Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

driver100

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do?





You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Nice car and wax job, you need one of those back up cameras to get between the lines

explorerx4

@andres3,
That's not your real plate and what is written in the green sticker? Sink?

abacomike

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do? You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Looks great.  A nicely waxed and clean car is always something to be proud of.  I had my car hand washed for $25.00 today - first car wash in 2-3 weeks.  Adjacent to Macy's with another adjacent to Bloomindale's at BocaTown Center in the parking garage, there is a detailing company that washes and, if you like, waxes your car while you shop.  I think the wax is $60.00 which includes the wash.  Not bad considering the competition charges $100+.

I am going to try to stay away from those automatic car washes.

abacomike

explorerx4 said:

@andres3, That's not your real plate and what is written in the green sticker? Sink?

Explorer, you have to admit that the car looks stupendous.

abacomike

driver100 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do? You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Nice car and wax job, you need one of those back up cameras to get between the lines

Actually, it's the 360 degree camera that keeps you straightened out equidistant to the parking lines.  Without that, I'd be parking diagonally all the time.  

oldfarmer50

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do?





You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Looks sharp!

sda

abacomike said:

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do?





You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Looks great.  A nicely waxed and clean car is always something to be proud of.  I had my car hand washed for $25.00 today - first car wash in 2-3 weeks.  Adjacent to Macy's with another adjacent to Bloomindale's at BocaTown Center in the parking garage, there is a detailing company that washes and, if you like, waxes your car while you shop.  I think the wax is $60.00 which includes the wash.  Not bad considering the competition charges $100+.

I am going to try to stay away from those automatic car washes.

Does the BMW dealer where you bought yours offer the great wash/detail that you got with your MB?

carnaught

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do?





You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

I like it a lot!

abacomike

sda said:

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do? You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Looks great.  A nicely waxed and clean car is always something to be proud of.  I had my car hand washed for $25.00 today - first car wash in 2-3 weeks.  Adjacent to Macy's with another adjacent to Bloomindale's at BocaTown Center in the parking garage, there is a detailing company that washes and, if you like, waxes your car while you shop.  I think the wax is $60.00 which includes the wash.  Not bad considering the competition charges $100+.

I am going to try to stay away from those automatic car washes.

Does the BMW dealer where you bought yours offer the great wash/detail that you got with your MB?

Yes, but I'm not driving 60 miles round trip for a car wash.  I'm just going to have to learn to be satisfied with a dirtier car.  If I want it washed, I'll just have to pay for it to be washed.  

cdnpinhead

oldfarmer50 said:

. . . so I went with a no commission, low fee mutual fund. I choose Vanguard because the fees were low.

I'd reccommend a broad market index fund like Vandguard's S&P500 Index or their Total Market Index. Index funds are generally good for novice investors. If you DRIP (reinvest your dividends) you almost can't help but make out in the long term.

This approach has worked well for me through the bust in the early '2000s and the 2008 fiasco for my 401(K) at work, my Vanguard tax sheltered stuff and the Vanguard tax-paid emergency fund.

Anyone who thinks they can pick stocks or time the market probably buys lottery tickets or is a professional. Ask them for a 10-20 year performance chart, not that it'd be real.

My rule is to keep 110-my age in stocks and the rest in bonds or money markets, then rebalance every 6-12 months -- let the winners pay the losers. Takes a bit of discipline, but it's worked well for me over the decades.

stickguy

it has been a while since I researched 529 plans, but their are pluses and minuses. You are (well, were) limited to certain investment options, and had fees. The only real advantage was tax free appreciation, but if the alternative was investing in better paying options and paying cap gains in the end, you could still come out ahead. They were great options IIRC for family to give money in advance for a kids education.

the other drawback was that money was getting hit first, and hard. FAFSA is a weird system, and anything in the kids name (as a 529 is) comes out first at a much higher percentage. Bad idea to have stuff in their name usually. If you don't use (need for whatever reason) the 529, you can reassign it to another kid. But in the end, whatever doesn't get used gets taxed back somehow.

