Why am I still here?
 

Keyser Sozo says..

"The latest Honda Ridgeline is available with AWD, but I don't believe it
has the towing capacity you might want, and it is not a separate
frame/body pickup. But it is very comfy and carlike on the interior and
in the ride."



A 5k tow rating should be just enough to tow a 4000 lb trailer.....especially if it's only occasionally tows like we'd do up here.
As far as the Tacoma....it would be my choice of truck if only the cab was higher. From what Consumer Reports used to say...it has the same low seat design as the old Ford Ranger. Maybe a good design to help with gas mileage but I'd want to sit up in a seat not inches off the floor and I don't have long legs.

Why am I still here?
 

On 1/9/2017 10:25 AM, True North wrote:
Keyser Sozo says..

"The latest Honda Ridgeline is available with AWD, but I don't believe it
has the towing capacity you might want, and it is not a separate
frame/body pickup. But it is very comfy and carlike on the interior and
in the ride."



A 5k tow rating should be just enough to tow a 4000 lb trailer.....especially if it's only occasionally tows like we'd do up here.
As far as the Tacoma....it would be my choice of truck if only the cab was higher. From what Consumer Reports used to say...it has the same low seat design as the old Ford Ranger. Maybe a good design to help with gas mileage but I'd want to sit up in a seat not inches off the floor and I don't have long legs.



Timely discussion. I just saw on the news that Ford is going to start
producing a Ranger again, along with a Bronco. Both will be built in
the good ol' USA. :-)

I may wait and see what the new design Ranger and it's specs are. It
was dropped because it's design and engines had become outdated
(basically it was a Mazda B-2000). I'll bet with the more powerful and
advanced 4 and 6 cylinder engines available today it could be a serious
contender again.

I've owned three of them in the past, one in Florida and two up here.
The last one I had was the "Level 3" version (or something like that).
It was a 4x4, had larger tires and sat higher than a standard Ranger.
All of them were great little trucks and the only reason I traded in the
Level 3 was that I needed more towing capacity at the time. Otherwise,
I would have kept it.

Why am I still here?
 

On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 05:51:47 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:

No one would have more expertise on a lifetime of dishonest work than a
bankster like Wayne who spent his career working for a dishonest bank.
As examples of these practices still going on:

On October 19, 2011, Citigroup agreed to $285 million civil fraud penalty.

In 2015, Citigroup Inc.'s consumer bank was ordered to pay $770 million
in relief to borrowers for illegal credit card practices.

===

Happened after I retired, and of course we folks who were managing
technology platforms had nothing to do with it. Citi has always been
a leader and innovator in banking technology.

Why am I still here?
 

On Monday, 9 January 2017 11:38:38 UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/9/2017 10:25 AM, True North wrote:
Keyser Sozo says..

"The latest Honda Ridgeline is available with AWD, but I don't believe it
has the towing capacity you might want, and it is not a separate
frame/body pickup. But it is very comfy and carlike on the interior and
in the ride."



A 5k tow rating should be just enough to tow a 4000 lb trailer.....especially if it's only occasionally tows like we'd do up here.
As far as the Tacoma....it would be my choice of truck if only the cab was higher. From what Consumer Reports used to say...it has the same low seat design as the old Ford Ranger. Maybe a good design to help with gas mileage but I'd want to sit up in a seat not inches off the floor and I don't have long legs.



Timely discussion. I just saw on the news that Ford is going to start
producing a Ranger again, along with a Bronco. Both will be built in
the good ol' USA. :-)

I may wait and see what the new design Ranger and it's specs are. It
was dropped because it's design and engines had become outdated
(basically it was a Mazda B-2000). I'll bet with the more powerful and
advanced 4 and 6 cylinder engines available today it could be a serious
contender again.

I've owned three of them in the past, one in Florida and two up here.
The last one I had was the "Level 3" version (or something like that).
It was a 4x4, had larger tires and sat higher than a standard Ranger.
All of them were great little trucks and the only reason I traded in the
Level 3 was that I needed more towing capacity at the time. Otherwise,
I would have kept it.


