Despite some disparaging typecasting to the contrary, Millennials do know how to drive and aren’t a population of unmitigated phone-addicted car haters.
People under forty even have purchasing preferences associated with automotive ownership. However, some stereotypes ring especially true when compared to their nearest generational counterpart: Generation X.
Autolist recently conducted a representative survey of the two age-groups during the final quarter of 2016. Based on feedback from 3,383 vehicle owners nationwide, the study highlights key differences between the groups and shows why many automakers are scrambling to diversify their companies to better prepare themselves for the changing consumer winds.
Xers tend to be slightly more practical, conservative, and hold onto their vehicles longer. Millennials are, on average, more interested in newer cars and technology and less interested in price, brand loyalty, or longevity. Roughly two-thirds said they couldn’t see owning a car for more than seven years, while over 41 percent of Generation X was fine with with the concept.
When asked about the primary factors in considering their next vehicle, Millennials turned out to be five percent more likely to be concerned about the environmental impacts associated with car ownership — an issue that their older peers minimize through the longer-term ownership of more economical cars.
As for who is buying what, there’s plenty of overlap between groups. The Toyota Camry and Corolla were both extremely popular with both demographics. However, the most popular car for Millennials turned out to be the Honda Civic, while the Accord was most favored by Xers. Generation X also has a penchant for minivans — the Chrysler Town and Country and Honda Odyssey both made it into their top ten.
Younger buyers also had a slightly stronger preference for American iron. The Chevrolet Cruze and Ford Focus ranked high on their list, while Cadillac’s CTS was the luxury sedan of choice. Gen X went with the yuppie-friendly BMW 3 Series.
In the world of trucks, Ford’s F-150 remains is a big hit with nearly everyone, but surveyed Millennials actually like the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 slightly more. The Ford Mustang maintains its universal appeal for those interested in a more lively drive.
Well duh Gen X has more minivans. They likely have larger families.
Sorry, did not read the article, couldn’t get past the photo of a lady who apparently made cutoffs on her way to her car.
I thought it was a guy. They used to wear their hair long back in the 1970s. YoungManPants, perhaps?
Male? With that wristwatch?
Being “gay” was very sad, in those days; and metrosexuals tended to get cured of their problem, fast.
Nope. The photo-shoot director, who probably had about ten minutes to consider the content, probably decided on the spur of the moment, “Hey…CUTOFFS!” Those don’t even look like jeans there…maybe her office pantsuit slacks, sacrificed in a good cause?
“I thought it was a guy.”
That scrawny, may as well be.
Okay the car in the photo ? Pre 78 Grand Prix ?
Back when there were lots of gauges to keep drivers informed. Sigh…
Now you have to get a Tahoe etc to get any info.
I think this is an unconscious reason why I keep going back to trucks.
I wouldn’t even consider a car today that doesn’t give me at least the 4 basic gauges (temp, fuel, tach, speedo). My crappy GM U-Body gave me volts and tranny temp through the DIC. Knowing the tranny temp probably saved me from cooking it once in some really grueling terrain we stumbled upon in eastern Washington. My Avalanche DIC is set to the transmission temperature. When I had my first Avalanche I swapped out to the GMC cluster to get more gauges.
In this era of programmable displays, the lack of what to me is the most obvious 7 gauge arrangement with “ideal” and 60 MPH cruise having all needles pointing straight up just hurts my brain.
I appreciate engine oil pressure as well. I always liked that the GM clusters the pressure would rise and fall with RPMS and as the transmission shifted.
I’ve become quite modern about this. I want speed, engine speed, and fuel level. I really don’t care about anything else, the computer is monitoring all that and will tell me in short order if there is a problem. Temp gauges in modern cars are nothing but fancy idiot lights. If I suspect a problem and want more info, I will plug into the ODB.
If you don’t know the oil temp how do you know when it’s safest to go WOT?
But if all the gauges are glorified idiot lights, that is, they don’t actually move until something really goes pear-shaped, why have them at all? AFAIK, the GM trucks are the only ones that have a functional oil pressure guage, like Dan said.
+1 to APaGttH
I would give up volts for oil and/or with AT trans temp. My Dakota has volts and its basically worthless, the gauge doesn’t budge thus an idiot light would be fine here. The only reason for volts would be someone running lots of aux lights or a winch maybe. Oil pressure and temp plus water temp are pretty important. I would also love to see a yellow caution zone in addition to the normal vs HOT that most gauges display.
Yup, a functional engine temp and oil pressure gauge is more important to me than volts. If an idiot light comes on for volts, the consequences to me is likely being imminently stuck on the side of the road. I’m almost certainly replacing in order under that scenario a belt, an alternator, some regulator or controller, or a battery (least likely as the alternator can generally keep up once it is running).
If an idiot light comes on for oil pressure or engine temperature, I’m basically already screwed. Once that light has come on, the head gasket is close to torched in most cases (if not torched). If I have a low oil pressure condition to the point the light comes on, I’ve likely already damaged things.
That’s why they are called idiot lights. I actually always ASS-U-MEd that oil pressure gauges worked like in every vehicle I’ve had – including my 1985 Isuzu Impulse sitting in the garage, changing with RPM and gear.
A tach and oil pressure gauge can tell me a lot about the health of things under the hood.
It’s not like the car computer doesn’t already know every statistic related to the vehicle. And most cars already have a display that cycles between various items. The only real reason to not provide this info to the driver via a digital display is that too many drivers would go running to the dealer every time their oil temp hit 250 degrees because there is absolutely no way that is good for the car :-)
More like when you needed a round gauge-like thing to hold the idiot light unless you stumped up for the “rallye package”.
These days, you plug a Bluetooth dongle into the OBD2 port and download an app.
I remember some cars of yesterday with two gauges. Fuel, and 85 mph Speedo. Hated that crap. I loved my Mercury Zephyrs, just not their instrumentation. I was planning on swapping in the Sport cluster (which was standard on 79-86 Mustang/Capri) but never got around to it. That would’ve given me a tach, oil pressure, temp, and a voltmeter IIRC.
