What is "wrong" with these new subcompacts?

Mr_Shiftright

It's all supply and demand and that varies place to place. MINIs are like swarms of locusts where I live, you can't swing a cat without hitting one. I doubt you could command that premium price for a used one around here---but you'll get a good solid price nonetheless. You'd do better I think , percentage wise, flipping a Scion or Fit than a MINI in Marin County right now.

WHAT'S A RATIONAL DECISION?

To me, a rational decision is one where a person can explain or list some logical reasons for buying something other than "I wanted it" or "because I could buy it". That's emotional. "Rational" is more about fuel mileage or hauling capacity or excellent resale value...you know...all that dull rational stuff....in other words, the person is attempting to say "I spend my money for good reasons"...it implies (to me) a respect for money, regardless of how much or little you have of it.

So I could list for you why I bought this dinky subcompact---traveling in the Bay Area all day saves gas / good cargo capacity for what I haul (books, hiking gear, sports equipment) / good resale value / dependable car, no worries / easy to park in large metro areas / fun to drive.

My Point? Subcompact purchase requires a rationale. There's not a lot of emotion, status, or desire operative in this type of purchase. You can't compare the buying experience to that of a sports car or luxury SUV, which may not have been purchased for any objective, rational reason. (or it might have, if you haul boats or race on weekends...)

wale_bate1

Yes, the advantage can be substantial, more especially in pre-war housing tracts in suburbia and in urban settings.

Kirstie_H

Bueller? Anyone?
Answers on a 3x5 postcard, please.

The conversation is getting ugly and personal, not to mention off-topic, in a way that's making this topic an endangered species.

brightness04

I agree with you on plebian subcompacts like Rio, Yaris, even xA/xB and Fit (although Fit is stretching it the way they are sold now). However, that's not what's been going on around here lately, is it? Mini and A3 certainly do not fall into the category of "respecting money"; more to the point, respecting one's own labor; after all, I'm sure we all worked hard for our money. Mini and A3 are very much status symbols, much more so than plebian SUVs like Explorers and Highlanders, that are usually bought as short-base minivan alternatives.

brightness04

This post is on cars and parking space, not houses.

I don't think there were pre-war housing tracts. Housing tracts were invented by Levitt of Levittown fame using his experienc building army barracks in WWII. The 23-24' garage foundation I mentioned was the late 1940's, 1950's and early 60's spec. The modern McMansions have much larger garages, so the parking advantage of midsize over full-size may not even be relevent in that case.

I'm doubtful how much parking advantage is gained from downsizing compacts to subcompacts. Until a car is downsized to microcar size so it can park sideways in the gap between parking spaces (then you get ticketted for not paying the meter ;-), the extra foot length reduction really does not help much below Compact size, even in the city.

andre1969

It is nice having the extra space in the garage, isn't it?

Yeah, extra space is nice. Every once in awhile I keep kicking myself, wishing I'd gone for a 40x27 instead of 40x24 when I had my garage built. These things were mass-produced though, and 40x27 wasn't a stock size, so it might have been cost-prohibitive, once you factored in custom-built trusses and such. And the county wouldn't let me go any bigger, to, say, 40x30.

wale_bate1

Yes, as I said, in reference to garages, the advantages can be substantial, as enumerated in your first post.

The advantage in our 1978 two-car is quite beneficial per my anecdotal example with a compact. A subcompact would only be moreso.

In many a typical residential SF garage, even a modern midsize can be a challenge to store. In city street parking, the ability to fit in the last space between the two idiots with no parking skills can be a career-saver.

Aside: Housing tracts and tract housing are two different animals. A single builder developing a whole tract was not in the least uncommon even at the turn of the last century.

snakeweasel

It's become diminishing return.

