My uncle had one of the small ones when he passed. Perfect size for a single guy with grown kids (or at the time for me, single with no kids), but the turning was absolute trash in that thing.
Mine was a certified death trap with no airbags (a 94') and I paid way too much to repair all the issues with it. But it did me well in bad weather, moving, and all the traveling I had done.
https://youtu.be/HMJsM--jmRA?si=w-ksGmsb3lx4FCHf
I'm on mobile so formatting is weird, but small trucks like that exist and it's because of a stupid tax on imports.
There’s even smaller ones (with admittedly no safety standards and ~50HP engines). You can import up to ‘99 legally and I’ve imported and sold a few.
Costs 2-5k to get one depending on year and mileage and can easily sell them for 8-10k, just have to be patient.
Kei Trucks- check em out!
For the vast majority of people it makes far more sense to just rent a truck on the few occassions you need one. Home Depot has them readily available.
My problem with the maverick is that it has less storage capacity than the old rangers. Yea it's close to the same size but they are only available in 4 door full cabs so you get a 4.5 foot bed. The old rangers had access or single cab options so you could have a 6 or 7 foot bed. The maverick is not the truck to get if you're looking for something to move some plywood around.
And that's because it's the same unibody design as the Escape, with an open cargo area rather than enclosed. It's not body on frame, so they can't just make a single cab version of it like the old Rangers that had one bench seat and a bed.
This. I still have an S10 for times when I need a truck bed. It’s paid off, has low miles, and runs fine.
My friends keep saying it’s old (it’s a 2001) and I should buy a new truck. No sorry I don’t want a $50,000+ lifted monstrosity. If there were small/mid-size pickups brought back into the market, sure thing.
> My friends keep saying it’s old (it’s a 2001)
I am farmer using a mid 2000s hilux. It still runs fine, maybe has some small issues but it can work at the fields (litterally in the bumpy fields) or haul long distance. A less used 2001 that hasnt gone off road? That's much better, especially if you maintained it properly! Buying new one is wasting money.
PS: Some older farmers have older pickups and they just do the job. In Greece we are mostly small medium farmers, so we dont have the luxury to upgrade our trucks frequently.
If you have an S10 that still runs keep it. I had one in college and drove it till the engine blew, the fatal flaw with most of those. It was a handy vehicle. I could haul as much as these big trucks in the bed but it drove like a car.
They are everywhere here in South Africa. If you're on the highway you can't complete a 100m distance without a ranger or a bmw passing you either your side or oncoming
My Mazda 3 is a dream man. The footprint of a sedan for parking but so much space for camping trips. I'm glad I don't larp and pretend like I need an SUV
I jumped onto the Mazda wagon 6 years ago and have never looked back. That little thing is perfect for my needs and I would only ever buy something like another Mazda or Honda again (or maybe a slightly older Volvo). Great gas mileage for driving in the city. Enough space for just me. Easy as hell to maneuver in tight spaces.
Dont own a mazda, but one of my best customers has an old clapped mazda 3. That thing refuses to die. I honestly love working on it. It's so simple. I can see why you folks love these things.
I’m on my 2nd. Had a Jeep in between for about a year before I got rid of it. This one is now 11+ years old and never had a single mechanical problem. Will be my next car as well (which hopefully is still years away).
I love my Mazda 3 but I miss my Mazda 2. The gas mileage, handling, and size of that car made it so much fun to drive. Sadly someone decided to crash into it and total it, and they don’t make the 2 anymore.
My Camry is approaching 300k miles and it has never had a single major issue. Radiator had a crack in it once but that wasn't that expensive. The transmission has a slight leak I can't pinpoint but in 150k miles it hasn't gotten worse, just flush it and fill it or whatever occasionally for next to nothing. This car is unkillable. My Prius was the same way but once it hit 150-200k the brakes (never needed changing before that) and the battery need to be changed and repair costs for that are cheaper than what it cost to buy my 09 Camry. I'm hoping the proliferation of hybrids and EVs brings down that repair cost because that Prius was my favorite car ever but the mechanic bill was prohibitively expensive for any normal average earner to deal with. I ended up selling it to a local schools automotive program for a few grand for the down payment on my Camry.
Honda and Toyota are perfect cars imo. Relatively cheap, while maintaining reliability. Consistently have made the most reliable engines for like 30 years. Cheap replacement parts. Various trim levels to appeal to a variety of customers.
Yeah, I noticed the same thing too.
If you want a remotely affordable electric sedan then your only real options are second hand Teslas (which are still quite pricey). And I don’t like Teslas because the interior is shite and the build quality is poor (they’ve had loads of QC issues).
I moved to Southeast Asia and now I drive a [Daihatsu Axia](https://www.daihatsu.com/news/2023/20230214-2.html).
US$10K brand new, including taxes and one year full insurance coverage. At this price you'd think that at most one would get some Yugo like deathtrap piece of crap, right? No, it is actually a very nice car, with a 10 year warranty, 50 MPG (that is what I actually get), 6 air bags, leather seats, collision avoidance system, driving assistance system, parking assistance system, traction control, stability control and a bunch of bells and whistles.
Crazy to think that the average car in America costs US$55K.
I spend a disproportionate amount of time telling my friends hatchbacks are the best all-rounder vehicle form factor.
Is it annoying? Probably. Will I stop? No.
Randomly came across a secondhand table, a credenza. I asked the seller to help me load it into my Volt. He didn't think it was gonna fit. It fit.
GM discontinued the Volt in favor of crossovers and half-hearted attempts at crossover EVs. So dumb.
I hate how much of the auto industry decided, “the future of EV is big ass EVs”. Forget range and reliability, must make EVs out of cars that are way bigger than the average driver needs on a regular basis.
This is the US automarket you seem to be describing. Much of the rest of the world has smaller EV's. E.g. [Best selling UK EV's](https://evmagazine.com/top10/top-10-best-selling-evs-in-the-uk).
The stove in the house I rent went bust and the owner didn't want to replace it, he was getting old and about to sell out. I found one on offer up for loke $30. I measured it before we left and whe we got there the guys who were there said the same thing. I just laughed and watched it slide in my matrix.
And man, did they last.
Took so much more punishment than any SUV, and were super cheap and easy to repair and maintain.
