What do you drive…

[Gredler]

It's a Taurus. It's just like a Mondeo except it's HUUUUUUUUGE. Absolutely enormous.

Incidenly Taurus sales are down %90 since the 80s and they are canceling the car. Maybe Ford is surprised but I don't see how anyone else could be.

Technically, the Taurus died after the 07' model year but when Alan Mulally took over as CEO he immediately brought the name back and slapped it on the refreshed Ford Five Hundred.  Then Taurus rebooted for 10' and freshened in 12' or 13'.  Taurus was selling like gang busters until the current Fusion went on sale but I have never heard that they had plans to discontinue it (again).

Everyone who gets in my car can't believe it's a taurus, I found out about it while test driving a fusion I was considering buying, when I mentioned to the salesman I was looking for something bigger, he showed me the taurus and I was pretty danm amped. I looked at a lot of the mid sized and full size sedans, I needed something with a trunk so that my hockey gear didn't make my car smell like a locker room, so the range of vehicles I was looking at was fairly specific, but I completely ignored the taurus until then. Like I said, not the most amazing eye catching loveable and crazy to drive vehicle, but for my needs I couldn't be happier

[ginoscope]

I drive a 2003 Honda civic 2 door with like 174k and still going strong.  It's been paid off since '08 so no car payment since then has been nice.  It's getting close to the time that I'm considering getting a new car.  Everyone gives me crap for driving such an old car when I could easily get a new one.

[SignOfZeta]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Taurus

See the section "sales".

Forty thousand sold per year is a total bomb for Ford. They sold 130,000 Fiesta, 200,000 Focus, 400,000 Fusions, and 780,000 F trucks in 2015.

Soon it will only be available in the US as a cop car, which I guess is good because then cops will be easier to see.

But all is not lost for Hockey fans. The "station wagon" was invented ages ago and will haul all your Hockey stuff with ease. I honestly have no idea how big a Hockey bag is or what it looks like but if it fits in the trunk of a Taurus I'm pretty sure it would fit in my girlfriend's Jetta Sportwagon as well. Most wagons are German these days but there are few random ones out there still. Subaru, Mazda, and some others.

[SignOfZeta]

I drive a 2003 Honda civic 2 door with like 174k and still going strong.  It's been paid off since '08 so no car payment since then has been nice.  It's getting close to the time that I'm considering getting a new car.  Everyone gives me crap for driving such an old car when I could easily get a new one.

No new Civic is as good as that one. I say keep it.

[Sadler]

I finally decided to trade in my GTO for a Chevy SS last October. Yeah, it looks like a Malibu, but I'm actually ok with that. It's pretty amazing how much tech has changed in cars in years! A lot of it is cool, but I swear the thing is constantly chiming some alarm or another.



It has a HUD which I'm convinced is the coolest thing I've ever seen. DISCLAIMER: I've never seen a boob, but there's no way it's cooler than this.



I also had a 2004 Grand Cherokee which was awesome in the snow, but not so awesome in a collision with an F150 in a blizzard.



I'm probably going to have to find another 4WD/AWD for the winter, the SS is a lot of fun to drive, but absolutely terrible in any amount of snow.

[Arkhan]

I drive

88 Camry Wagon
86 Corolla 4 Door RetardMobile9000
09 Rav4

I would take pictures but I am lazy.  Go use google.  I'll find pictures later.

Maybe I posted one in here before.

Toyotas rule.

[SignOfZeta]

Sadler: 4WD is a scam. Snow tires will make that car %100 awesome in the winter.

[Sadler]

Sadler: 4WD is a scam. Snow tires will make that car %100 awesome in the winter.

That would certainly be a helluva lot cheaper. School me on this, do people get a second set of rims for snow tires or just haul in the tires to a shop and have them switch them out for winter/summer? I've lived in CO most of my life, but I've never actually had snow tires.

[Arkhan]

Sadler: 4WD is a scam. Snow tires will make that car %100 awesome in the winter.

That would certainly be a helluva lot cheaper. School me on this, do people get a second set of rims for snow tires or just haul in the tires to a shop and have them switch them out for winter/summer? I've lived in CO most of my life, but I've never actually had snow tires.

In Ohio, we just use Snow Tires all year round because Cleveland gets snow in f*cking May, sometimes June, probably August.

lol.

It depends how cheap you are.  Some people don't want to buy rims/f*ck around, so they go to a shop and swap them.

People who know how to work a jack and turn a thing in circles until the tire falls off tend to get another set of rims.  It pays for itself after like, 1 year of swapping?

[SignOfZeta]

Sadler: 4WD is a scam. Snow tires will make that car %100 awesome in the winter.

That would certainly be a helluva lot cheaper. School me on this, do people get a second set of rims for snow tires or just haul in the tires to a shop and have them switch them out for winter/summer? I've lived in CO most of my life, but I've never actually had snow tires.

The most straightforward way of doing this is to go to a place like Tire Rack and just have them mail you mounted and ballenced winter wheels on cheap steelies. It's about a grand or less for most cars.

For my Sportwagon I got Blizzack LMs because my girlfriend doesn't slow down. The 2014 VWs use wheels speed sensor data for TPMS so they are conventional rims with no sensors. It was about $850. I don't know if the SS uses sensors or not. If it does figure another $150-300.

