Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

fintail

If I'm lucky, perhaps, I have some old ones on that side. I budget now in that I spend less than I make, but I don't put 60% of my income in savings. As normal (private sector) retirement age will probably be 70 by the time I am in that arena (if the world makes it that long), I'll just keep saving as I have been, and hope it works out.

houdini1 said:

Finn, you had better start budgeting and spending your cash wisely. I read somewhere that male children tend to inherit their longevity from their mother's side of the family.

berri

I think there only a couple of companies left that make the glass and key components for all TV's these days. So in some respects they are closer to each other than they used to be. Of course other components can vary. IIRC, at least at one time Vizio actually assembled the components in the US. Now the Wi-Fi aspect of TV may be more a reflection of the software competence between the TV manufacturer and the router maker I think. Also, some of the most modern TV capabilities don't necessarily work to their max in a compressed cable TV environment.

Appliances: just saw where the US is going to supposedly slap some punitive tariffs on Korean and Chinese appliance products because they have been "dumping" product here. Unfortunately, history shows the likely impact will be the US manufacturers raising their prices in response.

I agree with Fin about parents. relatives and friends; you never know what tomorrow holds. You also have to live life as well as being prudent. Balance is the key to most things in life.

Houdini - it was many years ago now, but I do recall in a college biology course the professor indicating that there wasn't really that strong of a statistical correlation between parents and kids genetically regarding illness and lifespan. But, the strongest link was between son and mother. Don't know if modern genetic studies has revealed better insight into all of this though?

sda

oldfarmer50 said:

jmonroe...
Baby's in bed for the winter and if you think I'm taking it out in the salt to prove a point you don't understand OCD.

Besides in this area we are into "winter blend" gas mix. Don't know exactly what's in it but it drops the Lincoln gas mileage by 2 mpg.

I get tickled every time I see those commercials. Very clever and so true for many of us.

driver100

ab348 said:

I am dubious of a lot of the TVs I see in stores and online, even ones with brand names that used to mean something - current TVs branded RCA, Westinghouse, Magnavox, et al tend to be generic lower-end models. I have heard good things about Vizio but you have to consider them disposable. Same way with the Insignia brand Best Buy sells. I have heard that LG is a step below other name brands, and that Samsung makes a good TV these days.

Agree with your findings ab. I will see a Samsung 55 inch TV for $800 next to an Insignia 55 TV for $550, but the Insignia TV is dull and not very sharp. If the TV lasts 6 years it is worth $250 to me to have a much better picture....works out to $40 a year over 6 years...less than $1 a week using Driver Method.

I have seen those Westinghouse and RCA brands and they are in the same category as Insignia. I guess they have the oversea connections to find cheap manufacturers who can throw a TV set together for a cheap price. These companies have a distribution system set up so can get their TVs on the market, and some people just buy based on price...that is their market.

I have seen Sony TVs with a great picture. For me, Samsung may not be the best, but it won't be bad, and they are a pretty safe bet, not at the top of the charts, but in the top 25%.

sda

fintail said:

Blue light - some old car my dad when I was young had that feature. Maybe it was the 66 Ford I drove when I got my license. I definitely remember a "cold light" on something, and that was a cold-blooded car.

MB had digital bars for temp and fuel in the W211 E-class, model years 03-09. I don't know if any other MB (other than the related CLK) had it, MB and German cars in general tend to have traditional gauges, even if some are digital simulations now.

Gauges so you can see as things as progress, just get a fintail, it's all vertical and easy like a thermometer:

I am really impressed by how clear those gauges are and haven't faded over the years. You have two MBs that are blue with brown interior, how cool. For a while GM and Ford had COLD lights. Dad had a '65 and '66 Ford company car (he took a new job and we moved from FL to LA), and they had a blue cold light. Mom's '63 Olds 88 and '69 Olds 98 had a green COLD light, yet my grandmother's '68 Cutlass didn't have a COLD light. The '63 was particularly COLD natured and was hard to start and once running it stumbled and coughed until it the COLD light went out, then ran fine. Mom never complained, just would comment her 'girl' didn't like to wake up.

imidazol97

driver100 said:

I am dubious of a lot of the TVs I see in stores and online, even ones with brand names that used to mean something - current TVs branded RCA, Westinghouse, Magnavox, et al tend to be generic lower-end models.

