Dammit!

[Jay2TheRescue]

At the time I bought that truck, my business was still relatively new, and we did not have a steady cash flow established. Rusty had become too unreliable for use as a daily driver, and I needed a new vehicle. I went into the dealer thinking I could get a leftover C1500 base model with nothing but a 5 speed, cruise and A/C, and after rebates it would be about $14,000, then take 0% financing. It turns out that even after searching the inventories of other dealers in the region, a truck equipped that way was nowhere to be found. If I wanted that, I would have to order one to be built from the factory. That meant I would get no deals on it, and I would have to wait to have it built & delivered. I looked at other vehicles. I looked at S10's and the GMC Canyon. I liked the Canyon, but it got pretty much the same mileage as the full size truck, (and the cheapest one on the lot was $20,000) so I went back to looking at the full size trucks. The closest they had to my "target vehicle" was a base model C1500 with AT, CC, AC, and PL for $16,000

As I was looking on the lot they had just pulled this truck that was traded in on a new model to the front after being detailed and serviced. It was beautiful, and had everything I wanted, but otherwise could not afford at the time. It had power windows, locks, remote entry, extended cab, electronic 4wd, power lumbar support, camper shell, and it was the last year of the 350. Having owned a truck with a 350 in it several years prior (My 74 Chevy C/10 with a 350 had over 300,000 miles on it when I sold it, and it was still running strong) I was eager to buy a truck with that engine, knowing I could really get my moneys worth out of it. I bought that truck for $13,000 which was under my budget for what I was anticipating to spend on a new vehicle.

I do not regret purchasing that truck, it has served me quite well, and even though it is an extended cab 4x4 it gets better mileage than Rusty was getting towards the end. (Rusty was only getting about 10 MPG at the end of his DD days.) I upgraded to a nicer vehicle, and gained 40% more economy. To this day, with 170,000 miles on it, the engine still runs flawlessly, and from 10 feet away you can barely hear it running. Since it is over 10 years old, and over 150,000 miles I won't get hardly anything for it if I were to sell or trade it in, so my plan is to keep driving it till the doors fall off. I don't plan on keeping it as a DD forever, but as long as it continues to run reasonably well that truck will always have a home in my driveway.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by BEEF

all this conversation over a broken mirror from a carwash???

what did the owner of the car wash say? it may have been somewhere in this thread but I had a hard time weeding through all the other mess.

by the way, boomer is a cool name for the bike. if it really sticks, you could have it airbrushed on it somewhere.

The service station owner was **supposed** to call me yesterday, and I still have not gotten a call. I've already ordered a replacement part to fix it for $40. The owner has a choice to make. Do they want to write me a check for $40, or do they want to spend all day sitting on a hard oak bench in the Leesburg Courthouse waiting for small claims court, then paying me $40 + court costs. If they do not contact me by Tuesday morning I'll be riding my bike down to Leesburg Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

I would think that for a pidly $40, he would be glad to be done with it. if you were to get the damages estimated at a body shop, it would be several times that amount.

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

Originally Posted by Jay2TheRescue

The clerk gave me a copy of the receipt, but told me they no longer gave free air to those who purchased gasoline. I had to pay $1 to use their air pump, and it cut out before my tire was completely full (pumping to 70 PSI takes a while).

Here in California, it is required by state law that filling stations that have air available provide it free to those who have purchased fuel.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by *************

Also I wasn't talking about things that can or can't be done,

Could have fooled me: "There is nothing feasible to be done except to replace the vehicle"

The specific things I mentioned are feasible and can be done.

Also there isn't anything to be done about city driving when you're driving a pickup with a 5.7 litre engine.

Does the 5.7 not respond to the same techniques and strategies as my more powerful 5.3? Neutral coasting, strategic braking, brake avoidance, lower speed, optimizing acceleration rate, increased tire pressure, and whatever else I'm not remembering...those are all feasible and can be done. I do them and they work. I never get below or even close to the EPA rating; I always do at least 20% better.

You're not going to bring a truck rated at 12mpg in the city up to 20mpg in the city unless you think spending $12K premium for a hybrid pickup makes sense..

20mpg is a pretty tough number to reach, but you're not going to get 80mpg from your Civic LX (which, BTW, seems to have no gaslog). Sure, a pie-in-the-sky number is nice to chase, but that doesn't mean you have to give up. Why haven't you replaced your Civic, or even your wasteful FJ cruiser, with a manual 1st gen Insight? Probably because the Civic is good enough and you like it.

Perhaps your mind is closed to improving fuel economy on a given vehicle because you haven't experienced it yourself. The only gaslog data you have is for your sister's 3500 pound turbo car, in which you seem to get a little less than EPA.

There are plenty of people on this site with years of gaslog data showing that any kind of vehicle can be driven (or sometimes modified) for improving its fuel economy.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by Jay2TheRescue

Do they want to write me a check for $40, or do they want to spend all day sitting on a hard oak bench in the Leesburg Courthouse waiting for small claims court, then paying me $40 + court costs. If they do not contact me by Tuesday morning I'll be riding my bike down to Leesburg Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.

