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Weird, my rear sonar beeper only works if I'm actually in reverse.
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May 28, 2014 21:18
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To continue the derail, gently caress backup cameras because I hate having a dash full of screens and electronic displays. I rented a Ford Escape and was infuriated that I had to navigate multiple menus on a touchscreen to change the drat radio station. But it had the ability to program a million preset stations  Also I know how to use mirrors and am not an idiot.
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May 28, 2014 21:20
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LogisticEarth posted:To continue the derail, gently caress backup cameras because I hate having a dash full of screens and electronic displays. I rented a Ford Escape and was infuriated that I had to navigate multiple menus on a touchscreen to change the drat radio station. But it had the ability to program a million preset stations Just push the button on the steering wheel and tell it what station you want, pretty easy.
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May 28, 2014 21:32
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Also you guys are talking about seat warmers but not the infinitely more awesome seat coolers.
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May 28, 2014 21:43
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Your Dead Gay Son posted:Also you guys are talking about seat warmers but not the infinitely more awesome seat coolers. (I would love coolers, as long as you can use them with warmers. I use my warmers year round, which means longer ac season  )
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May 28, 2014 21:46
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My 2004 Saab has coolers and heaters for the front seats.
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May 28, 2014 21:46
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Penny wise, pound foolish. I had an older Nissan Pathfinder that I drove for 4 years or so. The second year I drove it, it started having AC problems just before summer hit. I took it in to a mechanic, who replaced the compressor and recharged the AC for a couple hundred dollars or something. Nice cold air, which is great because summers where I live top 115 degrees. The next spring, the A/C didn't turn on. Not wanting to spend another $200 so soon, I just neglected to get it fixed. I drove around that car for two more years in miserable heat without AC. When it was time to sell it, I had a guy from work come to fix a couple problems with it, including my leaking brake line. "Hey, you're missing the belt that drives your A/C. It probably just broke one day and fell out onto the road. I'll try replacing it and see if your AC works." So, an $8 AC belt and 10 minutes later, the A/C was working fine. I made myself miserable for two years in that car thinking I was saving $200-300, when it was actually just an $8 belt I could have changed myself. 
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May 28, 2014 21:48
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Your Dead Gay Son posted:Also you guys are talking about seat warmers but not the infinitely more awesome seat coolers. You're still missing the real deal. Steering wheel heaters. My life has been shallow and empty since I learned what I'm missing out on from an old BMW 740
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May 28, 2014 22:06
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canyoneer posted:Penny wise, pound foolish.  Luckily it was just an AC belt that went. This is a good reason why you should acquaint yourself with what's under the hood of your car. Even if you don't plan on doing anything yourself, sometimes you can just look at it and see what's wrong, and whether it's worth going to the mechanic or not. spwrozek posted:Just push the button on the steering wheel and tell it what station you want, pretty easy. Did I mention I am
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May 28, 2014 23:05
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Your Dead Gay Son posted:Also you guys are talking about seat warmers but not the infinitely more awesome seat coolers. I had rented a 2014 Taurus once that had seat coolers, I wish it had been warmer so I could have used them more.
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May 28, 2014 23:30
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Zhentar posted:You're still missing the real deal. Steering wheel heaters. My life has been shallow and empty since I learned what I'm missing out on from an old BMW 740 
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May 28, 2014 23:30
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I drive a 2005 Civic Value Package. I LIKE that it has hand crank windows, manual locks, and no cruise control. I've had to spend like crazy to repair power windows and locks before. No thanks. Bought it certified used. Paid it off in November of 2013. Plan on driving it until it dies. My partner insists on taking his 2008 Aura on our upcoming road trip to central Nebraska. I agree that it's the more comfortable car, and has cruise control! But I HATE driving it. It guzzles gas (compared to the Civic), it handles and brakes like crap, and it's oddly ugly and gray on the inside. It IS paid for. I paid it off for him with a bonus I got in March, in return for him paying more of the rent (I was paying 665 a month to his 474 because I make more money, now we pay 569.50 each), and taking over his gym membership (20 a month). I figured this was fair in the long run. Now, of course, he wants a new car. I've already told him getting one without a drat good reason (totaled or complete not worth it to fix breakdown) will be a breakup worthy offense. We keep our finances somewhat seperate, but I know he can't afford it, and I'm not going to go back to paying the bulk of the rent, along with everything else I cover (i.e. Everything but our cell phones, 1/2 the groceries, and what's listed above), for him to have a shiny new toy. A used Kia in the case of his transmission falling out is one thing. A new Camaro or Ram to help him deal with an early midlife crisis is quite another.
