I could write a lot about our experience with cars.
To keep things simple we had spent the majority of our relationship with 1 or 0 cars between the two of us.
About 2 years ago we found ourselves living in East Texas without options for public transit to get us from home to work/ school and with unsafe (highways) walking/ bicycling choices for these same locations.
Realizing the need for a second car and our limited social support network as well as the need to have reliable vehicles with fixed expenses we decided that a new car was the right choice for our current situation.
So we started looking and looking and looking. During the process we talked a lot about what we believed in. Low environmental impact, social statements, supporting the move to smaller alternatives. We went test driving, SMART, Scion IQ, Chevy Spark, Toyota Yaris and Fiat 500.
The fiat felt right, it had that small car look that we wanted to integrate into our community, managed to have 5 seats, felt some what roomy, reportedly good gas mileage, the price was right and the bright blue captured my husbands heart.
We are not crazy about the Fiat, its maintenance has been annoying as it needs special items that our service stations don't carry for routine things such as oil changes. The vehicle is somewhat cheaply made so things come loose and rattle around annoyingly. But I am getting side tracked.
Two years ago we had not seen another Fiat in our town, small cars were non existent, SMART cars were on display at Ford lots with windups attached to the back to make them look like toys. People drove trucks, the bigger the better, If you were too poor for a truck you drove an old poorly maintained sedan.
We got asked constantly about the Fiat, how the gas was, did it feel too small, what the price point was, how it did on the highway, did we like it?
Slowly, about 4 months into owing the Fiat we started to see a few more small cars take to the streets. Local businesses started to drive Fiats as their company cars plastered with marketing materials. 7 months into ownership Teenage girls begun to be seen driving Fiats (teen new car ownership is a common place in oil communities). 18 months in we started to see an increase in adults driving small cars during morning commutes.
Now we cant say with certainty that the slow shift to an increase of smaller cars and Fiats was because of us. Still less than 3% of the vehicles we in our community see are smaller cars, but the change is tangible.
About two months ago a friend of ours car broke down for the last time and he needed to buy a new car. He got a Chevy spark, in a bright blue. When we asked him about it, he did not do it for any value based region. He was not trying to demonstrate option to his community. He did it because he had been a passenger in ours so much, he enjoyed the above average gas mileage, the nimble handling of a small car and the low price for a new vehicle.
We know for a fact that we opened up conversations and consideration of smaller cars in our community and that at least one person who in the past would have bought a truck opted to buy a small car because of our role modeling small car living in a big truck world.
To keep things simple we had spent the majority of our relationship with 1 or 0 cars between the two of us.
About 2 years ago we found ourselves living in East Texas without options for public transit to get us from home to work/ school and with unsafe (highways) walking/ bicycling choices for these same locations.
Realizing the need for a second car and our limited social support network as well as the need to have reliable vehicles with fixed expenses we decided that a new car was the right choice for our current situation.
So we started looking and looking and looking. During the process we talked a lot about what we believed in. Low environmental impact, social statements, supporting the move to smaller alternatives. We went test driving, SMART, Scion IQ, Chevy Spark, Toyota Yaris and Fiat 500.
We are not crazy about the Fiat, its maintenance has been annoying as it needs special items that our service stations don't carry for routine things such as oil changes. The vehicle is somewhat cheaply made so things come loose and rattle around annoyingly. But I am getting side tracked.
Two years ago we had not seen another Fiat in our town, small cars were non existent, SMART cars were on display at Ford lots with windups attached to the back to make them look like toys. People drove trucks, the bigger the better, If you were too poor for a truck you drove an old poorly maintained sedan.
We got asked constantly about the Fiat, how the gas was, did it feel too small, what the price point was, how it did on the highway, did we like it?
Slowly, about 4 months into owing the Fiat we started to see a few more small cars take to the streets. Local businesses started to drive Fiats as their company cars plastered with marketing materials. 7 months into ownership Teenage girls begun to be seen driving Fiats (teen new car ownership is a common place in oil communities). 18 months in we started to see an increase in adults driving small cars during morning commutes.
Now we cant say with certainty that the slow shift to an increase of smaller cars and Fiats was because of us. Still less than 3% of the vehicles we in our community see are smaller cars, but the change is tangible.
About two months ago a friend of ours car broke down for the last time and he needed to buy a new car. He got a Chevy spark, in a bright blue. When we asked him about it, he did not do it for any value based region. He was not trying to demonstrate option to his community. He did it because he had been a passenger in ours so much, he enjoyed the above average gas mileage, the nimble handling of a small car and the low price for a new vehicle.We know for a fact that we opened up conversations and consideration of smaller cars in our community and that at least one person who in the past would have bought a truck opted to buy a small car because of our role modeling small car living in a big truck world.
