Some Assembly is Required

Grumpy Bear · May 15

3 hours ago, KARNUT said:

100K miles is the new 20K miles used car of my youth. The difference in their life cycle in comparison. Maintenance is a major player in reliability. Some manufacturers even certify with that many miles. When you check CarFax those vehicles usually have had more maintenance than the certifying manufacturers recommend. I can’t justify buying a new vehicle anymore. I haven’t bought a cheap model in a long time. Through daily research I keep a list mentality just in case I got to have it hits me like the old days of two-three year trade ins. I miss those days of cheap performance vehicles. The last vehicle that really checked that box was the 06 trailblazer ss. You didn’t have to buy a highly option model to get the performance. The closest today is the Roush performance package on the 5.0 truck. I have a (high performance) four cylinder and six cylinder. It’s just not the same. Today replacing a vehicle would just mean getting the same vehicle just newer. No sense doing that before the lifecycle is nearly over. Maybe some new exciting model will come along. Time was wasted on electric. They certainly didn’t do it for me.

I think you and I have a common method when buying. We both buy when we don't actually have a need and we buy the deal more than the 'right' vehicle. Could be the right car in a color I don't care for but.....

I have a short list of preferred vehicles and I keep a eye roving for them. I look at many, inspect a few, drive even fewer and drive a couple then by the best deal. I don't allow myself to get in the "I have too" trap.

This also allows me to skip comp/collision coverage on many of them. If it gets totaled, I pull out another. I buy great used for pennies on the dollar in mostly private sales although I have scored off lots a few times. Then I maintain them and drive them into the dirt or sell them cheap or even give them away to those with more need than I. The stinkers get crushed.

KARNUT · May 15

8 minutes ago, Grumpy Bear said:

I think you and I have a common method when buying. We both buy when we don't actually have a need and we buy the deal more than the 'right' vehicle. Could be the right car in a color I don't care for but.....

I have a short list of preferred vehicles and I keep a eye roving for them. I look at many, inspect a few, drive even fewer and drive a couple then by the best deal. I don't allow myself to get in the "I have too" trap.

This also allows me to skip comp/collision coverage on many of them. If it gets totaled, I pull out another. I buy great used for pennies on the dollar in mostly private sales although I have scored off lots a few times. Then I maintain them and drive them into the dirt or sell them cheap or even give them away to those with more need than I. The stinkers get crushed.

Yes

Atlas · May 15

Can't take the money with you, but maybe you plan to leave it with someone?

My father pined for more than two decades for another Porsche. He owned one in the late 70's before fatherhood and always said he'd own another. My sister and I (both well into adulthood) said we were just going to buy the dang car - a new one - for him. He shouldn't be buying green bananas at his age, let alone talking about "someday" owning another Porsche at almost 80 years old. The time was now. Get busy living.

After a year of "serious" looking for one, he bought a deal. The day he called me to tell me he had finally bought "the one" he went on about how this particular had fixed pricing and he really didn't like that but he worked 'em real hard on extras and felt like he got a good deal in the end. Good job, dad. He had sworn he'd never buy from a dealer again but he wasn't finding any in the private market that matched his requirements and price point*. At least he took my good advice to buy a certified car, through a Porsche dealer, with a known/local history.

Couldn't bring himself to buy a new car. "Couldn't justify it". Why not? It's a once-in-a-lifetime purchase at arguably the end of his driving career, why not have this last fun car be exactly the way he wants?

He's not hurting for money and never will be. I expect nothing when he dies because I've told him nobody needs it and I expect he and my mother to enjoy it while they're alive if that makes them happy. And yet they still frugalize everything. YES, I understand financial planning and working within budgets. There are also times when a discretionary purchase does not need that kind of scrutiny, simply because it doesn't matter to the bottom line.

He purchased one new car, ever. I remember it vividly, I was just out of high school, and that was a defining moment in my own life that I'd take a different path, my own, when it came to vehicles and quite honestly I've never looked back. I buy new, I buy vehicles I want...owning cars is not a business. It's an expense.

asilverblazer · May 15

23 hours ago, Grumpy Bear said:

...I don't care about ROI in the same way the 'standard' defines it...

...How many vehicles DIDN'T I buy?