When they were getting rid of the Ranger there was talk of a new smaller pickup...mayte a F100 or something that Ford was developing. Always wondered what happened to it. Assumed it couldn't compete with the Tacoma.
I like the looks of the Nissan Frontier with it's boxier cab. Almost bought one from a military family who were renting next door from another military family. The Frontier owners had been assigned to NATO in Brussels so wanted to get rid of the black Frontier with it's matching cap. Only trouble is...it had the four cylinder engine, manual transmission (not good for wife) and a low tow rating.
I had leased the auto 6 cyl 2006 Ranger to tow my sailboat. Man, those hard foam low seats were hard to get used to. I remember calling my salesman and asking if I could upgrade to the F150. He said to hang on and the foam would soon conform to me. He was partially right and I actually used the Ranger to tow my mini cruiser sailboat on a 3000 mile round trip to a Rendezvous north of Toronto. Have to admit, I wasn't sad when the three year lease was up and I'm sure the wife was overjoyed. Especially when the last couple of model years dropped almost $10K in MSL price.

Why am I still here?
 

On 1/9/2017 11:25 AM, True North wrote:
On Monday, 9 January 2017 11:38:38 UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/9/2017 10:25 AM, True North wrote:
Keyser Sozo says..

"The latest Honda Ridgeline is available with AWD, but I don't believe it
has the towing capacity you might want, and it is not a separate
frame/body pickup. But it is very comfy and carlike on the interior and
in the ride."



A 5k tow rating should be just enough to tow a 4000 lb trailer.....especially if it's only occasionally tows like we'd do up here.
As far as the Tacoma....it would be my choice of truck if only the cab was higher. From what Consumer Reports used to say...it has the same low seat design as the old Ford Ranger. Maybe a good design to help with gas mileage but I'd want to sit up in a seat not inches off the floor and I don't have long legs.



Timely discussion. I just saw on the news that Ford is going to start
producing a Ranger again, along with a Bronco. Both will be built in
the good ol' USA. :-)

I may wait and see what the new design Ranger and it's specs are. It
was dropped because it's design and engines had become outdated
(basically it was a Mazda B-2000). I'll bet with the more powerful and
advanced 4 and 6 cylinder engines available today it could be a serious
contender again.

I've owned three of them in the past, one in Florida and two up here.
The last one I had was the "Level 3" version (or something like that).
It was a 4x4, had larger tires and sat higher than a standard Ranger.
All of them were great little trucks and the only reason I traded in the
Level 3 was that I needed more towing capacity at the time. Otherwise,
I would have kept it.


When they were getting rid of the Ranger there was talk of a new smaller pickup...mayte a F100 or something that Ford was developing. Always wondered what happened to it. Assumed it couldn't compete with the Tacoma.
I like the looks of the Nissan Frontier with it's boxier cab. Almost bought one from a military family who were renting next door from another military family. The Frontier owners had been assigned to NATO in Brussels so wanted to get rid of the black Frontier with it's matching cap. Only trouble is...it had the four cylinder engine, manual transmission (not good for wife) and a low tow rating.
I had leased the auto 6 cyl 2006 Ranger to tow my sailboat. Man, those hard foam low seats were hard to get used to. I remember calling my salesman and asking if I could upgrade to the F150. He said to hang on and the foam would soon conform to me. He was partially right and I actually used the Ranger to tow my mini cruiser sailboat on a 3000 mile round trip to a Rendezvous north of Toronto. Have to admit, I wasn't sad when the three year lease was up and I'm sure the wife was overjoyed. Especially when the last couple of model years dropped almost $10K in MSL price.



According to the Ford news release the new Ranger will be a "mid sized"
pickup.

Why am I still here?
 

Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/9/2017 6:44 AM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 1/9/17 6:02 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/8/2017 6:15 PM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 1/8/17 5:47 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/8/2017 1:06 PM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 1/8/17 2:20 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jan 2017 01:02:45 -0600, Califbill

wrote:


I pretty much gave up on stick shifts for daily drivers in 1968. I
remember miles long traffic jams from Laguna Seca raceway via
Gilroy of
stop and go traffic. My leg would start shaking from the clutch
work. And
pulling a race car trailer. Later, drop it in drive, and enjoy
power
brakes.

I still like actually driving my sporty cars. A slush box is fine in
vans and trucks. I have worked very hard to avoid stop and go
traffic.
I worked midnights for the past 11 years I was in DC. It was great
driving home in empty lanes on the beltway and watching the cars
piled
up going the other way. SW Florida was very rural when I moved here
and a few tricks to avoid the trouble spots kept me moving right
along
most of the time. They did not have much in the way of computer
customers in the tourist areas



I grew up on stick shift vehicles and in the winter I earned a few
bucks
with my dad's jeep and plow. I always thought the stick shift gave you
more control over what the wheels were doing and made stopping safer
because you could more easily shift the vehicle out of gear. After my
experience yesterday and today with the 4WD stick shift truck, I still
think I am correct. Though we only got about 7" today of snow, I got
through a couple of drifts two and three times that height (where the
roadway was plowed) without problems.


If you are doing some serious plowing, it's hard to hold the plow
controller in one hand, steer with the other and try to shift if
necessary. Auto transmission makes it a lot easier.


Your plow must be more sophisticated than what we had. We had three
levers in the cab of the jeep that controlled the plow hydraulics...up
and down, side to side,and angle. I don't recall fiddling with them much
while taking a run down one side of someone's driveway.

No, same controls except I don't have "side to side" whatever that is.
Up, down and angle, left or right. The control box is hand held
however, not levers permanently mounted in the cab.

I like manual transmissions in some cars/trucks. My Ranger had a manual
as did a full sized '86 Ford pickup I had years ago but I didn't plow or
tow with either of them. For towing and plowing ... especially towing,
the auto is better, IMO, especially the ones they use in the full sized
heavy duty trucks being the Allison in the GM's and Ford's Torqueshift.
Both are designed for towing heavy loads. I saw an ad for the latest
Ford Superduty F-350. It can be equipped to tow 33,000 lbs.

Let's see ... other manual transmission cars I've had fairly recently
include the '67 GTO (factory 4 speed), the BMW Mini Cooper turbo, and
the Porsche (6 speed manual). The Mini Cooper was a fun car .. fast ...
but whenever you really got on it, it tried to make a left hand turn due
to torque steer. The BMW M5's were a different animal altogether. They
had a hybrid, dual clutch manual that was electronically controlled for
"auto" operation or you could manually control shifts with the stick or
the paddles on the steering wheel. No clutch pedal though.

I don't really have a need for the F-250 anymore but sometimes only a
truck will do. My wife bought a little egg shaped, 20 ft camper last
summer but it only weighs about 4,000 lbs loaded. She wants me to trade
my truck for a smaller, compact like a Nissan or Toyota so she can learn
to tow her little camper around. One nice thing about the F-250 was
apparent yesterday morning when I made a Duncan Donuts run at 6 in the
morning through 17" of snow.



I had driven an auto Tacoma truck at a local dealer's, and I thought the
tranny seemed to spend a lot of time searching for and shifting gears,
but it seemed only a minor annoyance. Since then, Toyota has
reprogrammed the auto tranny. When I was in the mood to buy, there were
hardly any 4WD Tacomas around, and I ended up buying from a non-local
dealer. I tried the manual tranny model before I bought and I enjoyed
the shifting and the control it gave. The tranny does not shift as
smoothly as a manual in a good car, but it is good enough.

I don't tow or plow with this truck, so those considerations weren't an
issue. In decent weather, I do haul a lot of aggie products for my
wife's gardens and the lawn. If we lived in "da Souf," I probably
wouldn't have gone for the 4WD.

