Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous

mjfloyd1

@kyfdx said:
The guy was driving it from Wisconsin to VIR to track it. Had all sorts of tools in the frunk. His wife was with him. Says she doesn't normally come along, but wanted to see the eclipse. (in Shelbyville, Indiana)

Isn’t Shelbyville more of a summer destination?😳

oldfarmer50

mjfloyd1 said:

@kyfdx said:

The guy was driving it from Wisconsin to VIR to track it. Had all sorts of tools in the frunk. His wife was with him. Says she doesn't normally come along, but wanted to see the eclipse. (in Shelbyville, Indiana)

Isn’t Shelbyville more of a summer destination?😳

I don’t think so.🤣

kyfdx

mjfloyd1 said:

@kyfdx said:

The guy was driving it from Wisconsin to VIR to track it. Had all sorts of tools in the frunk. His wife was with him. Says she doesn't normally come along, but wanted to see the eclipse. (in Shelbyville, Indiana)

Isn’t Shelbyville more of a summer destination?😳

Last April, for the solar eclipse?

VIR is the track in Virginia

mjfloyd1

@kyfdx said:
Last April, for the solar eclipse?

VIR is the track in Virginia

I kid, I kid

qbrozen

Found these plastic rear fender liners on Amazon. Certainly improves the looks under there and completely covers the gaps the rust left behind. And I finished treating the underside. Gotta get her cleaned up and she’ll be listed for sale, followed by the Alfa.

jmonroe1

qbrozen said:

Found these plastic rear fender liners on Amazon. Certainly improves the looks under there and completely covers the gaps the rust left behind. And I finished treating the underside. Gotta get her cleaned up and she’ll be listed for sale, followed by the Alfa.

————————————————-
The rear brake lines look good, very good. Is that some of your handy work?

jmonroe

qbrozen

I haven’t touched them.

This truck is such a mystery. Some things are rotted to heck and others look amazing. You could take pics of different components throughout and you’d think you were looking at 2 different trucks.

jmonroe1

qbrozen said:

I haven’t touched them.

This truck is such a mystery. Some things are rotted to heck and others look amazing. You could take pics of different components throughout and you’d think you were looking at 2 different trucks.

————————————————-
Well, as long as there is more good than bad, you should be OK.

jmonroe

corvette

Huge drama with Dad's 2020 Ranger. Transmission lugs at lower RPM, which is a known characteristic of it and many other modern automatics. Supposedly, replacing an EGR valve or some other cheap and easy part can fix it. He bought the part but never installed it. As I was preparing to leave for a work trip, he and my mom went to the post office. As they were leaving, it refused to go forward, then violently banged into gear. No CEL or codes, so they drove the Q5 up to my house to dogsit while I'm gone. He was planning on driving the Ranger to the airport in Nashville to fly to Austin to attend MotoGP, but is now unsure. I offered up the Maverick for the trip to be parked at the Nashville airport, so my mom would still have a known good vehicle (the Q5), but he's also toying with the idea of buying a new Ranger. I think a Tacoma is the correct answer in this situation, since it appears the kinks have been worked out, but maybe I'm off base... (If he wants one, it's also not a big deal for me to fly to Philadelphia and drive it home, if that's an objection point.)

xwesx

Vehicles do like to keep you on your toes!

xwesx

qbrozen said:

Found these plastic rear fender liners on Amazon. Certainly improves the looks under there and completely covers the gaps the rust left behind. And I finished treating the underside. Gotta get her cleaned up and she’ll be listed for sale, followed by the Alfa.

The fender liners look good, and they should go a long way toward keeping water/grit/salt spray off of what metal is left in there! Given how much bed rust is a known issue, it actually amazes me how poorly the manufacturers protect those areas.

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

Found these plastic rear fender liners on Amazon. Certainly improves the looks under there and completely covers the gaps the rust left behind. And I finished treating the underside. Gotta get her cleaned up and she’ll be listed for sale, followed by the Alfa.

