Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous

stickguy

nice looking Acura. Seems to have been well maintained. The only issue with those was the VCM causing ring issues (and oil burning). There are delete options available. Regular oil changes helps with that.

Corvette, I assume you considered this to be a repo, not an actual theft (which who knows what it would do to the title).

03/27/2025
80,506
Auto Auction

Recovered theft disclosed by seller
Vehicle sold

qbrozen

The 3/6 entry actually states repo’d.

corvette

It looked to me like it was stolen and recovered when the (long term) second owner had it, and then the recovery was disclosed at auction by a seller--presumably, the bank that repo'd it from the third owner.

jmonroe1

explorerx4 said:

@xwesx,
Nice find on that Xterra. 8th swap. Kind reminds me of WD-40. What happened with WD-1 through 39?

————————————————
Suffered from rusted out spray cans.

jmonroe

nyccarguy

This is one of my favorite off ramps/on ramp combinations. Exiting southbound on I95 right when you cross into The Bronx from Westchester County onto the Hutchinson River Parkway South. You merge right onto the Parkway into your own lane. This AM, some guy in a Civic Si (current body style) pulled in front of me and took the ramp at an impressive speed.

kyfdx

corvette said:

Nissan sent me an email of "property tax due" on the Ariya for $285.40, which is odd, because according to their website, we're a non-prorate state. It should probably be 2x that, or more, if it's based on property tax on the value of the car for the entire year. Oh, well, nothing about how cheap that transaction was has made any sense, so I'm going to send them the payment and continue to pretend to have confidence in their calculations.

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

oldfarmer50

kyfdx said:

corvette said:

Nissan sent me an email of "property tax due" on the Ariya for $285.40, which is odd, because according to their website, we're a non-prorate state. It should probably be 2x that, or more, if it's based on property tax on the value of the car for the entire year. Oh, well, nothing about how cheap that transaction was has made any sense, so I'm going to send them the payment and continue to pretend to have confidence in their calculations.

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

That is odd. In NY we don’t pay property tax on cars, just a registration fee that you can pay online. Make sure it’s really from the dealer and not a variation on the EZ Pass scam.

kyfdx

oldfarmer50 said:

kyfdx said:

corvette said:

Nissan sent me an email of "property tax due" on the Ariya for $285.40, which is odd, because according to their website, we're a non-prorate state. It should probably be 2x that, or more, if it's based on property tax on the value of the car for the entire year. Oh, well, nothing about how cheap that transaction was has made any sense, so I'm going to send them the payment and continue to pretend to have confidence in their calculations.

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

That is odd. In NY we don’t pay property tax on cars, just a registration fee that you can pay online. Make sure it’s really from the dealer and not a variation on the EZ Pass scam.

We're in KY, not NY.

corvette

kyfdx said:

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

Yes, on cars I've owned. I can't remember how it works on a lease. It's possible they sent Nissan the bill because I don't own the vehicle. The registration renews in October, which is not when my birthday is.

kyfdx

corvette said:

kyfdx said:

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

Yes, on cars I've owned. I can't remember how it works on a lease. It's possible they sent Nissan the bill because I don't own the vehicle. The registration renews in October, which is not when my birthday is.

Yeah... Infiniti/Nissan have a long history of messing up personal property taxes in KY. Not sure I'd want to send them a check, until you're positive they're trying to collect the tax, themselves.

Is your birthday coming up? That's what usually generates the property tax bill.

oldfarmer50

kyfdx said:

oldfarmer50 said:

kyfdx said:

corvette said:

Nissan sent me an email of "property tax due" on the Ariya for $285.40, which is odd, because according to their website, we're a non-prorate state. It should probably be 2x that, or more, if it's based on property tax on the value of the car for the entire year. Oh, well, nothing about how cheap that transaction was has made any sense, so I'm going to send them the payment and continue to pretend to have confidence in their calculations.

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

That is odd. In NY we don’t pay property tax on cars, just a registration fee that you can pay online. Make sure it’s really from the dealer and not a variation on the EZ Pass scam.

We're in KY, not NY.

It still pays to be suspicious of unsolicited emails. The only one I ever believed without checking was when Olga, the 22 year old from Russia, wanted to come to America to hook up.👌❤️

jmonroe1

kyfdx said:

corvette said:

kyfdx said:

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

Yes, on cars I've owned. I can't remember how it works on a lease. It's possible they sent Nissan the bill because I don't own the vehicle. The registration renews in October, which is not when my birthday is.

Yeah... Infiniti/Nissan have a long history of messing up personal property taxes in KY. Not sure I'd want to send them a check, until you're positive they're trying to collect the tax, themselves.

