Wagons

These posts have gotten very ski heavy, partially out of ski racing taking over my entire brain this time of year, but equally due to life in Finland settling into normal; at least my normal. The longer I’m here, the more I risk missing differences from life in Duluth to that in Jyväskylä. So even though the ski posts seem to be popular, I feel obliged to dissect a cultural phenomenon when I face one.

An American will notice a few things about the cars. First, the number of high quality cars is obvious. If a car is old, it’s in really good shape. Annual inspections take care of that. You simply don’t see the junkers common in the US. There are likely deep-seeded reasons to that point, public safety being paramount. Cheap, accessible, reliable, and frequent public transportation being another.

Second, luxury cars per capita is unavoidable. Lots of economy cars too, though. I can’t put my finger on why the excessive luxury car ownership. We have cars I know cost in excess of $100k USD here--parked in our modest row house complex next to ours, suggesting people are willing to spend more of their budget on a nicer car than maybe an upgrade in condo or home. It’s definitely NOT because cars are cheaper here, and luxury cars DEFINITELY are not cheaper.

Third, wagons rule here. You've never seen so many wagons. Like the US, SUVs abound here too and their popularity grows, but several times driving between home and dropping the kids off at school, I've counted mid-size sedans v mid-size wagons. I come up with at least roughly 2 to 1 in favor of wagons every time, if not even more in favor of wagons.

This point is an uncanny one, when you realize that, Finland, at 25% of all cars sold within its borders being wagons, is second in the world only to Sweden, at 32%. Which begs the question, is the wagon liberal? Subaru’s are tagged as tree-hugger cars in America. They are the only manufacturer really owning and deliberately delivering wagons to the US. I jest, kind of. I'm liberal, and I LOVE wagons. So, there's that... But it might be worth a debate.

The head track coach I work with at St. Scholastica and I have lamented the lack of options in the United States for station wagons. He’s a creature of immense practicality. I’m probably a little more of a performance and aesthetics, with useful-intent, guy. He and I meet at wagons. From both angles, the station wagon gets a raw deal in the US market, we feel. He has settled on the Volkswagen Golf Sport, not because he necessarily wants a Volkswagen, but because it’s really the only reasonably-priced, quality wagon in the United States. Besides, I don't think he wants to be labeled a tree hugger. I think he's safe in a Golf.

A few years ago, we had a leased Honda CRV SUV, that, as a vehicle in Duluth, MN goes, was a fine family car. It had room for stuff, as the utility in its name implies it should. But, in the base model we had, my testy right leg and hip flexor made driving an uncomfortable chore. I otherwise liked the vehicle. I absolutely hated the seat and driver position. It was a boring drive too. Again. Utility.

We leased that CRV off the back of two consecutive Subaru Outback “SUV” wagon leases. I put the quotes there because that’s what Subaru has marketed the Outback as, since 2010, but let’s call it what it is—a big wagon. The video link above does anyway, so I’m not rogue.

We liked the utility of those Outbacks, but both they and the CRV were relative gas hogs. Further, the base models quit coming to Duluth, turning a proposition of an Outback in the low $20k’s to over $30k for what dealers were making available. At that price, I’m looking up the food chain for finer things in my automobile, thank you very much. That's a lot of money for unimaginative "performance" wheels, leather seats, and a sunroof.

As our local-driving car aged—Mimmu’s 2006 Honda Civic hybrid—and we reached that point of selling-while-still-worth-something vs. driving-it-into-the-ground, we found a great deal on a 2014 BMW i3 with Range Extender (REX—has an on-board generator that delivers electricity to the drivetrain battery when it is low, to get you out of trouble), and pulled the trigger on going electric, at least for short distances.

I am and always have been a car guy, if these opening paragraphs haven’t already given that away. I realize how the i3 might seem quirky and weird to other car people, but it is an amazing vehicle. Even ignoring the near-zero emissions as we’ve burned the REX generator maybe a half hour total in the 3 years we’ve owned it, the i3 is my favorite car ever. It is a feat of mass-market engineering genius, with its motorcycle-width, massive-radius wheels, carbon fiber frame, and brute acceleration. It is a joy to drive, as long as you don’t mistakenly expect it to handle in a corner as it’s power and logo might tempt you to think it will. Those wheels ARE super skinny. It’s not a scary cornering proposition, but it’s definitely not a sports car. It is fun, though, to pull that goofy little bug up to a stop light next to a gas-burning sports car, or better, a muscle truck, and near-silently smoke them silly off the line with no tire squeal at all.