That’s professional grade work. You shouldn’t have any problem selling it. A lot of people look at the prices of new trucks and see older restored units as bargains.

oldfarmer50

corvette said:

Huge drama with Dad's 2020 Ranger. Transmission lugs at lower RPM, which is a known characteristic of it and many other modern automatics. Supposedly, replacing an EGR valve or some other cheap and easy part can fix it. He bought the part but never installed it. As I was preparing to leave for a work trip, he and my mom went to the post office. As they were leaving, it refused to go forward, then violently banged into gear. No CEL or codes, so they drove the Q5 up to my house to dogsit while I'm gone. He was planning on driving the Ranger to the airport in Nashville to fly to Austin to attend MotoGP, but is now unsure. I offered up the Maverick for the trip to be parked at the Nashville airport, so my mom would still have a known good vehicle (the Q5), but he's also toying with the idea of buying a new Ranger. I think a Tacoma is the correct answer in this situation, since it appears the kinks have been worked out, but maybe I'm off base... (If he wants one, it's also not a big deal for me to fly to Philadelphia and drive it home, if that's an objection point.)

Why doesn’t he get the part he bought installed and save $40k?

Sandman6472

Started watching the various car related vlogs on YouTube tv and have become addicted to them. Unfortunately, our cable tv loses it's connection on a regular basis. Once the picture freezes, it takes about 30 seconds or so for the numbers "8888" to come on the cable box & we lose the signal. Annoying as hell, so started turning on YouTube tv when that started to happen. Found a few vlogs that I enjoy. CarEdge with Ray & Zack is my favorite one right now. There's also that guy from North Carolina with the "CQTA" hat who owns that small used lot who's also very informative. Starting to like Delivrd also. And Adam the Woo is a kick in the pants at times.

Not sure if all their info is totally correct, but enjoyable to watch just the same. Our cable company is pushing us to get Tivo but don't want to go there. The kids gave us a Roku fire stick but from what I hear, there needs to be one in every tv, just not sure if this is true. Also heard that one no longer can pick up the local CBS, NBC & ABC channels on those sticks even though we don't watch them much. Guess I really need to Duck Duck Go which channels on gets on the Roku fire stick and compare them with our current cable offerings. The price we pay is pretty high right now & having it go out as often as it does is quite annoying. Did give us a decent credit last month because it was happening so often but that ain't the point, if I'm paying for a service, I want it to just work like it should!

ab348

I think a lot of cablecos are phasing out their traditional cable in favor of Tivo. I got it a couple of years ago here and have few complaints. One nice thing about it, at least with my installation, is that you are not physically limited to being within reach of a cable from the wall attached to the TV and cable box. With this, the "TV box" is a tiny little thing connected to the TV and then you can put it anywhere in the house that is connected wirelessly to your wifi network, Eero in my case.

The previous installation here had Motorola or Arris branded cable boxes with a DVR inside connected to the cable coming out of the wall where any of your saved programming was stored. Now that all is done in the cloud and saved for a year or maybe more, not totally sure. The Tivo has a different but similar cable guide, access to YouTube, Netflix and a few other services built into the channel guide, and seems to work fine.

I'm not totally sure about the local channel question. It isn't an issue for me since the cableco offers them via Tivo. I believe with Roku you would need to have an antenna to get local channels and exit Roku on your TV and switch to over-the-air channels manually.

kyfdx

Our TV/Internet provider switched to Tivo, as well. I'm too lazy to set it all up, so my experience is sub-optimal.

stickguy

When we moved we switched to just streaming. We get internet in through Verizon FIOS. Everything beyond that is internet based. We have Hulu TV for live TV including local stations and traditional cable stuff like HGTV. And SNY for sports.

