Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous

breld · July 2015

Congrats @michaell! Last time I sold a house was in the downturn - it took 5 months, and a couple of price reductions. Uugh!

We like to look at showhomes, but fortunately my wife has found that doing a few improvements around the current place satisfies those urges. Over the past couple months, we've replaced our kitchen backsplash and the tile surrounding our fireplace. Coming up....a dog wash in the laundry room (idea from the showhomes) and converting a coat closet to a mudroom bench.

corvette · July 2015

Congrats, michaell. Hard to find anything turnkey these days. The place I sold was for the new buyer. The place I bought was really nice, but when I'm done, I will have probably spent 10% of the purchase price on fixing the deck, roofing the garage, painting, and buying appliances which weren't included.

stickguy · July 2015

We have such interesting requirements at this point (weird with lists?) that it would be a lot more logical to just build a place from scratch. though that would open up a whole bunch more hassles.

Getting a nice starting point and doing a large reno could work too, but if it is going to be extensive, starting with nothing can actually be less painful!

Michaell · July 2015

corvette said:

Congrats, michaell. Hard to find anything turnkey these days. The place I sold was for the new buyer. The place I bought was really nice, but when I'm done, I will have probably spent 10% of the purchase price on fixing the deck, roofing the garage, painting, and buying appliances which weren't included.

My wife has big plans for the new house as well - before we move in.

xwesx · July 2015

qbrozen said:
yeah, my wife says "yard sale" and I say "no way." Seriously, putting up signs and dealing with people is NOT worth the couple of bucks per item. Let me throw it all away and keep my sanity. We've been donating a TON of stuff at this point and, when she isn't home, I fill up a garbage bag or two and get it out to the robocan. Shhhh... don't tell her.

LOL! I agree with the "no way" sentiment. Mine has recently talked the same thing, and I'm 100% with you on this one: Just get rid of it. If I was moving and I had already packed everything we were taking with us, I wouldn't mind doing the yard sale thing. Name your own price (free? Sure, that works!) and just take the crap away (saves me the effort)!

We have a lot of do-it-yourself hoarders in these parts, so it's pretty easy to get rid of anything if you really want it gone.

xwesx · July 2015

Michaell said:
My wife has big plans for the new house as well - before we move in.

*Before* you move in is definitely the best bet in terms of ease of work and, often, quality of the end product as well!

stickguy · July 2015

oh yeah. the ideal situation is being able to get the new house first, so you can do the stuff (painting, flooring) that is so much easier to do when the house is empty. Too bad most of the time people don't get the logistics to work.

Plan B is to basically squat, and don't move your stuff in. Helps to have someone you can stay with temporatily. or at least, just move in the absolute minimum amount of stuff, camp in the family room!

kyfdx · July 2015

For pete's sake!! 27 hours without power and I come back to 65 posts!! And, not one new car, just a house sold!

Ease up...

stever · July 2015

lol and welcome back to the 21st Century..

We moved a big honking 4 poster king bed and big solid dresser today from a craigslist deal. Not for us, for our friend who just moved here.

So what's this got to do with cars? Well, the pics are on her cell phone at the moment, but you sure can't beat a minivan for hauling junk. The king mattress had to go on the roof rack but everything else went in the van. The tall mirror that attaches to the dresser was a tight fit but I managed. Everything gets stashed away out of the sun, and if you need to hit the bar on the way home, it locks up nicely. And there's a low liftover height for horsing heavy stuff into the back.

Took two trips, but we also had three people in the van doing the moving.

The nice thing is that most people think you have to have a truck for moving big stuff so I don't get roped into doing this very often.

Michaell · July 2015

stickguy said:
oh yeah. the ideal situation is being able to get the new house first, so you can do the stuff (painting, flooring) that is so much easier to do when the house is empty. Too bad most of the time people don't get the logistics to work.

Plan B is to basically squat, and don't move your stuff in. Helps to have someone you can stay with temporatily. or at least, just move in the absolute minimum amount of stuff, camp in the family room!

