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SciFiDownBeat posted:Humor me, why no rentals? Let's say that 10% of people that rent a car abuse the rental. This estimate is probably low. A rental car has a lifespan of about 25,000 miles. Each rental averages say, 250 miles traveled. That means that 100 people at minimum drove your car before you. 10 of them were utter shitheads and abused the car - neutral drops, smoking inside, overloading, offroading, whatever you can come up with, someone has done. Is this really a game you want to be playing?
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Sep 3, 2018 15:48
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Enigma posted:Yeah...M5 at $100k+ is a tad out of budget, so no worries there. I'll check out those domestics. you can get an OK E39 M5 for like, $15-20k. I like the Maxima in general but I hate the CVT. It's not that similar to the old Maximas. Consumer reports is an OK data point for helping your decision making. My experience with BMW is that they're reliable cars if well maintained, and I'm suspicious the new service intervals don't support that. Euro cars, even if relatively reliable, tend to be both more expensive to work on and have higher part cost for equivalent parts. If you're really concerned about cost of maintenance, stick with Japanese or domestic.
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Sep 3, 2018 15:51
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I'm trying to help someone buy a car. She is interested in things I would never buy (2009-2015 BMW, 2015-2016 Honda Accords, and recently 2017 Hyundai Elantra/Sonata). I've no idea what to steer her toward or avoid. I've been researching the main ones she's interested in. Honestly, trying to steer her toward $8k-$13k as it's closer to her budget than $14k-$17k. I'm looking for reliability and not a money pit. She's looking for ridiculous aesthetics. "I don't like the civic because of the shape of the tail lights" - something I have to deal with hearing.
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Sep 3, 2018 17:52
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Khorne posted:I'm trying to help someone buy a car. That's always a tough situation. This almost becomes more relationship advice than car advice. You're stuck between convincing her to buy a practical car she may hate and blame you for, or letting her buy something cute and stupid that she may hate and blame you for. Offer your best advice, then stand back and let her own the final decision, whether you agree with her or not. Ultimately, she has to be an adult and be responsible for her choices. She may also be one of those people who absolutely loves their cute cars that break down all the time.  Let it be her car, for better or worse. Most of us have bought something dumb before figuring out what's important, so it's not an unrecoverable situation either way. The Accord, Elantra, or Sonata aren't terrible choices, in any event. She could do a whole lot worse.
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Sep 3, 2018 18:15
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the civic is loving ugly she's not wrong there but do not let her buy a BMW
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Sep 3, 2018 18:17
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Khorne posted:I'm trying to help someone buy a car. What I do with my family is print out a good selection of cars from Autotrader that meet their needs (price, aesthetics, mpg, etc). I hilight what the strengths and weaknesses are and then tell them to test drive and see which one is the best fit. What usually happens is they go off script and get something else, by which I'm absolved because Oh I Recommended these but you made your own choice.
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Sep 3, 2018 18:19
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Let's say that 10% of people that rent a car abuse the rental. This estimate is probably low. A rental car has a lifespan of about 25,000 miles. Each rental averages say, 250 miles traveled. That means that 100 people at minimum drove your car before you. 10 of them were utter shitheads and abused the car - neutral drops, smoking inside, overloading, offroading, whatever you can come up with, someone has done. Is this really a game you want to be playing? Fair enough
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Sep 3, 2018 18:55
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SciFiDownBeat posted:Fair enough Like there's probably not someone hanging around going "That Kia Soul is going to go from CA to Washington next week. Might be a good idea to get the oil changed now"
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Sep 3, 2018 19:20
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Having worked for Hertz before, if the car comes in and has hit or passed its interval for service, it will be sent for service, but if you are short on cars and need to turn in an hour to rent out again, it's going back out unless it is unsafe to drive. They mostly get their service reasonably close to intervals, but sometimes you can't account for how far the next customer is going to drive it. They all get smoked in and trashed by the customers who are filthy pigs, and I did have more than one customer say they flogged the motor like a rented mule. Also, I had to clean up used condoms from the floor of the back seat. I would not buy a rental.