Companies buy the brand name rights for dead brands and replace them with cheap product.

graphicguy

driver100 said:

ab348 said:

I am dubious of a lot of the TVs I see in stores and online, even ones with brand names that used to mean something - current TVs branded RCA, Westinghouse, Magnavox, et al tend to be generic lower-end models. I have heard good things about Vizio but you have to consider them disposable. Same way with the Insignia brand Best Buy sells. I have heard that LG is a step below other name brands, and that Samsung makes a good TV these days.

Agree with your findings ab. I will see a Samsung 55 inch TV for $800 next to an Insignia 55 TV for $550, but the Insignia TV is dull and not very sharp. If the TV lasts 6 years it is worth $250 to me to have a much better picture....works out to $40 a year over 6 years...less than $1 a week using Driver Method.

I have seen those Westinghouse and RCA brands and they are in the same category as Insignia. I guess they have the oversea connections to find cheap manufacturers who can throw a TV set together for a cheap price. These companies have a distribution system set up so can get their TVs on the market, and some people just buy based on price...that is their market.

I have seen Sony TVs with a great picture. For me, Samsung may not be the best, but it won't be bad, and they are a pretty safe bet, not at the top of the charts, but in the top 25%.

Driver....you're right. The Westinghouse, Magnavox, Insignia, brands etc are now Chinese sourced TVs taking advantage of some past and revered U.S. brands (with the exception of Insignia which is Best Buy's house brand...still sourced from China).

RB....LG temporarily dropped the price of the OLEDs by about $500. I jumped on one (Merry Christmas to me) when that happened. But, you're right. Still not cheap. They've gone back up since then. Stunning picture....especially with UHD conent, but also with HD content.

After watching football, I threw in the UHD blu ray of "Sicario" (great movie). Stunning!

That doesn't make the Samsung and Sony LCD pictures bad. LG's is just better. Off axis veiwing is great on the LG, too.

Audio and Video hobby....an expensive obsession.

imidazol97

dino001 said:

My problem with Samsung is they notoriously pump up (manipulate) the primary specs (those consumers tend to care about) Back then it was contrast ratio on their LCDs - everybody else had something like 3000:1, they claimed three times as much, essentially as much as plasma at the time, but it was a trick, a self invented metric, that was different than the rest of the industry.

I remember something where Samsung used a different metric as I tried to compare real world evaluations of TVs in the range I needed . I really liked the 4x pictures on the Samsungs and others at HHGregg, but I picked the standard dumb 40 inch because it looked better than others on display that were comparable. AND I used the remotes to try to reset the picture controls on various ones to improve the image.

sda

AND I used the remotes to try to reset the picture controls on various ones to improve the image.

That's the thing, you don't know how the TV is set up at the store and can vary greatly between sets. It is good to fiddle with the audio/video controls to better compare the sets.

fintail

That's just a pic I found online - my car is blue with a blue interior. My instrument cluster isn't in bad shape, but that one is cleaner and nicer, I think on a very low mileage car.

The 66 Galaxie was terrible in cold weather, or when the car was cold. It had a tendency to stall if you gave it too much throttle until it had been running for 10-15 minutes. This drove me insane as a new driver, as having something like that stall in the middle of a corner etc was disconcerting. I don't recall the 60 or 68 Fords being too bad. They were all pretty much vintage cars then, but my dad liked to drive them, and unless the weather was really bad, he'd take an old car to work over a modern one.

sda said:

I am really impressed by how clear those gauges are and haven't faded over the years. You have two MBs that are blue with brown interior, how cool. For a while GM and Ford had COLD lights. Dad had a '65 and '66 Ford company car (he took a new job and we moved from FL to LA), and they had a blue cold light. Mom's '63 Olds 88 and '69 Olds 98 had a green COLD light, yet my grandmother's '68 Cutlass didn't have a COLD light. The '63 was particularly COLD natured and was hard to start and once running it stumbled and coughed until it the COLD light went out, then ran fine. Mom never complained, just would comment her 'girl' didn't like to wake up.

stickguy

Ah memories. Fiddling with automatic chokes that did not want to kick off. And cars stalling when trying to start or get going in the morning. Good times.