We are hoping for plan A - both sales agreements allow the sellers to "rent back" for 30 days after closing at a daily rate. Ideally, the sellers of our new house will move out immediately after closing, while we stick around in our house for a week or two after we close (supposed to close on the same day - yippee!) while the floors are ripped up and tile installed. Want to replace the railing as well with wrought iron and probably do some painting. Then we can move in and deal with the other issues.

The buyers of our house are currently renting, so I believe they are flexible on their move in date. We'll pay them $66/day for every day we stay after closing. The folks selling us their house have the same clause, except we're charging them $83/day to stay after closing.

Of course, this all assumes that loans are procured, inspections are passed and all sorts of other hurdles are surmounted in the next 45 days. Our house gets inspected on Friday morning. We've had the inspection of the new house - a few things were identified that the sellers have to resolve in the next week. Either they fix them, we get a credit at closing, or we get $$$ off the selling price.

This is all new and fascinating for me. The house we live in now was bought from the builder and started out as a dirt lot.

28firefighter · July 2015

Congrats, Michaell!

So, the Escape is no longer new. My wife misjudged the turn into our courtyard leading up to the garage and clipped our neighbor's house. She scraped and dented the passenger side rear door, passenger side rear quarter panel and wheel well trim. That is in addition to taking some siding off the house, too.

380 miles and two weeks of ownership. Has to be some kind of a record.

Ah well. Stuff happens.

Michaell · July 2015

28firefighter said:
Congrats, Michaell!

So, the Escape is no longer new. My wife misjudged the turn into our courtyard leading up to the garage and clipped our neighbor's house. She scraped and dented the passenger side rear door, passenger side rear quarter panel and wheel well trim. That is in addition to taking some siding off the house, too.

380 miles and two weeks of ownership. Has to be some kind of a record.

Ah well. Stuff happens.

Nah, I've heard of folks getting into accidents on the drive home from the dealership.

tifighter · July 2015

Michaell said:

My wife has big plans for the new house as well - before we move in.

I feel for you. We are in the middle of this now; bought house, closed mid-June. Condition was turnkey, really. But, my better half has different plans. It was built in 1900 and has the original hardwoods underneath current flooring. Depending on the room this means carpet or carpet over tile over wood with lots of nasty adhesive in between. Can't get floors refinished until mid-August (peak-season) so we're in this no-man's land of moved in but not really moved in. Then there's the repainting inside after the flooring. Then some re-tiling. It'll be great, someday...

stickguy · July 2015

I am still liking the idea of building from scratch. Get exactly what I want, and when you get to move in, it is done!

stever · July 2015

On the 7th house here and the last thing I want to do is build my own house. I enjoy being married.

Plus when you get a "used" house, most of the nasty chemicals have outgassed and often you get some mature landscaping with the deal. And unless you buy an infill lot, if you get in early on a new development, you get to hear construction noises six days a week for years (my brother just went through that in TN). Oh, and you never get exactly what you want anyway.

Those chemicals are another reason to get a used car too.

fezo · July 2015

Years ago my uncle bought a car (a Pinto yet. A mystery to me because he could afford anything and always paid cash. He was a great CCB in his day). Upon taking possession he immediately backs it into another new car on the lot. He just paid for all the damage. Too embarrassed to report to insurance.

suydam · July 2015

A friend of mine hit a deer on the way home from the dealership in his brand new car.

au1994 · July 2015

Did the Drive for Team USA event at my BMW dealer on Tuesday. I drove an X4 again and really, really like it. The event itself was put on well. No hard sell since the people running the event are BMW USA employee's not dealership employee's. My 1k credit was sent to me via email yesterday so a-shopping I will go. I mentioned to a CA that if they could pull me ahead on the 335 I'm ready to pull the trigger provided the numbers are right. He still didn't seem optimistic but we shall see. Going to root around at some other dealers as I am no longer so loyal to this dealer since the previous CA left.