(Now I'm getting nostalgic for the fun cars that did everything, cost nothing, and were what everyone I knew owned as their first car. Meanwhile, today I'm paying more for the service on my work vehicle (an SUV) than I paid for any car in my 20s. Damn I miss em)
Depends on the number of kids. I had an Aveo 5 and I fit the kid, dog, and her softball stuff in it no problem
I moved house with it and I got all the big things out of the house in it. The only thing that was too big for it was the couch.
Dude, I totally do the same. Speedy, economical, stylish, comfortable, maneuverable, plenty of seats, usually 4-door, plenty of storage capacity, and popular enough for aftermarket parts. It really is the best all-around vehicle type for general usage.
My favorite car was a Mazda 3 hatchback with a 2.5L. A lot of small cars seem so plastic or underpowered to the point of feeling cheap. That car just felt fun to drive.
I sought out and specifically bought a hatchback Civic. My wife thought I was stupid for insisting on one but changed her mind the first time I loaded it full of stuff.
I would roll up to help move things in my Honda Fit, fold down (or up) thr rear seat and amaze people with how much I could pack inside. I told people it was a microvan.
My previous car was a Chevy Cobalt coupe and I was always super jealous that the tC had a hatchback and the Cobalt didn't. The Cobalt trunk was pretty spacious but the little trunk overhang was so tiny you couldn't put anything particularly big into it.
I now drive a Kia Soul and love it, which I admit sounds crazy, but it's legitimately small. The tC is about a foot longer than the Soul. I've fit a dozen moving boxes, a hand cart, and a passenger into the Soul and also have zero issues parking it in the city
By the time I was ready to buy another car after my Mitsubishi died they weren't making Subaru WRX hatchbacks anymore otherwise that's what I would be driving. We need more station wagon like cars especially sports station wagons.
My manual fiesta sedan holds three people, all our ski equipment, overnight packs, and gets 5L/100km on the highway and is cheap to fill. It's easy to drive in stop and go traffic, drives like a go-kart, is easy to park, and has cheap tires because it only has like 16" rims. It's also fun as hell to take down a back road at speed because it isn't fast enough to get in real trouble. Even though they are less profitable per unit, American manufacturers have their heads way up their asses for not making more cars like this anymore. The push for bigger, heavier vehicles has killed so many people, and obliterated infrastructure in North America.
I remember my pops saying something like that when I got a car with all new tech “just more shit to break”. Now that I’m his age I’m feeling the same way - just give me a stereo and safety features.
Lmao I was just talking to my SO about this the other day; we’re looking at mini-vans and they have all these sensors and all I can think is “great, more shit to fix”, verbatim what my old man said 20 years ago.
Feels bad, man.
I used to feel that about the radio. A couple years ago I got a new car and it came with 6 months of free Sirius. No pre-registration or credit card required. Gave them my old work phone number to avoid them calling.
When 6 months expired I made it a month with AM/FM radio before paying for Sirius subscription. The radio these days is 70% commercials, with the same AC/DC and GnR songs in between… even NPR is doing their pledge drives 10 months out of the year, and the other 2 months it’s all stories about why we’re doomed as a species.
Point is I’m an admitted sucker but I never listen to commercials and the radio stations are excellent.
I’ll never to back to driving anything without CarPlay. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I don’t hear ads unless I’m listening to podcasts, navigation is near-flawless, I have the entire Apple Music library at my fingertips, and it updates with my phone and doesn’t leave me stuck using a UI that was already dated by a decade when it was put into the car.
Manual volume controls, absolutely. But fuck the radio. Radio sucks.
I just use Android Auto to play audiobooks off my phone. I hop in, put my phone in the wireless charger cubby, it auto-connects and resumes the book at a point 5 seconds before I turned off the car to give me a recap. No fuss.
Yeah. It's insane to me That anyone would pay for Sirius when you can Aux to any music you want off your phone. I have thousands of songs on my phone and because a bunch of it is metal every music reccomandation service gives me a bunch of awful grind crap that sounds like someone is puking in the background. And like... I listen to some of that, but I am extremely picky about the stuff I'll put up with.
I just dont understand why Sirius is so expensive. Same with youtube premium. If they were each like 5-7 dollars a month i would get both. But im not paying $ 40 to listen to music in my car for ~30 min/day.
The last car I bought was a Ford. They were trying to sell me a specific extended warranty that only applied to electronics, and their sales pitch was telling me that "we see a lot of problems with those touch screens, and they're really expensive".
First time someone had tried to sell me a third party product by shitting on their own product.
FWIW, there have been zero issues with the Ford Sync 3 system, and I actually really like it.
Fr. Just keep them cheap and simple and they will sell like hot cakes. I don’t need my car to be a Swiss-Army knife that costs an arm and a leg, I just need it to get me to work
Literally a wagon though. The only ones on sale in North America right now are basically the higher-end Volvo and Audi wagons. I’m not even sure if Mercedes and BMW still make theirs available here anymore. Fuck minivans and fuck SUV’s. And stop turning hatchbacks into CUV’s.
There was an electric Focus. It had slightly better than golf cart range unfortunately. And the Fusion hybrid which are impressively difficult to break and IMO pretty nice cars overall.
Same. I love my Fusion hybrid. I get compliments on it all the time. One friend even bought a nearly identical model. The they canned the whole line.
If they make a reasonably-affordable all electric vehicle with decent range and has the shape and styling of a fusion, they would sell a ton. Sure, it wouldn't be the most efficient all electric out there, but it doesn't need to be.
I had a ford fusion rental for a week years and years ago and I still talk about how great it was. I wasn’t in the market for a car but I had planned for it to be my next car purchase until it was discontinued.
I have a 2020 Fusion that I absolutely love. I lucked out at the time the dealership I bought it from was offering interest free loans.
Edit: I don't have a hybrid. I wanted one but unfortunate at the time my kids were still toddlers. The battery in the hybrid I looked at took up too much space in the trunk for me to fit a stroller.
I have a 2014 non-hybrid Fusion with 200K+ miles on it and it’s been amazingly reliable. I’d buy the same, but of course, Ford doesn’t want to sell me a sedan anymore. So at this point I’m holding out for the 2025 Ioniq 5.
I bought my Fusion Hybrid before I could afford it. Almost sold it too, but held out just long enough to get a new job and could pay it off quickly.