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May 29, 2014 00:54
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LogisticEarth posted:To continue the derail, gently caress backup cameras because I hate having a dash full of screens and electronic displays. I rented a Ford Escape and was infuriated that I had to navigate multiple menus on a touchscreen to change the drat radio station. But it had the ability to program a million preset stations My wife has a '13 Escape, and I have no problems with picking radio stations. You press AM or FM, and then pick what station you want from the presets.  There's as many menus (buttons) as a normal no-screen radio.We opted to get the backup cam as she was moving up to that from a Echo hatchback, so it's helpful to use the mirrors to back into a spot, and the camera to watch the distance. Maybe I'm biased because I bought the car, but I really like it. Plus it's fun to hear the turbo spooling. 
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May 29, 2014 01:32
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The backup cam on our new (sorry BFC I'm not sorry) minivan is wonderful. My depth perception figuring out where the garage door is in relation to the back of the car stinks, but with the rear cam I can more easily see, and there are helpful guide lines overlaid so that I know whether I'll have clearance to open the rear hatch when parked. Also, a dashboard of electronics is great when you get a built in gas mileage view to improve your driving efficiency 
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May 29, 2014 03:37
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Bad with money is my former co-worker who managed to get the whole "save money by buying beaters" concept exactly wrong. She had a late 90s Taurus as a daily driver and a late 90s Windstar because her two big dogs didn't fit in the Taurus. Both cars cost around $5k and ended up needing far more than $5k in repairs while she owned them (admittedly, owning two lemons does mean you have something to drive while the other is in the shop). Learning nothing from the experience of owning mediocre American cars, she then bought a $5k Neon for her daughter.
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May 29, 2014 04:19
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lavaca posted:Bad with money is my former co-worker who managed to get the whole "save money by buying beaters" concept exactly wrong. She had a late 90s Taurus as a daily driver and a late 90s Windstar because her two big dogs didn't fit in the Taurus. Both cars cost around $5k and ended up needing far more than $5k in repairs while she owned them (admittedly, owning two lemons does mean you have something to drive while the other is in the shop). Learning nothing from the experience of owning mediocre American cars, she then bought a $5k Neon for her daughter. ...and this is exactly why I lease. gently caress repairs.
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May 29, 2014 04:27
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EugeneJ posted:...and this is exactly why I lease. gently caress repairs.
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May 29, 2014 04:33
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canyoneer posted:I made myself miserable for two years in that car thinking I was saving $200-300, when it was actually just an $8 belt I could have changed myself. I did the same thing with my car door lock. A key broke off in there and the dealer said it would be at least $500 just to remove the panel to see what needed to be done. Screw that, I lived Dukes of Hazard style for a year. When it rained, I rolled up the windows and climbed in through the hatch. Until a locksmith that was working on something else fixed it for $20.
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May 29, 2014 06:42
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lavaca posted:Learning nothing from the experience of owning mediocre American cars, she then bought a $5k Neon for her daughter. I bought a 2001 neon for 10k from Carmax in 2003. I wouldn't do it again but it only had 23k miles and all it's needed in the last 11 years were new tires, brake pads, and a water pump. No power windows or locks though.... Hell, I have to unlock the trunk from the outside. Going to ride this sucker till it dies.Then I'll be in the market for a used corolla. They have way more giddiup than my car (sample size = 1).
