Author Topic: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)  (Read 6099 times)

jaye_p

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Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« on: October 21, 2015, 03:15:57 PM »
I'm researching used minivans, roughly 2005 model year or older.  And I am amazed at what options I am seeing on some of these vehicles. 

For example, a 2005 Toyota Sienna LE.  Standard with cruise control, comfy cloth seats, decent stereo system with multiple speakers, roof rack.  Lap of luxury, no?  Apparently not!  Because the 2005 Toyota Sienna XLE Ltd.  comes standard with heated, incredibly adjustable front seats, leather seating, climate control for all three rows of seats, power sliding doors & hatch, front & rear parking sonar...the list goes on and on.  I look at the list of features and think, my gosh, this was designed for the laziest person in the world.  Possibly someone who enjoys the feeling of their muscles atrophying.  I don't need half of these "features".  In fact, I don't need *any* of these features.  Does the vehicle have seating?  Does the steering wheel actually turn the wheels?  Does the engine run?  Are the sides, roof, and floor lacking in holes?  Good enough for me!  My first vehicle (83 Ford Ranger) had power nothing, no a/c, the cheapest radio imaginable, plastic seats (fun in summer!), and I loved it.

So...am I looking at this the wrong way?  Can anyone come up with a justification for all of these expensive, fancy-pants additions to a tool that just needs to get you from point A to point B?

big_slacker

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2015, 03:22:09 PM »
I think you may be looking at it a little bit in the wrong way. Does the vehicle meet your needs and possibly wants while remaining within your budget.

There is nothing morally wrong with enjoying heated seats on a chilly winter morning. I give you permission. :)

Argyle

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2015, 03:40:07 PM »
I get it — it's annoying to have to pay for a load of stuff you don't want at all.  Add to which, a lot of it will probably break before too many years go by, because the more systems and complexity you have, the more breakage you're probably going to have.  I rent cars regularly and the crazy fanciness of some of them just floor me.  I know they want me to think, "I can't live without these sixteen cool features!" Instead I think, "Boy, when this fancy screen fails, I wouldn't even be able to see how full the gas tank is, and you can bet it will cost and arm and a leg to fix the fancy screen."  All of this and it's hard to get what I really want, which is a manual transmission.  But I guess people are going for this stuff, because there's a lot of it out there.

nereo

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2015, 03:49:06 PM »
I'm amazed at the features that the "base" model has here in the United States compared with other countries.  In Chile for example, the base model will have no power windows, no air conditioning, no cruise control, a 2-speaker am/fm stereo, cloths seats, no power door locks and sometimes no spare tire.

I challenge you to find any new 2016 for sale in the US that doesn't have at least three of the following: air conditioning, power windows, remote door locks, a 4+ speaker stereo system that can hook up to your phone/iPod, a spare tire + tire jack, cruise control.

our "strippies" are luxury trim lines in other countries.

Digital Dogma

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2015, 04:04:14 PM »
All those extra heaters, power seat motors, climate controls, speakers, screens, knobs, switches and buttons weigh you down. Its the same thing with lux-o-barge truckUVs, they constantly pull an empty bed and an empty row of seats with them every trip between home work and grocery store. Thats more shit to break that weighs as much as another passenger at least.  Who needs decorative lights under the lights!? Shit how else would I have noticed the bright blue flood lamp laser headlights if it werent for underlining them with more lights. Im all for power windows and safety features, but its becoming difficult to find vehicles without all the extra unwanted crap in them brand new let alone used.

jaye_p

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2015, 04:08:07 PM »
Exactly!  When I see something like "power sliding doors," I don't think, ooh, cool feature.  I think, hundreds of dollars to repair when they break.  I prefer power nothing, but that's only a possibility with fairly old vehicles (80s?)  Maybe I should be looking for an A-Team van, lol.  With a really cool paint job.  I actually miss windows you could roll down with the little handle.  Remember that little window handle?  So simple, so easy to fix.

nereo

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #6 on: October 21, 2015, 04:10:18 PM »
Exactly!  When I see something like "power sliding doors," I don't think, ooh, cool feature.  I think, hundreds of dollars to repair when they break.  I prefer power nothing, but that's only a possibility with fairly old vehicles (80s?)  Maybe I should be looking for an A-Team van, lol.  With a really cool paint job.  I actually miss windows you could roll down with the little handle.  Remember that little window handle?  So simple, so easy to fix.
Mexico.

