AUTO BUYING ADVICE REQUEST

[Pat]

5 string, I too enjoy exaggeration. I was passenger in a nearly parked Yugo that wa hit by a bicycle doing about 20mph. Really messed up the forks, front wheel, and rider but hardly scratched the Yugo. Impact was mainly front left wheel with bike and fender for rider. Incidently, rider was riding on the street and some Navy personnel wearing reflective vests and displaying a stop sign were standing in the middle of the street to stop traffic so we could leave the Government installation safely. The clever cyclist went up on the curb to "pretend" he was pedestrian (20 mph, head down, pumping for all he was worth (emphasis on head down). The cyclist tried to get the Yugo driver to pay for his damages and "injuries."

Kelley BB said it as well when I compared resale values of KIA and Subaru.

I've at least temporarily removed KIA from list of candidates and added the GMC Envoy (a much nicer transformer toy than the Avalanche.

Pat

[Pat]

John III, After Oklahoma City the nearest large metro area is Dallas-Ft. Worth. Tulsa, OK is a possibility. Other states are really quite a drive.

Pat

[fivestring]

<font color="blue">"I too enjoy exaggeration" </font color>

No exaggeration, just statement of fact.
I've worked wrecks for almost 23 years now. I know which vehicles hold up and which ones don't. I get to see first-hand the results of these collisions. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
It would surprise Ford owners to know that I have worked more front-end collisions where the airbags did N O T deploy than when the airbags did deploy. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
We're talking H E A V Y front-end damage, not a little tap. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
Again, they could not pay me to own a KIA.
Another good guage on which cars hold up is to call your insurance agent and find out how much the insurance premiums are, frequency of repair, average amount of repair, etc. This would also surprise a lot of folks.

[Chillimau]

What about a Honda CRV?

[fivestring]

The one wreck I saw involving one, it held up fairly well. The avg. cost of repair is a little high, though.

On a similar subject, but in a slightly different direction, any experience or oppinions on the Chrysler Pacifica? I've been looking at them for the past month... [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
Sorry if I'm off track from the original post. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[AndyF]

My Mother in Law and Sister in Law both have Subarus and like them alot. One has ~150K and needed engine work at about 120K. The other is around 50K and no problems so far. Both have been real good performers. Good in snow and comfortable for longer trips.

[Pat]

5 string, It is a great service that you perform by sharing your experience with us. The potential exaggeration I referred to was about the bicycle, hence the personal experience I related.

I don’t take safety lightly and wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t been a voluntary seatbelt wearer in 1963. I get seriously mad when there are situations like the great GMC scandal regarding gas tanks external to the truck frame where GMC decided it was in their monetary interest to leave the design and defend the court cases rather than fix the design.

Consumer’s Union is a well respected champion of real auto safety and through their magazine, “Consumer’s Reports” tell it like it is and end up having to defend suits from roll over prone car/SUV makers and stuff like that. I don’t recall them complaining about crash worthiness of the current KIA models, including their SUV.

I am curious regarding the current advertising campaign where a KIA vehicle is touted as having a 5 star rating in US Government safety tests. I rather doubt the claim is bogus so this leaves us limited alternatives such as the new KIA vehicles are improved considerably since the models with which you have experience, the Government tests are bogus/inapplicable, or something else but what?

Given your on-site evaluation of so many crashes, have you formed an opinion regarding the applicability of Government crash tests? I look at EPA mileage estimates and realize they are not necessarily good predictors of your mileage but I do believe they are a reasonable basis for comparison between different cars. It is like a set of bathroom scales that are off, they still show heavier folks as heavier and the differences are pretty close, just the absolute value is in error. I had thought that crash tests might be like that as well. Maybe not perfect predictors of real world situations such as you experience but cars ranked better (more stars) in various tests would be better than poorer ranked cars. What is your take on this? Do you think, based on your real world observations, that the tests are meaningless for comparing the safety of different cars?

This is not a “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech in favor of KIA. I have just about decided on a Subaru Forester. I would like to see the data on the Jeep Liberty with Mercedes diesel engine before making a final decision.

Again, thanks for sharing your experience with us. I look forward to your response.

Pat

[Pat]

Andy, What years/models do they have. I am pretty well sold on the Subaru but want to see the data on the Jeep LIberty with diesel engine before the final decision.

Pat

[bgott]

I worked with a guy in Florida that had a new Yugo. Three of us two hundred pounders crawled in to it to go to lunch and when he drove out the driveway pulling out into the street the windshield tweeked and cracked. He was just above idle when it happened. After he had it fixed he wouldn't let anybody ride in the car with him. The Yugo was a Fiat built under license so you know it was doomed from the start to be a POS. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]