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Sep 3, 2018 20:25
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With the volume of cars they order and how electronic cars are these days I'm a little amazed that the rental companies don't neuter and monitor the hell out of their engines
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Sep 3, 2018 20:36
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therobit posted:I did have more than one customer say they flogged the motor like a rented mule. I'm not trying to argue against the thread advice to not buy rentals here, but does driving a modern car more aggressively (I'm assuming that aggressive driving does not mean e.g. dropping the car into neutral here) actually create reliability problems? I thought I read in here or AI that sometimes being too much of a grandma can create car problems, and that the 'Italian tuneup' was real and sometimes necessary. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Sep 3, 2018 |
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Sep 3, 2018 20:40
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shovelbum posted:With the volume of cars they order and how electronic cars are these days I'm a little amazed that the rental companies don't neuter and monitor the hell out of their engines you're talking about the same companies that suck all the gas out of the cars before they sell them. they don't want to spend any more money than they have to
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Sep 3, 2018 20:41
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TheWevel posted:you're talking about the same companies that suck all the gas out of the cars before they sell them. they don't want to spend any more money than they have to Yeah but at a large enough scale you're chasing hundredths of a percent better performance to save millions, anything they can do to make damage physically impossible or pass more costs of abuse onto the consumer is going to mean huge dough
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Sep 3, 2018 20:53
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Suppose for the argument’s sake that it were feasible to inhibit the drivetrain to prevent strenuous use and Hertz did that. Within a month word would get around and customers would flock by the millions to Enterprise, because customers WANT to be able to play Lewis Hamilton when the consequences won’t be theirs to deal with. That’s why it hasn’t happened and won’t happen.
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Sep 3, 2018 21:04
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New Subaru is coming this week. This will be my first car and I want to take good care of it. Is there a good app for iPhone or spreadsheet or something that's good for tracking when I need maintenance and stuff like that?
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Sep 3, 2018 21:38
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luminalflux posted:New Subaru is coming this week. This will be my first car and I want to take good care of it. Is there a good app for iPhone or spreadsheet or something that's good for tracking when I need maintenance and stuff like that? Generally, all you need is an odometer and calendar. Check the OM for frequency.
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Sep 3, 2018 21:57
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shovelbum posted:With the volume of cars they order and how electronic cars are these days I'm a little amazed that the rental companies don't neuter and monitor the hell out of their engines my rental car company of choice hardcodes the speed limiter on MyFordKey+ to 85
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Sep 4, 2018 00:11
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While trying to put numbers to domestic vs. euro maintenance costs, I ran across this: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-maintenance/the-cost-of-car-ownership/ Now, granted that's based on old cars and not what's being sold today, it does make me feel a lot better. I'm hoping to get off the leasing merry-go-round, and it is encouraging that even a BMW is likely to be less in maintenance in year 10 than I'm used to for leasing an economy type car.
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Sep 4, 2018 00:14
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There’s probably a lot of heterogeneity within brands for the model, year, etc. A m series BMW is going to be way more to maintain, on average, than a 4 cylinder 3 series. Every manufacturer has their lemons, too.
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Sep 4, 2018 00:39
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:the civic is loving ugly she's not wrong there She really wants me to link her other cars. I tried a bit today by just looking into common complaints and things like that, and she liked a few of them. I am partially responsible for the Elantra being on the table. She likes that really recent ones with low mileage and clean records are real low priced. What are some good cars to steer her toward? I don't pay attention to cars except when I'm buying, and my criteria are usually just cost over time, mpg, controls well, doesn't ignite into a ball of fire or lock me out of vehicle control while I'm driving. FilthyImp posted:You can lead a horse to water... Deteriorata posted:The Accord, Elantra, or Sonata aren't terrible choices, in any event. She could do a whole lot worse. I agree the Accord is not an awful choice. It just has a big tax vs comparable vehicles because it says "Honda Accord". This works in your favor when you go to sell it I guess. But you have to sell it in good shape to kind of even this out. Elantra seems fine. One problem is there are tons for sale here, but the majority were fleet cars. If someone was selling a one owner Elantra that checked out she'd maybe like it. I'm going to let it be her car and I'm not going to try and force something reliable+cheap on maintenance over all else. I just don't want her getting a maintenance nightmare or a death trap, she doesn't want one either, and if I didn't at least warn her about that the complaining about second hand