Daiv Whaley, writer/senior account executive with Fathom SEO discusses his vehicle spending and preferences.
Is going green an important consideration for you in regard to driving?
Very much. I'm presently driving a 1995 Chevy S-10, which has decent gas mileage. I get oil changes every three months and I talk to the people at the shop about what they do with the oil. They've assured me that they have basically best practices for getting rid of the oil that are environmentally sound and follow the law, but that's something I thought about when I started going there, because there are people out there who don't always do the right thing.
What factors are important to you when you look at a car?
I'm an artist, so I often end up hauling a lot of stuff, so having some hauling space is important to me in my vehicle, but I'm a total conservationist and I hate the idea of driving when I don't have to. I commute about 30 miles each way to work, which is kind of a bummer, so I've been thinking about gas long before gas prices were so high last year, I've always thought about conservation and how much pollution we put into the air. I think we should always think in those regards, whether gas prices are cheap or not. Besides, gas prices have gone down, but they'll obviously go up again. I think it's silly for people to only think about it when its high. It's the whole, "out of sigh out of mind thing." Those are the same people who are going to be complaining when prices go up again, and it is going to happen.
Since you are in the market for a new car, what are you considering?
I'm looking at a bunch of different cars, and I've kind of narrowed it down to one of the Scions, maybe the Scion XD. I had thought about the Honda Element, but it's really a lot bigger than it needs to be. I've also thought about the Honda Fit, which gets about 35 miles per gallon on the highway. I'd say that gas mileage is probably my number one concern when it comes to buying a new car. And number two would be storage space for hauling things. And number three would probably be the stereo. I guess I'm growing up because stereo used to be number one.
The thing about the Honda Fit is that it is pretty small. My next step is to test drive both of them. I know people who have both, the Scion XD and the Honda Fit, and they say nice things about them and like them a lot. They are both fairly inexpensive. It'll come down to the personal experience while trying them out. I think the Scion has the Fit beat in storage space, but the Fit is better on mileage.
Why are you currently in the market for a new car?
I tend to take a long time to make big decisions. The last time I needed to get a car, I looked at a lot of things and a lot of people told me the Chevy S-10 was a good car, and if you take care of them they'll last a long time. So I paid cash for it, bought it off a friend when she was selling it. I've had to do a little bit of work: I put a new radiator in it and motor mounts. Other than that, I've been pretty stringent about getting oil changes on a regular basis. It's a fine car. I've had no problem with it, haul lots of stuff with it. I'm only now considering getting rid of it because it's starting to rust out in the back. I'll probably hang on to it and use it only to haul big stuff.
Why is going green and the environment important to you?
Nature has always been important to me. We come from nature and we live because of nature. So it's silly not to consider that in the way we live our lives. It's like a fish inside a fish bowl: you don't want to pollute the water that you are living in. I do some cycle. I spend a lot of time outdoors, and I think the more you are outside, the more you see the value of nature.
And a lot of the artwork I do uses natural elements, so I appreciate it that way. I also became a Christian about 25 years ago, and my initial foray into that was from thinking about nature, and the design of it, and how beautiful it was. So I've always come to value the environment. My last four positions I've had I started recycling programs at the companies I've worked for.