Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations

driver100

I was trying to find out how many people buy a car based on the monthly payment. I believe it is pretty high.

I did find out you should only spend 8% of your income to finance a car. I also read that 36 months is probably the best length of time to keep from going upside down on your depreciating vehicle. Some loans are for 60, 72 or 84 month now.

And this was kind of interesting:
Sometimes less-expensive cars can actually cost more over time than a car with a higher sticker price.

Compare, for instance, the Honda Civic LX four-door sedan, priced at $16,155, and the Hyundai Elantra GLS, which costs $14,101. Say you're making a 15 percent down payment and taking out a 60-month loan at 5.76 percent. According to automotive data provider Intellichoice, the Honda will cost $3,116 less to own after a five-year period than the Hyundai because it doesn't depreciate as quickly, and its insurance, fuel and maintenance costs are less.

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

About the "book" - to avoid complaints from other members about soliciting, my suggestion would be for Snake to add info to his profile in the "More about me" section.

I was just thinking, maybe we should just go to amazon and look at books by the author "Snakeweasel"

Sorry but a search of "Snakeweasel" on Amazon yields nothing (kind-of dissapointed in that). But I took the advice of adding the link in my profile.

Plus I could leave this link if the Mods are OK with it.

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

I did a print on demand book last year and I highly recommend it. But yes, you have to put a lot of effort into marketing. If you want to reprint an older book, or convert it to digital format, you don't have to destroy the book. There is a process called non-destructive scanning and it's very reasonable.

Self published E Books have opened the door to make it possible for anyone to "publish" a book, at least electronic book. Just before that there was vanity publishing. You would pay a company a few $1000s to print a book for you, and they would do minimal marketing.

To make a book take off you would have to sell it somehow, get it into a chain store, or a number of bookstores to show a record of sales, or try to get some publicity on radio, TV or in the newspaper.

A few E-books have actually caught on and have become million sellers, and the author has been picked up by a major publishing house.

Becoming an author who can live off their publishing has about the same odds as becoming a famous pop singer. Not great but if you have an idea or an idea for book you might as well go for it....you never know.

That was my thought about it, it might not go far but at least you can't say I didn't try. A few people have bought the book so at least I have that going for me.

snakeweasel

Mr_Shiftright said:

I make about $250 a month from it now. Some months it hit $400. More like a local garage band than a rock star. But still, I don't have to do anything. It just gets deposited to my account every month. I think in the past 18 months, I've recouped my investment maybe 4-5 times over. I did put a lot of juice into "free" marketing however. It pays to do that.

The trick is to have half a dozen books out there on Amazon.

I do have a few more ideas for stories, if I can I might kick out two or three more books then offer Barnes and Noble one for their free book they give away each Friday. But that would take a few years at least to do.

ab348

abacomike said:

Better, thanks for asking.  I just feel a bit stressed out and tired since I can't sleep.  That will change when I get back to my home environs.  Just unsure about what my future is going to be.  Frustrating because of all these added medical problems loaded on top of what I am going through with the hep C drugs.

I was thinking about you and that situation last night Mike, as I lay in bed before falling asleep. Although I am younger than you, our situation has some similarities in that I believe we both live alone (I know I do!) and have had some health issues. I remember when I came home from the hospital after my surgery - admittedly a bit more serious a situation - I depended upon my brothers and sister to take care of me for weeks. If not for that I would have needed a home care assistant. Maybe that would be worth considering in your case?

ab348

Mr_Shiftright said:

I make about $250 a month from it now. Some months it hit $400. More like a local garage band than a rock star. But still, I don't have to do anything. It just gets deposited to my account every month. I think in the past 18 months, I've recouped my investment maybe 4-5 times over. I did put a lot of juice into "free" marketing however. It pays to do that.

The trick is to have half a dozen books out there on Amazon.

Shifty, how would one find your books on Amazon {hint hint}?

snakeweasel

abacomike said:

Just got clearance from my cardiologist to be discharged after an echocardiogram is done sometime today to doublecheck everything.

Now I am waiting to be seen by an internist and hematologist for my blood clot.  They put me on several new meds which are supposed to control that DVT.  So I am hoping to be able to go home perhaps tomorrow.  

Cardiologist said I was lucky he was at the hospital when I came in by ambulance so they could perform the emergency catheterization and placement of the stent to open up the right coronary artery before more serious damage could be done by lack of blood supply.

