Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations

henryn

I found back in the day when I was traveling that I received a lot of free dinners. Other people buying me dinner on their expense account.

I guess that would mostly depend on who you were working for.

tjc78

henryn said:

I found back in the day when I was traveling that I received a lot of free dinners. Other people buying me dinner on their expense account.

I guess that would mostly depend on who you were working for.

We call that “scholarship”

Been on both ends of that. I prefer being treated! I never liked turning in an $800 Morton’s receipt!

tjc78

ab348 said:

The lavishness of the expense account usually is directly proportional to the profit margin on what the account holder is selling/representing. Best I experienced (or worse, depending on your POV) was the SAP software outfit.

My wife is in Import Logistics. Those people have some expense accounts!

tjc78

@abacomike .... I’d certainly be upset. On a 100k car you should be able to open the moonroof whenever and how often you like!

Hopefully it gets fixed fairly quickly.

qbrozen

Something like an S Class should go through a self check of all electrical gizmos once a week and then drive itself to the service center when one or more fails the check.

ab348

This is a fascinating yet creepy article about work life at Tesla and the bizarre behaviour of its leader.

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/

explorerx4

When I picked up my truck, delayed because they cracked the moonroof(it was fine when I test drove it), I tried out the roof and it wouldn't close all the way.
Either it wouldn't go all the way forward or the back wouldn't sit flat.
After messing with it for a few minutes, I told the salesman I couldn't accept it like that.
He said, they probably just have to do a reset on the roof programming.
10 minutes later, all good.
I'm guessing Mike's service department is banging Benz for some unnecessary warrant work.

Mr_Shiftright

Geez. It sounds exactly like what people say when they are living in a Cult in the Mojave Desert somewhere. Very creepy indeed.

I get the part about him being volatile, sometimes half-crazy, bizarre and unpredictable.. Many very talented and successful people are sociopaths. Maybe he's one--I don't know. But I don't get the apologists---"He's not humiliating me, or treating me with contempt....he's helping me become a better person!"

Okayyyyyy........

suydam

A lot of the early auto founders were pretty awful people. It’s just so long ago we’ve all forgotten.

28firefighter

I will likely end up having many meals taken care of because I have meetings with software and service providers that we work with.

However, perks of being on the corporate side now mean I can pick and choose meetings I need to be at and when I can duck out. 

Mr_Shiftright

That's true. Maybe that's the price you pay for that level of success---a kind of tunnel vision perhaps?

imidazol97

When we ordered our 14 Malibu, my big problem was not wanting a sunroof which was required for some of the options I would gladly have paid for.

The saleslady's solution was just get it with the sunroof and never open it... Hmmmmm.

Since the temp around noon was 19 and currently 28 with a freezing fog misting down on us potentially giving some icing areas on the roads, I can't pass up the chance to say your reminding me of "winter" by talking about how nice it was there in sunroof weather made me feel bad.

ab348

Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in 28 days, Imid. Hold on to that faint hope.

explorerx4

I use my sunroof mostly for the sun, not the breeze.

oldfarmer50

driver100 said:

28firefighter said:

I have a trip to NYC coming up at the end of the month for a conference and just found out my per diem is $50 a day. By comparison, the government per diem is 76. Going to be paying out of pocket for quite a bit, I expect. Assuming a decent, no frills dinner will run me $25-$30, that leaves me $20 for breakfast and lunch.

Hope there is a Chic-a-Fil nearby.

Funny you mention that. I just sent a gift card for that restaurant to my nephew who works in Manhattan.

xwesx

oldfarmer50 said:

.58 per mile? What was it for 2018? I heard .545. My Uber driving son will be happy to hear about the boost.

Yes, it was $0.545 for 2018.

oldfarmer50

abacomike said:

It was so beautiful out yesterday I decided to open my sunroof on the S450 (72 degrees under clear skies).  When I got home, the sunroof would not completely close - it remained tilted up on the left side but closed on the fight side.  Then, it would not open or close and the electric shade under the sunroof would not close.

So I took it into The Mercedes service department.  They had no loaners available so the soonest they could get the car in was Thursday at 8:30 AM.  All they could do was get it closed but the sunshade still won’t close so I have the sun glare to deal with.

First they have to diagnose the problem and then order parts.  They said it could take weeks to repair the sunroof if it needed parts - which I presume they will need because the right rear does not lift over the roof.

This will teach me not to open the sunroof if it isn’t used very much.  Bah Humbug! 

