Geeto67

prius. Seriously, buy a used prius and put the rest of the money into a play car or a really fast motorcycle. Don't buy an Audi past the warranty, and don't buy a BMW expecting great mileage (they get good mileage, but to drive it like you enjoy it means you won't get great mileage). If you must have german, buy a Golf diesel.

I think it really depends on the group of hunters you are talking to at the time. My father used to live next door to a bow hunter and he thought gun hunting took the challenge out of "real hunting" and hunting deer with a gun was for "special needs children" (he used less PC terms). I don't care one way or the other about suppressors, but i wish they would do something about the drinking while operating a firearm (cue someone to call me a pussy and say what's the point of hunting if you can't do it blind stinking drunk). I think this just makes it harder to see who took the shot when one dumbshit accidentally shoots one of his buddies out in the woods.

Really? I was just looking at two on cars.com that were "high mileage". One had 129,000 miles and the other was 110K and there was a third that was drug dealer yellow with 95,000. they were all early 2000s GTS coupes. Is there a specific generation you are looking for? there seem to be a decent number of them in the 50K to 70K mileage range. I guess my thinking on it is that if you were looking at a salvage car, then who cares if you take it to the mall and park it next to two Honda odyssey minivans, or let the valet park it, or drive it in the rain, or take it to a McDonald's drive through, or gut the interior weld in a roll bar and give that guy at the SCCA auto-x's with the mini can am car a run for the money.

so I have to ask...are you going to daily drive it? because in my head that would be the only reason to buy a salvage viper - the resale is already gutted so might as well use it like a regular car. Otherwise, I would say just look for a clean high mileage example that is in your price range.

Chances are if a bike has been wrecked in any significant way it would have a branded title as salvage or rebuilt. Bikes these days are so disposable that even a minor low speed lay-down can be a writeoff. However, Harleys are sometimes the exception because there are customers who will buy a new bike (usually in cash after 10 years of saving) and not insure it for full coverage, and then wreck it and rebuild it slowly over time. It's pretty hard to hide a wreck on a bike, there are just going to be some things that get scratched up that are too expensive to replace for it to be invisible. Any good shop should be able to tell you if the bike has been crashed.

I got news for you, no gate or door will stop a fire department. They will just take the door off its hinges. We used to love it actually. Gates too.

Probably not, when I was in the fire department in NY we used to have hours/neighborhoods where we wouldn't run the sirens unless we were approaching an intersection with cars in it or there was some or he reason to. No point in waking up the neighborhood for neighbor bob's malfunctioning automatic alarm.

So don't flip them the bird then?

They did this to me for three weeks this summer. We had a lot of car break ins leading up to this, after the attention I can't think of a one. I guess my point is ride it out, they will go away at some point.

And oddly it's still overpriced. Also if you research LS swaps into boxsters they all recommend starting with an S. Additionally the swap kits are almost $4k

just my worthless wooden 2 pennies: you want to crop the dead space out of the photos. The sky for one, but also that hundred feet of just dead space in front of the car. I get that you want to put the cone in the pic frame but why? because it shows racing? I think the background blur and the race stickers do that enough. If you insist on it being in there try to photoshop it closer to the car then but I don't really think it adds to the narrative of the photo and just serves as a bright orange distraction. The car at speed is what you want, focus on that. As a personal pet peeve, I think artificial black and white looks awful. If you want black and white photos shoot black and white film, otherwise it ends up looking too flat because the filter tends to compress details and depth out of the image. Maybe it is good for the background stuff like you have above since you don't want too much distracting detail in the background but...eh... I think the whole pic just looks more alive in color.

