Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous

xwesx

kyfdx said:

tifighter said:

Ford says they lost $34K per EV delivered in 2022.

Let's just let that number sink in for a little bit.

And yet, they are all in on EV. I think the loss is more a function of low volume, so far. They are investing over $10B in battery joint ventures in TN and KY. If they can eventually crank out enough F-150s and Mach-Es to meet demand, that should take care of itself. (plus, the other EVs in the pipeline)

Agreed. You can't amortize the R&D over the volume they have currently in play and expect to make money. With all the retooling and investment, every other car company is basically in the same place Tesla was ten years ago. They were losing money hand-over-fist then, too, and they were even able to charge a massive premium for an all-electric car (and still sell every one they could make)!

stickguy

au1994 said:

roadburner said:

au1994 said:

roadburner said:

The dealer has addressed most of the chronic issues on the Discovery including the big ticket item(head gaskets). I wouldn’t drive it more than 5,000-6,000 miles per year and anyway, I’d rather have an interesting $10k vehicle that costs more to run as opposed to an anodyne $20k penalty box that bores me to death at the mere thought of getting behind the wheel.

If the head gasket is done I’d strongly consider it. Good looking rig and gas mileage that would make my old Land Cruiser blush 😆

It also has new brake pads, tires, a new battery, plug wires, and P/S pump. I don't think they will drop to $10k, sadly.

Can’t hurt it ask. Thats a whole lot of maintenance already covered.

but sadly, likely just a drop in the bucket.

jmonroe1

ab348 said:

You're forgetting that the Camry is the new Buick for many of a certain advanced age. A pushbutton start would flummox those folks.

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That’s true.

When I bought Mrs. j her 2018 Legacy Limited it had push to start/stop and early on it confused her. A few days after she had it I asked how she liked it and she said, “OK but I get confused about how to start it sometimes”. I told her, “all you have to do is push a button. What’s so confusing about that”? She said, “yeah I know but I have to remember to put my foot on the brake to start it. I didn’t have to do that with a key”. I said, “you should ALWAYS put your foot on the brake when you start a car”. Her reply to that was, “I know but this car doesn’t forget when you don’t do it”.

jmonroe

ab348

tifighter said:

Ford says they lost $34K per EV delivered in 2022.

Let's just let that number sink in for a little bit.

"Yes, we're losing $34K on every EV we sell, but we'll make it up on volume!"

Michaell

Re: Ford. Ran some errands this morning, and spotted two Mavericks within 5 minutes of each other - and, I think one was the Tremor version.

Didn't Tesla also sell a bunch of carbon credits, or some such thing, back in the early days, to make ends meet?

stickguy

Speaking of mavericks, I missed mine yesterday. Had to pick up a new chair at the furniture warehouse. Box about 1/4” bigger than opening. Good thing cardboard compresses if you push hard enough. Getting it back out was not fun (that box was 130 pounds)

rayains

First thing I had done to my cottage in Maine
was pull the carpet up in the sunroom and
replace with good quality wood-look vinyl planking.
- Ray
Rest of the cottage is actual hardwood...
Edit:
Mandatory vehicle-related content -
Actually looking forward to the long drive
North in May in the X3

au1994

stickguy said:

Speaking of mavericks, I missed mine yesterday. Had to pick up a new chair at the furniture warehouse. Box about 1/4” bigger than opening. Good thing cardboard compresses if you push hard enough. Getting it back out was not fun (that box was 130 pounds)

I’d start shopping for a dually

stickguy

you price tires lately? 4 is enough.

au1994

stickguy said:

you price tires lately? 4 is enough.

I know! Everything is just ridiculously expensive. I just paid over $6 for a bag of tortilla chips. Seriously.

jmonroe1

stickguy said:

Speaking of mavericks, I missed mine yesterday. Had to pick up a new chair at the furniture warehouse. Box about 1/4” bigger than opening. Good thing cardboard compresses if you push hard enough. Getting it back out was not fun (that box was 130 pounds)

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A saw and a pair of scissors could have gotten it in there too without crushing a good cardboard box that could be used for long term storage.

jmonroe

stickguy

box has already been sliced up and stuck in the recycle pail. Still have to assemble the chair though and move out the old recliner.

jmonroe1

au1994 said:

stickguy said:

you price tires lately? 4 is enough.

