Yes the ultimate Ecomod - took the Mazda off the street permanently. I got hit at a 90 degree angle directly in front of the driver's side wheel at about 35mph (no one hurt
) which didn't do a whole lot of body damage visually, but it did bend the subframe and opened up the block and transaxle. Totaled the mighty microvan, so now it isn't using any gas (lifetime avg 22.x mpg). Quite an ecomod, eh?
In the meantime my family of 4 (two kids 6&8) has been walking, biking, and using the bus or the L to get around locally. I have a 4cyl auto Tacoma Prerunner ext cab which gets awful mpg (avg 15 in the city) that I bought for rehabbing our 100 year old two flat. We have been using the truck when the non-automotive modes don't apply. We've already gotten a respectable insurance settlement, but haven't bought another car yet. And to be honest... I don't know if we are going to buy another one, at least not for the moment. I work from home, and she takes the bus to work anyway.
As you may know, insurance companies can cover TTL on the replacement vehicle, as long as the purchase is within 30 days. In our case, that would be about $2k - not an insubstantial amount. So that 30 days is coming up, and we're still undecided. I don't want to leave that money on the table, but OTOH, not buying another car would save quite a bit of money.
Being a lifelong "car guy", I never thought I'd be in a position to decide against buying another car... but it's starting to make some kind of sense, right? Take the bus/train most of the time, use the truck when we can't use the CTA, and rent whatever we want for the road trips.
I've never been this indecisive on a car purchase (or non purchase!) before. Maybe just not buying a car would be a good idea, eh?