We here at 62mph wish everyone a very happy holidays. In honor of the festive occasion we decided to send our special wishes to everyone hoping that they get the gifts that we know we won’t receive.

Austin:

Every year I see loads of cars. This year I spent a lot of time in Scottsdale and it became a regular experience to see cars that cost significantly more than my house. And yes every time I would pass a Ferrari F430 or a Lamborghini Merciélago I could feel my heart rate increase. Those cars produce a reaction that my wife could be nothing but jealous of, but still none so much as my all time favorite of the Lotus Exige S 240.

In spite of the fact that this is a no limits wish list, I think the fact the Lotus checks in at a completely realistic and attainable price of right around $70,000 MSRP. That isn’t just the base either. That is with the Track package which give it the ability to adjust the suspension, plus I added the Touring pack which gives it the leather seats, stereo, and sound insulation. I also added metalic paint, and of course a Limited Slip Differential. The full kit for $70k not too bad for a car that is pretty exotic in my book. Sure they are cheap but they just aren’t around all that much. I wish you all one. Merry Christmas

Allen:

There are just so many to cars to choose from how can I choose just one.  I have always liked Porsche and if I was going to choose a Porsche it would be the 911 GT2 Turbo but those aren’t necessarily unique.  Rare, maybe? but anyone can buy one with enough money.

What I think I really want is the 1969 Ford GT40 that won Le Mans, the exact car, no replicas just that very car.  It truly is a testament that American manufactures can do anything if they want to.  It symbolizes that America has been there and defeated Ferrari, Porsche and anyone else who got in the way.

But I wouldn’t stop there.  I would fly the car to Europe and drive it around the Le Mans Circuit that it won almost 40 years ago.  Just once around the track would be good enough for me.  What an experience that would be!  Then I would fly it back to my house, put in the garage and polishing it nightly mumbling to myself… “My Precious…  My Precious… Gollum… Gollum.”

How I deal with envy…

In the not to distant past, in a location fairly close to where I live, Austin asked me to take a look at vehicle he was keen on purchasing.  Being the good brother-in-law and only mechanic in the family it was my duty to go.

As we pulled in the driveway I was eying the gleaming red Miata with quite the skepticism.  My gaze shifted over to Austin.  “You’re sure you want to drive that, Austin?”

“Just shut up and look at the car.  I know what I want.”  He retorted.  Not wanting to the press the issue, I stepped out and gave the little convertible a good used car look over.  After finding almost no problems, except for a few minor leaks which is common for a car that age, I hopped into the passenger seat and Austin pulled the car out for a test drive.

I decided I would give him one last chance to change his mind.  “You know this is a Miata? The most common drivers are old dudes in mid-life crisis that can’t afford a Corvette.  I won’t think any less of you if you decide right now you don’t want one?”  Raised my eyebrow a little.

“That’s it!”  He pulled the car over.  “Drive.”

“I’m not driving this car.  Do you know what people are going to think of me?”  I asked.

“They’ll probably think that you are gay, but it really doesn’t matter.”  He retorted.  I reluctantly wrenched myself out of the passenger seat.

“Fine, are you happy, now.”  I said with little enthusiasm as I started the car.  I pulled a quick U-turn. “Huh?”  I mumbled a little under my breath at how sharply the car made the turn.

We entered onto the highway and I pressed the gas pedal, worked the gears up to 62 miles per hour and tested the clutch.  They all felt good.  The throw for the shifter was quick, and while the acceleration wasn’t blistering fast, it was adequate.  “Ah.” I let out a little sign of interest while ignoring the grin creeping onto Austin’s face.

Next, I slammed brakes and gave a quick turn into the neighborhood.  The car darted in and held the line.  The tires squealed a little in response to my maneuver but held their grip.  I whipped the car around and pulled it back into the owners driveway.  “Wow,”  I turned to Austin, “you should buy this.”  And he did.

