The Automotive Thread

[Supe]

I just saw a white one with bright red mudflaps, is that a premium feature?

I think windshield wipers these days are a premium feature...

 

[wilheldp_PE]

 

[envirotex]

^^^^

 

[P-E]

Pretty sweet

 

[matt267 PE]

Nice

 

[MA_PE]

Nice.  Good luck with it!

 

[Road Guy]

well that's one way to make the middle east a little less relevant!

be curious to see how you like the ride and how far you can go and such!

 

[jeb6294]

They only had black, and I don't want another black car.  Told them to call me when a base model white or charcoal show up.

When I got my Jeep, I knew I didn't want black, but other than that I wasn't too worried about the color. I ended up with a yellow one which, surprisingly, has been the best color on any car I've had.  Did a pretty good job hiding dirt and scratches.

 

[MetsFan]

My coworker bought a new wrangler a couple of weeks ago. He added a back up camera a week ago and did this to another coworker's car. We all made fun of him for it.

 

[Road Guy]

^- Mercury Sable?  I had the displeasure to drive one of those for about a year (thank god someone hit it and totaled it!)

 

[jeb6294]

We did our "camping" vacation last week. Not ours...we found a place that rents one. Trailer was 37' weighing in at about 8,000lb plus whatever all our crap weighed. The truck was a monster. It almost towed it too well. There were a couple times on the interstate when I looked down and realized that we were cruising along doing 80mph. I'm sure we pissed of a few ricers when they got passed by this setup.

 

[Road Guy]

I think renting those is the best way to go, We really want to rent one and take a few weeks and hit up the Badlands, Glacier NP and some other places in Montana, Idaho, etc. I just cant see using one that much to justify buying one.  I would feel like I had to use it all the time....

The area just west of Yellowstone is serious "grizzly" territory and you can only camp there with "hard shell" RV (no tents, pop ups, etc) but the scenery is amazing and there is very little people there..

 

[MetsFan]

^- Mercury Sable?  I had the displeasure to drive one of those for about a year (thank god someone hit it and totaled it!)

Oh yeah, it does look like one doesn't it?  It's actually a Buick though... Riviera or something.

 

[knight1fox3]

Awesome! Let us know how you like it.

^- Mercury Sable?  I had the displeasure to drive one of those for about a year (thank god someone hit it and totaled it!)

LOL, I drove one of those damn things for like (3) years until I was finally able to upgrade to the Infiniti G35.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

be curious to see how you like the ride and how far you can go and such!

Awesome! Let us know how you like it.

The ride is awesome.  It has a very nice, luxury-type suspension.  The only noise you get from the car is road/wind noise, the A/C compressor when it is running hard,  and the occasional high-pitched whine from the front motor during hard acceleration.  I scared the crap out of some people in parking lots because below 25 mph, the car is silent (no road noise).

As for range, I drove it home from the Tesla Store in Cincinnati (118 miles) and still had 70 miles of range left.  I was accelerating hard at various points during the trip home, and it is a pretty hilly stretch of interstate, so 188 miles of range is pretty reasonable.  The EPA rated range for the battery pack is 218 miles, and it is based on 300 Wh/mile with neutral wind, level ground, and no accessory use (i.e., no A/C).  I found that when I don't do launches (0-60 tests) and use re-gen braking to slow down, it is fairly easy to maintain 270 Wh/mile usage.  But I was giving some test rides to people this weekend, and those were averaging over 400 Wh/mile.

There are Superchargers placed roughly every 150 miles along major interstates, so there really isn't anywhere I want to go that I can't get to in this car.  With larger batteries, it is possible to skip some of the Superchargers along the way and the stops are shorter because you require less charge at each stop.  But since I saved $8500 by getting the smallest battery, I would have to stop at each Supercharger for probably 30 minutes to an hour along the way.  When you take into account gas stops, food stops, and bathroom breaks in a conventional car, Tesla owners are reporting a < 1 hour difference in most road trips between gas cars and Teslas.

 

[Flyer_PE]

I think renting those is the best way to go, We really want to rent one and take a few weeks and hit up the Badlands, Glacier NP and some other places in Montana, Idaho, etc. I just cant see using one that much to justify buying one.  I would feel like I had to use it all the time....

The area just west of Yellowstone is serious "grizzly" territory and you can only camp there with "hard shell" RV (no tents, pop ups, etc) but the scenery is amazing and there is very little people there..

I'm picking up the rental for Airventure today.  For us, it's a far better deal to rent rather than own.  Cost is around $1000 for the week but I get a new one every year and I don't have to do any regular maintenance, pay license fees, or store the damn thing.

 

[Supe]

$1000/wk isn't bad at all when you consider it costs about the same to rent a minivan from National.

 

[Road Guy]

When we did our Tetons/Yellowstone trip I wish I had rented one,but the wife was saying they were closer to $2000/week for the ones you drive?

 

[jeb6294]

I think renting those is the best way to go, We really want to rent one and take a few weeks and hit up the Badlands, Glacier NP and some other places in Montana, Idaho, etc. I just cant see using one that much to justify buying one.  I would feel like I had to use it all the time....

We had to make some last minute changes which resulted in moving around a bit more than I would have liked. Setting up and then breaking down the camper to move three times in one week added a lot of stress. For a while we had been talking about getting a camper of our own so we could do more long weekend trips whenever we wanted, but that went over like fiberglass underwear by the time we got back. There's a huge campground up at St. Mary's where Mrs.-6294 and her family have been going for years with a lot of permanent sites so the talk started moving back to getting something up there. It had come up before but the thought was that it'd be nice to be able to go different places. When we were there last week we did see some nice places for sale and it would be nice to be able to just pack up the car and go. Her parents also started kicking around the idea of getting a new pontoon boat and keeping it docked there if we got a permanent site. You know what they say, the only thing better than having a boat is having a friend who has a boat.

 

[Road Guy]

Was the setup and takedown like in the movie "RV"?

If I did buy one I would really want to get something like this (but not as fancy) when the kids get out of the house.  So many cool places to camp out here , but I just want a decent bed (getting too old to sleep on the ground)  Something I can park in the garage and not pay storage...

There is 4WD trail through Canyon lands in Utah you can drive through and camp along the way that is on my "list"