I know! Everything is just ridiculously expensive. I just paid over $6 for a bag of tortilla chips. Seriously.

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Wow, those must be designer tortilla chips. My favorite snack, a large bag of Lays potato chips, have gone up in price too but not that much. At least at Sam’s Club they haven’t.

jmonroe

stickguy

Go to Aldi's. Big bag of Clancy's totilla chips (excellent chips) for about $2.00 And their salsa is really good too.

Sandman6472

Bought some delicious pretzel sticks at Aldi recently. Bring them for lunch now that I've started doing that again. All the drivers on my new crew bring their lunches, so decided that I'd start doing that also. I stopped after I left the post office because I had enough sandwiches over those 31 years to last me a lifetime. So ever since I got into the rental car biz, over 10 years now, I've always bought lunch except for a couple of times I brought in some left over chef salad from dinner the night before. But since all the other guys are bringing theirs, decided I'd just join in & see how it goes. Just means I need to get up a few minutes earlier in the morning to pack it all. Usually I make a sandwich but since I'm so tired of bread, will be making some tuna fish and bring some crackers to eat it with. Have a washable container for the tuna fish and put the crackers into a small plastic sandwich bag. And some apple sauce or a small bag of cookies rounds out the meal plus a can of Pepsi or a bottle of water. They give employees free cold water at PBI so I usually get a cold bottle whenever we're there and drink that.

sda

I've had the privilege of replacing tires on all three of our vehicles in the last 9 months. Since I replaced the tires on the Q5 last summer each tire has increased in price by $50!

ronsteve

@sda said:
I've had the privilege of replacing tires on all three of our vehicles in the last 9 months. Since I replaced the tires on the Q5 last summer each tire has increased in price by $50!

I would think the CCB forum would have a good answer to that. As I think about the tires on the RDX being just under 4/32”

tifighter

There must be money in the banana stand-

stickguy

your saga with the RDX is one reason we upgraded the 2013 to a 2020 when we did (was right at 7.5 years). Was just getting to a miles and age where a bunch of the big ticket items were going to come due, that I would have done if we were keeping it long term (and if we had done them, would have kept it). Tires were pushing 35k I think (maybe 30), timing belt, plugs, etc. And given that the trade in value as is was still pretty strong, the stars just aligned!

plus we wanted all the goodies on the new one.

corvette

stickguy said:

Go to Aldi's. Big bag of Clancy's totilla chips (excellent chips) for about $2.00 And their salsa is really good too.

I like the scooper ones, which aren't as good as Tostito's scoops, but if you have a good salsa, there's not much difference. Oftentimes, I will have leftover plantain chips from the Cuban place, which are 1000x better than any tortilla chip, or leftover tortilla chips from the taco place, which are better than any store-bought ones.

qbrozen

stickguy said:

you price tires lately? 4 is enough.

I bought a set of 4 for $225. Ok, so for 14" wheels, but still cheap, I think.

stickguy

out of curiosity I investigated new sneakers for the RDX (hey, might need them in another 4 years!) On tirerack the 2 options I liked (Conti LX25 and Michelin cross climates) ran IIRF in the $225-$260 range (I forget the exact size, something like 245-55/19). someday going to be by far the most expensive tires I ever bought.

good thing at such low miles going on it, will probably only do 1 set in the 10 years we might have the car.

sda

stickguy said:

out of curiosity I investigated new sneakers for the RDX (hey, might need them in another 4 years!) On tirerack the 2 options I liked (Conti LX25 and Michelin cross climates) ran IIRF in the $225-$260 range (I forget the exact size, something like 245-55/19). someday going to be by far the most expensive tires I ever bought.

good thing at such low miles going on it, will probably only do 1 set in the 10 years we might have the car.

Same as what the OEM Q5 has and same as what we replaced. I need to find the receipt but I know they were about $190 a tire about 9 months ago. My SIL has a 19 RDX and it has the same tires and size. Her RDX has 50k and will need tires in 5k or so. She does a fair amount of interstate driving.

nyccarguy

stickguy

I really like the color of that Tahoe. Quite the barge though.

xwesx

stickguy said:

I really like the color of that Tahoe. Quite the barge though.