Oh yeah, I got a free hat and bag as well so I figure I made money on the deal

rayainsw · July 2015

X4 - Did you drive any competing vehicles?
- Ray
This event is at my local BMW dealer today....

au1994 · July 2015

rayainsw said:
X4 - Did you drive any competing vehicles?
- Ray
This event is at my local BMW dealer today....

Didn't drive anything else but had a poke around the new Lexus NX SUV. Nice but the styling is just not my cup of tea.

They also had an E Class and a C Class. Didn't see any Audi's but they may have been out for a drive.

rayainsw · July 2015

Thanks - interesting...
- Ray
Trying to figure out if it is worth taking time off this afternoon.

au1994 · July 2015

rayainsw said:
Thanks - interesting...
- Ray
Trying to figure out if it is worth taking time off this afternoon.

I scheduled mine over lunch. Dealership is 20 min from office so it was doable.

qbrozen · July 2015

Us downsize? Ha!
looking for more than we currently have in the town immediately to our northwest. Somewhere around 3500 sq ft with inground pool and hopefully larger garage. I don't want to have to do ANYTHING other than maybe paint.

It is either that or renovate, but our home value would not increase enough to cover the renovations, so it seems like a smarter idea to move (I think). We have yet to find the right house, though, and may not, so it is a tricky situation. As it is, I look around the house each day and think, "ain't no way we'll ever be able to move!" There is just so much STUFF!

stever · July 2015

Everybody has too much stuff.

Yesterday's (partial) load.

stickguy · July 2015

I did the new development build once. And we were in early, so years of construction. Not likely again.

I was thinking custom on a lot, or a small development of semi-custom. Something that doesn't look like a bunch of houses in a field, where you get more design input.

qbrozen · July 2015

We went to an open house this past weekend where they had their garage just stuffed with crap. Michaell made the same suggestion. So I think that's the way I'm going to go. But I do have to fix the tractor's PTO coupling first so I can raise the plow blade and get it out of there, then clean the floor, THEN I can move stuff out there. It is a neverending dominoe train, it seems.

I also mentioned the whole custom route to the wife, but she doesn't like my timeframe for such an endeavor. Oh well.

Michaell · July 2015

qbrozen said:
We went to an open house this past weekend where they had their garage just stuffed with crap. Michaell made the same suggestion. So I think that's the way I'm going to go. But I do have to fix the tractor's PTO coupling first so I can raise the plow blade and get it out of there, then clean the floor, THEN I can move stuff out there. It is a neverending dominoe train, it seems.

I also mentioned the whole custom route to the wife, but she doesn't like my timeframe for such an endeavor. Oh well.

Our garage isn't fully stuffed ... we can still get the Outback in there.

For now.

Once the packing begins in earnest, I suspect it too will live in the driveway.

houdini1 · July 2015

fezo said:
Years ago my uncle bought a car (a Pinto yet. A mystery to me because he could afford anything and always paid cash. He was a great CCB in his day). Upon taking possession he immediately backs it into another new car on the lot. He just paid for all the damage. Too embarrassed to report to insurance.

Fezo, could have been worse. He could have blown the whole place up with that Pinto !!

xwesx · July 2015

28firefighter said:
Congrats, Michaell!

So, the Escape is no longer new. My wife misjudged the turn into our courtyard leading up to the garage and clipped our neighbor's house. She scraped and dented the passenger side rear door, passenger side rear quarter panel and wheel well trim. That is in addition to taking some siding off the house, too.

380 miles and two weeks of ownership. Has to be some kind of a record.

Ah well. Stuff happens.

It might be for the miles, but I think we owned our 1992 Camry for less than two weeks when it was sideswiped. That was an interesting event... literally about a 1/2" from carnage on that one.

Sorry about the crash, though! That's a major bummer on several levels.

xwesx · July 2015

stickguy said:
I am still liking the idea of building from scratch. Get exactly what I want, and when you get to move in, it is done!

