I Hate Cars

The little white Subaru that we own will be ten years old later this year. It's a 1995. Interestingly (to me at least), the car that it replaced was a 1985 Subaru that lasted ten years. I bought it used, though, in 1993. It lasted me two years, and in that time I had to replace brakes, two ball joints, and have extensive electical work done. When we got rid of it, it was truly on it's last legs: eating a quart of oil a week, tires ready to fly to pieces, the gear shift bobbed freely up and down, the clutch was going. It was in bad shape.

The current Subaru is still going strong. I've always done the proper maintanence, oil changes, etc., and never had a major problem with it. It's consistently been the most reliable car I've ever owned. We still put around $250-400 a year into it in maintanence costs, but as the conventional wisdom holds, it's better than a car payment.

It also tells me that either Subarus made in 1995 were of siginificantly higher quality than those made in 1985, or that whoever owned that first '85 Subaru that I bought used absolutely beat the hell out of the thing. Either way, I still hate cars. They are money sucking machines. The only real remedy is to have everyone switch to public transportation like good little Europe--- erk. Kidding. The only remedy is to obtain enough money that proper preventative maintanence is truly a trivial cost, even for something like the sweet, sweet BMW Z3.

Happy decade, Barbie Car!