Our CRV lease was coming to an end and that got me thinking. We wanted to quit leasing and buy a newer used car. Capacity of hauling kids, sports equipment, skis, and bikes, all figured into it. SUVs were too high to get into our tuck-under garage with a roof box and we didn’t want klister on the upholstery of a car we owned. Plus, the SUV profiles add to their fuel inefficiency. We needed a wagon.

Buick was just rolling out their Regal Tour X wagon. It was nicely designed, very roomy, and looked kind of fresh if you could get past the Buick schtick, which I felt I could. They essentially brought in a wagon of relative sportiness and decent design from their German brand, Opel, and dressed it up for people like me who haul gear, drive in snow and on dirt roads, and generally like to look at least kind of stylish and tasteful doing all that. The Regal Touring X is essentially a re-branded Opel Insignia Sports Tourer. I see them plenty here.

By reputation, Opel probably makes Germans feel about as confident in, and as cool as a Buick makes Americans feel in both categories. Good quality, with maybe not the top standard of reliability; your grandpa’s trusted, semi-luxury brand. But this is a sharp car.

Left: The Opel Insignia Sports Tourer. Right: Buick Regal Tour X--The Opel dressed for dirt.

I really wanted to reward Buick for recognizing me. Somebody had finally seen Subaru’s total stranglehold over this market and tried to deliver another option. The bummer was, they essentially went toe-to-toe with Subaru and really kind of came out...equal at best. They didn’t go more luxurious as BMW, Audi, and Mercedes very limited US market wagon options, which is smart. They stayed in a price range I would consider. What you end up with the Regal Touring X—besides a horrible name for your target market—is a pretty hefty car, lower to the ground and thus a bit sleeker than an Outback.

Once the relative novelty—if Buick in fact had any of that to begin with—wore off, you were essentially choosing an untested market challenger for the same cash proposition as a readily-available and serviceable industry leader with the best all-wheel drivetrain. Yikes!

Still, always one to happily go against the grain, I checked it out. I found a really well-designed sport wagon that drove like a sleepy grandpa, compared to Outback’s cautious hippy, chipper, fun-loving, middle-aged dad. But the death of it for me was a horrible driver's seat fit for me personally, and tight driver cockpit fit. Plus, it was brand new. There wouldn’t be used ones or any coming off leases for a couple years. I was NOT paying full sticker for a new one of those. I wasn’t paying new sticker for anything.

The fuel efficiency of the Beemer set a new vehicle standard for us too. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle. 23 mpg highway/19 city just wasn’t something we wanted to reward anymore in a car manufacturer, even if they did say hello and wink. I moved on.

That left precious few options though. This is where the US car market totally sucks.

We researched and settled on the 4 cylinder Volvo V60 front wheel drive. The V60 AWD and especially the more-expensive V60 Cross Country, is popular among active professionals, but again, as bad or worse on fuel as the Outback or CRV, and way smaller. The front wheel drive V60, however, gets up to 45 mpg on the highway though, and stickers almost $10k below the Cross Country new, for nearly the same daily function.

As our CRV lease expired in December 2018, I found a great deal on a 2017 V60 FWD with low miles, in New Jersey, a 50-mile jaunt from where I do work for NBC when we’re on site. They'd dropped the price because snow was coming and it wasn't AWD. I beat the US wagon market! I bought it and I drove it home later that winter.

We loved the Volvo, even though we never hit the 45 mpg it boasted. We did get 38 mpg regularly though on economy mode. Not exactly amazing, but going the right direction. Plus, when I wanted to rip a bit, it was fairly sporty driving.

We came to Finland in late July, our transportation setup at home about as dialed as it had ever been, and we were locked into it for years. Both cars served our purposes in as practical and exciting ways as we could hope for. By late August, we knew we were staying here for a while though. Two cars sitting in our garage seemed silly.

We first considered sending one of our cars by ship. We figured out we could ship the Volvo and pay the taxes, drive it while we’re here and still clear a healthy profit, selling it when we went home. The Volvo in the re-sale market here is almost double what we paid for it in Jersey, but shipping and taxes scratches more than half of that difference.

The last thing my mother yelled to us as we pulled out of our driveway in Duluth to catch our flight in Minneapolis was, “I’ll buy your car if you want to sell it!” The Volvo was very attractive and practical at the same time. Not sure how we were going to pull off this whole move financially anyway, and not wanting a good car collecting dust in our garage, mom got the car, just like she wished. Mom was an easier and more appreciative choice that gave us some immediate confidence we could survive the winter financially against the worst case job scenario.