cars being unreliable would never end. She has lots of friends who just walk into some garbage used car dealer, buy the first thing they like, and have repair bills that cost more than the car they just purchased very shortly after buying a car. I'm the total opposite and will think about what car I want for month(s), go to dealers, get quotes, sleep on it, decide, if used inspect thoroughly, then try to buy. Sports cars and crossovers aren't off the table, either. Most of those seem more expensive and not less, though. Thankfully, she doesn't like most of the true garbage second hand cars. It also sounds like I'm inevitably buying an accord after reading over this post, but nothing is decided yet so drop some decent used car makes, models, and years on me. Also, she's real keen on paying less if it doesn't involve compromising on reliability or her aesthetic preferences. I realize goons can't cater to the aesthetic preference, but I'm feeling real out of the loop on what is worth showing her. Khorne fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 02:06
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There's really nothing wrong with modern Elantras that I know of
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Sep 4, 2018 02:30
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Khorne posted:I'm not going to let her buy a BMW. When I point out maintenance cost she moves away, but she seems locked into looking at a specific year of accords and random BMWs/Benz that would be a maintenance nightmare (and are cheap I guess, but the cost is backloaded there). The idea behind her looking at them appears to be "I could get a bmw/benz for less than an accord, nice". I agree the civic is ugly as heck. She's showing me these cars and I feel like I'm stepping into a time machine to cars I thought were ugly a decade ago. First pick would be the Mazda 3. My daughter-in-law was enamored of half a dozen different cars on paper until she got out and drove them. The 3 was hands down the best car for the money by a mile.
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Sep 4, 2018 02:39
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Eric the Mauve posted:There's really nothing wrong with modern Elantras that I know of Deteriorata posted:First pick would be the Mazda 3. My daughter-in-law was enamored of half a dozen different cars on paper until she got out and drove them. The 3 was hands down the best car for the money by a mile. Khorne fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 02:44
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silence_kit posted:I'm not trying to argue against the thread advice to not buy rentals here, but does driving a modern car more aggressively (I'm assuming that aggressive driving does not mean e.g. dropping the car into neutral here) actually create reliability problems? I thought I read in here or AI that sometimes being too much of a grandma can create car problems, and that the 'Italian tuneup' was real and sometimes necessary. I would guess that using the dumb fake manual shifting some of them had would allow you to redline it, but I'm really not sure. I just would rather own a car that had not had that potential abuse. Dude buying a car for his wife- I speak from experience when I say that if you do not let you wife have 100% control over the process it will come back to bite you in the rear end. She will resent you every time something about the car annoys her and every time it has a problem. therobit fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 03:01
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therobit posted:I speak from experience when I say that if you do not let you drive have 100% control over the process it will come back to bite you in the rear end. She will resent you every time something about the car annoys her and every time it has a problem. A thousand times this. Anecdotal, but my parents have a ~8 year old Mazda 3 and suck horribly at cars (seriously, they once destroyed an engine by not ever getting the oil changed), and their Mazda 3 still runs well. They're fun to drive. Lot of pep and they handle well. My only knock on them is they're a bit small inside.
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Sep 4, 2018 03:11
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silence_kit posted:I'm not trying to argue against the thread advice to not buy rentals here, but does driving a modern car more aggressively (I'm assuming that aggressive driving does not mean e.g. dropping the car into neutral here) actually create reliability problems? I thought I read in here or AI that sometimes being too much of a grandma can create car problems, and that the 'Italian tuneup' was real and sometimes necessary. Flooring it on an onramp or tight merge and letting the autotrans shift at/near the redline now and then is perfectly fine for an engine in good shape, and can definitely be beneficial in some cases. The abuse that some people heap upon rentals goes beyond that, and I’d also be nervous about possible suspension damage that wouldn’t show up until the tires started wearing all screwy. Personally, if I needed a generic car for some reason and got a fantastic screaming deal on a fairly low mileage rental, I *might* consider it, but I’m a mechanic and would go over it with a fine tooth comb before purchase, including a compression test, alignment printout, OBDII check that would show me how long it’s been since the CEL was cleared, put it on a lift and look for damage or suspiciously clean parts, the whole nine yards. And I still would be leery. quote:Dude buying a car for his wife- This is so true it hurts. I really won’t recommend cars for friends and family anymore for this reason. I’ll gently inform someone of known issues if they’re looking at a particular model, but that’s about it. People will do what they want to do anyway. JnnyThndrs fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 03:20
