Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)
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Nope, no new house on the horizon (thank goodness) and as for the pony, well, he'll come home eventually, he's already pretty much a done deal. Good guess though, lol, never know what I'm up to. :P
Howd I do on my guessing?
Mark
Howd I do on my guessing?
Well, you are close (I'm impressed). We are selling our 18' car hauler trailer, BUT, we purchased a 12' 14k lb GVWR dump trailer. That way, we load it, pull up to someone's house, get out and push a button.......*POOF* its unloaded. We've been wanting to get one for a long time, but there wasn't a heavy duty enough one out.
Yesterday we stopped by our favorite trailer dealer and the owner came out of her office and told us about the new trailers she just got in. We thought about it overnight and went back today to buy it. Dern thing weighs 3820 lbs by itself, our 18' car hauler trailer only weighs 2600 lbs empty.
I'll pick it up on Thursday with the Titan, plus I am taking our 18' trailer up to be put on consignment at the trailer dealer. She said it should sell quickly and we should see an easy $3k for it. Not too bad considering its 2 years old and we paid $4195 for it.........it don't owe us anything, its hauled enough firewood to pay for itself 2 or 3 times over.
Which is why I was at the Ford dealer at lunch today test driving a Fusion SE V6. It was dark red with the camel cloth interior. ABS was included, sticker price was just a tick over $22K.
First impression - it is a really handsome car. The pictures I've seen don't seem to do it justice. The aggressive grille, especially. The lines are just right and it is well proportioned. Larger than I would have thought, since it is based on the Mazda 6. The trunk is absolutely huge.
Interior was a mixed bag. While lots of nice materials were used, there were many conflicting colors to be found. Upper dash and door panels were one color, lower dash and center console area another color, mixed with black touches (steering wheel and audio/AC controls) made it look, well, odd to me. While I thought I would be attracted to the camel interior, it was too bright, almost gold colored. Instrumentation was nice, and the multi-function steering wheel is a welcome sight, though I would prefer it to be leather wrapped.
The test drive was fairly short and included only city streets, but the engine and transmission seem to work well together. Suspension handled the broken pavement nicely. Superb turning radius, for what it's worth.
Told salesman to give me a call when an SEL, 5-speed 4-cylinder hits the lots so that I can drive one in comparison. 17" wheels, coupled with a slightly nicer interior layout might be my cup of tea. Would also like to drive one with a sunroof to see if I fit.
I absolutely hate two-tone exteriors, though. One of my friends had a Tahoe that was navy with this hideous gold stripe at the bottom. I liked the special-edition RX300 that was solid red, but not the standard models. The loaded Kia Sportage and Sorento (EX?) would look so much better without the two-tone paint, though I don't think that would get me to buy one!
I owned an '88 Isuzu Trooper that was white on top and gold on the bottom, separated by a red pinstripe. Medium brown cloth interior ... it was pretty good looking.
I guess my issue with the Fusion was that the tone of the colors inside didn't seem to complement one another very nicely. My opinion, of course, but the SEL interior is one color, so it might appeal to me more.
OTOH, I just might say "fark it" and get a Scion xA for the kid. $14K vs. $21K is appealing from a financial point of view.
I mean even if I don't drive it, I do still like looking at it. It's paid for. And it still runs. It does need a major tune up though. I need to get it into the shop. But everything else costs more than $30K. Is it worth it to pay that much for a car when you don't really HAVE to. I can satisfy my CCB when the minivan goes back in 6 months with some cheaper used car.
I'm going to the Taste of Lexus this weekend. That'll be the decision maker for me. If the IS doesn't ring my bell, I'm gonna get the LS serviced and start driving it at least twice a week. A one time $1000 service beats a $500/month car note.
Now you hurt my feelings. Both of them.
Are you saying my sagebrush green '00 Villager with the gold applique' isn't purty?
It's really just a classy exercise in overstated elegance.
-Mathias
That sounds groovy (smashing, yay capitalism)! Where can I obtain some of this "gold applique" for my car?
Now I gotta learn to do accents in html (applique' ).
-m
I was filling out consignment paperwork and walked back outside to get some info off of our 18' trailer when hubby looked at me, looked at the trailer, looked back at me, we both shook our heads. We went back inside, bought another slide in and ball, hooked the 18' trailer back up to my truck and I brought it home.
