Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)

corvette · May 2019

xwesx said:
I just bought a set of tires for the '09 Focus I acquired a few weeks ago. $350 all in at Costco. They seem like pretty good all-season tires: Reviews, TW Warranty, etc. I certainly didn't feel bad making the investment, considering that it's been a long, long time since I spent that little on a new set of tires!

The Cooper tires I got for the G37 from Discount Tire were cheap compared to other options, but then you add tax and lifetime balance / rotation and they seem not so cheap. I did spring for the replacement certificates, but only because they cut the price in half, and also because I love Discount Tire.

corvette · May 2019

qbrozen said:

I just came across the paperwork for that yesterday. Still shocks me how much I made on that deal. Wish I had had the courage to buy more than one.

Ditto. At the time, I could've completely liquidated my taxable stock portfolio and bought a few with cash. I probably could've bought three more with a HELOC and then relied on conventional financing to buy one or two more. But, if the settlement blew up, it would've been a setback, and I could have only stored three or possibly four at my house.

There was a dealer a little over an hour away with a mediocre reputation that had four or five of the affected vehicles on the lot at fairly decent prices. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have made a blanket offer to buy all of them, delivered to my house. Cosmetic issues or non-disabling mechanical problems would not have affected the buyback amount.

Carrying costs in terms of full coverage insurance would have been annoying, I think I'm around $125 per month per car now (I regularly comparison shop and the pricing is about the same with other carriers).

nyccarguy · May 2019

Before I bought my Subaru Legacy back in 2014, I extensively test drove a 2015 Passat TDi & really liked it. Should have bought that car. But then again when the buyback came out, my Infiniti wouldn’t have been sitting on a lot with less than 7,500 miles on it (currently 49K).

graphicguy · May 2019

Not sure I mentioned, but I work for a chip/CPU/GPU provider. No...not the biggest one.....the other one. We provide the graphics for Apple (wish we provided the CPUs, too). As such, we get discounts on Apple products.

Being in both camps (Windows, Mac OS), I can say the build quality and quality of the operating system is what you pay for with Apple. I have a 4 year old Macbook. Keyboard is great. OS has been updated. I’ve thrown it around from briefcase, to luggage, to vacation, to kitchen table, to lap. All I have to do is clean the screen every once in a while and wipe the keyboard with a damp cloth, if/when I remember to do it. That’s it.

I’ve been debating getting a new personal laptop, not because there’s anything wrong with my old one. But, I would like to have a bit more memory and an SSD, which is faster than my current mechanical HD. Therein lies the rub. I can upgrade my memory, but moving from a mechanical drive to an SSD requires some physical “surgery” to the current MacBook, and there will be no guarantees.

I’m looking at a MacBook Air (circa 2017) that I can buy new for about $1K.

The nice thing about Apple, I can trade in my old MacBook and get about $150. I would get about $80 off with my company discount, and have another laptop that will last me another 4-5 years.

A windows based laptop, that’s 4-5 years old, may or may not even be able to run Windows 10. And, who knows how well the keyboard, the screen, the HD will work.

Yes, you pay a premium. But, in the world of computing, it’s hard to beat Apple products and their build quality/longevity.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Personally I agree with your above comment with a guy, with my iPhone yes the voice dictation is not perfect but eventually on my Dell computer dies it’s already six years old I don’t use it much maybe will get an iPad or something else to set up just relying on the phone, and has the technology I need building for the speech and voice dictation. The program I have for windows have to pay to upgrade, it’s called chores for windows. Paid $400 for that back in 2004.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

That was, I paid $100 for that back in 2004 way to been even a little more, I can’t remember. Don’t know how much the program goes for now if I were to buy it if it’s more expensive for a little cheaper haven’t looked. And it’s called jaws for windows, screen reading software.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

$1200 that is hopefully it got it right this time. Lol

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Zwest. Not bad what you spent on the tires for the focus, the disc brake conversion kit for the front of the Ford van sounds good. I’m guessing you have a Lyft to do the transmission swap. Have a disc brake conversion kit for my 61 Thunderbird that he bought a couple of years ago just need to go somewhere that has a lift and have it done or someone do it with me. Does stop good from what my cousin says for the disc I mean drum brakes that it has I haven’t touched them ever since I’ve had the car. Even when I drove it around last week in a huge parking lot it stopped good, I slammed on the brakes and it switched the tires to wait staff just to test it. And pushed you back in your seat was funny I wasn’t expecting it to grab that hard.

