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I'm actually fine with it in the rain, the extra lighting of the reflectors is actually more comforting to me, making sure I'm not swerving off the lane. Personal taste I guess...
60°F Feels Like: 59°F
UV Index: 3 Low
Wind: From the Southwest at 8 mph
Dew Point: 15°F
Humidity: 17 %
Visibility: Unlimited
Barometer: 30.30 inches and falling
But then of course tomorrow will be even better, check this out:
Sat Hi Lo
Feb 23 Mostly Sunny 78°F 41°F
Awww yeah
they have the best warranty in the biz.
I had my left headlight burn out recently when I discovered their replacement program. finding a number to contact them might be a pain but is worth it.
good luck..
David
by shrique
Paul King's next few car purchases-
Well,... this is rumor only:
1.) Summer of 2002, VeeDub Jetta out, 2003 Toyota Matrix in.
2.) Spring of 2003, Toyota Matrix out, 2003 Mercedes-Benz ES320 4matic wagon in.
3.) Winter of 2004, Mercedes-Benz ES320 4matic wagon out, 2004 BMW 330i in.
4.) Summer of 2004, BMW 330i out, Lincoln 2004 Blackwood Limited in.
5.) Fall of 2004, Lincoln 2004 Blackwood Limited reposssed, 2004 Hyundai Accent in.
6.) Spring of 2005, Hyundai Accent bursts into flames and burns down to it's tires, while Paul is picking up a coffee at mini-mart, 2000 Kia Rio purchased at Al's Auto Mart for $850.00 cash and a 2lb bag of JuJu fish.
Paul: For your own sake, BAN YOURSELF FROM SHOWROOMS until the Jetta is 6 yrs old. I feel Meade might say it anyway, so while Larry took the car list idea I already thought of, here's my suggestion.
Weather: You guys sound like the weather network! Since I feel this board needs an international flavour... "It was a sunny Friday in Toronto today, with a high of +5 and a low of 0".
Good chat last nite! If you weren't there, BE THERE next Thursda@9PM!
Dinu
Can -vs US!
Oh baby! Bring on the gold! Go Canada Go!
;-))))
-Larry Love Train
However, Gold will be ours on Sunday!!!!!!!
Go Canada Go!!!!
newcar31, if you have a digital camera you could take a shot of the instructions, most digicams have close-focus.
Meade, I remember the storm of '96, I was in Hawaii that week and saw it on TV just before heading to the beach. It was a terrifically beautiful day with cloudless blue sky and 85 degrees (in Hawaii that is). I remember thinking -- Oh well, it will be gone when I get home. The heck it was -- a snow drift four feet high blocked my front door. The snow was two feet deep in the driveway. Two weeks later it was still a foot deep. That's why I moved to NC!
The other thing I always feared was tornadoes. Right after I moved to NC the area had five, one touched down about a half mile from my house.
You can't win there's always something the weather will hit you with.
My dad and I went to Florida for Christmas a couple months after my mom died. It turned cold and there were snow showers on Christmas Eve in Daytona Beach. Palm trees with Santa Clauses hanging from them just don't go together, even with snow flurries.
fowler3
As for the gas cap, make sure that whenever you close it, you tighten it until it 'clicks' a couple times.
For a new car warranty repair at a dealership, I can almost guarantee you that they are REQUIRED to use NEW OEM parts as replacements.
Did you buy this car new? A lemon is defined as a car that's CONSTANTLY having MAJOR mechanical/electrical failures, or something similar. This is your first (and hopefully only) warranty repair since you had the car, yes?
Parts failure do happen, even to our reliable Proteges. It's no biggie, just get it replaced, that's what a warranty is for!
And, welcome to this forum! Hang around and ask questions, folks here are friendly (most of the time
Since I had him look though, I discovered that I am Eligible for X-plan through my employer. So I went back and asked him if he found the DX I was looking for. He said no.
So I decided to look at his LX models. His answer was that he only had 2 and they were loaded, but these ES's.....
Needless to say I told him 'thanks but no thanks... can I have my deposit please?' Eventually the Sales manager said that he would give it back.
From there we went to a larger dealer. We were in an out with a X-plan deal in an hour. I am getting an LX (sandalwood, Moon roof, alloy rims, wheel locks and alarm) for around 14k. (xplan - current incentives)
Here's my question. are mud flaps a good idea?
LadyZoom: I wouldn't call that a lemon. It's a part failure like Big H said. It happens on all cars...even PROs.
