Brain Fertilizer

Well, it's been three weeks, and I still love my car.

I've really grown to love the feel of the leather-wrapped steering wheel, by the way...

Our other car is a 2001 Honda CRV. It's a decent car. People like it enough that its resale value has stayed quite high; its still worth more than $12,000!

And yet, I can't help but think it comes off far worse in comparison to my Suzuki Verona S.

Obviously, the CRV is a mini-SUV, a Sport Cute, and so it isn't focused in on comfort or power. Being a Honda, it has a tiny engine that handles high RPMs well, but noisily. Living in eastern Washington State, you have to cross mountain passes to go nearly anywhere, and it nearly screams acceleration uphill. Road and wind noise aren't too bad, they impressed me when I test-drove it and it is one of the reasons we purchased it.

But nothing about the driving experience in the CRV can compare to the Verona. Well, of course! The Verona is supposed to be a nice sedan. Acceleration is smooth and quiet. I was hurrying down a backroad yesterday to get my son to a dental appointment, and we accelerated to 80 mph while going up a fairly steep grade, and yet the music was still clearly audible at '6', which is soft enough to not affect conversation.

And the smoothness and precision of the steering is wonderful. When I have to drive the CRV, I feel like I"m constantly swaying in trying to keep it in a straight line, after the intuition-level response of the Verona.

There are two things that bug me about the Verona, however. It doesn't seem like they put much thought into the sounds system. They included a cassette player (for the older crowd?)...WTF, over? The steering-wheel mounted controls are too far forward, so can be pressed accidentally, and aren't the controls I would want there. A single CD disk...weird choices for the EQ and sound adjustment and track management buttons...none of it intuitive. I'd yank out the whole thing and put in my own except for a few worries: If it caused a problem with the electrical system, my warranty probably wouldn't cover it; it would probably affect the appearance of the car; and I'm not sure how it would/could/should work with the existing steering wheel controls.

The other thing that bugs me a little bit is the engine.

6 cylinder, 2.5 liters....and 155 horsepower is all they can get out of it? And just 20/28 for gas mileage? The Camry and Accord and Corolla are all similarly sized and get that sort of performance out of a 4 cylinder! The Altima is similarly sized, but their 2.5 liter 6 cylinder gets more than 200 horses, I think--at least close to 200--and still gets better gas mileage! But the money I saved buing it will buy lots of gas...I think I could drive it for 7 years and the gas mileage difference still would cost me a total of less than $1000...
And I do love the smoothness, which seems to be what the engineers were designing for, to the expense of power and economy. And someone said the economy improves as the fuzzy logic shift control gets used to you. I don't know...I've filled it up 3 times, and the last time I did get 21.5 miles to the gallon, rather than the 20 it says I should get and I did get the first two times I filled up. So if it continues to improve, I might end up with 24 mpg? 25? Or maybe I'll stay at 20-22. I can live with that, but it is something Suzuki will probably have to improve for me to stay with them the next time I buy.