Needless to say it will be staying, don't know what we will use it for (maybe a spider condo), but it will come in handy at times I'm sure. Its paid for, owes us nothing (has delivered more than enough firewood), and is a great trailer. Plus we can't replace it for what it would have been sold for (about $3500), new they are running around $5195 (a full $1k more than we paid for it 2 years ago).
The tally is now 3 vehicles and 4 trailers..........I think we can stop now! :shades:
Seriously, though, Jolie, what the heck can you do with more trailers than towing vehicles??
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
At least new cars can be shopped like commodities, and ordered if exactly what you want isn't in stock.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Mark
We looked at each other because we were both thinking the same thing......."don't sell the trailer!!". I'm glad we didn't, it will come in handy at times.
Zippy ain't gonna pull nothing, heck, she's gonna think she died and went to car heaven......only a 52 mile round trip commute now. Still a great car at 50k miles and 15 months old.
We don't *really* need another vehicle, the Titan is doing fine, seems like the harder I push the truck the less problems we have. Well, we'll see about that when it has to pull 9k+ next weekend.........poor truck!
As for the amount of trailers we have.......no, we don't collect them, they all have their purpose. We have an old (73 F100) pickup bed trailer which hubby drags with him to get firewood. We have the 18' trailer which will come in handy at times. We have the new 12' dump trailer (read: save the back during unloading) which hubby will probably pull for the most part in place of the old pickup bed trailer. Then we have the travel trailer (yard ornament for the winter).
Now the fun part.........we thought we were soooo smart buying that dump trailer, but the first day with it wasn't exactly a picnic. By the time hubby got to the logging road he had lost turn signals and brake lights on his truck, he went ahead and took the trailer in to the landing, loaded it, and headed out to make the delivery. He gets to the customer's house and hits the button to dump the trailer, it goes up fine, but he sees something near the hydralic pump.......bends over and about passes out from the smell of burning wires. The trailer melted its wiring. Got it dumped and back down, then came home.
I took the trailer back to the dealer today, they found the problems (factory forgot to put the ground wire on), and rewired the trailer. The owner told us if we have ANY more problems she will replace the trailer with a new one. She did call the bank to see what was involved (a bunch of paperwork) and decided to have her guys fix it, then go from there. So far so good, it didn't blow any fuses on the Titan so I think its ok. :shades:
See? I thought he was looking at you and the trailer.... trying to make a choice..
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*Hey at least I BOUGHT something.........that's more than I can say about the rest of you arm chair CCB's!!! *
Mark
Here's a shot from the stairs to the deck on the side of the house
Here's a shot of the end with the doors
And here's another shot
I'll be so glad when the day comes that I can finally park a car in this thing!
LOL, no that would only happen if he had to get rid of his Dodge...........I would lose, :P .
That's all we did before, just throw it off the trailer into a pile. Its up to the customer to stack it. We do not stack..........don't have time for it, nor do we want to stack it again (its already been stacked in the trailer).
Here's a link to a bunch of pics of my '76 LeMans. It's a scattering of pics taken by both the seller and me
Here's a a few pics of my '68 Dart, as it currently sits. It has about 338,000 miles on it and won't start. Common sense is telling me to get rid of it, either by selling it, parting it out, or putting it out of its misery and sending it to the junkyard. But with me, common sense and cars don't always go hand in hand!
Here's a pic of my '67 Catalina, taken at a local cruise-in back in April. Here's another pic that my Grandma snapped of it, back around 1998, with my old Gran Fury, Newport, Monte Carlo, and Dart in the background. And here's a shot with the top up, which I think was taken about a year later, since my '00 Intrepid is in the background.
Here's some pics taken of my '57 DeSoto over the years. One of them is of me with the people I bought it from, on the day I brought it home.
Here's a few pics of my '79 New Yorker, taken by the seller
And isn't that the fine Corinthian leather in the New Yorker?
I do have a question about the garage...... I've never seen a garage built before the foundation is poured. Are you going to keep a dirt/gravel floor?
Your collection of cars are really neat! The Desoto is my favorite followed by the Catalina then the New Yorker.
Thanks for sharing. Mark
And I'm the same way when it comes to looking at houses...the first thing I look for is how big the garage is, and if there's enough room to add on to it! One of my friends has a townhouse with a garage that barely holds his Passat. Well, he recently went out and bought a Mark V. Needless to say, it won't fit! :surprise: And I guess this garage shows where my priorities are...the house could really use a new roof, new windows, paint, and a whole bunch of other work, and yet I focus on the garage!
