Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)

imidazol97

Who gets the ticket when the car is driverless?
Does someone have to sign the ticket before the officer will
release the car as is required in some cases with drivers who
have been stopped?
LOL

tjc78

Saw my first Cybertruck out in the wild. Parked right behind it.

It’s just so outlandish. Looks worse in person IMO.

fintail

tjc78 said:

Saw my first Cybertruck out in the wild. Parked right behind it.

It’s just so outlandish. Looks worse in person IMO.

I know the bustleback Seville got snarked at by some as they thought the profile resembled a garbage truck. There's a very dumpster-y profile of the CT when viewed from behind. At least the world is being fair, probably even more are snarking at this thing than the Seville and Pacer combined.

suydam

And yet they are selling well. They must be very practical.

andres3

imidazol97 said:

Who gets the ticket when the car is driverless?
Does someone have to sign the ticket before the officer will
release the car as is required in some cases with drivers who
have been stopped?
LOL

If any States open a loophole I'm buying and will jump in the back seat after quickly turning on FSD when pulled over by the revenue collectors.

carnaught

Nextdoor neighbor just got a Cybertruck. The outside is ugly but the interior, although minimalist, is quite nice. It is padded heavily, roomy and quiet. Both the size and the angle of the front windshield is scarey. The center screen is huge, at least 4k, and the control screen and camera resolution are as good or better than my OLED television. When floored, the torque is unreal. When you do the "light show" the vehicle literally puts on its own show.

My conclusion - I could never see owning one.

tjc78

My conclusion - I could never see owning one

I drive a lime green golf cart all summer … I’m not afraid of a loud vehicle. I would never own one either.

fintail

suydam said:

And yet they are selling well. They must be very practical.

Selling well compared to other EV pickups? Probably - still in the honeymoon/fad/social media showoff period, and there's quite a cult behind them. Practical, haven't seen that one yet.

carnaught

carnaught said:

Nextdoor neighbor just got a Cybertruck. The outside is ugly but the interior, although minimalist, is quite nice. It is padded heavily, roomy and quiet. Both the size and the angle of the front windshield is scarey. The center screen is huge, at least 4k, and the control screen and camera resolution are as good or better than my OLED television. When floored, the torque is unreal. When you do the "light show" the vehicle literally puts on its own show.

My conclusion - I could never see owning one.

Seeing one on the road it was bigger than I expected, very large actually. The turning ratio is the tightest I've ever experienced, quite impressive.

corvette

Installed the dashcam on the electric Talltima. The front floor mat goes across the full width of the interior (the center console doesn't run all the way to the dash), so that part of the USB cable's run just went under the full-width floor mat. The A-pillar trim was easy to pop off, and it was easy to snake the cable under the headliner. The 12V plug in the console is only live when the car is powered on, so it was easy to connect there. (Sorry to those taking a shot every time I said "easy.")

jmonroe1

corvette said:

Installed the dashcam on the electric Talltima. The front floor mat goes across the full width of the interior (the center console doesn't run all the way to the dash), so that part of the USB cable's run just went under the full-width floor mat. The A-pillar trim was easy to pop off, and it was easy to snake the cable under the headliner. The 12V plug in the console is only live when the car is powered on, so it was easy to connect there. (Sorry to those taking a shot every time I said "easy.")

————————————————
I’ve never installed a dashcam (front or rear) but I’d think it would be easier to install the wiring for a rear dashcam by running the wires under the carpet than fishing the wiring above the headliner. What am I missing?

jmonroe

stickguy

The dash cam is it the top of the window so the wire has to get up there somehow. So under the headliner it goes!

oldfarmer50

I got a pleasant surprise when I was out this morning. I noticed the truck was now getting 18 mpg instead of the 16.5 when I bought it. Maybe the previous owner didn’t drive it aggressively enough and got it carboned up.

18 isn’t exactly earth shattering but at least it’s going in the right direction.

qbrozen

@suydam said:
And yet they are selling well. They must be very practical.

