Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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It's only a matter of time before one of my old cars ends up leaving me for dead up in Carlisle or Macungie or something. Come to think of it, this past summer, the power steering on my '79 5th Ave died while I was in Carlisle. Didn't leave me stranded, but it did take a little muscle to drive the thing back home. Once you actually got moving, it wasn't so bad, but low-speed maneuvering in tight quarters, such as parking lots, getting it into the garage, etc, were a bit of a challenge.
I don't think I've had to use AAA to tow a car since 2001/2002. And that year, I actually DID use my four tows! I let a friend use it to get it towed when the transmission on his '98 Tracker died. And then, the other three times, my '89 Gran Fury ate its starter and then two remanufactured units, all in rapid succession. It actually ate a third one, but by the grace of God I managed to get it to start, drove it to the mechanic, and finally, the fourth time was a charm.
I've had cars die on me since then, but fortunately it was always something that would re-start, eventually. Stuff like my '79 New Yorker intermittently leaving me stranded at work, my 2000 Intrepid doing that once or twice when the crankshaft position sensor started to go, distributor in the truck starting to go bad, etc.
Oh, and this tragedy with my truck's flat tire isn't over yet. The Catalina's spare was the right bolt pattern, 5 on 5", but I overlooked one little detail. The Catalina's spare is a 14" rim. The truck has 15" rims, and the back brake drums were too big for the 14" to fit over. :mad: In a way though, that impressed me, that GM would actually make something over-sized. GM, of the under-sized THM200 transmission fame. GM, who would put 9.5" Corvair brakes on musclecars with 4x the horsepower.
I wonder how big the back brakes are on that truck, anyway? I think the Catalina has 11" drums all around. I believe my DeSoto has 12" drums, yet a 14" rim fits over it just fine. I guess maybe with a 13" drum, the outer diameter might be too big for a 14" wheel to fit over?
So, needless to say, the fat lady ain't sung yet!
Unfortunately, the darn car has proven dead reliable--but I do keep a *really* close watch on it. I don't trust it one bit.
I remember one of the times my '89 Gran Fury had to be towed, I inadvertently insulted the tow truck driver. He showed up in this little cabover job that looked smaller than the car, and I asked him if it was big enough to do the job!
Oh, as for trusting a car, I think my '79 New Yorker dying at work the other day, after a fairly long reliable run, was a bit of an omen. I'm going up to Pennsylvania this weekend, and had planned on driving it! But, I'm over that thought now!
But, once about 15 years or so ago I had to have one of our RX-7's towed twice in the same month.
This prompted a somewhat testy form letter from AAA suggesting that maybe I should take better care of my cars, not use them so much etc and they even suggested that I could be dropped.
This REALLY ticked me off.
I called and finally got put through to one of their managers.
He pulled up my records on his computer.
" Do you see just how many years I've been with you"
" Do you see how much money I have sent you over the years?"
" Do you see how often I use your services?"
He apologized and said I shouldn't have been sent that letter!
That was 15 years ago and I've used them once since then when I locked my keys in my car at Home Depot maybe five years ago.
Not trusting any european car is a very wise thing!
As with any program some will abuse it and rather than keep raising yearly rates they may have added some restrictions now.
Every year I think about just dropping them but it does help instill a sense of security.
Not only that, I keep forgetting that some hotels and even some restaurants offer a AAA discount.
Since this is a "green" topic, if you have to join an auto club, check out Better World.
Can't see much value in any of them myself though.
So what will you take? The other one? :P
What's up this weekend?
Well, with luck, I'll be able to take the Park Ave. The tire I ordered is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I'm going to run the new tire and the old rim up to the mechanic on Friday and hope he can put it on that day, so I can put it on the truck that evening. Then I can turn it back over to the roommate and get my Buick back!
This weekend is the fall swap meet at Carlisle. Grbeck says I should start looking around for a nice downsized RWD GM B/C body. Which would be cool, but I'm not sure I want another nice old car that I'd get attached to, and only want to drive in nice weather, etc. I look at cars such as my 2000 Park Ave, 1985 Silverado, and that 2009 Altima Hybrid I've been thinking about as cars to drive, use up, and ultimately dispose of once they're too far gone. But something like a late 70's/early 80's Caprice, 98, etc would be something I'd want to hang on to and preserve.
If the truck tire isn't ready in time, I'm thinking about driving my '76 LeMans up. I could dig my other New Yorker out, the 5th Ave, and drive it, although the power steering's out on it. No problem in most driving, but in tight manuevering it can be a good workout!
The gas flap is a nice touch though.
Yeah, but I imagine in Michigan, you'd see rusty trucks like this that are 15-20 years newer!
My roommate said that one of their regular customers at the restaurant has a similar truck, although it's even rustier. Sometimes my roommate would park next to it and the customer would jokingly say don't do that, it's making my truck look bad! And my roommate would say yeah, I did it so my truck would look GOOD! And last night, when I was up there messing with my truck, I saw that other truck. Good lord, I know this is gonna be like the pot calling the kettle black, but damn that thing was rusty and beat up! It was also an older truck though, and could have had another 10 years on mine.
The gas flap is a nice touch though.
Yeah, one of these days, I need to get up under it and see if I can fix that. Either that, or take it off. Improve the aerodynamics, so I'll get better fuel economy. Yeah, that's it! :P
I've thought about swapping out the full-sized spare in my '76 LeMans, which uses that bolt pattern, for a compact, to free up some trunk space. I think the full-size is actually original equipment. It pre-dates the 225/70/R15 style of measurement. I think it's something like FR78-15, whatever that translates to? Only part I can decipher is the 15, which means 15" rim.
Oh, I actually touched that up, although the first part of the license plate actually is "666". I'm just waiting for some devil-worshipper to steal them...