I have swapped in instrument clusters to gain additional information (usually a tachometer) in many of my cars. I have a tachometer cluster in my Taurus, it didn’t come with it. I put one in my 1998 Lumina, and I tried to figure out a way to put one in my Aerostar without going to a digital cluster.
The best bet for the Aerostar, that I could find, was using an F-Series/Bronco cluster, but would’ve required some wiring modification as the Aerostar didn’t have an rpm signal sent to the cluster since a tachometer wasn’t offered (unless it was the bar-graph tach on the aforementioned digital cluster, which of course had different wiring). I didn’t get that far, and I’m glad I didn’t waste the time or money since I didn’t keep the van.
I always thought Ford should have put a tachometer at least in the Aerostar Sport model, and maybe even loaded XLT or Eddie Bauer models. But oh well lol. I’m sure I’m one of tens of people who would’ve appreciated it.
@ PrincipleDan – knowledge can be a dangerous thing…
Even if the vehicle is fairly well equipped they tend to be dummy gauges rather than imparting actual info since people tend to be alarmist when interpreting the gauge info.
My car reports the engine, trans, and diff temps and the other day an owner was concerned about the engine oil temps reaching 200 degrees on their car (interestingly on the GT350 you can’t even rev the engine to its 8200 rpm redline until the engine hits 190 degrees of oil temp until then the car is capped at 8000 rpm)by way example.
Plus I think its an area where people by dint of not having to know just don’t care.
In ye ol’ days of automobiling when mechanical systems were much less reliable a bevy of gauges were important to maintaining the vehicle or at least in avoiding catastrophic failure.
Plus modern automobiles have fail-safes (limp mode) built in to prevent the sorts of trouble you could get yourself into with older cars if you didn’t pay attention to or incorrectly interpreted that gauge info (provided the gauge was accurate in the first place).
Yeah, but…NO…BLUETOOTH!!
I had a car with Bluetooth for a short time. The only thing I had to hook up to it was my dumb-phone, and that didn’t work so well.
Now, it seems, now that I’ve been convinced of its uselessness…it’s the ONE THING I can’t get a car WITHOUT.
Gimme my gauges. MECHANICAL, not electrical – and HELL NO to gauge-images on an LCD screen.
Yep, a ’73 or ’74 Grand Prix. Still has a 120-mph speedo, so not a ’75-’77. A real Pontiac 400 or 455 (although strangled by low compression and emission controls), and radial tuned suspension.
Then it’s a ’74 because that was the first year for the 3-point seatbelts with the loop in the head restraint for the shoulder portion.
Yep. Colonnade GP, LeMans, or Grand Am.
It must be a GP; the LeMans used a different dash design, and the Grand Am wouldn’t have had the bright molding down the center of the hood.
The Pontiac fandom here is marvelous to see. Seriously.
I’ll toss my hat in with the Arrowhead.
Wrong model year, but enjoy: https://youtu.be/X0SM04kYKqA?t=476
Yup, a ’73 or ’74 Grand Prix. Though the Grand Am had the same cluster. I always like the wrap around design. Very modern for the era.
I like that my 95 T-Bird has temp, oil and volt gauges along with the standard fuel, tach, speedo. I’m old fashion about this. It’s nice to know whats going on even though the computer is doing the work. Any vehicle I own, the more gauges the better.
Mikey,
Not sure if the car pictured is the same year, but my 1975 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ had that same instrument panel and gage package.
Look ma, no tattoos!
If I’m 37, what does that make me? X, Y, or Z? Whatever I am, I just bought a Buick Enclave because I’m attracted to comfortable, anonymous, and spacious vehicles for hauling my kids back and forth to gymnastics and swimming lessons while surrounding my family with enough metal as to protect us from the texter mafia.
Born between 1961 to 1981… you’re an Xer
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=gen+x+years
or, interestingly, the “Oregon Trail Generation.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_Generation
The “Oregon Trail Generation”? Wouldn’t that make me like 170 years old? Just kidding, I loved that game!
It’d make me 171… I’m 38 and enjoyed it too!
“Oregon Trail Generation.”
Charming and insular distinction of yore. I think we’re now all morphing into one giant Donner Party Generation.
You have died of dysentery.
I’m always the f*cking last to know.
Oh and a thief stole 6 oxen from your wagon.
Somebody’s gonna have a hell of a BBQ tonight.
Yabbut the last of our bread got soaked and grew some funny mold so now I’m tripping balls :-D
Maybe that’s how death sort of snuck up on me.
“I think we’re now all morphing into one giant Donner Party Generation.”
As our masters demand!
I was born in 1982 and always considered myself a gen X.
I too am ’82 and we are technically the first year or few years of the Millennials (some people put the cut off at 1980).
I graduated high school in 2000, so I figure Millennial makes sense.
I also think the late Gen-X/early Millennial Oregon Trail generation makes sense for me as well; I got the internet in my house in 1996 when I was a freshman in high school so I clearly spent plenty of time pre-internet as well as had it help my social life in high school and college.
Chris, you just gave me a sad.
Lol I don’t care. I buck stereotypes of all kinds, why should generational stereotypes be any different? :)
Many sources indicate the line between “Baby Boomer” and “Generation X” is February 9th, 1964. I was born exactly 6 months after that, so I suppose I am GenX.
(Why that particular date? It’s the date on which The Beatles made their first US television appearance!)
“I was under impression that 1946-1964 were baby boomers”
That was MY impression too.
Apart from the ’45/’46 Silent Generation-Boomer dividing line, these definitions can get fuzzy. But ’61 definitely is *not* Generation X. The underlying characteristic of Generation X is that it’s small. It’s small for the fairly simple reason that there weren’t a lot of Silent Generation parents to have Gen-X kids.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I-Gvl3hxCqE/U-JNV7UHUGI/AAAAAAAAgB4/KI6Q8g5kXfA/s1600/Births2013.jpg
I’m 33, so I kind of slot in between X and Millennial. My dividing line is this: widespread broadband and social media in high school. Facebook didn’t happen until I was a junior in college.
All that said, we have a 3-row Santa Fe to haul our son and planned future sibling, plus the 3rd row for friends/relatives in a pinch. My wife and I like the space, and I’m also a big fan of not having to bend down to put him in his car seat.