Let me say that I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone except Adolph Hitler if he was still around,  

Good to see you are doing OK, glad you will be home soon. Take good care of yourself.

carnaught

Mike, if you end up with temporary home health assistance, hide your valuables. I've heard horror stories about it.

stickguy

one problem with doing a LT cost analysis is that a lot of people can't handle the monthly nut. not to mention they don't think about resale down the line!

you could probably make a case that it is "free" to own a few cars (the right Ferrari maybe?) if it didn't depreciate, except you would have to be able to handle the $3,000/month payments!

abacomike

carnaught said:

Mike, if you end up with temporary home health assistance, hide your valuables. I've heard horror stories about it.

I don't think I'll have anyone.  Doc was just in and I am discharged as soon as I see one more doctor.  Will post when I know what's going on.

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

I was trying to find out how many people buy a car based on the monthly payment. I believe it is pretty high.

I believe it is very high especially considering that the average car costs 50% or more than the average yearly household income. Face it, the average household would find it difficult to save enough money to pay cash for a reliable car. Also it is wise to look at what the monthly payment would be so you know that you can afford it.

Also negotiating the monthly payment isn't bad as long as you know what you are doing and don't fall into any traps. Basically your monthly payment is basically based on 4 things; 1) total out the door price, 2) the down payment. 3.) the interest rate and 4.) the term of the loan. Now you can play around with any of those 4 to get the price down, but if you are firm on what your down payment will be and how long you want the loan to be then all they can do is lower the price or reduce the interest to get the monthly payment down.

If I do this I know what I want to pay (both in a monthly payment and the down payment) and I know what financing I have (or can get) from the bank. From that I can work it backwards to figure out what the price of the car would be. Making a bigger down payment or extending the loan is me giving in to get the payment I want and I would stand firm on that, make them come down in price to reduce the payment.

isellhondas

Mr_Shiftright said:

I make about $250 a month from it now. Some months it hit $400. More like a local garage band than a rock star. But still, I don't have to do anything. It just gets deposited to my account every month. I think in the past 18 months, I've recouped my investment maybe 4-5 times over. I did put a lot of juice into "free" marketing however. It pays to do that.

The trick is to have half a dozen books out there on Amazon.

Mr. S, how many books have you written? I know I've read at least two but that was a long time ago.

carnaught

With leases or cash payment for cars, the bottom line to me is the total it will cost me to drive the car for a set amount of time.

verdugo

Snake, any chance of getting your book in Amazon. I got rid of my Nook a while back and got a Kindle.

The book sounds interesting and I like that genre.

stickguy

Leasing makes sense to start with the payment. That is the was I did it. Same up front payment and terms, so only variable was the payment. I was writing a check for $1,000 regardless. and that made it really easy to figure out if it was a good deal, since I already knew for a particular car what my low ball target was! And once they bit, made no difference to me how they got there.

but I would never shop payment on a buy. That is always done as a grind to a selling price. though it shocked me that my last 2 deals were both leases, but probably not doing another one of them.

sb55

I'll add to the washing machine discussion.
We own a summer cottage rental business (www.treetopsvt.com) so have a lot of laundry at least once a week on changeover day. Most guests bring their own sheets unless we rent them, but we still have bedspreads and blankets. We have 3 machines in total. 2 regular agitator types in the seasonal laundry room and 1 top load high efficiency one in our house. We had a 10 year old Maytag that finally bit the dust. We decided to get the largest one at a reasonable cost, so bought a big Whirlpool 5.3 cubic foot one this summer. What a POS. We had the repair guy here more than once in the 1st month. If you tried to wash 1 bedspread, it would get off balance, drain itself, refill, then try again....and again... and again. You could not redistribute the load and start from where it was. It always refilled and started up from scratch. There was no "spin only" cycle. It could take 4 hours and we'd still end up with a sopping wet 40 lb bedspread that we could spin in the old machines. 2 bedspreads or larger load seemed to work sometimes.
We were lucky that we bought it a Lowes. They were great and suggested that we swap it for a 4.9 cubic foot LG. (.4 cubic foot difference is about a 1" shorter tub) So far, it's been great and seems to work as it should.
Now that winter is here our cleaning season is over. Hooray for that!

stever

driver100 said:

Sometimes less-expensive cars can actually cost more over time than a car with a higher sticker price.

