Last weekend's 24h of Nürburgring race brought a little bit of controversy, not in small part thanks to two GT3 drivers who in the short time of two days managed:
Driver A ignored 9 (nein!) red flags waved at him, had some bullshit excuse and was allowed to race with a 'suspended race ban'. I shall call him Homeslice from now on.
Driver B booted a GT4 car off the track because the low hanging sun blinded him (he's been following the GT4 for a few corners) so when they turned onto a straight, he just nailed the throttle. He got 100 seconds.
Shout to my buddies in a GT4 car that got category 2nd, only because the organizers classified a GT4 Cup car into their group solely on engine size. You could see when they reached the Cup car, it would just catapult out of the corners. No chance so they drove to a safe 2nd.
- Alex Palou got back on form at Road America, winning his 6th race of the year. If Honda can't find a seat for him in F1, his life in America is a pretty good place to be.
- Kyle Kirkwood is on pace to finish 2nd in this season's IndyCar championship, which is one of two requirements for him to get a super license for 2026. The other one is to get some miles in in F1 free practice. I'm not sure if Andretti Cadillac still have a mandate to hire an American driver to partner Valttieri Bottas; if they do then Kirkwood is the frontrunner over Colton Herta, who doesn't have the cash to overcome his lack of consistency.
- Penske's B-team, Foyt, did better than the mothership with both Foyt drivers finishing ahead of all Penske cars. Foyt driver Santino Ferrucci celebrated his podium by chugging a beer thrown down from the crowd: https://youtu.be/CREXIDJb5E0
Viper Club event? My invite must have been lost in the mail.
As for dealership stories, I have a few. The best I suppose was buying a new Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost in 2017, back when I still commuted 100 miles a day. Gas was still pretty cheap so no one wanted a weird 999 cc 5 speed car except me. The sticker was something like $16,700, and the car was advertised on the dealer site for $11,XXX, which importantly included a $3000 Ford rebate. I went in, test drove it (almost certainly the first to do so in the 6 months it had been there) and started talking numbers. The sales guy asked me to write my number on a paper to show his boss, so I very carefully wrote $9,999. He asked me no questions just took it back. When he returned, he wrote $9999, *subtracted the $3000 rebate from it*, and gave me a bottom line of $6999. I confirmed this was an offer to sell me the car and went for my checkbook.
No one in the managers office, the finance office, or anywhere said a word for the 90 minutes or so it took to complete everything, even when paying cash, and it wasn’t until I was out to eat later that night that I got a call from the dealer saying they made a mistake and would I bring the car back? I asked them if all the paperwork was in order, or if there was any issue with my payment not matching what was proposed to me, on the sheet I still had with me. They had no recourse and obviously folded right away, which is how I got a brand new car for $6999 in 2017.
Drove that car for 5 years and sold it with 80,000 miles for more than I paid new.
It was surreal, I literally stepped out of the dealer, called my dad, and asked him what he paid for his new 1983 Sentra, which he told me was about the same.
You would think dealer’s would have a “reality check” stage in the ridiculous process that is buying a new car. Good for you and bad for them to not double check what was happening.
Not really a car-buying negotiation tactic, but a potential way to get out of the dealer faster and with less hassle: Last time we bought a car (agreed upon at MSRP as COVID was wrapping up and this model had crazy waitlists and markups) we brought my 4-year-old son along. When we went into the office to do the paperwork and generally when they spend a lot of time trying to sell you extended warranties, tire guarantees, lojack, etc., my son came in and then was pretty hyper and annoying and also farting constantly. Closed-door office started to get stinky pretty fast. They got us out of there really quickly with only a very half-hearted pitch at a extended warranty.
My immediate family bought 3 Toyotas and 1 Lexus in the last 6 months. With 3 of them being purchased in the last two weeks. All 4 purchases were because someone on a list backed out or weren't approved once it arrived.
My Tundra had a sold sign on it when I entered the lot. The person backed out before I left. It went up in MSRP $3500 for '25.
A Sienna was a four month wait. Someone didn't get approved.
