[otomodo]

Just to get this thread back on its track, here's a pic from yesterday morning:

SNOOOOOW!!!! The pic distorts the amount a little bit, but I reckon we had about 10 inches of snow that morning. On top of the previous coat, of course. And we got maybe 4 inches more during that Sunday.

EDIT: Typos.

Still better looking than the Rogue here.
Nice color.

For the differentials fluids change, start by loosing the filling bolt before.

I had one pretty much tight due to rust accumulation, salt on roads here isn't a problem, they dump a lot.

 

[Oxalainen]

A mild modification, but I realized we'll need to mount the roof box for the upcoming ski trip, hence I needed new crossbars. It turned out a bit tricky to find those specifically for T31 and I originally wanted a grille-type roof rack (for more offroady look), but those were too pricey for me right now... These weren't cheap either, but at least they seem very well made:

The mounting brackets still need their plastic covers, but I'm waiting for less chilly day to fasten them. Right now that mounting hole in the middle of the bracket seems to create some whistle noise at road speeds. Not consistently, but sometimes and probably better to address that before going for a 6 hour road trip.

 

[Oxalainen]

Phew, the winter was long, and springtime progressing slowly... Not much chances to do mods on my X yet, but there's still the boot hatch water leak to fix (although it has not leaked during raining, so I'm suspecting the rear window washer hose is damaged), plus the driver's side headlight washer has also displaced itself a little bit. I had more aesthetic mods in the plans too, but now I'm actually considering if I'll sell the car soon.

The reason for this is the greatly increased price of fuel, namely diesel. And my T31 is diesel, because we didn't get the facelifted T31 with petrol engine here in Europe anymore. In a matter of week or two the diesel price at pump increased about 20% alone. Now it's not worth it to own a car through financing anymore, so I'm thinking about selling the X and buying a cheaper banger instead. Maybe T30, or Mk2 Subaru Forester. Will see how things work out in the upcoming months, but sadly I think I'll have to bench the remaining mod plans for the current T31 I have.

 

[tonyvancity]

Phew, the winter was long, and springtime progressing slowly... Not much chances to do mods on my X yet, but there's still the boot hatch water leak to fix (although it has not leaked during raining, so I'm suspecting the rear window washer hose is damaged), plus the driver's side headlight washer has also displaced itself a little bit. I had more aesthetic mods in the plans too, but now I'm actually considering if I'll sell the car soon.

The reason for this is the greatly increased price of fuel, namely diesel. And my T31 is diesel, because we didn't get the facelifted T31 with petrol engine here in Europe anymore. In a matter of week or two the diesel price at pump increased about 20% alone. Now it's not worth it to own a car through financing anymore, so I'm thinking about selling the X and buying a cheaper banger instead. Maybe T30, or Mk2 Subaru Forester. Will see how things work out in the upcoming months, but sadly I think I'll have to bench the remaining mod plans for the current T31 I have.

Here in Vancouver , Canada we pay the highest fuel prices in all of north america.
Two days ago i was low on gas so i went to the gas station to put in a few liters.
$2.22 per liter regular gas. Ended up putting only $14 worth of gas. This morning i just saw online the price dropped to about $2.15 /L on average. What a bargain.
Diesel is currently between $2.23 to $2.35./L.
So at $2.15/L = $8.60 imperial gallon .
A new hybrid RAV4 or if i were to go back to a compact sedan again , the toyota prius prime.

 

[Oxalainen]

Wow, that's expensive, for NA. It's CAD, not USD, right? Still expensive anyway. The current litre price for petrol here is about CAD2.90 and for diesel about CAD2.88. Diesel used to be more expensive for couple of months, but just last week it dropped back below petrol, if only by narrow margin. The price difference used to be about CAD0.10 to CAD0.25 per litre for the benefit of diesel, but green transition and the current war in Europe changed everything.

On top of that, here in FIN we also have the diesel "penalty" tax, which was created 50 years ago to level prevent private motorists gaining the tax benefit from the lower priced diesel (which was aimed for commercial vehicles). For my T31 the annual diesel tax is about CAD950 and even for my wife's compact hatchback diesel Volvo it's about CAD540 per year.

For decades there was this rule of thumb here, if you cover more than 20.000km per year, diesel is cheaper than petrol. Now it's harder to compare and we have been even thinking about trading the wife's diesel Volvo into petrol hatchback. I was thinking about hybrid as an alternative, but the demand for used hybrids has increased so much that dealers have jacked up their prices by 6 or 7 grand! About a year ago a low mileage Hyundai Ioniq used to go for about CAD24k, but now the very few ones on sale right now have almost CAD32k price tags on them.

On the other hand, right now when every option is expensive, I'm trying to emphasize for the mrs that it's important to get a car which is fun to drive.

I'm also not quite sure how the driving profile of the mrs would fit into hybrid's strong suites, because she drives 70km to her office and only the last 2km of that is what I'd call "urban" driving. I wonder if the batteries would get charged during her A road or motorway sections? I also took a used Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV for a test spin few years ago, and while it was somewhat fun at first, I soon noticed the tiny petrol engine ran up to its limits at road speeds, not to mention motorway. I wonder if the tech was improved for later Outlanders, because I see them with with nominal 120hp and newer ones with 200hp ratings? The PHEVs.