We have it a bit different for the 2015 base models of the Civic and Elantra (both automatics)

The LX for 2015 costs $18,282 (average price paid), Total Cash Price is $19,506.

True Cost To Own over 5 years is $25,873

Elantra SE costs $20,020 (average price paid, Total Cash Price $18,606.

True Cost To Own over 5 years is $25,673

Insurance, maintenance and repair is estimated to be a bit cheaper on the Hyundai in this one example.

graphicguy

Snake...Shifty...would love to read your books. Snake...downloadable?

Appliances....have a Samsung French Door fridge for 4 years. It's been perfect. Same with two HE LG laundry pair that's about 6 years old.

Took wife to airport this a.m. for her China trip. Will be a bachelor for the rest of the holidays.

stickguy

we got new washer and dryer not too long ago. We had the neptunes for a while. We did have the door seal replaced for mold under warranty, but I think that was only problem. Maybe had 1 repair early on one of the pieces (a circuit board?). But overall, they were fine, until the dryer started smoking. At that point, I was not screwing around with an expensive repair. so we replaced.

got HE front load Samsung units (replaced both, even though washer was fine, because it would upset me to no end if they did not match!). Amazing how much better they work. They do a lot more, clean better, dry quicker, etc. And so far (knock wood) no problems. And they place nice tunes when the cycle is over, and have a pretty light show.

got them on a great sale at Lowes. I think it was under $1k for the pair delivered?

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

And this was kind of interesting:
Sometimes less-expensive cars can actually cost more over time than a car with a higher sticker price.

Compare, for instance, the Honda Civic LX four-door sedan, priced at $16,155, and the Hyundai Elantra GLS, which costs $14,101. Say you're making a 15 percent down payment and taking out a 60-month loan at 5.76 percent. According to automotive data provider Intellichoice, the Honda will cost $3,116 less to own after a five-year period than the Hyundai because it doesn't depreciate as quickly, and its insurance, fuel and maintenance costs are less.

I am going to call BS on this one. Presuming that the prices include all taxes, licenses and doc fees you would be putting down $2,417 on the Honda and 2,115 on the Hyundai, you would be paying $263.29 and 230.38 respectively as monthly payments. giving a total of all payments $18,214.65 and $15,938.24 respectively meaning that the Hyundai would be $2,276.41 less in payments.

As for fuel costs the average driver drives 15K miles a year, the EPA figures are 35 MPG for the Honda and 28 for the Hyundai at $2.75 a gallon that would give a total fuel cost at $5,892.86 and $7,366.07 receptively. making the Honda $1,473 cheaper to run, so these two together makes the Hyundai a little more than $800 less expensive (even more so with today's lower gas prices.)

Now lets face it, maintence costs in the first 75,000 miles are not going to be much different between the two cars. It's not like either one is going to need much, if any, work done other than routine maintenance.

So that leaves depreciation and insurance for the Honda being nearly $4,000? I find that a little hard to believe seeing that it is almost 25% of the price of the car.

snakeweasel

stickguy said:

one problem with doing a LT cost analysis is that a lot of people can't handle the monthly nut. not to mention they don't think about resale down the line!

you could probably make a case that it is "free" to own a few cars (the right Ferrari maybe?) if it didn't depreciate, except you would have to be able to handle the $3,000/month payments!

The tricky thing is that resale numbers down the line can be tricky, a few years ago could you have predicted the current resale value for a VW diesel?

Secondly the longer you own a car the less resale value is an issue, after say 200K miles there isn't much difference in the resale value of comparable cars.

stever

Data is data, but there's lots of assumptions to play with. Average miles driven, etc. With TCO you get to play with the zip code, so that may help a bit.

snakeweasel

verdugo said:

Snake, any chance of getting your book in Amazon. I got rid of my Nook a while back and got a Kindle.

The book sounds interesting and I like that genre.

I am trying but the agreement that amazon has with my publishing service means that I have to have $2,000 in sales before I can apply to get on Amazon. However my publishing service has the Kindle format for downloading.

stever

The relations had books on Smashwords. But they did all their self-publishing and put stuff on Amazon themselves.

driver100

snakeweasel said:

driver100 said:

.

I am going to call BS on this one. Presuming that the prices include all taxes, licenses and doc fees you would be putting down $2,417 on the Honda and 2,115 on the Hyundai, you would be paying $263.29 and 230.38 respectively as monthly payments. giving a total of all payments $18,214.65 and $15,938.24 respectively meaning that the Hyundai would be $2,276.41 less in payments.