That’s the Musk magic. Promise the moon for years, and by the time you hand them a rock and call it the moon, they’ll take it because they have been drooling so long. The embodiment of PT Barnum.

I have a feeling this will wear off much faster than it did for models of the past.

suydam

qbrozen said:

@suydam said:

And yet they are selling well. They must be very practical.

That’s the Musk magic. Promise the moon for years, and by the time you hand them a rock and call it the moon, they’ll take it because they have been drooling so long. The embodiment of PT Barnum.

I have a feeling this will wear off much faster than it did for models of the past.

— Not so sure about that. There are a lot of very happy Tesla owners where we live. They aren’t for me, because I need a more comfortable vehicle, but to each his/her own. I think Tesla’s main problem is that they haven’t updated their models in ages, and they seem somewhat dated now if you’re in the market for a new vehicle.

jmonroe1

stickguy said:

The dash cam is it the top of the window so the wire has to get up there somehow. So under the headliner it goes!

————————————————
I was thinking that was the case but most of the rear dashcams I’ve seen are mounted on the rear deck and to be honest they look like after market jobs.

I’d like to see a pic showing how it’s mounted at the top of the window. I envision several different mounting options provided and you pick the one that best suits your car unless you get one made specifically for your car. I’d also like to see how car manufacturers mount them at the factory.

There was a day when I would have probably bought and installed those but I don’t like to bend my body any more than I have to these days.

jmonroe

oldfarmer50

I’m wondering if these guys would take on finishing qbrozen’s Coronet?

https://youtu.be/t8PrrDJDauY?si=C84PqPG7LmzLrLhS

andres3

jmonroe1 said:

stickguy said:

The dash cam is it the top of the window so the wire has to get up there somehow. So under the headliner it goes!

————————————————
I was thinking that was the case but most of the rear dashcams I’ve seen are mounted on the rear deck and to be honest they look like after market jobs.

I’d like to see a pic showing how it’s mounted at the top of the window. I envision several different mounting options provided and you pick the one that best suits your car unless you get one made specifically for your car. I’d also like to see how car manufacturers mount them at the factory.

There was a day when I would have probably bought and installed those but I don’t like to bend my body any more than I have to these days.

jmonroe

Want to install the Bavsound speaker replacement sound system in the X3 for me? Supposed to be easy peasy.

PUNCH to report, finally went to the darkside.

The Toyota dealership played hardball and it went into extra innings with the family leaving and we all going to dinner; got a call that the GM/Sales Manager would finally meet my number while waiting on our orders, and rather than "split the last thousand difference," here we are where I got my good number. A little research goes a long way as they tried for a long time to budge me off my number, but I held fast knowing I felt I had hit a bullseye the more and more I looked at it. Late night paperwork last night. Also got a lower cost extended warranty for 5 years, yes 5 years!!!! Late on a Friday night it seemed like the Finance manager didn't want to grind also, and just simply offered up his best take it or leave it proposal knowing I was interested and have a vague idea what its value might be. It helps to haggle on a commodity that BMW has sold like hot cakes, and for good reason, they have a good potion and concoction here with the X3 M40i. I'd still say the main weakness is still interior and comfort, which is nice enough, but who buys a BMW for that? Also, I've been comparing it to one of the finest interiors ever made in the Macan. It's not just great materials though, the seats in the Macan were more comfy while still being sporty; they simply have much better ergonomic engineering into them; especially for tall people. I might want to weld a Macan seat into the X3,

Bavsound is on order...they say it's simple plug n' play but I think I'll still hire the "guy" for it. I don't like messing with automotive trim pieces.

2021 X3 m40i 64,500 miles, white, beige interior, heads up display, full tank of gas, new Nitto NT555 tires which for San Diego weather.... I'm not gonna complain.

Michaell

@andres3 - congrats!

suydam

Congrats! What is it with Toyota these days? They act like their cars are made of gold bars.

andres3

suydam said:

Congrats! What is it with Toyota these days? They act like their cars are made of gold bars.