Wow! Such a snazzy looking machine. I think about those from forty years ago, and I never would have envisioned them changing like this! Congrats to pops on this one!

explorerx4

That looks similar to a darker super size version of my Explorer.

sda

The clock in the 06 TL is GPS linked so the time used to update automatically. Ab

nyccarguy said:

I bet your dad was delighted to have his grandson and son join him with the delivery of his new ride! Great color.

roadburner

nyccarguy said:

Nice!

corvette

Love the color on the Tahoe, @nyccarguy !

tjc78

Love the Tahoe and the color!

As for the key picture from early this morning. I was really surprised when I picked up that rental last night it wasn’t keyless. Cars like the Altima have had that standard for years now.

stickguy

Carvana seems to be getting more aggressive about moving cars. They dropped my former Mav another $500. Now down to $39,900. Still a healthy profit for them built in though.

they have an astounding 34 Lariats listed. 1 on hold, 1 pending purchase in progress. They had 4 in progress a few days ago. not sure if deals fell through or they sold some and replaced them with others.

ab348

Forgot to update the automatic infotainment system time change discussion. With the most recent time change the ATS correctly updated it by itself. But (there’s always a but)…

Today I had an appointment at the hospital and got there a few minutes early, so after I parked I decided to shut off the engine and listen to music for 10-15 minutes rather than sit in a waiting room. After some period of time the car shut that off automatically. I pushed the start button to restore accessory power and it came back on. Then I noticed that it was 12:11 or so when it shut itself off, but when I turned it on again the clock showed 12:00. No idea what’s going on there.

oldfarmer50

tjc78 said:

Hardest part of ripping carpet up is getting all the staples out from the padding. We have one bedroom at the shore that is carpet and I’m changing it to LVP. The previous owners did the entire house (except baths and laundry) but omitted the one bedroom. Who knows why. We can’t match the existing laminate so the wife chose something completely different.

I threw in the towel on the ceramic tile for the baths and laundry. Hired a guy to do that. Never ceases to amaze me the wide range of quotes you get. First quote was $5500 without materials. Second guy didn’t want to do it. Third guy was $3600 with a $4/sq ft allowance for materials. Of course the wife drove that up to $4400 since the tile she picked was $8/sq ft.

Tile is very easy to do yourself. I did the bath an kitchen counter without knowing anything but what I read in a home repair book I borrowed from the library.

oldfarmer50

jmonroe1 said:

oldfarmer50 said:

henryn said:

Sandman6472 said:

Our outside key pad finally gave up the ghost last year so we had a new one installed. Like not having to use the front door to be honest though I still keep a house key on each key chain just in case the power goes out as when that happens, our Genie garage opener is inoperative until I unplug the plug & re-insert it. Crazy if you ask me and none of our Sears units ever had this happen to them. When I asked the folks at Genie why this is happening, no one could answer me which I found very strange. Obviously it must be a built in safety hazard or something but still, very confusing & frustrating as I have to pull the ladder out & climb it to get to the power plug.

On another note, our pharmacist daughter has informed us that she's planning on moving to the Orlando area within the next two years, wants to be working there sometime in 2025. Has decided not to purchase a property here in South Florida which was her original plan. Not surprised with this plan as she wants to live closer to her sister & brother-in-law. So, looks like we'll be moving to Central Florida when she does or soon after. Have no reason to stay down in this area if both girls are living in the center of the state. After living here so long, moved down in October of 1969, will be very strange to pick up & move to a whole new area. I knew she was thinking about this but figured she'd against that & put down permanent roots here. Moving is not something I look forward to as I've accumulated a lot of "stuff" over these past 36 years & have a lot of purging to do. Just not something I'm looking forward to...I'm a bit of a saver of things so this purging will be hard! But, it's probably something that's long overdue!

I have been in this house for 12 years now, and I have accumulated far too much junk. But on the other hand, I'm not planning on moving. I couldn't possibly live anywhere else as cheaply as I'm living here. No mortgage, unbelievably low property taxes, just basically pay the utilities.

I’ve been in the same house for 40 years. Back around 2008 we wanted to sell and move to Florida but the developers kept low balling us. Now we’re just fixing the place up so the kids have a nice place to live in or sell.