Your plan has a major flaw: The sign on the outside of the car wash that says "not responsible for mirrors". Unless there's nothing like that there, your court case will be over before it starts.

You're better off with social and media engineering. Find others who have suffered the same fate. Contact the newspaper or the local busybody news channel. Make it known. You probably don't have a technical legal leg to stand on but you do have tools to hurt the guy's bottom line. Just remember that you're a business owner yourself and you don't want to start a war.

To be honest, I don't think it's fair to hold the owner responsible for this. Everybody knows that truck mirrors are likely to get broken in car washes. You're supposed to fold it in, and even then you risk the brush un-folding your mirror and then breaking it. You then just buy a new one on eBay for $40 and avoid the car wash until you feel lazy enough again.

[Jay2TheRescue]

That's exactly what happened. The wash unfolded the mirror, then bent it backwards till it broke. I did not see any signs around this wash. I'll have to go by again and check it out. It was nighttime when I went thru the wash. If the signs aren't visible at dark I still have a case.

[Jim T.]

Originally Posted by *************

Well a Ford Focus Wagon has 96 ft3 of passenger area (rear seats can be folded down or removed) and 36 ft3 of cargo area (does not include folding or removing rear seats), a total of 132 ft3. The Volvo 240 Wagon (which I'm quite familiar with btw) has 89 ft3 of passenger area and 41 ft3 of cargo area, for a total of 130 ft3. So technically, the Focus wagon is slightly bigger. The Focus wagon can be had in automatic and manual variants with the M/T versions getting better mileage.

And is uglier than a bag of smashed butt-holes!
Leave it alone already!
Sometimes folks just want better mileage out of what they have without resorting to owning some little crap-box that sounds like you're riding in an empty beercan rolling down a gravel driveway.

Jim

[imzjustplayin]

Originally Posted by Jim T.

And is uglier than a bag of smashed butt-holes!
Leave it alone already!
Sometimes folks just want better mileage out of what they have without resorting to owning some little crap-box that sounds like you're riding in an empty beercan rolling down a gravel driveway.

Jim

Just full of hate eh? Think his truck is any better looking? You know how I know you've got a bias? Because time and again I've seen two different people call the same vehicle "beautiful" or "ugly".. There are few vehicles that people universally agree are ugly and I know that Ford Focus wagon is not one of them. It's not "attractive" but neither are any of GM's offerings.. GM generally has the most uninspiring designs so if anything, that Ford Focus wagon fits right in with the rest of the GM stuff, even if it isn't made by GM.

Let's face it, the real reason you're calling a vehicle "ugly" is because you just flat out don't like it despite the fact that a pickup truck with a camper shell or an SUV is exactly that...a wagon. Most manufacturers in certain literature actually call them wagons because to call them anything else would be disingenuous. Have you ever seen a lowered SUV or pickup truck?
Tell me that this doesn't look like a wagon:


or this:http://image.sporttruck.com/f/918332...ed_tahoe_z.jpg

They're freaking wagons on a ladder frame and with a higher ride height. The primary reason why I don't like these vehicles is because most people drive them like cars when they're not, they're heavy and don't have bumpers that align with cars - making them deadly, and that they get poor mileage due to their ancient engine designs from the 1960s (2vlv, OHV).

What a lot of people don't seem to get is that their SUVs are glorified wagons.. That's it! So to get snooty over people who drive wagons versus your gashog SUV or pickup truck with a camper shell makes you a damned hypocrite. I know you love your truck because it projects the image of a "tough guy" but you're obviously over compensating for something if you're incapable of seeing the value of a "smaller", more efficient vehicle. Real tough guys don't buy cars to project an image, but buy them because they serve a practical function. Again, nobody is advocating the purchase of a Prius to tow a horse trailer or to pickup 10 illegals at Home Depot to work at a job site.. All I'm advocating is being reasonable, and there is nothing unreasonable about driving a car based wagon when it's certainly up to the task.

Jay, as for the whole "rattling thing"... Is that the only reason why you wouldn't buy the original Focus? What year Focus did you drive? "1st Generation" of Focus doesn't actually specify anything at all considering that the 1st generation of Focus spanned from 2000-2007... Also I'm not going to take the "word" of a technician at a dealership considering I know techs at various dealerships who all call various vehicles "crap" when they're not...

[FrugalFloyd]

You can get a glass shop to replace the mirror glass for $15, and use the other $25 you'll save for down payment on your high FE replacement vehicle - or throw it away on your next 140 miles of driving.

I see both sides. It makes no sense to have a 14 mpg DD. It also makes no sense driving a car you hate to drive. But hating the 14 mpg DD is rooted in logic. Hating the car you hate is rooted in emotion. As usual, I side with logic. In my case, I hated my 15-17 mpg AT Chevy Astro van both logically and emotionally, and got rid of it last year. I only used it when I needed its cavernous interior.