Fit And Finish

So. Consumer Reports, the arbiter of all things consumeristic, has declared the new Honda Civic unworthy of a rating.

I could have told you that. Indeed, I have told you that, here on this blog. My little Honda Civic, while a fantastic car regarding fuel efficiency, is a complete piece of shit regarding fit and finish.

The obvious problem is the American Consumer. Any consumer who wants a well-built car also doesn't give a rat's ass about fuel efficiency; if they are willing to pay good money for a vehicular unit the cost of operating it is immaterial and the manufacturers know this. The most fuel efficient cars are also the worst built.

You will never be able to find a 45 MPG car whose windows won't fail to retract in a few short years, or whose roof paint won't completely disentegrate in five years' time, or whose radio will inexplicably short out and fail to work in hot weather, or whose cheap interior vinyl trim won't begin to crack, or whose road noise at 57MPH isn't equivalent to a 1979 Ford F150, or whose rear shocks won't whine in protest over every pebble in the road, or whose trunk fails to open with the manufacturer's specified key. No. You won't. To buy a car that gets 45MPG means it's gonna be shittily built.

All these things are currently in play with my Honda Civic, and it's not anywhere near 45 MPG. More like 31.

Against the backdrop of an Obama administration that's mandating 52MPG by 2025, I know that these future cars will all be completely fucking worthless based on the way the world builds fuel efficient cars today. There is no ability to buy a 40 MPG car today without it being built of the cheapest pot-steel and inferior Burmese rubber components, because any American willing to buy good things doesn't give a shit about fuel efficiency.

And, consider how every well-to-do American immigrant seemingly buys the most expensive rigs known to man. That someone spent the greater part of their lives working and educating themselves to escape the living conditions of their former nations means that fuel efficiency is about as low a priority as a snake's ballbag. Status is all that matters -- and indeed, if you were to take the median vehicular unit's price driven by the 45% employees at SMUD who are foreign born, I'd wager it's close to $39,000 -- far in excess of native born employees, and a harbinger of where developing nations are headed.

Going forward, I still won't drive all that much, not with my biking and my bicycle commuting, but I will refuse to buy a cheap car again. My Honda Civic represents a throwaway, consumerist, economic paradigm that I will refuse to continue to support, and I will spend my money on something that is simply built better...and that means something that ain't gonna get great miles per gallon as I see things going forward. So be it. Environmentalism isn't just pinned on MPG -- it's as much about only having to buy eight cars over your lifetime rather than nine, or simply not driving as much.