A 529 also makes more sense if you are starting early. the later you start, the less advantageous the tax breaks are.

js06gv

Trying to help a co-worker of my wife's. I don't know a thing about these or whether or not they appear to be in the ballpark on price. Anybody out there with some knowledge? Thanks in advance. 

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/690494567/overview/?aff=share_text


https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/689888800/overview/?aff=share_text

jmonroe

sda said:

jmonroe said:

oldfarmer50 said:

abacomike said:

driver100 said:

sda said:

driver100 said:

sda said:

Ok while those of you in the northeast are sipping hot chocolate and playing in the snow I had to mow the grass. Is that fair?

It is a nice house but it looks like you have speed bumps on your lawn. Is that so the mower doesn't go too fast and get airborne? .

The yard doesn't look as nice as I would like. We had a dry and hot summer and am trying to recover from that. The cars are clean, however!

Our lawn has more weeds than grass....so, I should not be criticizing......but then, when did that ever stop me. The good thing about the weeds is;

1) at least they look green from a distance, and

2) my neighbor who I haven't talked to for over 3 years keeps his law meticulous, so my weeds must make him go crazy

Especially if you have clover - it spreads quickly and takes over the healthy lawn quickly.  That's the way you get even with him driver!!!  

Lawn grass mixtures use to include clover because it's nitrogen fixing ability reduces the need for fertilizer. Now the elites would rather pollute the environment than wash the clover "grass stains" out of their kid's clothes. SDA's grass looks like a southern blend which isn't as carpet-like as bluegrass but takes the heat and drought better.

When I lived in SC we had a house built so I had have a lawn put in. For the included house price I had my choice of a lawn. I could choose either Centipede or Myers Zoysia grass. When I talked to the builder's landscaper he showed me Emerald Zoysia. It was like it's name implied, a very deep green color not the standard green color of grass. The catch was it cost about 5 cents more per square foot than the others I just mentioned.

Since I was already in pretty deep with the house I said, "what the hell, yeah, go for it". I didn't realize I was the talk of the neighborhood until one day about a year later when I bumped into a guy around the circle from me. He wanted to know what house I lived in and I described the house which was different from the standard colonials in that development. He stops me while I'm into my description and says, "oh, you're the guy with the nice green grass. Everybody knows that house". I said something like, "aren't all the lawns around here green"? He said, "not like yours they aren't, I bet that grass cost you a fortune". When I told him it was an extra 5 cents per square foot, his jaw dropped and he said, "my builder (his was different than mine) never offered that to me". I didn't know what he wanted me to say but he seemed very disappointed.

Like I said, famous and I didn't even know it. That was the best bang for an extra nickel I ever got.

Since @sda lives in SC maybe he has a show off neighbor that has Emerald Zoysia.

jmonroe

My inlaws who live in Simpsonville, near Greenville, SC had Zoysia in their yard. It was thick as a carpet. They have since moved to a townhouse community. I have the typical tall fescue in our yard. It is what the builder put down through out the neighborhood. It can be difficult to keep, and requires constant seeding and soil aeration to promote growth. Because of the intense sun there are areas of the yard that tends to burn out during the summer. It is a vicious cycle.

I hope everyone is doing well and has dug out of the snow. Brrrr

But was it Emerald Zoysia, which is VERY green and it looks the best as far as I'm concerned and it isn't all that more expensive. 5 cents more per square foot back in '92. IIRC, the base price for the other grasses was around 18 cents per square foot. I know that is around a 25% increase but I only put it in the front yard, maybe 3000 square feet.

I never heard of it until the landscaper that our builder worked with showed it to us. We had a sprinkler system which was almost mandatory down there if you wanted keep any of the grasses alive and I'm pretty sure everyone in my development had one. I remember my builder telling me that if I didn't put one in, it would be a BIG negative when it came time to sell.

Centipede grass is the most drought tolerant but to me it looked like weeds in comparison to the Emerald Zoysia that I had which was much more finicky about wanting water, but since we had the sprinkler system, it wasn't a problem for me. I just left it run a little longer. The results paid off nicely.