Here, I think the crux of the differences is they were stuck on a 2021 model that's only technically 3-4 years old and I was stuck on it having nearly 65K miles that they didn't want to acknowledge the depreciation for. Got burned on a somewhat older low mileage used car last time, so this time did the opposite, newer but with higher miles. Regardless... extended warranty service contract.

jmonroe1

suydam said:

Congrats! What is it with Toyota these days? They act like their cars are made of gold bars.

————————————————
It’s not just today, Toyota has always been like that and Honda is even worse. Explains why I’ve never owned either and probably never will.

jmonroe

laurasdada

Congrats, Andres!
Welcome to the propellor team. Currently 3 of 4 cars in our driveway are of the Motoren Werke variety, visiting son-in-law Turo'd an i4 M50. Delivered with 3% charge... morons.

xwesx

Congrats, @andres3 ! I don't mean this in a bad way.... that X3 looks a whole lot like my SH Forester except with different bumper fascia up front.

greg128

Michaell said:

@andres3 - congrats!

very nice especially with almost 400HP and also in my favorite color

jmonroe1

@andres3, congrats on the new ride and good luck with it. Let us know how you like it on the track.

jmonroe

jmonroe1

greg128 said:

Michaell said:

@andres3 - congrats!

very nice especially with almost 400HP and also in my favorite color

————————————————
Is white a color or just a a prep coat?

jmonroe

andres3

Here's the interior; which doesn't contribute to the gray scale conspiracy like the white does:

Michaell

This replaced the S4? Gotta update your signature…

andres3

xwesx said:

Congrats, @andres3 ! I don't mean this in a bad way.... that X3 looks a whole lot like my SH Forester except with different bumper fascia up front.

It's a medium SUV to me; reminds me of a rental X5 from back in the day I had an experience with. It sits pretty high, but the suspension does seem to do the BMW magic regardless of that. It's no lightweight, but this drivetrain is the culmination of many years of BMW's R&D on inline 6 cylinder engines and perfecting the ZF8 tuning to where it's 9/10ths, maybe 9.5/10ths the dual clutch transmissions out there (in sport dynamic mode they even put some crackle and pops into the exhaust note).

I also appreciate the seat colored belts.... that's a NECESSARY thing and not all Porsche buyers check that box even when getting different colored seats.

andres3

Paging @roadburner and any other BMW Genius' to come down to San Diego and show me what all the buttons and menus do on BMW's. I'm a Bimmer noob. At least I didn't call it a V6.

andres3

Michaell said:

This replaced the S4? Gotta update your signature…

Ultimately - here's the plan.

Fix the Tiguan in the body shop immediately (anywhere from 1 week to a month).

Tiguan back up and running - Sell the S4.

While Tiguan's in the shop, Wife will drive the fully insured S4. I'll be driving the BMW daily. TTS will remain the fun/track/weekend canyon carver (which is schedule for the shop this upcoming week to put in a DSG RacingLine Oil Cooler upgrade, and a new water pump/thermostat housing to stop the slow coolant leak (they said this might take more than 1 day). Tiguan also needs new rear brakes, but that's cheap at my preferred shop, and my wife is finally seeing the value of my preferred shop as compared to other shops.

I can't see my shop returning a car with "moisture/water in the connectors" in a million years, as the VW dealership did....

Michaell

andres3 said:

Michaell said:

This replaced the S4? Gotta update your signature…

Ultimately - here's the plan.

Fix the Tiguan in the body shop immediately (anywhere from 1 week to a month).

Tiguan back up and running - Sell the S4.

While Tiguan's in the shop, Wife will drive the fully insured S4. I'll be driving the BMW daily. TTS will remain the fun/track/weekend canyon carver.

Still gotta add the new ride to the signature ....

I think the white BMW SUV (sorry, SAV) will be less conspicuous than a red Audi S4 to CHP on I-15.

andres3

Michaell said:

andres3 said:

Michaell said:

This replaced the S4? Gotta update your signature…

Ultimately - here's the plan.

Fix the Tiguan in the body shop immediately (anywhere from 1 week to a month).

Tiguan back up and running - Sell the S4.

