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Automotive News & Views Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous
15429 messages, Last post on Dec 06, 2009 at 12:02 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: steve_ (Jun 02, 2009 6:27 pm) First line to a great Rodgers & Hart tune. I would too, except I've spent so much time either living in or visting Manhattan, L.I., & Westchester......living there is a true exercise in survival & high prices that makes even living around Boston seem manageable. Maybe the world's greatest art museums tho in NYC, all near Central Park. OTOH, you haven't lived until you've apt.-hunted in NYC. Then try that during an August heat wave.....starts to turn into "Taxi Driver", or "Jungle Fever"...... |
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Grew up in Westchester so got to go to the city alot when I was young. Seemed like we were always doing the museum thing. Was way cool when we were old enough to go into the city by train into Grand Central Station. We'd go for Knicks & Rangers games, as the company had a box section that we could use on a regular basis. Would also meet friends from the tri-state area as we were all shipped off to summer camp for 8 weeks each summer in Connecticut, even when we moved to Florida...the "rents wanted the four of us gone...period! The city of Chicago seemed somewhat like NYC, just nicer actually. And even though Ft. Lauderdale & Miaimi are nice cities, Chicago was nicer. Wish we'd stayed longer so I could've ventured to more places. The Sandman 
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Replying to: sandman_6472 (Jun 04, 2009 2:44 pm) Vacation Travel Plans, Suggestions, Advice Driving cross-country to pick up a car; now that would be a good excuse for a road trip. |
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wrecked her 93 Accord one time too many and now it's totalled. We went through a few different cars before buying her another. We started with a 2000 Altima, it was a clean car but with 135k the miles seemed a little high. Then a 2001 Infiniti I30 caught our eye. Only 89k, Touring, and $5500. We bought tires for it and everything, then Gee did some research and it seems that I30's are pretty problematic, especially when it comes to o2 sensors and engine coils. So we scratched that ... we couldn't find any reasonably priced/mileage Accords so we ended up with a 2000 Camry LE V6, 81k, for $4300. Seems like a great car. Was a little dirty, but a few hours and a bucket of water took care of most of it.
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Replying to: anonymousposts (Jun 10, 2009 6:06 am) My dad is the anti CCBA'er , he is at 125K on his 1996 Caravan. Every time I mention getting something newer he just laughs and says he can not afford it with the stock market tanking. I have seen his statements, he has enough to buy a Porsche if he wanted to, he is just very cheap when it comes to his transportation.
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Replying to: guss (Jun 12, 2009 4:39 am) I think that's actually a pretty common psychological quirk in people, to focus on not what they still have, but only on what they lost. After seeing my portfolio lose about half of its 10/2007 peak, it's made me a little gun-shy when it comes to spending money. FWIW, it's recovered enough to where now I'm only down about 30% off that peak, and I could afford a new car if I needed one. Just don't happen to need one. My 2000 Intrepid broke 146,000 miles last weekend, but still runs fine, and doesn't act like it's on its last legs or anything. I do get the itch sometimes, but have resisted the temptation to scratch it.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 12, 2009 5:15 am) I'm down about 22% from the '07 peak--but put it into $$ amounts & it means a lot. I've gone from owning both a then-recent Range Rover & a bmw M6 at the same time--which to me was "livin' large"--to feeling like I have to keep my current 9 y.o. bmw forever. Part of it is stubbornness--why get rid of a car that runs great, & is paid for? And I've gotten so cheap, I don't know that I want to pay the sales tax, excise tax, etc. on even a $20-25K-ish newer car.....not that that stops me from looking.....
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Replying to: woodyww (Jun 12, 2009 11:34 am) Yeah, same here. I think part of my problem is that low APR financing on the Intrepid spoiled me. I got into that car for $2,000 down and $347.66 per month for 60 months. I have a feeling that anything new I could get into for those same terms would leave me a bit underwhelmed.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 12, 2009 11:41 am) Nothing wrong with my '03 L-series (83K and counting) that I feel like spending $300-400 / month to get. Plus, now that I work from home, I really haven't put too many miles on it lately. In addition, I'm trying to pay down some of this debt I've accrued  The good news is, only one more year of college for the daughter! On another note, I saw an article that stated that "New Chrysler" will not be responsible for any product liability issues for the 30+ million cars currently on the road that were sold by "Old Chrysler". While that doesn't impact me directly, I am wondering if Penske, in his purchase of Saturn from GM, would have the same stipulation in his deal. Does he assume any product liability, current and future? |
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"scratch the itch" today (an itch, you say? Why it's only been 6 weeks since you bought a car! Well, yes, it never really goes away!) by helping the sister of a friend buy a car, but it was a bust because unbeknownst to me her credit has been ruined by a divorce. Some places were downright unfriendly. The Toyota dealer wouldn't even show us a car, just called her credit "special" and declared that she wouldn't be able to buy a car anywhere. He turned out to be right! After that first place, I told her to stop telling everyone about her credit before we even had a chance to look at the available cars. The Nissan store and the Chrysler store, both part of a big conglomerate and the Chrysler store the last one standing inside a 50-mile radius of itself, both played lots of games and finally said any credit score under 550 would require a STRONG co-signer or 20% down in cash on a car costing no more than $8000. They only did this after an hour of shenanigans where they tried to wheedle a cash payment out of her that I knew she didn't have. I couldn't get her to just walk out with me, she had hope that there was a car at the end of that rainbow! Then we hit up the Saturn store, actually found a reasonably priced '05 Vue, black automatic, 70K miles, $9K. We were sternly shown the door, though, after they ran the credit report. But not before they made the same declaration that we should stop wasting our time, that she would never be able to buy a car. The last place we hit was the credit doctor dealer - "We finance anyone! Repair your credit here!". Even the doc didn't have enough medicine for what ailed her credit. We left there with the advice that if she could come up with $1000 in cash, they could finance her on a $6000 car at $400/month. Oh, and by the way, the $6000 cars come in on Wednesdays and Fridays (!!). That place sounds like a REAL good bet. So she's stuck. She has an '01 Galant V-6 with 159K on the clock and a dead auto trans, best price she can find to fix it is $1800. Guess she could be walking or bus-riding for a while, a CCBAer's worst nightmare! Having never been in that situation (either with credit or the urgent need for a replacement vehicle), it was weird viewing dealers in a different light. They sure aren't very friendly if you don't have good credit......it was particularly striking at the Saturn dealer, where the attitude before and after the running of the credit were like night and day.....
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