The one test drive of that little car gnawed at me for weeks.  My 240sx was great but my motivation on the car had diminished into nothing.  I needed something new, something my wife could enjoy with me, something that didn’t have a harsh ride from the suspension modification, something that didn’t rattle the very innards of your brain with it ultra loud exhaust note, something rear wheel drive, something that could handle and get great gas mileage…

The next day the 240sx was for sale and the day after that it sold.  I started searching.  The nights ate at me.   The days dragged into weeks.  Every day I would call on a car and it would either be sold or an automatic.  Who wants an automatic?  That’s no fun.  I was never going to find a decent rear wheel drive car for a good price.  Everything I wanted seemed to sell like hot cakes.

Then that fateful day came.  A man was moving out of state and had to sell his car that day.  I talked him down to a reasonable amount, he signed the title over to me and the rest is history.

I became an owner of a 1994 black “A-Package” Mazda Miata with 113,000 mile on the clock.  Here are the specs and there is more to come:

Engine: 1.8L, 128-HP and 110 ft-lbs of torque

Transmission: 5 speed Manual

Differential: Factory Torsen Limited Slip Differential

Fuel Economy: 23/27 (City/Hwy)

Interior/Exterior/Top: Black/Black/Black

Inherited Nickname from the people I work with: The Black Mamba  (Why, I have no idea?)

Tonight I was driving home late and it was raining. I have a rear wheel drive car but I don’t have a limited slip differential (or LSD). This is an annoying set of circumstances.

As a layman, I only need to kind of know what an LSD is and how it works. In a car there is a point at which the axles meet together in conjunction with the drive shaft. The drive shaft comes directly from the transmission and is spinning. The differential then transfers the power to the axles and gets the wheels turning. Essentially, the inside tire is supposed to turn slower or at a different speed than the outside tire during a turn, hence “differential”.  This action allows the vehicle to make a smooth turn.

Now in a standard run-of-the-mill differential, if one tire does not have grip then all of the power is transferred to that one tire. This would seem to make sense at first, until you get into a slick situation from a stop. Like what happened to me a couple of years ago when I got stuck in the snow because one tire was on ice and one was on rough dirt. The ice tire breaks loose super quick and just keeps spinning while the tire that has traction just stays still. Took me several hours for me to get home. Another example is if you are at an intersection and your tires are in a puddle or on the white crosswalk line, you start to go and your tire slips on the thick white line of paint and your engine revs to the limit, but your car doesn’t go anywhere.

This is where a Limited Slip Differential can help.  An LSD serves the function of linking your two wheels together when one of them starts to slip. So in the snow both of my tires would have moved and I would have been capable of getting out and down the mountain faster. Or at the stop light my tire with grip would  have compensated for my tire without grip and I would have gotten off of the line at the green light.

That is all great in a straight line, from a stop or even when turning. For instance with a normal differential, if you are in a turn and your weight shifts to the outside of the turn you lose a lot of grip on the inside tire.  But if you have power to both tires, then you can keep accelerating through the turn. This can help in rough conditions for sure and is just one reasons why an LSD can be a great handling feature, but there is more.

There is another feature to the LSD that is definitely not necessarily good for safety. If you are in a turn and you happen to break BOTH of the tires loose, then the same thing will happen that happened to me on the snow or strip of paint. Your car will have no traction at all and you will slide or spin out. Of course, if you are trying to slide then you can call it drifting and it is super freaking fun.

This is my problem driving home tonight. It is late. It is raining. There are lots of turns, but every time I try to take one with a bit of caution, my one tire starts to spin like crazy and the other tire just drags like a piece of dead meat.

image from flickr user ttstam

I always thought Cadillac was the boring luxury car of the United States. There was never much appeal for me to take interest in them. The Northstar was a great performing engine but incredibly hard to work on. Then the front wheel drive platform that Cadillac used since the ’80s never ever under any circumstances added to the performance aspect of the car. But Cadillac did one thing well and that was the job of keeping people comfortable, particularly Grandma and Grandpa.