Another Sienna was just over a month of calling every dealer in a 500 mile radius every week until someone finally couldn't get approved.
My wife regularly perused the Lexus dealers websites for a GX since they came out. There just happened to be one in the background of a recently listed vehicle. She called and it was available (someone backed out). We didn't have our ducks in a row and another salesman got it sold first. But that put us on the list for what would be a two month wait. The salesman told us multiple times we wouldn't believe how many times he could have sold that vehicle.
They're not that bad in Canada. I much prefer my dealer experiences at Toyota over GM. They don't go over MSRP here. One dealer did demand that extended warranty be purchased but that can be cancelled within 30 days easily.
I’d be nuts about trying to get a good deal at a Toyota dealer because they’ve got to pay their middleman distributor, and that I couldn’t order what I wanted if necessary, even if it actually meant that there would be dealer trades involved. You pick from what they have, or you wait until they have what you want.
Substack pulls more stupid shit outta their ass and turns the “Mailbox” view into something with 0.004-point type, and puts the Submit button for Comments on the LEFT! 🙄🙄🙄🤬🤬🤬🤦♂️🤦♂️💩
That has been our experience with our last two Toyotas. Honestly, I'm good with paying MSRP when that is what everybody else is charging and the process is pleasant rather than a battle with a greasy pig.
I feel the same way. Ford and Chev advertising huge discounts but in the fine print it's for cash only. I don't even care to go in. What is the actual price?
I did luck out with 1500 off MSRP on the truck though. The salesman misquoted a credit for a warranty as a vehicle credit. I dropped the warranty and held him to the credit. After a huddle with the sales and finance managers, they okayed the mistake.
I think it misses how much of politics has become like those grade school elections - promise the world and get those wide eyed activists to vote in primaries..
It also doesn’t help that most of the city councils are captured by radicals who just perpetuate the dysfunctional machine and “non-profit”groups around it.
People dont realize how much the non-profit industrial complex dominates many of these local city races, and the revolving door between them and councils. Folks make $250k+ salaries paid for by taxpayers as grants to orgs that then advocate for them to be elected or promise jobs after they leave politics. NYC is notorious for this since the council members added term limits. They serve 2 terms then go off and join some taxpayer funded “non-profit” and make bank
Them and public employee unions are typically the biggest money and supporters of local elections, which then explains a lot of how our taxpayer money is spent.
Here's a Big Picture question: Why do we allow politicians to lie to us?
In any other industry, such malfeasance would be grounds for fraud lawsuits or arrests. But in politics, we not only expect the practitioners of the art to be dishonest, we excuse them for doing so.
Expand this- it is legal for the federal government to lie to you (politicians, 3 letter agencies), and very illegal for you to lie to the feds. That is not government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The customers like what they’re selling and don’t focus on the results. Most are not very informed, and like to blame the others for their actions rather than look at track records because they all suck for the most part
Probably the same reason reform-minded Japanese don't want to fix their government: The system has such powerful, entrenched interests that they'd constantly burn their fingers in the attempt.
NYC has roughly 8.5 million people, and Mamdani got 432,000 votes as of 30 minutes ago. Winning a primary should not be hard, but apparently no one of importance and vision wants to be NYC mayor. Those people of which you speak are probably worth 8 figures or more and don’t want the hassle of being mayor and the downsides to their reputation if it doesn’t go well.
On one hand 'Holy Shit!, they're gonna elect a Muslim Che*, mobilize!'. One the other hand, the demographic, social and economic damage has been done. And a large percentage of the NYC cloud people still huff their own farts. I think he may take it.
*Che was a bonafide killer. This guy looks like he mainlines Halal soy.
Che was a killer but most of his victims had no chance of fighting back. If he had been on the right, the left would call him a racist homophobe for his comments about blacks and how he persecuted homosexuals.
Mamdani's rise to (probable) power is the latest sad development that makes me ruminate on even the remote possibility that some form of "fascism" may ultimately be necessary to correct the sins of representative democracy...