jaye_p

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #7 on: October 21, 2015, 04:17:11 PM »
nereo,

"Mexico" as in, I should live there?  Or I should go there to find a vehicle?  : )

mtn

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2015, 04:24:56 PM »
Most are nice to have. They're worth something to everyone--for my dad with a bad back, the seat heaters are worth taking a BMW back to the dealership when he found out that it didn't have heated seats--something you expect at $35,000 in a car that was $65,000 5 years prior. For me, leather seats are worth a damn pretty penny as a premium--they stay cleaner easier--but I completely understand why some people hate them as well. For you, it sounds like these features are worth about $5 total for the ones that won't break, and have negative value for the ones that might.

Power rear hatch was one I thought was silly. Until my MIL with MS got it. Best feature in the world for her. Keyless entry and ignition is another one that I thought was stupid. After driving a vehicle with it, I'm not sure I'd pay more for it, but damn is it a nice feature to have.

The thing is, at one point power steering was probably looked at like this, or ABS brakes. I could even make the claim about a radio--I can sing to myself, or bring a transistor! True, but I'll stick with the one in the dashboard.


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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #9 on: October 21, 2015, 04:54:13 PM »
I'm researching used minivans, roughly 2005 model year or older.  And I am amazed at what options I am seeing on some of these vehicles. 

For example, a 2005 Toyota Sienna LE.  Standard with cruise control, comfy cloth seats, decent stereo system with multiple speakers, roof rack.  Lap of luxury, no?  Apparently not!  Because the 2005 Toyota Sienna XLE Ltd.  comes standard with heated, incredibly adjustable front seats, leather seating, climate control for all three rows of seats, power sliding doors & hatch, front & rear parking sonar...the list goes on and on.  I look at the list of features and think, my gosh, this was designed for the laziest person in the world.  Possibly someone who enjoys the feeling of their muscles atrophying.  I don't need half of these "features".  In fact, I don't need *any* of these features.  Does the vehicle have seating?  Does the steering wheel actually turn the wheels?  Does the engine run?  Are the sides, roof, and floor lacking in holes?  Good enough for me!  My first vehicle (83 Ford Ranger) had power nothing, no a/c, the cheapest radio imaginable, plastic seats (fun in summer!), and I loved it.

So...am I looking at this the wrong way?  Can anyone come up with a justification for all of these expensive, fancy-pants additions to a tool that just needs to get you from point A to point B?

Depending on one's priorities, some options are going to make sense to a particular individual.  "Options" that make sense to me include a/c, power steering, power brakes, a decent radio/speakers system, reliable heat, and as many gauges as I can manage. (Idiot lights are for... well, you know.)  But these options don't translate necessarily to fancy-pants vehicle choices.

I drive a 1996 Dodge Dakota.  My wife drives a 1998 Subaru Forester.  We've got all the options we consider important.  And very low overall vehicle costs.

Dr. Pepper

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #10 on: October 21, 2015, 05:31:27 PM »
Why not just get an old Astro van? Should be fairly low on features if that's what your after. To answer your question the reason all those features exist is competition and consumer demand. Some people spend a significant part of their day in the car, some of that stuff can make the day less painful. I've been at both extremes, earlier in life I had a junk car that had a blown engine, which I bought cheap 200$ and replaced the engine myself, sourced from a junkyard and drove it for 4 years until it got totaled. I took the engine out bought another shell for 500$ and kept on going.  You can get extremely cheap transportation if you know how to fix things. On the other hand now that I'm older with kids and have a career I put more of a premium on reliability, safety and convenience then I did before and I'm willing and able to pay for it.

jaye_p

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #11 on: October 21, 2015, 05:39:45 PM »
Dr. Pepper,

There is a nice '02 Chevy Astro I have my eye on.  1 owner, under $4k, 150,000 miles.

Argyle

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #12 on: October 21, 2015, 07:05:31 PM »
Keyless entry can be great until you lose the key.  I gather you can order one off eBay, if you don't mind waiting till it comes, and reprogram it for something like $15.  The dealer is going to want around $200 to give you a new one.  However, I made a few copies of my regular old metal key for $1.50 each at the hardware store, and it took about ten minutes.   I'd bet regular keys don't stop working as often as the keyless ones do either.  True, you can unlock your car from a distance.  But you're about to walk up to your car anyway, aren't you?  So it's not as if you can't do it when you get to the door.