As for fuel costs the average driver drives 15K miles a year, the EPA figures are 35 MPG for the Honda and 28 for the Hyundai at $2.75 a gallon that would give a total fuel cost at $5,892.86 and $7,366.07 receptively. making the Honda $1,473 cheaper to run, so these two together makes the Hyundai a little more than $800 less expensive (even more so with today's lower gas prices.)

Now lets face it, maintence costs in the first 75,000 miles are not going to be much different between the two cars. It's not like either one is going to need much, if any, work done other than routine maintenance.

So that leaves depreciation and insurance for the Honda being nearly $4,000? I find that a little hard to believe seeing that it is almost 25% of the price of the car.

Stever and Snake, very good analysis and I would tend to agree.

2 things though, I think it could happen that the more expensive car could end up costing less in the long run even if it didn't in this case,

and,

somehow, my brother traded in his 10 year old Honda Civic in 2012, and bought a brand new Hyundai Elantra and paid just $4000 difference - so that must mean something.

Snake, your book is pretty good. I read the free part and it is very well done. Good luck, just remember the little people if you make it big.

stickguy

speaking of VWs, I saw my BIL this weekend, and I asked if my niece (his daughter) finally got the new car I talked with her about in the summer. Turns out, she did. Got a Golf about a week before the crap hit the fan. Yup, got a diesel for the MPG.

though she did already get the 2 $500 cards. So hopefully it all works out in the end. Though I expect they are planning to keep it a real long time, so resale won't be an issue!

maybe should have just gotten a Prius. The SIL has one, and they brought it when they came up (from DC to Philly). BIL said the car reported they got 58 MPG on the trip (no traffic issues, and he does not drive fast).

verdugo

snakeweasel said:

verdugo said:

Snake, any chance of getting your book in Amazon. I got rid of my Nook a while back and got a Kindle.

The book sounds interesting and I like that genre.

I am trying but the agreement that amazon has with my publishing service means that I have to have $2,000 in sales before I can apply to get on Amazon. However my publishing service has the Kindle format for downloading.

Cool. Checking it out now.

abacomike

Well, I can go home, but I do not have 3 or 4 of the new meds they prescribed at home and the hospital does not dispense take-home drugs.  Walgreens is not open here at the hospital this weekend (they fill prescriptions for patients and I buy all my meds at Walgreens).  So if they dischsrge me now, I would need to take a cab home, get dressed, and then drive to the Walgreens I use by the house.  I really do not have the strength to do that and I don't have anyone who can help me who is in town.

So I guess they are figuring out what to do for me.  You would think they would try to make things easier for someone who is recovering from a heart attack.  I hate this hospital - this is the place where my Dad was in June - I don't trust anyone here.

Since I have no control over my destiny at this moment, I will have to do what I can to limit doing any more harm to my health.  

And so my life saga continues through the ages.  

isellhondas

stickguy said:

we got new washer and dryer not too long ago. We had the neptunes for a while. We did have the door seal replaced for mold under warranty, but I think that was only problem. Maybe had 1 repair early on one of the pieces (a circuit board?). But overall, they were fine, until the dryer started smoking. At that point, I was not screwing around with an expensive repair. so we replaced.

got HE front load Samsung units (replaced both, even though washer was fine, because it would upset me to no end if they did not match!). Amazing how much better they work. They do a lot more, clean better, dry quicker, etc. And so far (knock wood) no problems. And they place nice tunes when the cycle is over, and have a pretty light show.

got them on a great sale at Lowes. I think it was under $1k for the pair delivered?

Our son recentlyu bought his first house and the appliances were pretty shot so he went to Best Buy and got a great deal on all Samsung stuff. I'm not going to mention to him what our repair guy said.

He said the first time his dryer funished it's cycle, it played a little tune. He looked out the window expecting to see an ice cream truck!

carnaught

Mike, see if your nurse or social services can have your scripts called or sent via computer to your Walgreen's so they'll be waiting for you if you go by cab, or drive there yourself. This scenario on a Sunday can't be that rare, so they must have options for those who must have their Rx's in a timely manner upon discharge. You can't go home without them being available, so the only other option would be for you to stay until tomorrow. The WH, I'm sure would rather have you go home today (LOL).

