cars

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Hexbear's premier community for the discussion of and questions about cars, motorcycles, and other low occupancy transit. Share your thoughts, discuss cars under communism, and ask questions about maintenance.

Anti-car posting is not permited. Train good car bad and all, but it's not what this comm is for.

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So Jeep really just gets by on parasocial relationships, doesn't it? (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago by LaGG_3@hexbear.net to c/cars@hexbear.net

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I recently bought a car that's a common "wave at other people who have the same car" car, and it got me thinking about how these parasocial relationships are among the few positive experiences one has when driving. Like it's hard not to be amused when someone else in a similar car waves or walking out of the grocery store and noticing an early model "parking buddy" next to me while I pack my weekly shopping trip in the trunk.

It's no secret that modern Jeeps are utter shit, and a lot of the owners don't off-road them. Stellantis just banks on Wranglers being kinda cute cars and the parasocial relationships people have with other owners of cars like that.

Anyways, I'm just happy to have a stupid manual transmission car again after like 10 years lol

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[–] chungusamonugs@hexbear.net 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wranglers as a platform are incredibly capable vehicles. In the off road segment, its basically them and 4Runners (I suppose broncos too, but those have somehow become even more boutique and cosmopolitan than wranglers are) , but the serious off roaders like the Wrangler more because it still has a solid front axle. Any car that the roof or doors comes off is just inherently fun too. That and its one of the few vehicles you can still buy new with a manual transmission.

The infuriating part is that the people who buy them have contributed to making them worse and more expensive. A jeep used to be 2 door, stick, bare bones and they were CHEAP. YJ wranglers were the equivalent of around 20k today base. Even a base JL is 33k new today and it has no reason to be. After the AMC/Chrysler merger, Chrysler completely gave in to the insecure jackass section of people who wanted a RUGGED and MANLY car, but they need four doors for the kids, and heated seats, and cant drive stick so make it auto, and also the soft top is too loud so make a hard top and bam, the JK (first Chrysler wrangler) was born.

Not really sure where I was going with this, but yeah, on merit, construction, safety, and comfort, theres no reason anyone should ever want one of those.

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 3 points 5 months ago

Not really sure where I was going with this, but yeah, on merit, construction, safety, and comfort, theres no reason anyone should ever want one of those.

That people wanting a specialized offroading vehicle to be a regular daily car contributed to ruining it lol.

The ones with a truck bed are particularly heinous