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Moving outside the chain rental company cars: What about dealer loaners? If the dealer has a few cars they use to shuttle people around, loan out while your better car is getting worked on, use for test drives, etc? Do dealers/customers have any vested interest in just not letting them get screwed up? I think I've seen at least one of those where it had a bunch of miles but I think the dealer was treating still as 'newish'. Still on the Yaris kick, though, because I like small cars... A 2013 with about 20K miles, 2 owners. Seemed suspicious. Autochecker told me a little bit, but Carfax (if accurate) paints a bit more of a picture. Not a rental, but a FLEET vehicle. (So, take that for what you will. It might be one of those type of loaners/shuttles or something) NOT a salvage, either, but about 18 months after it was first sold it was in an accident, left front, with Autocheck stating 'minor to moderate' damage. Autocheck said just accident and the above. Carfax expanded with 'structural' with a report saying "Accident reported Involving left front impact with another motor vehicle Minor damage reported" The state this happened in, according to Carfax: quote:MODERATE: The accident damage affects the operation of the vehicle and/or its parts. Examples include broken windows, trunk lids, doors, bumpers and tires. It looks like it kept getting its plates renewed for the next 4 years, went to auction, bought by dealer and sold a short time later with just under 20K miles. About 6 months and a few thousand miles later, it's back at the same dealer. Looks physically in good shape from what I see. I don't know if the listed accident really put this car out of commission, though. The first year before the accident it still only had about 2K miles on it and there seems to be a history of extremely consistent dealer xx,xxx mile services and oil changes going on during that time and still doing about that many miles a year. Any thoughts? JediTalentAgent fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 03:31
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I wouldn't buy it without actual documentation on the crash itself. When a car is new and still worth more, a fairly heavy crash isn't enough to total it. On the other hand when it's old and cheap, a minor fender bender can total some cars.
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Sep 4, 2018 03:56
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JediTalentAgent posted:Moving outside the chain rental company cars: What about dealer loaners? If the dealer has a few cars they use to shuttle people around, loan out while your better car is getting worked on, use for test drives, etc? Do dealers/customers have any vested interest in just not letting them get screwed up? I think I've seen at least one of those where it had a bunch of miles but I think the dealer was treating still as 'newish'. There are so many good used cars out there now. If anything doesn't feel right, move on. For this car itself, I'd say move on.
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Sep 4, 2018 03:58
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My dumb Prius that I have (and needed for my 125 mi roundtrip daily commute) is still going and I plan to ride that bitch to the day it dies. But it's pretty boring. Now I have a 7 mi commute. I'm just kinda daydreaming about what car I'd actually like, and I can't think of anything that isn't grossly expensive. For what it's worth, the last car I had that I liked was 4 cars ago and it was a Lincoln Town Car. I guess I just liked that the V8 could get it going pretty quickly and it was really comfortable and smooth. Do they make anything like that anymore? Left to my own devices I'm probably going to get a ... Avalon?! Part of me says it's a 7 mi commute, just always have a beater.
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Sep 4, 2018 03:59
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silence_kit posted:I'm not trying to argue against the thread advice to not buy rentals here, but does driving a modern car more aggressively (I'm assuming that aggressive driving does not mean e.g. dropping the car into neutral here) actually create reliability problems? I thought I read in here or AI that sometimes being too much of a grandma can create car problems, and that the 'Italian tuneup' was real and sometimes necessary. It’s not aggressive driving that is the problem. Ain’t nothing wrong with revving it out on the regular or taking curvy roads at the speed god intended. Some regular sporty driving is arguably good for cars to exercise the full range of its designed operating range. The problem is abusive driving. Redlining a cold engine. Doing neutral drops or other abuse to the transmission. Driving over lovely roads/curbs/off-road way too fast for the suspension and chassis. Things like this might not be immediately apparent but will drastically shorten the lifespan of the most expensive components of the car, potentially costing many thousands of dollars. And it only takes a couple of cases of abuse, and you just don’t have a way of knowing short of tearing down the engine and transmission and inspecting inside of them. Plus then there's less severe things like the increased interior wear and tear from so many different people using it who didn't give a gently caress. Door dings and scratches from people parking in tight spaces because who cares it's not my car. Repairs and service that were "good enough" but not "right". Minor issues that got ignored for too long because no one reports stuff like that. Even if not outright abuse, people are gross and lovely to things that aren't theirs. Hell, a lot of people are gross and lovely to things that are theirs. Have all rental cars been abused? No not necessarily. Have many of them been abused in a far higher proportion than owner-operated cars? Absolutely. Guinness fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 04:04
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TheReverend posted:My dumb Prius that I have (and needed for my 125 mi roundtrip daily commute) is still going and I plan to ride that bitch to the day it dies. With a 7 mile commute, you can get pretty much any car you want. You won't be driving it enough that the differences in fuel economy or reliability will matter much. I guess the main factor would be what you would want to use it for when you're not commuting.