Its not a diminishing return simply because every inch of reduction in car length yields an inch increase in garage space.

andre1969

pretty much invented what we'd call the suburb, but houses were definitely mass-produced before the 40's. Just go into Washington DC, Baltimore, etc, and look at all the row houses that were cut from a common cloth. My Great Grandfather was a carpenter/house builder and built a lot of homes in the early part of the century, up until his death in 1946, in the Harrisburg PA area. Again, they weren't mass-produced, slapped-together tract things, but they were still more mass-produced than something like an expensive custom-built home.

Sears & Roebuck sold home kits back in the day, too. There's a bunch of them in my neighborhood in Maryland, and they're all pretty much identical. Seemed to all pop up around 1925, according to state records.

Garages were pretty rare back in the old days, but those that were built tended to be pretty small. There's an old garage out behind my house that's about 10x20 feet on the outside. Nobody around remembers when it was built, but it definitely pre-dates 1934, which is the earliest my grandma can remember back on this area. Back then, a lot of a car's width was in the running boards, and the passenger cabins were quite narrow. So it would've suited an old Model-A or whatever quite nicely. A 1976 LeMans coupe, with wide, heavy doors? Ummm, no!

I think my old condo's garage, which was built in 1973, was about 10x21 feet on the inside. I used alternate between keeping my '57 DeSoto or my '67 Catalina in there. It was a tight squeeze. I'd have to maneuver the car in so that it was practically up against the side wall, to give me enough room to easily open the door. And forget about storing anything in there beside the car...that would make for a truly tight squeeze.

When Levitt came through these parts, raping, er, I mean developing the countryside around 1960, I think your typical 1-car garage was about 11x20 feet. At least, of the one floorplan I've been able to find (I collect the weirdest stuff sometimes) that's the dimensions it shows. I have no idea what the standard would be these days, but I've seen supposedly upscale homes with 2-car garages that are less than 20x20.

brightness04

The downsizing from full-size to midsize and even to Compact size can indeed be highly benefitial to garage parking flexibility. As per the number illustrated before, the last step downsizing to subcompact however is highly dubious . . . it's a diminishing return.

Turn of the (last) century builders did not build garages for cars. 23-24' foundation is the standard size for the overwhelming majority of garages.

brightness04

The 20x20 may have been interior dimension. A 23x24 (foundation size) garage like mine yields little over 20x20 interior size (about 21.5x21.5 for mine), after wall thickness and door mechanism are taken out the equation. 20' is still 240", after taking out another 1.5" for the shelf (which is really pushing it if the interior length is only 20'), that's still 222"; i.e. very close to the 225" total interior length available for cars that I was referring to. Even in that space, shrinking from compact to subcompact is quite superfluous . . . the first couple downsizing from full to mid and mid to compact are significant to somewhat less significant.

brightness04

Its not a diminishing return simply because every inch of reduction in car length yields an inch increase in garage space.

An extra 15" when you only have 20" to begin with is significant. However additional 15" when you already have 55" is called diminishing return (27% increase vs. earlier 75% increase). Unless you prize the freedom of piling up more junk (besides the 2' deep shelf) in front of the car in the garage, the extra space beyond 35" or so needed to open the rear door really doesn't accomplish much.

wale_bate1

"The downsizing from full-size to midsize and even to Compact size can indeed be highly benefitial to garage parking flexibility. As per the number illustrated before, the last step downsizing to subcompact however is highly dubious . . . it's a diminishing return..."

An advantage nonetheless, as you pointed out, particularly for those looking for space. Never met anyone personally who said, "You know, I just have too much storage space..."!

"Turn of the (last) century builders did not build garages for cars. 23-24' foundation is the standard size for the overwhelming majority of garages..."

Beside the point, of course: pre-war garages (many for cars I should think) and post-war ones are not as luxuriously appointed in size or amenities as current garages to be certain. Whole lot of them one-car garages out there too, two-car garages not being a norm until well into the fifties. Much like bathrooms in that regard.

snakeweasel

Turn of the (last) century builders did not build garages for cars.

