On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 16:30:19 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 11/17/15 3:41 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:33:57 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 11/17/15 12:57 PM, wrote:

What did it cost?


$350 to bumfuch, tennessee, for the truck driver, plus $129 for the
booking agent. About 600 miles. The one way airfare was about $250.

There's some sort of bidding process for the drivers, which the agent
handles. Very friendly people, Florida based. I'll email you the contact
info if you want.

I may be interested in a guy to move a pontoon boat from Dayton to Ft
Myers


Well, I suspect the right trailer might be an issue, and, of course, the
likelihood your boat will be the only freight. The guy who picked up my
4Runner had at least two more cars to pick up on his way south.

I think I am just going to go get it and work in a trip to visit my
Ohio buddy. I haven't ordered the boat yet so it is not a real issue
yet.

On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 14:03:57 -0800 (PST), wrote:

My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

I am still not sure what was wrong with the old sealed beam. You could
get them with very capable lamps in them just about the time they fell
out of fashion and anyone could swap one out for $5 in a couple
minutes.
I broke a headlight on my Honda and the replacement was over $100 used
and I got a deal. It was a pain to replace too.

wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 14:03:57 -0800 (PST), wrote:

My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to
put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did
it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air
pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

I am still not sure what was wrong with the old sealed beam. You could
get them with very capable lamps in them just about the time they fell
out of fashion and anyone could swap one out for $5 in a couple
minutes.
I broke a headlight on my Honda and the replacement was over $100 used
and I got a deal. It was a pain to replace too.


My plastic lenses on the 2004 Chevy P/U got glazed. Tried cleaning with a
polish. Better but still not great. Big O wanted $86 to polish. But two
new ones with free shipping and n w bulbs for $70 from 1AAuto.com. Takes
five minutes to change. Pull a pin and flip out unit. Unhook connector
and reverse. As to changing the old bulbs, depended on the vehicle.
Stupid Ford Aerostar we had. Two Torx, a Philips and a plastic clip just
to get to the light.

wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 11:51:08 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/oe58qgs


On the way to his new owner...
They couldn't drive it away?


The IRS doesn't drive away repossessed cars.

True North wrote:
On Tuesday, 17 November 2015 12:51:11 UTC-4, Keyser Söze wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/oe58qgs


On the way to his new owner...
Looks in good shape. I believe the 4Runner was based on the Tacoma..or what came before it, maybe a T100??
I thought about one for a minute or two but felt the smoother riding Highlander would suit me and the boss a bit better. Believe the Highlander was based originally on the Camray.


Anything is better than a pink RAV4, eh? "Camray", dummy?

Buy any guns lately, Ditzy Dan?

True North wrote:
Buy any guns lately, Ditzy Dan?


Ditzy has a new handle?

--
Sent from my iPhone 6+

On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 5:14:26 PM UTC-5, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 11/17/2015 5:03 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 4:41:46 PM UTC-5, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 11/17/2015 3:39 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:45:33 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 11/17/15 1:04 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 12:48:08 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 11/17/15 12:43 PM, True North wrote:
On Tuesday, 17 November 2015 12:51:11 UTC-4, Keyser Söze wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/oe58qgs


On the way to his new owner...

Looks in good shape. I believe the 4Runner was based on the Tacoma..or what came before it, maybe a T100??
I thought about one for a minute or two but felt the smoother riding Highlander would suit me and the boss a bit better. Believe the Highlander was based originally on the Camray.


Yeah, I believe the 4Runner is built on the Tacoma chassis. Separate
frame and body, not monocoupe. It really was a great vehicle, with
absolutely no problems and only the usual maintenance items - tires,
wiper blades, a battery, brakes...that's about it. Toyota does it right,
most of the time.

We have had pretty good luck with Hondas but we also seem to do well
with Fords.. We paid $3500 for old "brownie", drove it for 10 years
and sold it for almost $5000 (Thanks Barack)
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Brownie.jpg

I also had 2 E-150 Econolines that treated me well and the 2000 Sport
Trak we have now is still doing well. My 97 Prelude is still getting
the job done with embarrassingly little maintenance.


I do like the Japanese approach to ordinary cars. Toyota, Honda, Nissan,
et cetera, seem to do a nice job. My sister in law has an Audi, and when
it needs a repair, the labor and parts charges seem outrageous, and the
damned thing really eats tires. One of the guys down the street has a
"5" series BMW, and, to me, it seems entirely too clever and
over-engineered. My sports car is that way, too, but the mileage is low,
it lives in the garage, and only goes out on nice days.


BMW is ridiculous. A battery is something like $500.
Everything is simply unnecessary complication to a fairly simple task..