My son actually complains about manually rolling up the windows.  "It's too hard!"  I say, "This is the very definition of a complainypants first-world problem."  But in his friend's car, the automatic window stopped working, so now that window doesn't roll down at all. I guess with the application of a lot of money, it would work again.

I think probably all the fancy stuff on cars is great for the first five years of the car's life, and probably fine for the next five years.  If you're going full mustachian, though, you're thinking about the ten years after that.  My very basic car, with its hand-rolled windows and locks that you have to use a key on, is 21 years old, 70,000 miles, and nothing has gone wrong on it yet.  I imagine that could well be the case for the next 21 years too.

nereo

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #13 on: October 21, 2015, 07:39:27 PM »
nereo,

"Mexico" as in, I should live there?  Or I should go there to find a vehicle?  : )

as in - if you really want a car made within the last 10 years without any of the now-standard luxury features, Mexico is your best bet.
As I alluded to above, the US is unique in that the 'base' model sold here almost always has power windows, power doors, air conditioning, etc.
The exact same model is often sold in other countries with a 'base' trim that has hand-crank windows and no lights under the sun visor. The car manufacturers have looked at the market and concluded they simply can't sell cars in the US unless they have a LOT of what are considered options in other countries.  Even in the UK most budget models come with fewer standard features.

So - if you really want a car with fewer frills that might break and be costly to fix - look for a car in Mexico :-)  You'll pay import charges but given the number of people who do this in San Diego it has to be worth it at least some of the time...

jaye_p

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #14 on: October 21, 2015, 07:45:03 PM »
Argyle - exactly!  I've been driving my '99 Bug with the valet key, since the original owner had lost one of the owner keyless entry keys.  The remaining key broke years ago, and it costs at least $300 to replace.   I will not pay that much money for a stupid key.  And the automatic windows are starting to malfunction.  Soon I won't be able to lower them (or, possibly, raise them again once lowered).  It will be exciting to see which occurs.

On a side note - to go truly old-school - our neighbor is looking to sell his '94 Ford E150 for $500.  It needs some work (radiator, possibly, and the broken 3rd seat/convertible bed needs to be replaced), but has low mileage (125 K).  Is it just me, or does fixing it up sound like a very Mustachian project?  Or am I crazy to even think about it?

Daisy

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #15 on: October 21, 2015, 08:38:33 PM »
Keyless entry can be great until you lose the key. 

I accidentally locked my "smart" key in the car recently. How did this happen? I went to the grocery store after working out at the gym so had no pockets in my pants and kept the key in my "other" woman specific pocket that comes standard with women (hint...a nice snug place between two larger protrusions on the upper body). It's usually a great place to store a small key when going into the store. Well I came back to the car and took the key out of my "pocket" and placed the key on the ground of the trunk while I placed the grocery bags in the trunk. I guess I had only unlocked the trunk door of my hatchback and not the whole car. I forgot I had left the key in the car and closed the trunk.

My "smart" key/car was too smart for me. It only lets you open the trunk once. Once you close it, it automatically locks again. So now my key was in the car and I had no way to get it. If this was an old school car with a regular key and not everything automated, I'd just open the trunk again and get the key out.

Instead, I had to go back into the store (because I had left my cell phone in the car as well) and call a locksmith. I got charged about $200 for the locksmith to come, get into my front door and unlock the car and trunk, and I got my key back. But it gets better...the car/key is so smart that it now wouldn't allow me to start the car with the key until I did something funky like having to take it out of the car first and (can't remember exactly the steps) I think the locksmith had to call in some code or something because the car was too smart to detect a key had been locked in so now needed to be reset.

Argh...

paddedhat

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #16 on: October 22, 2015, 03:19:08 AM »
It's easy to see both sides of this, but remember a lot of choices have been taken away based on the economic and regulatory realities. When it comes to comparing vehicles from "back in the day", or offerings in other countries, current North American "stripped" vehicles end up dealing with huge pressure from ever climbing fuel economy requirements, and customer demands. If you follow online bitching, you would assume that there is a great demand for manual transmissions, yet most product lines don't offer one for two reasons. First the REAL percentage of buyers who actually want one, and will step up and buy it, is so small that offering a manual transmission really isn't worth the hassle of engineering, tooling, production costs, and certification. Second, using CVTs and 8 or 9 speed automatics, fuel economy and emissions are actual better than with a manual trans. Other items like manual steering, or windows, are not going to happen for several reasons including a total lack of demand or weight considerations.