I'm more than happy with it, I know it's quirks well enough to not have issues with it. In fact, a friend just bought a brand new Ford Maverick and I spent 10 minutes explaining each of the issues he's going to run into, lol.
To be honest I would stack one against a Camry hybrid any day of the week for overall reliability, fit and finish, and features. It’s a real shame Ford discontinued them. I currently daily drive a 2007 Mustang and it’s been dead nuts reliable since new. Ford knows how to make a great vehicle when they put the effort into it, the sad fact is that they and GM/Stellantis often simply don’t.
I tried the new Ranger. Bouncy bouncy bouncy. My wife is prone to motion sickness. Couldn't even ride in it. I was a sailor, and that truck even annoyed ME.
I want the US automakers to produce a line of trucks like the Japanese mini trucks(electric even better). We live in a major city and don't need to take major highways, I can't fit or justify all these huge trucks, even the "smaller" Tacoma and Ranger are to big to park here. They have a 25 year ban on the Japanese mini for safety issues mean while I pass fleets of street legal golf carts daily on all my local roads that are considerably less safe.
Thank you for sharing my brain.
Think of how many workmen—pool guys, gardeners, building inspectors, surveyors, et al—could use an affordable, highly efficient, simple, super compact pickup truck or panel van with enough decent clearance to hit the trails on the weekend. A place to stash a couple surfboards, some camp gear, or a small motorcycle, nasty wetsuits and dive gear, etc.
All we want is the Toyota Champ. Just give us the Champ and walk away to enjoy your billions.
I so miss my 1994 Toyota pickup truck. It was small, got almost 30mpg, and was so easy to park. After 250,000 miles and plowing snow in the winter, it gave up.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about, the increasing popularity of crossovers is pretty easy to track, and it was a trend that started well before Ford made the decision to kill off the car division.
Trump’s NAFTA spat is probably more directly responsible for the economy sedan disappearing. So much of economy cars are dependent on Mexico and Canada. Think there were even rumors that Ford was planning on next gen cars being made in Mexico back in 2018, but that never materialized because of the ongoing uncertainty over trade regulations.
well they remove them since not enough people are buying them the market in the u.s wants large suv and large trucks because... they think they are safer? or something dumb like that
It doesn’t help that exceptions to fuel economy rules and shit like the chicken tax make large trucks and SUVs way more price-competitive than they should be. Essentially we’re all subsidizing those fuckers
The dealerships are the ones who buy them from the manufacturers, who have no incentive to sell them over larger vehicles... Maybe getting rid of those middle men could put a dent in things.
To further your point, full-size trucks have *much* greater profit margins than entry-level (budget - $20k) small trucks:
>[Chevy’s Silverado, along with the GMC brand’s Sierra truck family are a “major contributor” to GM’s bottom line, said Piszar. And while he wouldn’t offer specific details, analyst Phillippi estimated the average Silverado provides “over $10,000 variable gross profit (while) at the high end, a Silverado High Country or a GMC Sierra Denali can get over $20,000.”](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/chevy-is-working-on-what-could-be-the-first-pickup-to-top-100000.html)
My shop has a Ram 1500 for random shit. I've been using it more recently and finally got used to the size. Hopped into my father's old 90 something F150 and it feels so damn tiny in comparison. I used to think it felt big cause I always owned cars.
I'd seriously consider a small Ford Ranger type truck as my next personal car. I don't need a truck I need to climb to get into
I love my Maverick. I bought it after finally giving up on any company making a 90s size/style Ranger/Tacoma/S10 type truck ever again. Is it EXACTLY what I want in a truck? Nah. But it's pretty damn close. And the 40+ mpg makes up for a lot of what it lacks.
Yeah I love getting better mileage commuting ~15 miles a day in my Maverick than I did in a Corolla, with the added bonus of being able to have the bed for dirty stuff and yard work.
Filling up once a month is a crazy feeling
Then they better get their marketing team to work.
They spent years and years telling us that you should be driving SUVs and pickup trucks to feel cool and important and safe.
They need to flip that to sedans, wagons, smaller crossovers.
Love that in the early 2000s it was “A car? From Ford? They’re a truck company”…and they spent all this money to beat that public image just to turn around and say “lol nah, we’re gonna sell nothing but trucks and SUVs and a Mustang”.
We need to push NHTSA on adaptive headlights. They use cameras and computers to not blind people. Proven fewer accidents too per European insurance data. But NHTSA sat on their ass for 10+ years, now is trying to completely reinvent the wheel by making their regulations completely different than everyone else's regulations.
Young people starting their career need a decent, affordable car. They are the target market for small cars but selling one small car isn't as profitable as selling one large one, so Ford chose the big payday. Ford is overlooking an entire market. Once EV's dominate the new car market, Ford will be left out in the cold.
Might replace my 2013 Fiesta five-speed with a Nissan Versa five-speed because it's one of the last options that hits that econ manual subcompact itch. I'd kill for an updated Fiesta.
I’d fucking love for ford to make smaller cars again. They literally only make suvs, pick ups, and the mustang.
Give us smaller cars. We want them. Badly. Make them electric too. This isn’t hard
Okay, lobby to get rid of the lower emissions standards in large vehicles Mr. CEO. Level the playing field, and we might at least start to have new sedans again.
I just want a two-seater electric car with cargo space for about four bags of groceries, a few dozen miles of range, and a price tag of under $10k. Why is this not available?
Because safety costs money. And like it or not, where you live probably has higher safety standards new vehicles need to comply with…
I think it was Toyota I saw a while back, creating exactly what you’re talking about for other market (I think it was aus). But the only safety aspects they had were a brake pedal and seatbelts. No air bags. No collision sensors. I don’t think they even had a radio.
I feel like responses here are failing to read between the lines a bit.
They reintroduced the ford maverick which is selling at an insane clip. It’s, I believe, the smallest truck on the market. He’s saying this because they’re already trending in that direction.
Reading between the lines, what they are actually saying is "Until Americans fall back in love with small cars, we'll keep making behemoths". The Maverick might be a leading indicator, but as long as aggressive jerks can go out and buy a RAM TRX everyone else has to buy something gigantic just for defensive purposes. It's the prisoner's dilemma played out on our roads.
People online always complain about the lack of small cars but the reality is that you didn't buy them when they were available.
There is absolutely no reason a company would stop making a product category that is selling and making them money.
The government doesn't want our encourage small cars.