The interesting thing about when we had the landscaper come over is that he was pretty surprised I bit on the Emerald Zoysia. I asked him why and he said most people that build a house use their landscape money for extras they want as the house is being built so when they have to put in the landscaping after the has is finished, all of what they were allowed is gone so every penny for landscaping comes directly out of their pocket. He said some don't even put in landscaping right away but I couldn't get away with that because of the covenants in our development.

Trying not to be too nosey he asked me how I managed to have money left for landscaping and I told him I always estimate high so I'm not surprised at the end. Don't think for a minute we didn't add things as we went along because we did, plenty of that kind of stuff but I just had a pretty high extras kitty when we decided to go into the building process.

Even today when I think about all the extras we put in that house my wallet twitches. But in the end it was worth every penny we spent because we got more when we sold than I thought we would. Just didn't jump on the first or second offer.

Thanks for asking about us Yankees getting dug out. I am and warm weather is expected so my guess is all of what is on the ground will be gone in a few days.

jmonroe

abacomike

js06gv

MSRP on new ones is $50,000 - $65,000, depending on engine and options.  From my experience, I would use $55,000 as the invoice, new.  I would subtract 20% for the first year and 8% each successive year for age.

Using my figures, both cars are in the ballpark in terms of retail.  I would offer $2000 less for the 2013 and $3000 less for the 2015.  Just my opinion.  

jmonroe

oldfarmer50 said:

driver100 said:

cdnpinhead said:

Is it just me, or is the current Kia TV commercial campaign (rhinos and whales and whatnot) a slap in the face of the Subaru kumbaya touchy-feely commercials? If so, I'm all for it. While I obviously love the Subaru vehicles, I detest their advertising. There is no mention of the positive features of the cars, only, well, snowflake stuff.

Must work.

I have read articles that say advertising really has little affect on swaying your car buying decision. If you want to buy a particular brand all the ads in the world probably won't convince you to change. The article said the ads mostly confirm to the buyers of a particular brand that they made the right choice...and confirms to them they made a wise decision and will buy the brand again.

I think the dogs differentiate Suburu from the other makes, more eco friendly, happy, healthy, image etc. Kia is trying to touch similar nerves in a different way.

What I wonder about is does Suburu's ads turn off people who don't love animals or dogs...and what about cat lovers...do they get turned off?

How many people have bought a car because of a TV ad? There are times when you may want a car with special features, you see the ad, and that causes you to investigate that brand....that happens, but it is rare.

Subie has been brilliant in making it's cars a lifestyle choice and maybe that's why I don't like them (the ads not the cars) It's a little too manipulative for me.

Do you really want me to show your post to Mrs. j. She likes her Subie but to be perfectly honest she would like anything that is reliable. Cars mean absolutely nothing to her.

Talk about a point A to B person, that's her 100%.

jmonroe

Mr_Shiftright

suydam said:

It's more important for you to save for retirement than for college. This sounds weird but often you'll get a better college financial package if there ISNT a college savings set up. Retirement savings can't be touched. I would talk to your financial advisor. It's good to set money aside if you can. But make your retirement your priority.

Your kid can make money when he's 25. You can't so easily when you are 85 and yelling for your soup.

roadburner

oldfarmer50 said:

Zoysia is a tough southern grass that takes a lot of abuse. It's only drawback is it turns dead brown at the first frost. Up here in the north it looks great until October then it's terrible until almost June. It was marketed heavily in magazines years ago and you can still tell who got suckered into planting it in May when they have huge swaths of dead looking grass while everyone else has nice green lawns.

Sonuds perfect for me- it would cut around two months off my mowing schedule.

roadburner

I encountered an odd issue today. I was performing an Encore(second delivery) for a couple who like and use the profile feature that allows each key to memorize the seat/wheel position, HVAC settings, and radio/memory button presets. The husband's profile was receiving SiriusXM but on the wife's profile SiriusXM was not activated. I sent a refresh signal to the radio and that fixed things but I've never seen that happen before.

