Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

venture

I got gas at Sheetz a little while ago for the BMW. It is $1.776 a gallon for any grade (not including diesel). It cost $19.63 to fill it up with 93.

kyfdx

venture said:

I got gas at Sheetz a little while ago for the BMW. It is $1.776 a gallon for any grade (not including diesel). It cost $19.63 to fill it up with 93.

Why?

stickguy

They were in. The spirit!

kyfdx

stickguy said:

They were in. The spirit!

Duh..

ab348

venture said:

I got gas at Sheetz a little while ago for the BMW. It is $1.776 a gallon for any grade (not including diesel). It cost $19.63 to fill it up with 93.

You’d think someone who could afford to drive a BMW would be able to buy something than off-brand fuel to run it… 🤭

driver100

More EV Charging Anxiety:
ROADBLOCK
ANXIETY FOR TRAVELLERS AS EV CHARGERS STILL LARGELY ABSENT FROM HOTELS. (Financial Post)

EV chargers are still largely absent from one crucial node on many a road trip: hotels and inns.

A recent survey of 17,000 hotels in the American Hotel and Lodging Association found only about a quarter offer EV charging. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and Hyatt Hotels Corp. have chargers at less than a third of their U.S. properties. Calling around to more than two dozen Motel 8s and Days Inns across the country, not a single one had a charger. Even hotels that are Ev-compatible may just have a spot for a single car or only for certain models.

It seems that only a small percentage of hotels have EV chargers. You have to plan carefully if you want to charge up your EV overnight, while you stay at a hotel.

Another reason I am not ready to go EV!

stickguy

get one for Florida. you never take that car very far, and no need to worry about the engine sitting over the summer and getting gummed up.

I still think a plug in hybrid is the best solution for a single car or people that live far from civilization (or like to take long road trips). which of course is not the majority of people!

my wife actually said the other day while driving around that a hybrid was the way to go and did not see why anyone bought a regular car now.

Though at this point we could easily replace her car with an EV. almost all out driving is a distance where it makes sense, and on the rare instances we need to travel longer distances, we take my truck anyway.

oldfarmer50

I discovered something interesting the other day while driving the Mustang. As I entered my favorite expressway ramp for a little fun I accidentally hit the paddle shifter knocking it down to first gear. When I goosed it a little the RPMs went up well over 7000. Since I had assumed that red line was 6500 I was puzzled for a moment before I remember I had installed the Ford Power Pack 2 years ago to get a little bump in performance. Sure enough, the calibration also gave me a new red line of 7500. I had forgotten about that.

Must be getting old.

laurasdada

I haven't surveyed the total hotel EV situation in my new home/tourist town. But, in a couple of shopping areas that I frequent, there are hotels with chargers.
One, Hilton Garden, has four right in the parking lot, and I used them while dining once. But, the last few times I've tried, no juice flow; perhaps they changed them to hotel guests only?
A Marriott Fairfield Inn, behind a mini-restaurant row has two chargers in the very far corner of their lot, but close to the restaurants. I use them every time, I've always been able to get one of the two plugs; usually they're empty.
Of course, with a PHEV, running out of battery isn't a life changing event!

ab348

Interesting experience here at the end of last week getting my home internet/cable situation changed around to save money.

I have had the same cable/internet/phone provider since I moved into this place 25+ years ago. Probably around 15 years ago was the last time they ever actually visited to do anything, when I got a DVR and they upgraded the modem/router from what they had installed originally, so all their gear was pretty old, but it worked well enough. What motivated me to do something was that they got into a carriage dispute with one of the big Canadian TV channel providers and were losing a whole bunch of offerings. That really didn't affect me much since when I looked into it they were mostly channels I was paying for but seldom or never watched.

I decided it was time to see if I could save a little money. I was paying $220/mo in worthless Canadian dollars for all of it and that wasn't good value. There is only one viable alternative if I wanted to not have to hack around on my own dealing with online TV providers, and that one (Bell) is a terrible company and even more expensive. So when my existing provider offered to replace everything I had with their latest and greatest and save me nearly $100/mo. in the process I figured I'd give them a chance.

The tech arrived last week and installed a new modem, some EERO router/repeaters, and a few little wireless cable boxes that are ridiculously tiny (wireless except for the HDMI cable connecting them to the TV). The internet part of it works great so far and the EERO gizmos (a mesh wifi network) seem to work well. As for the TV part, the jury is still out. They use TiVo somehow (although the only hardware that is branded as such are the remotes) and it is extremely clunky to use, although I'm sure there is a learning curve involved for me too. From what I gather all of the TV stuff is streamed now but I am unsure how everything works. It has a similar channel guide to what I am used to though it doesn't seem nearly as user-friendly, but I am gradually wrestling it into submission. We shall see what time tells.

venture

ab348 said:

venture said:

I got gas at Sheetz a little while ago for the BMW. It is $1.776 a gallon for any grade (not including diesel). It cost $19.63 to fill it up with 93.