Our Volvo had a pull out choke to play with. I liked that feature.

fintail

I think the same thing happened with bicycles. When I was a kid, a 'Mongoose' bike was something special, but around the turn of the century, the brand diluted and became a discount offering.

imidazol97 said:

Companies buy the brand name rights for dead brands and replace them with cheap product.

stever

Packard Bell computer anyone? The best from automotive and telephonics.

suydam

Top safety picks 2017.
http://www.motortrend.com/news/38-vehicles-earn-top-safety-pick-award-amid-stricter-criteria/

graphicguy

stever said:

Packard Bell computer anyone? The best from automotive and telephonics.

I actually went to their factory. Pretty interesting. NEC bought them, and now both are out of the computer business.

stever

The ones I opened up were pretty junky.

Mr_Shiftright

ab348 said:

fintail said:

I live in a place where weed is legal. Things haven't fallen apart. Much less money being flushed away on enforcement of laws that were in essence bought and paid for (the pot lobby pales in comparison to that of perfectly legal and infinitely more destructive cigs and booze), and the police can use their time for more constructive things (which apparently doesn't include pedestrian safety and distracted driving enforcement). So much of this enforcement looks like a make-work project for the generously pensioned class, IMNSHO.

The tobacco lobby is now so powerful that their product has been essentially outlawed for public use in all of N.A. as well as having pretty much anyone who still uses it made out as a pariah. Meanwhile weed users have massive parties in public parks and nobody bats an eye, kids think it cures cancer and is like a health food, and the product has been made legal thanks to a massive lobbying effort that nobody really seems to know much about in terms of where the money comes from. I find it hard to reconcile how smoking one of the things is considered pretty much like the worst thing anyone could do while smoking the other is considered good. Hypocrisy much?

Well I'm not defending it but generally people do not smoke 20-40 joints a day.

It is interesting though--whenever anything "new" pops up in the culture, and becomes respectable and admired, it is immediately touted for its medicinal qualities. We had the same thing with magnets, electricity, cocaine, mercury (!!). I even remember those old war movies where the hero gets mowed down by a machine gun and the first thing they give him is a cigarette.

PF_Flyer

stever said:

Packard Bell computer anyone? The best from automotive and telephonics.

My first PC... a Packard Bell 386SX... MASSIVE 120 MB hard drive and 4 MB of RAM. I even had the math coprocessor chip!

fintail

My first PC had those same specs. When a friend gave me some extra RAM and I upgraded to 8MB, it was like living in the future. 120MB HD, who could use all that? I also remember paying ~$150 for a 33.6 modem in 1996. Ah, the good old days not always so good.

PF_Flyer said:

My first PC... a Packard Bell 386SX... MASSIVE 120 MB hard drive and 4 MB of RAM. I even had the math coprocessor chip!

PF_Flyer

fintail said:

My first PC had those same specs. When a friend gave me some extra RAM and I upgraded to 8MB, it was like living in the future. 120MB HD, who could use all that? I also remember paying ~$150 for a 33.6 modem in 1996. Ah, the good old days not always so good.

PF_Flyer said:

My first PC... a Packard Bell 386SX... MASSIVE 120 MB hard drive and 4 MB of RAM. I even had the math coprocessor chip!

I wrung the guts out of that 386SX. I was a beta tester for the first Windows version of the Prodigy online service and used to blow the thing up and restore/reinstall the operating system regularly

driver100

imidazol97 said:

driver100 said:

I am dubious of a lot of the TVs I see in stores and online, even ones with brand names that used to mean something - current TVs branded RCA, Westinghouse, Magnavox, et al tend to be generic lower-end models.