For the Fit I'm actually using a set that was originally for my Miata, the Blizack WS, which is significantly better on truely terrible roads but very soft and kinda overkill for most of the US where roads are extremely well maintained in the winter. This was about $700. Sadly the Fit does need TPMS sensors and obviously the Miata wheels didn't have them so I had the light on all winter and couldn't turn off the traction control.

I would not recommend actually getting the tires remounted every year but that is an option. I tend to avoid ever having another person touch my car stuff so having separate wheels works out a lot better for me since I can swap wheels at home but I don't have any tire equipment. Also, every time you mount a tire you risk damaging the tire or the wheel. Steelies are $40-60 a piece, meaning after a year or two they'll pay for themselves in what they save you in remounting.

[Sadler]

Awesome, thanks guys! I'll give snow tires a shot this year.

[Necromancer]

+1 on getting snowshoes.  I run a set of Blizzaks on steel wheels, and they let me get around just fine in the slick stuff.  As expected, they're pretty crap on wet or dry pavement compared to a summer only tire, and they obviously ain't gonna help if you have deep snow problems and get high centered.  If I had to do it over again, though, I'd have paid a little extra for decent looking alloy wheels.  Do they even make steelies big enough to fit over the big ass brakes on many cars nowadays?

Zeta's prices might work for whatever fits a Fit or Jetta, but expect something closer to $2k for your SS for wheels, tires, and sensors.  Whatever you do, don't remount annually; unless you drive a lot of miles and wear out the tires quickly, you'll end up ruining the bead long before the tread is gone.

It has a HUD which I'm convinced is the coolest thing I've ever seen.

My aunt's Buick Regal had that.... in '96.  The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

[SignOfZeta]

GM started doing what with Pontiacs in the late 80s. They have to discontinue it and bring it back once in a while  otherwise nobody would be impressed.

I just checked some prices and yeah, the macho sized tires of the SS make for macho sized tire bills. Well over $200 per tire whereas the 14" Blizack WSs on my Fit were like $80 when I got them, I think about $125 for the 17"s on the VW. You really pay for those big wheels. I can't imagine what a decent set of UHPs must cost.

Steelies are still cheap, and yeah they make them in every size. However, at least currently, they don't offer them at Tire Rack so the cheapest alloys they have are $140 in that size.

So it's $1800 for a package and that's only because Blizzack LMs are on clearance. f*cking A that's expensive. It'll be $1000 for almost anything decent tire-wise with that car without wheels even.

So instead of snow tires, park that f*cker, buy a five year old Cobalt and get snow tires for that. It would be cheaper.

[Desh]

I have owned a crap ton of cars over the years.  The current driveway features:

My 95' Taurus SHO.  It's the 10th SHO I've owned including parts cars.  It's been great considering I paid $1200 for it about 6 years ago.  Nothing fancy just some suspension mods, bigger brakes and a little exhaust work.



Recently purchased this 03' Yukon for the wife to drive as the new family hauler.  Was looking for something new but, it was so clean and the price was too good to pass up (I don't like car payments).


I can't find a picture but also have an 09' Pontiac Vibe GT.  Sold my Impala SS to buy it for the wife when we were expecting our first child.  Since we got the Yukon and I obtained a new job the Vibe has become my daily and it's definitely not my style.  I'm planning to sell it and the SHO soon and look for a clean early to mid 2000's GM W-body with a supercharged 3.8 like my old GTP.

[Gredler]

But all is not lost for Hockey fans. The "station wagon" was invented ages ago and will haul all your Hockey stuff with ease. I honestly have no idea how big a Hockey bag is or what it looks like but if it fits in the trunk of a Taurus I'm pretty sure it would fit in my girlfriend's Jetta Sportwagon as well. Most wagons are German these days but there are few random ones out there still. Subaru, Mazda, and some others.

You must've glazed over one of my points in picking this car,

I looked at a lot of the mid sized and full size sedans, I needed something with a trunk so that my hockey gear didn't make my car smell like a locker room, so the range of vehicles I was looking at was fairly specific, but I completely ignored the taurus until then.

Station wagons are great, that's what I had in high school through college until a little under two years ago when I got this car (from a volvo 740L to the mazda protoge 5, which was basically  what is now the mazda 3) But if you don't know what a hockey bag looks like, you sure as shit don't know what it smells like. 7 years old, 100's of hours of use, leather which is unwashable outside of hand scrubbing but can never get all creases and fold cleaned. Imagine the smelliest shit in the world, and double it. It was myth busted as the smelliest sport, and often comes up as tops of the worst smelling sports. So much equipment, so hard to keep clean. It doesn't bother me so much, 22 years of having it all over my body and in my face has made me more than acclimated to the oder, but guests in my cars have always made comments and been very uncomfortable because of the crazy smell. I think at every job I've driven people to lunch once... once. So yeah, I needed a car with a huge trunk that is in a separate compartment from the cab, no more hatch backs here, that's a thing of the past for me.

With the death of the Taurus line another full size sedan will spring up. I would've rather gotten the Hyundai Genesis but it was 2x as much, or I would've had to gotten a 5 year older model to stay within the same budget. I'm sure I'll have large car/trunk options in the future - us "hockey fans" aren't going anywhere and purchase vehicles too


In case you're wondering why I have to have my gear, I almost always play after work, so I have to pack my equipment in the morning, put it in my vehicle and drive to work, then go to the rink on my way home. When I was playing every day of the week the gear never would have a chance to completely dry, so on hot days I'd come out to my car and the windows would be fogged/steamed with condensation from my gear, guests love that