You’d think someone who could afford to drive a BMW would be able to buy something than off-brand fuel to run it… 🤭

You must not know Sheetz.

carnaught

Wife and I watch relatively little television so we totally axed it and phone and replaced it with just the high speed internet and streaming tv with Roku. We saved more than half of the monthly fee and have more choices on things to watch with very little in the way of glitches. The tv picture quality and sound and lack of buffering are good attributes.

venture

A few months ago I was whining about Pella vs. Anderson for replacing our 8' sliding door.

We decided to go with Pella and also decided to get it at Lowes because they were $2,000 cheaper than the Pella store. When I paid for it the lady at the service desk at Lowes was in a bad mood.

Two months passed so I stopped at Lowes and asked the (different) lady if she could see what was going on and to see if she could print out some paper because I couldn't find my receipt. She did that as well as giving me the phone number of the installer.

The pick up date on the paper she gave me said pick up was December 25th. I suspect that is a remnant of the bad mood lady.

I called the installer on Wednesday, he called back on Thursday and said he had a cancellation the next day and that he could do it Friday.

When he got to my house I asked how deep in the warehouse it was and he said it wasn't too bad. It probably came in sometime in the last 2 weeks. He also noticed that it said a December pick up date.

qbrozen

I plan to cancel cable tv tomorrow. Got a fire tv cube a couple of months ago downstairs and love it, so just got another for the bedroom. The only one who resorts to cable tv any more is the wife, and that’s just because she doesn’t want to learn how to navigate the fire. Told her she is SOL because we aren’t going to keep paying for tv service for her 1-2 hrs per week of convenience.

driver100

More EV Charging Anxiety:

stickguy said:

get one for Florida. you never take that car very far, and no need to worry about the engine sitting over the summer and getting gummed up.

I still think a plug in hybrid is the best solution for a single car or people that live far from civilization (or like to take long road trips). which of course is not the majority of people!

my wife actually said the other day while driving around that a hybrid was the way to go and did not see why anyone bought a regular car now.

Though at this point we could easily replace her car with an EV. almost all out driving is a distance where it makes sense, and on the rare instances we need to travel longer distances, we take my truck anyway.

Good point, it could be a good idea getting an EV for Florida as that car may go 150 miles round trip in a day most of the time. It would save filling it up with gas and Stabil when we leave it.

It wouldn't make sense to do it now though. The C250 is about 10 years old, but only has 44k miles on it, it runs and looks like a new car, and it probably has a trade-in value of about $12000. The cost of even a used EV would probably be a lot more than that.

We did make one trip to Key West which took a day and a half. That could be a very tricky drive in an EV, sure wouldn't want to be stuck somewhere in the Keys trying to find a place to charge up.

driver100

btw....Happy July 4th Guys.

sda

Happy and Safe 4th of July! This is my BIL's new as of last week, 23 Jetta SE company car. It is his third Jetta company car as they replace them every 36 months.

stickguy

Jettas are nice car and very good value.

stickguy

I could switch to streaming and manage. My wife really does not want to. last time I navigated to get apple TV+ going she was completely lost . I really don't want to get yelled at every time she wants to put something on the TV. our cable is not really that pricey (less than we used to pay) but we may be on the intro plan still from when we moved here. If they try to jack in up in August I will call to negotiate. Just the internet + some Hulu or other premium streaming (for local stations) may be nearly as expensive now. Plus some of them don't offer the sports networks (SNY/YES depending on which NY baseball team you want to watch) and that would be a total non-starter for me!

stickguy

out doing errands in the truck and the gas gauge finally (at about 450 miles) dropped to a 1/4 tank, so since I was passing an Exxon that was pretty cheap stopped to fill up (for the 2nd time since I bought the truck 900+ miles ago).

decided to accurately check the trip computer to make sure the good times reported were not a scam. On the tank it reported 43.7. Fill to the click, and did the math, came out to be right about 42.7. Close enough for me and not going to bother to mess around in the settings to change the calibration. That is about what the TC said last time I filled up, so brand new (still in break in period) with mixed driving (decent amount of highway) apparently it can average around 43. For a 200" long pick up, that is impressive.

driver100

More EV Charging Anxiety:

sda said:

Happy and Safe 4th of July! This is my BIL's new as of last week, 23 Jetta SE company car. It is his third Jetta company car as they replace them every 36 months.

You don't hear of companies using Jettas very often as a company car. It must be a company where the fleet manager appreciates German engineering and having the feel of the road over utilitarianism.

