Oh, and Neal and I are going to I-Conj this weekend. Want to get together for dinner? tinareads at gmail, to let me know. we're leaving tomorrow late morning. We hope to see you!
Joanna and I have been looking at getting a commuter for my use and letting her keep the big blue Taurus for runaround errands (at 92K+ miles we figure that whatever we get will have less mileage on it and therefore be a little more suitable for the miles I will rack up commuting). One of the options in the price range we're looking at turns out to be a Smart car (at the extreme high end of that range, admittedly - but the fuel economy numbers at www.fueleconomy.gov make the total cost of ownership quite attractive; at around $500/annum less in gas costs than, say, a Ford Focus or a Chevy Aero we can maybe justify the additional cost. OTOH, a Yaris is almost as cheap to fuel...)
Anyway, there's a dealership pretty close to us in Edison on Rt 1 (I remember it as a Jaguar dealer), so Joanna and I may make some time to go test drive one.
The question I have for you is - my commute is 30 miles; roughly half of which mileage-wise is I-78, and the rest is stop-and-go surface traffic. I-78 when I'm on it has an average speed of traffic of 75-80 mph; and I-78 is also a breakline in NJ weather - I-78 and points north get rather more snow that US-22 and points south. Any ideas how the Smart will work for that as a daily driver? Also, how important is the power steering (or lack thereof)?
May 26, 2008 9:05 AM
[Image]
Sorry for the bad quality of the photo, but Brian took it with my cell phone. It's stopped raining today, so I'll try to get a better one. I also take no blame for it being parked sideways. Brian did it and it was when I went out to yell at him that he took this photo. It does fit though! (And the black car beside it is our Elantra, so we would have been able to get out had someone parked "behind" bumblebee.) Oh, and for my European visitors who might be a little confused about my needing to "adopt" a Smart, they've only just gone on sale in the US last month. And they had thirty thousand pre-orders for them... They're going to be hard to get for a little while!
"As promised"
4 Comments -
Congratulations on your new arrival.
March 09, 2008 6:25 PM
I cannot even begin to express my jealousy!
March 09, 2008 8:46 PM
Awesome car!
Oh, and Neal and I are going to I-Conj this weekend. Want to get together for dinner? tinareads at gmail, to let me know. we're leaving tomorrow late morning. We hope to see you!
Tina
April 03, 2008 8:53 PM
/me prepares his thread necromancy...
Joanna and I have been looking at getting a commuter for my use and letting her keep the big blue Taurus for runaround errands (at 92K+ miles we figure that whatever we get will have less mileage on it and therefore be a little more suitable for the miles I will rack up commuting). One of the options in the price range we're looking at turns out to be a Smart car (at the extreme high end of that range, admittedly - but the fuel economy numbers at www.fueleconomy.gov make the total cost of ownership quite attractive; at around $500/annum less in gas costs than, say, a Ford Focus or a Chevy Aero we can maybe justify the additional cost. OTOH, a Yaris is almost as cheap to fuel...)
Anyway, there's a dealership pretty close to us in Edison on Rt 1 (I remember it as a Jaguar dealer), so Joanna and I may make some time to go test drive one.
The question I have for you is - my commute is 30 miles; roughly half of which mileage-wise is I-78, and the rest is stop-and-go surface traffic. I-78 when I'm on it has an average speed of traffic of 75-80 mph; and I-78 is also a breakline in NJ weather - I-78 and points north get rather more snow that US-22 and points south. Any ideas how the Smart will work for that as a daily driver? Also, how important is the power steering (or lack thereof)?
May 26, 2008 9:05 AM