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/sustainability/corporate-average-fuel-economy-cafe-standards#:~:text=First%20enacted%20by%20Congress%20in,of%20cars%20and%20light%20trucks.
CAFE encourages trucks instead of cars.
"tying a car model’s efficiency standard to its physical footprint"
Bigger vehicles have even lower standards
“Chicken Tax”
25% tariff on foreign trucks
Section 179
Vehicles over 6000lbs allow businesses a massive tax deduction
NHTSA only looks at vehicle occupant safety and not at pedestrians or other vehicles so according to NHTSA large vehicles are safer.
Government intervention is the reason cars are so big.
They gave up on small cars because of pathetically short-sighted state and federal regulations that were meant to push for more fuel efficiency. You know what's not subject to those regulations? Pickup trucks, and cars that somehow meet the legal definition of a pickup truck.
Stop the BS excuses. Ford chased short term margin by focusing only on the types of vehicles that sell for higher margin like luxury pickups and large SUVs rather than foster the staple sedans which have thinner profit margins.
Federal regulations did not preclude Ford from making sedans which is why many other better run companies still do so.
In fact, automakers that chased profit on high margin vehicles rather than sedans paid companies like Tesla to buy their clean air credits to enable them to not sell decent mpg cars. Ford actually handicaps itself over Japanese car makers here with their own shit choices.
Your politics leave you in a state of ignorance with respect to the actual dynamics in this industry.
Ford does the cycle every 8-10 years. “Oh we’re going broke because we chose to only make trucks and big SUVs” then they make some really shitty cars and say “well people aren’t interested in buying cars” not realizing that yes people are interested in buying cars just not your really shitty ones
Obviously a funny take from Ford to be on this sub, but my 2012 Ford Focus has about 4 recalls for the transmission and related parts like a solenoid. 4 recalls and it wasn't any better than any other econobox sedan in any way.
I really don't want to get back in love with Ford ever again unless they release some affordable fun drivers cars like more ST and RS models
Bring back the actual Ford Rangers that were small, you fucks
God I miss my Ford Ranger. That shit was the perfect size.
My uncle had one of the small ones when he passed. Perfect size for a single guy with grown kids (or at the time for me, single with no kids), but the turning was absolute trash in that thing.
Mine was a certified death trap with no airbags (a 94') and I paid way too much to repair all the issues with it. But it did me well in bad weather, moving, and all the traveling I had done.
Not me being 8 months pregnant and refusing to get rid of my ‘88 Ranger
Smaller Ford Rangers, even somewhat shitty ones, are pretty dang great
https://youtu.be/HMJsM--jmRA?si=w-ksGmsb3lx4FCHf I'm on mobile so formatting is weird, but small trucks like that exist and it's because of a stupid tax on imports.
Import a ford? It's because of emission standards based of the size of the vehicle. A small truck is hard to make fit the requirements.
There’s even smaller ones (with admittedly no safety standards and ~50HP engines). You can import up to ‘99 legally and I’ve imported and sold a few. Costs 2-5k to get one depending on year and mileage and can easily sell them for 8-10k, just have to be patient. Kei Trucks- check em out!
Hell ya! I need a small truck that can move a queen bed or a sheet of plywood. So bullshit I need to buy a giant truck just to move some crap around.
For the vast majority of people it makes far more sense to just rent a truck on the few occassions you need one. Home Depot has them readily available.
Probably 75% of people driving those big ass trucks will never haul anything with them, they just like swinging their dick around.
It's their emotional support vehicle
They made the maverick. It’s affordable, small, and gets good gas mileage.
My problem with the maverick is that it has less storage capacity than the old rangers. Yea it's close to the same size but they are only available in 4 door full cabs so you get a 4.5 foot bed. The old rangers had access or single cab options so you could have a 6 or 7 foot bed. The maverick is not the truck to get if you're looking for something to move some plywood around.
And that's because it's the same unibody design as the Escape, with an open cargo area rather than enclosed. It's not body on frame, so they can't just make a single cab version of it like the old Rangers that had one bench seat and a bed.
They can but it would cost money to develop it.
This. I still have an S10 for times when I need a truck bed. It’s paid off, has low miles, and runs fine. My friends keep saying it’s old (it’s a 2001) and I should buy a new truck. No sorry I don’t want a $50,000+ lifted monstrosity. If there were small/mid-size pickups brought back into the market, sure thing.
> My friends keep saying it’s old (it’s a 2001) I am farmer using a mid 2000s hilux. It still runs fine, maybe has some small issues but it can work at the fields (litterally in the bumpy fields) or haul long distance. A less used 2001 that hasnt gone off road? That's much better, especially if you maintained it properly! Buying new one is wasting money. PS: Some older farmers have older pickups and they just do the job. In Greece we are mostly small medium farmers, so we dont have the luxury to upgrade our trucks frequently.
If you have an S10 that still runs keep it. I had one in college and drove it till the engine blew, the fatal flaw with most of those. It was a handy vehicle. I could haul as much as these big trucks in the bed but it drove like a car.
My grandpa drove his until it was dead dead like how Hank Hill's old truck finally died in King of the Hill
It done got hit by a train?
Come on Chevy, do an S10. I dare you
They are everywhere here in South Africa. If you're on the highway you can't complete a 100m distance without a ranger or a bmw passing you either your side or oncoming
They did-it’s called the Maverick, although it’s not *that* much smaller than the current Ranger.
Exactly
But they are all 4 door and shortbed ... because fuck buying a truck for utility.
A small ford ranger truck would be nice.
So much this. Early 2000’s Ranger with the honeycomb grill was a perfect
Every day i wake up and damn ford to hell that they stopped making small rangers
1. Wake up 2. Brush teeth 3. Damn Ford to hell 4. Make breakfast
I would *love* to buy a new car. Not a truck. Not an SUV. Not a crossover. A car. Too bad Ford doesn't make them anymore, huh?
Yup, so my money goes to the Japanese, who have mostly perfected reasonably size cars.
My Mazda 3 is a dream man. The footprint of a sedan for parking but so much space for camping trips. I'm glad I don't larp and pretend like I need an SUV
Mazda 3 gang
I jumped onto the Mazda wagon 6 years ago and have never looked back. That little thing is perfect for my needs and I would only ever buy something like another Mazda or Honda again (or maybe a slightly older Volvo). Great gas mileage for driving in the city. Enough space for just me. Easy as hell to maneuver in tight spaces.
