Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

snakeweasel · August 2015

isellhondas said:
Speaking of safety, I read a Facebook entry from a Honda Tech who is buried in work replacing Takata airbags that were recalled. He said some of the owners are in panic mode, fearing that they may be hurt if their airbag deployed yet the cars they bring in are often junkers.

He's had 350,000 miled up piles of junk come in with bad ball joints, CV joints that are ready to come apart and tires with the steel cords showing.

When these issues are brought to the customer's attention do they have them attended to Nope, just replace tha airbag since I don't have to pay anything. Don't worry about the other pressing safety items!

Somehow if I had a car with 350K miles on it and the airbag hadn't deployed I wouldn't be to concerned even with the recall. I have owned cars that while they didn't have those issues they were well on their way (in a sense that they should be worked on now before they do go bad) and I just junked them as they usually needed more money put into them than they were worth.

imidazol97 · August 2015

snakeweasel said:

dino001 said:
Essentially, if speed kills, then we should put a 30 mph limit everywhere. Let's see, if that helps.
Well a 30 MPH speed limit would essentially drop the fatalities on the road dramatically. However what I am trying to get across is that it is more dangerous to drive at higher speeds, understanding this would help reduce the fatality rate simply by people adjusting their driving habits based on it. There is also a trade off between risk and economic viability.

Ohio raised the speed limit on most open portions of the interstate to 70. Now they can't figure out why their number of deaths has risen. They put up rolling sign boards and used the traffic alert overhead signs to ask people to drive more carefully beginning with the 4th of July weekend. And the legislators even suggested raising the speed limit to 75. Obviously some lobbyist had his checkbook out.

ab348 · August 2015

isellhondas said:
Speaking of safety, I read a Facebook entry from a Honda Tech who is buried in work replacing Takata airbags that were recalled. He said some of the owners are in panic mode, fearing that they may be hurt if their airbag deployed yet the cars they bring in are often junkers.

He's had 350,000 miled up piles of junk come in with bad ball joints, CV joints that are ready to come apart and tires with the steel cords showing.

When these issues are brought to the customer's attention do they have them attended to Nope, just replace tha airbag since I don't have to pay anything. Don't worry about the other pressing safety items!

Impossible. Everyone on the internet knows that Hondas last forever with no maintenance requirements and their parts never wear out.

Mr_Shiftright · August 2015

It has to do with the problems of detonation and vaporization. Kerosene is prone to denotation (compression ignition) but resistant to vaporization (liquid into a gas).

so to run an engine on kerosene, which is certainly possible, you'd need to solve those two issues. Denotation can be solved by having a very low compression engine (but alas, one with little power) + water injection. Vaporization could be solved by heating the fuel.

There are engines (generally small ones) that are equipped to burn gasoline for starting, then kerosene for running (after the intake is all warmed up) and water injection for anti-detonation.

So as you can see, kerosene is not an ideal fuel for a car whereas diesel is perfect for a diesel engine, which wants a compression detonation and atomized fuel delivery.

snakeweasel said:

bwia said:
Question for the experts:

If kerosene is cheaper and burns more slowly than gasoline--why don't cars use kerosene instead of gasoline as the major propellant? As far as I know, commercial airplanes use kerosene, with some additives of course, as their only fuel.

By comparison, automobiles use either gasoline or diesel. Since kerosene is cheaper and less volatile than gasoline it would it would suggest that kerosene would be fuel of choice. What am I missing?
Not sure if I can completely answer this question but I do believe that early on some cars ran on kerosene, but today's cars it would be hard to. Being less volatile could be a draw back, but I am not sure.