Is your birthday coming up? That's what usually generates the property tax bill.

————————————————
Happy birthday…stick-em-up.

We don’t have property tax in PA so I don’t have to do any finagling with that.

jmonroe

Michaell

jmonroe1 said:

kyfdx said:

corvette said:

kyfdx said:

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

Yes, on cars I've owned. I can't remember how it works on a lease. It's possible they sent Nissan the bill because I don't own the vehicle. The registration renews in October, which is not when my birthday is.

Yeah... Infiniti/Nissan have a long history of messing up personal property taxes in KY. Not sure I'd want to send them a check, until you're positive they're trying to collect the tax, themselves.

Is your birthday coming up? That's what usually generates the property tax bill.

————————————————
Happy birthday…stick-em-up.

We don’t have property tax in PA so I don’t have to do any finagling with that.

jmonroe

jmonroe dictionary:

Finagling = Deception

explorerx4

Daughter who has the 2013 Escape said the backup camera was getting flakey, Works fine most of the time but sometimes displays image upside down or goes blank.
I watched a couple of camera replacement video's and seems pretty doable.
They said the bought camera for about $50 on Amazon. I saw several for $25 to $45 on Ebay.
Looked up the OEM part on FordParts. $541! Not doing that.
As far as I can remember, this will be the first repair ever.
She did mention it might be time to look for a new SUV.

corvette

Former coworker had that generation of Escape and had a lot of problems. Sample size of one, I know.

explorerx4

@corvette,
Which model and engine? This a top of the line Titanium with 2.0 and every bell and whistle.
The 1.6 had lots of issues.
This one has had some recalls but never had anything that needed fixing.

stickguy

was at an Easter family get together today and chatted cars with my BIL and his BIL. BIL once removed decided to get a new truck and settled on a Tundra, trusting Toyota more. and mentioned a few people in his side of the family have problems with newer Chevy trucks.

oldfarmer50

explorerx4 said:

Daughter who has the 2013 Escape said the backup camera was getting flakey, Works fine most of the time but sometimes displays image upside down or goes blank.
I watched a couple of camera replacement video's and seems pretty doable.
They said the bought camera for about $50 on Amazon. I saw several for $25 to $45 on Ebay.
Looked up the OEM part on FordParts. $541! Not doing that.
As far as I can remember, this will be the first repair ever.
She did mention it might be time to look for a new SUV.

Was your daughter’s camera factory installed? Ford has a recall on some of the backup camera systems but when I went to get the Mustang one done they told me if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Just got another reminder from Ford about it.

jmonroe1

Michaell said:

jmonroe1 said:

kyfdx said:

corvette said:

kyfdx said:

Don't you pay your property taxes at the county clerk's office, when you renew your registration?
Or is the notice just a heads up that you'll owe the tax at that time?

Yes, on cars I've owned. I can't remember how it works on a lease. It's possible they sent Nissan the bill because I don't own the vehicle. The registration renews in October, which is not when my birthday is.

Yeah... Infiniti/Nissan have a long history of messing up personal property taxes in KY. Not sure I'd want to send them a check, until you're positive they're trying to collect the tax, themselves.

Is your birthday coming up? That's what usually generates the property tax bill.

————————————————
Happy birthday…stick-em-up.

We don’t have property tax in PA so I don’t have to do any finagling with that.

jmonroe

jmonroe dictionary:

Finagling = Deception

————————————————
Kinda but it’s not as politically correct.

jmonroe

explorerx4

@oldfarme50,
Good idea. I'll see if I can find anything related to the rear camera.

corvette

@explorerx4 - it was a higher trim level (probably Titanium), but I think they offered both engines on the Titanium. I know she was annoyed because she didn't realize it wasn't AWD when she bought it.

explorerx4

@corvette,
In 2013 only the 2.0 was available in the Titianium.
If the owner didn't know it was a 2WD, I'm sure they were diligent about the maintenance, too.

roadburner

explorerx4 said:

@corvette,
In 2013 only the 2.0 was available in the Titianium.
If the owner didn't know it was a 2WD, I'm sure they were diligent about the maintenance, too.

When I was car shopping if the seller said their BMW had a V6 I stopped reading. Who knows what that terminal level of stupidity could lead to?

au1994

roadburner said:

explorerx4 said:

@corvette,
In 2013 only the 2.0 was available in the Titianium.
If the owner didn't know it was a 2WD, I'm sure they were diligent about the maintenance, too.

When I was car shopping if the seller said their BMW had a V6 I stopped reading. Who knows what that terminal level of stupidity could lead to?

They’d probably tell you it had good ‘breaks’ too.