Some guys spend little effort on there possessions and they have little trouble over the useful life they have defined by the practices they employed to get them there. Then they buy another, rinse and repeat and over a lifetime of buying new every 5 to 10 years buy 6 to 12 new units. Lets take the average, 9 units.

I've bought 3 saving the cost of 6 new units. There's my ROI.

I look at things like the object of my intent is the only one I will ever posses and for some things that has been true...

It's not that I don't see your point. I just think it inefficient.

We all COULD choose to keep our vehicles as long as you do, but I don't WANT to.

I might WANT a newer one, a different color, a new 'feature', or simply get tired of the one I have. My needs might change, it might get wrecked. There are literally endless reasons why you might not keep a vehicle. Choosing what might be inefficient does not make it wrong or incorrect.

A vehicle will always be a poor 'investment' and in the strictest manner of speaking; you have lost the least in your vehicle investments compared to everyone else (perhaps literally :lol: ). But vehicles are more to a lot of people than that, it's part of our lived experience, and we want that experience to be what we WANT it to be. If all a person wants is an appliance that transports them from point a to point b your model is most effective.

I may want a vehicle that makes me happy in other ways, like noted above, style, features comfort, etc. That isn't about efficiency, it's about happiness, and you know what money can't buy?

Reading journals about oil chemistry, lab reports, used oil analysis DOES NOT make me happy.

asilverblazer · May 15

12 hours ago, Grumpy Bear said:

This needed its own reply.

First and foremost,; and as Dad would say, "You ain't never had, don't have now and never will have a dog as good as that dog". Pepper isn't for sale so on it's face the question is moot. That put to bed....

The value of a thing is not the same thing as it's cost which is a concept most find mind numbing to digest. So lets be specific. As few would see the "value" of Pepper the fetch price would be no different than that of a truck "Maintained by Standard" but that isn't the same thing as Peppers VALUE verse that maintained by "The Standard". They are worlds apart in that regard.

Dad used to repair anything with a motor in the garage at home and sometimes a customer would forfeit the machine to cover the repair, in which case dad sold it. (Mechanics lean). OR he would use the machine and others like it as parts to complete yet another unit. So....he had a few mowers displayed in the front yard one day with their prices on cardboard and a guy stops by wanting to know what the 'Bottom Dollar" was on a mower dad had posted at $25.

This mower was a steel deck 18 or 20 inch unit with a solid but refurbished motor so dad said, "Price is what the price is".

Guy says, "I'll give ya $5 for it". Without a thought dad took an eight pound sledge to the machine decimating it in one stroke. Pulled out a second, which was half the machine and said, "This one is $100". (Dad had about $10 in it.) Guy opens the wallet and peels off five twenties.

Thing was, everyone within a hundred miles of the shop knew his work and knew his cast off's were twice the machine of most anything on any lot anywhere. They also knew if it didn't sell, he'd use it until he died and never bat an eye, bury it in the back yard or set fire to it than give it away.

Pepper is an 11 year old truck with 200K on the clock with less rust than a new one and no dents. Uses no oil. Gets good mileage and most of it looks new even today. Profound mechanical shape otherwise which has cost me to date near nothing in $$$$. Just attention to detail and preventative maintenance and not drive it like I stole it.

To a dealer its worth book. To a buyer who doesn't know her or I, it's worth high book. To a buyer who knows me they know the bank won't lend them that kind of money on a truck that old with that many miles. BUT to me...I have a FREE NEW (like) truck that I'll drive yet another decade or two IF God is willing and I live that long. I bought her for $17K and I've already saved full the $40K replacement cost of a new replacement and spent next to nothing to get her there. Those extra oil changes are CHEAP compared to the new truck I didn't buy. I'll save that much again on the third one I don't buy. The insurance $$$$ I save and the finance cost will pay her repairs for another decade.

Outside normal maintenance I spent under $100 on that truck. Why? Cause I do all the dumb stuff that 'Makes it so Number One".

Thanks for sharing, I suspected there was a story behind your (methods/desire/personality/upbringing) that shapes your thinking on the matter. (This is a compliment, but trying to be more succinct in my post it sounds insulting - please view it as the first.)

More to the point at hand, if Pepper was destroyed in some way, you wouldn't be able to monetize or recover your efforts. At least, specifically to this one vehicle. Further, in a worst case scenario, what if every 6 years from the time you bought your first car to now your house was leveled by a tornado (see my location)? You would never have been able to 'not spend' what most do.