As for being cheaper, kerosene is a byproduct of refining oil into gasoline. However you could refine oil into kerosene and get a byproduct called gasoline. So my guess if we converted all cars to kerosene today in a few years someone will be asking "since gasoline is cheaper why don't we use that as a fuel of choice?". My guess is that since most oil was being refined into kerosene over 100 years ago that's exactly what some people said and started using the cheaper gasoline to run the cars they were building/using.

imidazol97 · August 2015

ab348 said:

isellhondas said:
He's had 350,000 miled up piles of junk come in with bad ball joints, CV joints that are ready to come apart and tires with the steel cords showing.

When these issues are brought to the customer's attention do they have them attended to Nope, just replace tha airbag since I don't have to pay anything. Don't worry about the other pressing safety items!
Impossible. Everyone on the internet knows that Hondas last forever with no maintenance requirements and their parts never wear out.

LOL

houdini1 · August 2015

snakeweasel said:

robr2 said:
As I noted, the primary goal of fog lights is to illuminate the roadway under the fog. They do have the secondary benefit of visibility to other driver but because their reach is so short, they aren't the best for that.
Since fog usually touches the ground it would be hard to illuminate the roadway under the fog.

Dim lights work better in fog than brights because they shine lower to the ground. Fog lights work even better because they shine even lower. Hence the term, "Under the fog".

roadburner · August 2015

dino001 said:

At least we agree that lowering legal speed is not an answer for every problem we encounter in road transportation. Speed kills became an easy answer for many officials to absolve them from doing things that may be more difficult.

Also, the safety lobby also likes to quote raw fatality numbers- which are essentially meaningless unless there is an adjustment for vehicle miles traveled. In a 1997 report NHTSA used that exact tactic- claiming 350 more fatalities "than expected" occurred in states that had raised speed limits- with no adjustment for vehicle travel..
In contrast, Michigan, corrected artificially low speed limits over a 10-year period. The following is testimony from Thad V. Peterson, a retired Michigan State Police Officer who led the effort:

During the last 10 years of my career with the State Police I served as the commanding officer of the Traffic Services Section, where one of our main focus areas together with the Department of Transportation, County Road Commissions, and elected officials of all levels, was to correct hundreds of artificially low speed limits across the state.

The speed limit corrections implemented during my tenure in traffic services (mostly increases of up to 15 miles per hour) impacted millions of vehicle miles traveled per day. Over that same time frame, Michigan’s traffic fatality numbers plummeted, by about a third. In conjunction with my counterparts, I was recognized for those efforts with two Governor’s Traffic Safety Awards for Outstanding Contributions to Traffic Safety.

Many of these corrections were on urban freeways, typically correcting under-posted speed limits of 55 miles per hour to 70 miles per hour. 70 was the nearest multiple of 5 miles per hour to the 85th percentile speed, and closely matched the prevailing, safe traffic speeds on these freeways...

...As you would expect from these results, we never had to roll back any of the speed limit changes we made. With continued after-studies now many years after the changes, the result remains the same.

To summarize the dilemma related to speed limit changes, perceptions and expectation simply don''t match with the result.

People worry that vehicles/drivers will increase travel speed by the amount of the speed limit increase. The best research solidly refutes this assertion, and in the hundreds of the road segments where we increased the speed limit by up to 15 miles per hour, traffic travel speeds never increased significantly.

Travel speeds are made more CONSISTENT across the board, which is why crashes are normally reduced, and the crashes that do occur, do NOT tend to involve higher speeds than they did prior to the speed limit increase. The result is INCREASED SAFETY.
Road authorities are often concerned about an engineering factor called “Design Speed.” Interestingly, when citing this concern, they miss the point that if the speed limit is far below normal travel speeds for that segment of the roadway, they have usually already failed to design for the prevailing speeds at which traffic is traveling SAFELY. Design speed is a highly misused and misunderstood topic that should not deter road authorities from maximizing traffic safety through the use of optimal speed limits.

