Sunday, December 03, 2006

I'm so ashamed :-(

Utterly impractical. The bottom of the door frame hits me at mid-thigh. The insides has plenty of bare metal, some around the passenger footwell sharp enough to chew up your shoes. While it rides better than the bucking-bronco short wheelbase Wrangler, it's still definitely a truck ride, not a car ride. But it has 30" tires and 10" of ground clearance and says 'Jeep' on the side. I am but a mindless consumerist sheeple buying things I don't need :-(.

-- Badtux the Abashed Penguin

Comments:

Hey, I bought a new CRV last summer because it made no sense to put an iPod adapter in a 7 year old Civic.

Sure it didn't...


Nice Ride.
# posted by NewsBlog 5000 : 3/12/06 1:43 PM  

spanky. spanky. i'll get you to drive me up to big sur next time i get the urge to purge my consumerist urges.
# posted by cookie jill : 3/12/06 2:25 PM  

I love Jeeps! Good buy!
# posted by Ole Blue The Heretic : 3/12/06 2:29 PM  

Look, you could have done worse.
http://www.toyota.com/rav4/

Best of luck with it. Blaze new trails - and come back in one piece.

(Does it have room for a small pizza heater?)
# posted by Lurch : 3/12/06 4:10 PM  

Winch. Macho guys gotta have a winch.
# posted by K. Ron Silkwood : 3/12/06 5:17 PM  

Well, Ron, I think a come-along is gonna have to do when it comes to winching for the moment 'cause cash ain't exactly gonna be in plentiful supply for the next little bit :-(. Come-alongs aren't sexy, but (shrug)...

Nick - it came with a back seat, but I took it out. Not much space back there, and the seat took up much of it.

Lurch, that Rav-4 is the wussiest "SUV" I ever seen. Hell, it's so wussy that even soccer moms are probably ashamed to be seen driving it! Might as well buy a minivan if that's what you're lookin' at... the minivan will be more macho, anyhow :-).

- Badtux the Now-poorer Penguin
# posted by BadTux : 3/12/06 5:21 PM  

Ah...
I die.
("Die a-gain, Mortimer. Die a-gain")
You have my deepest,
deepest sympathies
--ml
Quote from 'Fantastics'
# posted by Martin Langeland : 3/12/06 5:41 PM  

HAH! I knew that was coming! Enjoy!
# posted by moderate : 4/12/06 3:53 AM  

Hell, don't feel too bad. My next car -- if I absolutely have to buy one -- will most likely be something mid-sized that's great on gas. I have no use for a Jeep. Unless I wake up one day and decide I'm George Hayduke of the late Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang, or something like that...
# posted by Mimus Pauly : 4/12/06 5:24 AM  

I am so ashamed of you. May it forever give you problems.
# posted by BBC : 4/12/06 6:21 PM  

Dont worry it will give him plenty of problems. I used to own one and sold it to buy a honda. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the extra day I have every weekend that I'm not working on the jeep. I dont miss it at all. Metric and SAE on one vehicle....there ought to be laws.
# posted by Anonymous : 4/12/06 7:19 PM  

Well, it's not too bad. You certainly could have done worse. But, at least you got something that's a 4 wheel drive. Err, it is a four wheel drive, isn't it? I'd darned well better be!

When you're serious about off roading, you have to have 4 wheel drive, even though you do have a come-a-long. I haven't had anything other than 4 wheel drives in the past 20 years (Ok, so two vehicles.).

Dave
# posted by Anonymous : 4/12/06 7:24 PM  

Yep, if you're going off road, a jeep is the way to go. My dad used to go deer hunting in an AMC Eagle station wagon.

My friends who off road game me crap about my CRV. I told them the furthest I'm going to get it off road is maybe gravel. I needed a vehicle with the little hooks for grocery bags.
# posted by NewsBlog 5000 : 4/12/06 8:36 PM  

If you want an appliance, don't get a Jeep. Get a Toyota. Boring, bland, but will run forever and sip gas while doing so.

But a Toyota that will do what my Wrangler will do out of the box costs twice as much as my Wrangler. I'll put up with a few inconveniences such as having to pack both metric and SAE wrenches (sigh!) in order to get to some of the places I want to go.

Besides, I used to own a Chevy Chevette, which similarly mixed both metric and SAE. I even welded the top of the shock tower back on myself after I hit a big pothole and the top of the shock tower tore off (!!!). Ain't NOOOO way that a Jeep can be worse than that car was -- and it gave me reliable service (well, when I wasn't welding pieces back on :-) for almost a decade, though I did more than my share of things like changing an alternator in the parking lot of an auto parts store 400 miles from home (because I do carry tools with me, y'know?). Especially fun was changing the fan clutch in the parking lot of the pizza place where I worked as a pizza delivery dude after it quit working during my shift -- in the rain, no less! I clocked out, walked across the street to the auto parts store, got the fan clutch, walked back, moved my car so its nose was on the sidewalk under the rain cover, installed it, and clocked back in :-). C'mon, you can't tell me a Jeep is any worse than that?!

-- Badtux the Wrenching Penguin
# posted by BadTux : 5/12/06 12:28 AM  

Aw, BT, they're all just jealous. Course, i am too, but what the hell.

4x4's come in awfully handy at times... like living in Maine or Michigan or somewhere where people don't always know how to drive in the snow (makes it a LOT easier getting out of ditches when some MO-ron's sliding towards you...).

BTW, I'm doing a series on disater preparedness, and steered folks towards your MRE reviews.
# posted by andrew : 5/12/06 9:48 AM  

Yeah, Andrew, I noticed that pointer to my MRE reviews. One of these days I need to finish that series, there's a few more MRE's I've tried since then that are yummy but I haven't reviewed them yet.

As for my Jeep, as you may have figured out, I like wrenching my ride, so I have no problem with the fact that a Jeep isn't Toyota-perfect. But I definitely do *NOT* recommend this car for most people. It's just completely impractical unless you intend to actually *use* its impressive off-road abilities. For example, the back seat in this model is surprisingly comfortable for adults... but to get there, you have to squeeze through a tiny opening between the front seat (flipped forward) and the roll bar. Eeep! Reality is that of course the back seat is gonna get yanked and stored, because it just ain't useful...

- Badtux the Gustatory Penguin
# posted by BadTux : 5/12/06 10:23 AM  

It's not a bad thing. I see penguins driving them all the time down here in florida. I think they come down for a little fun and sun and then head north again.

I think it's actually sold as the First Choice of Most Penguins
# posted by pissed off patricia : 5/12/06 2:34 PM  

I'm not a bit jealous, I haven't owned a 4 wheel drive for years.

I can plow snow just fine with 2 wheel drive.

I can go to death valley with a 2 wheel drive and go most places a 4 wheel drive will go.

And do it a hell of a lot cheaper.

Really Tux, I'm ashamed of you.
# posted by BBC : 5/12/06 6:59 PM  

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