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Sep 4, 2018 04:06
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Deteriorata posted:With a 7 mile commute, you can get pretty much any car you want. You won't be driving it enough that the differences in fuel economy or reliability will matter much. Wife wants a kid and she's agreed that she'd be the one stuck with the "kid car". I guess I need to figure that out. We live a suburban lifestyle so occasionally we need to move new furniture or something stupid. For these instances I think I'd rather just rent a U-Haul. I've never had a sports / sporty car. In my mind I think it'd be rad. On the other hand, my drive to and from work is a solid 40 mph (in traffic) the whole way so I think it'd get frustrating. This is a good question I will have to think on it. Maybe just get a sport-bike for my (possible, unverified) need for speed.
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Sep 4, 2018 04:13
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mariooncrack posted:There are so many good used cars out there now. If anything doesn't feel right, move on. For this car itself, I'd say move on. I'm actually not sure how I feel about this car because I've not had a good chance to look at it or drive it. The structural damage seems to be something revealed during the selling stage at the auction several months ago and that happened just after the last scheduled maintainence and inspection. I'm actual wondering if it's not related to the accident but something else. Specifically I recently looked at a Mazda2 I was interested in from around that same year and also originating from a winter salt road area and it had some disconcerting rust on some parts on the underside that I wouldn't have felt comfortable driving on without replacement or inspection. I myself in the last year have had a LOT of car stuff rusting suddenly, too.
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Sep 4, 2018 04:28
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TheReverend posted:Wife wants a kid and she's agreed that she'd be the one stuck with the "kid car". You need a backup car that can accept two rear facing car seats for when hers is in the shop unfortunately.
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Sep 4, 2018 04:29
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Yeah, you need something that will take a rear facing car seat if you are planning on having a kid soon. Even if she is a stay at home mom there could be emergencies where you need to take the kid somewhere. If there are no immediate plans to have a kid and you don't have one already then just buy the sports car and enjoy it while you can. Also enjoy golf on dates, having regular sex, and being able to decide what to do with your time without giving full veto power to your partner.
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Sep 4, 2018 05:46
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therobit posted:I speak from experience when I say that if you do not let you wife have 100% control over the process it will come back to bite you in the rear end. She will resent you every time something about the car annoys her and every time it has a problem. It's going to be 100% something she likes and chooses herself. I'm just trying to throw all the cars out there because she has gone from obsessed with audi to obsessed with an accord with no input from me. I'm definitely trying to subvert the old bmw/benz ideas, but she likes the accord more than those anyway. She doesn't really know a lot of car brands. Especially domestic and non-luxury brands. For example, she thought the Dodge Charger was real cool while driving today and hadn't seen or heard of it before. She loves mustangs and anything with a sport look. But isn't looking at sports cars. Khorne fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Sep 4, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 06:29
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TheReverend posted:My dumb Prius that I have (and needed for my 125 mi roundtrip daily commute) is still going and I plan to ride that bitch to the day it dies. If you liked the Lincoln Town Car: Chrysler 300 Buick Lacrosse Hyundai Genesis (the one before Genesis became a brand) Whatever the gently caress Lincoln makes now
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Sep 4, 2018 11:49
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therobit posted:Yeah, you need something that will take a rear facing car seat if you are planning on having a kid soon. Even if she is a stay at home mom there could be emergencies where you need to take the kid somewhere. Whoops I thought I was in A/T, guess I misclicked and ended up in E/N 
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Sep 4, 2018 14:38
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The thing is, kids are in rear facing seats until 4+ by the most recent guidelines, and the seats are expanding. So it's not like the old days where even with multiple kids you'd likely only have one rear facing. Also no kids in the front seat until they are somewhat larger than most grown women.
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Sep 4, 2018 14:50
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