Most any newer TV is a smart TV and has all the apps built in so no external devices needed. Hulu Pretty much works the same as cable and it’s easy to switch to other services like Netflix or Apple TV+ with the TVs remote.

tjc78

@stickguy said:
When we moved we switched to just streaming. We get internet in through Verizon FIOS. Everything beyond that is internet based. We have Hulu TV for live TV including local stations and traditional cable stuff like HGTV. And SNY for sports.

Most any newer TV is a smart TV and has all the apps built in so no external devices needed. Hulu Pretty much works the same as cable and it’s easy to switch to other services like Netflix or Apple TV+ with the TVs remote.

We have You Tube TV now. Works great and lets us bounce between the shore and home without issues. Comcast wouldn’t allow that with their system unless I put the phone on cellular and casted to the TV (a pain)

stickguy

I was surprised how easy it was. Even my wife can figure it out

tjc78

@stickguy said:
I was surprised how easy it was. Even my wife can figure it out

I have just about every TV between both houses on Roku. Same interface and remote .. even my Mom is an expert lol. Some are native Roku others have a Roku stick or box

I have one Android TV (Sony) and one Samsung … their interfaces are garbage compared to Roku. I think the one in my office that is used as a monitor is a Fire TV. Not much experience with that one

explorerx4

I don't enjoy that those streaming services each have their own interface.
We do occasionally use them although we don't have our own subscriptions.

tjc78

@explorerx4 said:
I don't enjoy that those streaming services each have their own interface.
We do occasionally use them although we don't have our own subscriptions.

Yes - one thing that was nice about Comcast/Xfinity was they integrated their services with Netflix, Disney+ etc so all you had to do was search for what you wanted and it found it for you. For the over $100/month savings I’ll take the minor inconvenience of picking the app myself

ab348

I'm pretty sure my Tivo does that^^^ if I search. I seem to remember looking for a particular title and having it give me 4 or 5 choices of where to get it. The only thing I can stream is Prime, whose interface is horrendous, so I seldom use it. I dumped Apple TV a while ago and have never bothered with Netflix, having zero interest in bad CGI sci-fi about medieval wars and dragons. Here in Kanada streaming is often limited by our federal govt rules limiting non-Canadian content.

One thing I recently noted is that there has been a change in the TV market where TCL and maybe other brands that used to offer Roku TVs now have left that in favor of the Google product. I currently have a nice TCL Roku set but fear the day when it needs replacement as I am not a fan of Google's minimalist interface.

tjc78

Just in case anyone has been following along … my beater search is not going well.

Been super busy between work and kids so haven’t been able to commit to looking and the few that actually looked decent sold.

It’s not an urgent need … I’d like to have something by summer when I’ll be going back and forth to the shore more often.

Also have to replace the truck in the summer too… really want a full size SUV just don’t want to pay $1000/month (or course, right?)

tjc78

Also - drove the EQE all week and I’ll tell you it is a great cruiser. Only real complaint I have is since it’s 5400 lbs braking isn’t quite as good as I expect. I swear my truck stops in less distance. Maybe it’s just me or perceived effect because I’m probably driving it faster than I do with the truck.

carnaught

roadburner said:

I decided to clean up the C43. I think that it looks pretty good for being five years old.

You just need a tire shine product to complete the “look”. You do a great detailing job.

sda

As luck would have it, in the past week the Arteon suffered a door ding. Didn't break the paint and is minor, but still. Probably not worth a PDR. On Tuesday on my commute home on I 485 a rock found it's way to smack the windshield. Minor star far right corner and not all that noticeable. Grrr

tjc78

@sda said:
As luck would have it, in the past week the Arteon suffered a door ding. Didn't break the paint and is minor, but still. Probably not worth a PDR. On Tuesday on my commute home on I 485 a rock found it's way to smack the windshield. Minor star far right corner and not all that noticeable. Grrr

Sucks!! I noticed a small ding on the door my truck this week too. 2.5 years until the first one, can’t complain I guess

tjc78

Browsing LH while grabbing a bite to eat.