Of course, the insurance lobby(IIHS) and other "safety advocates" want nothing to do with 85th percentile speed limits, since as fewer people speed, fewer are ticketed, which hurts the companies' bottom line- jacking up premiums with no attendant increase in loss exposure is an extremely profitable tactic. This also explains the safety nanny war on LIDAR/Radar detectors- again with no evidence to support their position( in the mid '80s NHTSA even funded a study to examine the "The Impact of Radar Detectors On Highway Traffic Safety" praying that a nexus between detector usage and highway carnage would be conclusively established. The report concluded that
"...it remains to be demonstrated that detector usage influences speed in the absence of a detectable radar
signal."

nelsonf · August 2015

bwia said:
Question for the experts:

If kerosene is cheaper and burns more slowly than gasoline--why don't cars use kerosene instead of gasoline as the major propellant? As far as I know, commercial airplanes use kerosene, with some additives of course, as their only fuel.

By comparison, automobiles use either gasoline or diesel. Since kerosene is cheaper and less volatile than gasoline it would it would suggest that kerosene would be fuel of choice. What am I missing?

While you can't run kerosene in a piston engine easily, you can run kerosene in a jet engine. Another name for jet fuel is aviation kerosene, but it is different from jet fuel. Kerosene is the base to which additives go into to make jet fuel. Jet fuel has altitude stabilizers for anti-foaming, and additives to help with icing in the fuel.

Diesel is very close to jet fuel. A few folks I know run jet fuel, sumped out of the airplane's fuel tanks, in their diesel pickups, with a bit of ATF thrown in for fuel pump lubrication. Jet fuel is a high sulfur fuel, so the EPA types frown on its use in automobiles.

On the engines of the plane I take care of, Jet Fuel is the preferred fuel of course, but diesel, kerosene, and even 100LL aviation gasoline can be used in a pinch, but for only limited amounts of time between engine overhauls. (It might get you out of a 3rd world country)

abacomike · August 2015

@nelsonf

Thanks for a great lesson on jet fuel and kerosene and the differences in how they are used. You learn something new here on this strand every day.

isellhondas · August 2015

imidazol97 said:

ab348 said:

isellhondas said:
He's had 350,000 miled up piles of junk come in with bad ball joints, CV joints that are ready to come apart and tires with the steel cords showing.

When these issues are brought to the customer's attention do they have them attended to Nope, just replace tha airbag since I don't have to pay anything. Don't worry about the other pressing safety items!
Impossible. Everyone on the internet knows that Hondas last forever with no maintenance requirements and their parts never wear out.
LOL

My theory is that as cars age and accumulate miles people tend to slack off on service, skip oil changes etc and before you know it the car is junk.

In 2002 I sold a traveling food broker a new CRV. The last time I talked to his guy, the CRV had just under 400,000 miles on it and it looked and ran like it was new. His secret was to never skimp on anything. He did every service ahead of time, kept the car clean and garaged.

The only non scheduled items he ever replaced were an A/C compressor and his front brake calipers.

The Shuttle Express airport vans routinely clock up miles in the 500,000's and they are FORDS!

They have an intense service schedule. One driver told me thay had one get wrecked that had over 700,000 miles.

dino001 · August 2015

As a bridge engineer, I interact with traffic and roadway engineers every day. The design speed is developed as a function of safe braking distance, visibility, curvature of the road, etc. for all vehicles, both large and small. In essence 70 mph is a design speed, providing a sufficient sight distance, under which a 40-ton eighteen-wheeler, not just a less than two ton midsize sedan with latest safety features, can stop safely in a prescribed set of circumstances.

Germans have much smarter road rules, using circumstantial limits, depending on the vehicle type (trucks aren't allowed to exceed 75 mph or so), or weather (the have variable speed limit signs), but that's too hard in the most advanced country in the world. To develop a system that makes sense and optimizes both safety and economic impact is way too hard, especially if the officials can simply slap big fines and fill the budgets instead.

dino001 · August 2015

The primary issue is trust. A German driver, knowing other stretches have no legal speed limit, trusts that a particular place has a limit for a good reason, not related to revenue of the town, so he/she more likely than not, obeys. Many other countries, people assume the sign was put there to make their life more difficult, or to simply get money. It may be incorrect, but the oppressive nature of their laws with often currupt and selective enforcement makes them much more cynical. This is especially true in less developed countries, where it also combines with bad road quality, poor condition of vehicles and other issues.