OEM: Just as it sounds. Original equipment manufacturer, built to original design.
Refurbished: Taken from a junked car and cleaned up. Not parts that were damaged. Used OEM, basically.
Rebuilt: Also known as remanufactured. Usually an improvement in some fashion over OEM (such as improved balance on a countershaft, or adding fillets to avoid stress fractures in OEM design etc.), but not always. Rebuilt or remanufactured means that some redesign over the OEM design occured, to improve reliability or performance. I guess cat-back exhaust systems that are less restrictive would fall into this category. So would camshafts and other engine bits that improve power output or smoothness over an OEM part.
What a fun little car.
Windshield installed Tuesday.
Can I get the car washed tomorrow (Sunday)?
Here in florida a lemon is a car that breaks down 3 or more times under waranty. The part that breaks down must be the same. If your steering wheels falls off then radio stops working and then steering wheel falls off again after being fixed, it is NOT a lemon.
Dinu
Jokes aside, it was a great game. Congrats go to the US team for putting up a solid fight in the first half of the 3rd period. Great game for the Olympics!
mazdafun: Thanks for the definitions of OEM and Rebuilt. My experience with rebuilt parts was bad. I had a 1997 Audi Fox, which had a bad alternator. It was replaced with a factory rebuilt model, supposedly to OEM quality. If the OEM alternator failed, the rebuilt one was no better, it failed in 24-hours. And so did a second one and a third one.
That's when I traded for a 1981 Mazda GLC. Kept the Fox running long enough to drive it to North Carolina and trade it in. The reason for not buying from the Virginia Mazda dealership where I lived-- they had a very bad rip-off reputation. Learned that when I bought a used VW Beetle from them.
The Beetle story was: I took it in for service, went back at 5:00PM to pick it up. The car had not been moved all day from where I parked it that morning. I had put a chalk mark on a rear tire and on the pavement under it to be sure they did the work. At the service desk they handed me a bill for $250. I told them I wouldn't pay it because they had not done the work. (There was a long line of people waiting behind me to pay their bills.) When I told the service manager about the chalk mark he trashed the bill and said, "We didn't have time, bring it back tomorrow!" As I left I told the others...'Good luck! If I were you I would go elsewhere.' The next man up told the service manager he was a lawyer and he had BETTER BE SURE his car was repaired or face fraud charges.
What are the odds of a mechanic doing a test drive and parking the car in exactly the same spot, matching the chalk marks? LOL!
fowler3
One Jetta, two or more Jettae???
Larry, I loved your post. Made me laugh, it did. However, I'm shocked that you got it by the Edmunds censorship committee. I'll wager it would have been removed (and I would have received an e-mail) if I had posted that.
Meade
Meade
I never made it to look at the Matrix this past weekend. I did, however, sit in one at the car show when I went. I could only remember 3 cars at the show when I was telling a friend. They were Passat (like them alot), Protege (thinking about it to lower my monthly costs, but they hold no value), and the Lexus IS300 (like this one alot too). The next car isn't coming for awhile though, unless this one happens to be wrecked.
PS: I almost have 10,000 miles on the Jet already. I just did the 10K servicing this past Saturday. It's resting at 9600 in the parking lot at work right now as I speak.
Here's what the same magazine has to say about the 2003 Corolla:
"Well, sure, the Corolla isn't a particularly flamboyant car to drive -- that's why Toyota invented the Matrix -- but it is a perfectly modulated form of transport.
"Furthermore, this latest iteration steers with poise and even flaunts some deliberate heft at the wheel. Its ride motions are well controlled, as are any sounds of exertion. Bolted together as if to last an eternity, Corollas fulfill a need for inoffensive transportation like no other car. Yes, it's too subtle and restrained for the enthusiast, but in this iteration, at least, it defines the role of the car like almost nothing else can."
Sounds kinda like they're trying to sugar-coat a way of saying it's an extremely well-built but uninteresting car ... doesn't it?
"Form of transport?"
"Inoffensive transportation?"
"Defines the role of the car?"
LOL!
Meade
C&D always has a bunch of crap to say about cars that makes no sense though. And they love them some Toyota too. Those cars can do nothing wrong.
When I totaled my '92 LX, it had 28,000 miles on it and it was still 1992. But the check from the insurance company was enough to get back into ANOTHER '92. And I thought we'd all been through this depreciation debate until our sexual organs were blue -- the depreciation on a Protege vs., say, a Civic, is negligible once you figure in the original price and the value of the car five years down the road.