62K Volvo S90
36/7500
$437 / 437 DAS inclusive of NJ Tax

Wow!

stickguy

I would have gotten that if I was still down there. And needed a large luxury sedan Quite a good deal. Just not a beater.

stickguy

I saw in marketplace pop up by me a 2009(?) Lucerne CXL that looked pretty nice. 92k I think on it. $4,000. Silver over gray of course.

suydam

Sandman6472 said:

Started watching the various car related vlogs on YouTube tv and have become addicted to them. Unfortunately, our cable tv loses it's connection on a regular basis. Once the picture freezes, it takes about 30 seconds or so for the numbers "8888" to come on the cable box & we lose the signal. Annoying as hell, so started turning on YouTube tv when that started to happen. Found a few vlogs that I enjoy. CarEdge with Ray & Zack is my favorite one right now. There's also that guy from North Carolina with the "CQTA" hat who owns that small used lot who's also very informative. Starting to like Delivrd also. And Adam the Woo is a kick in the pants at times.

Not sure if all their info is totally correct, but enjoyable to watch just the same. Our cable company is pushing us to get Tivo but don't want to go there. The kids gave us a Roku fire stick but from what I hear, there needs to be one in every tv, just not sure if this is true. Also heard that one no longer can pick up the local CBS, NBC & ABC channels on those sticks even though we don't watch them much. Guess I really need to Duck Duck Go which channels on gets on the Roku fire stick and compare them with our current cable offerings. The price we pay is pretty high right now & having it go out as often as it does is quite annoying. Did give us a decent credit last month because it was happening so often but that ain't the point, if I'm paying for a service, I want it to just work like it should!

Why don’t you ditch cable and subscribe to YouTube TV instead? It’s a lot cheaper and carries a lot of channels. We gave up cable a couple of years ago, we just pick the streaming services we want. As someone said, most all TVs are smart now and have all the apps built in.

au1994

We were trying to remember when we cut the cord…2019 I think. We have YouTube TV, Paramount +, Max, Starz, Netflix, Prime. Had the cheap version of Hulu but let it go.

We have been more than satisfied with the choice. In the beginning, we saved a ton of money but of course over the years internet and things like Netflix have gone up but no motivation to change back.

We can log in when we travel and from the lake so thats an added bonus.

jmonroe1

sda said:

As luck would have it, in the past week the Arteon suffered a door ding. Didn't break the paint and is minor, but still. Probably not worth a PDR. On Tuesday on my commute home on I 485 a rock found it's way to smack the windshield. Minor star far right corner and not all that noticeable. Grrr

————————————————
Do you plan to see if it can be repaired. Most insurance companies will pay for that and not charge you a deductible. I know a couple folks who had success with that but I also know a few who didn’t. I guess it worth a try.

jmonroe

tjc78

81K > @au1994 said:

We were trying to remember when we cut the cord…2019 I think. We have YouTube TV, Paramount +, Max, Starz, Netflix, Prime. Had the cheap version of Hulu but let it go.

We have been more than satisfied with the choice. In the beginning, we saved a ton of money but of course over the years internet and things like Netflix have gone up but no motivation to change back.

We can log in when we travel and from the lake so thats an added bonus.

For us the main motivation was being able to use everything at both homes. We never had live TV at the shore until we got You Tube TV and cancelled Comcast. It just didn’t make sense to spend all the money with very little use down there

carnaught

@suydam, I sent you a PM.

oldfarmer50

What do you think?

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/top-10-least-reliable-vehicles

stickguy

Quite a few expected models on that list.

kyfdx

Silverado surprises me. The other ones? Not so much

stickguy

Era of major cylinder deactivation issues. And transmissions I think.

tjc78

@stickguy said:
Era of major cylinder deactivation issues. And transmissions I think.

They had a bad run of powertrains. All the truck based vehicles (Tahoe, etc) were affected.

tjc78

Milestone

tjc78

Self drive is great for moments like this 😎

qbrozen

@oldfarmer50 said:
What do you think?