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May 29, 2014 09:38
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lavaca posted:Bad with money is my former co-worker who managed to get the whole "save money by buying beaters" concept exactly wrong. She had a late 90s Taurus as a daily driver and a late 90s Windstar because her two big dogs didn't fit in the Taurus. Both cars cost around $5k and ended up needing far more than $5k in repairs while she owned them (admittedly, owning two lemons does mean you have something to drive while the other is in the shop). Learning nothing from the experience of owning mediocre American cars, she then bought a $5k Neon for her daughter. How long did she own them? ANY car that is out of warranty, you should expect to spend money on repairs, and the cheaper you go, the faster those repairs will equal the cost of buying the car. It's only if ONE repair is more expensive than replacing, or if things start breaking so fast that it may as well have all been at once that it's a bad idea to keep going. I had a 92 Accord, which I paid 1200 for, and I just expected to have to pay an average of about 500 per year to keep it running. I ended up spending almost 2 grand on keeping a 1200 dollar car running for 4 years, but I'd have had to spend at least that much whatever I did, the only possible savings being going from doing most of my own work to all of it. If she had those cars for 5 years or more, and she doesn't work on cars, I'd say she did okay.
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May 29, 2014 10:58
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lavaca posted:Bad with money is my former co-worker who managed to get the whole "save money by buying beaters" concept exactly wrong. She had a late 90s Taurus as a daily driver and a late 90s Windstar because her two big dogs didn't fit in the Taurus. Both cars cost around $5k and ended up needing far more than $5k in repairs while she owned them (admittedly, owning two lemons does mean you have something to drive while the other is in the shop). Learning nothing from the experience of owning mediocre American cars, she then bought a $5k Neon for her daughter. Agreeing with the guy above me. How long did she have the vehicles? If she spent $10k on the two vehicles and only needed $5k in repairs between the two, depending on how long she had them, she probably didn't do too badly. Did she pay cash for them? Some people buy a $25k vehicle and only keep it for 5 years. Some people do this with two vehicles, at the cost of $10k per year.
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May 29, 2014 11:38
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Ugh. I bought a new Camry fresh out of college (2012), and after reading all this I'm feeling like a financial idiot. I figure I'll drive it into the ground and just get a beater when it dies in a decade or so...
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May 29, 2014 13:51
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Not a Children posted:Ugh. I bought a new Camry fresh out of college (2012), and after reading all this I'm feeling like a financial idiot. I figure I'll drive it into the ground and just get a beater when it dies in a decade or so... I wasn't quite fresh out of college, but when my Pontiac Grand Prix kept mysteriously turning off (the car would just switch off, no brakes, no power steering, nada) and I spent a ton of money trying to fix it (everyone had a different opinion), I just said gently caress it, swapped it out for a new Civic. Not great with money, but I'm almost set to pay the car off and I'll drive it into the ground. Oh, and seeing the General Motors recall now on the ignition switch infuriates me as it is exactly what kept happening to my car. gently caress General Motors.
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May 29, 2014 14:03
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If you had the Passkey system (the little chip in the ignition key) then that was probably the issue, not the key cylinder. edit: but GM ignitions have been a clusterfuck for years. I replaced the ignition switch in Cavaliers and Sunfires (J-bodies) almost weekly because they liked to break. The Passkey system would regularly gently caress up due to the tiny, tiny wires they used to connect to the ignition switch. They would break after enough turns back and forth and the entire thing would need replaced because repairing the wires was at best a temporary fix. GM is a company that is bad with money. They cut corners and made substandard junk for short term profits, and now only fools would buy one of their vehicles. Nocheez fucked around with this message at 14:29 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 14:19
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Duckman2008 posted:I wasn't quite fresh out of college, but when my Pontiac Grand Prix kept mysteriously turning off (the car would just switch off, no brakes, no power steering, nada) and I spent a ton of money trying to fix it (everyone had a different opinion), I just said gently caress it, swapped it out for a new Civic. I had the same thing happen in my Accord. The fact that I also didn't know WTF is why that ate up about 2/3 of my 500 dollar average that year.