28firefighter

roadburner said:

I encountered an odd issue today. I was performing an Encore(second delivery) for a couple who like and use the profile feature that allows each key to memorize the seat/wheel position, HVAC settings, and radio/memory button presets. The husband's profile was receiving SiriusXM but on the wife's profile SiriusXM was not activated. I sent a refresh signal to the radio and that fixed things but I've never seen that happen before.

You would think that the activation information would be stored agnostic of profile...

qbrozen

js06gv said:

Trying to help a co-worker of my wife's. I don't know a thing about these or whether or not they appear to be in the ballpark on price. Anybody out there with some knowledge? Thanks in advance. 

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/690494567/overview/?aff=share_text


https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/689888800/overview/?aff=share_text

Ok, so first one has accidenf history. Would be a $36k vehicle. My standard 20% hit for an accident would bring it down to about $29k.

$44k would be fair on the other so they have it priced quite aggressively already.

andres3

driver100 said:

andres3 said:

The last time I washed my TTS it was for a Cars and Coffee meet in San Diego. How'd I do?





You have to be a car buff when one of your favorite features is the power manually (or automatically) operated rear spoiler. In the picture it is in the "UP" position.

Nice car and wax job, you need one of those back up cameras to get between the lines

I blame the red car touching the white line forcing me to exaggeratedly move over the other line.

andres3

explorerx4 said:

@andres3,
That's not your real plate and what is written in the green sticker? Sink?

Green sticker says 2017. They send you a new one every year after you pay your dues, taxes, and fees to the DMV for registration.

uplanderguy

oldfarmer50, I tried sending you a private message, but maybe it didn't get there. I see you have an '09 PT Cruiser. My daughter has an '08. We get two years out of batteries, and the alternator has tested normal. What is your battery wear like?

Also, when bitter cold out, the brake pedal is hard for a few seconds. Have you experienced this?

Thanks!

driver100

Mr_Shiftright said:

suydam said:

It's more important for you to save for retirement than for college. This sounds weird but often you'll get a better college financial package if there ISNT a college savings set up. Retirement savings can't be touched. I would talk to your financial advisor. It's good to set money aside if you can. But make your retirement your priority.

Your kid can make money when he's 25. You can't so easily when you are 85 and yelling for your soup.

That's how I see it too. If I can help I certainly would, but I had to pay for my education and I don't mind letting a kid find their own way in the world....if I can't do it. Like you say, they have a lifetime to get their life in order, I had one chance and it is too late to blow it now. Soup.....that wouldn't be too bad...my fear is having to eat cat food!

driver100

oldfarmer50 said:

Zoysia is a tough southern grass that takes a lot of abuse. It's only drawback is it turns dead brown at the first frost. Up here in the north it looks great until October then it's terrible until almost June. It was marketed heavily in magazines years ago and you can still tell who got suckered into planting it in May when they have huge swaths of dead looking grass while everyone else has nice green lawns

That would be perfect for me too. It would start to look dead just as we leave for Florida and my psycho neighbor would have to look at it until we get back...then it would turn back to green

oldfarmer50

js06gv said:

Trying to help a co-worker of my wife's. I don't know a thing about these or whether or not they appear to be in the ballpark on price. Anybody out there with some knowledge? Thanks in advance. 

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/690494567/overview/?aff=share_text


https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/689888800/overview/?aff=share_text

Sorry, I know nothing about Audis. All I can say is that for the price of either of those used cars I could buy 10 of my el cheapos.

oldfarmer50

roadburner said:

I encountered an odd issue today. I was performing an Encore(second delivery) for a couple who like and use the profile feature that allows each key to memorize the seat/wheel position, HVAC settings, and radio/memory button presets. The husband's profile was receiving SiriusXM but on the wife's profile SiriusXM was not activated. I sent a refresh signal to the radio and that fixed things but I've never seen that happen before.

