Car has not started for five days

[California98Civic]

Been doing all my "driving" (an average of about 15 miles a day) on the ebike). On the bike I get an MPGe of about 3000. At $0.15/kwh this is nearly free. (But it cost me $1300+ to build the bike!) Anyway, I drove 340 miles to El Mirage and back for the LSR event last weekend, but my car has not started for a singe ordinary trip since June 10.

How about you? How much car-driving avoidance do you practice? How do you do it?

james

[Baltothewolf]

I drive my Mustang on the weekends instead of my insight . I do enjoy getting 13-15mpg around town.

[Baltothewolf]

Double post.

[jedi_sol]

On the weekends where I do a lot of errands with city driving, I insist on driving my fiance's car

[digital rules]

I like to ride my bike as much as possible, especially if going to the gym. My roomates think I'm crazy, but I like hot weather.

The funniest part about going to the gym is noticing other members behavior in the parking lot. They will do anything to get the closest parking spot, but then go inside & hop on the treadmill & pump out many miles. Why not park a bit further away & just friggin walk off some of those calories???

These are likely the same people you see needlessly racing up to red lights. I just don't get it???

[elhigh]

Can't do it.

I live in a small town that's a few miles away from the nearest town with any services - a few miles of fast rural highway with narrow/no shoulders. I could bike the distance even considering my relatively unimpressive physical condition (except when it shoots past 95 degrees, 95% - forget that) but I'd likely get a Peterbilt enema along the way. Tennessee drivers aren't respectful of other road users if they don't have an engine.

Most early weekend mornings I walk to the little local grocery store and Post Office, so that's a couple of miles saved.

When I lived in DC I could bike everywhere and usually keep up with traffic, sometimes beat it, over the whole distance. I miss that.

[cowmeat]

My wife's Explorer sits days at a time since we try to carpool in the Insight whenever possible.
The Explorer only leaves the driveway if she has somewhere she needs to go during the day or I know I'm going to be working really late. Sometimes even when she drives in the morning we will leave her car at our daughter's house overnight if she rides home with me.

I have a (hybrid) bike too and ride for exercise, but since we live out in the middle of nowhere it's not feasible to bike anywhere for errands.

[Frank Lee]

I've gone over a month without firing a cylinder. Bike, walk, and living close to the stuff I do. Being an anti-social hermit homebody cheapskate helps too.

I once just plain didn't use the F150 for IIRC eight months- I think it was when gas spiked to $4 the first time. Some of the electrics went all wonky because of it so I spent a weekend trying to track down the fault that caused my gauge panel to spaz out and the cruise control to not work. In the end I fixed it, but I don't know where the fault was. I figure I accidently restored a bad connection somewhere simply by disconnecting and reconnecting it. My theory now is newer vehicles are better off not sitting so long as the vibrations and whatnot from use help keep electrical connection continuity. However, the old stuff like the '59 or the '66 Vair can sit for years and start right up upon battery install. As proof, I haven't let the F150 hibernate for that long again and it hasn't had a single electrical issue since... well, except for getting new starter brushes. STILL has the factory battery!

I still record fills in my paper logbooks but have slacked off on updating the EM logs for quite a long time. My vehicle usage patterns are very, very inconsistent with some months of no driving then suddenly some 1000+ mile trips. I've logged 'em long enough to know what to expect anyway.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by digital rules

The funniest part about going to the gym is noticing other members behavior in the parking lot. They will do anything to get the closest parking spot, but then go inside & hop on the treadmill & pump out many miles. Why not park a bit further away & just friggin walk off some of those calories???

These are likely the same people you see needlessly racing up to red lights. I just don't get it???

I noticed that way back in college. As a group, people are pretty bad at connecting the dots.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Baltothewolf

Double post.

You can delete those.