OTOH, the OP is correct, there is a ton of needless crap out there, but as a group of outliers, shopping for used products, sometimes it comes down to , "it is what it is". For many years I towed travel trailers and needed a larger SUV to do the job. Several times I bought older Tahoes and Suburbans. The odd part was that it was easier to find ridiculously loaded rigs for a good price, than more basic models. After a few years I just gave up worry about all the silly whistles and bells. For the most all the silly toys seemed to be durable and trouble free, and often if they failed, it just defaulted to being a usable, but less luxurious item. The seat warmer doesn't work anymore....... no worries.

mtn

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2015, 07:48:00 AM »
It's easy to see both sides of this, but remember a lot of choices have been taken away based on the economic and regulatory realities. When it comes to comparing vehicles from "back in the day", or offerings in other countries, current North American "stripped" vehicles end up dealing with huge pressure from ever climbing fuel economy requirements, and customer demands. If you follow online bitching, you would assume that there is a great demand for manual transmissions, yet most product lines don't offer one for two reasons. First the REAL percentage of buyers who actually want one, and will step up and buy it, is so small that offering a manual transmission really isn't worth the hassle of engineering, tooling, production costs, and certification. Second, using CVTs and 8 or 9 speed automatics, fuel economy and emissions are actual better than with a manual trans. Other items like manual steering, or windows, are not going to happen for several reasons including a total lack of demand or weight considerations.

OTOH, the OP is correct, there is a ton of needless crap out there, but as a group of outliers, shopping for used products, sometimes it comes down to , "it is what it is". For many years I towed travel trailers and needed a larger SUV to do the job. Several times I bought older Tahoes and Suburbans. The odd part was that it was easier to find ridiculously loaded rigs for a good price, than more basic models. After a few years I just gave up worry about all the silly whistles and bells. For the most all the silly toys seemed to be durable and trouble free, and often if they failed, it just defaulted to being a usable, but less luxurious item. The seat warmer doesn't work anymore....... no worries.

Seat warmer is probably just a wire that is loose--I personally love those things.

FatCat

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2015, 08:13:22 AM »
Features that used to be considered luxury features become standard features over time. Eventually today's new luxury features will become the standard. I'm not going to pay extra up front for a car because it has some unnecessary luxury feature, but when I eventually end up owning a used car with that feature I'm going to enjoy the perk. I don't dislike a vehicle because it has more luxury features than I require to be satisfied.

big_slacker

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #19 on: October 22, 2015, 10:15:28 AM »
I challenge you to find any new 2016 for sale in the US that doesn't have at least three of the following: air conditioning, power windows, remote door locks, a 4+ speaker stereo system that can hook up to your phone/iPod, a spare tire + tire jack, cruise control.

our "strippies" are luxury trim lines in other countries.

Easy, base model Jeep Wrangler. Mine has roll down windows, crappy stereo (does have 4 speakers though), no power locks. AC was an option. And yes, it's a manual transmission. :D

nereo

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #20 on: October 22, 2015, 10:46:22 AM »
I challenge you to find any new 2016 for sale in the US that doesn't have at least three of the following: air conditioning, power windows, remote door locks, a 4+ speaker stereo system that can hook up to your phone/iPod, a spare tire + tire jack, cruise control.

our "strippies" are luxury trim lines in other countries.

Easy, base model Jeep Wrangler. Mine has roll down windows, crappy stereo (does have 4 speakers though), no power locks. AC was an option. And yes, it's a manual transmission. :D

Bonus point goes to you, big_slacker!

takeahike

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #21 on: October 22, 2015, 11:05:51 AM »
The nice thing about buying used is.. you don't have to pay all of the markup for those luxury features. I just bought a 5 year-old vehicle that is dripping with extras.

zephyr911

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Re: Am I looking at this the wrong way? (vehicular decadence)
« Reply #22 on: October 22, 2015, 11:30:00 AM »
Yeah, mostly exploding-volcano-of-waste shit there.

One small caveat: as an EV guy, I'm all for heated seats, since (unlike ICE cars) they don't have waste heat to warm the car and cabin heating can dramatically increase battery usage per mile.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!