2008 BMW 328i. I bought it used back in 2011 and it still cost almost as much as I made in a year at that time, but I really wanted it and otherwise I lived very modestly.
It’s such a fun car. I have the manual transmission and the sport suspension, and I love driving it. With that said, it’s not a practical car. Only I can drive it because no one else in my family knows how to drive a manual, and the sport suspension makes the car quite uncomfortable when going over any bumps. (I tell passengers “I paid extra for that” while driving through rough areas.) Oh, and forget about driving it in snow. I tried that and spun off the road several times before learning my lesson.
This car is almost 17 and while it was quite reliable for most of that time, now it’s at the point where everything is breaking all at once. I refuse to replace it because I can’t justify buying another rear-wheel-drive manual-transmission sporty car (one of the very few models still built like that) either to other people or to myself, but I still want to own that sort of car. I guess I’ll keep spending more than it’s worth on it… I just spent $340 that way today.
I drove a 328i for a few years in N. Alberta many years ago, winters and all. You just start out in 2nd instead of first and don’t do anything sudden. You get used to how much pedal to get it drifting in the snow and you could make some neat moves, especially when parallel parking.
I concede that you’re a better driver than I am because I don’t think I could reliably control the car on snow even in ideal conditions, but how did you drive for years without needing to do anything sudden?
I have this strategy where I put myself in the drivers seat of every vehicle around me, and think to myself “what is the stupidest thing I could do right now” and then I know exactly what they’ll do and have an escape plan ready.
And I’m not even being terribly sarcastic about that, it works way too well.
But seriously, have an escape route ready all the time. Riding a motorbike helps you think about how everyone else is trying to kill you at all times.
2008 BMW 328i. I bought it used back in 2011 and it still cost almost as much as I made in a year at that time, but I really wanted it and otherwise I lived very modestly.
It’s such a fun car. I have the manual transmission and the sport suspension, and I love driving it. With that said, it’s not a practical car. Only I can drive it because no one else in my family knows how to drive a manual, and the sport suspension makes the car quite uncomfortable when going over any bumps. (I tell passengers “I paid extra for that” while driving through rough areas.) Oh, and forget about driving it in snow. I tried that and spun off the road several times before learning my lesson.
This car is almost 17 and while it was quite reliable for most of that time, now it’s at the point where everything is breaking all at once. I refuse to replace it because I can’t justify buying another rear-wheel-drive manual-transmission sporty car (one of the very few models still built like that) either to other people or to myself, but I still want to own that sort of car. I guess I’ll keep spending more than it’s worth on it… I just spent $340 that way today.
I drove a 328i for a few years in N. Alberta many years ago, winters and all. You just start out in 2nd instead of first and don’t do anything sudden. You get used to how much pedal to get it drifting in the snow and you could make some neat moves, especially when parallel parking.
I concede that you’re a better driver than I am because I don’t think I could reliably control the car on snow even in ideal conditions, but how did you drive for years without needing to do anything sudden?
I have this strategy where I put myself in the drivers seat of every vehicle around me, and think to myself “what is the stupidest thing I could do right now” and then I know exactly what they’ll do and have an escape plan ready.
And I’m not even being terribly sarcastic about that, it works way too well.
But seriously, have an escape route ready all the time. Riding a motorbike helps you think about how everyone else is trying to kill you at all times.