Michaell

driver100 said:

More EV Charging Anxiety:

sda said:

Happy and Safe 4th of July! This is my BIL's new as of last week, 23 Jetta SE company car. It is his third Jetta company car as they replace them every 36 months.

You don't hear of companies using Jettas very often as a company car. It must be a company where the fleet manager appreciates German engineering and having the feel of the road over utilitarianism.

Except they are built in Mexico…

stickguy

or wants a cheap to buy car that gets very good MPG.

tjc78

stickguy said:

or wants a cheap to buy car that gets very good MPG.

Or their brother in law, etc works at a dealer.

28firefighter

I’m pretty sure “feel of the road” is not going to be an objective criteria that most companies include in their fleet RFP.

sda

Go figure, the parent company he works for is German.

28firefighter

I stand corrected

stickguy

saved some more money today being my own guy. Noticed recently the garage door (a double) was banging around a bit and jerking at times, and one day reversed itself. Wife kept mentioning it so I finally took a look when we got home from shopping today. ran it down a couple of times watching both sides and noticed the spot on the left where it was jamming. took a look and turned out to be where one of the brackets attached. The nut was loose so the bolt head was poking out into the track just enough to catch the rollers.

took longer to go downstairs to grab the socket set than it did to tighten that one down and check all the others (which were fine). after that a couple of test runs, nice and smooth as it should be.

that would have been an expensive "I feel like an idiot" experience if I had called the door repair guy to come check it out.

jmonroe1

@stickguy said:
saved some more money today being my own guy. Noticed recently the garage door (a double) was banging around a bit and jerking at times, and one day reversed itself. Wife kept mentioning it so I finally took a look when we got home from shopping today. ran it down a couple of times watching both sides and noticed the spot on the left where it was jamming. took a look and turned out to be where one of the brackets attached. The nut was loose so the bolt head was poking out into the track just enough to catch the rollers.

took longer to go downstairs to grab the socket set than it did to tighten that one down and check all the others (which were fine). after that a couple of test runs, nice and smooth as it should be.

that would have been an expensive "I feel like an idiot" experience if I had called the door repair guy to come check it out.

————————————————
How many of our poster buddies would have called “The Guy” for that job. Don’t waste your time even thinking I’d do that.

jmonroe

stickguy

I can think of 1!

explorerx4

We went to a baseball game yesterday.
The highlight was Maverick the Bat Dog.
On command, he would retrieve the bat after the batter for the home team, the Madison Mallards, dropped his bat.
He would grab the bat and do a pirouette or two when he dropped it in front of the dugout.
It was pretty awesome.

driver100

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

More EV Charging Anxiety:

sda said:

Happy and Safe 4th of July! This is my BIL's new as of last week, 23 Jetta SE company car. It is his third Jetta company car as they replace them every 36 months.

You don't hear of companies using Jettas very often as a company car. It must be a company where the fleet manager appreciates German engineering and having the feel of the road over utilitarianism.

Except they are built in Mexico…

They are still engineered by VW Germany. Our 2013 Passat was built in Chattanooga, but it handled like a European car.

Michaell

driver100 said:

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

More EV Charging Anxiety:

sda said:

Happy and Safe 4th of July! This is my BIL's new as of last week, 23 Jetta SE company car. It is his third Jetta company car as they replace them every 36 months.

You don't hear of companies using Jettas very often as a company car. It must be a company where the fleet manager appreciates German engineering and having the feel of the road over utilitarianism.

Except they are built in Mexico…

They are still engineered by VW Germany. Our 2013 Passat was built in Chattanooga, but it handled like a European car.

My 2016 Jetta was built in Mexico, and I agree with you...

driver100

sda said:

Go figure, the parent company he works for is German.

I knew it was something like that. Not too many companies would think to offer their employees cars that are actually fun to drive...they just go for what is cheap to buy and cheap to run.

Michaell

driver100 said:

sda said:

Go figure, the parent company he works for is German.

I knew it was something like that. Not too many companies would think to offer their employees cars that are actually fun to drive...they just go for what is cheap to buy and cheap to run.

Who says the Jetta isn't?

Since there aren't any domestic sedans similar in size to purchase instead, the Jetta is a logical choice.

driver100

jmonroe1 said:

@stickguy said:

saved some more money today being my own guy. Noticed recently the garage door (a double) was banging around a bit and jerking at times, and one day reversed itself. Wife kept mentioning it so I finally took a look when we got home from shopping today. ran it down a couple of times watching both sides and noticed the spot on the left where it was jamming. took a look and turned out to be where one of the brackets attached. The nut was loose so the bolt head was poking out into the track just enough to catch the rollers.

took longer to go downstairs to grab the socket set than it did to tighten that one down and check all the others (which were fine). after that a couple of test runs, nice and smooth as it should be.

that would have been an expensive "I feel like an idiot" experience if I had called the door repair guy to come check it out.