What have we come to when we are so lazy that we have to have special devices to adjust seats and tune radios let alone have to have an expert adjust things for you?

oldfarmer50

uplanderguy said:

oldfarmer50, I tried sending you a private message, but maybe it didn't get there. I see you have an '09 PT Cruiser. My daughter has an '08. We get two years out of batteries, and the alternator has tested normal. What is your battery wear like?

Also, when bitter cold out, the brake pedal is hard for a few seconds. Have you experienced this?

Thanks!

Bill, I almost never look at my profile so thanks for giving me a heads up.

On the battery, we're still on the origional battery. It sometimes sounds weak on starting but my mechanic said it was still fine.

Can't help you on the brakes either. No hard pedal. We did have a vibration on hard braking that was traced after repeated visits to a bent spindle. Mechanic said it probably came from the factory like that giving testimony to the rotten build quality of these critters. If I had known what a cheap POS this car was I would have bought another Mitsubishi but wife thought it was "cute" and the seat height was right for her.

Oh, and thanks to Imidzol97 for the advice on the 2005 LaSabre from last June. Makes me glad I didn't buy it.

roadburner

oldfarmer50 said:

What have we come to when we are so lazy that we have to have special devices to adjust seats and tune radios let alone have to have an expert adjust things for you?

I guess I didn't explain things very well. There are no "special devices"- the keys simply remember the seat/wheel, HVAC, and audio settings. It's not a matter of being "lazy," it's a matter of convenience; the profile feature allows the each driver to store settings without accommodating the preferences of the other driver. Even better, in about 20 seconds you can import your profile settings into another BMW using a USB flash drive. That's all I did when my wife leased the i3- and my preferences were instantly assigned to my i3 key.

That said, my job isn't to "adjust things" for an owner; rather, I explain and demonstrate the car's features and technology so the owner can make the best use of it. You would be surprised by how many people I talk to who tell me that they wish that the dealer had fully explained their cars features. And I'm not talking about luxury brands- I'm talking Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, etc.And this is borne out by empirical data:
Dealership Product Specialists Improve Customer Satisfaction with Sales Process

suydam

I've been back to the dealer twice to learn about various features on the Volt. First there's always new technology to learn that's really useful. Second, these features aren't standardized across all car makes.

stickguy

I still read the owners manual. All 1,000 pages of it. certainly won't remember it all, but I tag the pages with something interesting, then play with that in the car.

there are still features on both of my cars I either never played with at all, or investigated and didn't find of interest so never touched again (or just turned off and left off).

abacomike

roadburner said:

What have we come to when we are so lazy that we have to have special devices to adjust seats and tune radios let alone have to have an expert adjust things for you?

I guess I didn't explain things very well. There are no "special devices"- the keys simply remember the seat/wheel, HVAC, and audio settings. It's not a matter of being "lazy," it's a matter of convenience; the profile feature allows the each driver to store settings without accommodating the preferences of the other driver. Even better, in about 20 seconds you can import your profile settings into another BMW using a USB flash drive. That's all I did when my wife leased the i3- and my preferences were instantly assigned to my i3 key. That said, my job isn't to "adjust things" for an owner; rather, I explain and demonstrate the car's features and technology so the owner can make the best use of it. You would be surprised by how many people I talk to who tell me that they wish that the dealer had fully explained their cars features. And I'm not talking about luxury brands- I'm talking Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, etc.And this is borne out by empirical data: Dealership Product Specialists Improve Customer Satisfaction with Sales Process

I'd still be sitting in my new car (bought it 2-months ago) trying to figure out and/or learn all the benefits of the car's technology if it were not for the "genius" who not only handled the sale and paperwork for my 740i but also spent many hours with me demonstrating and explaining the tons of technogical features.  

I was just lucky the General Manager assigned a "genius" to work my deal as a favor to me.