Lower speeds everywhere for everybody is not an answer. Some places, some vehicles, some weather condition, perhaps. But slapping 55 mph on a straight stretch of highway with wide shoulders and runoff area in the middle of nowhere, on a sunny day with no traffic is simply a wrong policy.

roadburner · August 2015

dino001 said:
The primary issue is trust. A German driver, knowing other stretches have no legal speed limit, trusts that a particular place has a limit for a good reason, not related to revenue of the town, so he/she more likely than not, obeys. Many other countries, people assume the sign was put there to make their life more difficult, or to simply get money. It may be incorrect, but the oppressive nature of their laws with often currupt and selective enforcement makes them much more cynical. This is especially true in less developed countries, where it also combines with bad road quality, poor condition of vehicles and other issues.

Lower speeds everywhere for everybody is not an answer. Some places, some vehicles, some weather condition, perhaps. But slapping 55 mph on a straight stretch of highway with wide shoulders and runoff area in the middle of nowhere, on a sunny day with no traffic is simply a wrong policy.

I am absolutely certain that the idiotic 55 mph NMSL caused a significant erosion in respect for other traffic laws.

snakeweasel · August 2015

Saw a slingshot today (actually saw it twice), for those not in the know the Slingshot is a three wheeled vehicle with two side by side bucket seats from Polaris. Looked pretty good going down the street.

abacomike · August 2015

Starting tomorrow at 1:00 PM, I am taking a defensive driving course from AARP right here in my development. $20.00 was the cost of the 8 hour class which concludes on Wednesday at 1:00 PM. I do this every 3 years because I save $130 per year ($65.00 every 6 months) on my auto insurance as a special discount. It also gives me an opportunity to update my skills.

Definitely worth the $20 investment and the 2-4 hour classes.

driver100 · August 2015

I was away for 3 days and caught up with 4 pages here. Notes:

*Just read the average age of a car in the US is 11.5 years. That is even though more new cars are being sold than ever before. If the average is 11.5 then there must be quite a few 15, 18 or 20 year old cas around.
AVERAGE AGE OF CAR IN USA 11.5 YEARS - USA TODAY

*I was reading a review of the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V and some reviewers say it is better than a BMW M5. Most reviewers seem to be thinking about which is better, but, all agree Cadillac has come a long way and both cars are pretty close in performance.

Carry on...............

mako1a · August 2015

Speaking of Caddys I wonder how Graphicguy is doing with his CTS. Is the 40 day wait over yet? Is arbitration still to come? Will he get his money back (plus all the rental car expense)? Stay tuned for the next development.

graphicguy · August 2015

mako1a said:
Speaking of Caddys I wonder how Graphicguy is doing with his CTS. Is the 40 day wait over yet? Is arbitration still to come? Will he get his money back (plus all the rental car expense)? Stay tuned for the next development.

mako...still fighting with Cadillac. Lawyer says GM is really dragging their feet. All that's done is made me more agitated.

So, we soldier on. I think it's going to end up going to court. At that time, we'll be asking for fees, time I've been without the car on a consistent basis (now going on 7 months of nothing but trouble with the car). Either denying there are problems or not being able to fix the problems when I bring them up to the dealers.

Just a bad showing all the way around. Went to Costco yesterday. Power steering worked intermittently. Going over a speed bump at no more than about 2 MPH, it sounded like the front left suspension was straining to rebound....lots of bad noises coming out.