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May 29, 2014 14:20
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Nocheez posted:If you had the Passkey system (the little chip in the ignition key) then that was probably the issue, not the key cylinder. I have no idea what that is (cars just aren't my forte), my Pontiac had a key and a faub for locking/unlocking, but it def was not a push to start ignition. Nocheez posted:If you had the Passkey system (the little chip in the ignition key) then that was probably the issue, not the key cylinder. Either way Nocheez posted:If you had the Passkey system (the little chip in the ignition key) then that was probably the issue, not the key cylinder. Yeah, all I know is I would be going 55 MPH down the highway right in the middle of the city and just loving shuts off. It happened 7 separate times on me in a 2 year period (various mechanics did various things to "fix" it). It's a miracle I didn't crash. I'm not great with cars, so I probably spent more on repairs than I should have (the mechanics, and dealer, I went to all had been both referrals and helped me before), so I just got to the point of spending more to buy a new car just to not worry about repairs for a while.
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May 29, 2014 14:34
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If your key looked like the one here then that's my guess as to what was going on. Who knows for sure? GM "quality" was, and still is, a joke.
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May 29, 2014 14:38
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Why can't a key just be a thin strip of hard metal that you insert into the lock and twist to open? Why the gently caress does the key need to contain microchips or wires or whatever? Is all of the US a high-crime area or something? I drove my parents' 1985 Toyota Hilux when I went to university. It was 13 years old by that time and the ridges on the key had worn down to almost a smooth curve. Still worked though for some reason.
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May 29, 2014 15:24
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Weatherman posted:Why can't a key just be a thin strip of hard metal that you insert into the lock and twist to open? Why the gently caress does the key need to contain microchips or wires or whatever? Is all of the US a high-crime area or something? Yeah, and at that point any other Hilux key would probably have worked, too. Maybe a screwdriver would have worked.
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May 29, 2014 15:36
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Weatherman posted:Why can't a key just be a thin strip of hard metal that you insert into the lock and twist to open? Why the gently caress does the key need to contain microchips or wires or whatever? Is all of the US a high-crime area or something? Because cars that use that style of keys/locks can be stolen by an 8-year-old with a screwdriver. Cars that use fully modern chip-key authentication are pretty much impervious to anything short of a flat-bed tow truck. The 90s kinda sucked at this as manufacturers figured out how to implement these more secure systems. But now that they have, it really is a huge boon to car security.
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May 29, 2014 15:57
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Not a Children posted:Ugh. I bought a new Camry fresh out of college (2012), and after reading all this I'm feeling like a financial idiot. I figure I'll drive it into the ground and just get a beater when it dies in a decade or so... My 99 Camry is still going strong and I expect I could get another 5-10 years out of it, so if you plan on running it into the ground you may be waiting until 2030.
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May 29, 2014 16:19
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My friend scrapped her 1991 Corolla in 2013. She had only a year or two left before she could get "Antique car" plates for it or something... And that car got driven hard, holy poo poo. 15 year old vehicles should not go up to 150 km/hr on rural highways at night, good loving lord that was terrifying. Anyway her father is a mechanic and he essentially refused to repair it any further after the third time the muffler fell off or something. Thing was still in pretty decent mechanical shape, but it was getting loving grody. I also have a 2012 Camry, and while I sometime regret the purchase from a financial perspective, I'm driving that fucker for the next 15 years at least.
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May 29, 2014 16:40
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Weatherman posted:Why can't a key just be a thin strip of hard metal that you insert into the lock and twist to open? Why the gently caress does the key need to contain microchips or wires or whatever? Is all of the US a high-crime area or something? Amen, brother. I had a 1985 Celica that by the time I traded it in in 1999, the key could be removed while the engine was running, no problem. Just slid right out. I had gotten into the habit of starting the car then putting the keys back in my pocket. drat, I miss that car sometimes.