Dont own a mazda, but one of my best customers has an old clapped mazda 3. That thing refuses to die. I honestly love working on it. It's so simple. I can see why you folks love these things.
I love my Mazda 3! And when I replace it I will just get another Mazda 3
I’m on my 2nd. Had a Jeep in between for about a year before I got rid of it. This one is now 11+ years old and never had a single mechanical problem. Will be my next car as well (which hopefully is still years away).
I love my Mazda 3 but I miss my Mazda 2. The gas mileage, handling, and size of that car made it so much fun to drive. Sadly someone decided to crash into it and total it, and they don’t make the 2 anymore.
I have a Mazda 6 and really love it. There's so much trunk space and it fits the kids' car seats perfectly
My Camry is approaching 300k miles and it has never had a single major issue. Radiator had a crack in it once but that wasn't that expensive. The transmission has a slight leak I can't pinpoint but in 150k miles it hasn't gotten worse, just flush it and fill it or whatever occasionally for next to nothing. This car is unkillable. My Prius was the same way but once it hit 150-200k the brakes (never needed changing before that) and the battery need to be changed and repair costs for that are cheaper than what it cost to buy my 09 Camry. I'm hoping the proliferation of hybrids and EVs brings down that repair cost because that Prius was my favorite car ever but the mechanic bill was prohibitively expensive for any normal average earner to deal with. I ended up selling it to a local schools automotive program for a few grand for the down payment on my Camry.
Honda and Toyota are perfect cars imo. Relatively cheap, while maintaining reliability. Consistently have made the most reliable engines for like 30 years. Cheap replacement parts. Various trim levels to appeal to a variety of customers.
TOYOTA SUPREMACY I WILL HEAR NO WRONG OPINIONS TO THE CONTRARY
I mean Japanese cars are more American-made than Fords are anyway so you should buy them anyway.
I started looking for an electric car a while back and just wanted a simple sedan. Jokes on me, only electric sedans are luxury models.
Yeah, I noticed the same thing too. If you want a remotely affordable electric sedan then your only real options are second hand Teslas (which are still quite pricey). And I don’t like Teslas because the interior is shite and the build quality is poor (they’ve had loads of QC issues).
Well ford still makes them… but they are mostly sold outside of the US. Europe has tons of smaller Fords.
Cool. How about not charge $30,000 for a car that should cost under $20k
But how will the CEO buy a 5th home? Think of the executives! /s
I moved to Southeast Asia and now I drive a [Daihatsu Axia](https://www.daihatsu.com/news/2023/20230214-2.html). US$10K brand new, including taxes and one year full insurance coverage. At this price you'd think that at most one would get some Yugo like deathtrap piece of crap, right? No, it is actually a very nice car, with a 10 year warranty, 50 MPG (that is what I actually get), 6 air bags, leather seats, collision avoidance system, driving assistance system, parking assistance system, traction control, stability control and a bunch of bells and whistles. Crazy to think that the average car in America costs US$55K.
I want one of those! Would be awesome for all my little 10–15 mile round trips!
Damn, I want one of those. I'm getting roughly 28 mpg in my focus. Granted it's a 2012, but still
[удалено]
Tha dislike for hatchbacks in the US always hurt my soul.
I spend a disproportionate amount of time telling my friends hatchbacks are the best all-rounder vehicle form factor. Is it annoying? Probably. Will I stop? No.
I’ve annoyed more than a few friends talking about all the cool hatchbacks they made but didn’t bring to the US. Scirocco anyone?
BMW not selling the M135i hatch in America broke my heart.
I was considering a 1/3 series diesel when I thought we were getting hatches
You're not wrong. Can fit a lot of junk in those trunks, if you know what I mean.
Randomly came across a secondhand table, a credenza. I asked the seller to help me load it into my Volt. He didn't think it was gonna fit. It fit. GM discontinued the Volt in favor of crossovers and half-hearted attempts at crossover EVs. So dumb.
I hate how much of the auto industry decided, “the future of EV is big ass EVs”. Forget range and reliability, must make EVs out of cars that are way bigger than the average driver needs on a regular basis.
This is the US automarket you seem to be describing. Much of the rest of the world has smaller EV's. E.g. [Best selling UK EV's](https://evmagazine.com/top10/top-10-best-selling-evs-in-the-uk).
The stove in the house I rent went bust and the owner didn't want to replace it, he was getting old and about to sell out. I found one on offer up for loke $30. I measured it before we left and whe we got there the guys who were there said the same thing. I just laughed and watched it slide in my matrix.
I’ve never owned a hatchback until now and it’s awesome. I went from 14mpg hemi jeep to 45mpg Prius with 90% of the same hauling capacity.
And man, did they last. Took so much more punishment than any SUV, and were super cheap and easy to repair and maintain. (Now I'm getting nostalgic for the fun cars that did everything, cost nothing, and were what everyone I knew owned as their first car. Meanwhile, today I'm paying more for the service on my work vehicle (an SUV) than I paid for any car in my 20s. Damn I miss em)
The station-wagon is the best but I love me some hatchbacks.
Wagons are for families. Hatches if you aren't transporting kids, imo
Depends on the number of kids. I had an Aveo 5 and I fit the kid, dog, and her softball stuff in it no problem I moved house with it and I got all the big things out of the house in it. The only thing that was too big for it was the couch.
Dude, I totally do the same. Speedy, economical, stylish, comfortable, maneuverable, plenty of seats, usually 4-door, plenty of storage capacity, and popular enough for aftermarket parts. It really is the best all-around vehicle type for general usage.
My favorite car was a Mazda 3 hatchback with a 2.5L. A lot of small cars seem so plastic or underpowered to the point of feeling cheap. That car just felt fun to drive.
Love that car. Problem is it's impossible to find a hatchback like that that's used. People like us keep 'em forever.
I sought out and specifically bought a hatchback Civic. My wife thought I was stupid for insisting on one but changed her mind the first time I loaded it full of stuff.
I would roll up to help move things in my Honda Fit, fold down (or up) thr rear seat and amaze people with how much I could pack inside. I told people it was a microvan.