I'm waiting for the day that one of the suspension pieces just falls off, or the power steering stops completely. The good news, it hasn't stalled in a couple of weeks, though.

graphicguy · August 2015

graphicguy said:

mako1a said:
Speaking of Caddys I wonder how Graphicguy is doing with his CTS. Is the 40 day wait over yet? Is arbitration still to come? Will he get his money back (plus all the rental car expense)? Stay tuned for the next development.
mako...still fighting with Cadillac. Lawyer says GM is really dragging their feet. All that's done is made me more agitated.

So, we soldier on. I think it's going to end up going to court. At that time, we'll be asking for fees, time I've been without the car on a consistent basis (now going on 7 months of nothing but trouble with the car) and a full refund plus some. They either deny there are problems or not being able to fix the problems when I bring them up to the dealers.

Just a bad showing all the way around. Went to Costco yesterday. Power steering worked intermittently. Going over a speed bump at no more than about 2 MPH, it sounded like the front left suspension was straining to rebound....lots of bad noises coming out.

I'm waiting for the day that one of the suspension pieces just falls off, or the power steering stops completely. The good news, it hasn't stalled in a couple of weeks, though. I've given up using CUE instead using my iPhone for navigation and music.

bwia · August 2015

Thanks all for chiming in with your perspectives on the kerosene vs gasoline discussion. I learned much from you guys.

qbrozen · August 2015

So I finally made my first visit to a Carmax this past Friday. Kind of an interesting place. I dropped my car off for appraisal and spent the 30 mins perusing the lot. All cars are unlocked and the keys are actually in a box attached to the window. Weird. Wonder if they go around taking those off and putting them on each day.

Couple of vehicles of note: A ZR-1 with 16k miles for $75k, and 2 Chevy Volts with low miles (24k, I believe) for $17k and $18k. Oh, and they had a 2012 Passat CC Sport 2.0T with manual trans and 2-tone leather with 29k miles for $18k. I wouldn't kick that out of my garage.

Anyhoo, sadly, they did not live up to the reputation they seem to have gotten on these forums when it came to my car. The offer was $2500 below what they are going for at Manheim. That's pretty ridiculous. Needless to say, they won't be seeing me again. 2.5 hours of driving wasted.

carnaught · August 2015

qbrozen said:
So I finally made my first visit to a Carmax this past Friday. Kind of an interesting place. I dropped my car off for appraisal and spent the 30 mins perusing the lot.......Anyhoo, sadly, they did not live up to the reputation they seem to have gotten on these forums when it came to my car. The offer was $2500 below what they are going for at Manheim. That's pretty ridiculous. Needless to say, they won't be seeing me again. 2.5 hours of driving wasted.

I know that some have received good prices for their cars on Carmax. My experience with them with two cars recently has been much like yours. The appraisals each time were considerably lower than I knew they were worth, and measurably lower than what I subsequently received on my trades. On the buying end, I've found their cars priced high. I'm therefore not a fan, and not sure I will even bother with them in the future.

graphicguy · August 2015

Q....I've found the same thing with CarMax....their appraisals are far lower than any other dealers, even on a trade. And, the prices they ask for their cars are much higher than any other dealers.

Tried them a couple of times. Disappointed each time and a waste of my time.

dino001 · August 2015

I had similar "appraisal disappointment", as you guys. Twice. Those were Subaru WRX and then STI.

I think, if at all, they may be giving people decent money on very popular models (low risk, high demand), but when something more "exotic" comes in, they're simply not as motivated, so you get less than another dealer that has their transaction bundled with selling you something as well.

isellhondas · August 2015

CarMax isn't going to give you more money than they can buy similar cars at the auction for.

A dealer might, however in order to make a new car deal or if the trade in question is something desirable.

stickguy · August 2015

q, there is a car sense in mt. Holly. Could give them a try. Or heck, give the Honda dealer a shot.

bwia · August 2015

Auto industry sales were up in July but not at Cadillac.