I would be pretty ticked if I had that problem on a new car. The repair time would irk me more. Have you ever used it before? Might be a factory defect.

xwesx

Michaell said:

Funny that we are talking about this .. I'm looking at it from the other side of the table, as a vendor providing services to both public and private companies who are our customers.

We've had expense invoices challenged, and denied, in the past. It has taught us to ask if there are any customer expense protocols we should be following, before we travel. @ab348 - we had a trip to Nova Scotia last year where they provided us their policies - dated 2010!

We're happy to follow what the customer wants, in terms of meals, travel, lodging and ground transportation. If they don't provide us with anything, then we've structured our contracts to state that our policies will prevail. Our staff instructors don't normally have a problem following these rules, but we'll occasionally borrow someone who doesn't travel that often who does bend - or break - the rules. A gentle reminder usually sets them straight if they travel for us a second time.

Ugh. No travelers are worse than tenured faculty. They feel like they are entitled to do whatever they want to be entitled to do, and reining them in is quite a chore sometimes. Actually, I don't want to talk about this because it makes me more annoyed than I prefer. LOL

xwesx

@abacomike That's a bummer! It's such a joy to use the car with the sun roof, top, etc., open. A rare treat (at least for me), so not working as intended? That's almost as bad as it not starting!

xwesx

oldfarmer50 said:

I would be pretty ticked if I had that problem on a new car. The repair time would irk me more. Have you ever used it before? Might be a factory defect.

Oh, no. This is not a new car! This is Mike's "OLD" S450! It had it's first birthday a couple months ago, so it's nearing the end of its life span!

driver100

abacomike said:

.  Then, it would not open or close and the electric shade under the sunroof would not close.

So I took it into The Mercedes service department.  They had no loaners available so the soonest they could get the car in was Thursday at 8:30 AM.  All they could do was get it closed but the sunshade still won’t close so I have the sun glare to deal with.

First they have to diagnose the problem and then order parts.  They said it could take weeks to repair the sunroof if it needed parts - which I presume they will need because the right rear does not lift over the roof.

This will teach me not to open the sunroof if it isn’t used very much.  Bah Humbug! 

Glad it is still under warranty Mike....hate to know how much that would cost to fix.

driver100

Call me crazy but I love having a sunroof. I never open it, but, I like having the light come in especially on a cloudy dull day. I open it about once a year...usually it is better having the a/c or the heat on...few days where an open sunroof is the best alternative.

On the E400 there is a button that opens the inner roof. On the C250 I pull the inner shade roof forward or back. It isn't a big deal, I don't get why it has to work electronically.

stickguy

car makers have to keep thinking up new gadgets to get people to spend lots of money on their fancy cars. Power moonroof shades, power head rests, etc. sometimes i think they (especially German makers) do it, just because they can.

explorerx4

@driver100,
Most of the owners are so old they don't have the strength to manually move the shade.

oldfarmer50

xwesx said:

oldfarmer50 said:

I would be pretty ticked if I had that problem on a new car. The repair time would irk me more. Have you ever used it before? Might be a factory defect.

Oh, no. This is not a new car! This is Mike's "OLD" S450! It had it's first birthday a couple months ago, so it's nearing the end of its life span!

To me anything built in this century is new.

xwesx

driver100 said:

Call me crazy but I love having a sunroof. I never open it, but, I like having the light come in especially on a cloudy dull day. I open it about once a year...usually it is better having the a/c or the heat on...few days where an open sunroof is the best alternative.

Fully agreed. I love the large glass on both the Q7 and the Forester. My wife always keeps the shade closed, and she gets annoyed when the first thing I do upon getting in the Forester (her car) is fling the shade fully open. With the black interior in that car, it feels quite cramped to me without that shade open.

roadburner

In three years I haven't opened the sunroof on the 2er once. Same for the X1. I did try the switch on the Clubman as I thought it was partially open.

sda

My wife and I enjoy a sunroof and open it frequently. I’ve had several convertibles and would like to have another. Too bad the VW Eos is no longer sold. It provided a glass sunroof and a retractable roof for convertible motoring best of all worlds.

bwia

xwesx said:

Michaell said:

Funny that we are talking about this .. I'm looking at it from the other side of the table, as a vendor providing services to both public and private companies who are our customers.

We've had expense invoices challenged, and denied, in the past. It has taught us to ask if there are any customer expense protocols we should be following, before we travel. @ab348 - we had a trip to Nova Scotia last year where they provided us their policies - dated 2010!