But, on that subject, here's a pic I took of the Park Avenue's odometer reading last November...
After literally spending all day with this picky lady I finally landed her on a very nice used Accord.
The deal was done until she just happened to notice the license plate. Yep, 666. She said therre would be no way she would buy that car even though I offered to pull the plates and get new ones for her.
She was REALLY rattled. She left and I never saw her again.
(my modern car has a pair of 8s, which I have been told are lucky...I was hoping for a 666 and some letters that looked vaguely profane :shades: )
They won't buy a house that faces in what they think is the wrong direction. If the open the front door and see stairs that is BAD and they won't buy the house.
Used to drive me nuts sometimes!
If you want another nice one my Celica has the plate: WTF 34D.
so the REAL devil is 5 short! :P
Triple A lost all credibility when they stood up to support red light and photo radar speed cameras and video helping sleazeballs generate additional revenue taxation disguised as fines rather than support the motorist, due process, the Constitution, and the right to travel with privacy unimpeded with unnecessary regulation. Harrassment to traveling is what it is.
AAA = scam artists. Could their position have anything to do with the financial incentive and bias towards their auto insurance division?
autoinsurance division?Gee, you make them sound a lot like the AARP. :-)
Kudos to my state for their over use of caustic materials on a daily basis for nearly 6 months out of the year! As we are also breathing this material, no wonder the heart disease rate is so high in this area.
Gotta keep the local industries going
Too bad they couldn't have used arm clamps or incorporated a weather cover for the spare, as for me I really wouldn't have missed the room the 3rd row of seats were useless anyway. I would prefer an internal spare at this point especially where I live, they aren't meant to be exposed to that many corrosives.
What model of Saturn did/do you own? The Pontiac Fiero also featured a saceframe with composite materials, but wasn't generally considered a very durable car.
Even the Bonneville I owned had plastic fenders.
I have never lost a vehicle to a power train failure, all succumbed to rustout. ... though I think the Saturn may be the first.... & the failing components are from Honda. Perhaps if I lived in the Sunny South & not in the Rust/Chemical belt I would have a different view of outer steel body panels... anyhow the manufactures no longer use composites & plastics... probably held up too well... ie: no rust, door lot dings.
A friend of mine hit a bridge abutment @ 35mph in his Fiero & was still able to drive the car home.
And an idiot light saved me a tire change on a rental car a few years back. Was able to drive a mile to a compressor and then make it to a garage to get it fixed.
Not having the latest and greatest is a problem when you drive them forever.
Needless to say, I didn't even notice when the temporary spare went flat on the way home. It was okay at work, totally flat when I pulled into the driveway, so I don't know at what point it went flat. Luckily it was only about a 4 mile drive.
Ugh, don't remind me...I've had enough of a tire fiasco with that Silverado of mine to last a lifetime! Hopefully I don't have to go through that again anytime soon.
BTW, just got that truck back from the shop...again. Turns out the "new" lower radiator hose that got put on the same time as the new water pump was dry rotted, possibly from simply sitting for too long in a warehouse somewhere.
That's replaced now, so hopefully I won't have any more fiascos for awhile. I think I am going to start setting a little money aside each month for a new car fund, though.
The Fiero also had it's issues with salt buildup within the space frame if not properly addressed, this was nearly inevitable in the salt belt.
From reading over history all these space frame cars had pretty good crash ratings on them, compared to their counterparts.
I've always been a car guy. I'm in sales and spend 15-20 hours per week in my car. I used to get something different everyt 2-3 years (keep in mind I drive 40-50k miles/year).
4 kids and grown-up responsibilities have schooled me a bit on the car situation. I'm all for keeping a car as along as it's safe and the maintenance costs don't exceed the acquisition cost of a newer vehicle.
I bought my current car, an '04 Passat TDI in Sept of '06 with 36k miles on the odometer. Today the odometer reads 271k miles. I maintain the car religiously and keep it clean. I haven't had a car payment in years and can't imagine how buying a newer car would make financial or environmental sense.
This pretty much sums up the point of this discussion.
I guess as long as the car's still reliable, keeping it might not be a bad thing. My Mom and stepdad's '99 Altima is still going, with around 330,000 miles on it, and it's been fairly reliable. If it started breaking down on a regular basis and leaving them stranded, then I'd say get rid of it, but it's holding up.
However, they don't use it to go on long trips anymore. They used to go to Florida and up to Pennsylvania on a regular basis, and out west a few times, but these days it's just a local errand car.
At one point they offered to give it to me, and I considered it, until my Mom asked me "how do you intend to use it?" At that point I knew there would be some kind of string attached. Years ago, they gave me an '86 Monte Carlo with 179,000 miles on it. I got T-boned delivering pizzas one night, and when they found out, their first response wasn't "Oh my God, are you okay?!" or anything like that. Nope. It was "Well why were you driving THAT car?" So, I guess they would've been happier if I had been T-boned in my '68 Dart or '79 Newport! :confuse:
That being said, they should probably just drive the Altima until something expensive breaks. They've already passed the point where they could sell it and get decent money for it, I suspect. They've done really well if they got that far without any big bills.
The limit was 35 MPH. Not sure exactly how fast I was going, but I know wasn't going much faster than that if I was even going 35. (Residential street, and the limit had JUST been 25). The officer looked at my truck and the first words out of his mouth were "you were going MUCH faster than 35 MPH. Being a bit shaken up, the thought still occurred to me "have you EVER seen a crash test video? Those are run at 35 MPH into solid objects, and the cars are practically destroyed. Undriveable. Un-rollable even. At least mine you could still sort of roll it, aside from the fender and bumper being smashed into the front tire. All fault was still assigned to the other party however, I ended up with a check for my vehicle rather than it ending up at a body shop. I still miss that truck.