NA - Car Wax

denverpilot said:
Those silly things are actually kinda impressive.

You’d think that back seat would be horrid in something that small, but it’s enormous. Almost as much leg room as my Yukon in the back of that thing.

And you can still order it (I believe) with a stick and completely stripped of features including not even having a keyfob to unlock it.

Yeah that stripped. It makes it into an impressively inexpensive car.

Totally gutless but the stick helps with that, and nothing in it to break. And big enough to actually haul four people in or a crap ton of stuff and one driver.

And they’re actually holding up decently in long term use and no major repetitive faults in the engineering.

If you understand the true nature of wants vs needs, that thing can truly cover most people’s actual needs.

It’s a roller skate with a motor, but for most city driving it’s really a screaming deal if you get the stripped one.

They also have an impressive warranty. Because the price is so low there’s not much to depreciate either. Thrash it for 100,000 miles, sell it, repeat.
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This is my second Soul. I think they're the most sensibly-designed cars on the road right now if what you want is a car to reliably and efficiently get you from one place to the other. If you want to burn rubber, not so much. I've yet to uncover that one design flaw that most cars have that makes you wonder what kind of weed they were smoking when they engineered it.

I have the stripped-down Base model because I wanted the stick. I didn't care about the rest. In the last one I owned (also the Base model with the stick), I did install a generic remote door unlock receiver (I think ~ $10.00 on eBay) and a key fob because that one had only one key lock and I wanted some other way to unlock the doors if it froze. This one has two, so I haven't bothered. It's an easy add-on if you have the faintest grasp of electricity.

The "hill assist" took me a while to get used to, but I understand why they put it in there. It basically locks the brakes when you stop on an uphill incline so the car doesn't roll backwards. The car was actually designed for young drivers (although everyone that I know who owns one is an old fart), and they wanted to make it easier for people who are inexperienced with manual transmissions. But it throws off people who are experienced with manual transmissions. It's no big deal. You just have to give it a little more gas before engaging the clutch.

MPG-wise, I usually get about 36 MPG around here. When I drive in The City, I get about 26. On the highway traveling < 65 MPH, about 42. But it drops off steeply at > 65 MPH. Traveling at 75 MPH, I get about 32. But I'm a shunpiker anyway, so that rarely happens.

The stock radio on the Base is a frequent source of complaints from people who want audiophile-quality sound. Personally, I don't mind it. It seems a little weak on the treble, but so are my ears, so it could be that. Some day I may install some tweeters if I get the ambition. But I do tell people who are interested in buying a Soul that if the less-than-audiophile-quality sound is a deal killer for them, then they need to either aim higher than the Base when they buy the car, or replace the radio.

In fairness, however, it may not be the sound system that's the problem. Around here, we basically have SiriusXM, which is pretty compressed. FM might sound a lot better. But the one local FM station airs only when the licensee is sober enough to fire up the transmitter, and he airs mainly talk; so it's hard to tell whether it's SiriusXM, the lack of tweeters, or my ears that are muffling the treble. MP3's played off a flash drive sound a bit better than SiriusXM does, so it could be the compression on SiriusXM.

Rich
 
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My Mazda CX-5 has a hill assist switch as well. Still haven't figured out why since it’s an automatic but it makes sense on a standard. Would have loved that when learning to drive stick. I was always nervous on hills with a stoplight that I would roll back into the car behind me. Of course after driving stick for a few months it becomes second nature and you stop worrying.
 
kmacht said:
My Mazda CX-5 has a hill assist switch as well. Still haven't figured out why since it’s an automatic but it makes sense on a standard. Would have loved that when learning to drive stick. I was always nervous on hills with a stoplight that I would roll back into the car behind me. Of course after driving stick for a few months it becomes second nature and you stop worrying.
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The problem for experienced manual transmission users is that it doesn't unlock the brakes until the clutch starts to engage, so if you don't give it a little more gas, the engine stalls. That's also pretty much what human drivers do, but having the car doing it for you throws off the "feel" part of the process on the brake pedal. It only takes one hill to figure out what's happening, but every experienced driver who's driven my Soul has stalled out that one time.

Rich
 
denverpilot said:
Since the thread is about wax, I’d love to know what wax would best protect when the vehicle is covered in dust 80% of the year, and mud the other 20% too. Hahaha.

Washing cars out here is definitely a pointless exercise in vanity or you finally got so much clay mud stuffed into a wheel or rim that the tire is out of balance and you need a pressure washer to blast the dried mud chunk out. :)
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The new ceramic coatings last 2-3 years and they are marketed as "anti-static" which helps reduce pollen and dust buildup. I've noticed my car stays cleaner for longer after I applied a ceramic coating (Cquartz). One additional benefit to a ceramic coating is that they make cleaning the car much easier.

If you don't want to spend the extra cash on a ceramic coating, you are probably using the next best alternative with Collinite 845 Insulator Wax.
 
mvanbv00 said:
If you don't want to spend the extra cash on a ceramic coating, you are probably using the next best alternative with Collinite 845 Insulator Wax.
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Makes sense. And that’s what I’m using when I bother with it or get in a cleaning mood.

Those moods come less frequently out here than they did inside the concrete jungle. :) Which means more time for other stuff, really.

Nobody’s gonna care too much how shiny my cars were when I’m dead. :)

I do want to figure out how to spiff up the airplane though. It lives ok concrete in a hangar so it’s probably worth it. :)
 
mvanbv00 said:
The new ceramic coatings last 2-3 years and they are marketed as "anti-static" which helps reduce pollen and dust buildup. I've noticed my car stays cleaner for longer after I applied a ceramic coating (Cquartz). One additional benefit to a ceramic coating is that they make cleaning the car much easier.

If you don't want to spend the extra cash on a ceramic coating, you are probably using the next best alternative with Collinite 845 Insulator Wax.
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Agreed. Although 2-3 years out of a ceramic coating is likely stretching it.
 
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