ab348 · May 2019

My issues with Windows are both the planned obsolescence (which Apple does as well, at least with iOS) but more so the eminently predictable decline in performance that takes place with every version of Windows I've ever used. At first it works pretty well and is quite snappy to respond. After a year or two it takes forever to boot, will start acting strangely from time to time and stuff just acts weird. Then eventually they announce a Great Leap Forward with a new Windows and you start over again. There is also the ridiculously complex nature of Windows, which you hope you never need to dive deep into, but invariably there is something that forces you to. In my case they always seem to break local networking on me when they do major updates within a Windows generation, and virtually always when they introduce a new generation. Why that is so difficult for them I cannot understand. Apple doesn't let you into the depths of their systems, but they mostly just work, so you don't need to go there.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Agree on everybody with your Bob on getting a bunch of VW cars and then flipping them when the settlement had gone through. Wish I had the means or could’ve done that oh well. Lol

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Happy Friday all, what’s everyone up to for the weekend. Quiet here for the most part.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

$1200 that is hopefully it got it right this time. Lol

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Man 28 firefighter that would’ve been perfect when is the lease up on the X one? Hopefully something good will be around again for that particular make and model when the time is right.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Just like Apple for the ease of use that they have for the blind and visually impaired like my self. I think androids harder to use that as good as Apple comes to that aspect but not biased towards them. Ha ha ha

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

Didn’t mention him here but my cousin’s friend who is I think 19 or 21 or 2000 1997 Nissan maxima from a family member with 18,000 original miles and got it for $2000 or something like that maybe was less can’t remember last week. Green with a tan leather interior fully loaded, and garage kept.

marcogallo1986 · May 2019

That is the model year was 1997.

nyccarguy · May 2019

marcogallo1986 said:
Personally I agree with your above comment with a guy, with my iPhone yes the voice dictation is not perfect but eventually on my Dell computer dies it’s already six years old I don’t use it much maybe will get an iPad or something else to set up just relying on the phone, and has the technology I need building for the speech and voice dictation. The program I have for windows have to pay to upgrade, it’s called chores for windows. Paid $400 for that back in 2004.

Which program did you use to make this post? It is pretty much perfect. I know you are very well spoken and articulate.

stickguy · May 2019

I don’t need an XC90, but if I was shopping now, that would be tempting.

corvette · May 2019

graphicguy, get a 2018 or newer Air if you can. Smaller footprint and USB-C.

Based on what I’ve seen, Apple stopped optimizing its OS for spinning platter hard drives around 2012-ish. The iMac I had at the time really started to suffer until I put an SSD in it. The initial release of Windows 10 ran very well with a conventional hard drive. After a year or so, that was no longer the case. Bottom line, I don’t think you can expect good performance with any modern OS without an SSD boot drive. Only the 21” iMac comes with a conventional hard drive as standard equipment now (the 27” has a Fusion drive).

tjc78 · May 2019

SSD all the way. My work laptop and the new 2n1 I bought my wife are SSD and it really makes a difference in boot times as well as day to day computing.

sda · May 2019

I can no longer update my I-pad which is about 5 years old. It still works and often gets slow and glitchy. It's best for general surfing. My Surface, which I'm on now, is about 3 years old and fingers crossed, still working fine. With planned obsolescence being a given, I can only imagine how much life is left in it before I am forced to buy a replacement.

On a car related note, my SIL is continuing to have issues with the infotainment system locking up or losing connection in her new '19 RDX. She has complained to the service department only to be told it is working as designed. Ha! I am thinking we may replace the Pilot in the next year with a new Passport EXL.

henryn · May 2019

sda said:

On a car related note, my SIL is continuing to have issues with the infotainment system locking up or losing connection in her new '19 RDX. She has complained to the service department only to be told it is working as designed. Ha!

"Losing connection" with what exactly?

tjc78 said:
SSD all the way. My work laptop and the new 2n1 I bought my wife are SSD and it really makes a difference in boot times as well as day to day computing.