We're happy to follow what the customer wants, in terms of meals, travel, lodging and ground transportation. If they don't provide us with anything, then we've structured our contracts to state that our policies will prevail. Our staff instructors don't normally have a problem following these rules, but we'll occasionally borrow someone who doesn't travel that often who does bend - or break - the rules. A gentle reminder usually sets them straight if they travel for us a second time.

Ugh. No travelers are worse than tenured faculty. They feel like they are entitled to do whatever they want to be entitled to do, and reining them in is quite a chore sometimes. Actually, I don't want to talk about this because it makes me more annoyed than I prefer. LOL

Being a Professor Emeritus myself, I take issue with your assertion that tenured faculty “feel” entitled. On campus, tenured faculty are treated like prima donnas (that they are) and no expense is spared to keep them happy. For instance, when they travel to conferences, give a paper or for research all such expenses are covered by grants or university travel funds.

suydam

Also being a professor emeritus, I respectfully disagree. Tenured faculty in some high cost areas live like graduate students, and unless you are at a very elite university, they are generally not wealthy people. Many universities have strict travel budgets limiting how much and where people can go, and faculty have to pay some of the costs out of their pockets, because they have to participate in the world of conferences and research as part of their jobs. There are entitled people in all professions, but there’s no need to overgeneralize.

jmonroe1

tjc78 said:

@abacomike .... I’d certainly be upset. On a 100k car you should be able to open the moonroof whenever and how often you like!

Hopefully it gets fixed fairly quickly.

Makes you wonder who shares their moonroof parts with Mercedes.

jmonroe

28firefighter

jmonroe1 said:

@abacomike .... I’d certainly be upset. On a 100k car you should be able to open the moonroof whenever and how often you like! Hopefully it gets fixed fairly quickly.

Makes you wonder who shares their moonroof parts with Mercedes. jmonroe

Probably Saab, may it rest in pieces. 

oldfarmer50

28firefighter said:

jmonroe1 said:

tjc78 said:

@abacomike .... I’d certainly be upset. On a 100k car you should be able to open the moonroof whenever and how often you like!

Hopefully it gets fixed fairly quickly.

Makes you wonder who shares their moonroof parts with Mercedes.

jmonroe

Probably Saab, may it rest in pieces. 

When I was looking for a Craigslist convertible I was happy to see many early 2000s Saabs for sale. I was all set to go look at some until more knowledgeable folks here told me I might be driving with the top down in winter.

graphicguy

oldfarmer50 said:

It’s amazing How you can have a 460hp car and still be made to feel inadequate in an instant.

https://youtu.be/wecVzPzf8R4

That’s what she said (sorrry....couldn’t help myself).

graphicguy

My company used to give us company cars. I could choose from a Ford 500 (remember those?), Chrysler LHS (remember those?), etc.

They finally decided that the expense of buying, selling and administering to a fleet of cars was a pretty expensive proposition. So, they stopped doing that.

Now, they have buying agreements with certain manufacturers they do business with, and they give me a monthly stipend to use. The best deals are with the companies they negotiated with/do business with. But, we’re free to choose whatever car we want, with a few caveats.

It has to be capable of carrying 4 passengers. The thought process here is we’re constantly taking clients out and need “bigger” cars to do that. Well, I fly most places and either rent cars or Uber, so that’s not really a good requirement. There’s a list of cars they’ll give a stipend for to keep us from getting a Smart Car.

I don’t lease. So, I just pocket the monthly amount and buy what I want.

The stipend is taxable and shows up on my W2.

Now that I see what you guys are doing with leasing, I’m leaning more and more to leasing my next car.

tjc78

I guess it depends on the company. I see what my team expenses in mileage and just can't see it being more expensive to do some corporate leases. We all discussed it and there would be my 4 and about 20 others in the company. Some aren't away from home as much as my team but actually drive more daily.

.50 / mile adds up really quickly over 20+ team members.

I've always been really lucky with company cars, never had a personal company car but there was always something at the office for me to take trips with. The owner would hand down his wife's cars for the office team to use.

We had (all were hard loaded) a 90s Grand Cherokee, 96 Town and Country, two Navigators, a Pacifica (don't know where that thing came from) and now we have a 2013 Tahoe LTZ.

ab348

suydam said:

Also being a professor emeritus, I respectfully disagree. Tenured faculty in some high cost areas live like graduate students, and unless you are at a very elite university, they are generally not wealthy people. Many universities have strict travel budgets limiting how much and where people can go, and faculty have to pay some of the costs out of their pockets, because they have to participate in the world of conferences and research as part of their jobs. There are entitled people in all professions, but there’s no need to overgeneralize.

I guess it varies from place to place.