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May 29, 2014 16:44
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topenga posted:Amen, brother. I had a 1985 Celica that by the time I traded it in in 1999, the key could be removed while the engine was running, no problem. Just slid right out. I had gotten into the habit of starting the car then putting the keys back in my pocket. drat, I miss that car sometimes. Same with my old '89 Ford Probe; sometimes when I was driving it would just fall out of the ignition. That car was fun (except for all the times it wasn't working)
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May 29, 2014 17:50
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Your Dead Gay Son posted:My 2004 Saab has coolers and heaters for the front seats. pfft. So does my 2001 Volvo
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May 29, 2014 17:54
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topenga posted:Amen, brother. I had a 1985 Celica that by the time I traded it in in 1999, the key could be removed while the engine was running, no problem. Just slid right out. I had gotten into the habit of starting the car then putting the keys back in my pocket. drat, I miss that car sometimes. My 2002 Malibu did that too, it was actually pretty easy to leave on Accessory when turning it off... Ruined a battery that way. (Took me a while to figure out the problem, since I kept the radio off.) Then I totaled the fucker when it had at least 70k kilometers to go  At least I walked away from a turned around, flipped car without much of a scratch; signed the title over to the scrapyard for recovery and towing. I kind of miss that car, if only because of the financials. (Paid $2000 cash for it, liability insurance was like $300 a year.)
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May 29, 2014 17:56
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Not a Children posted:Ugh. I bought a new Camry fresh out of college (2012), and after reading all this I'm feeling like a financial idiot. I figure I'll drive it into the ground and just get a beater when it dies in a decade or so... While it may not have been the best decision at the time, now you have a recent model year, likely reliable car that you can drive at relatively minimal cost for probably 10-20 years or until you get sick of it. Buying a new car is not always a bad decision, this thread is just full of extremely frugal jerks. If you're looking for a transportation appliance with minimal fuss, buying something like a new Toyota Camry at a good price and with good financing terms (usually less than 2% these days) and driving it for 15 years can be a very reasonable decision. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:26 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 18:24
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Guinness posted:Buying a new car is not always a bad decision, this thread is just full of extremely frugal jerks. To add, I used to be in this boat and would always buy a 2-4 year old car which would be 50% the price of the new one. However with the last car I looked at, the used price was like 20% of the new price and I was like gently caress that give me new. Used/New pricing structures seem to be way different now then when I was growing up. I wonder if better reliability in general is feeding into this.
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May 29, 2014 18:27
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The price gap between used and new seems to be closing in recent years, what with cars becoming more durable. Plus financing rates... Well when I was showing two years ago, I could get 8% on used cars, and 0-3% on new depending on model. I mean that doesn't make up for the whole price difference, but there it is.
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May 29, 2014 18:37
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LorneReams posted:To add, I used to be in this boat and would always buy a 2-4 year old car which would be 50% the price of the new one. However with the last car I looked at, the used price was like 20% of the new price and I was like gently caress that give me new. Used/New pricing structures seem to be way different now then when I was growing up. I wonder if better reliability in general is feeding into this. Definitely. And the oft-repeated mantra of 'never buy new!' has driven up used car prices, especially on Hondas/Toyotas that are less than 5-10 years old. People with minimal knowledge have heard that 1) buying new is stupid and 2) Honda/Toyota are the most reliable cars over and over again, so of course they all think they're being clever by buying a used Civic. But they're all trying to do that, so now that 4 year old Civic with 50k miles on it costs 85% of a brand new Civic. And that brand new Civic has 0.9% financing and a warranty and you know the whole history of it from day 1... At the end of the day, some people have to buy new cars in order to create a secondary used market. If everyone is buying used cars, then the math starts to change - and that's what we've been seeing. It's most apparent on economy cars, but even luxury/sports cars don't depreciate as fast as they used to. Especially with all the subsidized leasing feeding into manufacturer CPO programs. And cars just last longer and are more reliable in general. Most any mass market (i.e., not a flagship luxury car loaded with electronic craziness) car can be reasonably expected to do 150-200k before becoming a basket case. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 18:40
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