Life, books, cars, big ideas

[chanaleh]

Lunchtime nattering while I eat bridgetminerva's yummy spicy chili. :-)

Lots going on, of course. Let me explain. -- No, there is too much. Let me sum up. -- No, still too much. Let me skip the recap of recent goings-on (work, shul, social, musical) and make notes about things I'm actually thinking about, instead.

Both bethr and derspatchel now have the Best of The Electric Company 4-DVD set. This should mean I get to see it soon (not the least likely outcome being that ablock will also buy it). Awesome!

Fans of my former employer, The MIT Press, will be interested to know that they have started a blog. They also have RSS feeds (available broken down by category) of their new releases. These have been syndicated to LJ as mitpresslog and mitpress_new (the complete feed), respectively. Go ye forth and enjoy. (Can blog.akpeters.com be far behind? ;-)

After rewatching A Room With A View (one of my favorite movies ever) with Tiger Boy last weekend, I am now rereading it. I'd really forgotten how wonderful it is. Not just in that vicarious-trip-to-Italy way, not just in that lovable-engaging-characters way, but in that mind-and-heart-expanding chock-full-of-Romanticist-ideas way. It actually makes me feel like my old college-era self again, the one who fell in love with Wordsworth and Shelley and Goethe and Emerson. Guess I could add that to lifecollage's call for inspirational reading.

The abovementioned entry has also introduced me to Your Money or Your Life, which I think I now have to read and integrate.

On the other hand (speaking of financial matters), I still want to buy a car, but am finding the activation energy* prohibitively high. (Yes, it'd be lovely to buy a Vespa or a bicycle instead, but I won't be able to take those on the Mass Pike every day, now, will I?) Would ideally have liked to make this happen in time to drive myself to the shul retreat March 3-5, but that looks unlikely. Grumble.

*Here's something I particularly want to know: When I do find someone selling a car I might want to buy, HOW exactly am I supposed to go about "getting it checked out by a reliable mechanic"? Say "Thanks for the test drive, now can I please borrow it for two days before I make a decision"? I am serious, I do not get this at all. Yet another sticking point.


[Poll #678753]

And now, back to the Cryptoclub.

Comments

[bryanscott.livejournal.com]

That song . . . !!!

[tomster0.livejournal.com]

When buying a used car, it is normal for you to ask if you can take the car away for a few hours while you have a mechanic check it out. Often they ask you to give them some "collateral" in exchange for taking the car away. In the past I've been asked for a $1000 check (which they merely hold until you get back) and sometimes they ask to keep a credit card. Sometimes they just decide to trust you, especially if you're leaving another car in their lot while you're away.

But I doubt they'd let you keep it for more than a day. You're supposed to make an appointment with a mechanic in advance and get it done relatively quickly. A good mechanic will charge you $0 for this service, BTW, thinking by doing you this favor (and it takes little time for a good mechanic to go over a car) you're likely to come to them for service later on.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

If you can find a good mechanic, getting a used car is a bit safer because you can have the mechanic look over the car before you buy it.

Allton Custom Garage which used to be on Western Ave behind WBZ's studio, would have been perfect for you (easy bus ride from your apartment), but they moved to Watertown. The owner is a friend of the family.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

When I do find someone selling a car I might want to buy, HOW exactly am I supposed to go about "getting it checked out by a reliable mechanic"?

After your test drive, tell the seller that you're very interested in the car, but that you need to get it checked out by a mechanic before you buy it. If they balk at this at all, walk away immediately, and ignore them if they change their minds, because nobody balks at that without a good reason.

The next thing you do is find a good mechanic near the seller. You can do this by asking friends who own cars, or by checking out the Mechanics File at Cartalk.com. Call the mechanic and explain the situation. See if you can make an appointment to bring the car in at a specific time, and then arrange it with the seller.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, and when you do bring a car to a mechanic, there are several questions you should ask:

1. Is the car in good shape for its mileage?
2. What would you think would be the most likely things to break on the car in the next couple of years, and roughly how much would it cost to fix them?
3. [most importantly] Would you buy this car for X dollars? Why or why not?

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

On the Car Talk website (or something affiliated with those guys) there's a whole article about what to look for in a used car. It's very helpful, and hopefully easy to find as I don't remember the URL.

Must. Buy. DVDs. Now.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

First: Both bethr and derspatchel now have the Best of The Electric Company 4-DVD set. This should mean I get to see it soon (not the least likely outcome being that ablock will also buy it). Awesome!

...aaaaand when are we hosting the viewing party? March weekends are somewhat open, still, or we could have it near my birthday in April. (Now, if we could just get them to release Via Allegra or 3-2-1 Contact, I'd have everything from my childhood on DVD.)

Second: A Room With A View...so noted and so added. And thank you for your other suggestions.

Re: Must. Buy. DVDs. Now.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

OMG Villa Alegre! La la-la-la la-la-la-la-la-la la-la-la...

Re: Must. Buy. DVDs. Now.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

First, pathetic that I spelled the name wrong. Second, more pathetic that it's been so long that seeing all those "la"s maps to the Katamari Damacy song, not Villa Alegre. Ah well.

