One's affections are not logical

This weekend, I got a chance to fire up the Falcon, and in the process of doing so had to jockey the rest of the fleet around in the driveway. 

Sounds simple, you say, but the problem is the Volvo has been a bit off lately. Seems ever since we had the brand new ($500) radiator put in by the local garage, the throttle has been a bit sticky, especially in the cold weather. That means when you start it, it just might be stuck full open, roaring to life as never before. Further attempts have shown it to rev very high when you merely tap the pedal, or get stuck full on, even if it starts out OK. 

So it was with some trepidation that I approched the Volvo with key in hand. But on this relatively warm weekend, it started up OK, and proceeded to just be a bit revvy, not really sticking but going a bit beyond what I expected. I warmed it up, and got the car moved out onto the street where I can park it while toying with the wagon.

While I fully enjoyed taking out the Falcon, I also seem to have rekindled a long lost affection for the Volvo. The solid feel of the door. The rolling brick shit house drive quality, apparent even when just re-parking the car. 

So maybe we will keep the old Volvo. A while longer. Sure is cheaper than buying Mr. Domestic Partner a new ride. At this point, the throttle cable has been fixed for $32, and the car successfully delivered us and friends on an outing of some 75 miles. She rolled over to 250,000 miles enroute. I even filled it up with "something in the middle." 

Yes, the old girl is back in the good graces again. 

(the Volvo in that picture is not our car, but a reasonable facsimile. No, we dont have those funny plates here in MA. And the wipers on our headlights are more out of joint than those in the picture. I don't think I have a picture of our car. I have pictures of the Falcon and the MINI though. Maybe I will get the camera out this weekend.)

GM Hybrids: +2 MPG!

Poking around on AutoBlog Green, I saw that your nice new Chevy Malibu (and its fraternal twin, the Saturn Aura) both are offered with hybrid technology. Cool, I thought.

   

What is not so cool, is that for a $2500 upcharge on the Malibu, or $3500 on the Aura, you can look forward to an improvement in your gas milage of exactly 2 MPG. That is awesome. No wonder Toyota, Honda, and even Ford are actually selling hybrids. They actually deliver some benefit to the owner, and the planet. Even Nissan is getting into the act with a limited number of Altimas, with parts bought from Toyota. 

If GM is going to bother, they should be able to do better than a hybrid system that gets you 32 MPG vs. 30MPG delivered by their 4-banger. 

Hell, I've said it before, but my '95 Volvo gets 30 on the highway if you treat it nice. If you really want to save money, you can buy an older (and I mean ~1997) Volvo sedan with 100K miles (that means another 100K miles left in it) for about 2 grand. Get the wagon if that makes your pants tight. Think of all that metal and other resources you'd be re-using. That in its own way is pretty "green". And, you save some green on your next car purchase. 

If you want to save the planet, well, thats not so cheap. Just don't throw money away on GM hybrids.