RB, it's a godsend that BMW went with specialists to ensure consumers learned the features, benefits and how to use them.  Mercedes never did that for me.  When I traded the CLS400 after 13 months of ownership, I still had not mastered it's technology.  My hat's off to you and the others like you!  

js06gv

@abacomike and @qbrozen - thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

roadburner

abacomike said:

RB, it's a godsend that BMW went with specialists to ensure consumers learned the features, benefits and how to use them.  Mercedes never did that for me.  When I traded the CLS400 after 13 months of ownership, I still had not mastered it's technology.  My hat's off to you and the others like you!  

Thanks!

tjc78

Our Enclave has that setting for personalization.  I never set that up and we've had it over two years.  We do have memory presets but never linked them to each key fob.  

graphicguy

uplanderguy said:

It is a beautiful small college town, although the 'small' part sometimes frustrates our daughter.

To me, when you see a movie or TV show about a college town, it looks like Oxford (where Miami is located).

A friend and longtime coworker, now retired, graduated there in 1969. He talked about when the Lemon Pipers were students there--they had the #1 hit, "Green Tambourine", which is still heard on oldies radio.

Yeah...they were gone by the time I got there. But, I heard stories about them forming and playing around the area.

My parents used to say that Oxford, OH was too small for me to get into any trouble. Little did they know. Truth told, there isn't a whole lot to do but study, as there isn't much around Oxford except for Miami.

Known as the Cradle of Coaches. Guys like Woody Hayes, Paul Brown, Bo Schembeckler....and many others got their coaching start at Miami.

Actually, Miami is also known as the Ivy League School of the Mid-West. As you say, beautiful, Norman Rockwell-esk type campus. Got a great education there, both academically and personally.

ray80

Can anyone try to help this person out, I can't even guess what this is.

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/44538/general/x/really-need-help-identifying-the-make-model-of-this-car-this-is-a-life-death-situation#latest

qbrozen

js06gv said:

@abacomike and @qbrozen - thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

No problem

graphicguy

ray80 said:

Can anyone try to help this person out, I can't even guess what this is.

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/44538/general/x/really-need-help-identifying-the-make-model-of-this-car-this-is-a-life-death-situation#latest

No clue what that is. Was this pic taken in North America? Proportions are all discombobulated. Looks like a 2-door. Nissan 200sx? or maybe a Nissan Pulsar? Renault Alliance? Really not much here to go on.

28firefighter

Maybe an early 90s Toyota Camry. Can't tell whether it's 2 or 4 door, but leaning towards 2. 

explorerx4

@graphicguy,
I posted my guess of Suzuki X90(Pulsar made it click for me).
For some reason picture won't post.

graphicguy

explorerx4 said:

@graphicguy,
I posted my guess of Suzuki X90(Pulsar made it click for me).
For some reason picture won't post.

explorer...forgot about those. That's probably closer.

Mr_Shiftright

Fixed it for you.

explorerx4

@MrShiftright, Thanks!

oldfarmer50

roadburner said:

oldfarmer50 said:

What have we come to when we are so lazy that we have to have special devices to adjust seats and tune radios let alone have to have an expert adjust things for you?

I guess I didn't explain things very well. There are no "special devices"- the keys simply remember the seat/wheel, HVAC, and audio settings. It's not a matter of being "lazy," it's a matter of convenience; the profile feature allows the each driver to store settings without accommodating the preferences of the other driver. Even better, in about 20 seconds you can import your profile settings into another BMW using a USB flash drive. That's all I did when my wife leased the i3- and my preferences were instantly assigned to my i3 key.

That said, my job isn't to "adjust things" for an owner; rather, I explain and demonstrate the car's features and technology so the owner can make the best use of it. You would be surprised by how many people I talk to who tell me that they wish that the dealer had fully explained their cars features. And I'm not talking about luxury brands- I'm talking Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, etc.And this is borne out by empirical data:
Dealership Product Specialists Improve Customer Satisfaction with Sales Process

No RB, you explained things fine. And thanks for being such a gentleman to say that instead of calling me stupid.