Remind me, where did you grow up? So far, only El Mango and I have had all of those shows as reference points.

Re: Must. Buy. DVDs. Now.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Northwest Indiana. In media terms, that's Chicago. My PBS station was WTTW (Channel 11).

You want obscure 1970s kids' TV? Here's mine: The Magic Door. Literally the first Jewish exposure I could possibly have had (who'da thunk it?). It was on at about 6 in the morning when I was very small. And to this day I can't hear Beethoven's "Pastorale" (think the centaurs in Fantasia) without hearing it as the theme song from this show. "Open, come open the Magic Door with me..."

Re: Must. Buy. DVDs. Now.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, interesting. I guess it all depends on how much local programming the PBS affiliates put out.

Mine wasn't nearly so obscure: The Magic Garden. Yay, trippy mushrooms and talking flowers.

[cycon.livejournal.com]

You know the car I'm in love with. The Prius is sleek and stylish — the most aerodynamic car on the mass market, including those millionaire sports jobbies — gets insane gas mileage, especially in the city; has a battery that recharges itself as you drive; sports a fuel emissions rating so low they had to come up with a new category; gets amazing resale value, and turns heads wherever you go.
Oh, and even the most tricked-out version available is still less than $30,000 new.

Even if you know in advance that you're not going to buy or lease one, just test drive one. :)

Car advice

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Last I checked you can buy a warrantied used car from a dealer for less than $10k. It would be like the cars one would buy via craigslist, but with a 10-20% price increase. (These may be less spiffy than "certified pre-owned vehicles".)

As far as what kind of car you should get, what do you want to do with it?
It's a matter of tradeoff for different features. Think about which features matter to you and then seek those out.

- reliability
- safety in crash tests
- safety features (like antilock breaks)
- rings your aesthetic bell
- easy to park (for me this means excellent turning radius & short body)
- good hauling capacity
- good gas mileage

So what do you want to do with this car. If you're going to almost always drive it to work then probably gas mileage is what matters most. If you're doing to drive it to work every other week or so and you want it for

But I will add -- do you really want to buy a car? $3000 plus gas costs plus insurance costs buy a lot of zipcar rentals. So the question is, do you want to drive to work most days? (Once you have the car you probably will, but will that actually improve your quality of life?)

finishing my thought

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

If you're doing to drive it to work every other week or so and you want it for taking mobs to events, or carrying sheetrock, then that will weight what you want it for differently.

car advice

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

I was going to fill out your poll (or at least parts of it), but my answers depend too much on what you'll be using the car for.

For example, when I bought Masie (a 2004 Honda Civic LX sedan) last summer, I knew I'd be driving to and from New Jersey a lot. First and foremost, I wanted a completely reliable car. Had I merely been concerned with commuting, I might've looked more in the $5000 range (indeed, I probably would have stuck with my old car Dixie, which is now serving watercolorblue well instead).

(I actually went higher than my expected range, at $13,000 (not including any taxes or extras, and I had to finance nearly half the total price), but I had expected to go over $10,000 to get something with a high degree of reliability.)

Do you want to haul stuff? I also wanted something that hauled stuff well for its size (Dixie was a hatchback), but I eventually compromised on that. Honda just doesn't make hatchbacks on the lower-end Civics any more, and the Ford hatchback had at-best average reliability and mileage. I thought about the Scion xB-- it's a box on wheels!-- but it has lousy ratings for long highway drives. Masie actually stows quite a lot of stuff, but not always conveniently, and I can't take a bookshelf the way I could in Dixie-the-hatchback.

So, in short, a lot of your questions depend on what you want out of a car and how you'll be using it.

Oh, for a local mechanic, the most common Susboid response (when I asked) was "ABJ". I've heard one or two complaints about them from folks, but there are ten times as many who'll say only positive things about ABJ, including me. Bottom line is that I trust them.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about buying a car, but I will recommend my mechanic, Fellsway Auto on rt. 28 in Somerville.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if you want to borrow the Car Consumer Reports, I can lend it to you.

learned by experience

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

It's boring, but you can't beat a new Toyota whatever. We got a new car in 1997 and I've never regretted going that route. You have enough for a good down payment and you will not have to think about repairs for years. Nothing takes more time off your life than worrying about and then spending time waiting for the car to be repaired while wondering how you will pay for the repairs. This is all particularly true if you will depend on using the car on a regular basis for anything (e.g. work).

Toyotas (and Hondas) are super-reliable and have good gas mileage. I have a friend who got a Prius and likes it, but apparently the mileage efficiency isn't that much better than a Corolla. (Judging by cellio's experience, don't get a VW.)

But don't take my word for any of this: hie thee to Consumer Reports car buyer's guide, preferably at your local library. If you are getting a used car, they have rundowns on every year for every car so you can know what you're getting into. I swear by them.

The best mechanic is the one that's closest to your house. At some point, you will bring in the car to deal with "that thing," and they will either tell you it's a 69c bearing that they fixed for free, or they will say it costs thousands of dollars to fix such-and-such. After a go-rounds of either experience A or experience B, you will learn if they are a good mechanic. That said, I know of a very good mechanic in West Newton, but that's a good way from where you live. Also, the good mechanic is NOT the dealer.

