People who ask me for car advice usually fall into one of two categories:

There are those who ask what they should buy because they hope my suggestions will include the vehicle they’ve already decided to purchase.

And there are those who ask for my advice so they can tell me what an idiot I am for recommending whatever I suggest. 

But every once in a while – about as often as we get a totally honest and forthright presidential candidate – someone who doesn’t want to argue and hasn’t already made up their mind asks for advice.

And every once in a while – about as often as we elect a totally honest and forthright president – that person actually follows my advice.

Those occasions are so rare they’re hard to forget. So I still remember the former co-worker who bought a Subaru when all-wheel drive cars were uncommon and spent 10 minutes thanking me every time he saw snow flurries. He gave me a Pink Floyd CD as a gift the day after our first snowstorm.

Recently, a friend I hadn’t seen in a decade emerged from the dark side of the moon to ask for car advice. She was shopping for something small and economical, and I recommended that she check out Scion.

She wound up buying a new xD, the same model I tested this week. My friend, Pam Fendrock, has had her xD only a few weeks, but she’s already driven it around 3,000 miles. That’s about 10 times as many miles as I’ve clocked in the car, so I figured I’d let her weigh in on the vehicle.

Before we get to that, I should point out that Pam is 43 years old. Pam said it was OK to tell you that, but not because she wants her lack of wrinkles and gray hair to make her other friends jealous. She thinks it’s important because she isn’t part of Scion’s target audience, which is more likely to use dye to turn hair green or purple than to make gray disappear.

According to the manufacturer, the xD and Scion’s two other models are aimed at “Generation Y” buyers. That’s about half an alphabet younger than Pam, according to my calculations. According to Scion, its marketing is focused “predominantly on males around 22 years old.”

Pam clearly doesn’t fit that description. But Scion couldn’t find a better spokesperson for the xD, which is its least expensive model.

“I love it,” she said. “Love it! It’s exactly what I was looking for in a car. I wanted something that got great gas mileage and had four doors and a hatchback. And I wanted a small car that people would be comfortable in its back seat.”

The xD has met her expectations in all of those areas, according to Pam.

But based on the last car she owned, I wonder how high her expectations are. The vehicle Pam replaced was a 12-year-old Geo Storm with 167,000 miles on it. She bought the car new, which may make her a candidate for the “Guinness Book of Records” as the only person in history to ever own any Geo for that many years.

It’s a record that wasn’t easy to achieve. About halfway through its life, the Storm had become such a rust bucket that Pam spent big bucks repairing the body. When it started to rust out again, she decided it was time for a new vehicle.

After driving a Geo Storm for a dozen years, Pam might consider a Chinese rickshaw a luxury vehicle. Yet her assessment of the xD seems pretty much in line with my own observations.

“I love the way it rides,” she says. “I’ve driven it to Cleveland, and I’ve driven into Manhattan with it, and it was great.

“I’ve driven it through a couple of blinding downpours and felt totally in control the whole time. And on the highway in good weather, I looked down at the speedometer a couple of times and saw that I was doing 85 miles an hour – and not on purpose. I just didn’t realize I was going that fast.”

I can appreciate that. I typically stayed with the flow of traffic while driving the xD – which means going 70-to-75 mph on the highway – and always felt stable and planted.

It also has adequate highway passing punch for a sub-compact, thanks to a 128-horsepower engine. Whether passing on the highway or climbing steep grades with three passengers onboard, the xD’s engine never seems to wheeze.

That surprised me a bit given that the test car had a four-speed automatic. Sub-compacts often feel sluggish with automatics, and I’ve driven some with four-speeds that seemed to constantly search for the right gear to make up for anemic engines.

But the engineers at Scion’s parent company, Toyota, apparently did a terrific job with engine tuning and transmission gearing because the xD’s automatic cooperates beautifully with its engine.

The car not only feels peppy and responsive, but also gets gas mileage higher than its 26 city/32 highway EPA rating. That’s according to my short-term experience with the xD and Pam’s longer relationship.

“I averaged 36.8 miles per gallon coming back from Cleveland,” Pam says of her manual transmission-equipped xD, which the EPA says should get 27 city and 33 highway miles per gallon. “I generally average 33.6 (per tankful) and have never seen it go below 30 miles per gallon.

