Everything that Clint said about my Saturn in his review is spot on. In fact, the Saturn has been deteriorating steadily since his review to the point that I am now getting rid of it. It is, by anyone’s measure, a terrible driving experience.
But while driving my roomate’s Honda CRX today, I realized that there is one aspect of the Saturn, and indeed of any crappy car, that simply cannot ever be met by a nice car. In the Saturn, I never had the urge to drive sportively. Indeed, the speed limit seemed more like a lofty goal than a limit. The reason is a mix of the Saturn feeling like it would fall apart if pushed, and the fact that it just wasn’t fun to drive sportively. At no point would I ever take a turn and think “I really need to rip it up through these twisties coming up.” I’d just drive through mundanely, no different than if they were a freeway.
This was not the case with the CRX. It was all I could do not to fly around every corner and end every gear pulling away from lights. It is a fun car to drive, and eggs you on to push it as hard as you can. Which is great if you are on a track or want to drive sportively, but terrible if you just want to drive to work without incident.
Yes, the great thing about crappy cars is that in them, and only in them, will you ever be content tootling along under the speed limit without a care in the world. This makes driving on the highway great because you don’t have to constantly be looking out for speed traps. The same applies every time you come around a corner - you’re driving safely by everyone’s standards, so no need to fret. The same is definitely not true of a nice car. I believe Car and Driver said that they would rather drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. Well, sometimes, I’d rather drive a crappy than be constantly tempted to push things in a fast car. Not enough to get another crappy car, but sometimes nonetheless.
on August 8, 2008 at 12:57 pm Henry wrote:
The whole point of owning a beater, in my mind, is to be able to drive as aggressively as possible all the time w/o going to jail. There are plenty of onramps which I take in my Miata at the absolute limit of the car which I would think twice before doing in my Stealth.
– Henry
on August 8, 2008 at 12:57 pm Tim wrote:
It sounds like you missed the part about comparing beater that could be fun to drive with a unrewarding beater… the CRX is still about as beaterly as it gets.
Although I would also disagree about being content tootling under the speed limit in a Saturn. It’s pretty difficult to be content tootling at any speed in such a vehicle.
on August 8, 2008 at 1:05 pm Noah wrote:
I think you missed my main point. I’m not saying that all beaters are best when they suck and you don’t want to drive them hard. I’m saying that the one thing that shitty cars let you do that any other car does not is to NOT be tempted by any road. I would never be tempted by ANY ramp in the Saturn, and that is a characteristic that, by definition, you cannot find in a nicer beater.
on August 8, 2008 at 1:15 pm Clint wrote:
I too am uneasy with what I took away as one of the main points of that article. You’ve reiterated it in this comment string: “I would never be tempted by ANY ramp in the Saturn, and that is a characteristic that, by definition, you cannot find in a nicer beater”
While I was not generally tempted by ramps while driving the Saturn, the reason was that the Saturn had troubling mechanical problems: The brakes didn’t work or made noise, the suspension clunked, etc. However, the week that I borrowed it from you, I absolutely beat it on some ramps, ended gears, sped on the highway–and I did all these things about as frequently (and to similar extremes) as I do them in the Protege when the Protege is having mechanical problems. Had the Saturn been in good working order, I would have beaten it as frequently as I beat the Protege when it is in good working order. In other words, I wouldn’t say that I spend more time driving aggressively or illegally in the Protege than I did in the Buick or in your Saturn.
I’m not disputing that the CRX (or the Protege) is more fun to drive, or that it is capable of more. But that doesn’t mean that the Saturn is so shitty that there is no temptation to beat it. Depending on the definition, we’ve beaten shittier cars than the Saturn: The corolla in its last days, the Legend, my old Dodge truck, Chris’s Explorer, Volvo, and Camry, the 626, the Buick, the ‘89, and the U-Haul. The Buick, in fact, sucked in pretty much every way that the Saturn sucks–and it was an automatic. Yet I beat that thing as hard as I beat the Protege.
The problem with the Saturn is that the return on investment is low: For what you pay to get a Saturn of that year, you can get another car that is more fun to beat. However, I can concieve of no car so shitty that I will not beat it.
on August 8, 2008 at 1:20 pm Noah wrote:
Alright, I for the sake of argument I spoke in absolutes before. Yes, any driving experience can tempt me to drive sportively and/or beat on the vehicle. I just found that the vast majority of the time in the Saturn, I didn’t have any inclination to do this, versus driving the CRX for 10 min or driving my Miata.