Mark, the reason they were able to build the garage this way, before a complete foundation is poured, is because technically it's a pole barn. Here's a drawing of the footer plan for it, that I had to have an engineer draw up after the drilling crew ended up hitting groundwater on just about every single hole. Originally they were just going to pour 8 inches of concrete in the bottom, but the new plan called for digging the holes deeper, putting in 12" of gravel, and then 12" of concrete. As for building the garage then, the crew just set the poles in, and as they started nailing up the sides that connected the poles, it ultimately stabilized itself. They also poured a little bit of concrete around the poles to hold them in place, because I guess it could flex a bit otherwise, if a strong enough wind hit it.
I'm kinda curious too though, about how they're going to get more gravel in there to level the floor off though, and then pour the concrete, but the man doing it said it should be no sweat! I just hope he's right!
Also, I'm glad SOMEONE thinks my collection of cars is neat. Would you guys like to come over sometime and try to convince my family to my way of thinking? :P
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
The county made me put it 90 feet back from the road, though. Originally, I wanted to make it 60 feet back. I was under the impression you only had to be 25 feet back from the road, and 15 feet from your neighbors' property line. But then I found out that 25 feet is only for the main house. Any secondary detached buildings have to be at least 60 feet back. But to make matters worse, the county has it on their books that they want 30 feet of my land for a right-of-way to expand the road! :mad: They'll either get it over my dead body, but I'm really not that concerned about it...supposedly it's been on the books since the 70's, and most likely the only way the road would get widened would be if a developer came through and bought up me and all the neighbors tore it all down, and put up a development. And then I wouldn't care, because we'd all be paid off and gone! But anyway, they tacked that 30 feet onto the 60 foot requirement, making me put it back 90 feet. I ended up having to take down about 5 or 6 trees that were growing up at the edge of the woods, some of them leaning outward, and had to clear out a lot of brush. So, to make up for that, I'm going to let some of the yard out towards the road grow back up and plant some trees here and there...just not too close to the garage!
And eventually, the house is either going to get moved or torn down and replaced, and when that time comes, the site I want to build on will be down closer to the garage. So that's another reason I put it that far down, so it wouldn't be practically up against the house when that time comes.
Please put the wire wheels back on the New Yorker! My California antique car club would revoke your membership! A luxury car is kept at luxury car status! :mad: LOL!
Mark
I used to keep a half dozen cars in the fleet like that, but found I was never driving them all enough, so I let some go. Recently however, I have been looking around for an early 80s Supra to make car number three in the fleet. Sadly, a nice one has not yet materialized. At least there are still plenty around.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I most likely will trade in December as I usually do. I've had two Jeep Grand Cherokee Limiteds in the past ('96 and '99) so I was interested in the new Commander. Completely loaded, it appears it will have a MSRP of about $43,000 or so with Navigational and the HEMI. I was surprised that the HEMI has the fuel economy of 15 city, 19 hwy. I can live with that. I usually always get better than the posted mpg listed because I'm an easy driver.
The second row seats have "sky lights" that have a sun shade to close them off. I would imagine if you carry something heavy on the roof, that you would want to cover them so that they don't get scratched. But, I never put stuff on the roof myself.
Mark
I used to say the same thing..........then I bought the Titan.
I always liked those older Supras. I think my favorite was the later 80's model, which I think ran from 1987-1991 or so? I didn't care for the final-gen...too over-the-top "Fast and Furious" for my tastes (although I guess some people would consider tailfins and chrome and two-toning to be over-the-top). The older ones were a better balance, I thought. Sporty yet tasteful.
Now if only they will do something great with the Sebring/Stratus next year, but alas, the initial pics I have seen make it seem as if they won't be changing the looks that much from the current cars. Which are far from memorable. :-(
As for the Supras, yes, the series you are thinking of ran from 1986 to 1992, although they were not my favorite series for styling. They were also the series when Toyota used a temperamental head gasket engendering many expensive repairs and an extended manufacturer warranty, as well as its first use of an adjustable suspension which was too soft in all settings and which is ENORMOUSLY expensive to replace as the car ages.
My fave is the 82-85, chunky square style. The '84 I am looking at now has the 161 hp engine, 140K original miles, and a new paint job the owner has called "polo green" in his e-mail. What is polo green? Is that light or dark? I may go look at it this weekend.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Right now my plan is to keep my Accord. It's a great car. Fun-to-drive, reliable, good gas mileage, etc. The Civic was a contender but Gee wasn't comfy in the coupe we tried out Sunday.
Hmmm.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.