28 thoughts on “July 26, 2018: New Old Car”

  1. "Minor Details" will not appear tomorrow. If all goes well, it will be back Saturday.

  2. Does anyone know:

    1. Is there a presale for tickets to Surlyfest?
    2. If yes, what is it?
    3. If no, where online will tickets be sold tomorrow?

    1. You talking the Hold Steady gig?

      I don't think Surly does presales since everything is GA and they have lots of room.

      Go here for tix tomorrow. Scroll to bottom.

      https://surlybrewing.com/events/

      Also I think they use First Avenue/E-tix. You can check there.

  3. I think my wife is getting embarrased that I drive a rusting-away 1998 Buick Lesabre. Thing is, it only has 107,500 miles and runs really well. It's now leaving rust spots on the concrete whenever I park in the driveway. Ideally, we'd get a decent-sized SUV that might be able to tow something someday, but I can't stomach the math of buying something that costs...money (probably a lot of money) ...when I can get where I need to go for...no money (sort of). Dilemmas.

    1. That's why I'm pissed my car got killed. Wasn't anything great and it was a little up there in miles, but it was paid off, ran fine with no major issues, and should've lasted me a number of years for free. Of course the check the insurance company cut isn't much so I really don't want to buy something for much more than that amount. And what that will buy me? Not a whole lot, it would seem.

      1. If it would have been a couple years ago I would have sold you a (mostly) reliable runner for $300...

        1. stupid person took a left in front of me the exact moment i was going past on a quiet residential street. no clue why.

          cop didn't even bother to ask me what happened, just took information and gave them a ticket.

    2. I was in a similar spot a couple years ago with my Golf. It had 240,000 on it (140k were mine and almost all maintenance done by me), but it was a TDI so I didn't foresee it ever actually dying. But it was getting rusty as all hell and my wife had just accepted a job, so I was about to have the kids in it much more often than previously so I figured I'd better replace it before it started to get, uh, less safe. If I didn't have kids to lug around, I'd totally still have that car, so I still miss it sometimes. I bought a brand new car that has been annoyingly reliable so I haven't had any chances to wrench on it at all and I've grown lazy enough to take it to the dealer for an oil change, even. (I blame the belly covers and their 6,000 screws.) Also, car payments suck.

    3. Hey! 2001 Ford Escape XLT with towing package and on-demand 4WD. Only 152,000 miles. Leather interior. Sun roof! 🙂

      california vacation included in your cost. 😉

      1. Tempting. I was hoping to get a little closer to having a car not older than my oldest kid, though.

            1. I own two of those last century type vehicles. Both are sitting in the garage awaiting repair.

    4. Is rust still a thing? I guess it's a matter of where one lives.

      I bought my first used car two years ago; the previous was a 20-year old Accord w/140K on it. Even though I bought my latest car with 30K already on it, it's by far the nicest car I've ever owned. And so far I've only been putting on 4,000 miles each year.

      1. Just traded in my 2008 Silverado on a new company delivery vehicle, solely because it was starting to rust pretty bad around the rear wheel wells. It was getting a bit embarrassing delivering in that vehicle. Loved that truck and it had 170,000 miles on it. I miss it already. However, the sporty and scrappy Jeep Renegade be bought is a fun vehicle. We are taking it out to Montana in August and might take it out on some trails.

  4. We bought a new car a couple weeks ago, and joined the electric crowd with a 2018 Nissan Leaf. Very happy so far. It goes about 160 miles or so on a charge, so have to fill it up more often, but those fill ups are SO MUCH cheaper. My wife’s work even has free chargers available, so we may manage to get it charged for no cost a good chunk of the time. And with the federal and state tax incentives, it ended up being a really good deal.

    My wife is also just got an email yesterday that the Tesla she has been in line for us close enough to ready to ship that she now has a VIN number for it. That will not be nearly as cheap a car.

    1. I noticed that used Leafs are VERY affordable, it is tempting to go that route when I decide to get a new car. The older ones have a more limited range, but still plenty to handle my daily commute.

      My problem is that I want to have about 5 different cars at a time. A family truckster, another daily driver, our MG, a fun cheap economical coupe of some sort (1990-2000-ish to maybe autocross), and an old 4Runner to schlep around the dog.

      1. Yeah, it ended up being way cheaper than I expected when we started considering it. It was a tossup for us whether to go with the Leaf or the Hyundai Ioniq. Nissan offered 0% financing, so that won out in the end.

      2. My buddy wanted a used Leaf, but it was not feasible to get one back to Fargo. He ended up getting a used Volt which was shockingly affordable.

  5. My daughter was looking at a used Prius that seemed pretty undervalued. A few minutes on the Google revealed the sudden deceleration defect on certain years of that model, and it was one of them.

    1. I have a '67 Triumph GT6 I'd be willing to part with. Cheap it would allow you plenty of wrenching opportunity, Razor it would be a great autocross car.

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