I've got a hatchback tC and I don't want to go back. The car can park in a postage stamp and carry a ton of stuff
My previous car was a Chevy Cobalt coupe and I was always super jealous that the tC had a hatchback and the Cobalt didn't. The Cobalt trunk was pretty spacious but the little trunk overhang was so tiny you couldn't put anything particularly big into it. I now drive a Kia Soul and love it, which I admit sounds crazy, but it's legitimately small. The tC is about a foot longer than the Soul. I've fit a dozen moving boxes, a hand cart, and a passenger into the Soul and also have zero issues parking it in the city
I have a hatchback Prius and I don’t think I’d ever get something that isn’t a hatchback once this bad boy dies
My GTI is a blast. Super quick, fun to drive, and gets 30+ mpg.
Hot hatches are the coolest vehicles you can buy, change my mind.
Modern small suvs are hatchbacks with the ground clearance of an 80s hatchback. We just don’t like calling them hatchbacks.
By the time I was ready to buy another car after my Mitsubishi died they weren't making Subaru WRX hatchbacks anymore otherwise that's what I would be driving. We need more station wagon like cars especially sports station wagons.
I loved my Fiesta.
It really was great car!
Had a fiesta st, it was awesome.
My manual fiesta sedan holds three people, all our ski equipment, overnight packs, and gets 5L/100km on the highway and is cheap to fill. It's easy to drive in stop and go traffic, drives like a go-kart, is easy to park, and has cheap tires because it only has like 16" rims. It's also fun as hell to take down a back road at speed because it isn't fast enough to get in real trouble. Even though they are less profitable per unit, American manufacturers have their heads way up their asses for not making more cars like this anymore. The push for bigger, heavier vehicles has killed so many people, and obliterated infrastructure in North America.
I drive a 2014 fiesta w 250k miles on it. Still does ~36mpg
Even better, Fiesta ST is a 3 pot.
Supermini's like the Fiesta, Clio, and Polo are just the best. Enough room for your friends and their luggage, and good with fuel.
My first car was a 1981 Escort 4-speed.
I loved my Fiesta. My 2022 Toyota Corolla is nice, but it's just not the same for me.
Bring on an electric Ford Focus and Fusion.
EV that doesn't look like an EV. Ford Focus RS with and EV or hybrid. Print money.
I’d buy EV if it isn’t a smart phone. I just wanna drive to work. I don’t even need power windows my dude.
I remember my pops saying something like that when I got a car with all new tech “just more shit to break”. Now that I’m his age I’m feeling the same way - just give me a stereo and safety features.
Lmao I was just talking to my SO about this the other day; we’re looking at mini-vans and they have all these sensors and all I can think is “great, more shit to fix”, verbatim what my old man said 20 years ago. Feels bad, man.
Give me a fm/am radio with a volume knob, a temperature knob, and a fan strength knob. I’ll take turn signals and headlights too.
I used to feel that about the radio. A couple years ago I got a new car and it came with 6 months of free Sirius. No pre-registration or credit card required. Gave them my old work phone number to avoid them calling. When 6 months expired I made it a month with AM/FM radio before paying for Sirius subscription. The radio these days is 70% commercials, with the same AC/DC and GnR songs in between… even NPR is doing their pledge drives 10 months out of the year, and the other 2 months it’s all stories about why we’re doomed as a species. Point is I’m an admitted sucker but I never listen to commercials and the radio stations are excellent.
I’ll never to back to driving anything without CarPlay. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I don’t hear ads unless I’m listening to podcasts, navigation is near-flawless, I have the entire Apple Music library at my fingertips, and it updates with my phone and doesn’t leave me stuck using a UI that was already dated by a decade when it was put into the car. Manual volume controls, absolutely. But fuck the radio. Radio sucks.
I just use Android Auto to play audiobooks off my phone. I hop in, put my phone in the wireless charger cubby, it auto-connects and resumes the book at a point 5 seconds before I turned off the car to give me a recap. No fuss.
Yeah. It's insane to me That anyone would pay for Sirius when you can Aux to any music you want off your phone. I have thousands of songs on my phone and because a bunch of it is metal every music reccomandation service gives me a bunch of awful grind crap that sounds like someone is puking in the background. And like... I listen to some of that, but I am extremely picky about the stuff I'll put up with.
I just dont understand why Sirius is so expensive. Same with youtube premium. If they were each like 5-7 dollars a month i would get both. But im not paying $ 40 to listen to music in my car for ~30 min/day.
You have to cancel it every year and get the latest deal.
The last car I bought was a Ford. They were trying to sell me a specific extended warranty that only applied to electronics, and their sales pitch was telling me that "we see a lot of problems with those touch screens, and they're really expensive". First time someone had tried to sell me a third party product by shitting on their own product. FWIW, there have been zero issues with the Ford Sync 3 system, and I actually really like it.
Fr. Just keep them cheap and simple and they will sell like hot cakes. I don’t need my car to be a Swiss-Army knife that costs an arm and a leg, I just need it to get me to work
Yes! We need a wagon for the folks, dammit.
Literally a wagon though. The only ones on sale in North America right now are basically the higher-end Volvo and Audi wagons. I’m not even sure if Mercedes and BMW still make theirs available here anymore. Fuck minivans and fuck SUV’s. And stop turning hatchbacks into CUV’s.
There are plenty of EVs and hybrids that don’t ’look like EVs’
A focus RS that uses the electric motor for more zoomies
I’ve been saying that Ford should revive the Thunderbird name and make a nice electric car.
Or come out with a car called the Thundercougarfalconbird.
One word. *Thundercougarfalconbird*
And call it the Thunderbird-E
Absolutely, with some nice T tops
Lightningbird.
I have a mustang and fucking love it. It is the most fun car I have ever driven.
Give me a fucking truck that isn't the same size as a Sherman Battletank
Selling my Chrysler 200 and bought a ‘99 S-10. I hear ya.
There was an electric Focus. It had slightly better than golf cart range unfortunately. And the Fusion hybrid which are impressively difficult to break and IMO pretty nice cars overall.
It’s time Ford did full EV right for both. I have Fusion hybrid and would give good money for a full EV version.
Same. I love my Fusion hybrid. I get compliments on it all the time. One friend even bought a nearly identical model. The they canned the whole line. If they make a reasonably-affordable all electric vehicle with decent range and has the shape and styling of a fusion, they would sell a ton. Sure, it wouldn't be the most efficient all electric out there, but it doesn't need to be.