If you are going to tow a small camper in the future and want a Toyota
truck, the larger Toyota model probably would be more suitable than the
Tacoma. I don't know anything about the Nissans, other than the Toyotas
seem to outsell them by a large factor.


I think the "larger" Toyota (above the Tacoma) is the Tundra. It's as
big as the Ford I have now from what I've seen. She wants something
smaller. The Nissan Frontier is rated to tow 6K lbs I am told. Not
sure about the Tacoma. The only issue for her is that she has become
accustom to automatic all wheel drive. She has had it in the Navigators
she had and the Mountaineer she drives now. I am not sure but I don't
think an automatic "AWD" mode is available in the smaller pickups. They
have 2WD and select-able 4WD (high and low) like my F-250 but you have
to know when to use it. For her by the time she realized she needed 4WD
it would probably be too late.




I think the newer Tacoma is about the same size as the older Tundra. I
read in the newspaper that the manufactures are bringing back small
pickups. My only real experience with automatic 4WD was in an Olds version
of the S10 Blazer on icy road in Rochester, MN. Would go in to and out of
4x4 when a wheel started to spin and the car would want to jump sideways an
inch or two. My Blazer never showed that condition, but 4x4 was a dash
switch.

Why am I still here?
 

On 1/9/17 11:22 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 05:51:47 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:

No one would have more expertise on a lifetime of dishonest work than a
bankster like Wayne who spent his career working for a dishonest bank.
As examples of these practices still going on:

On October 19, 2011, Citigroup agreed to $285 million civil fraud penalty.

In 2015, Citigroup Inc.'s consumer bank was ordered to pay $770 million
in relief to borrowers for illegal credit card practices.

===

Happened after I retired, and of course we folks who were managing
technology platforms had nothing to do with it. Citi has always been
a leader and innovator in banking technology.


Are you implying your employer wasn't engaging in banksterism prior to
your retirement? Really?

:)

Why am I still here?
 

Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/9/2017 11:25 AM, True North wrote:
On Monday, 9 January 2017 11:38:38 UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/9/2017 10:25 AM, True North wrote:
Keyser Sozo says..

"The latest Honda Ridgeline is available with AWD, but I don't believe it
has the towing capacity you might want, and it is not a separate
frame/body pickup. But it is very comfy and carlike on the interior and
in the ride."



A 5k tow rating should be just enough to tow a 4000 lb
trailer.....especially if it's only occasionally tows like we'd do up here.
As far as the Tacoma....it would be my choice of truck if only the cab
was higher. From what Consumer Reports used to say...it has the same
low seat design as the old Ford Ranger. Maybe a good design to help
with gas mileage but I'd want to sit up in a seat not inches off the
floor and I don't have long legs.



Timely discussion. I just saw on the news that Ford is going to start
producing a Ranger again, along with a Bronco. Both will be built in
the good ol' USA. :-)

I may wait and see what the new design Ranger and it's specs are. It
was dropped because it's design and engines had become outdated
(basically it was a Mazda B-2000). I'll bet with the more powerful and
advanced 4 and 6 cylinder engines available today it could be a serious
contender again.

I've owned three of them in the past, one in Florida and two up here.
The last one I had was the "Level 3" version (or something like that).
It was a 4x4, had larger tires and sat higher than a standard Ranger.
All of them were great little trucks and the only reason I traded in the
Level 3 was that I needed more towing capacity at the time. Otherwise,
I would have kept it.