Personally, I have a Mazda 3 for commuting, but will probably get a midsize sedan once the Santa Fe is paid off. I need something that can fit actual people or a dreadnought-class car seat in the back once we can’t guarantee who is hauling which kid where or that it will always be in one vehicle.
False, millennial. /meme
Hilarious:
https://www.indy100.com/article/this-chrome-extension-replaces-millennials-with-snake-people–g1lnGlGxjWW
Makes sense. Gen Xers are older than Millennials, hence conservatism, minivans, Accords over Civics, etc.
All my peers in High School wanted a Civic, Integra or some dedicated sports car (Supra, Mustang, etc). Nobody cared about an Accord, but a few guys drove them.
Having owned and driven many versions of both, I do prefer Accord (with no more the 4 cylinders, preferably hooked to a manual transaxle).
I grew up being sung the songs of Super Cobra Jets, Six-Paks, and Rock Crushers of yore, and most of the new cars were snoozers compared to a Go Mango Super Bee.
But under my respect for vintage American muscle, past my lust for the latest Italian exotica, there was a deep drive for fast but subtle sedans. S8s, M5s, SHOs… show up to the gala in your pinstriped three-piece Brioni, having just walked a 911.
Yes, I’ve always been a “drive a slow car fast, not a fast car slow” kinda guy. That is why I loved my V-6 Tempo. The Vulcan Taurus, first and second gen anyway, are okay. But the Vulcan in the much lighter Tempo was quite a different story.
Maybe I’ll have another someday, lol.
I am not yet 40 and I’m most definitely not a millenial. I finished college before twitter and facebook existed. I called my friends houses from my parents landline to their parents landline and had to (gasp) talk to their parents. I can write a check, write a letter, and look someone in the eye when I shake their hand. I also have worked all sorts of less than desirable stop gap jobs that are “beneath” millenials, who are all too fantastic to touch dishwater or a greasy machine part.
Don’t lump me in with these layabouts.
“My generation’s better than your generation.” LOL. What a stupid argument.
That’s a pretty harsh generalization to make for the millions upon millions of people to be born in that time window.
Back when I was a youngster, I don’t remember the old farts making harsh generalizations like that. Oh the bitterness today.
“Back when I was a youngster, I don’t remember the old farts making harsh generalizations like that. Oh the bitterness today.”
Really? I heard it all the time.
You want a car when you’re 16? Well, I never! I walked in the snow up hill both ways to school!
Man, people have shitting on the newer generation for as long as mankind has existed.
Remember the last line of Yankee Doodle “and called it macaroni”? That’s a reference to the prevailing tendency of young London dandies who were called Macaronis. And rhe joke in the song is both about hayseed rubes trying to be cool, and also about how young people are dumb and like dumb things.
If that song had been written 200 years later, the feather in his cap would have gone nicely with his pimp cane.
I was born in 1978 and my wife was born in 1985, and there is a definite generation gap. On some issues, its enormous, and no, its not a male/female gender divide, its because she was in HS during Columbine and 9/11 and was tethered to her parents because cell phones existed when she was an adolescent. I was out getting into trouble, away from parental surveillance, in the blissful 90s. She was in the “be afraid of everything” paranoiac 00s. History is already seeing these eras as wholly distinct, in the way the 50s and 60s represent two versions of America.
What you call “generalizations” are basic observations that anyone can witness for themselves. Based on how you bristled and got totally defensive about them, they probably hit too close to home.
How can you be sure those observations aren’t 1.) colored by your own contextual experience, and 2.) subject to confirmation bias?
Saying that cell phones, social networking, helicopter parenting and Bush-era fear mongering ISN’T the source of millenial navel gazing is more farfetched than saying it is.
The discussion is not whether the millenials are whiny and self absorbed, the discussion is why.
Here here 3XC. Well said (again).
On topic:
Her taste in cars – AWD CUVs, because she thinks they’re safer (they aren’t) and that she needs AWD (she doesn’t).
There is a certain anxiety/fearfulness present in a generation whose childhoods were interspersed with horrific acts of terrorism and violence. The feeling of “we are not safe” as the news bombarded them with 24/7 video of ordinary people doing ordinary things who are suddenly murdered senselessly by evil people. Contrast this with say, the Kennedy assassination (or rather, JFK, MLK, and RFK) who were exceptional people killed for political reasons. The sense of “it could have been me” wasn’t there.
Anyway, armchair sociology aside, her and her friends, male and female, got a raw deal in that regard, and then a bad economy to boot. The cars they like are practical in some ways but wildly impractical (FWD based AWD that adds weight, reduces efficiency, and adds nothing of value, purchased due to anxiety) in others.
Technically, I’m an X-er. I’m a working professional with a Masters degree in my field, so no, your ignorant comment didn’t hit too close to home. I’m just all too glad to point out the short-sighted bubble you live in. I revel in it.
Stupidity and laziness exist across all generations.
“Back when I was a youngster, I don’t remember the old farts making harsh generalizations like that. Oh the bitterness today.”
Must have been the nice guy squad that day.
Every generation gets flak from the “old heads”, usually something along the lines of “lazy & stupid” or whatever concerns them at the moment.
The reciprocal of course being whatever ails the world today is the result of barbarous previous generation(s) with the latest generation being both wise beyond their years and preternaturally super intelligent to the point that they’ve got it all figured out by the time they’ve received some form of freshly minted diploma – grizzled veterans with well worn thumbs from all that book learn’n!
Well put, man, I’m with ya 100%.
Show of hands, who remembers getting knocked offline when mom picked up the phone to make a call?
Waiting an 15 minutes for a single picture to load?
When “LOL” was referring to Land O Lakes butter?
When people kept private information private, and mundane tasks to themselves instead of posting it for all the world to see?
I know the first three, but I just got back from lunch with Grandma (b. 1941), and she does _not_ keep private info private.
Ha yeah. I’ll give ya that. My aunt (God rest her soul) once gave me (very much unwelcomed) explicit details on her bowl movements.
But, probably not unlike your grandmother, at least she kept that sort of talk at bay unless it was just family members at home.