Companies buy the brand name rights for dead brands and replace them with cheap product.

That makes sense....I like that explanation.
Selling the naming rights...like "TRUMP".

ab348

fintail said:

My first PC had those same specs. When a friend gave me some extra RAM and I upgraded to 8MB, it was like living in the future. 120MB HD, who could use all that? I also remember paying ~$150 for a 33.6 modem in 1996. Ah, the good old days not always so good.

Here's one for you: my first job, 1980. We had an IBM System/34 minicomputer. 128K RAM, 64MB hard disk, 5 terminals, line printer. Cost about $120K but we leased it for some amount every month. After we had it for a while it got slow and the rep recommended we upgrade the RAM to the maximum amount, 256K. It cost us $50K. That's right, fifty thousand dollars. I remember the day it arrived, it was in a box about the size of today's iPhone boxes, and when he took it out of the box, it looked like a chocolate bar, brown with a bunch of 3/4" squares. Yikes.

ab348

stickguy said:

Our Volvo had a pull out choke to play with. I liked that feature.

Our '73 Volvo had a manual choke. Even when it was warm, you had to have the choke pulled out a little bit to get it to idle. Ah, emissions controls of the 1970s.

ab348

dino001 said:

Still? I heard it was a big problem in the past, but I thought they got much better, as more and more retailers picked them up, which was followed with repair shops. Perhaps not quite yet.

A lot of appliances seem to have issues these days regardless of brand. This video of a Canadian TV show is instructive, and a bit scary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk2TfF1M4r8

graphicguy

PF_Flyer said:

fintail said:

My first PC had those same specs. When a friend gave me some extra RAM and I upgraded to 8MB, it was like living in the future. 120MB HD, who could use all that? I also remember paying ~$150 for a 33.6 modem in 1996. Ah, the good old days not always so good.

PF_Flyer said:

My first PC... a Packard Bell 386SX... MASSIVE 120 MB hard drive and 4 MB of RAM. I even had the math coprocessor chip!

I wrung the guts out of that 386SX. I was a beta tester for the first Windows version of the Prodigy online service and used to blow the thing up and restore/reinstall the operating system regularly

That was a monthly (sometimes weekly) occurence!

I came from a mini VAX/VMS environment to a Silicon Graphics UNIX environment, to WindowsNT. That WindowsNT move was a real eye opener. Only way to get it to work was to reload, restart, etc. Then, there was the infamous Blue Screen of Death!

stever

I saved one 1982 issue of PC Mag when I threw all of mine away. The ads are a hoot. For $1,500 more I got an '82 Tercel instead of more storage.


I didn't actually get my own IBM PC until they came down in price to around $2,000. Remember playing with the dip switches and unknowingly dropped the paper clip I was using to flip them into the power supply. That cost me $450.

fintail

I was 3 in 1980 Just imagine if one had used that 120K to buy real estate in Vancouver or Seattle or even LA. I wouldn't be shocked if one could probably pick up a gullwing or rare Ferrari for around 50K then, too.

I remember the 386, which came with a dot matrix printer that usually worked, cost a little over $2000 in 1992-93. It was built by a local computer store. All subsequent machines were much less expensive. I remember a friend of mine bought a Pentium Pro 200, 32MB (I think), I don't recall the HD size, it was $3500 in 1996. Seemed crazy then and even crazier now. I only remember re-formatting in Win98 - it was an every-few-months job. I've never done it in XP or later.

ab348 said:

Here's one for you: my first job, 1980. We had an IBM System/34 minicomputer. 128K RAM, 64MB hard disk, 5 terminals, line printer. Cost about $120K but we leased it for some amount every month. After we had it for a while it got slow and the rep recommended we upgrade the RAM to the maximum amount, 256K. It cost us $50K. That's right, fifty thousand dollars. I remember the day it arrived, it was in a box about the size of today's iPhone boxes, and when he took it out of the box, it looked like a chocolate bar, brown with a bunch of 3/4" squares. Yikes.