General Motors posted a 6% sales increase in July, compared to the same period a year earlier. GM was powered by a 14% increase in sales to retail customers, the most profitable kind of transaction in the business. The Chevrolet brand rose 8%, the GMC brand increased 1%, the Buick brand rose 18%, and the Cadillac brand fell 7%. GM reduced its reliance on less-profitable daily rental sales for the month.

Sales of the much hyped Cadillac models were down again from July 2014 compared to July 2015
• ATS down from 2,582 to 1,588
• CTS down from 2,039 to 1,515
• XTS down from 1,939 to 1,302

The comeback of Ford’s Lincoln brand continued, as the luxury line and Cadillac rival enjoyed a 21% increase for the month.

qbrozen · August 2015

isellhondas said:
CarMax isn't going to give you more money than they can buy similar cars at the auction for.

That's all I wanted. Hell, I would have accepted $500 BELOW auction value. Guess I was expecting too much.

fezo · August 2015

stickguy said:
q, there is a car sense in mt. Holly. Could give them a try. Or heck, give the Honda dealer a shot.

What? Are you in the market AGAIN?

qbrozen · August 2015

Me? No. Just thinning the herd. At least until we move.

fezo · August 2015

It's stickguy I'm worried about. Not that you wouldn't be a natural candidate but I know you've been thinning the heard.

I'll thin it by two in a month by handing cars off to the older girls. Only have two years before it'll be permit time for the younger ones.

sda · August 2015

I have had a good experience with Car Max in the past and sold 3 cars to them. However more recently I have found their offer for my car to be considerably below what I was expecting. I think some of it is due to the direction of the buying manager, and what the market is doing as a whole. I do agree that their cars are priced at top dollar. I have yet to buy from them---though it is fun to walk the lot and sit in various cars.

snakeweasel · August 2015

sda said:
I have had a good experience with Car Max in the past and sold 3 cars to them. However more recently I have found their offer for my car to be considerably below what I was expecting. I think some of it is due to the direction of the buying manager, and what the market is doing as a whole. I do agree that their cars are priced at top dollar. I have yet to buy from them---though it is fun to walk the lot and sit in various cars.

That's about the only thing I have ever done with CarMax, that is going there to see the cars. It seems like a good place to do some preliminary work in car shopping, being able to see many different cars that might interest you at one time.

verdugo · August 2015

graphicguy said:

mako1a said:
Speaking of Caddys I wonder how Graphicguy is doing with his CTS. Is the 40 day wait over yet? Is arbitration still to come? Will he get his money back (plus all the rental car expense)? Stay tuned for the next development.
mako...still fighting with Cadillac. Lawyer says GM is really dragging their feet. All that's done is made me more agitated.

So, we soldier on. I think it's going to end up going to court. At that time, we'll be asking for fees, time I've been without the car on a consistent basis (now going on 7 months of nothing but trouble with the car). Either denying there are problems or not being able to fix the problems when I bring them up to the dealers.

Just a bad showing all the way around. Went to Costco yesterday. Power steering worked intermittently. Going over a speed bump at no more than about 2 MPH, it sounded like the front left suspension was straining to rebound....lots of bad noises coming out.

I'm waiting for the day that one of the suspension pieces just falls off, or the power steering stops completely. The good news, it hasn't stalled in a couple of weeks, though.

I know you said a while back that you didn't way to buy a Gopro camera or something similar, but if you get to the point of going to court, I think it will be very much to your advantage to have video evidence.

Otherwise, it will be all hearsay since it "doesn't throw a code." Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I've watched a lot of Law & Order.

oldfarmer50 · August 2015

driver100 said:
I was away for 3 days and caught up with 4 pages here. Notes:

*Just read the average age of a car in the US is 11.5 years. That is even though more new cars are being sold than ever before. If the average is 11.5 then there must be quite a few 15, 18 or 20 year old cas around.
AVERAGE AGE OF CAR IN USA 11.5 YEARS - USA TODAY

*I was reading a review of the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V and some reviewers say it is better than a BMW M5. Most reviewers seem to be thinking about which is better, but, all agree Cadillac has come a long way and both cars are pretty close in performance.