BMW makes some superb cars but their complexity, rigid maintenance needs
and constant revisions to the computer system is what drove me away from
them.

Between my wife and I, we had 7 different BMW's over the years including
two M5's (the first of which BMW took back due to too many problems), a
Z4 (wife's), a 740, a 750, a 335ci (wife's) and an X5. Got tired of
all the "special" maintenance requirements, even though they were
covered with the purchase. The M5's were the worst. Constant problems
with the software which controlled just about everything.

I left the 750 in our garage in Florida for one summer that we were not
there. Put a BMW battery minder (trickle charger) on it. Came back the
next fall and it was dead. I then discovered it had *two* batteries.
A BMW dealership came and put it on a flatbed to be serviced and have
new batteries installed. Batteries were not covered by warranty. $900..

Went back to simple Ford products. They do the job, maybe not in as an
exciting fashion but don't require much more than regular oil changes.

Yeouch! They saw you coming. Nothing special about the batteries, you can pick up a "gold" top of the line battery for $150. Ten minute job to change it. My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

My new Audi requires an oil change every 10,000. I bought the first four services when I bought the car at a reduced price. There's no other special service required for it. I do realize that they are, like BMW's, more expensive to repair out of warranty than many other vehicles. When the 5yr, 100,000 mile CPO warranty runs out, it'll be someone else's problem.

Otherwise, it just like any other car... wears brakes, tires, and other "consumables" just like anything else. It's just really nice while its doing it.



No question they are nice cars. I enjoyed driving them but too many
issues ... especially with the M5's. I bought it (them) to drive and
enjoy, not to be constantly going back to the dealership with computer
problems (red cog of death symbol on dash) and notices for software
updates. The Porsche that I eventually got to replace the last M5 was a
different beast altogether. No fancy computer controls. Just 450 hp
coupled to all wheel drive through a six speed manual transmission. Car
was awesome, trouble free and could run circles around an M5. Well, not
really but it was definitely faster, handled better and got
about 22 mpg on average.

Yep, the BMW's seem to have more than their share of issues, but are nice cars. The Audis seem to be better in that regard. My Boxster S was a great car... needed little besides normal maintenance. It was a great handling car with awesome brakes. A co-worker just bought a GT4. Thats'a a Cayman that's pretty much race-ready from the factory. Very cool. He also bought a Ferrari 308 with 16k miles on it. Arrest Me Red, Magnum PI car. He tried to toss me the keys to it, but I wasn't biting. I might be able to get in, but maybe not out. Small car. He cashed in a a bunch of Microsoft IPO stock. Good for him!

On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 5:23:04 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 14:03:57 -0800 (PST), wrote:

My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

I am still not sure what was wrong with the old sealed beam. You could
get them with very capable lamps in them just about the time they fell
out of fashion and anyone could swap one out for $5 in a couple
minutes.
I broke a headlight on my Honda and the replacement was over $100 used
and I got a deal. It was a pain to replace too.

The adaptive HID headlights on the newer, upscale cars are far superior to old sealed beams. The replacements you are talking about, I believe, are the housings. The actual bulb is inside and is small compared to an old sealed beam. The housings are expensive, but the bulb inside is small and relatively cheap. The nice sealed beams are a lot more than $5! The good halogen replacements are more like $15-$30. The incandescent bulbs are still $5-$10, but are weak and yellow.

On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:46:07 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 5:23:04 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 14:03:57 -0800 (PST), wrote:

My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

I am still not sure what was wrong with the old sealed beam. You could
get them with very capable lamps in them just about the time they fell
out of fashion and anyone could swap one out for $5 in a couple
minutes.
I broke a headlight on my Honda and the replacement was over $100 used
and I got a deal. It was a pain to replace too.

The adaptive HID headlights on the newer, upscale cars are far superior to old sealed beams. The replacements you are talking about, I believe, are the housings. The actual bulb is inside and is small compared to an old sealed beam. The housings are expensive, but the bulb inside is small and relatively cheap. The nice sealed beams are a lot more than $5! The good halogen replacements are more like $15-$30. The incandescent bulbs are still $5-$10, but are weak and yellow.

With these new lights the bulb is usually not what goes bad. The lens
gets cloudy, cracks or breaks out. The reflector degrades and the
whole assembly can be hundreds of dollars.
I agree that brand new, they are a whole lot better than a
conventional sealed beam but once the enclosure degrades a bit, they
are worse and your average driver is not going to fix it as long as
the light still comes on.
Sealed beams are either on or off, the reflector is sealed in a
tempered glass can. They don't degrade much.
When you replaced a sealed beam, you got a whole new light.
If the sealed beams were mass marketed items the halogen would be
$5-10.