Everything Else

I need a car.. looking for something small and cheep.. and we just bought a car for my wife (mitsubishi eclipse)

I've found a few for sale.. namely 1993 RX7, 2003 MX5 (Mazda) and 1999 Boxster (Porsche).

Apparently the RX7 is too unreliable, the MX5 is too "girly", and the Boxster isn't even a Mazda (I really like Mazda ) is also quite "girly" :/

Then... I found out this old lady. A 1983 RX7. complete with carbureted engine, now power steering or windows, and an automatic transmission (already my wife likes this one more than the others and the car that I have now because they are all 5-speed)

Right now I am driving the blue car in the background but the lease is almost over..

It's also cheap to the point that I don't have to save up or finance it. But it might be expensive in the long run? It will be a project at some point and I've never even seen the inside of an automatic transmission.

Anybody else here even know what a wankel engine is?? The motor is well-maintained despite the trashed interior.. some of the gauges don't work but the idiot lights do.. (I also like pop-up headlights )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5VCqaNc0lQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXgAWM_5Ff0

Take a look at the early boxy cute (1985 - 1989) MR2. They don't come any smaller, 35-40 mpg, prices are low aaaand pop-up headlights !

They're reliable, go good, and handle like a go-kart. They don't need brakes - just let off as you go in and add gas at the apex. My sister had one, left it with me to babysit and I put 2,000 miles on it in a week, they are that fun to drive. She wasn't so happy about that tho ... who looks at the odometer ? Sheesh

Sure I remember the wankster engine... Didn't Mazda use those exclusively back in the day? I don't think they have for a while though. Not sure, never owned one.

I wonder if Wikipedia allows their images to be hot linked, let's try it, the Wankel rotary engine principle:



My place of employ made a fortune off the same concept, in rotary pumps, starting back around a hundred years ago...

You build refrigerators ?

Gleason spent something like two million dollars (that was real money in 1975) building a grinder to profile the chambers in Wankels for GM. Then GM decided the future was not there after all ... one of their better decisions

My RX-7 from a few years ago.



36K miles in 2008. Super fun to drive but it only got about 18 MPG. Though that's not much worse than my current car and it could use cheap gas. I read somewhere it ran best on something like 78 octane but you can't find that anywhere. I bought the car from a family member who'd bought it new. It was cool that it was a Wankel engine but don't just buy a car because of that.

Though if you get one you can legitimately carry this keychain with real working rotor!

The rotary engines go through a lot of oil.

I don't know shit about cars, but surely pre-DSG automatic transmissions is something to avoid like the plague. That is unless you happen to be a car fanatic or masochist, but I repeat myself.

Edit: DSG not DGS idiot.

Problem with those is that they look great when they are down, but when they are turned up they look ugly and break all the beautiful lines of the car. Here in Finland you need driving lights even at daytime, so it is more like nice trick anyway as those lights can not be hidden when you are driving.

Found it, sybr. This is the car for you. No doubt about it

Amen to that.

You guys are breaking my heart

What is DSG?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-Shift_Gearbox

It eliminates the torque converter. Torque converters always give me the impression there's a kitchen mixer stirring a bucket of snot somewhere under the hood. If I use my right foot I want the car to move *now*, not sometime after lunch. I also hate it if a car decides to change gears halfway through a turn. I guess I just want maximum control

Maybe an automatic makes sense if your roads are straight and abandoned, but where I live it's quite different.

Thanks. I only buy manual transmission vehicles for that and other reasons.

Ah. What you want then is a sprint car or a midget. No torque converter. Also no clutch. And no transmission. No flywheel, either. There is a driveshaft, which connects the engine directly to the rear axle ... With several hundred horsepower and only a few hundred pounds of car, they do move "now" when you pick up the throttle

but you have to wait all day for them to change gear, no thanks. (unless it's a double clutch - expensive and failure-prone)

I had an alfa (giulietta) with a double-clutch dsg for a while, but they don't even sell alfas in north america.

jj, if your only experience with torque converters was with a beat-up chevy land barge or a junky cheap vw, I might agree with you. Once the car is moving the torque converter locks and only unlocks to change gear.

The best transmission is the toyota HSD. No friction parts at all, nothing to wear out (unless you forget to change the fluid which will otherwise eat into the windings insulation) My parents have a prius (2008 model) and I would like to get one of those as well.

I don't think my 1986 Celica has one...

LOL, that's a variation on a theme pioneered by the Dutch car maker DAF , called the variomatic, except most people called it 'jarretel drive' (garter belt drive)

Due to the variomatic these cars could go as fast backwards as forwards so they were great for racing in reverse :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoh8i0jfpTo&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO-insDVzDE&feature=plcp

Edit:

My experience with automatic gearboxes was whatever the rental companies gave me on US trips over the years. Usually midsize (by US standards) sedans. The last 10 years or so I always get Japanese brands although the models are quite different in setup from what the same brands sell in Europe.

What about the GM Turbo-Hydramatic? It was pretty darned indestructible, back in the day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Hydramatic

I had a Monte Carlo once with a 4T60E transmission (technically a "hydromatic" as well). Never broke down, but it changed gear whenever the proverbial "Butterfly In Brazil" flapped it's wings. And the torque converter doesn't lock when accelerating, only for the final gear. This type of transmission is comfortable but leads to the snot feeling JJ described earlier.

you are thinking of Nissan's CVT. Toyota's is different: a planetary gear, with a gas engine on the sun gear, a (brushless) electric motor on the planets, and a second motor on the ring (which is also the final drive).