While Tiguan's in the shop, Wife will drive the fully insured S4. I'll be driving the BMW daily. TTS will remain the fun/track/weekend canyon carver.

Still gotta add the new ride to the signature ....

I think the white BMW SUV (sorry, SAV) will be less conspicuous than a red Audi S4 to CHP on I-15.

The S4 is lower and flies under the radar

nyccarguy

@andres3 - congrats on the X3. While the X3 itself is quite ubiquitous, there are far fewer of the ///M40i variants on the road. Enjoy!

stickguy

My son test drove a 340 X3 last year when he was shopping. He did like it a lot but the power actually scared him a little. And he was driving an S4 at the time!

roadburner

andres3 said:

Paging @roadburner and any other BMW Genius' to come down to San Diego and show me what all the buttons and menus do on BMW's. I'm a Bimmer noob. At least I didn't call it a V6.

I don't know about San Diego, but when I worked at BMW I would help anyone who drove up. If someone wanted a full-length training session I may have needed to schedule an appointment, but I never turned a Bimmer owner down.

roadburner

One of our friends' sons was getting married today so it was a quick one hour drive down I-64. No left lane campers and most everyone was driving 85+. I let a Velocity Yellow C6 be the rabbit as it definitely attracted more attention than my old man gray C43. In any case, we arrived about seven minutes sooner than the navigation system had predicted. On the way back I had a bit of a play with an older GT-R. I passed him on the right and about a minute later he went flying past me. I couldn't keep up with him but I stayed closer than I -and possibly he- expected, but then I also backed off at 90 mph.
I must be getting old.

jmonroe1

roadburner said:

One of our friends' sons was getting married today so it was a quick one hour drive down I-64. No left lane campers and most everyone was driving 85+. I let a Velocity Yellow C6 be the rabbit as it definitely attracted more attention than my old man gray C43. In any case, we arrived about seven minutes sooner than the navigation system had predicted. On the way back I had a bit of a play with an older GT-R. I passed him on the right and about a minute later he went flying past me. I couldn't keep up with him but I stayed closer than I -and possibly he- expected, but then I also backed off at 90 mph.
I must be getting old.

————————————————-
Admitting getting old is a sad thing. I chose to say, “I’m getting older, that way I’m only admitting I’m human. I feel better doing it my way.

jmonroe

28firefighter

Congrats, @andres3 ! So tell us, what was the magic price they acquiesced to?

oldfarmer50

andres3 said:

jmonroe1 said:

stickguy said:

The dash cam is it the top of the window so the wire has to get up there somehow. So under the headliner it goes!

————————————————
I was thinking that was the case but most of the rear dashcams I’ve seen are mounted on the rear deck and to be honest they look like after market jobs.

I’d like to see a pic showing how it’s mounted at the top of the window. I envision several different mounting options provided and you pick the one that best suits your car unless you get one made specifically for your car. I’d also like to see how car manufacturers mount them at the factory.

There was a day when I would have probably bought and installed those but I don’t like to bend my body any more than I have to these days.

jmonroe

Want to install the Bavsound speaker replacement sound system in the X3 for me? Supposed to be easy peasy.

PUNCH to report, finally went to the darkside.

The Toyota dealership played hardball and it went into extra innings with the family leaving and we all going to dinner; got a call that the GM/Sales Manager would finally meet my number while waiting on our orders, and rather than "split the last thousand difference," here we are where I got my good number. A little research goes a long way as they tried for a long time to budge me off my number, but I held fast knowing I felt I had hit a bullseye the more and more I looked at it. Late night paperwork last night. Also got a lower cost extended warranty for 5 years, yes 5 years!!!! Late on a Friday night it seemed like the Finance manager didn't want to grind also, and just simply offered up his best take it or leave it proposal knowing I was interested and have a vague idea what its value might be. It helps to haggle on a commodity that BMW has sold like hot cakes, and for good reason, they have a good potion and concoction here with the X3 M40i. I'd still say the main weakness is still interior and comfort, which is nice enough, but who buys a BMW for that? Also, I've been comparing it to one of the finest interiors ever made in the Macan. It's not just great materials though, the seats in the Macan were more comfy while still being sporty; they simply have much better ergonomic engineering into them; especially for tall people. I might want to weld a Macan seat into the X3,

Bavsound is on order...they say it's simple plug n' play but I think I'll still hire the "guy" for it. I don't like messing with automotive trim pieces.

