Minor Confession Thread

I confess I shoot at rabbits from my kitchen window with a BB gun.  I confess I rather enjoy it.  

I like Chinese buffet sushi!

My confession: i seriously considered "accidentally " shooting myself in the leg as a way to get out of this wedding....

I confess I took a 2-hour lunch to go test drive a couple new cars, and I further confess that I will probably spend the rest of the afternoon pretending to work while I internet shop for the ideal car...

...which I didn't really plan to buy until September or so.

I confess that the dollar store burger isn't "that" good, but it's...edible! it doesn't gross me out. I also confess that sometimes I spend all my money on stupid E36 M3 and then have to subsist on dollar store food with whatever change I have left.

In reply to Duke :

Uh, that’s normal?  If you’re not investing 6 months or more you’re not properly researching.   You have to also attend one dealer type Auto Show.  

Datsun310Guy said:

In reply to Duke :

Uh, that’s normal?  If you’re not investing 6 months or more you’re not properly researching.   You have to also attend one dealer type Auto Show.  

I've come to the conclusion that there are only two ways to buy a car: First, with about 800 hours of research and test drives, OR second, with about 21 minutes of research and thought. Sometimes they're combined, like when I was looking for a pickup or SUV, spent many nights trying to figure it out, and ended up with a Miata after about 15 minutes of thought.

As much as I want to like the new Jeep Gladiator, I can't get over how awful the taillights look.  They just...  stick out there.  Ugh.

I've done ~7 seconds worth of work in the last 7 hours.

One more hour to go. Not sure I can keep up this pace.

mtn said:

Datsun310Guy said:

In reply to Duke :

Uh, that’s normal?  If you’re not investing 6 months or more you’re not properly researching.   You have to also attend one dealer type Auto Show.  

I've come to the conclusion that there are only two ways to buy a car: First, with about 800 hours of research and test drives, OR second, with about 21 minutes of research and thought. Sometimes they're combined.

I pretty much know exactly what I want; this was just to confirm I'm headed in the right direction.  The real issue is that the car comes in 4-door and wagon versions.  I really want the wagon, because wagon, but it carries about a $5000 premium and the sedan inventory outnumbers it about 8 to 1.  I was hoping today's drive would make it a clear winner or loser over the sedan, but unfortunately that isn't the case.  My heart still wants the wagon but, given the limited selection, I very much doubt that they will ever drop down to my price range.

Of course, what my heart really wants is the hottest AWD Giulia I can find in my price range.  But considering that we've owned the car being replaced for 15 years, I think my brain is going to win that one.  I have not test driven a Giulia, but that could go one of 2 ways:  either it will put it out of contention completely, or it will add a whole 'nother level of heart-vs-head grudge matching.

Work is so slow I'm starting to run out of personal projects to work on at work.  Marketing needs to hurry up and figure out what our next project is going to be.  I need another design project to keep me busy or maybe another vacation so they can catch up.

It's easy to car shop when there is exactly one car in the type and price.

mtn said:

Datsun310Guy said:

In reply to Duke :

Uh, that’s normal?  If you’re not investing 6 months or more you’re not properly researching.   You have to also attend one dealer type Auto Show.  

I've come to the conclusion that there are only two ways to buy a car: First, with about 800 hours of research and test drives, OR second, with about 21 minutes of research and thought. Sometimes they're combined, like when I was looking for a pickup or SUV, spent many nights trying to figure it out, and ended up with a Miata after about 15 minutes of thought.

I have to impulse buy a car or i will never make a decision 

wae said:

As much as I want to like the new Jeep Gladiator, I can't get over how awful the taillights look.  They just...  stick out there.  Ugh.

Tail lights in general- Almost everything out there now makes me think the designer loved his Edsel driving Grandfather as much as he loved Transformers.

mtn said: 

I've come to the conclusion that there are only two ways to buy a car: First, with about 800 hours of research and test drives, OR second, with about 21 minutes of research and thought. Sometimes they're combined, like when I was looking for a pickup or SUV, spent many nights trying to figure it out, and ended up with a Miata after about 15 minutes of thought.

Absolutely! And you know, having done it both ways, I'm not sure which one works out better. I spent a long time looking for GS430s when I bought mine (now yours) and enjoyed the heck out of it for years. But I have also bought several cars where I said, that looks good, and bought it, and enjoyed the heck out of them. So the impulse buy has worked out just as well as the carefully researched ones.

Then again, I have had at least one impulse buy be horrible. I would've never bought it had I researched. But it was a small loss. (<$1000 car, drove it for a year or so, ended up junked.)

Yeah I've never ever bought a car I planned on buying up to this point. It's all been opportunistic impulse on top of a bit of prior knowledge and guesstimation. Success rate is about 50% I'd say.

AWSX1686 said:

Cleaning/Tidying/Re-organizing the garage is therapeutic. 

Maybe if it winds up clean and organized afterwards. I'm still fighting a losing battle with Entropy in there. The real problem is I have too much stuff and too little space. Time to get a shed for the bicycles.

I bought my first pressure washer and found out how icky my concrete patio under my deck was. 

Intensely researched:

1997 Ford Thunderbird LX - drove for several years, not a bad car overall but had a few issues

2015 Ford Focus SE - 3 year lease which was good b/c it had the DCT issues that all of them have

1991 Mercury Cougar XR-7 - I love it but it's a POS. it's my dream car that I waited 15 years for though so yeah

1998 Lincoln Town Car - I probably picked poorly here, it's had lots of little problems and probably isn't worth what I paid for it

Impulse buys:

2005 Ford Focus ST - I like it but it ate the alternator already, oh well it was $500 and I got to drive it across the country

1997 Ford Probe GT - too soon to tell if I made a horrible mistake or just a regular mistake

Maybe my problem is that I ignore all the logical stuff about buying a good car (buy a Honda not a Ford, don't buy a car just because you think it's cool, don't buy cars sight-unseen from another state, etc.) but hey, as Popeye would say, "I yam what I yam"

In reply to slowbird :

You should really buy something without a blue oval sometime...

I've been looking a cheap (ha!) boats for sale on Craigslist. This is a horribly terrible road to even think about going down but damnit, I'm in Florida, I'm single and I have a bit of disposable income. Which means bad decisions.

I found a 1996 Sea-Doo Sportster that comes with a trailer and supposedly runs but needs a key (how does that work?) for $1k.

I have always thought these were cool which means they are probably not. I don't want some floating status symbol. I want fun and quirky. And apparently that means lighting money on fire.

I should just get addicted to drugs or something .

I’m amazed at the planning that some of you put into car buying.  Most of my purchases go off like high school pregnancies.  No research, sometimes no getting to no each other, just me and usually the General each eager to close a deal and then I live with it for years until there’s a spectacular disaster and I have to hurry into another one. 

In reply to Wally :

Oh I have complete folders of research on cars. I don't own and have never owned most of them and probably won't for the foreseeable future.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I mean, that's what everyone always tells me, but I haven't listened yet. 

Confession: I've liked Fords since I was a little kid, and I don't really know how it started or why I'm so foolishly loyal to them despite everything. I *know* that most of their products from the 80s and 90s were crap, and yet I love them anyway.

In reply to slowbird :

I still hate Fords yet am doing a really terrible job of getting rid of my SN95 and keep looking at Crown Vics and S197s...

I’ve always wanted a set of Ronal Teddy wheels