If they built anything it was a carriage house, slightly different than a garage but served the same purpose. My grandparents two flat on the far south side of Chicago had a carriage house and it probably was the last one standing in the neighborhood until the new owners tore it down many a year ago.

brightness04

One-car garages are not shorter than two-car garages. Extra storage room . . . hmm, shall we apply that same priciple to cars themselves?

andre1969

I can't remember exactly, but I want to say that my 24x40 garage is actually something like 22'10" x 39'2" on the inside, when measured from between the 4x6 posts.

I remember measuring because I wanted to try and see if I could get 3 cars, side-by-side in the back. I estimated that I could do it with my cars, but it would just take too much maneuvering around, and I'd basically have to leave the cars in neutral and push them back into their respective spots, as I wouldn't be able to open the doors more than a few inches.

Now I'm sure I could get an xA, a Yaris, and a Fit side-by-side in the garage, no trouble at all! But a Dart, a Catalina, and a DeSoto? Different story.

brightness04

The point being most garages to those houses are either non-existent or built later to the 20+' length standard.

andre1969

that a lot of the rowhouses in DC have garages in the back alley that appear sized between a 1- and 2-car garage. Now in the day they were carriage houses, stables, etc, but over the years have been converted.

Many of the houses are barely 16-17 feet wide, so basically you just end up with a 1-car garage and some extra storage space. And often the alleys are so tight that you could never maneuver a good-sized car around back there, anyway.

One of my friends bought a fairly nice townhouse, new, in 1998. It has a 1-car garage, and with shelves in the back, he can barely fit his Passat in there. He bought a 1978 Mark V, which, needless to say, would NEVER fit in there! That's about as extreme as a car ever got though, at around 230". I don't think any SUVs are longer than that, although I'm sure any full-sized extended-cab pickup truck probably would be.

snakeweasel

Don't use percentages as it gives the wrong perception. Since every inch given equates to one inch gained on the other end there is no diminishing return. Going from 85" to 80" yields a gain of 5". Going from 80" to 75" still yields a gain of 5" no diminishing return, even if the percentage gained is smaller. You use units not percentage.

brightness04

It quickly gets to the point where parking the cars inside the garage would do more damage to cars than parking them outside . . . due to the door dings from each other. With my 23x24 two-car garage, I once tried some fancy manuever of backing one into it while the other was inside so I can get out more easily if a third car parks in front my garage . . . ended up running into the door frame rather quickly ;-)

brightness04

Per centage matters because when you are trying to park a car in the garage, having 15" extra leeway in judging how far you have to move the car is important when you only have 20" to begin with . . . but it's irrelevent when you already have 55" to play with. 20" vs. 35" is the difference between whether you can open the rear door inside the garage; 55" vs. 70" accomplishes absolutely nothing as far as using the car is concerned.

snakeweasel

Of course how many people had cars back then?

brightness04

My bad. The 20+' standard that I mentioned was referring to the length. In the normal garage specs, if a single foot number is given, it refers to the width because they already assume the length/depth to be about 20+'.

I agree very much that the downsizing from super-full size MarkV to the midsize Passat makes a huge difference; further downsizing to Jetta/Golf compacts would probably still be very noticeable. Even further downsizing to a golf cart however would be marginally benefitial even for your friend's tight garage.

brightness04

Exactly. That's why having a house that predates the 1950's 20+' garage length/depth standard usually does not change the fact that, if it comes with a garage, the garage is 20+' in length/depth.

wale_bate1

No, the point being that there are plenty of pre-war houses with garages, most of small footprint to begin with by current standards, and by the numbers, compacts and subcompacts give utility advantages to an even greater extent in these settings than in a brand-spanking new garage.

And then the very-very-much-aside point being that housing tracts were not at all uncommon even in the early 1900's.

snakeweasel

Per centage matters

Not when you are claiming diminishing returns it doesn't. Lets look at it this way your 225" of space for cars your full sized vehicle uses 205" so you have 205" of space you can free up. You go to a midsize car at 190" and it frees up 15" or 7.3% of the space being used up by the car.