I had a ford fusion rental for a week years and years ago and I still talk about how great it was. I wasn’t in the market for a car but I had planned for it to be my next car purchase until it was discontinued.
I have a 2020 Fusion that I absolutely love. I lucked out at the time the dealership I bought it from was offering interest free loans. Edit: I don't have a hybrid. I wanted one but unfortunate at the time my kids were still toddlers. The battery in the hybrid I looked at took up too much space in the trunk for me to fit a stroller.
I have a 2014 non-hybrid Fusion with 200K+ miles on it and it’s been amazingly reliable. I’d buy the same, but of course, Ford doesn’t want to sell me a sedan anymore. So at this point I’m holding out for the 2025 Ioniq 5.
I bought my Fusion Hybrid before I could afford it. Almost sold it too, but held out just long enough to get a new job and could pay it off quickly. I'm more than happy with it, I know it's quirks well enough to not have issues with it. In fact, a friend just bought a brand new Ford Maverick and I spent 10 minutes explaining each of the issues he's going to run into, lol.
To be honest I would stack one against a Camry hybrid any day of the week for overall reliability, fit and finish, and features. It’s a real shame Ford discontinued them. I currently daily drive a 2007 Mustang and it’s been dead nuts reliable since new. Ford knows how to make a great vehicle when they put the effort into it, the sad fact is that they and GM/Stellantis often simply don’t.
I just want a little electric 2-door Ranger, man.
Even a small, efficient 4-cyl ranger would be incredible. I can only revive my old early 90's work truck so many times
I tried the new Ranger. Bouncy bouncy bouncy. My wife is prone to motion sickness. Couldn't even ride in it. I was a sailor, and that truck even annoyed ME.
Still love my Fusion hybrid and I still see them everywhere. Crazy they discontinued because it wasn't profitable.
I love how manufacturers remove the option for smaller vehicles then blame the consumer for them not being available.
I want the US automakers to produce a line of trucks like the Japanese mini trucks(electric even better). We live in a major city and don't need to take major highways, I can't fit or justify all these huge trucks, even the "smaller" Tacoma and Ranger are to big to park here. They have a 25 year ban on the Japanese mini for safety issues mean while I pass fleets of street legal golf carts daily on all my local roads that are considerably less safe.
Thank you for sharing my brain. Think of how many workmen—pool guys, gardeners, building inspectors, surveyors, et al—could use an affordable, highly efficient, simple, super compact pickup truck or panel van with enough decent clearance to hit the trails on the weekend. A place to stash a couple surfboards, some camp gear, or a small motorcycle, nasty wetsuits and dive gear, etc. All we want is the Toyota Champ. Just give us the Champ and walk away to enjoy your billions.
I just want a ute. If Subaru brought back the Baja I’d buy it the same day.
For real, I miss normal sized trucks; I just want to pick up some mulch and lumber I don't need my ego massaged.
I so miss my 1994 Toyota pickup truck. It was small, got almost 30mpg, and was so easy to park. After 250,000 miles and plowing snow in the winter, it gave up.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about, the increasing popularity of crossovers is pretty easy to track, and it was a trend that started well before Ford made the decision to kill off the car division. Trump’s NAFTA spat is probably more directly responsible for the economy sedan disappearing. So much of economy cars are dependent on Mexico and Canada. Think there were even rumors that Ford was planning on next gen cars being made in Mexico back in 2018, but that never materialized because of the ongoing uncertainty over trade regulations.
The Fusion was made in Mexico from the outset
US Cities: *Carves up neighborhoods to built interstates* "See, no one likes walkable communities!"
well they remove them since not enough people are buying them the market in the u.s wants large suv and large trucks because... they think they are safer? or something dumb like that
It doesn’t help that exceptions to fuel economy rules and shit like the chicken tax make large trucks and SUVs way more price-competitive than they should be. Essentially we’re all subsidizing those fuckers
We subsidize them via gas price control because gas prices are such a politicized issue.
It’s the low (compared to other 1st world countries) gas tax. CAFE is a blunt weapon to control fuel economy.
The dealerships are the ones who buy them from the manufacturers, who have no incentive to sell them over larger vehicles... Maybe getting rid of those middle men could put a dent in things.
Or just require all manufacturers to take factory orders (yes, even Mazdas from Hiroshima) instead of playing allocation fuck fuck games
Because big vehicles have higher profits... So, blame the consumer for spending more?
To further your point, full-size trucks have *much* greater profit margins than entry-level (budget - $20k) small trucks: >[Chevy’s Silverado, along with the GMC brand’s Sierra truck family are a “major contributor” to GM’s bottom line, said Piszar. And while he wouldn’t offer specific details, analyst Phillippi estimated the average Silverado provides “over $10,000 variable gross profit (while) at the high end, a Silverado High Country or a GMC Sierra Denali can get over $20,000.”](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/chevy-is-working-on-what-could-be-the-first-pickup-to-top-100000.html)
BRING BACK THE FOCUS RS!
And Fiesta ST. The FoST and FiST were awesome, just a shame nobody bought them.
I bought one! I love my FiST.
Yes! I don’t want my ST to be my last. WE LOVE YOUR SMALL CARS FORD! PLEASE BRING THEM BACK. I PROMISE I WILL ONLY EVER BUY FORD.
\*\*points at Chevy Bolt, Tesla Model 3. . . \*\* Then stop trying to make $100k EV monster trucks and get with the program.
Monster trucks with terrible range too.
My shop has a Ram 1500 for random shit. I've been using it more recently and finally got used to the size. Hopped into my father's old 90 something F150 and it feels so damn tiny in comparison. I used to think it felt big cause I always owned cars. I'd seriously consider a small Ford Ranger type truck as my next personal car. I don't need a truck I need to climb to get into
I love my Maverick. I bought it after finally giving up on any company making a 90s size/style Ranger/Tacoma/S10 type truck ever again. Is it EXACTLY what I want in a truck? Nah. But it's pretty damn close. And the 40+ mpg makes up for a lot of what it lacks.