Well, it’s not explicit stuff about her or her bodily functions, it’s more gossip she heard from Judy, who heard it from Bev, about such-and-such still not being married even though they’ve had a kid and have been living together for a year, or it’s more complaints about her pastor being a poor administrator, which from what I’ve seen, are legitimate concerns, but why not take them up with him or with the president of the congregation? Complaining to me about it does nothing! The only reason you still go to that church 20 miles away instead of the one at home is because 45 years ago you didn’t like the pastor here! And he’s been dead for 30 years!
Geeze, that sounds like my mom 100%. But, don’t DARE call it gossip, NO SIR, that’s wrong and she’d never do something wrong.
But the difference between what I was getting at and gossip is that people go ahead and tell the world they have 3 babies by three different men, got so drunk they puked in their friend’s BMW and/or had to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning after a wild Tuesday night, and had a fling with a guy the night before she married another guy.
There is no need to gossip, it’s all written first hand on TwitFace by the person themselves.
I remember better.
I remember when file-sharing music was done, one cassette at a time. The real slicksters had dual-cassette decks…could copy them directly, only take the 60 minutes a normal play would. You could mow the lawn or make dinner, and have your friend’s bootleg cassette all ready.
I remember PARTY LINES. God help you if you had a yap-yap neighbor.
I even remember young women without tattoos.
I can never tell if these things are serious or a parody.
“I had to walk 10 miles to school in waist-deep snow, uphill, both ways!”
The Four Yorkshiremen sketch pretty much took this whole shtick to its (il)logical conclusion.
No, it was level.
But often a foot deep.
I did have to walk. Back then, the understanding was that if a kid had a car, he had to PAY for it. And the costs.
The district school-bus policy was insane…these were the 1970s. They focused on getting the little kidlets to the elementary schools…us high-schoolers could hop bus route to bus route, and there were a few that did go to the junior-high and high schools. None convenient for me. Most of the kids in my neighborhood were older and a lot of them DID have old hoopties…which we called something else.
A 1957 Chevrolet was a kid’s beater in that era. If you had $500 when one popped up, you were RIDING! Of course, a lot of those Tri-Fives WERE beaters…
I walked. The employment situation was tough and about to get tougher, 1976.
Speaking of privacy, I remember those things called “telephone booths” with the folding doors so you could make phone calls in public without being heard!
Now everyone shouts into their cellphones no matter how many strangers can hear every word.
Hah, I did wonder what happened to all those old phone booths. There’s gotta be a phone booth grave yard somewhere.
Two suburban cities around Cleveland, Bay Village and Euclid…both of them purchased job lots of those old phone booths and set them up as semi-portable school crossing-guard shelters.
They’d go up in the fall and come down in the spring. I never figured they were that sturdy to take all that manhandling, but at least for a couple of seasons, that’s what they got used as.
Interesting. Thx.
Yeah, because two success stories define an entire generation.
I’m an Xer (born 1976, 41st birthday depressingly soon) and my Seattle-area peers are definitely in the car-conservative camp. There are a lot of quite affluent people in my peer group who are driving old Subarus, Corollas, or (for those with lots of rug rats) older used Pilots and Highlanders. Very few of them have anything even as fancy as my 2008 Lexus, let alone new luxury cars. Those are pretty much exclusively the province of boomers.
The millennials around here mostly are trying to leave in the city without cars. But the ones who do have cars tend to have whatever they can get for $5000 or less.
Yup, about sums up Seattle Gen X here. The minivan observation was interesting, although agree they buy more because we have families, my last commuter was a minivan because it was practical and cheap.
The eastside is the land of A4s, 3-series, and Teslas where the employees of Google and Microsoft live.
I haven’t bought a “new” car in a decade now, and I don’t see me doing it, and definitely owning cars longer and longer. I care about technology, but not enough to swap out my ride over a touch screen and Apple CarPlay.
Yes, I’ve owned several Aerostars, and unfortunately, one Windstar. I didn’t have kids, it was just a practical way to haul my tools, my friends, etc. I used them for camping as well.
Would I buy a new minivan for that? No, unless it was something odd like a Transit Connect. The rest are meh.
I am a millenial (born in 1989) but I have such an old soul that I would certainly skew surveys like this. I’m wary of new technology until a few others have tried it. I prefer to let others be the beta testers, and then I will join in when things are more proven.
Gen X RULES (’76)
But I thought you hated us Boomers more.
C’mon, we’re worse; we put the HFCS and dwarf wheat glutens in the Millenials’ bloodstreams.
Edit: taking your rant away is so Millenial.
You Boomers (at least the ones in west coast cities) imposed the strict development limits that made me just recently spend both arms, one leg, and one ball on a small, old house. I do hate you more.
Let the hate flow through you.
Sounds like a personal problem :)
We have many lands for sale in Detroit. Come, join us, in post industrial apocalyptic bliss. I’ll leave the trash can fire on for you.
Did Snake Pliskin move in yet?
Yes, but he’s not happy about the hipsters that have moved in next door.
I thought Snake was dead.
That’s what he wanted you to think.
He’s roommates with RoboCop
He’s also getting a statue.
What he really needs is new spandex.
“You Boomers…”
We’ve Made a Difference!
Sorry dal, but that is all on you. On the one hand certainly there have been laws enacted in King County that limit development in rural areas. On the other hand the minimum lot size has shrunk considerably in that same time frame and more and more areas have been rezoned such that high rise condo developments are flourishing in Seattle.
For the money you spent you could have purchased a massive new or almost new home on a larger or much larger lot but you are unwilling to drive any distance to get to work.
We are currently in season for the team I coach which means daily trips to Capitol Hill, not that far from your house. Getting to and from I-5 is the problem not the rest of the commute. I typically spend 1/4~1/3 of my total commute doing the less than 10% between the top of Capitol Hill and I-5 or sometimes directly to I-90 via 23rd if there is some major problem on I-5.