But that has all changed. The new Cadillac CTS-V is no longer the Grandma’s car for cruisin’ but a missile for mischief. In the past, the CTS-V was invariably short of it’s competition; always out-handled, out-braked and most of the time the engine was out-performed by cars of similar cost. The new 6.2L supercharged engine produces a massive 556 Horsepower and 551 ft-lbs of torque. The handling of the car has increased and the brakes made better. What is Cadillac trying to do, lose Grandma and Grandpa as their market and go for the intellectual BMW crowd? Actually, I think so.

The standard BMW M5 cost around $83,900 and the new CTS-V will set you back between $59,995 and $68,635. So you save almost $15,000, get a loaded Cadillac and the Ultimate title of “The Worlds Fastest Sedan.” And with a zero to 60 mph time of 3.9 seconds, it could literally peel the wrinkles from the face of grandma and grandpa giving them the appearance of thirty-year-olds. So I guess it appeals to everyone.

Except for me. I’m the biased type that can only drive the purest form of vehicles. It has to have a manual transmission and be rear wheel drive. So I guess that leaves me… Oh?! What do we have here, you can get it with a 6-speed manual transmission and it is rear wheel drives. And the manual transmission reduces the massive 4,255 lbs curb weight of the automatic by 33 lbs. A six speed and a weight reduction? “Behold! The heaven’s parted, and their glory shown brightly down onto the Cadillac CTS-V.” I’m pretty sure that’s how it went at the Detroit Auto Show. If it didn’t, it should have.

God Bless America. Finally a car that more than competes with its off shore counterparts coming from this great nation. This certainly is one car that makes me say “I’m proud to be an American.”

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Miata MX5

Shortly after the sale of the second (and sometimes first) love of my life the SV650, I was left with a horrible dilemma. What am I going to do without a second vehicle?

My wife was nine months pregnant and was due literally ANY day. ANY day. Many people go through a period of time during moments when there just doesn’t seem to be that much mental clarity. Sometimes it is after their kids go away to college, or sometimes it is when they are about to have kids. I did what any man going through one of these times does…I bought a Miata.

That at least is what my wife tells me. I would rather say that the Miata is one of the single best handling cars to drive stock and as a result is likely one of the funnest cars that you can drive within the realms of legality. I won’t go into a full review as that will come later on, but here is the story.

The car cost me the exact same price as my motorcycle was sold for $2600, and it was immaculately clean and had been fully detailed with 118,000 miles on it. It is a base model for the year, which includes neither power windows, power mirrors, power roof, or power steering making it the ideal enthusiast car. It has load of details that continue to travel along those lines. The Miata has a 5 speed transmission and four wheel disk brakes that are not anti-lock brakes. Because this is the ‘92 model there is only a drivers side airbag, which has a certain benefit for me…my 3 year old can drive in it without any worry of being killed by the airbags. That doesn’t seem like the best logic, but my daughter LOVES this car. She begs me to take her in trips and we have probably put about 1000 miles in it together in the few short months of driving it.

There are only a few problems with the car. It has a couple of leaks that need to be taken care of and appear to be at the hoses, and I need to do the brakes. Other than that it is one of the best things you can buy for $2600.

Here are the specs:

Engine: 1.6L DOHC 4 cylinder
Horsepower: 116hp@ 6500rpm
Torque: 100 ft-lb@ 5500rpm
Drive: Rear Wheel Drive
Transmission: 5 Speed Manual

Curb weight: 2264 lbs

Fuel Economy: 21/27 according to Mazda. I get 32mph consistantly.

I often look at new car prices and my guts start wrenching. $30,000 here, $60,000 there, $12,000 for a Chevy Aveo. I can’t help but wonder, “seriously?” Why buy new when the price of the car is going to depreciate as much as 30% when driving it off of the lot? Then you have to pay for maintenance, tires, full insurance (cause it’s new), and what  other accessories you need to have while you’re paying it off. The simple solution is buy used.

Keep in Mind

The question you have to ask first when buying a used vehicle is what do you have budgeted for a vehicle? Keep in mind $1,000 is a minimum that you should have in reserve for repairs on the car the day after you purchase it, for any used car of any age. If can only spend around $5,000 then you should consider looking at cars costing $4,000. This can save you a lot of heartache in the end.  If you can afford a used car that is still under factory warranty that is usually the best way to go. If you have problems with the car, it is covered. But, most of us can’t afford those either (myself included).