I know you have bad memories at the hospital you're at, cause of your dad, but it sounds like they were efficient and effective when they needed to be, when you first arrived there.

graphicguy

My gas and electric provider sends a monthly assessment regarding how much power I use compared to the most efficient homes in my area. New HE HVAC, new efficient appliances and new qlass (just the glass and seals, not the entire window) in half my windows over the last 5 years, and now I have the most efficient house in my area. Probably save $1,000/year over what I was paying for energy 5 years ago.

Craig...the LGs do play a tune when finished. We don't forget to check our laundry.

PF_Flyer

Our power company sends us similar mailings trying to sell us on a program to "save" us money. Yea, right. Ours is the about the only house in the neighborhood that doesn't have central air, yet somehow their graph always shows how much more energy we use than our neighbors. It might be more believable if I couldn't read or notice that their figure for showing how BAD we are is significantly higher than the readings on my actual bill.
We also get mailings trying to sell us an "outside power line" maintenance policy. You know, those power lines that come to the house that the power company is responsible for maintaining??
They certainly seem to believe that old PT was right

driver100

graphicguy said:

My gas and electric provider sends a monthly assessment regarding how much power I use compared to the most efficient homes in my area. New HE HVAC, new efficient appliances and new qlass (just the glass and seals, not the entire window) in half my windows over the last 5 years, and now I have the most efficient house in my area. Probably save $1,000/year over what I was paying for energy 5 years ago.

Craig...the LGs do play a tune when finished. We don't forget to check our laundry.

Back home people are using less energy...gas and electric, so they are talking about raising the rates because they aren't amking as much on energy usage as they used to.

That will happen in more places, as people use more solar they will up the price for the electricity and water you do use.......you can't escape.

PF_Flyer

And don't forget, the folks who think we should all have EV's also think that all that at-home charging is going to have no effect on electric rates.

graphicguy

driver100 said:

graphicguy said:

My gas and electric provider sends a monthly assessment regarding how much power I use compared to the most efficient homes in my area. New HE HVAC, new efficient appliances and new qlass (just the glass and seals, not the entire window) in half my windows over the last 5 years, and now I have the most efficient house in my area. Probably save $1,000/year over what I was paying for energy 5 years ago.

Craig...the LGs do play a tune when finished. We don't forget to check our laundry.

Back home people are using less energy...gas and electric, so they are talking about raising the rates because they aren't amking as much on energy usage as they used to.

That will happen in more places, as people use more solar they will up the price for the electricity and water you do use.......you can't escape.

Driver...I heard the same about water in California. Citizens conserved so much that the water utility is looking to charge some sort of tax/suppliment because of the money they lost by selling so little water.

Craziness!

graphicguy

PF_Flyer said:

And don't forget, the folks who think we should all have EV's also think that all that at-home charging is going to have no effect on electric rates.

Yeah..just trading the cost of gas for the cost of electricity.

ab348

driver100 said:

Back home people are using less energy...gas and electric, so they are talking about raising the rates because they aren't amking as much on energy usage as they used to.

That will happen in more places, as people use more solar they will up the price for the electricity and water you do use.......you can't escape.

Here in Nova Scotia the previous "progressive" (left-wing) government had an ambitious program to generate 40% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020. To do that they encouraged people to build windmills, do home solar, etc and established a rate for selling that back to the power monopoly that was a lot higher than what the utility would spend if it was generating power itself. Rates charged on a power bill, of course, went up. They ended up getting more of those little renewable sources built than they needed, so the new government here discontinued the program. But power rates are unlikely to ever go down much here. The majority of or power comes from coal and oil, and even with the decline in oil prices, it will only result in something like a 3% reduction this coming year.

qbrozen

driver100 said:

I did find out you should only spend 8% of your income to finance a car.

Huh. Whaddya know? I meet that number exactly when I total the 3 car payments.

stever

Easy fix is just to go off the grid. If Elon could just figure out the batteries, we'd be there and all those widows relying on the utility dividends would be hurting.

I'm not quite willing to give up my dishwasher and microwave like our off-grid friends up in Taos, but other than a lot of manipulation of the window blinds, their lifestyle isn't much different from ours. Water catchment on the roof with cistern storage, panels for the frig and computers, water pump, washer, septic. Only real energy they pay for "monthly" is some propane for the on-demand tankless water heater and the stove.

