SMALL snow cars - Page 3

That's fine, but do you drive one right now? That's what I thought.

www.swissarmyvehicles.com

Pretty this, leather heated seats, yada, yada .... "Girly Cars" ....

How can they not be "green" when they are freakin green?

Yuki, I AM a girl, and I don't know about you, but an icecube wouldn't melt on my arse after a days skiing, I love my heated seats!

Got soaked coming out of the barber shop yesterday. Turned on those heated seats in the Volvo XC ...... ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!




At least my Volvo heated seats still work .... the ones in the Saabs never lasted more than 60Kmi ..... 5 Saabs later ... that ain't a great record.

I [Hart] heated seats..although neither of my cars have them

Hmm, I still have heated seats in the Legacy I use it to pre-heat my arse before I ski. When I come off the hill my arse is always hot hot hot

Some new cars even have heated steering wheels now. Seems ridiculous, but that steering wheel can get quite frigid overnight. If you are arthritic I would imagine it is 10x worse.

I beleive there's an issue with it in colder climates...starts to gel when the mercury drops. Blends are nice, but they're not available everywhere.

My Subaru Forester has been great for the past 6 winters. I like the good ground clearance without being top-heavy for driving through snow.

I drive a 2003 Pontiac Vibe, 2WD, manual transmission. I get better tha 30 mpg without my box, around 27 mpg with. I hve to mount the box at an slight angle in order to get good clearance from the antenna, and often get wild gestures from other drivers who are worried my box is falling off. The weakness of the Vibe is that it has very wide tires and poor ground clearance. I would avoid even the AWD version unless I were going to change to narrower and perhaps taller rims. The interior configuration is really good for skiing, but the other problems make it less than ideal. I did see an interesting alternative in 2 WD. The Kia Rondo has good ground clearance and does not seem to have obscenely wide tires. I also think some of the Kia/Hyundai stuff would be a good choice, especially the Tucson/sportage. FWIW the Sorento seems to have some good discounts at the moment. If you have a competing vehicle or already own a kia, you can get $1,500 owner loyalty bonus or competing vehicle bonus, plus $3,000 in rebates, on a 2007, which has an invoice around $21,500, which would be like a purchase price of $17K. With gas prices high it might make more sense to go for a vehicle with big rebates, and bargain hard on price. You'll end up wiht more vehicle and might have a lwoer purchase price. Past gasoline price spikes have often been follwoed by moderating prices, and there is every reason to believe that could happen again. Why am I so keen on Kia? I own a Sedona, which is my family trip car, and a Spectra, which my daughter uses as her college car. My ex has a spectra as her daily driver, and used to own a sportage as her daily driver. Before we split we had a sephia. Despite all the howls about these vehicles, they have been very reliable, and all had very low initial purchase prices (usually around nominal invoice less a big rebate). None of them had class-leading gas mielage, but I am sure I saved enough on purchase to outweigh the additional cost of fuel over the life of the vehicles. Often these vehicles are cited as having extremely high depreciation, but that is in relation to sticker price. If the Sorento I descroibed has a sticker around $23,500 and you pick it up for 17, then it looks like it depreciated a whole bunch after a year when you compare blue book to sticker. OTOH, if you look at a Honda, which has the sticker padded with $500 pinstriping, and goes out the door at $500 above sticker, it may not be a great bargain if it depreciates a small amount relative to sticker. The net depreciation for comparable cars could be the same, and would be a lower percentage for the more expensive car, but to the owner who drives cars 150K miles or more, the initial purcahse price has a lot more to do with total lifetime cost, since it affects tax, finance and insurance costs.

GT's and Outbacks did, not till you got to the Limited did the 2.5L get bun warmers.

run heated lines, multiple tanks and bipass valves. blends can be processed at home.

It's only an issue if it's not set up properly. I understand why the average person would be scared off by it.

That's basically it. If people can't get in and drive it, they don't want to be bothered. Plus, I'm not sure how many people can deal with plugging in their car.

I ike the idea of biodiesel, but I have trouble with gelling of regular diesel fuel up here. I'm afraid a tank of bio would just turn to wax overnight.

AS long as someone started discussing the effects of cold, I was curious: How do hybrids, which use batterires as part of the drivetrain, fare in extremely cold weather?

