Seeing as how my daily drivers had 550,000 miles accumulated between them, I figured it would be nice to have a newer car. My '08 Dodge Ram in particular had become annoying after costing me $6000 in repairs last year. Since I stopped running trailers, it was no longer needed, and I decided to trade it for something more suited to daily commuting in the wilds of Detroit Metro.
2014 Buick Verano T. 48,000 miles. 2.0L DI turbo 4-cylinder. 250 HP.
6-speed manual transmission. This makes it pretty rare. How many people even knew that Buick had a manual in any car in 2014?
I got it for a good price because of paint damage on the hood, roof, and deck lid. It looked like somebody tried waxing it with sandpaper and scouring powder. I will be getting new paint on it in a few months, but in the meantime, it should be good to drive.
In the process of learning how to use the infotainment system, I found that the original owner had never reset the trip odometer because its reading matched the odometer. By extension that also means the average fuel economy and average vehicle speed readings had probably never been reset, either. So in 48,296 miles, the car averaged 19.1 mpg, and 22.1 mph.
I put the car right into service last week, making a 460-mile round-trip on Tuesday. It gave me 32.8 mpg at 77 mph on the interstate, so I'm happy about that. It has a much softer ride than the Camaro, and more maneuverable in tight spaces, so it seems like just the thing for Detroit area commuting.
I looked at the oil on the dipstick when checking it out at the dealer, and it was clean. The dealer said the oil had been changed, but they didn't reset the oil monitor, which was at 9% when I found it in the Driver Information Center. It's timed out now, and asking for an oil change. I bought a 5-qt jug of M1 5w30 and Fram Ultra filter for it this morning.
2014 Buick Verano T. 48,000 miles. 2.0L DI turbo 4-cylinder. 250 HP.
6-speed manual transmission. This makes it pretty rare. How many people even knew that Buick had a manual in any car in 2014?
I got it for a good price because of paint damage on the hood, roof, and deck lid. It looked like somebody tried waxing it with sandpaper and scouring powder. I will be getting new paint on it in a few months, but in the meantime, it should be good to drive.
In the process of learning how to use the infotainment system, I found that the original owner had never reset the trip odometer because its reading matched the odometer. By extension that also means the average fuel economy and average vehicle speed readings had probably never been reset, either. So in 48,296 miles, the car averaged 19.1 mpg, and 22.1 mph.
I put the car right into service last week, making a 460-mile round-trip on Tuesday. It gave me 32.8 mpg at 77 mph on the interstate, so I'm happy about that. It has a much softer ride than the Camaro, and more maneuverable in tight spaces, so it seems like just the thing for Detroit area commuting.
I looked at the oil on the dipstick when checking it out at the dealer, and it was clean. The dealer said the oil had been changed, but they didn't reset the oil monitor, which was at 9% when I found it in the Driver Information Center. It's timed out now, and asking for an oil change. I bought a 5-qt jug of M1 5w30 and Fram Ultra filter for it this morning.