Even in that worst case scenario, would you change your maintenance methods? (I'd bet a dime or candy bar and coke, your choice - that you wouldn't.)

Double down - because you WANT to regardless.

jwhjr · May 15

2 hours ago, asilverblazer said:

Reading journals about oil chemistry, lab reports, used oil analysis DOES NOT make me happy.

10000000%

Grumpy Bear · May 16

What IF?

10 hours ago, asilverblazer said:

We all COULD choose to keep our vehicles as long as you do, but I don't WANT to.

I might WANT a newer one, a different color, a new 'feature', or simply get tired of the one I have. My needs might change, it might get wrecked. There are literally endless reasons why you might not keep a vehicle. Choosing what might be inefficient does not make it wrong or incorrect.

A vehicle will always be a poor 'investment' and in the strictest manner of speaking; you have lost the least in your vehicle investments compared to everyone else (perhaps literally ). But vehicles are more to a lot of people than that, it's part of our lived experience, and we want that experience to be what we WANT it to be. If all a person wants is an appliance that transports them from point a to point b your model is most effective.

I may want a vehicle that makes me happy in other ways, like noted above, style, features comfort, etc. That isn't about efficiency, it's about happiness, and you know what money can't buy?

Reading journals about oil chemistry, lab reports, used oil analysis DOES NOT make me happy.

Then change the channel.

:idiot:

Seriously dude. You don't like what I write then don't read it!

Grumpy Bear · May 16

22 hours ago, Atlas said:

Can't take the money with you, but maybe you plan to leave it with someone?

True dat! :crackup:

Odd thing is happening, I don't live in the world of the uber rich. Never had enough money to say "**** it" But I've always had enough to not be inconvenienced by my own choices or even the choice of other thrust upon me and brother I've made some DUMB choices and had some crap force feed. Some would call that blessed. Perhaps. I have had to tighten my belt on occasion and even take a meal from a dumpster. Sleep in a Model "T" garage in and Midwest winter. No complaints. Parents prepared me for such unexpected events. Thing is, they were rare with a bit of common sense.

Never let your WISHES/WANTS over write your NEEDS and know the difference between a NEED and a WANT.

I've had periods where I couldn't charge enough that I couldn't pay flush and full every month; and I've had periods where I divided the same cheese sandwich into one a day meals for three days running. I know how to have a surplus and to live in want.

I have NEVER felt intitled to anything, not even my breath.

Maybe ya'all don't know this yet and it will be a hard lesson when taught; there are debts and conditions no amount of money will buy you out of. You ain't all that.....ever.

It may well be that what I leave behind will benefit my children. Equally true is that what I have will be fully spent in my end care but will enable my end of life to not burden them either. Both ways, we both win.

Look kids...I don't have a dog in your fight so do as you please but don't play small ball and deny those that want to learn something useful the opportunity to do so. Unless you are so rich you can cover there NEED and are willing to do so.

Edited May 16 by Grumpy Bear

KARNUT · May 16

Every time lately when I think I want a replacement for one of my vehicles I test drive a new one. I’ve long passed the desire for a different model. It would be a direct replacement. Van for van, truck for truck etc. it was different when I drove 50K miles a year, I now drive 12K. I don’t see much difference except for more intrusive gadgets. I like driving my own vehicle without the aids since anti lock brakes. Bluetooth was enough I don’t care about CarPlay. I can see my phone without the glare. I don’t use my vehicles GPS. I get my vehicle detailed and realized two hundred dollars is better than 50K. And the experience looking out the window is the same. My grandfather used to smile every time I showed up with a new vehicle. He walk over to the 74 Cadillac my father gave him pat it on the fender ten years still going strong he would say. I’m reminded of a sign I saw passing a use car lot one day. Everyone drives a used car.

Grumpy Bear · May 16

Last time Pepper was in for a recall at the dealer I waited in the lobby which got me swarmed by sales people naturally. GM had discontinued most family cars and I haven't any real interest in SUV's or trucks with two many doors.

