Midsize Sedans 2.0

berri

Urbanization can reduce car demand. But as the younger professionals have kids they may migrate back out to the suburbs reversing that. Relatively cheap airfares, combined with over saturated Interstates may lead to less desire for long distance driving down the road I suppose.

stickguy

living in a center city where there is real public transit (NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago), sure, no need to own a car. But I still think being able to drive, and having a license, is a basic life skill.. But, I could be biased.

Moving out to the suburbs, well, I can't imagine doing that without owning a car. Certainly not having kids.

Mr_Shiftright

There does seem to be a mass migration into larger cities, at least for younger people.

roadburner

My son still wants a car, but he really only uses it on weekends. He can walk to work or take the train- and his employer pays for train fare.

explorerx4

Locally, most of the kids who went away to school have stayed away.
Owning a car in many cities is cost prohibitive, not just to younger people.
That being said, outside of those huge metropolis areas, kids still want to own a car or truck.
I have 2 kids, one will only drive a CUV/SUV. The other bought a sedan as their first new car.

backy

explorerx4 said:

Backy,
An AWD Fusion is rated @28 mpg highway, so the average isn't bad considering the cold weather.
There is no CX-7 rated anywhere near 30 MPG highway.
As far as the hidden wipers go, that design has been around since the 70's.
You could have just started the car, put on max defrost, let it warm up for a few minutes, and most of your ice problem would have been gone.

Uh... I did that. It was a thick coat of ice. It helped loosen it on the rear window though.

backy

I forgot to post about my experience with a 2018 Altima rental over the holidays. Drove it for 9 days from MN to/from TX, 2900 miles total. Most of the time there were 4 to 5 adults and a full trunk, but it still averaged 38.7 mpg for the trip which I was very happy with. Also was happy with gas prices--a low of $1.75 in Oklahoma City, but always under $2. This was the old Altima but it's a good highway cruiser. The "space foam" (or whatever they call it) seats were very comfortable even when driving 9-10 hours in a day.

I called Hertz a day before pickup and asked specifically for a Sonata, Optima, Altima, or Camry, as they have all of those in their fleet. They said they'd get one for me. Then I get an email that my Jeep Compass is ready! I called them and they said they thought they'd "upgrade" me. Sorry, a Compass is NOT an upgrade. I told them I rented a full-sized car for a reason (actually multiple reasons). They said they'd see what they could do. Fortunately the Altima had just come in and had been serviced when I got there.

explorerx4

@backy,
If you look at any of the other popular midsize sedans, the front wipers are buried even more than the Fusion.
I was very happy the my stop/start worked today.
It hadn't activated in a couple of months, but I took an 80 mile or so round trip yesterday and it stopped the engine at most stops today.
Usually it doesn't activate in cooler weather until I drive the car 3 days in a row, average about 30 miles a day.