Now you are using 190" and you switch to your compact at 175" freeing up 15" more or 7.9% of the space being used up by the car.

Now you switch to the sub compact that takes up 160" saving 15" or 8.6% of the space being used up by the car. Its becoming economies of scale.

I am showing an economy of scale using the same figures you used to show diminishing returns. The problem is that neither is true. Since for every inch in car length you give up you get an inch in extra garage space there is no economy of scale and no diminishing returns.

In each situation above you give up 15" in car length and get 15" of garage space. No matter where you are along the line you give up an inch you gain an inch on the other side.

andre1969

And then the very-very-much-aside point being that housing tracts were not at all uncommon even in the early 1900's.

What, exactly, was it that Levitt did in the 1940's that was considered to be a first? I had always thought he was credited with creating the first housing tracts, but as we've discussed, there were plenty of housing tracts, and cookie cutter houses around prior to the 40's. Was it just that Levitt took it to a new extreme, developing many square miles at a time instead of just a farm or two?

snakeweasel

What, exactly, was it that Levitt did in the 1940's that was considered to be a first?

It was the construction technique in which he built houses in an assembly line fashion. Instead of a product running down an assembly line the product stood still and the "assembly line" moved along the product (houses). In short each contractor would do his work on one house and then move over to the next the the next contractor would move in and do their work.

brightness04

In that case, you are no longer talking about parking ease advantage; as you fill your garage space with stuff, the parking process is not getting any easier.

The per centage you are working on is optimizing the space for storage not garage. If that's the goal, don't park in the garage at all. Then that subcompact advantage goes away altogether.

We were talking ease of parking. It's a matter of how many inches of leeway the driver has to work with. Once it's beyond a certain point, extra space is not gonna matter.

It's interesting how you are not the first subcompact advocate to take the more space the better approach to storage space . . . ever consider the same principle to cars themselves?

brightness04

Exactly. His crew were finishing up more than one house a day! Unlike the earlier developers that took weeks to build a single house. That's why even today, the majority of single-family housing stock in the northeast and mid-atlantic date from the 1950's. IIRC, Levitt and people copying his new technique built more single family houses in the US in five years than all the previous 150 years combined. They went on for a couple decades till the mid- 1960's, very much transforming the society in the process.

snakeweasel

you are going way off on a tangent. All I said was that your claim of diminishing returns is wrong, there is no diminishing returns. Lets leave the conversation there and not start things that wasn't being addressed.

It's interesting how you are not the first subcompact advocate to take the more space the better approach to storage space . . . ever consider the same principle to cars themselves?

Well I am not to sure about you but I don't store things in my car.

andre1969

They went on for a couple decades till the mid- 1960's, very much transforming the society in the process.

I think Levitt and Sons actually built houses in Maryland up through the mid-late 70's. I don't know the details, but I think they were eventually banned from doing any further business in this state.

It's kinda interesting too how, just like cars back then, you could see a definite decline in the quality of the houses built in the 70's, versus the 60's. They'd cut corners in construction, amenities, lot sizes, etc.

snakeweasel

I think Levitt and Sons actually built houses in Maryland up through the mid-late 70's.

Nope they sold the company in '68. It might have continued under the same name but the Levitts were gone by '68.

brightness04

IMHO, you are going way off tangent :-) The subject is "garaging" not "turning garage into a storage."

I doubt you pack your garage to capacity at all time and leave only 20" extra depth for your car either. It's the potential for extra storage space that you prize . . . just like the potential for packing more people and more goods into the car that most car buyers prize.

nippononly

snakeweasel

Yep they sure are fun to drive over in a CXT. :P

nippononly

that's that monster truck, right?

Hey, you can't beat physics, and that gives subcompacts the edge - light weight. :-)

snakeweasel

Yes it is.

brightness04

Physics is indeed hard to beat . . . in handling, riding over plate joints and potholes, and in crashes.