My complaint isn’t about the rural development limits. It’s about the Seattle in-city development limits. There is no sense, in an urban city whose population has jumped by almost 50% in just the last few years, in having barely any more capacity for development than there was 50 years ago. There have been a few upzones in a few isolated areas, mainly reclaimed industrial areas, but they are a drop in the bucket. On about two-thirds of the land in the city, developers are still forbidden from building anything other than about 8 single-family houses per acre. The reason is a raw exercise of political power by mostly older homeowners, who turn every community meeting into a sea of grey heads and shout down every proposal, no matter how incremental, for increased development limits.
I would rather have bought a 3-bedroom condo even closer to the center. There are none remotely close to my price range, and that is mostly because there is a huge shortage of places they can be built. When you have people camping out (literally) for days just for the opportunity to put down deposits on new condos sight unseen, you know you have a capacity shortage.
And, yes, it’s worth quite a lot to me to avoid spending an hour and a half to two hours of every workday in my car, over and beyond the $350/month cost of parking in my building. My employer evaluates me based on the number of hours I work (something inherent to my field), and every minute not at work is absolutely precious.
^This. My dad worked for Boeing in Everett, but we lived in Stanwood and (later) Arlington. Our neighbors worked in Seattle, Renton, Federal Way, etc. Its better to commute a bit than to settle for a tiny old house just to avoid I-5.
With all the cheap, good condition cars up there, you can easily find a nice older Accord EX manual or something for very little, to pile the miles on instead of your “nice” car. Although Dal’s DD is a Hybrid, so that may not be necessary.
The hybrid is mainly for kid-shuttling duties and my wife uses it during the day. If I had to commute to work, the LS460 would promptly disappear and be replaced by an Accord Hybrid or maybe, if it’s as good as the numbers suggest, a 2018 Camry Hybrid.
Dal, I understand your priorities and I get what you’re saying. I certainly didn’t mean to come across as rude, if I did.
Just making sure you knew I wasn’t calling you an idiot or something, lol.
A lot of people hate commuting, but I always enjoy driving no matter where I’m going or if I’ve driven the route 100 times before. I just love to drive. I actually didn’t mind my 1.5 hour (each way) commute at my last job. I didn’t, or more accurately, my bad back didnt love driving a base model Saturn that long everyday, but I sure enjoyed getting 40+ MPG. :)
John, I can’t imagine getting mad at you. Even if you were to call me an idiot you’d do it civilly.
Check out this piece I caught in Naked Capitalism today regarding housing/rent UN-affodability skyrocketing, at least in large measure, to Obama Admin policies allowing venture capital firms to backstop losses on value of housing units they purchased through taxpayers (FHA/Freddie/Fannie), and NOW, they are backstopped on units purchased for rental income, in the event that renters abort premises or that rents fall:
The Obama Administration Bails Out Private Equity Landlords at the Expense of the Middle Class: Government Guarantees for Rental Securitization
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/the-obama-administration-bails-out-private-equity-landlords-at-the-expense-of-the-middle-class-government-guarantees-for-rental-securitization.html
We don’t have anything REMOTELY close to free market capitalism, anymore. I work in and know this sector of the economy well, and both parties are bought and paid for, OWNED by Wall Street as the financialization of the economy marches on, destroying actual, non-government subsidized entities/individuals.
If one bothers to read even parts of that article, and they don’t feel their blood boiling and steam coming out their ears, they’re dead already, so it won’t make any difference to them as to what is happening/has happened to this country.
What I’ve never understood about any sort of tranched securities backed by an income stream is who buys the lowest tranches (absent a government guarantee like in your link). The securities are really a repackaging of risk, de-risking the income stream for most holders (and therefore reducing the rate of return they must be offered in order to invest) while concentrating all of the risk in the lowest tranches. How can you possibly offer that stuff at a discount that makes it look attractive? Who are the buyers — are they all just extra-speculative hedge funds?
It’s one thing to distort the sell side but I don’t understand the buy side at all.
Of course we do you greedy bastages! You decided to live longer while planning poorly for your retirement years!
X, FTW.
F*ck you, Millennials. I do what I WANT.
I was the wheel “man” of a mint 1969 Olds Cutlass 454 at the tender age of 7, while the jewelry store job went down.
I smoked Marlboro Reds when I was 8, and neither booms, bust nor bullets could take me down. I’ve been shot more times than I can count, yet still had a perfect ACT/SAT score, fools.
I’m made of steel while you “gots the feelz.” You talk about transgender bathrooms & polar bears – I FIX BROKEN THINKS MADE OF COLD, HARD STEEL, WITH BLOODY KNUCKLES & THEN READ TOLSTOY BEFORE BED.
KING KONG AIN’T GOT SH*T ON ME!
I ATE JIMMY HOFFA WITH SOME FAVA BEANS & A NICE CHIANTI, WITH A SIDE DISH OF ROAST TUPAC.
You are the true, apathetic, “whine-but-do-nothing” generation.
You will never know Black Flag, Cypress Hill or Danzig like I do.
As Henry Rollins would scream, it’s because “YOU ARE ALL LIARS!!!!”
He finally broke, and it is glorious.
I’m glad he came back here, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to.
I completely agree, DW is surreal.
That’s gold, Jerry, gold!
I wanna hear Mr. Regular read this in the middle of a review.
It’s like our very own Hunter S. Thompson.
I wanna know what beer inspired this so I can try some.
Single Malt Scotch and a month without sun.
One month? We’re thrilled if we get sun after just one month.
Scotch isn’t this powerful, this was a combination of many things at once.
I think if we get him up to 88mph he could tear a hole in the fabric of time.
Maybe the reference to Cypress Hill is telling us something.
“Single Malt Scotch and a month without sun.”
Blasphemy! That’s just what a good doctor would order to reinvigorate the sort of go-getter that would pull all his nails and teeth and toss all his implements before he goes on the great cave bear hunt!
“a mint 1969 Olds Cutlass 454 at the tender age of 7”
No such car.
2/10.
I meant 442
Vehicle was exactly like this:
http://car-from-uk.com/ebay/carphotos/full/ebay147211680547743.jpg
http://car-from-uk.com/ebay/carphotos/full/ebay147211680887760.jpg
I ran people over in that car at 7 years of age and it never bothered me because there was a job that had to get done, and snowflakes be rammed.
People are meat, blood and bone bags.