PF_Flyer

Somewhere in a stack upstairs i have a copy of PC Magazine that has a cover proclaiming that with the 56K modem we've reached the theoretical max for data communication rates.

stever

Move out here to the sticks with me. Bandwidth hasn't changed.

PF_Flyer

stever said:

Move out here to the sticks with me. Bandwidth hasn't changed.

Be careful what you ask for... heh

stever

Yet another popular culture reference that flew over my head....

I did see Arrival the other day and enjoyed it.

imidazol97

First computer? 4 Kbytes memory. Radio Shack. Tandy Mod 3
What's a disk drive?

driver100

stever said:

Move out here to the sticks with me. Bandwidth hasn't changed.

You are similar to my BIL...he wants to go off the grid. He is the one who painted his old Ford Ranger bargain price seaweed green...he did it with a roller brush and it looks like it. He took the tailgate off the truck to get better mileage, until we proved to him it would give him worse mileage. He goes to a coffee shop to get free wi-fi...won't pay for cable. Doesn't have, doesn't watch TV. Never uses a furnace, just puts wood in his wood stove in the morning. He has what is probably the last dial up black phone in North America, Bell wanted him to give it up, but he showed them where they can't take his dial up phone away. Now his plan is to get a few solar panels, use his well water, catch some squirrels to eat and live as cheaply as possible....I keep thinking, wouldn't it be easier just to find a job.

PF_Flyer

stever said:

Yet another popular culture reference that flew over my head....

I did see Arrival the other day and enjoyed it.

1981... Neighbors

graphicguy

Fresh out of college with a newly minted computer science degree, I brought this baby home.....my first "personal" computer.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000

berri

I remember taking some kind of bulky, heavy portable computer along on a negotiation in the late 70's. We had a computer geek who operated it, but you could actually do a lot of the calculations on a business pocket calculator faster. Spreadsheets are great, but some stuff in life is still quicker on a calculator when you factor in the set up time on the computer. Office isn't getting simpler over time

dino001

stever said:

Remember playing with the dip switches and unknowingly dropped the paper clip I was using to flip them into the power supply. That cost me $450.

Do you remember having to "park" the hard disk before turning off the computer?

thebean

Since I can't be classified as a CCBAer with only one car purchase in the past 15 years, I'll post this "looking" experience here. Wife and I went to look at a new HR-V today.  I hate car salesmen calling me and bugging me, so I refused to give him my phone number or e-mail.  That got me a very funny look from him.  Of course, we had to give him the wife's license for the test drive. The HR-V is a nice little package. Wife liked that she sat up higher than her 15 year old ES300, and that it had the backup camera and Lane Watch like my Accord.  The ride was a little bit stiff and she said the acceleration was slower than the Lexus.  But that's to be expected with the 4 banger.  The size was just what she wanted and the Magic Seats are very clever.  This was the EX trim, which is what she wanted for the cloth seats.  If they will give me a decent deal, I think we might bring one home this month.  This dealer had tons of accessories added, but we would want most of them if they get real on the accessory prices (cut by 2/3 would be right).  But the $189 for nitrogen in the tires really turned me off.  Good thing is that there are 2 more Honda dealers fairly close, including the one that did me right on my Accord.  This one was closer, so we went to it for the test drive to see if the wife even liked the car.  So, we'll see how things progress.

berri

Toyota dealer near me has a new add on gimmick - a blinker that flashes the center brake light added to all of their cars for something like $289 - For your added safety of course! I suppose you can have them take it off before buying, but they've already spliced into the wiring. Generally, I think Honda and Toyota dealers are the worst.

suydam

Interesting perspective! Did you look at other CUVs or did you decide on just this one because you're Honda folks? If you do get accessories the all weather trunk and floor mats really are useful as it's a good little hauler.

imidazol97

Or do they switch a control module that affects that light's actions? I know companies make different control modules that can be switched with the originals that offer more features.

driver100

Ab, Really liked Marketplace about appliances. They said all the brands are controlled by about 5 companies now, so there isn't much competition, so the big guys don't really care. Also, because of all the electronics and because they are made cheaper they just don't last. To buy a new electric panel for a stove will cost almost as much as a new stove, by the time the repairman replaces the broken one They said putting electronics on your stove is like putting a computer on your stove....lots of heat and moisture aren't good for it.