BTW, is there a subcompact called "CXT"? ;-)

andre1969

small cars make for a somewhat boring demolition derby. They're not even getting up enough speed to do any significant damage to each other! :P

these things are always a little more exciting when they pit the big bruisers against each other. Although I guess I'm being a bit hypocritical here, since it's the big bruisers I like the best, and here they're smashing them up!

snakeweasel

I hate to tell you this but those pictures look like they could have been taken on some of the streets in Chicago.

Mr_Shiftright

If gasoline went to $5 a gallon, and you switched from a 20 mpg sedan to a 50 mpg subcompact, you'd save about $2,500 a year in fuel costs.

Would this tempt any of you to switch say from a medium size SUV, truck or sedan to a Honda Fit? (I didn't include luxury cars because obviously if you pay $80,000 for a car you don't care about $2,500 a year enough to drop down 3 classes of car).

To clarify, the spirit of the question is whether you could overcome your reluctance about subcompacts if you are tempted by a $2,500 check in your pocket.

You may presume in this question that the money difference betweeen your car and the new Fit is the same or in your favor.

crimsona

If gas goes up slowly, I could see people choosing more gas efficient sedans, or a drop of one class.

However, I don't see the masses moving to subs so easily, especially they are a one car family. This isn't Europe, after all.

If there's a progressive tax on the size of the engine (say, $2000 per liter of displacement), and the price of gas goes up to $7 per gallon, THEN you would see a sudden shift. Sudden price shocks are the ones that people notice, not this slow inching

brightness04

At $5 a gallon, $2500 buys 500 gallons. A midsize sedan like Accord running 26/34mpg only uses about 500 gallons in a year, so in order to save 500gallons the subcompact alternative would have to burn no gas at all.

As far as I know no subcompact currently turns in a combined 50mpg, not even highway mileage alone. The only vehicles that do are Toyota Prius and perhaps some diesel, and they are not subcompacts; Prius is not even a compact as it is a midsize vehicle, so claimed ;-)

That is the reality, unencumbered by the idealized "good vehicle" vs. "bad vehicle" strawman dialectics. Until the $2500 check is on the table, the attraction of subcompacts is just not there, from the fuel consumption perspective.

Now that being said, IMHO, subcompacts will have a shot at market acceptence from a different quarter. The $2500 incentive may not come from direct fuel savings but from a different source: the real reason why Honda and Toyota are pushing subcompacts now is IMHO getting ready to raise prices on their compacts and midsize offerings drasticly in the coming years. Fundamentally sheet metal, plastic and copper wiring all cost energy to produce. When energy price go up, everything goes up in price; in other words we as US dollar earners see our real income drop through inflation. Subcompacts will be popular again for the same reason as previous iterations: relative impoverishment. Just don't be surprised by decontenting either when that happens.

As much as we on the edmunds forum focus on luxury rides, even luxury subcompacts get more attention than plebian ones, the vast majority of car buyers just want something that can move themselves and their families around . . . that's why plebian brands far outsell luxury brands, and GM can move a lot of iron by cutting price even if they are still pushing the same "junk." Cars are a necessity for most Americans, not status symbols; a trip to anywhere beyond 150 miles from the two coasts illustrate that point amply. They buy bigger cars not because bigger cars make themselves look good but because there is a genuine need for bigger cars.

jlawrence01

What, exactly, was it that Levitt did in the 1940's that was considered to be a first? I had always thought he was credited with creating the first housing tracts

I agree with most of the responses. However, you MUST remember the historical context. There was very litle housing construction from 1929-41 due to the Great Depression and even less during the was years 1941-46.

It was NOT uncommon for EXTENDED families to live together (imagine your married living with parents out of necessity) due to the lack of housing availability. In that context, the tiny matchbox houses Leavitt buit was a massive improvement.

Hope that helps.

andre1969

20 mpg is about what I get in my Intrepid, in mostly local driving. What kind of car out there, short of possibly a Prius or Insight, could I reasonably expect to get 50 mpg in my type of driving?