You may *think* the car has no trade-in value because you took such a big hit trading in your high-mileage 2001 that wasn't in such great condition (hey, I saw your paint). I can't wait to see how much you scream when you go to trade in your 1-year-old Jetta next year with 40,000 miles on it, LOL!
Meade
P.S. Funny, I like Car and Driver and think they're very accurate in their road tests and commentary. That's why I subscribe to the magazine.
And I still think the Protege lot a LOT of its value in only 20K miles and 8 months. I mean come on, the car retailed for $18,545 and 8 months and 20K later (with one noticeable scratch on it), I got $11,500 for it? Makes no sense to me at all!
Also, did you put money down when you bought the first 1992 Protege? Maybe that's why you ended up with enough money to get a second 1992. Because I didn't wanna have drama if I had an accident with the jetta, I got GAP insurance this time. So I wouldn't worry about it if my car were totalled.
"Though Toyota says Matrix has the styling of a sports car, it acts like an economy model in terms of soft ride, a tendency to exaggerate irregular road surfaces and to lean in corners and turns, when the soft, cushy cloth seats could use larger side bolsters to better keep your body in place."
Sorry Paul ... by the sound of that, I don't think I'm a member of this Matrix love clan.
Meade
No sir, actually I went into the car UPSIDE DOWN, back when I was like you and learned my lesson. I traded a 1988 Hyundai Excel with 115,000 miles on it for the first 1992 Protege (in September 1991, so the Hyundai was only three years old with 115,000 miles on it). The mileage and manual transmission made it worth only $300, and then the fact that it had no air conditioning made them deduct another $400. Guess what -- I had to PAY them to take the car!!! I had NO down payment on the Protege.
DING DING DING!!! Sorry, you lose -- but we do have a nice consolation prize for you. Thanks for playing "Guess Meade's History."
Meade
I can't believe people are paying MSRP and over for them now! That makes no sense at all. If you wait for a couple of months, then they will be at invoice like every other small car on the market is.
I think we need to get real here. I just priced a 2001 ES on the NADA site with everything on it including moonroof, side air bags and ABS -- every available option -- and the price came to $16,461 invoice, $17,695 retail. (I have NEVER heard of ANYONE -- except you -- paying more than $18,000 for a Protege! Heck, even our loaded 2002 Protege5 was under $17,000!!!)
Anyway, I then took that same car -- a 2001 ES -- and put 20,000 miles on it, and found it to be worth $12,400 trade-in, $14,500 retail.
Methinks:
(a) Thou wast taken to the cleaners when you bought the car (or failed to negotiate a price closer to invoice than retail), and
(b) Thou art exaggerating a bit on what you got in trade (or you didn't negotiate that either).
Meade
BTW: Canada may have one a few battles but the US won the war;
Final medal count: US-34 Canada-17
Also, I did NOT pay MSRP for the car. I got it through the S-plan if you remember correctly. I paid $17,200 for it out the door. That was not the point though. It fell from the $17K that I paid for it to $11.5K in only 8 months and 20K.
The NADA numbers are not BLACK book, which is what car dealers use to evaluate trade-ins. Go right to the "Real-World Trade-In Values" discussion in "Smart Shopper" here at Edmund's and ask them what my car would be worth. (I did, as a matter of fact.) They said $9500-10K trade-in and said I got a deal getting $11.5K for it. (For references, check posts 4051 and 4054 in that section.) They told me the car would be worth $9500-10K trade-in. Also, the windshield was broken when I traded it too (forgot that one). KBB value was $10,715 on the car. It was $7500 on the 1999 DX I traded, and Carmax only said $6500 back then (the dealer gave me $7500 for it) and KBB runs high they say.
And so now we're down to $17,200? I'm sorry, I thought you said you went from $18,545 to $11,500 in only 8 months.
You still probably got screwed doing the trade-in on the Jetta, but $5,700 depreciation in the first year ain't too bad in my book. Especially when you put close to two years' mileage on that car in only 8 months.
Meade
And in essence, the car did go from $18,545 to $11,500 in 8 months. They don't go by what you, as the shopper, paid. They go by value. The MSRP of the car was $18,545.
For the record, the Jetta (according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine) will hold 50% of its value after 5 years, the best in its class. I don't remember right off what the Protege's was, I think it was the low 40s or high 30s though.