Also, just wanted to add: airbags are NOT down pillows. Getting hit with one is disorienting at best.  It's really easy to say "well why didn't you do [something]" when you haven't just taken the equivalent of a Mike Tyson punch to the head

I wouldn’t say you’d have to assume, as I am fairly positive that it is a safety requirement for all modern vehicles.

SOOOO many stupid fucking comments.

She got her and her 12 year old child out of danger. That is definitely not the wrongest of options. If they had remained or attempted to move the car they would’ve been annihilated by the semi.

Something Unreliable: uses a pic of an RX-8

Was trying to reply to him, my apologies fellow Century driver! Here’s my Century, still taking road trips. It has a 2.2L 4 cylinder available in 1994 (it looks like they tweaked the 4 cylinder over the years) so maybe the OP did have a terrible iteration.

I don’t know...that floatiness is quite comfortable for a long trip.

Cop-out answer: anything boring and soulless.

Anything without cruise control will wear you out after a while. 

OTOH, that same car with the V6 got 35MPG, unkillable and rode like a Cadillac. I inherited mine from my grandma and regularly drove 1000 miles in a weekend (was temporarily working on Cape Cod, driving home to western NY every weekend. got in the car at 5pm friday, home by 11, left home mid afternoon sunday, got to…

1980 Chevrolet Chevette

People are smart enough to know that their personal consumption won’t change the overall direction and aren’t sacrificing their vacations on that alter. And while the price of gas is going up due to summer demand, they also know it’s other issues that have caused it to get this high in the first place.

My experience, which I admit is very limited.

Even using your close to ideal case, including buying used vs new, you are saving $0.13/mile and paid $22,000, meaning you need to drive ~170,000 miles to break even. That calculation is also assuming gas never goes down and electricity never goes up.

Buy a $60,000 EV to save $100/month in gas.

Yep. I’ve owned three myself, and my wife was so convinced that she bought one too. And not just that, but I broke the cardinal rule of car ownership with Mazda twice: “never buy the first model year of a new design.”

Fourth Mazda in a row for me... !:+)
(2019 Mazda 3 G20 BP Evolve)

I didn’t see the question since I’m late to the party here but I opened this thinking “Mazda better be here somewhere.”

Turns out a large number of us think that too.

yeah. and the thing to be said is “flat blade screwdriver.”

I started with a Protege that was a hoot to drive for a basic econo car. Whioe that car was not super reliable, I did like it enough to go with a 2009 Mazda 3 2.3 S MT. I still daily that in MA and have ~185k miles on with no crazy repairs. Just started showing rust on the rear passenger side wheel well, which is of…