1-year Anniversary

[Rockhound]

Since it's now been a year since we bought the Versa, I thought I'd check in. We (mostly my wife) have put 10,200 miles on the clock with nary a problem. What seemed like a (somewhat) impulsive buy at the time has turned out to be, in our opinion, a very smart decision. The gas mileage has been improving bit by bit, somewhat predictably with warmer weather, but likely also due to continual break-in. I only started documenting gas mileage at 5,000 miles (stupid move on my part) and the average since then is 28 MPG. Last fill-up was 31 MPG. Can't complain about that. I'm still impressed every time I get behind the wheel (which isn't quite often enough).

On a side note, I thought I'd also share a hilarious/tragic story involving the Versa. My wife came home a few days ago and said that she had, unfortunately, hit a squirrel on the way home. She had myriad excuses (raining, narrow road, traffic) as to why it was unavoidable, which is fine by me, as swerving is rarely a safe maneuver anyway. She also lamented that when she looked in the rear-view mirror, she couldn't see it on the road - she was concerned that it was somehow, stuck under her car.

I gave her a hard time, saying that it was highly unlikely that it'd get stuck under the car, and I continued to give her a hard time that it was going to reach out and grab her ankle as she got in her car next time.

Fast forward two (!) days, and we took the Versa to go play tennis. As I got on the court I looked back at the parking lot only to see a fuzzy, brown object sticking out of the front airdam in the bumper. Sure enough, it was Mr. Squirrel. I know it sounds crazy - but we never looked! Anyway, I snapped a few photos before removing his (her?) not-so-pliable body from the bumper.

Sorry in advance to anyone who's especially fond of squirrels...

[Xtrykr]

lol! whats that thing doing in there???

[feloniousmonk]

Awwww.

[gtrisfun]

oy! looks like your "hamster wheel"- powered supercharger crapped out! how much boost were you able to get out of it? i'd be interested in this kind of mod, but we don't have squirrels here, i suppose i could modify it to be mongoose-powered. anyone know where i could find this kit? would the JDM version have a tanuki instead?

[Knightro2]

HA! Sucks for the squirrel. I'll have to try and hunt for the pic but back in high school when I was driving to band camp (yes, I was a band geek but I also played baseball so my coolness evened out) a squirrel was running on a powerline across the street and fell right onto my windshield and knocked his a$$ out. All for legs spraweled out belly first on the windshield. Luckily I had a camera and took a picture. I drove with him on my windshield all the way to school which as about 10 minutes away. He wasn't there when I came back to the car a few hours later. Either someone grabbed him or he woke up.

[kcourtad]

priceless pic... i love it...