Whoa! You must have been very, very good. Nice ride!
is that the 6-speed?
Bob Ross Chia Pets?
Bob Ross boxer briefs?
If switch and coal donāt paint bad picture
some do-and-fro grows disbelief.
Happy New Year Paatit, mortgage retired and given some work relief!
(Mortgage. Strange word, aināt it? The death of measure?)
Hey Charlie Brown, when life gives you rocks, make pets.
And thus, when life gives you dilemmas (Or, is it dilemnas?), make dilemmaade. Or dilem-na-aid.
(So, if Santa gives me switches and coal, what??? I should make an environmentally unconscionable fire???)
And I gotta jar of half-sour pickles.
Salt-cucumber-crisp, vinegar just two tickles.
Groucho: āObviously for Christmas you received and consumed a full bottle of Stream of Conscious Flush. What you really needed was a full frontal lobotomy!ā
Chico: āI-a no dryvuh I-towel-ian sports cars!ā
1 Like
2 bottles of different single malts that are each as old as tallest grand child.
1 Like
Cheers!
Where do you live?
Sipping smokey peat and enjoying life in Beaufort SC.
Yepā¦6 speed manual. Wonderfully impractical and it also encourages me to stick to my exercise routine so I can get in and out. Itās a 3rd generation Miata (properly called an MX-5) which is the ābigā one. I even moved one canoe to outside storage to make room for it.
Iāve got a 2015 CX5, the two wheel drive model with the manual 6. Itās fun to drive (have always preferred a stick), much more so than the stiff and clunky Subaru Outback I dumped for the Mazda. And I have gotten as much as 35 mpg on road trips. It was as close as I could get to a sports car with station wagon capability (within my budget).
Bought it new, since I have learned hard lessons from the costs of repairing the lingering damage previous owners of manual trans cars have inflicted upon their clutches and gear boxes. I hope yours has not suffered from that.
My dad taught me to drive a manual properly and not ride the clutch or lug or grind the trans. I believe he taught me well because for any car with a stick I bought new (and was the sole driver thereof) I have never had to replace a clutch or transmission throughout my ownership. Traded in a manual Dodge Caravan at 135K with the original trans (never even adjusted the clutch), likewise an earlier Subie, a Datsun and a Volvo 164E (that one was 195K). It was often a battle to keep boyfriends from wanting to drive my cars, though. I sold my second Caravan to one of them at 108K (when my company gave me a truck) and he blew the clutch within a month and had to have the whole transmission rebuilt within 6.
But every stick I bought used had to have some major transplant, usually within the first year.
I got a 58" Werner Bandit paddle, and an Olympus Tough TG-6 camera with the telephoto lens that increases the zoom to 7X. I was afraid the the pictures with the telephoto lens would be blurry, but they donāt seem to be, and the lens clicks on and off easy - I like it.
I have to agree that even most people that say they know how to drive a stick shift really donāt. Iāve actually had better experience with reliability on automatics and had some issues with manuals even on vehicles we bought new. Time will tell on mineā¦at least it was a one owner vehicle owned by a little old lady that liked to shift by 2500 rpm for fuel economy. I also had an Outback (manual trans) and while I like Subarus they get some deserved criticism for being boring. Iāve always liked Mazdas and have owned or leased 9 I think. I admire them for being so good at engineering even though they are such a small company compared to most of their competitors.
Never owned a car that wasnāt a stick shift. Sooo much better on snow and ice, especially with four snow tires.
2 Likes
I judge a car by how my mind and body feel after a 9 hour solo highway drive (something I often do and the main reason I even own a car). That Outback failed miserably at that ā harsh ride, unbearable cabin noise from the effect of wind on the badly designed side mirrors, merciless seat, stiff steering, cramped driver position. I always felt like Iād been worked over and left for dead after road trips in it. And it was one of those lemon Subarus that constantly required 4 figure repairs. I bought it for $6000 with 70K on it but spent that much again on the transmission, engine, steering, brakes, AC, suspension and exhaust system within the next 15K miles. It was a dreadful gas hog too, for such a small car: 17 city and 25 highway.
Though I canāt condemn all Subarus since among my favorite 3 vehicles in my life was the 1978 2WD manual DL wagon that I dearly loved. Parts got hard to find for it by the late '80ās and I reluctantly sold it to a friendās son when he went off to college in Colorado and he tinkered with it and bombed around the mountains ski-bumming for several years. I regretted giving up that car, as I did my other faves, the 1992 Volvo 740 wagon and the 1989 Caravan 4 cylinder stick (which got me up to 34 mpg highway).
The Mazda is pretty comfy, as was the 5-speed Hyundai Santa Fe I had for a while (only sold it because the frame was rusting). The Santa Fe was a fun and economical ride too ā I would buy another Hyundai again. Very nice cars mechanically and for amenities for the price.
Most comfortable for road trips was the plushed-out 1995 Volvo 850T wagon which was also an excellent boat hauler with the low long flat roof ā but the prospective cost of mechanical repairs on that turbo concerned me and I gave it up for the Hyundai.
My main complaint about the CX5 is the wind tunnel egg shape of it. Makes roof rack spacing too tight and also gives me very poor perception of the car spatially compared to the boxy models I am used to and prefer. The curved rear window and pillars make backing up a nightmare. Even after nearly 5 years of driving it I still end up leaving way too much room behind it when parallel parking. And I have backed into several obstacles due to the pillars blocking clear vision. And why makers of these little wagons canāt design them so the damned back seats fold flat is beyond me.
Well I knew that if I was going to get anything really good under the tree I was going to have to help ole santa out so I ordered an NRS pivot drysuit, neopeme storm hood, new gloves and a deck bag. Iām eager to try out the new drysuit. Itās a rear entry so it is supposed to be less restrictive when you are paddling.
Interesting/cool comment Rookie. You might be impressed with electric or hybrid electric vehicles since they can really manage their power on slippery surfaces. My wifeās automatic CRV is just superb on snow and iceā¦the āintelligentā AWD seems to never allow wheel spin in the first place and seems even better than my 2009 Outback which was awesome in winter but did spin both front and rear wheels in nasty stuff (wheeeā¦fun except on black ice at highway speeds).
Willowleaf - when we replaced our vehicles a few years ago it was painfully obvious that most vehicles donāt have flat roofs any moreā¦so short spans for roof racks. Off course your egg shape is proper for aerodynamics. My dinosaur 4-Runner has a long flat roof. They havenāt changed the vehicle since 2010 and sales continue to increase. I can also lower the rear window like an old station wagon and stick a boat right in. 
Yeah, my '03 Santa Fe had the rear hatch window that could be popped open independent of the door ā that was a real boon in loading and unloading gear when long boats were on the roof blocking the hatch from opening (the danged antenna fins and āspoilersā they put on wagons now). I know my one friendās vintage Rav4 has the side hinged door which is also a plus.
I would have preferred to buy something more like a classic Volvo pre-Ford wagon, a Honda Element or even a Mazda Tribute but i couldnāt find a decent used one with a stick in my area. The 4Runner is great but no longer available in manual in the US plus 80% above my budget new.
Hook2 5X for my for Old Town Loon 126 kayak. When I got out on the water to test it I found out that down scan image doesnāt work reading thru the hull.
Dagger Stratos 14.5L (for those special fun paddles. Plastic is much easier to repair than fiberglass or carbon/kevlar)