Carry on...............

I represent the outliers that make the averages. If you assume the 16' models are 0 then my fleet average is 14.25.

verdugo · August 2015

isellhondas said:
CarMax isn't going to give you more money than they can buy similar cars at the auction for.

A dealer might, however in order to make a new car deal or if the trade in question is something desirable.

The last two times I went to CarMax, they were $500 above what the dealer offered initially. They matched the CarMax offer right away.

I'm sure I could've gotten more from the dealer, but I'm not a grinder, my time has value, and it was a good price based on my research.

roadburner · August 2015

My last CarMax estimate was $1.5k under qbrozen's auction price, so go figure...

oldfarmer50 · August 2015

isellhondas said:
CarMax isn't going to give you more money than they can buy similar cars at the auction for.

A dealer might, however in order to make a new car deal or if the trade in question is something desirable.

I think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the Ford dealer's initial trade offer was base on auction value. Once I walked he may have reconsidered it for his own lòt and bumped his offer $1700.

Maybe walking out on Carmax would produce the same result.

explorerx4 · August 2015

The one time I went to CarMax to get an appraisal, I ended up trading in the car 6 months later for about 30% more than their offer.

driver100 · August 2015

bwia said:
Auto industry sales were up in July but not at Cadillac.

Sales of the much hyped Cadillac models were down again from July 2014 compared to July 2015
• ATS down from 2,582 to 1,588
• CTS down from 2,039 to 1,515
• XTS down from 1,939 to 1,302

The comeback of Ford’s Lincoln brand continued, as the luxury line and Cadillac rival enjoyed a 21% increase for the month.

Must be the GG affect

Like i say, the reviews have been very positive, but GG's experience scares me....I've lived through that kind of thing with the Audi.

GG, I think Verdugo has a good point...a video goes a long ways to making your point....not sure about Law & Order but it really helps on Judge Judy and Hot Bench. Your saying it may be true and may not be true, and Marilyn Milian of the People's Court thanked one plaintiff for being so honest that he lost the case because of his honesty.....she thanked him and said it was nice to see....because, no one tells the truth in court!

stickguy · August 2015

Me Fezo? Not a chance. I am so committed, it should be years (barring accident of course!). Only way I make a move is if we run out of money, and have to sell my wife's car out from under her (being as it is the only one I actually own!)

fezo · August 2015

Yeah, but you're already talking Car Sense (as if we had such a thing)......

stickguy · August 2015

well, it is a real place. Knock off of Carmax. And much closer to Q. I have never actually stopped there though.

oldfarmer50 · August 2015

OK, explain this to me.

I've received several emails since my purchase from Ford asking me to "verify my email".

Ford | LINCOLN

Please confirm your email address.
We'd like to send you news, updates, offers and
service coupons, but only if you verify your email
address first. Confirm that you'd like to hear from
us, and we'll make sure you stay in the know.

Why would they need me to "verify" anything since they would obviously know my email in order to send me this message. My Spidey sense is tingling that this might be some sort of scam.

I know I'm being paranoid but am I being TOO paranoid?

dino001 · August 2015

You may be too paranoid, just a litle bit. They got a "lead" on your email and they are politely asking for your permission to start sending you electronic version if their junk mail, in case you may be interested. It's a subscribe button equivalent. Of course they don't really know how to be truly polite, if they did, the wording would be different and would have unsubscribe button.

snakeweasel · August 2015

oldfarmer50 said:
I think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the Ford dealer's initial trade offer was base on auction value. Once I walked he may have reconsidered it for his own lòt and bumped his offer $1700.

Maybe walking out on Carmax would produce the same result.