Possibly.... if you have someone else build it for you.

There was a time when I liked the idea of building from scratch, too. Now, I still like building from scratch, but the "idea" of it is much more realistic, which means that it doesn't include any of the notions you listed. LOL

akangl · July 2015

I think I have you all beat on wrecking a new car. When I sold cars back in 1999, I was showing the owner of the dealership's demo (brand new fully loaded 1999 Sierra) to a customer. They decided they didn't like the color so I was going to put it away and grab a different one. I was backing out of the parking space and didn't look to my right......side swiped my SM's friend's Toyota Paseo to the tune of $2500. Not the best day of my sales "career." And no, the customer didn't buy a truck......they went down the street and bought a Ford......sigh.

stickguy · July 2015

Oh heck no, I'm not building it myself. I want a GC for something that big!

stever · July 2015

If you recently traded in a luxury vehicle for a truck, a reporter would like to speak with you. Please email PR@edmunds.com no later than Friday, July 24, 2015 with your daytime contact info and a few words about your decision.

xwesx · July 2015

akangl said:
I think I have you all beat on wrecking a new car. When I sold cars back in 1999, I was showing the owner of the dealership's demo (brand new fully loaded 1999 Sierra) to a customer. They decided they didn't like the color so I was going to put it away and grab a different one. I was backing out of the parking space and didn't look to my right......side swiped my SM's friend's Toyota Paseo to the tune of $2500. Not the best day of my sales "career." And no, the customer didn't buy a truck......they went down the street and bought a Ford......sigh.

D'oh! It's amazing how fast stuff like that can happen.

I totally lucked out about three years ago after a friend and employee died. His family was having some issues with his estate (there was an ex-wife involved), so they asked me to store his car while they sorted things out. We brought the car to my house, then I gave the person who drove it there a ride back to get his truck.

Even though I had *JUST* arrived at the house with him behind me and told him where to park it, when I went to back out of the driveway, I just did my standard backing pattern and wasn't really paying attention to what was around me. I literally missed his car by about an inch as I slipped past it. I think my heart skipped a couple beats as the car came into my peripheral vision and I realized what I just about did. Thankfully, I didn't react adversely to it (e.g., jerk the wheel) otherwise I'm sure the cars would have collided. LOL

stever · July 2015

That's pretty much how my sister creamed my rental minivan a few years back. Told me where to park and then proceeded to take out the front end an hour later.

fezo · July 2015

We had our house built when there was a lot of activity going on here. Added a couple of rooms 11 years and two kids later.

My thought on building a dream house is to build another house first. Then you know more of the things that can go wrong. You won't make the same mistakes twice - you'll make new and different mistakes!

My 5 got sideswiped within days of having the permanent plates put on it. You can't tell it was ever hit but it was $1,800 worth of damage.

28firefighter · July 2015

Thanks all. More annoying, than anything. Also the fun of dealing with my neighbors who, to their credit, have been very nice about the whole thing. I've never had to put in an insurance claim before, let alone one with property damage, so this is a new one for me.

Wife is taking the car in for an estimate this afternoon and then we'll go from there. I'm guessing $2k-$3k.

corvette · July 2015

My cousin bought a house in a new development a couple of years back. AT&T did not wire his subdivision for phone and internet until the subdivison was completely built out. He had to use one of those really expensive wireless internet Mifi things for several months.

Mr_Shiftright · July 2015

lucky for you that you got the address of the house that hit you.

28firefighter said:
Thanks all. More annoying, than anything. Also the fun of dealing with my neighbors who, to their credit, have been very nice about the whole thing. I've never had to put in an insurance claim before, let alone one with property damage, so this is a new one for me.

Wife is taking the car in for an estimate this afternoon and then we'll go from there. I'm guessing $2k-$3k.

28firefighter · July 2015

Mr_Shiftright said:
lucky for you that you got the address of the house that hit you.