2021 X3 m40i 64,500 miles, white, beige interior, heads up display, full tank of gas, new Nitto NT555 tires which for San Diego weather.... I'm not gonna complain.

Nice car, BMW does white very well.

oldfarmer50

suydam said:

Congrats! What is it with Toyota these days? They act like their cars are made of gold bars.

I heard that Toyota itself is limiting production so they can Jack customers for higher prices but since this wasn’t a Toyota product I’d say they were just used to calling the shots from the old days and refuse to accept today’s reality. I certainly experienced this myself at the Honda dealer.

kyfdx

I'll guess Toyota builds as many cars as they can sell.

sda

While talking about BMWs, any feedback on the 530i, or 530i x-drive? The 2021s seem to be a good value and have received good reviews. I know they don’t drive as crisply as previous versions. My wife brought up the possibility we will need to replace the TL sometime soon and asked me to be ‘prepared’. The idea is to give the Passat to my daughter and a buy a car for me.

qbrozen

@andres3 , congrats.

so you got a BMW extended warranty from a Toyota dealer? Assuming this is a 3rd-party warranty, who is it with?

roadburner

@sda said:
While talking about BMWs, any feedback on the 530i, or 530i x-drive? The 2021s seem to be a good value and have received good reviews. I know they don’t drive as crisply as previous versions. My wife brought up the possibility we will need to replace the TL sometime soon and asked me to be ‘prepared’. The idea is to give the Passat to my daughter and a buy a car for me.

Get an M Sport and make sure that it has the M Sport suspension. It’s a decent car with the proper suspension calibration. Otherwise it’s a terribly anodyne experience.

Michaell

roadburner said:

@sda said:

While talking about BMWs, any feedback on the 530i, or 530i x-drive? The 2021s seem to be a good value and have received good reviews. I know they don’t drive as crisply as previous versions. My wife brought up the possibility we will need to replace the TL sometime soon and asked me to be ‘prepared’. The idea is to give the Passat to my daughter and a buy a car for me.

Get an M Sport and make sure that it has the M Sport suspension. It’s a decent car with the proper suspension calibration. Otherwise it’s a terribly anodyne experience.

Can one get the M Sport suspension on the 530e xDrive?

28firefighter

Yep, I believe so. It’s usually a separate option from the appearance bits.

ronsteve

oldfarmer50 said:

suydam said:

Congrats! What is it with Toyota these days? They act like their cars are made of gold bars.

I heard that Toyota itself is limiting production so they can Jack customers for higher prices but since this wasn’t a Toyota product I’d say they were just used to calling the shots from the old days and refuse to accept today’s reality. I certainly experienced this myself at the Honda dealer.

I remember the stories of dealer markups from Honda and even Toyota advertising fees from back in the day. Then again, when I bought my Accord in '02, I got it 1500 under invoice (which I know was exactly what the dealer incentive was).

Sandman6472

Surprised the 2019 VW Tiguan needs rear brakes already. How many miles are on the car now? I'll be hitting 77K this week and I've yet to have any of the brakes replaced yet. I've asked my mechanic a few times to please check both fronts and rears and he comes back with no need to change them yet. I do have the brake fluid changed out when the manual says to as since I plan to keep it for awhile longer, don't mind doing the necessary maintenance. Luckily, I don't drive that much anymore so find it's cheap insurance to having to buy something new.

Still debating about if I should re-tint the windows or not. Stopped by a local shop just to see what their tints look like as I don't want as dark as we had last time. They were on the high side though guessing they were slow as he pushed a bit for me to come back that afternoon. But I'm still on the fence here so decided to just wait a bit longer.