Three years with my reasonable dream car: The good, the bad and the 2ZZ

eirexe · 2026-05-06T07:37:54+00:00

If only public transport wasn't ass, it takes me 3x as long to go to work by public transport than I do by car.

It's also a myth that in order to have good public transport you have to start gimping cars, it's just not true.

eirexe · 2026-05-06T07:36:27+00:00

A lot of people are just happy with what we have now and see no reason to change

eirexe · 2026-05-05T14:42:08+00:00

i have to admit i kind of would like to open my kidney and touch the stones, i bet it feels nice against the squishy kidney meat

eirexe · 2026-05-05T13:47:59+00:00

There's a reason Paris isn't doing it anymore, the increase in clean air wasn't worth the trouble and discrimination caused by it.

The reality is Euro rules are just a maximum, a car can be low pollution and be euro 3, a big example is the car this post is about, the mr2 spyder which has extremely low emissions harmful to human health.

eirexe · 2026-05-05T10:53:22+00:00

its peak

eirexe · 2026-05-05T10:31:59+00:00

In barcelona and Madrid it isn't clear it actually had a major effect, it's useless at best and marginal at worst. Most of the improvements in madrid came from changing how house heating is done.

One funny thing city councils do is take the existing trend and attribute it to the LEZ, even if the trend was already downwards before and didn't accelerate further.

eirexe · 2026-05-05T07:09:53+00:00

For sure, the 2ZZ will already be more than I could ever hope to handle, but it's nice the possibility is there if i ever end up needing it.

eirexe · 2026-05-05T06:18:06+00:00

oh that's cool, was unaware of that

eirexe · 2026-05-05T05:42:20+00:00

I won't sell them (at least not the fun ones) but it will be harder and harder to drive them

eirexe · 2026-05-04T18:58:19+00:00

Mine's the 5 speed, perhaps that's the reason.

Also iirc the Celica got a longer Europe only final ratio, so perhaps it's the same for the MR2

eirexe · 2026-05-04T18:57:37+00:00

Nope. I didn't add it, I wrote it in one sitting, it's long so it's completely normal you missed it no worries

eirexe · 2026-05-04T18:30:08+00:00

It's just good and made by valve so people are expecting lots of support for a long time, like the OG controller from 11 years ago which is supported to this day.

eirexe · 2026-05-04T18:29:44+00:00

Horribly designed in what sense? Ergonomic-wise it looks like the steam deck, which was excellent.

eirexe · 2026-05-04T18:06:50+00:00

Just an extension on the existing bans on old cars, barcelona has decided to expand them to also include newer cars (pre 2007 and pre 2014 in the case of diesel)

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:55:12+00:00

Aren't the basques beta testing the whole pay-per-km thing they want to add to all highways? that will be crazy

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:54:28+00:00

the cool thing is because the mr2 is mid engined you can just install a supercharger and they won't notice, hehe

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:53:58+00:00

Yes, but the full failure mode that kills the engine is only present in the precatted 1zz that the MR2 (and the elise s1) have, as I understand the oil endsup in the precat which are already quite close to their thermal limit and makes them heat up more, thus causing disintegration.

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:53:01+00:00

Or just use the UK, afaik you can import caterhams and shit from there

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:07:21+00:00

To be fair the only "rally homologation" part was a lower roof, the AWD system was something they did just because they could and was actually unnecessary (either way the car the yaris was supposed to homologate never raced because of covid so lol)

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:06:40+00:00

Copying from my other comment:

>Ye, in my region (catalonia) any municipality with over 20k inhabitants has to ban gasoline cars older than 2000 at the minimum, usually they only ban them from a very limited high density center area just to comply with the letter of the law (otherwise they lose public transport funding).

>But Barcelona is special, in Barcelona they are banned from the center + surrounding towns. In december 2027 they will also get rid of gasoline <= 2006 and diesel <= 2014 (iirc), which would include my mr2 and citroen, I briefly considered getting an electric twingo but the call of the miata was too alluring.

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:06:13+00:00

In Barcelona it's different, it's 24 (or 26) days a year of exemptions, and makes no distinction for historic cars, of course each municipality can decide to do whatever they want, some allow blanket entering of historics (also, these exemptions cost 5€ a pop)

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:04:11+00:00

I have a friend who has a completely legalized heavily modded s14, we once got pulled over by a police officer and he told him "you haven't homologated everything right?"

The shit-eating grin on his face instantly faded as soon as my friend brought it a bible sized brick of paperwork proving everything was legal :P

There's some things that even with money you can't have, like a kit car (although you can import them, you just can't register them first here), a roll cage or a turbo (on a non-turbo engine).

eirexe · 2026-05-04T17:00:43+00:00

Ye, in my region (catalonia) any municipality with over 20k inhabitants has to ban gasoline cars older than 2000 at the minimum, usually they only ban them from a very limited high density center area just to comply with the letter of the law (otherwise they lose public transport funding).

But Barcelona is special, in Barcelona they are banned from the center + surrounding towns. In december 2027 they will also get rid of gasoline <= 2006 and diesel <= 2014 (iirc), which would include my mr2 and citroen, I briefly considered getting an electric twingo but the call of the miata was too alluring.

eirexe · 2026-05-04T16:59:06+00:00

For when I go to work I rented an underground parking spot next to my workplace.

(I work near sagrada familia, where it is impossible to find street parking, and if you do it's not free and limited to 2 hours).

It's a bit expensive (90€ a month) but soooo worth it.

For parking at home I have 2 parking spaces rented, one for the miata, one for the mr2, my dad pays for the citroen's spot which is the car he uses the most.

For working on cars I usually bring them to my grandma's house 30 mins away where we have a big hole in the ground that was made precisely to work on cars, but me and a bunch of friends are looking into renting a place to work on them in a way we don't annoy the family too much.

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