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/top-10-least-reliable-vehicles

Doesn’t make much sense to me. They’ve called out specific models of vehicles that are mechanically identical to others that they did not call out. For example, how is a Giulia bad but not a Stelvio. Or 500L and 500X? Or Nitro and Liberty? (Which, BTW, when I researched, most owners I found said the 3.7 has been solid.)

With these inconsistencies, it brings the whole list into question.

tjc78

@qbrozen said:

@oldfarmer50 said:
What do you think?

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/top-10-least-reliable-vehicles

Doesn’t make much sense to me. They’ve called out specific models of vehicles that are mechanically identical to others that they did not call out. For example, how is a Giulia bad but not a Stelvio. Or 500L and 500X? Or Nitro and Liberty? (Which, BTW, when I researched, most owners I found said the 3.7 has been solid.)

With these inconsistencies, it brings the whole list into question.

All these lists do this. One can only assume that the highest volume vehicle with the affected powertrain is the one they call out. Problem with that is some knuckle head with this list will think the GMC Sierra with the exact same setup is fine.

The list should include all variants but doesn’t look as pretty and bullet pointed for print.

ab348

tjc78 said:

@qbrozen said:

@oldfarmer50 said:

What do you think?

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/top-10-least-reliable-vehicles

Doesn’t make much sense to me. They’ve called out specific models of vehicles that are mechanically identical to others that they did not call out. For example, how is a Giulia bad but not a Stelvio. Or 500L and 500X? Or Nitro and Liberty? (Which, BTW, when I researched, most owners I found said the 3.7 has been solid.)

With these inconsistencies, it brings the whole list into question.

All these lists do this. One can only assume that the highest volume vehicle with the affected powertrain is the one they call out. Problem with that is some knuckle head with this list will think the GMC Sierra with the exact same setup is fine.

The list should include all variants but doesn’t look as pretty and bullet pointed for print.

Even usually trustworthy folks like Adam Wade of the Rare Classic Cars and Automotive History channel does it occasionally. He did a list not long ago of GM's worst engines and on it he included the Olds 403, which was a ridiculous choice. Those things run forever. The only problem they have is when someone tries to hop one up for drag/street racing and make it turn 6500+ RPM, which they were never meant to do. I challenged him on it in a comment and he was peeved and tried to defend his choice, but it was just a stupid thing he probably picked up somewhere from a message board and took it as fact, which it isn't.

roadburner

@carnaught said:
You just need a tire shine product to complete the “look”. You do a great detailing job.

Thanks! I was a bit short for time, but I usually use a matte finish tire spray from Griots.

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

@oldfarmer50 said:

What do you think?

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/top-10-least-reliable-vehicles

Doesn’t make much sense to me. They’ve called out specific models of vehicles that are mechanically identical to others that they did not call out. For example, how is a Giulia bad but not a Stelvio. Or 500L and 500X? Or Nitro and Liberty? (Which, BTW, when I researched, most owners I found said the 3.7 has been solid.)

With these inconsistencies, it brings the whole list into question.

Good point but I’ve known people who have had 3.7L Jeeps and according to them they were prone to head gasket failures. The 4.7L Chrysler was similar. I guess there was an time period when a lot of manufacturers’ engines were popping heads.

jmonroe1

qbrozen said:

@oldfarmer50 said:

What do you think?

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/top-10-least-reliable-vehicles

Doesn’t make much sense to me. They’ve called out specific models of vehicles that are mechanically identical to others that they did not call out. For example, how is a Giulia bad but not a Stelvio. Or 500L and 500X? Or Nitro and Liberty? (Which, BTW, when I researched, most owners I found said the 3.7 has been solid.)

With these inconsistencies, it brings the whole list into question.

————————————————
That explains why a lot of folks don’t buy cars anymore. They have to be buying bikes because the last few days when I’ve turned on the local news they are creating more and more bike lanes at the expense of car lanes. So, everything has now been corrected, I think.

jmonroe

tifighter

Just visiting