Olds big blocks were 455s. Chevy had the 454.
I know you hate my 98.
My heroes don’t appear on no stamp
Im pretty sure that millennials are driven by commercials prefaced by the statement “Real People. Not Actors.”, followed by someone with a beard and calm demeanor to highlight the millennial merits of each car, how much J.D. Power likes them, and how the company is “stepping up their game”, “goin hard” and other millennial friendly slang. Just curious, are actors not also real people?
Don’t forget the thick framed glasses!
“more interested in newer cars and technology and less interested in price, brand loyalty, or longevity.”
If they’re not concerned with the price, then they must not be paying for it. This is the biggest problem I have with my teenage kids. They don’t know the value of a dollar, because they’ve never had to earn one.
These kids today, they don’t know the value of a dollar.
Why not just add as “back in my day” while you’re at it.
Maybe, just maybe the reason price is less important is because they’re young, and when you’re young wasting money on fast cars and cool shit is as a thing you do.
“Maybe, just maybe the reason price is less important is because they’re young, and when you’re young wasting money on fast cars and cool shit is as a thing you do.”
I dunno… I see mostly old guys wasting money on fast cars.
What does that say about the guy who raised them?
Exactly. You think you’re complaining about your kids, but you’re really broadcasting your parental failures.
And if you’re complaining about how the next generation down is being raised wrong, that still begs the question, “well, who raised those parents?”
Well, a lot of X were raised by their grandparents either part-time or full-time because their boomer parents were too self-absorbed to do the job. The X parents that fell into the same trap are struggling because their absentee boomer parents are either still absentee or never developed the skills to do the job.
What we need isn’t walls or tax breaks or blue collar jobs, what we need are good parents for more children than we currently have.
Hell, 319, my parents were born in the late ’30s and early ’40s, and there were ***plenty*** of folks in that age group who were incredibly self absorbed, my folks included.
Nothing new there.
I was raised partially by my grandparents because they lived right next door, Dad was out driving school bus or farming (which is fun for a kid but not always safe for them to tag along), and Mom was working.
I need a place to store my beard oil, seatbelt chimes replaced by The Shins, the touchscreen to communicate in GIFs & cartoon show references, and “gastropub” as a nav system category.
1993 here, and speaking to the millennial-bashers here, who the heck do you people think raised us?
If there’s a universal problem with millennials, it would either be a) the way our parents raised us, b) the environment, or c) some combination of the two. There can’t possibly be something inherent in all millennials that makes us to blame for our own so-called “laziness.”
For reference, my parents were born in the early seventies and so are definitely Gen X’ers. One set of grandparents are Baby Boomers; the others are part of the Silent Generation (pre-1945). But I feel like I was raised reasonably well.
You’re reflective of the positive sides of Millennials. I would say your parents did a fine job.
“1993 here, and speaking to the millennial-bashers here, who the heck do you people think raised us?”
An old fart like me, I suppose…
That’s just it. You blame your parents, because they were the ones doing your science fair projects, shuttling you back and forth to high school because you protested the indignity of walking or (gasp) riding the school bus, and paying you for getting As. We didn’t blame our parents for our success or failure, because we recognized that their role was to make sure we didn’t starve or wander off in winter without a coat on. Our success or failure was on us.
My parents, as most Gen X kids, had parents who were more authoritarian but less involved. They weren’t our friends. Our feelings on the matter were irrelevant. Our chicken wasn’t in dinosaur shaped nugget form, it was just a chicken leg with a bone sticking out of it. There was no cable kids station with 24/7 cartoons, not that the one TV the family shared would ever fall into our dominion anyway. Mom and dad told us to go play outside and we did. We had our own kid societies with our own rules and we had to survive this as kids, looking out for ourselves. Where do pre-teen kids go now where there is no adult supervision? Does such a place even exist? And we wonder why they become dependent, needy adults?
This is a spot on synopsis of how my childhood differed from the way my wife is raising her (my step) kids and I am trying to train the whole lot differently. Personally, I think the pendulum was too far on both styles. Be emotionally available, but not coddling. Allow them to have some agency, but they aren’t in charge. Give them a better life than you had, but don’t spoil them. OF course that line isnt easy to trace.
Millenials lazy? Meh. I knew my fair share of lazy baby boomer kids too.
I have a millenial college student under my roof, and if you count people born in 2000, you can include my youngest daughter too. “Lazy” is the last word you’d use to describe either of them.
Now, my girlfriend’s kid…well, that’s another matter. With any luck, he moves out before we move in together, because, friend, I’m gonna have a major issue with a kid taking two classes a semester at college, working about 15 hours a week, and spending the rest of his time on video games and making chain mail (not kidding about that last part).
But as parents, both my girlfriend and I are from the same generation, grew up in similarly affluent houses headed by go-getter dads, same basic political affiliation, same educational attainment, etc. But our kids came out worlds different.
As with anything, when it comes to kids, your results may vary.
Where do they go? They don’t GO anywhere. Mine navigate via smartphone thru their world. Given a couch or beanbag chair, and some device to watch YouTube channels on, they move only for bio-breaks. It’s amazing.
Let me take you back to when games for Gen X cost quarters…
We were allowed(required) to mow, pull weeds, watch children, or do one of a hundred knock-on-door kind of jobs before we were 16, wherein we purchased old malaise-era pony cars. Or, if really stupidly lucky, a gen-u-wine 60’s beast (before they became the domain of Boomers in Hawaiian shirts at auctions). I got to feel the face-pulling power of a few as they would walk away from a 150-horse G-body like mine or a modern family car (Camcord) like its’ parking brake was on.
We financed college (and pizza and weed, thanks Citibank!) and got degrees, as our parents mostly hadn’t, and they all had to work for some “College Puke”. So, that was the key in their minds, ANY degree would do. They helped us trade the Camaro/Mustang for a Rabbit/Omni, carried our crap into the dorm, and were free of us except for the occasional proof of life phone call.