The i3 would have been a cheaper option to send too; lighter and smaller, and once on the ground, the emissions are so low that taxes were miniscule. Taxes to enter the country and annually are derived from pollution/power derivative/age of vehicle here. Diesel fuel is cheap and diesel vehicles get way better gas mileage than “benzin“ (gasoline) vehicles, but annual taxes are much higher on diesel vehicles. While Finland rewards EV owners on the taxes, the infrastructure here is thin for a low-range EV like an i3. Long-range EVs like Tesla are popular here but I’d be hard pressed to tell you where one can charge their EV in town for an i3.

We left the i3 where it is. The small operational battery (small one, not drivetrain one) seems to have died out of lack of use, so the car has basically become a brick in our garage until we get back and put a new battery in it. Pretty theft proof, actually.

Initially in July, we were borrowing Mimmu’s mom’s car to get around like we had for the past few summer trips here. But as things looked to go longer, we needed wheels.

Mimmu's friend discovered a 2002 Toyota Yaris her neighbor wanted a quick sale on. Low miles and great shape. We got it for a song. It gets amazing gas mileage too. I drove it 600km (about 400 miles) home from Ruka from a single fill-up in Kuusamo. I figured out I was getting over 50 mpg on a normal gas engine. We have since traded it with Mummo (grandma) for her Honda Jazz, which is basically a Fit, because it had more room for hockey bags and skis, but it sucked gas which is expensive here.

Gas here is basically over twice what we pay in Duluth. Want a good reason not to buy a Cadillac Escalade? $5.85/gallon will do it if global warming doesn't bother you at all.

We missed Hiihtoloma due to me working Nordic World Championships for NBC, so we have been planning a trip next week, to ski way up north of the Arctic Circle in Ylläs with a friend. She’s already up there so we have to get ourselves there. We planned to avoid driving the Jazz that far by taking the train, but we couldn’t get tickets. Then we looked at renting a car for the week. That is perhaps where we were most shocked at the cost gap for the same service in the US.

With Mimmu working and me having at least a winter at about 60% of my normal NBC work, we decided to get a newer used car instead. Man, did we have options. It was the polar opposite of two years ago in the US. There were so many cars we would have loved to buy at home, that we took a while to scrutinize what we really wanted in a wagon. The options were dizzying.

A quick look for a “tourer,” or “farmeri” (farmer) less than 10 years old with less than 100k miles under 15k€ delivers hundreds of possibilities. We checked the taxes/fuel efficiency/reliability trifecta. We initially were chasing a mid-decade Honda Civic wagon but it didn’t come in a Hybrid. We considered a diesel that got roughly 50 mpg, but didn’t feel good about emissions and the annual taxes were 5x a gas/electric hybrid.

2014 Honda Civic Tourer diesel

For wagons overall, Audi, BMW, Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, (all French), Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, Opel, Toyota, Seat (SpanishVW), Skoda (Slovakian VW), Subaru, Volvo, and Volkswagen, all have viable and popular wagon models here. Like this Civic wagon, the majority of them you've not seen in America.

We wanted reliability, quality, economy, fuel efficiency, and strong resale. We settled on a blue 2014 Toyota Auris (Corolla, basically) Hybrid Touring Premier. We absolutely love it. Which is ironic. I'll get to that in just a second.

We are getting about 45-50 mpg around town. It is the best marriage of function, quality, comfort, fuel efficiency, size, and value, we as a family have ever had in a family vehicle. It has about 85k miles and cost more here than I’d ever pay for a Corolla that old or with that many miles in the US. In fact, I wouldn’t buy a Toyota Corolla in the US. I used to rent a car just about every week in the winter. Under my breath at the Hertz counter at Denver International, I'd curse, "it better not be a $%#&!? Corolla!" It was my least fave rental car because it was so...boring. Corollas are the ultimate practicality. Rental cars are supposed to be a vacation.

But a Corolla wagon, let alone a Hybrid wagon, was never an option until Finland. It’s a completely different proposition.

Our new used car. I love the panorama roof, and at $5.85/gal, I like 50 mpg!

I’d buy THIS Corolla wagon in the US if I could find one. So would the head track coach. I find it emotionally helpful too, that it says "Auris" on the car and not Corolla.

While a Toyota hybrid in America certainly not only takes you out of a wagon, it usually takes you out of the niceties this wagon boasts as well, like really high quality, comfortable, heated leather seats with wonderful driver position, LED headlights, and my absolute favorite—panoramic sun roof. And of course. All. That. Room. We're ready for a skiing road trip, in a Corolla...err Auris.

Sorry for the attitude, Corolla. I was just in the wrong country.