I'm sure such technology is convient but being the dinosaur I am I just don't think it necessary. Take for example the SYNC system on my Ford. Amusing to tell the car to change the radio but after the novelty wore off I went back to doing thing myself. I supose if I had a cell phone it would be easier to play music but as is I'd rather they leave it off the car and cut the price a little. I enjoy driving a car not fooling with gizmos.

I was in no way trying to minimize your function. For those who like technology you are invaluable.

oldfarmer50

ray80 said:

Can anyone try to help this person out, I can't even guess what this is.

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/44538/general/x/really-need-help-identifying-the-make-model-of-this-car-this-is-a-life-death-situation#latest

I sure hope that isn't a troll post considering the serious implications.

driver100

ray80 said:

Can anyone try to help this person out, I can't even guess what this is.

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/44538/general/x/really-need-help-identifying-the-make-model-of-this-car-this-is-a-life-death-situation#latest

Ray, I posted on the link site too:

I am going out on a limb here. Did make me think though, how good is a security camera that distorts the image so much?

Looks more like a boxy 90s model, looks more like a 4 door than a 2 door. Very flat windshield. Almost looks like cladding behind the rear wheel...but, could be a shadow. Looks like pretty flat wheel discs. My wild guess is 96 Jetta approx.

ray80

oldfarmer50 said:

ray80 said:

Can anyone try to help this person out, I can't even guess what this is.

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/44538/general/x/really-need-help-identifying-the-make-model-of-this-car-this-is-a-life-death-situation#latest

I sure hope that isn't a troll post considering the serious implications.

Me to, Assuming it isn't a troll important to at least try and get some kind of answer

driver100

graphicguy said:

ray80 said:

Can anyone try to help this person out, I can't even guess what this is.

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/44538/general/x/really-need-help-identifying-the-make-model-of-this-car-this-is-a-life-death-situation#latest

No clue what that is. Was this pic taken in North America? Proportions are all discombobulated. Looks like a 2-door. Nissan 200sx? or maybe a Nissan Pulsar? Renault Alliance? Really not much here to go on.

Those are excellent guesses...they do match up.

I know this is a serious matter and I am not not making light of the situation, but those distorted pictures make me think this could make a fantastic game for car lovers. Great father's day gift.......Guess What Car this is?

driver100

oldfarmer50 said:

roadburner said:

oldfarmer50 said:

What have we come to when we are so lazy that we have to have special devices to adjust seats and tune radios let alone have to have an expert adjust things for you?

I guess I didn't explain things very well. There are no "special devices"- the keys simply remember the seat/wheel, HVAC, and audio settings. It's not a matter of being "lazy," it's a matter of convenience; the profile feature allows the each driver to store settings without accommodating the preferences of the other driver. Even better, in about 20 seconds you can import your profile settings into another BMW using a USB flash drive. That's all I did when my wife leased the i3- and my preferences were instantly assigned to my i3 key.

That said, my job isn't to "adjust things" for an owner; rather, I explain and demonstrate the car's features and technology so the owner can make the best use of it. You would be surprised by how many people I talk to who tell me that they wish that the dealer had fully explained their cars features. And I'm not talking about luxury brands- I'm talking Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, etc.And this is borne out by empirical data:
Dealership Product Specialists Improve Customer Satisfaction with Sales Process

No RB, you explained things fine. And thanks for being such a gentleman to say that instead of calling me stupid.

I'm sure such technology is convient but being the dinosaur I am I just don't think it necessary. Take for example the SYNC system on my Ford. Amusing to tell the car to change the radio but after the novelty wore off I went back to doing thing myself. I supose if I had a cell phone it would be easier to play music but as is I'd rather they leave it off the car and cut the price a little. I enjoy driving a car not fooling with gizmos.

I was in no way trying to minimize your function. For those who like technology you are invaluable.

oldfarmer, I tend to agree we are at the stage where we may have to many convenience features.

But, the key fob telling the car weather it is me who opened the door or my wife's key opening the door is a nice feature. If she opens the door the seats, outside mirrors adjust for her. If I do it they are right for me.

Necessary.....not really. Convenient, definitely.