So I'm in Seattle

"Jack Does Cars" (jackdoescars)
06/15/2015 at 16:45 • Filed to: Seattle, Volvo, Mercedes

And I think I know where all of the good condition W123 Mercedes 300D’s and Volvo 240’s have gone.

I love this town so much.

DISCUSSION (24)

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Jack Does Cars
06/15/2015 at 16:55

Yeah SF and Seattle have a lot of W123s. Mercedes Source is based up there and he helps people with them. Tons of 240 Volvos here too, seems like similar consumers.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Jack Does Cars
06/15/2015 at 16:58

Kinja'd!!!

They actually used to install glass in automobiles so that People could see sights as they traveled down the road.

Spaceball-Two > Jack Does Cars
06/15/2015 at 16:58

We don't use salt on our roads in the winter and that greatly helps them survive!

DasWauto > Jack Does Cars
06/15/2015 at 17:11

Hah, I noticed this while I was in Portland too; lots of old Volvos. Something, something, hipsters, something.

Jack Does Cars > Spaceball-Two
06/15/2015 at 17:23

Whenever I’m out here, I just ogle at the cars. And thanks for not salting the roads, because if you did, these cars would all be dead.

Jack Does Cars > DasWauto
06/15/2015 at 17:25

Something something millennials something Occupy something something job crisis something something art degree.

Jack Does Cars > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/15/2015 at 17:26

Wow! Isn’t that neato!?!

I love the W123, and nobody can convince me otherwise.

Jack Does Cars > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/15/2015 at 17:26

Wow! Isn’t that neato!?!

I love the W123, and nobody can convince me otherwise.

Jack Does Cars > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)
06/15/2015 at 17:27

As do Portland and Vancouver, BC. It’s (partly) why I love the PNW.

lone_liberal > Spaceball-Two
06/15/2015 at 17:31

Is that why in case of snow or ice you guys abandon your car on the freeway? Hiking the highways seems to be a favorite Seattle winter activity.*

*Hey, we Spokanites have to have something to make fun of Seattle about. BTW we don’t use salt (as in NaCl) but do use a lot of liquid magnesium chloride so that we don’t end up in the same boat. Plus we have plows and snow tires.

Dean Beyer > Jack Does Cars
06/15/2015 at 17:36

It’s a good place to find one of these, too.

Kinja'd!!!

RPM esq. > DasWauto
06/15/2015 at 17:51

It has nothing to do with hipsters, it’s all the pragmatic, liberal, outdoorsy types (Volvos) and professionals (W123s) who bought nice, practical cars that they intended to keep for 15 years, in a place that had next to no culture of conspicuous consumption until the tech boom, and no salt on the roads. When they’re numerous, reliable, safe, and cheap, it’s not just hipsters who have been buying them for the last 10 years, either: it’s every middle-class parent pushing them as first cars. I’d estimate that easily 50% of the kids in my neighborhood growing up had a well-used Volvo as a first car in the early oughts; another 45% had various other practical 80s and 90s European or Japanese sedans and wagons. I think I had a total of two friends in high school with American cars, both Jeeps.

RPM esq. > Dean Beyer
06/15/2015 at 17:55

So many Saabs.

Jack Does Cars > Dean Beyer
06/15/2015 at 18:01

I’ve already seen three! THREE!

Spaceball-Two > lone_liberal
06/15/2015 at 18:04

Hills + snow / ice + housewives in their AWD Lexus SUV’s that think they can still brave the weather to make it to a One Day Sale at Macys = MORONS!

Doesn't help Seattle DoT has like 4 plows.

lone_liberal > Spaceball-Two
06/15/2015 at 18:11

I know those hills are a lot of the issue and the lack of equipment exacerbates it. While Spokane isn’t flat (about 1,000ft. of elevation change) we don’t have the number of really steep hills that Seattle has plus we usually get enough snow to justify the investment in equipment. That doesn’t mean that the first real snow of the season doesn’t end up like bumper cars. It does. It takes a few for everybody to get their snow driving down again.

Spaceball-Two > lone_liberal
06/15/2015 at 18:15

In my 20+ years of driving here I find that the inclement weather is so few and far between that people just plain forget to stay home or take Metro (which gets just as stuck). When I went to school in Utah I was amazed to see how efficiently people there navigate literally FEET of snow on a daily basis with no care in the world and so few accidents.

DasWauto > RPM esq.
06/15/2015 at 19:17

The hipster bit was just a joke. While there was a bit of credence to it (quite a few of those I saw in downtown Portland were driven by what could easily be called hipsters), I totally get that they’re common because of the sensible purchase they were at the time and an environment that supports their survival.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Jack Does Cars
06/16/2015 at 10:15

PacNW for the win.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Jack Does Cars
06/18/2015 at 18:39

It definitely keeps a lot of weird older cars alive indefinitely. Unlike SoCal (where cars can also live almost forever if you keep them far enough away from the ocean), the temperature range isn’t as extreme, sun isn’t as intense, and rubber lasts practically forever. As long as you clean off the dirt/moss, they can last an extraordinarily-long time.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Spaceball-Two
06/18/2015 at 19:01

The drivers there in UT are horrible, but they do have a few things going for them:

The snow there is super light and doesn’t like to pack into ice.

The air is so freaking dry there (reason for #1) and the sun so intense (~1 mile elevation) that the snow will sublimate, rarely leaving water for ice to form.

They put so much salt on the road that the entire winter your car is a grey or reddish color from the salt dust. You can’t keep it off and washing it regularly actually makes the rust worse (because dry salt doesn’t accelerate corrosion as fast). This is also the main way you end up with water/ice on the roads - it is full of salt.

Of course, here in the PNW, we’d never survive. If we got even a fraction of the amount of snow they get (except replace it with the heavy/wet stuff that we do get), you’d have to shut down the city for most of the winter.

Spaceball-Two > Eric @ opposite-lock.com
06/18/2015 at 21:09

When I lived there my roommates always asked me why I washed my SR5 every weekend. Because I knew the salt would rot the shit out of it if I didn’t. Some of the best snowboarding in the world though.

And yeah Pac NW residents have no clue what real snow is like.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Spaceball-Two
06/19/2015 at 00:21

No doubt. It really is the greatest snow on earth. Snowboarding or skiing anywhere else is a disappointment.

Fun fact: I once worked with one of the inventors of the snowboard. Early prototypes were regularly tested at Alta, quite ironically.

Spaceball-Two > Eric @ opposite-lock.com
06/19/2015 at 10:49

At Alta?!?! That's super ironic!