My HiCam to the wife?

The wife said something about a cute Civic so I got on Cars dot com and tried to find an Si. Are they discontinued, like since 2019? There was only one left for sale in the entire country according to cars dot com.

 

I've always liked Mazda and the MX5 is super cute so it is a front runner. I see they no longer have the sporty MX-6, which was like a 2 door 626. No RX7 or 8 anymore. Might be looking at the hard top version of the MX-5 even though they are a bit more $.

Hard to get a straight answer out of the wife. She likes Jeeps, like the Wrangler and at one time she wanted an Element.

The Mustang has the most power for the least money but she says those are "too common". Also her son drives one.

I'll turn 59.5 before our 10 year so I'll be able to swipe money from our 401k. That could increase the budget if there was a compelling reason, say to the mid forties. With my wife working, once Social Security starts we should be able to live without touching our 401k.

She likes sporty but cute might be the bigger part of that. She wants a spoiler. A lot of the sporty cars have an integrated trunk lid mini spoiler but she want a wing. It does not need to be a huge "tuner" wing but she wants a wing not a lip. For $109 I am seriously thinking of getting her one for her current Elantra.

She might end up with my HyCam and a vacation instead of a new car.

Any new ideas higher up on the budget?

 

That is a big one alright.

Is it as scary to live down under as the memes suggest?

 

Looks like we do have the A35 AMG in the country. Trouble is we don't have a local MB dealer anymore. The closest A35 AMG is 100 miles away. Price is over the top of even the new budget so I think that one is out.

I did find a new A 220 from a couple years ago for like $30k. That one is almost 400 miles away but we might actually be driving near there at just the right time.

The new neighbors have 2x MB in their garage so we might be "forced" to keep up...

Edit:

Looks like we do have a dealer reasonably close after all. Not sure why it didn't show up on cars dot com. They don't seems to have any of the cheaper models but they do have that A35 AMG.

 

She said "nice" about the $30k Mercedes Benz.

 

Hmmm maybe not the MX5 or any 2 seater. Idk, seems like there should be room for a kid in the back. That is not a strict requirement because we do have 2 other vehicles that our son can fit in but maybe a backseat is a good idea.

 

Ohhhh I'm seeing some models have belt and pulley CVTs, like Nissan uses. Those are out as well. I trust Toyota's gear CVT and Honda's series hybrid but not the belt and pulley CVT.

I did electromechanical repairs for 32 years. Belts and pulleys/bearings were responsible for the lion's share if problems. Motors and electronics mostly last a good long time. Properly lubricated internal gears last decades. Belts constantly need changed and adjusted and when they fail they can take out other systems. No thanks!

 

I'm familiar. There are several issues I have with CVTs besides the belt itself. Namely:

The face of the pulleys are subject to wear, especially where the belt rides most often.

And

Since the pulleys move they ride on bearings rather than being locked onto the shafts. Over time the bearings wallow out the groove in the shaft, then they fail spectacularly.

And

Did I mention how much I don't like belts?

Honda and Toyota solutions don't suffer from these issues.