Good luck! Soon you will dispense advice with the rest of us!

Re: learned by experience

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I second this. My mother bought a new Toyota Corolla in 1995 and it still runs today -- 210,000 miles on it, 11 years old, knock on wood. I've had it 4 years or so at this point and haven't had to put a lot of $$ into it fixing it. Toyota parts are awesome, too -- the ORIGINAL battery recently needed replacing......

A good mechanic is like a good doctor. You have to trust them, they have to be knowledgeable, but most of all, they have to understand that you are smart, and explain stuff to you so you get it. I go to the Toyota dealership in Watertown -- 1 mile from my house, and while they catch things "early" (ie, want me to do a repair even when it's not necessary) they don't pressure, and let me make a decision. For instance, my axle's been leaking a tiny bit of grease for over a year now. They say things like "your axle might break" but they let me drive out of there without fixing it, and I don't see any grease on the ground, so it's not leaking that much. They give me the info and I deal with it, no pressure.

Re: learned by experience

[awfief.livejournal.com]

BTW, I reliably get 29 mpg highway, something like 28 mpg city (goes down in the winter when I blast the heat). A Corolla is just a Camry that's a few years older (ie, my 1995 Corolla is probably the 1990 Camry model) so Corolla's are often a good bet. For reference, c1 has a Toyota Tercel.

(the dealer can be a good mechanic, or not. Depends on the technicians. My mother had a good experience at her dealership in NJ because they wanted to build customer loyalty and indeed when she bought a new car in 2001 she bought from them. So there's no universal "dealers are bad/good mechanics." Just like some Meineke's are good to go for for your brakes, and some Jiffy Lubes do good oil changes. Depends on the franchise owner, depends on the dealer owner, depends on the technicians.)

Re: learned by experience

[awfief.livejournal.com]

oh, and last thing, I promise -- Tony's parents own 2 Toyotas, my dad and his wife have 2 Toyotas, my mother has a Toyota, and my brother and his wife have 2 Toyotas.

We're a Toyota family. The bris will look like a dealership.

Re: learned by experience

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

For reference, c1 has a Toyota Tercel.

Oh, I know, believe me. >:-)

oh, and last thing, I promise --

Not at all, this is really helpful.

We're a Toyota family. The bris will look like a dealership.

Hee hee hee hee. I got a kick out of that.

Re: learned by experience

[c1.livejournal.com]

I have to go with Toyotas myself. (My current ride is 11 years old which I've had since mile 20 was on the odo, and my next car will be a Toyota: in fact, I was just out car shopping this evening.)
Talkng to the dealer, they had some "pre-owned" cars, but their stated difference in price was roughly $1k/year. For me, the extra money for new is not much, and over the life of a car loan is hardly noticeable.
I think part of my success was in being really attentive to maintenance.
One thing: Where will your ride live?

It's All About the Toyotas

[blkdrgn.livejournal.com]

I third this. My family is a Toyota family, and we've never regretted it. My parents have moved up to Lexi (they have two) and my brother has gorgeous limited-edition MR2 and his ancient Cressida. I can't afford anything fancy as a student, and I need a practical car that will last me through residency, so I got the disgustingly cuuuute Scion xA.

I had thought about getting a Corolla or a Matrix, but I was obsessed with getting the smallest (and cutest) car possible, and I didn't want any fuss. (I love the whole fixed price thing when the dealer isn't trying to scam me). I mostly wanted to park in New Orleans despite my lack of parallel-parking skills. And being tiny, the xA also gets great gas mileage---I got 33 mpg on my last tank, and I commute to school.

We shall see if my Scion proves to be as super-reliable as the Toyotas of my childhood, but the whole idea behind Scion is that you can get a haggle-free *Toyota* that is functional, stylish, and affordable. And really, what more could you want? For about ~15k, it's not a bad deal.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Completely irrelevant tangent:


(cover from current issue of Plenty magazine)

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

IMO the sweet spot for age of a car is about 4 years, or a 2002 model.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

For some reason the poll won't let me fill in the answers, but Hynes (www.hynesauto.com) is a really good mechanic, and Borhek (www.borhekinsurance.com) is a good insurance agency.

[kalessin.livejournal.com]

When my dad was considering buying a Plymouth Breeze for $4000 or so from a woman they know from Temple Emunah (it had been her husband's car), I recommended my dad take the car to a very-highly-rated-at-cartalk's-website mechanic, Colonial Auto in Arlington. My dad was really set on buying this car because it was in his price range and coming from someone else in the temple. The visible condition of the car was very, very good, and very clean inside.

For one hour of labor, Colonial found that the head gasket was leaking, the four tires were bad and the rear brakes needed to be done. They also said that they couldn't recommend that they replace the head gasket themselves, and recommended that a dealership do the work.

My dad got the work done, the woman dropped the price of the car by amount that the repairs cost (so there is sometimes some good in buying from someone you know...).

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

I've never had a car.