FWIW I'm probably barely doing 10,000 miles per year now. So at $5.00 per gallon I'd spend about $1000 in the 50 mpg vehicle versus $2500 in the 20 mpg. It would save me about $1500. That's still nothing to sneeze at...comes out to around $120 per month.

BTW, back in late 1999 when I switched from an '89 Gran Fury to my Intrepid, I figured that switch saved me about $150 per month in fuel. Even though fuel wasn't nearly as expensive back then, the Gran Fury guzzled premium at 11-13 mpg, versus low-test and 20 mpg for the Intrepid. I delivered pizzas back then, and there were times when I did 4,000+ miles per month. Although once I got the more fuel efficient car, I started slowly cutting back on that job. I do remember the Intrepid hit 30,000 miles in about 10-11 months.

So would I do it, just to save on the fuel? I don't know. As long as the Intrepid's running fine, probably not. After all, $120 a month more in fuel is still awfully cheap compared to a car payment. However, what I will probably do is, when it comes time to replace the Intrepid because of some catastrophic failure, I might get something more economical. At this point I probably wouldn't go smaller than an Accord/Camry/Altima-type car, though.

I've also been throwing around the fuel economy argument in my mind, on occasion, to justify buying a new truck. I've actually been letting one of my roommates borrow the 'Trep lately, because he has a longer commute than me and he still doesn't have his own vehicle yet. So I've been driving my aging, thirsty Silverado.

However, it's actually getting around 14 mpg now. I know that sounds horrible, but when you figure any new standard-sized truck I replace it with probably wouldn't get much better than 16 mpg, that's not worth it to retire a perfectly running truck just for the sake of fuel economy.

Now since my roommate has been running the Intrepid at least 40 miles a day, he might benefit more from a subcompact than me. But then, maybe not. He's still not racking up huge miles, and in the driving he does the thing's getting about 25 mpg. I doubt that right now there are very many vehicles that would get 50 mpg in his type of driving, let alone mine.

kapbot

My '02 Dakota gets about 15-18 mpg usually. I've put only 44,000 miles on it so far, or about 200 a week since I got it. Now that I have paid it off, buying a more fuel efficient vehicle would take a really, really long time to break even, much less come out ahead. I dont see anyone trading me even for a Fit, however nice I think my truck is. However, should the time come to trade in, or up, or down, depending on how you see it, I'll be swayed. Not that the truck will be worth anything at all by then. When gas hits $5.00, that guzzler is going to be a hard sell, IMO.

deserth8r

If gas were to go up in price, I think there are many who may consider driving something smaller, but for me, I have a compact truck, and I need a truck, so ya, I could switch to a 4cyl instead of the 6, but I wouldnt realize much of a tax savings. My first car was a 92 corolla that I paid 5k for, so if gas prices rose dramatically, I could see myself buying a car like this to commute to work, but there is no way I would give up my 4x4.

Mr_Shiftright

yeah, yeah, okay, but the question was *hypothetical* with the parameters I gave. This is imaginary, so I'd like to know your answer to the question. Once again, if you don't mind playing with this:

You drive 15K a year with a car getting 20 mpg. Would you trade for a subcompact getting 50 mpg? Gas price is presumed $5 a gallon. :P

50 mpg is just around the corner, so the question isn't so far fetched, and I'd bet the overall lumped average of every passenger/light truck vehicle in America is about 20 mpg. Close enough!

So, for those who haven't answered yet (thanks to those that did---good answers!)....would $250 Benjamins in your pocket per annum pry you out of your 20 mpg car into a Honda Fit?

snakeweasel

You drive 15K a year with a car getting 20 mpg. Would you trade for a subcompact getting 50 mpg? Gas price is presumed $5 a gallon.

Well the trade would save me $187.50 a month, so to make this trade it would have to cost me less than that to make it worth while. So the subcompact would have to cost me under $9,200 plus my trade in.