I linked to a news article in some other discussion today about how car dealers are trying to steer potential buyers away from EVs. Some is legit - pointing out range anxiety issues. But a lot of it is worry about losing their service profit center. No oil changes or wallet flushes.

driver100

"

stever">

I linked to a news article in some other discussion today about how car dealers are trying to steer potential buyers away from EVs.

If everyone in a neighborhood got an EV, there would be huge brownouts or even blackouts, as the power companies couldn't supply the demand.

stever

Ergo my off-grid and battery backup comment. The grid is just one big target that's gotten too expensive to maintain.

(The utility grid, not the Interstate system)

imidazol97

stever said:

... No more oil changes or wallet flushes.

My laugh for the day. Good one.

verdugo

graphicguy said:

Driver...I heard the same about water in California. Citizens conserved so much that the water utility is looking to charge some sort of tax/suppliment because of the money they lost by selling so little water.

Craziness!

I've NEVER heard that and I live in California.

abacomike

verdugo said:

Driver...I heard the same about water in California. Citizens conserved so much that the water utility is looking to charge some sort of tax/suppliment because of the money they lost by selling so little water. Craziness!

I've NEVER heard that and I live in California.  

Maybe you think you live in CA, but it's possible you don't live there anymore - the last earthquake may have made your new State of residence ARIZONA!  

PF_Flyer

Even ignoring supply and demand, and the practicality of EV's...I'll use our 40 mpg Versa Note and current $2.29 at the pump, Nissan Leaf 100 mile range spec on a 30 kWh battery and 12 cents per kWh (avg power rate) as an example.

At the moment, I am willing to pay 5.725 cents per mile for fuel for the Note

The Leaf would cost me $3.60 to charge, so 3.6 cents per mile

Since we, the consumers, are willing to pay about 6 cents per mile for fuel to travel, why would we NOT expect the cost of a replacement fuel to start to approach that number?

It's like closet or hard drive space. If you have it, you WILL use it.

Oh yea, the Leaf only costs twice what my Note cost, so I guess the 800,000 miles to break even on the 2 cent difference in fuel savings to break even will fly by

graphicguy

verdugo said:

graphicguy said:

Driver...I heard the same about water in California. Citizens conserved so much that the water utility is looking to charge some sort of tax/suppliment because of the money they lost by selling so little water.

Craziness!

I've NEVER heard that and I live in California.

Verdugo....I don't live in CA. I heard it from business colleagues that live in and around L.A. Maybe a regional thing in CA?

berri

Aba - sorry to hear about your medical issues mounting up. But it sounds like everyone has a handle on it for now. On a positive note, often people with heart issues start having some cognitive issues, but your posts remain clear and level headed. That's a real good sign I think. Hang in there.

houdini1

stever said:

Easy fix is just to go off the grid. If Elon could just figure out the batteries, we'd be there and all those widows relying on the utility dividends would be hurting.

I'm not quite willing to give up my dishwasher and microwave like our off-grid friends up in Taos, but other than a lot of manipulation of the window blinds, their lifestyle isn't much different from ours. Water catchment on the roof with cistern storage, panels for the frig and computers, water pump, washer, septic. Only real energy they pay for "monthly" is some propane for the on-demand tankless water heater and the stove.

I linked to a news article in some other discussion today about how car dealers are trying to steer potential buyers away from EVs. Some is legit - pointing out range anxiety issues. But a lot of it is worry about losing their service profit center. No oil changes or wallet flushes.

Are your friends insane, broke, out of work and needy, expecting the apocalypse, extremely tight, or just doing this on principle?

berri

That was an interesting write up about demographics and car dealers. I wonder if the geographic part of the country comes into play regarding pricing as well? It seems to me that prices in the west are often higher than the Midwest, and when I lived in Florida all the dealer packs and the like seemed to up prices there too. In fact, I was looking at a Seattle newspaper the other day and Toyota Camry's were a good grand or more over what is advertised in Chicago.

berri

We bought one of the early Whirlpool Cabrio top loader HE washers. It was new technology, so even though I usually don't buy extended warranties, the price on it and the newness caused me to get one. Good thing. That thing had a bunch of problems and after a year and a half Best Buy actually replaced it for me free under that warranty. The newer one has been much more reliable. I always heard the mold and odor issue was more related to front loaders. I also think newer appliances have the issue of Chinese parts in them which probably doesn't help their durability and lifespan. A year or so ago we bought a new Whirlpool refrigerator. The guy installing it said to expect ice maker and compressor problems in 7 or 8 years - they are from China on that model.