My father has always said nickles and dimes add up to dollars, so even though gas is cheap you can still save money if your daily commute doesn't require you to fill up more than once a month. It may not be as much money as before but it's still something and that is money you can put into the tank of a 6-10mpg play car. I had this thought this morning - you know what the volt will tell you most about yourself? how useful a tesla would be for you. How? track how often the gas engine kicks in while you drive and know that each time that would be a time when your Tesla might become useless to you because it is out of juice. It's not an exact 1:1 but each time it happens ask yourself how essential is this "run I need to make"? "Could I forgo this trip to run home and charge my car?"

correct. about 150 hp from the electric motors and 84 from the gas (although the two may never be supplying max HP to the wheels at the same time the gas engine does assist over 35mph), 3800lb curb weight. A barn burner it is not. but here are the important parts: 273 ft/lbs of torque at 0 rpm, and the majority of the weight of the car is lower than the top of the tires and sits almost dead center of the car. The car does still bias 60/40 Front/rear. For something short course like an auto-x or an 1/8th mile drag race the volt is well suited because it is not carrying a lot of speed, don't need a top end charge, and instant torque means a hard drive out of the corners each time. For something like a 1/4 drag race or a road course that is over a mile, then the car has no top end charge at all and it is going to feel like the worst nissan altima rental car you've ever driven. BTW, 2011 volts won't let you disable traction control, only 2012 and newer cars. So if you want to do a smokey rolling burnout (which a volt will do) or run it on a dyno you need to look for a mid-2012 built car or newer. And yes there are people that hack/modify the volt. This is mostly done with software tuning.

Pretty sure it only applies to new cars (first registered owner). Don't think Used cars are eligible. By the way, something I left out before, Because all the weight is low in the chassis the car autocrosses like a champ. Completely neutral. It will turn your recorded gas mileage rating to crap though.

My father has owned 2 of them now. He got the First one delivered to NY when they first came out - and it was a pilot car. He didn't want to bank on the tech so he leased it (he regrets it because the leasing company wouldn't do a buy back), so his second one he just went out and bought. He loves it an maybe fills the tank once every two months. Here are his driving conditions: he charges it both when he gets home and when he gets to work. His commute is 20 miles each way so he is almost always in electric mode and usually only drops into running the gas engine when he runs errands or takes the car on a 100 mile road trip. He has had 0 problems with either car though he got pissed when a software upgrade showed he was getting less MPG than before (he's borderline hyper-miling). the one thing you will like more about it than the Tesla - you can take it on a road trip. Seriously if you wanted to drive to Rochester right now and not pay all that much for gas it will do the trick. The Tesla? she be stuck in c-bus. It's a real car that happens to be a plug in hybrid. It's not a status symbol toy that makes you look environmentally friendly despite e-car battery manufacturing process being a more dirty process than roadside sex with a $10 Italian prostitute. So here are the downsides: - If you drive it like a normal car you really won't see any benefits. Well you'll see some benefits but not as great as you would if you change your driving style all together. The car is a little nanny about getting you to do this with all sorts of different displays and diagrams that turn warning colors for when you mash the gas or brake. I get that it can't be helped sometimes but after a month you will find yourself hesitating to hit the brake as much because you don't want the leafy green ball to turn yellow (at least that is how it was when I borrowed it for three weeks). Pedestrians can't hear you. At all. Maybe not an ohio problem per se since my dad lives on Long Island and works in NYC, but at least once a day someone steps in front of him not looking and he has to dive for the brakes hard. He's 72, and while he raced mazda cup for an event at Laguna Seca when he was 70 we all still think it's only a matter of time before the giant black oversized golf cart mows someone over at 10mph because they stepped in front of it while looking at their iphone, and dad couldn't get to the brake fast enough. The keyless car thing pisses me of a little, but that is just me. I don't like a transmitter fob because I do stupid things like leave it in a cup holder and walk away. That's the other thing, this thing is quick to auto lock, but I think that is a setting you can adjust. My dad likes it setup so if you sneeze within 10 feet of the car it locks itself. It's a heavy car and it feels like it. Also the ABS - not great. My father last winter slid into a snowbank with the car at very slow speed. Granted it was icy, but my mother's BMW 328xi manual didn't have a single issue in the same spot.