Yeah I love getting better mileage commuting ~15 miles a day in my Maverick than I did in a Corolla, with the added bonus of being able to have the bed for dirty stuff and yard work. Filling up once a month is a crazy feeling
For reference, let me list every coupe and sedan currently under the Ford brand. COUPE: - Mustang - GT (not a street legal vehicle) SEDAN:
A new gt isn’t street legal?
https://www.ford.com/performance/gt/mk-iv/?gnav=header-performance-vhp "This final *track-only* model..." The street legal GT last model year was 2022
Not a car person really but those look* pretty cool
Ford GTs have always been gorgeous and are probably my dream car. They are wildly impractical though
*in the US
I love that the pic is a giant f-150
Then they better get their marketing team to work. They spent years and years telling us that you should be driving SUVs and pickup trucks to feel cool and important and safe. They need to flip that to sedans, wagons, smaller crossovers.
Love that in the early 2000s it was “A car? From Ford? They’re a truck company”…and they spent all this money to beat that public image just to turn around and say “lol nah, we’re gonna sell nothing but trucks and SUVs and a Mustang”.
Please, and also start putting safe halogen headlights back in them. r/fuckyourheadlights
We need to push NHTSA on adaptive headlights. They use cameras and computers to not blind people. Proven fewer accidents too per European insurance data. But NHTSA sat on their ass for 10+ years, now is trying to completely reinvent the wheel by making their regulations completely different than everyone else's regulations.
>They use cameras and computers to not blind people I'm blinded by these daily because the road is bendy.
I'm glad you can see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but I no longer have retinas
Lol, then why is every single ad I ever get from them about buying a truck?
I love my 2018 Ford Fiesta 🤷🏻♂️
Young people starting their career need a decent, affordable car. They are the target market for small cars but selling one small car isn't as profitable as selling one large one, so Ford chose the big payday. Ford is overlooking an entire market. Once EV's dominate the new car market, Ford will be left out in the cold.
As the surviving Hyundai dealers worked out almost 20 years ago, it's more profitable to sell 30 small cars than to sell one large one.
Might replace my 2013 Fiesta five-speed with a Nissan Versa five-speed because it's one of the last options that hits that econ manual subcompact itch. I'd kill for an updated Fiesta.
How about we make them AFFORDABLE FIRST?!
I’d fucking love for ford to make smaller cars again. They literally only make suvs, pick ups, and the mustang. Give us smaller cars. We want them. Badly. Make them electric too. This isn’t hard
Okay, lobby to get rid of the lower emissions standards in large vehicles Mr. CEO. Level the playing field, and we might at least start to have new sedans again.
Ford realizing not everyone wants a huge ass truck that takes up 10 parking spots at Walmart.
I just want a two-seater electric car with cargo space for about four bags of groceries, a few dozen miles of range, and a price tag of under $10k. Why is this not available?
Because safety costs money. And like it or not, where you live probably has higher safety standards new vehicles need to comply with… I think it was Toyota I saw a while back, creating exactly what you’re talking about for other market (I think it was aus). But the only safety aspects they had were a brake pedal and seatbelts. No air bags. No collision sensors. I don’t think they even had a radio.
The US insurance industry steps in and makes cars idiot proof... Well, they try.
Let the car worry about the braking, I'm trying to figure out the center console.
Yeah... It would be nice to see more analog controls again.. the kind that are *over there.. ALL the Time*
China has them but the US has tarrifed them out of our market for now
Bring back the Pinto….the herd needs thinning
I feel like responses here are failing to read between the lines a bit. They reintroduced the ford maverick which is selling at an insane clip. It’s, I believe, the smallest truck on the market. He’s saying this because they’re already trending in that direction.
Reading between the lines, what they are actually saying is "Until Americans fall back in love with small cars, we'll keep making behemoths". The Maverick might be a leading indicator, but as long as aggressive jerks can go out and buy a RAM TRX everyone else has to buy something gigantic just for defensive purposes. It's the prisoner's dilemma played out on our roads.
People online always complain about the lack of small cars but the reality is that you didn't buy them when they were available. There is absolutely no reason a company would stop making a product category that is selling and making them money.
All ford had to do was build a reliable small car. Shit, aside from the crown Vic I cannot think of any of their cars being reliable.
The government doesn't want our encourage small cars. https://www.transportation.gov/mission/sustainability/corporate-average-fuel-economy-cafe-standards#:~:text=First%20enacted%20by%20Congress%20in,of%20cars%20and%20light%20trucks. CAFE encourages trucks instead of cars. "tying a car model’s efficiency standard to its physical footprint" Bigger vehicles have even lower standards “Chicken Tax” 25% tariff on foreign trucks Section 179 Vehicles over 6000lbs allow businesses a massive tax deduction NHTSA only looks at vehicle occupant safety and not at pedestrians or other vehicles so according to NHTSA large vehicles are safer. Government intervention is the reason cars are so big.
They gave up on small cars because of pathetically short-sighted state and federal regulations that were meant to push for more fuel efficiency. You know what's not subject to those regulations? Pickup trucks, and cars that somehow meet the legal definition of a pickup truck.
Stop the BS excuses. Ford chased short term margin by focusing only on the types of vehicles that sell for higher margin like luxury pickups and large SUVs rather than foster the staple sedans which have thinner profit margins. Federal regulations did not preclude Ford from making sedans which is why many other better run companies still do so. In fact, automakers that chased profit on high margin vehicles rather than sedans paid companies like Tesla to buy their clean air credits to enable them to not sell decent mpg cars. Ford actually handicaps itself over Japanese car makers here with their own shit choices. Your politics leave you in a state of ignorance with respect to the actual dynamics in this industry.
Gimme a Focus Hatch and I’ll think about it. 6 speed manual also.
Electric Fiesta. Now. And make an electric, >227” long, Excursion. For the hell of it.
BRING BACK THE ESCORT
Ford does the cycle every 8-10 years. “Oh we’re going broke because we chose to only make trucks and big SUVs” then they make some really shitty cars and say “well people aren’t interested in buying cars” not realizing that yes people are interested in buying cars just not your really shitty ones
I have a Fiesta ST and it’s the funnest car I’ve ever owned.
Make more reliable cars, ford.
Obviously a funny take from Ford to be on this sub, but my 2012 Ford Focus has about 4 recalls for the transmission and related parts like a solenoid. 4 recalls and it wasn't any better than any other econobox sedan in any way. I really don't want to get back in love with Ford ever again unless they release some affordable fun drivers cars like more ST and RS models
So stop making giant-ass trucks too big for our roads, you fucking moron.