Do Your Research

Look for a vehicle based on function for your needs not necessarily by a specific manufacturer. I know, Toyota, Ford, Honda, etc. is all you’ll ever get, but every manufacture has vehicles that have more problems than others in their line-up. This is why it is important to do your research. Let’s say you are looking for a small SUV, there are a ton of manufacturers that produce compact SUVs. Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Ford, GM, and on and on. But there are ones that have better maintenance and durability than others, so keep your options open. Select a few that you like out of the group and find out which ones have been the most reliable.

The Important First Question
Regardless of where you are buying from a dealer or private party, ask about the title.  You’ll probably get weird looks from the dealer but it is important.  This goes for all vehicle titles, check to make sure it is not a salvage title or restored salvage title.  If the title is salvage it is in your best interest to walk away even if it is a “killer deal”.  A salvage title usually means the vehicle has been in an accident and even the insurance company didn’t feel the vehicle was worth repairing or saving. There are exceptions to this rule, especially for motorcycles, but for the average person, buying a salvage title vehicle is a bad idea. Salvage title vehicles are for mechanics, race car drivers, and do-it-your-selfers, not the regular working man or woman who needs a dependable and safe vehicle.

Buying at a Dealer?

Alright, so you’ve got a car you’re interested in and it is at a dealer. There is good and bad when buying at a Dealer. The good is you can usually get them to repair or knock money off the price of the vehicle for problems found. Secondly they are not likely to sell you a vehicle with a Salvage Title (Assuming you go to a reputable place.). But here is the bad, you have to pay sales tax on what you get from a dealer. Secondly, the haggling and hassling of a dealer is tough, especially if you’re trading your car in. The important thing to remember is to know what you want to pay for the car, know the fair value of the vehicle and your trade-in, and if they are unwilling to give in to your price, walk away. This is why you need to have options, you might not get the first car you see or you like.

Buying Private Party?

I have purchased every vehicle I have ever owned from private parties.  There are a lot of people who like to take advantage of others so be prepared to walk away from a vehicle at anytime.  Start by calling up the person and asking about the Title.  The title should be free and clear but if it has a lien on it and the vehicle is paid off it needs to have a lien release with it.  Some titles are bank owned and have to get transferred over by the bank and seller.

Next ask if it has ever been in an accident.  Some vehicles have been in accidents and still have good titles.  For the most part you don’t want to by a car that has been in an accident.  A fender bender or dings doesn’t count, I’m talking major frame components moving.  Finally ask about mileage, maintenance of the vehicle, and find out if it is in good working order.

If after all of this and you feel comfortable with the car, set up a time to take the car for a test drive.  Remember, be ready to move onto another vehicle if you don’t like what you hear.  Keeping these steps in mind can save you valuable time in the long run and a lot of heartache in the end.

photo from flickr user mhashi

BMW announces the release of 500 Mini Cooper Electric cars for lease in 2009. While only 500 lucky people will get to cruise back and forth from work in one, the rest of the United States will get to enjoy 100 years of the perfected art of the internal combustion engine. You know, like being able to accelerate faster than a slug, wonderful torque, horsepower, mellow exhaust notes, gas prices, air pollution…

Wait a second, the new Mini has 204 horsepower, produces 162 ft-lbs of torque at 1 rpm, is completely silent, never needs gasoline and never pollutes. That’s more horsepower and torque than either of my cars. If I’m keeping score, that is like the Mini E-4 and my compact cars-0.

What’s this? The new Mini is capable of a governed 95 MPH and 150 mile range on a single charge. AHA! That would be one for my cars. I have better range and I can go faster.