I was a part of a team that did extensive testing of SSD versus spinning hard drives a few years back. Yes, the boot time will improve dramatically, which for many will make the expense worthwhile. And in a portable device, such as a notebook that you actually move around and run off of the battery, the battery life will improve and the heat generation will go down.

But program load times are not affected greatly. The difference is not enough that most people will notice.

Do I use an SSD in my computers? Heck yeah, they're cheap these days. Back when they cost a lot of money, no, definitely not.

kyfdx · May 2019

sda said:
I can no longer update my I-pad which is about 5 years old. It still works and often gets slow and glitchy. It's best for general surfing. My Surface, which I'm on now, is about 3 years old and fingers crossed, still working fine. With planned obsolescence being a given, I can only imagine how much life is left in it before I am forced to buy a replacement.

On a car related note, my SIL is continuing to have issues with the infotainment system locking up or losing connection in her new '19 RDX. She has complained to the service department only to be told it is working as designed. Ha! I am thinking we may replace the Pilot in the next year with a new Passport EXL.

Just replaced my iPad mini with a new one, as I could only update it via a MacBook and iTunes.

Received $98 Apple store gift card for my trade-in, which was a big bonus.

28firefighter · May 2019

So I found out today that even if I wanted to flip the X1, I can't. Due to the pending B-Pillar occupant restraint recall, all lease accounts are effectively frozen by BMWFS - one cannot buy their lease out, trade their vehicle to a dealer, transfer their lease, or ground the lease early to the dealer.

Seems crazy to me that they can tell you on one hand that the vehicle is safe to drive and then impose all those limitations.

qbrozen · May 2019

corvette said:
(the 27” has a Fusion drive).

does that run on 1.21 jiggawatts?

rayainsw · May 2019

My daughter [ a graphic artist ] just recently upgraded her Mac laptop.
For just under $500 she doubled the RAM & went to an 1TB SSD.
[ An independent shop recommended by the local Apple store.]
Faster than when new. Much faster.
Hers is about a 4 year old laptop.
- Ray
Wish I could afford an SSD for my home PC...

xwesx · May 2019

marcogallo1986 said:
Zwest. Not bad what you spent on the tires for the focus, the disc brake conversion kit for the front of the Ford van sounds good. I’m guessing you have a Lyft to do the transmission swap. Have a disc brake conversion kit for my 61 Thunderbird that he bought a couple of years ago just need to go somewhere that has a lift and have it done or someone do it with me. Does stop good from what my cousin says for the disc I mean drum brakes that it has I haven’t touched them ever since I’ve had the car. Even when I drove it around last week in a huge parking lot it stopped good, I slammed on the brakes and it switched the tires to wait staff just to test it. And pushed you back in your seat was funny I wasn’t expecting it to grab that hard.

Bwahahahahahah! A lift! Man, what a luxury that would be!

No, I probably will just put the front end on ramps, may be even buy myself a floor jack to ease the process a bit. We'll see.

xwesx · May 2019

I am not a fan of laptops, but I do have one at work. My first one, purchased August of 2013, was a Dell XPS. It had Win7 (still does), 7200 rpm drive. Worked fine, but was somewhat long to load the OS. I handed it down too one of my employees in October (2018), and replaced it with a new XPS unit. The new one is a "2-in-1", and I really enjoy the tablet mode for meetings when I'm taking notes, etc., and want to avoid the clicking of a keyboard.

Lightning fast, wonderful battery life (will roll all day long for general desktop apps), nice big screen (and 4K, even though my eyes aren't good enough anymore to see at that resolution). Waaaaay cheaper than a Macbook, which I don't think I could have even bought a comparable one of those since they all have tiny screens.

henryn · May 2019

xwesx said:
I am not a fan of laptops, but I do have one at work.

It would appear that the standard desktop in corporate America is now a notebook. A notebook, with a docking station, 2 x 24 inch monitors, ergo keyboard and mouse attached thereto. When you're in your office (or cubicle), it is exactly like having a desktop. But you can remove the notebook from the docking station to take it to meetings or take it home with you. All meeting rooms are equipped with either a huge monitor or projector which can be driven by your notebook.

rayainsw said:
My daughter [ a graphic artist ] just recently upgraded her Mac laptop.
For just under $500 she doubled the RAM & went to an 1TB SSD.
[ An independent shop recommended by the local Apple store.]
Faster than when new. Much faster.
Hers is about a 4 year old laptop.
- Ray
Wish I could afford an SSD for my home PC...