I’ve never known math to be Pam’s strong suit, but she says those numbers came right from the xD’s trip computer. The automatic-equipped test car’s computer read 33.2 mpg after a week of highway and city driving.

Regardless of where it’s being driven, even Pam has to admit that the xD isn’t the smoothest riding sub-compact around. Even small bumps and expansion strips are evident when driving it. But the ride isn’t really rough, and I was impressed by the xD’s refusal to be bounced around even by bigger bumps and ruts.

That makes for a decent overall ride in which wind and outside noises are fairly well tamed. Engine growl is evident, especially at full throttle, but not particularly annoying. In fact, I liked it because it gave the xD a certain snarl often missing from sub-compact economy cars.

Unfortunately, what’s also missing from this one is a roomy cargo compartment behind its 60/40 split rear seats. The xD’s 10.5 cubic feet of trunk space is about half what you’ll find in a Honda Fit.

Yet Pam claims there was enough room in her xD to transport her sisters and their baggage for a weekend stay in Manhattan. I say at least a couple of family members must be dwarfs who pack light.

Then again, my advice to sub-compact buyers for whom cargo capacity is a priority is to check out the mini milk truck that Scion calls an xB. Pam says she considered that, but couldn’t see herself owning one.

Instead, she wound up in a vehicle that she’s thrilled to own. And in the process, she may have qualified for another Guinness record as the first person in at least a decade to follow my car-buying advice.     

               

NUTS AND BOLTS

WHAT IS IT? 2008 Scion xD, the newest and most affordable Scion model.

WHAT DOES IT COST? xD is offered in just one trim level starting at $14,550 with a five-speed manual and $15,350 with a four-speed automatic, like the test car. Options and delivery fees hiked test car’s MSRP to $17,358.

WHAT I LIKED BEST: Peppy engine, lots of standard goodies, better-than-rated mileage, better-than-expected roominess.

WHAT I LIKED LEAST: Cargo space tight with rear seats up, and seats are somewhat inconvenient to fold flat. Rear sight lines could be better.

WHO’S IT FOR? xD and the other Scion models may be aimed at Gen-Y, but don’t tell that to 40-somethings like my buddy, Pam.

WHAT’S NEW FOR ’09? Nothing of note.

IMPORTANT NUMBERS: 1.8-liter, 16-valve I-4 with variable valve timing produces 128 horsepower, 125 lb-ft of torque. 4-speed automatic. 96.9-inch wheelbase. 2,625 pounds. 10.5/35.7 cu.ft. cargo room behind rear/front seats. 0-60 in 8.9 seconds (stopwatch). 26 city/32 highway mpg (EPA rating).

About the Author

Scott Wasser is the managing editor for the Times Leader. Reach him at (570) 970-7162 or swasser@timesleader.com.

Scott Wasser is Vice President/News and also writes an auto column for The Times Leader. Wasser brings 30 years of publishing and media experience as a writer, editor and photographer to his roles at The Times Leader.

Wasser has worked at newspapers as diverse as the Stuttgart Daily Leader in Arkansas and the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina. His Times Leader tenure began in 1983, when he was hired as the newspaper’s sports editor. Over the next decade, he turned the newspaper’s sports section into one of the most recognized in the nation as it was annually named one of the best daily and Sunday sports sections in the country.

Wasser left the sports department to become assistant general manager and online editor of The Times Leader’s website during the infancy of the internet. He left The Times Leader in 2000 to become online editor of the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal. Just prior to returning to The Times Leader in 2008, he was editor-in-chief of a national magazine covering home theater and other consumer electronics.

But Wasser says his proudest accomplishment is having driven and reviewed over 1,000 cars, trucks and motorcycles since he started writing a weekly car column for The Times Leader in 1988. The column, which runs in print on Saturday and online here, has appeared in several other newspapers, and Wasser has contributed auto-related content to national publications including “Road & Track” and “Open Road” magazines and “USA Today.”

He resides in Dallas with his wife, Ronda, and son, Brandon. He also has two adult daughters, Lauren and Lisa, who grew up in the Wyoming Valley.

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