Day 6 and 7: Have you driven a Ford lately?

Ford has been making the very attractive and more and more reliable focus and Fiesta models for some time now. While the focus Lacks a manual transmission for 2017, the used Market seems to have a lot of the five-door hatchbacks and both the focus and Fiesta in manual transmissions. That's good because the Dual clutch transmission automatics are a nightmare of imprecise shifting and weird acceleration. The space utilization in the focus is not the best, it is comfortable and quiet. I haven't driven the fiesta yet but it's compact size definitely leads me to believe it will be a fine handling car with a reasonable amount of interior volume for its size. Fords resale values seem to be holding pretty well except for the electric Focus, but I wasn't planning on buying an electric Focus anyway. One other slight possibility is the Ford C-Max Hybrid. It's just the tall Focus but with the Hybrid drivetrain. Unfortunately it also has a CVT transmission and that can't be gotten around. The C-Max can be had for relatively small amount of money, and it's fuel economy is excellent. As long as you don't get the energi model the interior volume is also pretty good.

Day 5: Nissan Leaf, used and cheap

The next car up for consideration is a used 2014 Nissan Leaf. 2014's have a chance of still being under the 36K bumper to bumper warranty, have low miles, and can be found under $8K with the quick charge package. The things I give up are the massive cargo space, and space in my garage. Also I'd have to rent a car for long trips. On the other hand, not having to go to a gas station any more is pretty alluring, as well as the more chill repair schedule. Another downer is the potential battery replacement down the road. So, does a modern car with low miles, that can easily travel 60-90 miles a day work as a Fit replacement? For it probably would. I rarely travel more than 90 miles a day--usually only on my trips from Seattle to Oakland, and again, that's what a rent a car is for. We generally drive our car 3 or 4 times a week, about 125 miles at most. For this, even a Leaf with a marginal battery would be fine.

Another big minus to the Leaf is the looks. They are not attractive. On the plus side, there are so many of them around, that they don't stick out quite a badly as they used to. I do feel bad for the people who paid full retail for these things back in the day. Even my friends who got favorable lease deals ultimately overpaid for them by putting down $$$ to fall into that low low monthly payment. The good news there is that when the lease was up, Nissan had to take back the car or eat a large piece of the residual value to encourage sales. Something clearly they're not good at as there are so dang many low $ low mile Leafs available.

Bottom line--the Leaf seems like a fancy electrified previous generation Versa to me, but they've held up a lot better than those old Versa. I'll add it to the spreadsheet.

Day 4: Nissan Versa Note

Last year when my driver side airbag got replaced, I got entirely too familiar with an Enterprise rental Nissan Versa Note. This car has the unfortunate CVT, as probably 99% of the Versa Notes came from the factory. Unfortunate also because for 2017, the CVT is the only transmission. To that end, I'm very interested in driving a Versa Note with the manual transmission. That means I'm in the used car market. Getting the manual while solving the tranny woes, would introduce some unintended side issues. I'd be buying a used car. An advantage pricewise, but who know if it was taken care of. There is a 2014 with same number of miles as my car near me. The dealer is asking $9900 for it, which is pretty high, but hey, it's a retail used car dealer, what do you expect. Also the manual comes with another interesting feature, manual roll down windows. It's got A/C, but no cruise control. If I thought my Fit was a penalty box on long trips, the Versa may be worse. Quieter, but no cruise, oy. A 2014 is showing on Fuelly.com with 24K miles tracked at 31.6 MPG. My Fuelly numbers are 32.5 MPG combined. It would be higher except I drive a majority of time in city.

Day 3: More of the Same, This Time by Phone

Not that I expected any different answer, but just for giggles I called American Honda's customer service line to see if I could get clarification on the issue of my passenger side airbag not being included in the current recall campaign.

The customer service reps are VERY deferential, while also sticking quite annoyingly on message. This means there are lots of Pleases and Thank yous and I appreciate your concerns, and much time devoted to dotting i's and crossing t's--process and documentation are everything here. That said, when asked directly why my car is not included in a recall that seems to span the model year, the rep repeated, in slightly different ways no fewer than 5 times, that my car is not currently subject to any open recalls. He did conjecture that perhaps it was due to the factory, but I may be reading too much into his response.

Bottom line, he said, over and over, that airbag inflators are tracked meticulously and mine was not among the recall candidates.

Do I trust him/American Honda customer service? Not for a second. I'm tempted to remove the front passenger seat to ensure that nobody can sit in it until my car ultimately is recalled, because I am fairly certain it will--it's just a matter of time.

On the list of life annoyances, this is pretty low. But like all annoyances, I know it's there and if I actively start banning passengers from the front seat, it will ultimately turn from annoyance to inconvenience to intolerable situation.

Coming up: thinking about the next car and what the candidates will be. And silly me thought that the 2012 Fit would be my last ICE (internal combustion engine) car.