Guess what else the Mini can do? It can be charged in very same electrical socket you used to make those blended frozen margaritas the night before and it only takes about two and a half hours using the quick charger. That means you can watch your Football game and by the end go for a 150 mile test drive to your favorite club, bar, or grocery store. I guess that’s another point for the Mini. Continue reading →

I’m really excited about the new 370 Z car that is being produced and feel like Nissan has come full circle with this new Z. The new styling and major redesign of the chassis captures the references from every Z car, and glaringly so from the 240Z. But the new Z car has also capture its own unique styling that I can only describe as a contradictory “sharp-roundness” not found in any other vehicle except in the Nissan line-up (The New Maxima). The headlights and taillights sharply encase the roundness and flares of the wheel wells. The shortened rear of the car and sharper line of the rear hatch add to the meanness factor. But I can’t forget about the inverted fangs in the grill that surprisingly add to the lines and aggressive stance of the car. In short, the car screams “Drive me hard and you won’t be disappointed.”

But the new Z has a new chassis that raises the bar from the old 350Z. It is shortened almost 3″ shorter overall and has nearly a 4″ shorter wheel base not to mention a 1″ wider track. With all that taken out you would think it the car would be substantially lighter, unfortunately it isn’t. The 370Z is only 95 lbs lighter than the previous Z because of added safety features and increased chassis rigidity. But what does that mean to you? Better handling and a safer vehicle. I can’t argue with that and it is still a little lighter.

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The questions is can you have your cake and eat it, too? I love the idea of fast sports cars that handle well and also serve as a decent daily driver. However, as I mentioned before in the last article, gas prices are on the rise and are currently over $4.00 a gallon with no relief in sight. Where does that leave the driving enthusiast?  Bored… and annoyed (At least I am.)

You can’t take that leisurely trip up north or to your favorite mountain pass on the weekend, you have to save that precious fuel for getting yourself to work and back. So what is the solution?

Carpool if you can, ride a bicycle if you live close enough, or buy a more economical ride.

I never want to recommend that people trade in their existing car for the sole reason of poor gas mileage. If there is nothing wrong with your vehicle it always better to stick with it even if fuel is expensive. It will take a long time to make up the difference in price for the fuel and maintenance on your old vehicle versus the fuel savings from a new vehicle. With that said let me suggest some sporty and economical vehicles.

First and maybe not the best for this category is the Chevy Corvette. Really, it does actually get fairly decent gas mileage considering it is putting out 430 HP. It averages 16/26 mpg. You get the performance, the handling, and the gas mileage, but (and there is always a but) you have to pay for it. It is close to $48,000 and you don’t get a back seat, so as long as you don’t care about the price or hauling anyone but your best friend then I say go for it. This car is not realistic for the everyday driver. It is impressive none the less to get that good of gas mileage out of a car.  I was shooting for sporty cars with the city gas mileage over 20, cause let’s face it who here mostly drives in the city… I certainly do!

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Yesterday was the first day in my entire life that I paid more than $50 to fill my fuel tank on my 240sx. I paid almost $4 a gallon. (I took a 15 minute pause right here in the article to punch a few inanimate objects and yell at the fact that gasoline is so so expensive… Feel free to do the same.)

So I figured, I would recommend a few ways that you can save and hang on to that precious liquid gold in your tank a little longer.

First, keep your hands, arms, heads, and puppy dogs in the vehicle at all times. As much as my dogs like the windows down the gas mileage of you car can suffer greatly by just having the window down. With the windows open air flows into the vehicle and not around it, decreasing how aerodynamic it is. This is more critical the faster you are driving. So at freeway speeds it is a must.

Note: This is not my dog, I own a much much cooler dog than this.

Second, Don’t use your air conditioning. It robs the power from the engine and can affect the gas mileage of your car. Unfortunately I can’t even follow this advise. It is 100 degrees out here in the summer and I particularly do not want to be drenched with sweat when I get home from work. On the other hand it is a great way to lose weight.

Third, Anticipate the flow of traffic and lights. I’ve noticed that most people where I live fail to do this regularly. Besides it is a good driving habit, the smoother and less inputs on the accelerator pedal the better. When you sharply stab that pedal the computer in your car reacts and almost immediately dumps as much fuel into the engine that it can get. If you’re smooth on the throttle the computer can anticipate your needs and only give the engine the required amount of fuel.

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