Sandman6472

After dealing with dryer issues these past few weeks, seems it now needs a new heating element which could take a few weeks to come in. Went over to Lowe's the other day after leaving the laundromat and saw the current Whirlpool unit that we currently have. Wife won't get a door that opens to either side as our dryer is the first appliance in the laundry room, has to be a drop down door. Most brands don't come this way except our trusty 'ole Whirlpool unit. Went on sale Thursday night so brought the Mrs. after work yesterday for her approval. Funny thing is that I do 80% of the laundry now but, best to get her o k. Delivering new unit Monday between 8 am to 8 pm which is my n/s day so all is good. Wife pulled out a couple of gift coupons she got from work so dropped the sale price by just over $200. Was very pleased as even with these coupons, cost me around $550 for delivery, set-up & removal of old unit. At my age, not going to deal with all these things...just want it to work once they leave the house.

Once I know that the new unit is up & running, will let our repair company know to cancel the order of the heating element for the old unit. Still haven't located the old paperwork but we bought the washer/dryer unit in either 2014 or 2004. Think it was in 2004 as remember having a party for one of the kids here the day after they came & the washer having a slight issue draining the water. Whatever, decided to just replace the dryer since the washer is working fine right now. Will deal with that if & when a problem crops up. Funny, the girls had a talk with us recently about getting serious about moving to the northern part of the state. And we had already put moving back on the table with a late 2027 date being tossed around. My wife is getting to the point where she'd like to cut back a bit & I'd be just as happy to stop work all together sooner then later! By 2027, it'll be 40 years we've been living here...a good time to move on!

oldfarmer50

“ My wife is getting to the point where she'd like to cut back a bit & I'd be just as happy to stop work all together sooner then later! By 2027, it'll be 40 years we've been living here...a good time to move on!”

I’ve decided that when I turn 75 I’m going to pull the plug and finally retire for good. We’ve got guys in their 80s and one in his 90s that are still slogging away but I don’t intend to retire feet first.

qbrozen

Finally got around to listing my truck for sale. Changed the TPMS sensors yesterday to get rid of the one fault. I kinda got to the point that I didn’t want to do much else so I cleaned the inside and did a quick spray down of the outside and snapped off a few dozen pics and popped it on marketplace. I was going to ask 8900 but then kept seeing all these others with more miles for $11k-$13k so I went with 9900.

tjc78

Good luck.

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

Finally got around to listing my truck for sale. Changed the TPMS sensors yesterday to get rid of the one fault. I kinda got to the point that I didn’t want to do much else so I cleaned the inside and did a quick spray down of the outside and snapped off a few dozen pics and popped it on marketplace. I was going to ask 8900 but then kept seeing all these others with more miles for $11k-$13k so I went with 9900.

You might get your price, trucks go for crazy money. When I bought my truck a year ago for $14k I thought it was high but worth it for the low mileage and lack of rust. Now I think I might have gotten a bargain. Did you list it on Marketplace or one of the pay for ads sites?

nyccarguy

My son and I went to the NY Auto Show today. I’m glad we went. The manufacturers that were there really put out some great displays of different cars in a multitude of different colors. Hyundai, Genesis, & Kia probably had close to 1/4 of the floor space. Kia was completely separate from Hyundai & Genesis. I told my son that I remember when Hyundai had one single car here, the Excel. It cost $5,995.

I really liked the Ford display. I spent a decent amount of time checking out a Maverick. I can really see the appeal @corvette & @stickguy. It had a surprising amount of interior room in both the front and back. Fit and finish was spectacular. They had a baby blue mustang GT on the floor as well.

I snapped a few pics for your viewing pleasure:

nyccarguy

The Toyota display had an impressive range of models. They had white on red XSE Camry, TRD Pro 4 Runner, Sequoia, Tacoma Trail Hunter along with a display of base models (that they always advertise for leases). An Le Corolla, RAV4, & Camry in a beautiful blue ish green color.

While my son was waiting to drive the genesis virtual race car experience, I spent a lot of time checking out Hondas. I sat in an HRV for the 1st time. I couldn’t believe how much room there is inside that small little SUV.

Subaru also had one of each STI then WRX all lined up which was cool.

roadburner

I'll take the 392 and the Type R.

Michaell

@nyccarguy - great pix! Looks like you both had a great time, and you learned a few things about the next lease/purchase, to boot.

The Denver Auto Show was this past weekend, as well.