————————————————

How many of our poster buddies would have called “The Guy” for that job. Don’t waste your time even thinking I’d do that.

jmonroe

So, I like to keep the economy running and people working.......

driver100

stickguy said:

I can think of 1!

Me too!

driver100

Talk about rebadging. One of the tennis guys has a 2003 Mercedes SL500 AMG model in black. It is in perfect condition. He is making it all black out...badges, wheels, grill, etc. Normally I'm not a fan of monochrome black, but I am getting to like it:

laurasdada

In my past life as a travelling salesman, we got a new car every 2 years, no complaints. Other than they were semi-boring domestics, I had an '92 Sable, followed by a '95 Intrepid. (I actually started with the sales manager's hand me down Olds 88; in a word, yuck. Gas started leaking from the top of the tank around 11k miles...).
The sales manager announced that he was tired of boring, domestic salesman cars (and he complained about some maintenance costs) so the next round they were adding the Mazda 6 (or was it 626 then?) and maybe the Nissan Maxima. Yay.
I, and another salesman, were then downsized in early '96; no Mazda for me. Well, no job...
I ended up buying my company Intrepid, which I kinda enjoyed driving. While the build quality was nicely third world, it was reliable, and I needed a car; the enemy I knew.
The Intrepid did me good, so I decided to buy a new Chrysler 300M in '99, build quality was a (slight) notch up, again, no issues. But I knew at ~70k miles, bad things were a gonna happen (tranny, perhaps. Front suspension was making noises), so it begat the fab '05 Acura TL!
And, then I got goofy...

Michaell

laurasdada said:

In my past life as a travelling salesman, we got a new car every 2 years, no complaints. Other than they were semi-boring domestics, I had an '92 Sable, followed by a '95 Intrepid. (I actually started with the sales manager's hand me down Olds 88; in a word, yuck. Gas started leaking from the top of the tank around 11k miles...).
The sales manager announced that he was tired of boring, domestic salesman cars (and he complained about some maintenance costs) so the next round they were adding the Mazda 6 (or was it 626 then?) and maybe the Nissan Maxima. Yay.
I, and another salesman, were then downsized in early '96; no Mazda for me. Well, no job...
I ended up buying my company Intrepid, which I kinda enjoyed driving. While the build quality was nicely third world, it was reliable, and I needed a car; the enemy I knew.
The Intrepid did me good, so I decided to buy a new Chrysler 300M in '99, build quality was a (slight) notch up, again, no issues. But I knew at ~70k miles, bad things were a gonna happen (tranny, perhaps. Front suspension was making noises), so it begat the fab '05 Acura TL!
And, then I got goofy...

Before I bought my L300 in 2002, I looked at (and wanted) a 300M. Just a bit too pricey for my budget...

sda

Certainly not the same car but the
design language between the two is similar. Note the shape of the roof line, wheel arches and wheel design.

laurasdada

Budget? What is this word of which you speak?
I jest, but as my only vice was saving money to buy a car, it was my budget. And, IIRC, got a good deal and low (was it 0%?) financing.

Michaell

laurasdada said:

Budget? What is this word of which you speak?
I jest, but as my only vice was saving money to buy a car, it was my budget. And, IIRC, got a good deal and low (was it 0%?) financing.

I got the Saturn with 0%

stickguy

hopefully I have made my last car payment.

but don't hold me to that.

The last 2 were good rates though. 2022 Mav was 0% for 3 years, the RDX was .09% for 5 years.

I don't want to know what real rates are now!

laurasdada

Audi is 0%, bit less than 3 years to go.
BMW is free and clear, as is the wife's X3.

ab348

The ATS was 0% for 6 years! Only 2 payments left.

kyfdx

0% for 72 months on my wife's X3. Just three payments to go.

stickguy

Dang. You people need to buy cars more often!

laurasdada

stickguy said:

Dang. You people need to buy cars more often!

Offer us 0% financing!

oldfarmer50

Of the 20 cars I’ve bought over the last 56 years 17 of them were cash deals. The 3 loans were:
1974 Charger 12% for 1 or 2 years. That was before APR loan disclosure laws and the F&I guy lied like a rug to a dumb kid. We paid that off early.

2008 Eclipse 0% for 60 months. The salesman thought I was a deadbeat who didn’t qualify until I pulled out my credit score.

2015 Mustang 1.89% for 60 months. The F&I guy actually beat my credit union rate. I paid that off early too.

Except for zero interest deals I would always pay off loans early as possible because I hate paying interest and you never know when you might get caught short for payments. I bet that’s what happens to a lot of repo cases.