We graduated, could not find jobs, and scratched our heads doing retail or food service. Slackers was pretty real, except for the attractiveness of the actors. As much as I got a kick out of bike shops, used goods, waiting tables and eventually busting knuckles on Chrysler products, we had to give up the flannel and stocking caps and get to work. Clinton was our hero (“but I didn’t inhale!”). We got married and suddenly had skin in the game. And here we are, Odyssey-owners on Facebook.
“Where do they go? They don’t GO anywhere. Mine navigate via smartphone thru their world. Given a couch or beanbag chair, and some device to watch YouTube channels on, they move only for bio-breaks. It’s amazing.”
Not all that different from kids in the ’80s vegging out on MTV and Colecovision, I’d say…
Well, again, I’d say my parents did a good job of making sure I was reasonably comfortable as a child, but not entitled. They definitely did not make my science fair projects, or anything like that.
I think that what you describe is known colloquially as a spoiled brat…and that’s a phenomenon that transcends generations.
Kyree, your parents did something right, you’re a good guy, responsible and mature.
As far as I can tell, you certainly don’t represent a lot of the people who were born in the 1990s (like my ex, for example, how can you be 23 and act like a 15 year old with a fake ID?). Take that as a compliment, as it was intended. :)
I know a lot of late-20/30somethings who act like high schoolers, and at the same time, people in their early 20s that make me feel like a kid.
I appreciate the compliment, and I’m dating a guy who is in his thirties, and in an eerily situation to yours (had a younger ex who ruined his finances).
But again, I think these irresponsible failure-to-launch-type people can be found in all generations. It’s not just us nineties babies :P
@John:
“As far as I can tell, you certainly don’t represent a lot of the people who were born in the 1990s (like my ex, for example, how can you be 23 and act like a 15 year old with a fake ID?).”
Hell, John, my ex is 52 and that’s the way she lives. Just found out she is off my alimony dole in August, and threw a royal fit. She’s collected over $90,000 from me, and wants to continue laying around, apparently. Five word reply: 1) Get 2) A 3) F**king 4) Job 5) Already.
(I’ll leave out word six, which is, of course a reference to female dogs.)
She came from a prototypical affluent home – highly successful dad, college educated, three very successful siblings, etc.
It’s nothing new, really. Some people are just lazy. Is this disproportionate with millenials? I don’t see the hard evidence of it. What I do see is young people who are living in a world that’s fundamentally changed, where it’s far harder to land a high-paying job.
I gotcha Mike, and I agree with you and Kyree: lazy, do-nothing users can be from any generation.
And, I blame myself for letting him do it. Love is blind, evidently its also deaf lol
“For reference, my parents were born in the early seventies and so are definitely Gen X’ers. One set of grandparents are Baby Boomers; the others are part of the Silent Generation (pre-1945). But I feel like I was raised reasonably well.”
Well damn… I feel old now and I wanted to blame all you lazy shiftless millennials on the boomers mostly as a consequence I suppose of never having had any kids and the fact that my parents were born just before the boomer generation (well the old man at least, mom was born right on the line).
I’m a somewhat early X’er having been birthed the year humans landed on the moon. Still don’t feel old though, partly due to that kid thing and I suppose the crowd I work with. I’m the second oldest person in my department and the rest are between half and two-thirds my age.
Gen X here and the 1980s were my automotive savant formative years. I was a witness to the Japanese laying waste to the domestic automakers.
My Dad, a baby boomer, had a lot of influence on my automotive preferences. He was a hardcore GM guy, had 4 different Chevelles, a really cool 2 door Caprice, and a series of GM station wagon company cars.
It all changed after experiences with a mid 80s Cavalier and an Olds Cutlass Ciera which both turned out to be breathtakingly horrible vehicles, especially compared to the full size RWD V8 cars my Dad was used to.
Dad tried out a 1992 Camry V6, and that was it, no more GM ever again. That car convinced me as well, it was just much, much, much better than anything our family had ever had.
And that’s why, of the 13 cars I’ve owned, 12 of them were Japanese.
Because every modern American car is a 1984 Cavalier? That makes total sense.
Btw, American brands still outsell Japanese brands. Ford is the number one brand (2nd is Chevy IIRC), its truck has been number one for 40 years now. If that’s being slaughtered, it doesn’t sound too bad.
No, I know modern American cars are much better now, and I might even buy another someday. I had a 1991 LX 5.0L Mustang, it was a great car. Many car brands are always on the table when I’m buying a car, but my bias to Japanese has won out most of the time. Always look at VWs, but still haven’t been able to do it.
As far as the big 3 vs the Japanese, consider that the Japanese went from selling virtually nothing in the US in the 70s, to where they were in the 80s, to where they are today.
It was all at the expense of the big 3. That’s an ass whooping.
It may have been at their expense, but they maintain a healthy bottom line, financial crisis notwithstanding.
My only point was that they still outsell Japanese brands as a whole, even though not with one particular car, at least since 1996.
Its also worth pointing out how far Japanese brands improved from the 1970s to the 80s and to now. They enlarged their midsize sedans to compete with Taurus (including offering a V-6) and had Ford not neglected it later, it might still be a contender today. But, at least the Fusion is a worthy compeditor and a decent successor to the 1st and 2nd gen Taurus.
Japanese brands attempts to take on full size trucks have bombed each and every time. And no, it isn’t just brand loyalty that keeps the American trucks on top, its the astounding number of configurations along with the near-constant improvements.
How many new F-150s have been released since the current Tundra went on sale in 2007? Not just a Toyota-style front facia redesign with an “all new” buzzword, I mean totally new generations.
If the American manufacturers put as much effort into their sedans as they do their big pickups, they would dominate that segment as well. Not that the new Malibu and the Fusion are terrible, not at all, just clearly not as high on the priority list. And we all know why. Profit.
So, you can bash the domestics and pretend they are struggling, but when they sell 800k+ a year of their trucks compared to 115k Tundras, they are doing alright, I assure you.