@breld (and the missus), @jpp75 and I had talked about going, but there wasn't a day where all of us were available. John and Bruce thought about going on their own, but a quick look at the floor plan and which brands were there (and which were not), put the kibosh on that idea. Plus, the weather was cold and miserable both Friday and Saturday, so it made staying inside that much easier.

tifighter

Meetup at a major auto show would be fun. Just sayin…

oldfarmer50

nyccarguy said:

My son and I went to the NY Auto Show today. I’m glad we went. The manufacturers that were there really put out some great displays of different cars in a multitude of different colors. Hyundai, Genesis, & Kia probably had close to 1/4 of the floor space. Kia was completely separate from Hyundai & Genesis. I told my son that I remember when Hyundai had one single car here, the Excel. It cost $5,995.

I really liked the Ford display. I spent a decent amount of time checking out a Maverick. I can really see the appeal @corvette & @stickguy. It had a surprising amount of interior room in both the front and back. Fit and finish was spectacular. They had a baby blue mustang GT on the floor as well.

I snapped a few pics for your viewing pleasure:

I was a little disappointed in the show last year as its main emphasis seemed to be EVs. Great if you were into that segment but I wasn’t.

28firefighter

We’re in Japan right now for Spring Break (first Tokyo, now Kyoto). So many great cars here and great car culture generally. I desperately want a Levorg STI (WRX Wagon), amongst others.

tjc78

@28firefighter said:
We’re in Japan right now for Spring Break (first Tokyo, now Kyoto). So many great cars here and great car culture generally. I desperately want a Levorg STI (WRX Wagon), amongst others.

What an awesome trip.

My wife wants to go there. She has been to China for work and loved it.

au1994

Wasn’t a big fan of China but Japan is cool!

qbrozen

@28firefighter said:
We’re in Japan right now for Spring Break (first Tokyo, now Kyoto). So many great cars here and great car culture generally. I desperately want a Levorg STI (WRX Wagon), amongst others.

We really tried to book Japan this year. Just couldn’t get past the flight prices for 4 people.

qbrozen

@oldfarmer50 said:
You might get your price, trucks go for crazy money. When I bought my truck a year ago for $14k I thought it was high but worth it for the low mileage and lack of rust. Now I think I might have gotten a bargain. Did you list it on Marketplace or one of the pay for ads sites?

Just marketplace for now. Maybe in a week or 2, I’ll add to eBay if nobody bites. But then I’ll want to do a real cleanup on it, make videos, etc.

nyccarguy

@Michaell - Yes, physically sitting in a vehicle gives me a good feeling for it. There's so much more to a car, truck, or SUV than what's listed on the spec sheet & options list. There are a lot of good vehicles in the $30K-$33K MSRP range.

breld

tifighter said:

Meetup at a major auto show would be fun. Just sayin…

This does need to happen.

jmonroe1

breld said:

tifighter said:

Meetup at a major auto show would be fun. Just sayin…

This does need to happen.

————————————————
Does that mean you’re inviting your poster buddies over to your garage next weekend? I can bring the chips.

jmonroe

qbrozen

That 5.6 Xterra is ending in 30 mins. Bidding currently at $8500. I would be tempted BUT, after listening closely to the startup video, I'm not so sure. It doesn't sound right to me. I THINK I'm hearing a knocking sound. It is too far away from me to take that risk.

pensfan83

We're less than 2 months from our European vacation and less than 4 from the cruise. No cars this year unless we hit the lottery.

nyccarguy

pensfan83 said:

We're less than 2 months from our European vacation and less than 4 from the cruise. No cars this year unless we hit the lottery.

Vacations are money well spent. I'm astonished at some of the details my children remember from the trips we've taken over the years.

xwesx

qbrozen said:

That 5.6 Xterra is ending in 30 mins. Bidding currently at $8500. I would be tempted BUT, after listening closely to the startup video, I'm not so sure. It doesn't sound right to me. I THINK I'm hearing a knocking sound. It is too far away from me to take that risk.

Oh, they're going nuts. It is in the final run, and bidders have it over $16,500 last I looked. So nuts.

xwesx

xwesx said:

qbrozen said:

That 5.6 Xterra is ending in 30 mins. Bidding currently at $8500. I would be tempted BUT, after listening closely to the startup video, I'm not so sure. It doesn't sound right to me. I THINK I'm hearing a knocking sound. It is too far away from me to take that risk.

Oh, they're going nuts. It is in the final run, and bidders have it over $16,500 last I looked. So nuts.

Shocking! $22,100. Two bidders fighting over it for over $8,000 after the rest of the party went home. I detect buyer's remorse coming in the near future.

stickguy

I just added a 3 day extension to our Spain trip booked for this time next year. Getting pricey so good thing we don’t have a wedding next year too!

qbrozen

good grief. You could have bought 2 Nissans with over 100k and pay someone to swap the engines for that kind of money.