This was bound to happen, almo…
November 7th, 2009This was bound to happen, almost surprised it didn’t happen before now. http://bit.ly/5ae2r
This was bound to happen, almost surprised it didn’t happen before now. http://bit.ly/5ae2r
@wa7nwp sorry to hear about KD7NM, wish I was there this morning.
Just loaded up on dr. Seuss books, Isaac loves them and I’m tired of reading the same three. How many times can you read green eggs&ham?
@rosiesgrosso I’m just wishing to go to sleep….
This evening I’m very happy that I live on the top of a hill, someone is trying to wash away Seattle….
Work is quiet today, scary quiet. Might I be able to get work done?
Finally finished watching last Dollhouse, this is the first one of the season that I thought they knocked it out of the park. I want more!
Lots of stuff happening around here lately and I just haven’t had time to write any of it down. So I’ll start with the big stuff and the purchasing of a new vehicle. But the story actually started almost a month ago, when I took the Pathfinder in to have a water leak fixed. A couple months prior when the shop was installing this air sensor, they noticed water from the radar around the back of the engine. It was a small leak and they thought it was from the head gasket. So I scheduled to have them pull the head and fix it. Several hours after dropping it off, they called and said the leak isn’t around the head but the manifold. The cost of fixing it just sent up by 100x and I said STOP! We were now in the range of the value of the vehicle and there were alternative solutions. (magic leak fix stuff)
So this was kinda of strike one against Pathfinder. Around the same time the leak was found, my engine light was going off because of something called a distributor miss. I checked the service manual and then did a bunch of Google searching and nearly everybody agreed that one of the ignition coils was bad. But there appears to be no way to find out which one and the dealer replacement cost was again way to high. So I did what was recommended, order a full set off Amazon and install them myself. The single picture in the manual made it seem easy and multiple other people claimed to have done it without any major problems.
I should have been worried when the ignition coils showed up and I couldn’t figure out where they went.(strike two) But I set aside an afternoon and proceeded to replace them. For about the first hour I couldn’t figure out where the hell the damn things went. I knew they must attach to the spark plugs, but I couldn’t find the damn spark plugs. At this point I was cussing and screaming pretty good. Around the second hour mark I had finally found the first one, but I still hadn’t figured out how they worked. I could only see the top of these things and in no way did it make sense how it got to the spark plug.(Note: I still couldn’t find the spark plugs) But I kept taking things apart until I pulled the first ignition coil out and that is when the little light went off and I finally understood how it worked.
Fast forward a hour and I got three of the six replaced and figured out that one of those was the ‘bad’ one. I had also been informed by Rosie that I was selling the car just as soon as I got it put back together, since she didn’t want to hear me blow up any more.
After I got everything back together and put the magic goo in the radiator, I started noticing something else wrong with the engine. It was a little sluggish when driving around in the middle RPM range, probably due to only replacing three of the ignition coils.(The other three were going to require even more work to-do) Then the final straw broke, the stupid e-brake light kept coming on for no reason. It would just randomly go on and stay like for a while. Strike three, time to sell. I felt really good when I fixed the ignition coils, but man was I pissed doing it.
I got almost 100k miles out of the Pathfinder, so it wasn’t a bad time to get rid of it. But I hate buying cars and dealing with car dealerships. I ultimately figured out how to interact with them, but it is really draining. This time around I sort of knew what I wanted, which was pretty different from the last time. So two weekends ago the family went to check out first hand the two options. From that I picked the one I liked the best, did the research and knew price ranges. I also stripped everything out of the Pathfinder, which actually took longer then you would think. (I had a lot of ham radios in there)
This all lead up to Sunday when Isaac and I went to the Toyota dealership. We test drove the vehicle I had picked out, it got the seal of approval from Isaac and we started the haggling process. All car dealerships appear to work on the same basic principle. They bring out a middle man who runs made up numbers to this mysterious manager who makes the real decisions. The whole things starts by them telling you this is how much they have into the car you want and what yours is worth as a trade in. They then try to make some deal with you and make this HUGE effort to get you to initial the numbers. (Like it is some contract) The first round always looks almost reasonable for you, which means it is going to get rejected.
I learned last time two things: 1) they never go down from that first set of numbers and 2) they are pretty much lying about everything. When he was making up numbers the first time and wanting me to initial them, I basically said no. I pulled out my iPod, showed him the going Kelley Blue book value for both the new and trade in and wrote my numbers down and initialed that. He said there was no way, that they would be loosing money, blah blah blah. I pretty much gave them no wiggle room, I had all the financing done and knew exactly what they were going to get for my Pathfinder. After them doing the stupid back and forth game, me getting up to leave three times, they magically managed to except my original offer.
They did one other thing this time, which in hind sight I shouldn’t have allowed. They took my set of keys to the Pathfinder, with the explanation they need to check out for the trade in. I thought it sounded logical, but they never even moved it, so that was all crap. They wanted the keys to make it more difficult for me to walk out. Next time I’ll say no, that I’d like to be present when they review it. (I never got the keys to their car to hold on to)
Oh yea, I got a 2007 FJ Cruiser. I have loved the look of these since I saw one a couple years ago. They are a little basic inside, but I actually like that and it drives like a solid nice truck. I really like how much room they have inside, so I’m not bumping my head or feeling cramped. It just feels like you could drop a 50cal on the roof and go. The next step is to figuring out where the radios go and get it wired up. The only ‘bad’ thing is that there are a number of blind spots, which you have to be super careful about. They do a good job of giving you the right kind of mirrors to see with, but it will take some time to get use to it.
At car dealership – I hate buying cars, just requires to much effort. But must be done.