Panq

The sad thing is we don’t even drive the Kuga that much, only for long trips. I think it would be a reasonable bet that we’ve spent less on fuel than we have on maintenance.

Last road trip from Auckland to Wellington, we just hired a big car (a mid-size SUV, I guess). 100% recommend anyone shopping for a car (or whatever) does a quick check to see if it’s actually worth owning it vs hiring. In my case (one kid and no boat), it’s way cheaper to just hire something big and flash for the occasional road trips.

Oof. I’m pretty confident that I’ve spent less than that servicing every car I’ve ever owned, which is… 15 years or so?

Japanese subcompacts are so cheap that it’s more or less impossible for me to justify buying anything else.

If I remember correctly, they are allowed to have a thumb throttle if it’s capped at 6km/hr (which is still very handy for starting, especially on a cargo bike). On a generic Bafang/similar motor controller, that’s a purely software limit that anyone with a programming cable can change.