an old air-cooled four-cylinder VW Beetle or Honda Civic CVCC from the '70s -- from? a much larger, more powerful car with all the bells and whistles. And today's best economy cars (like the new Honda Insight and Toyota Yaris) offer significantly better performance (0-60 in under 10 seconds vs. 15-20 seconds or longer "back in the day")? than their equivalents of past decades -- with air conditioning and power options -- while still returning nearly 40 mpg on the highway. That's having your cake and eating it, too.
* They last longer than the loan -- Most any new car, from the lowliest Kia to the fanciest Jaguar, can be expected to run for 10-plus years and more than 120,000 miles before becoming an unreliable money pit. As recently as the '80s, cars got tired much faster -- often after as little as five years and 50,000 miles -- with major work such as a valve job or tranny rebuild considered perfectly routine things. So while new cars seem expensive, they're really not -- if you drive them to their potential. Keeping one for ten years and 150,000 miles is not so costly compared with buying a new car every five years and 75,000 miles -- the way it was back in the "good old days."
* Headlights that actually let you see where you're going at night -- Sure, the hideaway headlights on a '69 Camaro SS/RS are neat. But they provide about as much light as a couple of glow sticks dangling from the grille. Old-style sealed beam headlights -- commonly used until as recently as the early '90s -- are dismal beacons indeed compared to the latest illumination systems, especially the Xenon High Intensity Discharge (HID) systems that first began showing up on very expensive luxury models but which are now filtering down to reasonably priced entry-luxury and sporty cars, even minivans. The latest systems provide more peripheral ilumination as well -- so you can see that deer on the side of the road before he jumps onto your hood. Some of the very latest "adaptive" automotive illumination systems even turn with you in a curve -- just like a '48 Tucker.
* Rust-free bodywork -- Or at least, bodywork that won't begin to rust before you've paid the thing off -- unlike the "good old days," when it was not uncommon to see Swiss-cheesed quarter panels and blistering paint on cars less than five years old. Unless you dip your car in sulfuric acid, that is virtually impossible today -- thanks to vastly better body integrity and sealing, as well as extensive anti-corrosion measures applied at the factory. Most new cars have bodies that will outlast their engines -- exactly the reverse of the way things used to be in the '70s.
* Tires that rarely go flat (or keep on working even when they do) -- When was the last time you had a flat tire? Probably you haven't had to deal with more than one in years -- if at all. Ask anyone over 50 and they'll tell you that changing a tire was once almost as routine as checking the oil. And dangerous blowouts (as opposed to slow leaks) were much more common than they are today. Modern radial tires are incredibly tough and durable; they're so good, in fact, that people get away without even thinking about them (much less checking the air pressure as often as they should) for months at a time. Many new cars also have? run-flat tires -- which can still be driven on even when punctured. And by next year (2007) all cars will have tire pressure monitors to let you know if one (or more) tires is running low on air. Flats may? become as rare as wood-paneled Pacers.
* No need to "warm up" -- If you're old enough to remember what cars were like prior to the late '80s -- when fuel injection replaced carburetors -- you remember that you couldn't just jump in, turn the key and go on cold days. You had to pump the gas, first of all -- to set the choke and squirt some gas into the engine. Then you'd turn the key -- and hope it caught. Once running, you had to wait awhile (anywhere from 30 seconds or so to several minutes) until the car had warmed up enough to be put into gear without stalling the engine. Really. That's how it used to be. Nothing like today -- when all you do is get in, turn the key and go. No pumping the pedal; no warm-up. Just get in -- and go.
* Decent paint jobs -- The finishes on modern cars are concours/show quality in comparison to the orange-peeling, unevenly applied "Earl Scheib Specials" of the past. If you went into a showroom in the mid-'70s, you'd see drips, overspray -- all sorts of defects. On brand-new cars. And the finishes would often fade into chalky miserableness -- or peel and flake off -- just a few years later. Even "luxury" models had paint quality that was often terrible compared to what's par for the course on the least-expensive economy models of today. In part, this is due to changes in paint technology (base/clear having replaced heavy "one-step" enamels and lacquers) and also to the use of fully automated paint application systems that achieve a uniformity (and uniformly high quality) that was simply impossible in the days when humans (often hung-over humans) did the job.
Nostalgia for the cars of the past is fine; many of them were exceptionally interesting machines with tremendous curb appeal. But the passage of time causes many of us to forget that they were also of much poorer quality, far less reliable and much more work than modern cars.
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