When they were getting rid of the Ranger there was talk of a new smaller
pickup...mayte a F100 or something that Ford was developing. Always
wondered what happened to it. Assumed it couldn't compete with the Tacoma.
I like the looks of the Nissan Frontier with it's boxier cab. Almost
bought one from a military family who were renting next door from
another military family. The Frontier owners had been assigned to NATO
in Brussels so wanted to get rid of the black Frontier with it's
matching cap. Only trouble is...it had the four cylinder engine, manual
transmission (not good for wife) and a low tow rating.
I had leased the auto 6 cyl 2006 Ranger to tow my sailboat. Man, those
hard foam low seats were hard to get used to. I remember calling my
salesman and asking if I could upgrade to the F150. He said to hang on
and the foam would soon conform to me. He was partially right and I
actually used the Ranger to tow my mini cruiser sailboat on a 3000 mile
round trip to a Rendezvous north of Toronto. Have to admit, I wasn't sad
when the three year lease was up and I'm sure the wife was overjoyed.
Especially when the last couple of model years dropped almost $10K in MSL price.



According to the Ford news release the new Ranger will be a "mid sized"
pickup.


What is mid sized and full sized these days. Rented a full size car at
Alamo in San Jose Cabo. Camry.

Why am I still here?
 

On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 12:14:05 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:

On 1/9/17 11:22 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 05:51:47 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:

No one would have more expertise on a lifetime of dishonest work than a
bankster like Wayne who spent his career working for a dishonest bank.
As examples of these practices still going on:

On October 19, 2011, Citigroup agreed to $285 million civil fraud penalty.

In 2015, Citigroup Inc.'s consumer bank was ordered to pay $770 million
in relief to borrowers for illegal credit card practices.

===

Happened after I retired, and of course we folks who were managing
technology platforms had nothing to do with it. Citi has always been
a leader and innovator in banking technology.


Are you implying your employer wasn't engaging in banksterism prior to
your retirement? Really?

:)

===

Define banksterism - can't find it in my OED. Is it worse than union
thuggery, loan fraud, tax cheating or spouse abuse?

Why am I still here?
 

On 1/9/17 1:23 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 12:14:05 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:

On 1/9/17 11:22 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 05:51:47 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:

No one would have more expertise on a lifetime of dishonest work than a
bankster like Wayne who spent his career working for a dishonest bank.
As examples of these practices still going on:

On October 19, 2011, Citigroup agreed to $285 million civil fraud penalty.

In 2015, Citigroup Inc.'s consumer bank was ordered to pay $770 million
in relief to borrowers for illegal credit card practices.

===

Happened after I retired, and of course we folks who were managing
technology platforms had nothing to do with it. Citi has always been
a leader and innovator in banking technology.


Are you implying your employer wasn't engaging in banksterism prior to
your retirement? Really?

:)

===

Define banksterism - can't find it in my OED. Is it worse than union
thuggery, loan fraud, tax cheating or spouse abuse?


Your OED? What a laugh.

Bankster

A portmanteau of the words "banker" and "gangster." These are intergral
to the capitalist system. While the nightly news might have you believe
that young black and latino men with 9mm's are the biggest threat to
your life, banksters are far more dangerous. While a gangster might
steal your posessions with a knife or a gun, a bankster will steal your
possesiions with a pen, paper and "legal" (read "unjust") mumbo-jumbo
snakeoil bull****.

Bankster: Any member of the financial services industry; primarilly
interested with the welfare of the capitalist class and their lackeys.

Execs of banks who lined their own pockets first, when the economy was
starting to crumble, then foreclosed on small town america

A portmanteau of "banker" and "gangster", popularized by (among others)
the economist Murray N. Rothbard, used by him to attack what he held to
be the inherently fraudulent nature of Fractional-Reserve banking (as
opposed to 100% gold reserve banking, which he defended as the only
honest form of banking). Frequently used in reference to The Fed.

In more recent popular usage, often refers in a vague way to the forces
of "Wall Street", or to those persons in the financial services industry
who grow rich despite the continued impoverishment of those who depend
on their services, and despite their apparent inability to succeed in
business without constant government assistance.

"The Fed is an organized cartel of banksters, who are creating
inflation, ripping off the public, destroying the savings of the average
American."

"The banksters crashed the economy, but thanks to generous federal
bailouts, they won't have to sacrifice their fat bonuses."