Born in 1971 thus a mid to late Gen X – and I’m starting to feel really old now that there are TWO generations after me! When I was in high school all the cool kids drove Japanese vehicles. American cars were considered the crap your parents (Baby Boomers) were stuck with. All told I’ve had 13 vehicles: 4 American (2 trucks), 2 European and the rest Japanese. However Gen Z (iGeneration) is going to reset the laziness bar set by Gen Y (Millennials) I think. My nieces for example (born 2008) freak out when a commercial comes on TV because they have lived their whole lives with DVRs and stream-able content. They figure everything works by pushing a button or swiping at a screen. Thus I assume their expectations will be heavily skewed towards self driving cars. To them plugging in a car makes more sense then filling one up. By the time my nieces can drive we can almost guarantee there will be no more new cars available with manual transmissions. It also possible by that time that Telsa will be a full line manufacture with sales on par with any of Big 3.
Amen. Right there with you. I have a fifteen-mile commute, and like any driver trained on films-O-death before airbags, my head is on a swivel for possible danger. What I see, every single blasted day, is young women in Asian sedans blissfully dragging along in traffic staring straight down. Assumedly at a phone. They never seem to hit the semi in front of them, or weave into me, but I no idea if any of these ladies actually have eyeballs.
I cannot be sexist here, as a recent horrible accident in my town was caused by a Millennial dude texting behind the wheel of a truck and running over stopped traffic, so I know men do it as well. It seems that the girls are more obvious about it. Who they must text RIGHT NOW I have no idea.
I think this generation will be totally happy to plug in, lean back, and stroll Instagram (or whatever takes over) while the car drives.
Oh man, there were these two older black guys, brothers, who were cutting down some large trees at a house up the street from me. They had an old 1970s Ford F-350 and a trailer that they used to haul the trees to the lumber mill. Everyday, I’d see them drive by and waved. They always smiled and waved back.
One day, this semi truck driver was texting and hit them from behind. It shoved the log through cab of the truck, decapitating the driver. His brother refused treatment and died at home less than a week later.
I didn’t even know those guys, but I break each time I think of it. I’m crying right now as I type. GOD why do people that! Was telling your girlfriend she looks good in those jeans worth that mans life? I think I would have beat the $hit out of the truck driver had I been that. They said the mans wife sat there on the road, rocking back and forth screaming. Inconsolable. God bless her, i
Correlation Vs. Causation, stats 101.
Late baby boomer here (1963). And we really have no f*cking idea what we want, but we know we’re gonna be working forever.
Therefore: Mustang! If you’re gonna die at your desk, you should have a cool ride. And if you know me, you know the color.
I, too am a late baby boomer (1962). I do have an idea of what I want, but fear I’ve run out of time. After events related to the GFC have robbed me of several years of financial stability, I’m trying to claw my way back up.
I have a feeling that like you, I’ll be working until I’m dead, plus a few years beyond that. What the Hell, apparently you can vote after death why not make a few bucks, too? (/s).
Every generation thinks the one behind them is lazy or non-motivated. My greatest generation parents thought Boomers were lazy, and on it goes. Sooner or later, we all pair up and start to make a life (of one kind or another). Then, that generation b!tches about the generation they spawned. The more things change, the more they stay the same…
“The more things change, the more they stay the same…”
This.
And who knows about the “dead folks voting” thing…it’s a longtime complaint conservatives have been trotting out since Nixon lost in 1960, in part due to the Daley machine in Chicago. And they were probably right. But 1) Daley’s dead, and 2) Nixon was a horrible creep who never had any business being president anyway.
Does it happen? Probably. Does it happen to the tune of millions of votes? Bloody unlikely, if you ask me. Here in Colorado, the last (conservative Republican) secretary of state went on a whole state funded jihad against “illegal voters.” Know how many he found, in a state with 5 million people? About 100…and the ones he found just mainly had errors or some other kind of problems with their registrations. There only a handful of cases where the evidence suggested that any of them had intended to vote illegally. Most hadn’t voted at all.
This is about a certain politician not being able to handle people giving him s**t because he lost the popular vote. This same politician can’t handle being called on ANY of his s**t. That, I believe, is what this is about. Look up the term “gaslighting” and you’ll find about 95% of that behavior describes our dear president perfectly.
And speaking of baby boomers and Gen X, I’m pouring one out right now…
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/arts/television/mary-tyler-moore-dead.html
First Princess Leia, now this. Bleaaaacccch.
80 isn’t lamentable, though. I’d be more than happy to make it to 80. Or maybe 83, so I’d be around for the tricentennial. (Implying…)
Mary Tyler Moore on the Dick van dyke show …..With the Capri pants ; ) …Oh the fantasies .
Oh, Robbbbbbbbb!
Even catching her on Nick at Nite seeing Dick Van Dyke show and the Mary Tyler More Show and being a teen – I knew she had been hot, and good at her profession
PrincipalDan
I watched those shows when they were NEW, way back when, on a Black&White TV.
I know, I’m dating myself.
I tried dating myself, but then I realized I could do better.
28CL
heh heh heh. And did you (do better)?
For awhile…
Well, you got engaged *somehow*, 28…dumb luck?
Destiny.
28CL, you put the lime in the coconut……
Hope it works out for you, ’cause dating yourself ain’t all it is cracked up to be.
Too much having to take matters into your own hand.
That steering wheel is giving her arthritis.
I prefer less features in my car, not more. I like “average”, just add leather and a sunroof. I do care about reliability, which is why I don’t think I will touch much of anything out there right now…Turbo this, start-stop that, nine-gazillion speed this…I have a feeling that the timeframe for cradle-to-grave for the average 2017-ish car will be about five years, when it used to be 10-20.
Long-term ownership is my goal. I still have at least eight years to go on my ’13 200. Quite frankly, I’m considering keeping it longer. It may not be fast nor is it cutting edge, but it has been a really great car. I like my car. My wife likes a new car every 3-5 years, but she pays for that (yes, we made an agreement for it to be that way).
Brand loyalty? I am picky. I’ve only owned Mopar, hence my screen name. There are cars I might have considered from other brands (Ford, GM, Mercedes, Honda) but I have never considered a Toyota/Lexus or Volkswagen/Audi, for instance.
As for everything else, it seems as if I’m everything that the archetypical millennial is not.
Fewer. Fewer features.
Yeah, its a good thing Chrysler never screwed around with Turbos. The 1980s K-based everything just never happened. Oh, except the minivans. Yeah.