My former boss was married to a tenured prof here. He certainly did not lack for the finer things in life. He went on a 6-month trip to Australia to do something at a university there, all paid for. He got a years sabbatical every so often for "research". He used to complain constantly about having to teach undergrad students (which I would have figured was his main job). They built a million-dollar home that was absolutely out of Architectural Digest in the most expensive part of town. His lifestyle combined with my knowledge of what the vast admin and management group at that university were paid convinced me that the high cost of tuition is easily explained.

graphicguy

Expense accounts....been on both sides of that “good/bad” debate.

With my people, I tell them I don’t want them to come out of pocket when they travel. They’re doing a job, a tough job (mostly sales and marketing folks), away from their families....sleeping in a different city, in a strange bed, a significant portion of the year. Most companies I’ve been with over the years don’t get their panties in a bunch if you’re out with clients having a few drinks. I don’t even mind if you expensive a couple of beers or glasses of wine with your personal dinner. If I see a pattern of abuse on an expense report, I’m stepping in and denying the expense (and having a heart to heart with the employee). For the most part, my admin looks them over and by proxy, signs my name for expense for approval. She knows when to further some to me for “further review”.

I’m lucky that my current company is relatively liberal when it comes to expenses. They know that millions of dollars are at stake when we are out talking about complex, long term contracts and it’s expected to seep into buying some nice dinners to play for that business.

I started my career at Xerox. They were the tightwads of the industry when it came to expenses. They didn’t mind at all if you had to come out of pocket for any expenses....to the point where any expense incurred after 9:00 p.m. was disallowed. They paid under gov’t mileage rates for travel with our personal cars. I used phone booths to call the office on a daily basis, to the point where I had probably $5/day in quarters I used.....$25/week. They disallowed that as an expense. They had a flat per diem for food when traveling. It was $10/day (this was in the late ‘80s). They figured when traveling, you’d have to eat breakfast and dinner at home. So, $10 for lunch was enough. True enough, until you had employees with you and picked up their lunch as a “mini-reward” for working so hard. Denied!

Bought a beer for a client? Denied! Bought a Cross pen (all of $30 back then) to give to a client to sign a six figure contract? Denied!

They were miserable...yet I spend a decade working for them.

driver100

I have been taking Trixie out for walks about 27 times a day so I don't know if anyone posted this.....btw, house training is going well, even though I have to take her out at 4 a.m.
Unique 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Super Snake sold at auction for record $2.2 million




The Shelby Mustang 1967 GT500 Super Snake was a one of a kind prototype that Carroll Shelby had built for a tire test conducted by Goodyear.

He swapped out the GT500’s already potent 428 cubic-inch V8 for one of the 427 cubic-inch racing V8s from Ford’s Le Mans-winning GT40 and updated the rest of the powertrain and suspension to match.
The result was a Mustang coupe that could hit 170 mph and averaged 142 mph over 500 miles at a high-speed track in Texas where it was running on a set of Goodyear’s new whitewall Thunderbolt economy tires.

The initial plan was to build 50 of the cars for sale, but at an estimated double the price of a standard GT500 there weren’t enough takers and the sole prototype was sold for just $5,000.

FULL STORY (happened 3 days ago)

driver100

graphicguy said:

Now that I see what you guys are doing with leasing, I’m leaning more and more to leasing my next car.

Leasing works great in certain situations....always get an option to buy back at the end of the lease.

You may recall, we had a terrific IT guy in our company. When the business folded, due to SIL's incompetence the IT guy started his own business. His car got totaled and he came out pretty good with $4000. He leased a Fit for $300 a month and the 3 years are up and he bought the car....probably for about $10000 (guess). It has low mileage and is like new. It worked out beautifully, I can't think of a better way to have done it.

driver100

graphicguy said:

I started my career at Xerox.
They were miserable...yet I spend a decade working for them.

......and how good did being cheap work for Xerox?

xwesx

bwia said:

Being a Professor Emeritus myself, I take issue with your assertion that tenured faculty “feel” entitled. On campus, tenured faculty are treated like prima donnas (that they are) and no expense is spared to keep them happy. For instance, when they travel to conferences, give a paper or for research all such expenses are covered by grants or university travel funds.

I don't mind you taking issue with that. It is as much an observation as assertion (of fact, not belief). They are employees, and they should be treated well and kept happy (just like the rest) insomuch as they are contributing to the success of the institution, its students, and its research. Sadly, there tends to be a strong correlation between effectiveness dropping commensurate with the strength of those feelings of entitlement.

Covering my travel expenses? Absolutely... within the rules. Covering any thing I feel like should be covered because I say so? No, not so much.

