- SiGmA_X
- May 3, 2004
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SiGmA_X
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1. What is your primary form of transportation - car, motorcycle, bicycle, train, bus, taxi, Uber, Lyft, walking (or other)?
Car
2. How many vehicles do you have?
3 (for a household of 2)
3. For current vehicle owners - did you buy new, buy used, or do you lease?
Used
4. What brand vehicle do you drive?
2 x BMW and 1 x Audi
5. For owners - what was the purchase price of your vehicle, and how long have you owned it?
1993 BMW 325iS - $7,500 - 11yrs this July
1999 BMW 528iT - $2,000 - 3yrs this June
1999 Audi A4 Avant - $1,200 - 8mo
6. How much do you spend annually on transportation (cab, bus, train-fare/payments/insurance/fuel)?
Rolling 12mo: Fuel - $2600, Insurance - $1500
7. How much do you spend annually on maintenance for your vehicle?
Rolling 12mo: Maint - $1800 (I'm not counting my rental of a shop with a lift in here... I sell myself to cover (at least part of) that cost, so, yeah, it doesn't count!!)
8. How far is your commute to work?
2.3mile
9. If you do not use public transportation - explain why you do not
Because America.
10. If you use public transportation - explain why you do not use a vehicle
11. What country do you live in?
America
12. What is your gross annual income?
~$80k household
I learned only a couple of us are cool dudes who own cool motorcycles.
Bugamole you have to adjust your expectations, it the AC stops working, you don't fix it, you start wearing tank tops.
 )
SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 20, 2015
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Mar 20, 2015 22:08
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Apr 27, 2024 18:26
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- SiGmA_X
- May 3, 2004
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SiGmA_X
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Back in 1999 working on cars was hard. You had a hanes manual that covered like 4 generations of your car, and it was vague at best and wrong a lot of the time, and any buddies that you could coax over may or may not have any clue what they are doing. You were basically turning bolts and praying to the piston gods.
Now days pretty much every car ever made has some sort of enthusiast base that has thoroughly explored every possible way it can break and how to fix it, and then posted their wisdom online. Not only that, but most common repairs on most common cars have a decent quality youtube video of someone preforming the repair. There's a guy whose videos have helped me so many times with volvo repairs that I consider him sort of a father figure.
Now, I'm kind of a gearhead, but my little brother is not. He had never really worked on a car before, and he used to ask me "how the hell do you consider that fun?" when I would talk about wrenching on my beaters. He's also not very well off. When his honda accord started overheating he took it to a shop, and they quoted him something around a grand for a water pump and a timing belt which was due, and a few other odds and ends. He didn't have the money but he needed the car for work and school. I was living in another state so I couldn't help him out. No worries, he bought about $50 worth of tools from harbor freight, and spent a few evenings reading walkthroughs and watching videos. It took most of a Saturday to complete the repairs, and he has put thousands of miles on the car since.
In the end he didn't have a lot of fun or find a new lifelong hobby, but he did save himself $800.
What I'm saying is: If you're making 6 figs and $800 is not a lot of money for you then by all means buy a new car and take it in to the shop whenever it makes a funny noise. But if you're in an income bracket where your time is not worth a whole lot and you own a car, then you really owe it to yourself to take advantage of all the resources out there and start understanding the systems at play and working on it yourself. There are obviously some jobs that are a little rough (like anything to do with an audi) or that are very unpleasant for the DIYer and super cheap from a shop (like an oil change) but by and large wrenching on a beater car is a great way to save yourself a lot of cash.
It always baffles me when people are like "well, yeah cheap old cars are ok if you like freaking out from constantly breaking down or are a master mechanic." No, you cannot just expect to get on craigslist and buy the first $1500 car you see and drive it for 100,000 miles, but if you do your goddamn homework and spend a couple of hours a night for a week or two watching the market and educating yourself, and have a just a bit of risk tolerance, then there's no reason why the average person can't drive reliably on the cheap.
My free time isn't worth much, even tho I make ~ok~ middle class wages. I *love* working on cars, so its a combo of pasttime hobby + saving a lot of money.
Also, working on a VAG is way, way better than most domestics, and a lot of Asian imports. Though its nothing like a well designed BMW, where things are actually engineered! (I love my BMW's.)
My last spare car was a 86 325e. I made 1700$ from buying it and selling it, and put ~60k on it. That beater was awesome.
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Mar 21, 2015 06:07
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Mar 20, 2015 22:08