Yesterday, as we were sitting down with a bathroom renovator there was a knock at the door. It was a real estate agent wondering if we were still interested in selling. What a coincidence.

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No it isn’t. That’s because you didn’t turn off Alexis or your phone.

jmonroe

Ha ha, my phone is so low tech that it has a hand crank on the side.😂

corvette

Infotainment time change:
2007 Prius - no! (obviously)
2022 Maverick - apparently not? (surprisedly)

The only other devices I had to change are my microwave and the fancy alarm clock my parents got me a couple of years back... which apparently lacks automatic time setting.

stickguy

I don't remember if I had to change the Maverick manually. If I did it was very simple (like everything else on that car). Push the clock button, tap time, up the hour 1, done.

explorerx4

@oldfarmer50,
I have a hand crank radio that also has solar cells.
NYC's son looks like 'I wish Pops bought a Camaro SS'.

oldfarmer50

tjc78 said:

Brand new 2023 Camry SE…. Come on Toyota do better

Toyota and Hyundai/Kia are schizophrenic in that respect. Some are key start while others are push button.

qbrozen

@nyccarguy said:

Hey, now if you buy him this 325i, you’ll kind of match!

qbrozen

I played with making an overlay for the suzuki speedo today.

jmonroe1

@ab348 said:
Forgot to update the automatic infotainment system time change discussion. With the most recent time change the ATS correctly updated it by itself. But (there’s always a but)…

Today I had an appointment at the hospital and got there a few minutes early, so after I parked I decided to shut off the engine and listen to music for 10-15 minutes rather than sit in a waiting room. After some period of time the car shut that off automatically. I pushed the start button to restore accessory power and it came back on. Then I noticed that it was 12:11 or so when it shut itself off, but when I turned it on again the clock showed 12:00. No idea what’s going on there.

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Maybe the music you listen to put it to sleep.

jmonroe

nyccarguy

@explorerx4 said:
@oldfarmer50,
I have a hand crank radio that also has solar cells.
NYC's son looks like 'I wish Pops bought a Camaro SS'.

Funny you should say that. Parked right in front of the dealership was a ZL1 Camaro that looked to be the exact same color as my Dad’s new Tahoe.

stickguy

better get one now. I saw a blurb today that Chevy is cancelling the Camaro after this year.

oldfarmer50

stickguy said:

you price tires lately? 4 is enough.

Inflation is real. The lawn tractor I bought at the big box store last summer for $2000 is now $2400.

jmonroe1

@corvette said:
Infotainment time change:
2007 Prius - no! (obviously)
2022 Maverick - apparently not? (surprisedly)

The only other devices I had to change are my microwave and the fancy alarm clock my parents got me a couple of years back... which apparently lacks automatic time setting.

————————————————
My GE alarm clock/radio is so old I don’t think Daylight Savings Time existed back then.

jmonroe

nyccarguy

Thank-you all for your kind words about my Dad’s new Tahoe. I feel like we did the right thing. The dealership doesn’t have a whole lot of new inventory to sell. So I feel like our purchase really meant something to them.

Finance office was smooth. For $2,750 we took the GM platinum 5 year/100K mile extended warranty & GAP insurance. It is bumper to bumper and covers everything except wear items (brake pads, brake rotors, wiper blades, tires…). I felt with all the tech including the digital gauge cluster that it is important to be covered.

roadburner

The agony and the ecstasy...
I was driving the Wrangler to our church tonight and it flat-out died. It would restart and die after a couple of seconds. Fortunately a deputy sheriff who works security called in a flatbed to transport it to my indie shop then gave us a ride home to pick up another car. It's 24 years old so I'm not going to complain.

On a brighter note, I received an email tonight that the Club Sport was accepted into the Youngtimers class at the 2023 Keeneland Concours d’Elegance- the second time in five years. In 2018 I was in the middle of my election campaign, and the application process is a bit time intensive. I told my wife that I should probably be campaigning instead of working on the application. She said, "Complete the application; you will be more upset about missing the concours than you will if you lose the election."
She was right, of course.

henryn

nyccarguy said:

Unless my 50% color blind eyes are deceiving me, that is the same color as my Silverado. "Radiant Red Tintcoat", right? A $495 option on the MSRP. And very pretty!

Michaell

Love the color, @nyccarguy! Congrats to your dad.