Actually the Subaru Diesel is 36% less consumption and then you get the benefit of less Co2 emissions for a better environment
And I'm changing my 2.0R to the 2.0 Diesel during the summer and it's so smooth to drive

not an issue, at least with the hondas that came though my dad's shop. The insight my family used to own got the same gas mileage regardless of what the temp was. Its was just the slowest thing ever, only thing slower is auto CRV or 3cylinder metro.

Cant wait for honda to bring over the diesel, I am need of a new car my 14 year old integra is rusting out fast. A diesel 5 speed Element fits what I need so much, I just hope we see it over here.

Peugot 504 diesel. Cruise control was a broken ski pole wedged between the gas pedal and the seat.

MY 2007 Saab Sport combi /heated seats/ 210 hp turbo averaged 30.5 mpg in ski season . All gear fits inside
Also have an old '92 saab 900 , 5 speed turbo/heated seats , 93,500 as my regular in town rat ,gets 30 -33mpg winter - summer

We have been using a Saab 9-3 Aero. turbo V6, six speed stick, ski pass through (putting a rack on for next season), plus snow/winter tires. It does about 25 MPG if you keep the turbo out of it, but sometimes its fun to put your foot down and rev it up to 5-5,500 RPM. Put some snow tires on any car, and it will be as good as any AWD car with All Seasons.

I'm seeing a lot of these Suzuki SX4's pop up around here. It is listed as 4wd. I think its really AWD.

http://www.motortrend.com/features/a...sx4/index.html

http://www.motortrend.com/cars/2008/...2&TotalPages=3

What's the best small 4x4 vehicle?

A 2-wheel drive compact rental!!

Saab 92X Aero which is really a Subaru WRX Wagon in disguise. Out of production unfortunately. Awesome car with more than the Subie wagon had to offer at the time for less money. It gets about 28 MPG highway. The only performance mod is a Cobb Accessport to fix the turbo lag issue. I have OEM roof rails from a Subie wagon in the garage waiting to go on. Gotta drop the headliner to do it which will not be fun. I have a hitch and hitch haul if I need to carry additional stuff. It was way cheaper than a roof box and more versatile since I can also tow my kayak trailer.

The big vehicle beside it will be replaced with a 2009 Forester this fall hopefully. Gotta sell the wife on it first and make it look like her idea somehow.

Roof rack

MattL,
Man you shouldn't need to drop that headliner. I do alot of installs on automobiles and that should just use nutserts. Also called barrel nuts...in other terms. You do need a pop rivet gun(kinda on the large size) to do this job. And if you deside to it this way, don't let someone talk you into useing open end wrenches(cheaper).Pain in the a**! Besides the fact that you will inadvertently screw one or two of them up. Then you will have to drop the headliner. You may want to talk to your local subie service mgr to get his view. If you need more info, please don't hesitate to contact me.

The roof rack on my Jeeps are installed with a fastener similar to a nutsert but requires no special tools. Basically its a captive brass expansion nut, in rubber. This nut is just pushed through the hole in the roof (goes in snug), then when you tighten the screw the rubber expands securing the roof rack and at the same time making it water tight. Unlike a true nutsert these things can be completely removed by simply loosening the screws and there will by no paint or sheetmetal damage. A nutsert might be too heavy duty for roof sheetmetal and would cause damage to the metal and paint when securing it.

If your drilling a hole in the roof anyways, who cares about a little paint damage?

I am assuming his car is predrilled and has some plugs covering the factory holes? If not then yeah...but they wont be as watertight without some sealant.

Nutserts

R-R, I forgot about those fasteners that are rubber mounted. Good suggestion. Probably alot easier for a DIY kind of person. They would also keep from warping the roof. I have used aluminum "serts" for several years and they will not damage the skin on the roof. And before you say, they could pull out easily... Not had one comeback for that or leakage(yea,I use sealent). Those nutserts that krp8128 shows in his pic are tough, even if you have a large rivit gun. Never looked foward to useing them.

Anything by Subaru! I just traded on an '03 WRX (sadly not an STi) for a Legacy GT. You really cannot beat the "beauty of all-wheel-drive" for a winter vehicle. Throw on a proper set of snow tires and yo are practically unstoppable. We were in Quebec city and got a 40cm snowstorm overnight. While the others were digging out their mini-vans, I put in gear and away I went

I finally got a picture of the new Saab. Not the best, but you get the idea. It is a sweet car. No problems so far. And the Ski rack is in apparently, have to go pick it up from the dealer this week.