28firefighter said:
Thanks all. More annoying, than anything. Also the fun of dealing with my neighbors who, to their credit, have been very nice about the whole thing. I've never had to put in an insurance claim before, let alone one with property damage, so this is a new one for me.

Wife is taking the car in for an estimate this afternoon and then we'll go from there. I'm guessing $2k-$3k.

Baha!

In other news, preliminary damage report is $1600 for the car and $2000 for the house - definitely submitting a claim, as much as it pains me.

Mr_Shiftright · July 2015

I've heard the 'rule of thumb" is to not make a claim unless it is $1500 or more, so it seems like you're doing the right thing.

stickguy · July 2015

I'm having a sad. I want to go look at cars tomorrow. But I am out of the market for 2 years. that stinks.

It is going to be hard to make it that far. At least some point next year I can go out looking with my son, when he gets ready to replace his lease.

corvette · July 2015

Spent the day at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton. Highly recommended for anyone who happens to be in the area.

Michaell · July 2015

stickguy said:
I'm having a sad. I want to go look at cars tomorrow. But I am out of the market for 2 years. that stinks.

It is going to be hard to make it that far. At least some point next year I can go out looking with my son, when he gets ready to replace his lease.

I feel your pain. With the new house (and the new mortgage), I fear my budget for the next car may be pretty limited. Gonna have to find one of those sub $200 lease deals, which means I probably won't get everything I want on the next ride.

imidazol97 · July 2015

corvette said:
Spent the day at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton. Highly recommended for anyone who happens to be in the area.

Glad you enjoyed your visit here in our area. The Presidential Hangar is open for tour again but you have to take a bus into the base after you've signed up to get to the Presidential Hangar.

If you take your time to read the informational signs, it's a two day visit for most people.

corvette · July 2015

Yes, I did the Presidential / R&D hangar. Very nice, and I really had to pace myself to get through everything--didn't get to read all the signs, but took enough photos to run my cell phone completely dead.

The food court was disappointing--there is a trend towards more artisinal food in museums, but the best I could do here was some hot wings and onion rings. I suspect it is subcontracted out. Not a huge deal since admission and parking are free, you could just drive somewhere for lunch.

It will be nice once they have the fourth wing up and running and do away with the bus rides to see additional exhibits. I would definitely make another visit.

graphicguy · July 2015

corvette said:
Spent the day at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton. Highly recommended for anyone who happens to be in the area.

Great place....well worth a special trip from ANYWHERE. It's about an hour north of where I live. I go about once every other year when I'm hosting friends or relatives from out of town.

That's one of the places I take them, as well as the downtown area of Cincinnati (or a Bengals/Reds game).

Sandman6472 · July 2015

The A3 is doing great at almost 9 months and 6500 on the clock. Drives and shifts smoothly up the power band, a very good choice for our needs to be honest. See many A3's down here in South Florida though there are many more of the larger sized Audi's. Now that there are more on the road, see the different colors and have to say, I do like the charcoal color the best followed by the silver. At the time of purchase, there were only black and white available and we really didn't like the black over black though we would have taken one if need be. We used that one to get the white one which the better half wanted so all worked out.
Very happy with it and it has been flawless. Not sure what I'd do if the wife decides to trade in a few years...would consider selling the Golf and keeping the A3 for myself. But, who knows what the future will hold on this...am hoping she'll keep it for the long haul.

The Sandman

imidazol97 · July 2015

corvette said:
Yes, I did the Presidential / R&D hangar. ...I would definitely make another visit.

I'm surprised you were able to visit the Presidential Hangar and still have time to make it through the 3 display buildings. Do you live close enough you might make a return visit?

I haven't been there for about 2 years. My son visited early this year for something to do while waiting for his job to start. He made the same comment about food as you did.

corvette · July 2015

imidazol97 said:
Do you live close enough you might make a return visit?

Yeah. I did really have to pace myself to see all three buildings plus the missile silo (and make photos).

Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous

Comments

Helpful Tools

Most popular vehicles