Only thing he had left to show I had any interest in was a V6 Cadillac. I pointed out that the paint on it was the same low quality orange peeled dirt ridden type they had sprayed on the Spark and the carpet wasn't carpet at all. Seats were some polymer that looked like polymer. All in all a Mirage with a $70K price tag. :crazy:

Somewhere Cadillac stopped being a luxury car. It's connectivity didn't leave me feeling pampered or even elevated over those vehicles costing under $20K. It left me feeling cheated. He didn't like being told so.

******************************

From time to time I've looked at new trucks in WT trim that are as close a match to Pepper as they make and after kicking the tires I fail to see what it has to offer that is more than what I have and walk away puzzled by the price tag that is nearly double, not what I paid but what it stickered for. Fact is many features were missing so it was less truck, more money. :wtf:

That was 2020 at the beginning of the 'supply chain" issues and that was the sited cause of the crazy pricing. Thing is, another five years down the road the price didn't rebound when the supply did and more features, deal breakers, loss of the Ecotect3 LV3 made it, IMHO, a STUPID buy.

I missed the point where you get more when you pay more shifted to "I ask and you pay". The 30% loss of the $$$$ value over the last 6 years is mind numbingly greedy.

We went out to dinner at a new spot in town this week. $70 for two for basics. No appetizers, no bottle of wine just pasta entree and tea. Yesterday we went to a movie. First time in since COVID. Ticket price was about the same as pre-covid with the senior and matinee discounts but one 'regular (small) soda and a small box of Junior Mints was $14!!! I asked the gal at the counter if they trained to hold a straight face asking that much for so little. She said no, the straight face comes from being hammered by customers about it. Poor girl. I expect it will be the last movie I see in a theater where the volume is so loud I wear earplugs and so cold I can see my breath. There were about six people in attendance. I wonder why? It was a good movie. "The Sheep Detectives". (shameless plug) :crackup:

asilverblazer · May 18

On 5/15/2026 at 10:33 PM, Grumpy Bear said:

What IF?

Then change the channel.

Seriously dude. You don't like what I write then don't read it!

Is this a conversation or a lecture? I must be confused because I thought it was the first.

KARNUT · May 18

1 minute ago, asilverblazer said:

Is this a conversation or a lecture? I must be confused because I thought it was the first.

I call it life lessons. Or you could just go to Starbucks and buy 5$ coffee and wonder why you can’t save money. I mean this generally. If I wanted to pick on anyone it would be Atlas. You know the guy who tells me my life sucks in Texas. While he pays close to twice as much for gas. Probably twice the taxes and all the rich people are leaving and becoming my neighbors. I meet them on my walks almost daily. My wife runs into them at the pool. But let’s tell him it sucks here.

asilverblazer · May 18

On 5/15/2026 at 10:59 PM, Grumpy Bear said:

...but don't play small ball and deny those that want to learn something useful the opportunity to do so. Unless you are so rich you can cover there NEED and are willing to do so.

Nobody is denying anybody anything. There are multiple points of view being expressed, none are more valuable than the others. Questioning somebody's point of view (as tactfully as possible) to better understand their reasoning while also presenting another point of view is a pretty straight forward way of exploring a topic. If you don't want to respectfully engage, questions or challenges to your point of view a blog is probably more appropriate than a FORUM.

asilverblazer · May 18

3 minutes ago, KARNUT said:

I call it life lessons. Or you could just go to Starbucks and buy 5$ coffee and wonder why you can’t save money. I mean this generally. If I wanted to pick on anyone it would be Atlas. You know the guy who tells me my life sucks in Texas. While he pays close to twice as much for gas. Probably twice the taxes and all the rich people are leaving and becoming my neighbors. I meet them on my walks almost daily. My wife runs into them at the pool. But let’s tell him it sucks here.

Life lessons are learned and taught from everybody. Not just the 'old guys', the 'college educated', the rich, etc.

I had my say, take it or leave, but don't question it.

KARNUT · May 18

3 minutes ago, asilverblazer said:

Life lessons are learned and taught from everybody. Not just the 'old guys', the 'college educated', the rich, etc.

I had my say, take it or leave, but don't question it.

I always thought life lessons were best given from people who had a life. My grandson is always trying to give us life lessons. He gets his experience from the internet. I laugh and say my lessons came from my elders and experience. The well off ones. At 25 he lives in his mother’s converted garage. At his age I was married had a kid and my first new home.