One of my parent's other neighbors had a series III jaguar XKE v12 and that car broke down all the time. It literally broke down in front of our house 150 feet uphill from his driveway once. That thing loved to eat fuel pumps.

yeah that's kind of my feeling on it. I have the jeep to handle the snow and the thing always starts, but it would be nice to have a backup car I could use for a daily if one of my weekend projects on the jeep runs till Tuesday. Plus I have always wanted a proper inline 6 powered English grand tourer.

Hey, So as long as I can remember I have always secretly wanted a 6cylinder powered jag. At one point I had hoped this would be an E-type coupe but the prices of those cars has gotten kind of out of control and I really don't want another garage queen but something I can drive in the rain as if it was a daily. I had kind of settled on this probably being a 70's XJ6 saloon car (if I can find one without a 350 chevy swapped in) but there is this ad on CL for a fairly cheap 1995 XJS vert. My uncle used to own John Glen's (yes the astronaut) 1976 XJS which John had a 454 LS6 chevy engine swapped in (it was a liberty red coupe with a custom black velour interior from jaguar - the car was a gift from jag) which I had driven a few times so I know I fit in them and love the way the car drives but I also remember a neighbor of my parents in the 90's that used to own a v-12 car and had a new issue a week with the thing (and it was a brand new car). I called a buddy of mine who used to work on old english cars and all he said was the jag 6 is the English small block Chevy because it was made for a thousand years in a blacksmith forge by men beating on metal with hammers and was as reliable as the shop anvil. He also said the car might disintegrate around me in a death by a thousand cuts because everything from the tranny to the climate controls is electric, but it would look fabulous doing so. The two things that kind of concern me are the car has 150,000 miles and I am not really sure of the parts availability or cost. Is this a Porsche 928 situation where the car itself is dirt cheap but every spark plug requires you to cut off a limb? or can these really be cheap to buy/cheap to operate like my old BMW e30 was? Also, anybody just want to rag on English cars for being unreliable have at it, but try to add some value. Being a pseudo-Brit motorcycle guy I can only hear so many "Lucas Lighting: prince of darkness" or "why do the English drink warm beer jokes". Thoughts? Opinions? jokes? your crazy for thinking about buying a convertible when the polar vortex is upon us comments? Let me know your thoughts.

I'm curious, and know nothing about supras, what makes this car rare as opposed to any other non turbo supra? Is it the color?

Ask and ye shall receive: http://chevette-forum.freeforums.net/thread/33/junky-80s-turbo-ls-chevette It's not even the first one I have seen, just the first one that came up in a google search. I saw a white one in person at Goodguys 2013. It's nice to know I am not the only one who stalks the Goodwill auto auctions. they get interesting motorcycles from time to time.

...and how do you get rid of that permanent smile/constant fear of death? http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/4770011434.html

I did that once in 2000 and got followed for 50 miles through GA at 3AM by two state troopers. Then again I was driving a stolen 1999 suburban with less than 5000 miles on the clock filled with 9 friends and a roof carrier filled with enough booze and cigarettes to start our own Indian nation trading post. And the Suburban wasn't really stolen, I just didn't ask my father for permission to take his car till we were already driving it through Washington DC. I guess it does suck everywhere, but each state is a little different. I know California has laws against speed traps (marked measuring speed traps and unjustified speed traps), but most places don't have stuff like that. Knowing how LIDAR guns work there are a lot of things an officer can do to "cheat" a reading out of the gun, and there are many subconscious things they can do that would cause an inaccurate reading without them knowing. I guess I just got used to how things operate in the northeast so that seeing what happens in Ohio just looks like all the counties are comically trying too hard. Actually some of these smaller counties are so dependent on traffic enforcement revenue that if people stopped speeding they would just try harder to make up the loss of revenue up to the point where they get caught doing something illegal, so it is more complex than that. And while I agree, police just enforce, the legislature sets the limit, they do work in conjunction. I suspect at lot of these officer's tactics are not creative officers taking initiative but rather the product of some higher up management with connections to the other parts of the local government determining these tactics. Police are usually just the enforcement face of what is a larger systemic government problem.