I am not sure it would, Carmax promotes itself as a no haggle dealership and their offers to buy are good for a set amount of time or miles. So I would think that their offers are pretty much final, I can't see them bumping up an offer because someone says "thank you, no" and leaves.

snakeweasel · August 2015

driver100 said:
Must be the GG affect

Like i say, the reviews have been very positive, but GG's experience scares me....I've lived through that kind of thing with the Audi.

If I stayed away from every manufacturer where someone I knew had a horror story about one of their cars i would be walking to work. You can't make hundreds of thousands of cars without a dog popping up every so often,

snakeweasel · August 2015

oldfarmer50 said:
OK, explain this to me.

I've received several emails since my purchase from Ford asking me to "verify my email".

Ford | LINCOLN

Please confirm your email address.
We'd like to send you news, updates, offers and
service coupons, but only if you verify your email
address first. Confirm that you'd like to hear from
us, and we'll make sure you stay in the know.

Why would they need me to "verify" anything since they would obviously know my email in order to send me this message. My Spidey sense is tingling that this might be some sort of scam.

I know I'm being paranoid but am I being TOO paranoid?

You can have some fun and respond "Sorry this isn't my email address."

They may want to verify your address since it is possible that you accidentally put down the wrong one (or misspelled or left out a letter or number) or that they did a fat finger mistake while entering your email address into their system.

If you are worried about it either ignore it or use the unsubscribe function that they should have.

graphicguy · August 2015

verdugo said:

isellhondas said:
CarMax isn't going to give you more money than they can buy similar cars at the auction for.

A dealer might, however in order to make a new car deal or if the trade in question is something desirable.
The last two times I went to CarMax, they were $500 above what the dealer offered initially. They matched the CarMax offer right away.

I'm sure I could've gotten more from the dealer, but I'm not a grinder, my time has value, and it was a good price based on my research.

I get what you and Driver are saying. I just don't know how to use a camera that shows the power steering going out? Stalling, I get. All the lights on the dash light up. But, that also means having some sort of contraption hooked up on my driver's seat with a camera hooked up. I guess it could work. Lawyer is supposed to get back to me today with an update.

As far as Caddy sales heading straight down? My guess, I'm not the only one with reliability issues. I know personally, I've had probably a dozen people tell me they're considering a new Cadillac and asked my opinion. I've told all of them, that my car will be the absolute last one I'll ever have. And then I proceed to tell them why. That doesn't include anyone here.

So, if there are a few hundred people like me running around dissatisfied, it wouldn't take long for that to affect the sales crater Cadillac is currently expriencing.

driver100 · August 2015

oldfarmer50 said:
OK, explain this to me.

I've received several emails since my purchase from Ford asking me to "verify my email".

oldfarmer50 said:
,

Ford | LINCOLN

Please confirm your email address.
We'd like to send you news, updates, offers and
service coupons, but only if you verify your email
address first. Confirm that you'd like to hear from
us, and we'll make sure you stay in the know.

Why would they need me to "verify" anything since they would obviously know my email in order to send me this message. My Spidey sense is tingling that this might be some sort of scam.

I agree with Dino, it is just a polite way to ask you to confirm you don't mind receiving junk emails from Ford. It also confirms that they will be sending their junk emails to the correct person, and not aggravating an innocent person.

However, I think there is no problem with being overly paranoid about what you do on the internet.

My wife and I were watching a multi-part series on PBS and we missed one episode. I asked my wife to see if she could see if it was available on a website. She found a British company that had the episode and access to many other movies, all free, they just wanted your credit card info.

I checked out the company and apparently they weren't sure how they got their movies, they don't have all the movies they claim to have in their ads - such as this particular program was not available. The site I researched mentioned they invested a lot of money to get their site started, but didn't know how they could have an income.

My first thought was, even if they don't use your credit card they could sell that info to a 3rd party, and they could wipe you out. We cancelled our subscription and the CC immediately, and had a new one sent out.

Also, my IT guy warned me about pop ups. He said often if you even press NO or Don't want, that still gets them access to your computer. Your best hope is to back out using the arrow key.

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