Welcome to Thunderdome

Been playing around a bit more with the car now that it's more broken in. (Is that really a thing? I dunno, the manual + internet say so).

Yesterday was the first time I almost lost control of it around a corner... wouldn't have been too bad, just would have banged into a curb, but was able to regain control and get it back with a couple of feet to spare

Guess I found the limits

In a sports car, "banged into a curb" often means flat tire.

GORDON wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:36 pm In a sports car, "banged into a curb" often means flat tire.

Right, but not totaled

I would argue a bent rim as well as I'm betting you have thin tires. Possible broken axle as I'm imagining you sliding sideways into the curb as apposed to running it over. I would estimate damages to be 8-12k!

Cakedaddy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:56 pm I would argue a bent rim as well as I'm betting you have thin tires. Possible broken axle as I'm imagining you sliding sideways into the curb as apposed to running it over. I would estimate damages to be 8-12k!

Again, not totaled!

I wanna know. . . did you look around to see how many people saw you screw up?

Cakedaddy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 10:44 pm I wanna know. . . did you look around to see how many people saw you screw up?

Lol... I just kept driving. I was able to correct without stopping.

We were taking my wife's car to the shop, so she was right behind me. She noticed the squealing, but not that I almost lost it.

Rented a car in England. Or should I say "car," pretty sure it had fewer HP than my first car (1990 Honda Civic EX - 108hp)

https://www.topspeed.com/cars/renault/2 ... 84412.html

I don't know which model we had, but that thing did almost 50mpg, and almost 50mph, too!

1.0-liter naturally aspirated 65 HP
1.0-liter naturally aspirated 75 HP

It has some turbo options, and something else, but I felt no turbo, so I guess it was one of these two.

So nice to be home to my real car.

Used to work with a younger "car guy" in Memphis. He was telling me that cars would never get more than 40ish mpg. I told him in 1989 Geo Metro was advertised at having like 70mpg. He told me that cars that old (it was like 2000 at the time) didn't count because they were primitive and dangerous. I told him that 11 years wasn't that long ago. But he was like 24 so to him that was the dark ages.

Today my car saved a bunny rabbit. We were driving down the alleyway to our garage, and a rabbit ran through a fence into the alley way. I stomped the brakes, car stopped immediately (we were going like 15mph). My daughter and I held our breath for several seconds, then the rabbit hopped out from in front of my car and ran back to where he had come from.

Funny thing happened over the summer.

I bought another one:

1984 500 .
.
.
.
And then another one:

2007 750 (Anniversary Edition)

One of the fun things about living in NC, is that if you want a Toyota, it comes through these assholes first. (Includes GA, SC, AL, and FL, too).

So you go to buy a car, and $1,300+ of bullshit is on it, and NOT from the dealer.



So the dealer tries to pull the "Well, WE didn't do this, it's just included... blah blah blah"

Long story short, just bought a Camry from a place just across the border in Virginia.

Heh. Phone charger cable package.

GORDON wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:42 pm Heh. Phone charger cable package.

The guy who owned that distributorship (he died in 2007), had a net worth of $2.4 Billion. He ran it from 1968 on. He did other autodealer stuff as well. But I can only imagine how much he skimmed "earned" from the distributorship. Toyota used several distributorships, but only the SE and Gulf States ones are still around, unwilling to sell due to all the nearly free money.

Interesting story: Carroll Shelby actually had a chance to be the Gulf States owner, but passed

During the 1960s, one of Thomas H. Friedkin's hobbies was racing cars. He was friends with Carroll Shelby, famous for designing the AC Cobra and the Shelby Mustang. Shelby had turned down an offer to become a distributor for Toyota because Lee Iacocca told Shelby that "the domestic makers were going to push the Japanese back into the ocean".[4][5] Shelby introduced Friedkin to Toyota, and Friedkin entered into an agreement to distribute Toyota vehicles from the Port of Houston. Gulf States Toyota Distributors (GST) was founded in 1969[6][4] when all Toyota vehicles were manufactured in Japan and imported into the US. Three years later, the company employed 35 associates and had sold 5,000 cars and trucks through 14 dealerships.
In 1979, GST had the highest import car, truck and combined import sales in the United States with 65,826 vehicles sold.

In 2020, GST had revenue of $8.4Billion.

When I bought my truck, the dealership did something similar. Had to call a ton of dealerships (because they are all assholes and won't tell you where vehicles are any more) and finally found one that had the options I wanted. Got a price and put down a CC deposit. When I was signing the paperwork, there were two items not previously discussed. Paint protection and theft tags (or something). Totaled $1100 extra. When I brought it up, it was something they do with all the vehicles they sell. The paint protection is done because they had too many vehicles getting damaged by bird poop eating the paint(?), so they found it was better to just protect all of them so they wouldn't have to deal with it any more. The theft tags were small tags they put in the cavities of random parts. That way, if my truck is stolen, I can prove it's mine by busting into one of the cavities and showing the tags. I told them I didn't want either of those things and they were never mentioned when I called about the truck and got the price. We went back and forth for a bit and they discounted each thing separately. I told them "Sand the protect ant off and remove all the tags". I threatened to walk away if they were going to charge me for them. In the end, they discounted them off the total and I bought the car. I totally would have still bought it because shit was so fucked when I bought and inventory was extremely low. They really had me by the balls. But they didn't call my bluff. Bottom line, 90% chance there not really a seal on the paint, and 95% chance there are no ID tags in any parts. So they probably just said 'fuck it' and sold the truck. The tags thing was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard from a dealer.

Got lucky with the wife's car. EVERY dealer she called was marking up the vehicles $5-15k over MSRP. And she was calling up to 500 miles away. The one dealership that actually had the car she wanted with the correct options, was not marking up their vehicles. No hidden surprises. Went smooth.

One place reached back out to me today and said "Is there anything we can do to get your business?"

Me: We found a place that will do $37.7k for that configuration + a sunroof, out the door.

Them: What if we got this car down to $38k?

wtf?

And the dealerships are protected by law, so you can't buy directly from the factory.

Trucks aren't even trucks any more.

Not shocking. Most of the people I know that drive trucks don't need to drive a truck. In other words, they are buying them for a different reason.

I don't think that's true. There are different F150 sizes depending on the model you get. Regular cab has two doors, extended has 2 doors and two bat wings with back seats, and king cab has four doors. And then you still have the option of full sized bed or not.

I think that graphic is wack and someone is lying to make a point.