Wife is a Texan so I have been to Dallas, Austin, and Houston and driven between them sometimes. Yeah the shifts are more extreme there in some cases, and Florida. I don't think I have ever seen a cop kneeling in the back seat of a cruiser with a LIDAR gun in either of those states. They could be doing it, I just don't see it.

yes I did. My wife really likes Ikea. I just like to drive. It's a win for all. I don't speed so this point really isn't whether speeding is a crime or not or whether we should be able to break the law. The point is overzealous enforcement and the path over-zealousness leads to - and what is considered common practices nation wide vs what is going above and beyond. Speeding is not a "mens rea" crime, you don't have to know you are committing it to be found guilty of committing it. State of mind makes no difference so all those people who say "just don't speed" presume that you know you are speeding. Considering how inaccurate most cars speedometers are delivered and also that speeding is not an interpretive action with no threshold (if the limit is 65, at 66 you are breaking the law) it is easy to believe you are not speeding and still be committing the crime. Looking for a philosophical debate on law enforcement practices, not for a bunch of law enforcement fanboys to spew more "if you can't do the time don't do the crime" flawed jingoistic rhetoric. I refuse to believe police officers are infallible and any time you have "something sneaky" going on there is always the potential to take it too far. This feels like something sneaky. Having grown up in NYC and driven in Jersey a lot I am intimately familiar with their tactics including tailgating with undercover cars, speed matching, hiding behind objects (which ohio cops do as well). I still think Ohio takes the cake for both creativity and zealotry. Another thing I noticed was the sudden shifts in speed limit on major highways - it would be 65 for one county drop to 55 for another and then up to 70 in the next. Some of the 55mph zones (there were only 2 I spotted but could be more) only had 1 sign between the 65 and 70 signs of the adjoining counties. that also means going the other way it drops from 70 to 55 then to 65. There was always an officer in the 55mph zone.

...goes a little too far out of their way to write speeding tickets? I get that short of entrapment they can set up their speed traps any way they want so long as they work within the constraints of their equipment (dead on shot, unobstructed view). But, driving to Ikea this weekend I saw some "speed traps" that I have never seen before. For example: - Playing both sides: In one county the troopers car would be parked on the median facing one direction of traffic. But the officers would be using radar guns for both direction, with one officer in the front seat shooting out the open passenger front window, while his partner sits in the back seat shooting out the driver's side rear window. - Fake pullover/accident/abandoned scene: I don't know that the officers set up the disabled car, I think they just cruise along till they see a car sitting on either the left or right side of the road, and then one officer sets up behind the disabled car with his lights on, while a second officer parks in front of the disabled vehicle so he is really out of line of sight for a passing motorist and then exits his vehicle to shoot radar, sometimes even using the roof of the disabled car to steady the LIDAR gun. I've seen this more than a couple of times and in one instance I saw the trooper park his vehicle behind some bushes and then walk 10 feet to an abandoned car and set up on the side furthest from the roadway. - Thinking thin: I see this during the summer on 270 but this road trip reminded me of it. Usually where there is a break in the left side concrete barrier two motor officers (bike cops) will park in the break and then the first officer will kneel next to his bike with the LIDAR gun while the second officer will stand behind the first shooting LIDAR over the first's shoulder (often using the first officer as a steady (which to me is dubious since any movement can lead to inaccurate readings). So I know Ohio is know as the country's largest speed trap (it's even a joke written in all the cannonball run movies) and as a state we write more speeding tickets than anybody, but I really have never seen these tactics outside of Ohio. Even in states where speeding is an offense punishable by jail (I'm looking at you VA) you don't see officers going this far to yell "gotcha". I don't think anything they do is generally illegal (some of these practices might be suspect on an individual case), but kinda makes me feel like the state and local governments just see every motorist as a rolling wallet. Anybody else feel the same?