Have you checked the price on SSD drives recently? They have fallen like a rock. You can get a 128 gig SSD for $29, or a 256 gig for $45.

cdnpinhead · May 2019

For my money the biggest advantage of solid state memory is the fact that the mechanical disk spinning mess is out of the picture. In 20 years or so of various laptops at work,, turned in for a new one every 3 years, I had two hard drive failures that resulted in the loss of more data than I would have liked. I back up on a regular basis, but not daily. Now I have two laptops, one personal and the other one for my consulting thing, and they both have SSDs.

tjc78 · May 2019

It would appear that the standard desktop in corporate America is now a notebook. A notebook, with a docking station, 2 x 24 inch monitors, ergo keyboard and mouse attached thereto

This is the exact setup I have in my office. It works great. I only have to connect one USB and power to the laptop.

I also use the laptop screen as a third monitor, although that usually just has Pandora and my Skype window on it.

tjc78 · May 2019

But program load times are not affected greatly. The difference is not enough that most people will notice.

I didn't realize that. It could just be the computer I am now using is much more powerful overall as well as being SSD.

tjc78 · May 2019

On a car related note, my SIL is continuing to have issues with the infotainment system locking up or losing connection in her new '19 RDX.

Our Enclave is getting a little buggy too. I was on a trip yesterday and had NAV running then got a phone call.

I answered the call with the steering wheel controls and about 30 seconds in, it dropped my cell phone BT connection and rebooted then entire system.

28firefighter · May 2019

tjc78 said:
On a car related note, my SIL is continuing to have issues with the infotainment system locking up or losing connection in her new '19 RDX.

Our Enclave is getting a little buggy too. I was on a trip yesterday and had NAV running then got a phone call.

I answered the call with the steering wheel controls and about 30 seconds in, it dropped my cell phone BT connection and rebooted then entire system.

Sounds like the Alfa...

au1994 · May 2019

28firefighter said:
So I found out today that even if I wanted to flip the X1, I can't. Due to the pending B-Pillar occupant restraint recall, all lease accounts are effectively frozen by BMWFS - one cannot buy their lease out, trade their vehicle to a dealer, transfer their lease, or ground the lease early to the dealer.

Seems crazy to me that they can tell you on one hand that the vehicle is safe to drive and then impose all those limitations.

Hmmm...I’ve not heard about this recall. You seriously can’t trade the car in right now? I’d have to read some fine print but that sounds awfully restricting.

28firefighter · May 2019

au1994 said:

28firefighter said:
So I found out today that even if I wanted to flip the X1, I can't. Due to the pending B-Pillar occupant restraint recall, all lease accounts are effectively frozen by BMWFS - one cannot buy their lease out, trade their vehicle to a dealer, transfer their lease, or ground the lease early to the dealer.

Seems crazy to me that they can tell you on one hand that the vehicle is safe to drive and then impose all those limitations.
Hmmm...I’ve not heard about this recall. You seriously can’t trade the car in right now? I’d have to read some fine print but that sounds awfully restricting.

According to BMW "it's the law." If you look up your VIN you'll see it's under recall. No letters have gone out yet and there is no fix or timeline for one.

au1994 · May 2019

Well, as if being upside down in it wasn't enough to deter thoughts of a trade, this will do it.

corvette · May 2019

That stinks about the recall. BMW should do something to make it right for the missed opportunity.

Are other manufacturers doing this through their captive finance arms? They’d have no control if it were through a third party bank.

qbrozen · May 2019

henryn said:

Have you checked the price on SSD drives recently? They have fallen like a rock. You can get a 128 gig SSD for $29, or a 256 gig for $45.

Well now you have me looking. Might be the key to making my macbook run cooler.
512gb for $52
1TB for $90

tifighter · May 2019

28firefighter said:

au1994 said:

28firefighter said:
So I found out today that even if I wanted to flip the X1, I can't. Due to the pending B-Pillar occupant restraint recall, all lease accounts are effectively frozen by BMWFS - one cannot buy their lease out, trade their vehicle to a dealer, transfer their lease, or ground the lease early to the dealer.