Mr_Shiftright

xwesx said:

oldfarmer50 said:

I would be pretty ticked if I had that problem on a new car. The repair time would irk me more. Have you ever used it before? Might be a factory defect.

Oh, no. This is not a new car! This is Mike's "OLD" S450! It had it's first birthday a couple months ago, so it's nearing the end of its life span!

Yeah, definitely time to trade it in. Pretty soon, the dashboard will display in Japanese and the trunk will start opening and closing like a flipper on a dolphin. I've seen all this before.

xwesx

suydam said:

Also being a professor emeritus, I respectfully disagree. Tenured faculty in some high cost areas live like graduate students, and unless you are at a very elite university, they are generally not wealthy people. Many universities have strict travel budgets limiting how much and where people can go, and faculty have to pay some of the costs out of their pockets, because they have to participate in the world of conferences and research as part of their jobs. There are entitled people in all professions, but there’s no need to overgeneralize.

Well, I didn't use the word "all" in there. If there is anyone who is a 100% PITA when it comes to travel, it is going to be a tenured faculty. Sorry; it's true. While probably only around five percent of my institution's faculty population, that's plenty to draw the conclusion (and plenty to be a thorn in my side).

Of course, there are those non-faculty (and non-tenured faculty) who don't always follow the rules, but they take responsibility for the errors/mistakes/etc. far more quickly than the other group. It's a cultural thing: The tenured faculty know that if they push hard enough, they're going to get their way. And, they usually do once the decision goes over my head. I do make a lot of non-fans, though, because they know I will call them on their BS and I won't be quiet about it when I do.

xwesx

Reviewing line-item meal receipts would be a nightmare! We operate on federal per diem, which is generous. I've been on travel many times, and not once have my actuals added up to more than 50% of my allowable per diem. Even taking my wife on one trip, our total cost was a little under my single per diem allowance.

However, it's a lifestyle choice. My supervisor went on some of these same trips, and he would probably spent double his allowance. But, his choice. I would sit at the same tables with him, eating food at least as good, and spend maybe 25% of what he would spend.

Faculty-wise, they're the same way. Some are quite prudent, others are more liberal in their spend. They get reimbursed the same way, and its generous. For me, I only claim per diem at a level representative of what I spend, everyone else (literally) claims full p.d. (which is fine). It's when people want to do things like take their families, but have us pay for a suite instead of a single room, etc., that rejections occur.

As noted, there are many considerations that must be made to come to a reasonable conclusion regarding exceptions. It gets fairly obvious when someone is trying to get us to buy their farm, and it is a little shocking the justifications that people will come up with, completely straight-faced, that are just so ridiculous.

driver100

Went to lunch with friends. They have a 2014 Dodge Caravan that has 70k miles on it. Needed some repairs, the main one was the media center including back up camera, gps, radio etc. stopped working....total repair bill was $3400. While at the dealer they decided to buy a new Pacifica which they pick up today. They were thinking of trading in the van a few months ago...now they wish they did. They want a new one with a warranty. They have owned several Chrysler vans before, with no major problems.

I think considering the repair bill, I would have looked into getting an Odyssey this time around.

xwesx

driver100 said:

Went to lunch with friends. They have a 2014 Dodge Caravan that has 70k miles on it. Needed some repairs, the main one was the media center including back up camera, gps, radio etc. stopped working....total repair bill was $3400. While at the dealer they decided to buy a new Pacifica which they pick up today. They were thinking of trading in the van a few months ago...now they wish they did. They want a new one with a warranty. They have owned several Chrysler vans before, with no major problems.

I think considering the repair bill, I would have looked into getting an Odyssey this time around.

Sounds like they should have bought the new vehicle *before* repairing the old one instead of immediately after (or during?). Are they keeping it?

stickguy

yeah, trade it in broken and save some money.

The new Odysseys apparently have had some teething pains too, largely involving the same areas (media/infotainment),

henryn

Hmmm.... I think I would have been scrounging around the junk yards. $3,400 is a lot of money. Worst case, go aftermarket, get a new head unit with Nav / XM radio / backup display installed by a competent shop for less than half of that.

henryn

driver100 said:

I think considering the repair bill, I would have looked into getting an Odyssey this time around.

Well, the Odyssey doesn't have the stow-and-go seats. Main reason I have the T&C instead of the Odyssey.

Well, that and the fact that the T&C depreciated much worse, so that a year old T&C was about $7 or $8k cheaper than a year old Odyssey. When the new ones cost very similar amounts.