I have to find the next episode where they expose what orange juice really is. I like that show and there is nothing in the USA like it...they expose all kinds of scams, and consumer frauds.

houdini1

In the early 80's I was definitely on the cutting edge of technology with my Tandy so called laptop. It was a big keyboard with a screen that would hold about 4 lines. About all you could do was make a list of your clients and their phone #'s. Automated rolodex. I would whip that baby out in a clients office to impress them.

It still amazes me that my cell phone will hold more info. than a warehouse full of filing cabinets.

In 20 years they will be talking about our current laptops this way !!

ab348

I started my first job in December of 1979 (37 years ago this week!) and it was in a owner-managed dental supply wholesaler/retailer. The owner had bought a TRS-80 computer at Radio Shack but couldn't make it work and gave up. It was sitting on a table in the warehouse, dusty and neglected. I found a mailing list program he had bought and got it to work. Entered all the customer addresses, bought a roll of tractor-feed labels, and gave them their first computerized mailing list. I was so proud! They used that for a year or two until I found a way to get the IBM mini to do the same.

stever

driver100 said:

stever said:

Move out here to the sticks with me. Bandwidth hasn't changed.

You are similar to my BIL...he wants to go off the grid. He is the one who painted his old Ford Ranger bargain price seaweed green...he did it with a roller brush and it looks like it. He took the tailgate off the truck to get better mileage, until we proved to him it would give him worse mileage. He goes to a coffee shop to get free wi-fi...won't pay for cable. Doesn't have, doesn't watch TV. Never uses a furnace, just puts wood in his wood stove in the morning. He has what is probably the last dial up black phone in North America, Bell wanted him to give it up, but he showed them where they can't take his dial up phone away. Now his plan is to get a few solar panels, use his well water, catch some squirrels to eat and live as cheaply as possible....I keep thinking, wouldn't it be easier just to find a job.

I'd get along fine with your BIL, but I'm having a heck of a time with my Google Hangouts at the moment.

stever

In other news, I went to WallyWorld to drop off some film (seriously!) and picked up some car wax. Actually washed the car yesterday and went back over the windows with vinegar and newspaper. Plan to wax it this afternoon.

Figured it was the least we could do since our friend has loaned it to us for ~2+ weeks.

abacomike

So I was making an offer to the General Sales Manager of $82,500 on this 2017 BMW 740i (white exterior with cognac interior) which MSRP'd for $92,000 with the M Package when he coughed, choked, and then threw me out of the dealership. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed to buy a new car!

henryn

Mike! Welcome back, good to see you again!

henryn

So I had another date Saturday night, with the woman who discovered the seat warmers in my truck. This time we were in the Passat, as we were going downtown and I didn’t want to try and park the truck downtown.

I was telling her that I had my buyback offer on the Passat, and it would be gone soon. She asked what I was going to do for a daily driver, as she knows I don’t like taking the truck to work (downtown parking garage). I mentioned that I was thinking about trading off the truck for a minivan. She gave me a very funny look and said she didn’t want to be seen in a minivan.

Hmmmm……

thebean

suydam said:

Interesting perspective! Did you look at other CUVs or did you decide on just this one because you're Honda folks? If you do get accessories the all weather trunk and floor mats really are useful as it's a good little hauler.

We started with the HR-V because I have liked all of my other Hondas.  But, we (she) are going to drive a CX-3 and an Encore.  I tried to suggest a RAV4, but she wants it to be as short as possible.  I agree about the mats, body side moldings, etc, but I'm not going to pay $2K+ for them like the stupid sticker says.  Maybe $500-600.