Seems crazy to me that they can tell you on one hand that the vehicle is safe to drive and then impose all those limitations.
Hmmm...I’ve not heard about this recall. You seriously can’t trade the car in right now? I’d have to read some fine print but that sounds awfully restricting.
According to BMW "it's the law." If you look up your VIN you'll see it's under recall. No letters have gone out yet and there is no fix or timeline for one.

Sheesh, first time I've heard of something like this. It would sour me on BMW pretty hard. So if you traded this on a Volvo, for example, they would just tell the dealer no when they called for the balance?

stickguy · May 2019

dealers sell cars with open recalls all the time. I don't see how BMWFS can refuse to take a payoff from a dealer (or you).

28firefighter · May 2019

tifighter said:

So I found out today that even if I wanted to flip the X1, I can't. Due to the pending B-Pillar occupant restraint recall, all lease accounts are effectively frozen by BMWFS - one cannot buy their lease out, trade their vehicle to a dealer, transfer their lease, or ground the lease early to the dealer. Seems crazy to me that they can tell you on one hand that the vehicle is safe to drive and then impose all those limitations.
Hmmm...I’ve not heard about this recall. You seriously can’t trade the car in right now? I’d have to read some fine print but that sounds awfully restricting.
According to BMW "it's the law." If you look up your VIN you'll see it's under recall. No letters have gone out yet and there is no fix or timeline for one.
Sheesh, first time I've heard of something like this. It would sour me on BMW pretty hard. So if you traded this on a Volvo, for example, they would just tell the dealer no when they called for the balance?

Correct. That’s exactly what they said would happen.

28firefighter · May 2019

stickguy said:

dealers sell cars with open recalls all the time. I don't see how BMWFS can refuse to take a payoff from a dealer (or you).

Beats me. It’s pretty absurd to me.

stickguy · May 2019

well, if I needed to get out of it, I would yell loudly at them to do something, and threaten to sue. Basically tell them that if their car is DOA, they need to buy it since it is BMWs problem, not mine.

ab348 · May 2019

stickguy said:
dealers sell cars with open recalls all the time. I don't see how BMWFS can refuse to take a payoff from a dealer (or you).

It's BMW being BMW.

xwesx · May 2019

henryn said:

xwesx said:
I am not a fan of laptops, but I do have one at work.
It would appear that the standard desktop in corporate America is now a notebook. A notebook, with a docking station, 2 x 24 inch monitors, ergo keyboard and mouse attached thereto. When you're in your office (or cubicle), it is exactly like having a desktop. But you can remove the notebook from the docking station to take it to meetings or take it home with you. All meeting rooms are equipped with either a huge monitor or projector which can be driven by your notebook.

Yeah, I guess some habits die hard. All of my files are networked, so I don't really need to have the same hardware in order to access it. And, I definitely don't want to have a damned computer tethered to me all the time.

I tried to get my organization to move to a node setup in order to save ridiculous sums of money every year, but they just cannot fathom the concept of not having a "real computer" 100% dedicated to each workstation. Seems short-sighted to me, but then that really sums up my organization! /sigh

corvette · May 2019

@28firefighter, ask them for a loaner car until your X1 is fixed.

28firefighter · May 2019

corvette said:
@28firefighter, ask them for a loaner car until your X1 is fixed.

No loaners. They're saying it is safe to drive, which is kind of mind blowing, given the restrictions.

au1994 · May 2019

I think early on in the first airbag recall, they did offer some loaners. Probably figured out that was a bad idea really quickly.

When I got my 335i convertible, I also looked and a 335is convertible. It had not had the airbag recall done and they would not sell it to me nor could they tell me when they could get an airbag for it. Too bad, it was a black over beige is with something like 28k miles on it is all. This was about 3 years ago,

corvette · May 2019

28firefighter said:

@28firefighter, ask them for a loaner car until your X1 is fixed.
No loaners. They're saying it is safe to drive, which is kind of mind blowing, given the restrictions.

I’d send a nasty letter over that, but I’ve gotten pretty liberal about doing that in my old age. Safe to drive = safe to buy/sell.

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