Smokey

when speaking of Japanese sport bikes, the margins are BARELY any larger on liter bikes over 600s, and the sales people are only paid on the profit of the deal, not the total sale. While I'm not doubting that some people would be dumb enough to not know how their comp plan works, but from my perspective it wouldn't make sense. Plus, it's more money that the customer has to get financed/approved for so it would make the sale harder to complete.

triple cause it's early and nobody's on here. the worst little secret about the FDIC is that yes, your $100K is insured, but according to their policies, the FDIC has 99 years to pay it back to you!!!!

if they make proper acquisitions then buying banks won't cause them to fail. Plus, current federal regulations mandate that a bank cannot buy itself into more than 10% of the deposit base in the country. This is why BOA can't buy any more banks after the LaSalle purchase and has instead moved on to finance companies.

if BOA or Chase are falling, then you better look around because the whole country will be imploding at that point.

I think you're seeing typical customers who lie to make themselves feel better. I was in the dealer business for about 6 years. Especially in regard to young men and sport bikes, just about everybody lets their ego get involved and doesn't want to listen to you when you suggest a smaller bike. They'll say things like "My buddy rides a 1000 and said it'll be fine for me." And forget trying to talk them down to a 500 from a 600, they're not going to be emasculated like that. Then when they come to you, and you question their bad judgment, they'll just tell you that the "dealer" said it'd be fine. The reality is that the demographic getting into sport bikes are being inherently irresponsible.

no helmet? No ops? no care!

GTI looks GOOD, nice color choice I've likely purchased parts from you before.

do we have an answer?

I think what you're seeing is a backlash of when my generation was playing childhood sports and the PARENTS were taking things WAY too seriously. When you're a kid playing soccer and your parent is full force yelling at the coach, ref, and other parents what are you to think? Parents cussing and fighting with each other over a call in the game....seriously people get a f'n life. I supppose there's a happy medium somewhere between. I myself would not want my kid to be in a league where they didn't keep score, it defeats the purpose of playing. However, I wouldn't want them to be in a completely negative environment either. If they like the competition aspect of it and want to push harder then I'll support that.

it was briefly mentioned but not really noticed. The absolute best hangover cure I've ever used was Pedia-lite. Grab a bottle and throw it in the fridge the night before, then drink some before passing out if possible. In the morning drink about half of the bottle. It's created to rehydrate sick children and works wonders. The downside is that it tastes like crap (I recommend the grape flavor) and it's not cheap, so I don't use it often because of that.

to mimic everyone else, Synthetic has many benefits over dino oil. I run dino in my old truck and in my FD because I change the oil ever 1K miles due to fuel dillution. I run Mobil 1 in the M3 and keep the change intervals reasonable (3-4K). I would run Castrol 10w-60 if it wasn't $10 a quart and the car wasn't my DD. Factory filters on everything except the truck.

yeah, I was thinking that, or the nitro methane fire taking place in front of him for over 7 seconds while he was no doubt breathing heavily may have contributed to it. They definitely made it sound as if it was unintended for him to have that level in his blood.

at least in the bike business....dealers will no longer cut keys based on vins/titles/key numbers etc. People were using those services to steal vehicles so they pretty much stopped doing it even if you were legit. They also don't store key number info in the deal jackets like some people say. Can you just swap it out to a good old regular ignition/key system?

this thread was started before there was a "finer details" section. I actually think it was orignally in the "pics and vids" section and was possibly moved incorrectly

it's far from the only thing hurting our country, but it sure as hell is helping keep a weight on our head while we're trying to tread water! You're correct, it's a tough situation with regard to pulling out, and we can't really just leave.....BUT...After this time it's becoming evident that there will be problems no matter when we pull out, either now or later. We can't seriously occupy Iraq in the same fashion we are now forever. If you'd like an analogy it's like a parent teaching their kid to ride a bike....we're running with them right now, and at some point you have to let go and let the kid figure out the rest. I certainly don't mean any disrespect to the troops and I don't think you shouldn't take it that way. I've even tried to not speak out in the past about the war while we have young men and women over there, but it's gone on long enough, it's time to bring them home.

very well put Brian. We shouldn't have gone there, and we shouldn't stay there. Every day we're there we are bankrupting our country even quicker.

I'm PRAYING that those pictures were before you did the springs unless you're looking to go off-roading in that thing!! Not a fan of the headlights and the bass-mouth Probe, but all in all a good intro and nice Jetta. Welcome to the site

^^ Hey Ryan, wouldn't the grit guard be best used in the rinse bucket of only water? That way you'd ensure that your mit is totally clean in going into the soap bucket therefore not needing the grit guard? Maybe that's what you were saying and I confused it.

^^He definitely took it WAY easy out of the hole. I wouldn't say 12's are the true capability of the car. Is that car worth the sticker price for the performance you get? Very likely. Would I pay over sticker for a Nissan? NOPE

1000x funnier due to the music

can never be topped

hilarious intro! Welcome to the site. It was nice meeting you the other day.

great looking car, welcome to the site. Hell, it seems that rotary FDs these days are the minority.

I liked the episode. It's always good to see Drama in his old form!! I'm just happy to see the damn show back as I've kept this crap-ass subscription to HBO just for Entourage and it's taken forever to get this season going.

at this point I think it'll just be us 3. I wasn't sure if Matt was going to just meet us up there as usual or not. Unfortunately Erik isn't going to be able to go as when we went to bleed his brakes we noticed some cracks in the rear rotors that would be best to not drive on in that condition. He couldn't source any today for us to put on either which sucks.