I know the right to vote is sacrosanct... But, extending that right to all, without at least some qualification beyond age and (ostensibly) citizenship, has inevitably empowered and emboldened certain participants in the process to deliberately and fervently undermine our country's founding principles that aim to foster the greater good for the productive, useful and engaged many.
Paraphrasing Rush Limbaugh, in a nation of such "children" Santa Claus will always win. I would argue that no civilized society can survive that for long without significant and damning consequences.
I’m not a fan of people who were not born in America holding any elected office. I would also exclude any foreign born person from any judge position, right down to traffic court.
I know that would exclude some good Americans, but it would also exclude some very bad people. We have more than enough people living in this country to be exclusionary about certain things.
Rush put it that way the day after either the second Obama election, I think, along with us having gone from a “nation of makers to a nation of takers.”
If it were up to me, the drinking age would be 18. If you're old enough to join the Army, sign a contract, gamble or be sentenced to 20 years, you should be able to drink alcohol.
The entertainment value of "Mayor" Mamdani will be virtually unlimited. He's Ted Lasso without the soccer team. Wealthy folks aren't just talking about leaving, I believe most are binging the Zillow site for property somewhere...anywhere as long as it is far away from NYC and government run grocery stores and $30 minimum wage. It is rather shocking that there are, in terms of absolute numbers, so many fiscally ignorant people in one major city. It's no mystery that one of his parents taught African Studies at Columbia, and it's even less surprising that she didn't teach in the Economic or Business departments. Margaret Thatcher certainly had NYC in mind when she offered that socialism was great until you ran out of other peoples money. New York wavers between being the greatest city on earth and the biggest shit hole on the planet. It is the finest of lines that separate the two. If this clown wins the election, there will be nothing left of NYC in five years. But he has the endorsement of AOC and Bernie Sanders which is critical in the demographic that includes adults who have never held a job in their lives. Buckle up...it's go to be a wild ride to the bottom.
Mamdani differs from your standard-issue Big City Democrat in that he OPENLY espouses socialism. Most try, with varying degrees of determination and success, to hide their socialist leanings.
Most fail.
Socialism is best symbolized by the human landfill that is Rio de Janeiro. You have a few islands of walled-off & guarded opulence, surrounded by a vast sea of grinding poverty & squalor. Isn't that basically New York? Chicago? The whole Goddamn state of California? A playground for the rich and an endless trial for everyone else?
And I'm not talking about the natural results of differences in ambition, personal drive or intelligence a free society encourages. I mean a system so broken it's basically coercion.
None of these people got rich HONESTLY, either. None of them invented or cured or built anything. They all just made backroom deals and shook down everybody not powerful enough to fight them off.
Here's the thing: Too many people these days don't understand either capitalism OR socialism. They think of socialism as a 1980s European welfare state with clean streets, nonexistent hospital copays & efficient subways, and they imagine capitalism to be their cable company, car insurer or health provider jacking up their premiums for marginal service YET AGAIN, seemingly BECAUSE THEY CAN.
So while everybody may be making a mountain out of Mamdani's open socialism, let's not forget the Gavin Newsomes and Eric Adams and Brandon Johnsons (who always struck me as looking like an evil Geordi La Forge, by the way) of the world, who rule over the ruins of once-great places using the same basic ideas, but which they hide behind populist rhetoric.
That was elegant and accurate. Could not agree more. Question - If NYC goes off the rails, do you think Stefanik might have a better chance in the NY governor’s race?
No idea, but if the average citizen of New York state is anything like the guys I worked with Bedford Hills, that place is gonna be dysfunctional till Judgment Day.
Edward O. Wilson, an award-winning entomologist who specialized in the social behavior of ants, said, “Karl Marx was correct: he just applied his theory to the wrong species.”
Socialism/Communism can be disproven by the simple fact that a three-year old very well understands the concept of "mine".
The mayor gets a lot of flack for the BS coming from the city council that really drives a lot of the NYC dysfunction nowadays, there’s truly not much upside
Update: I decided to return the AMG S 63 Coupe to CarMax. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, and it had also had a terrible re-spray on the front bumper that was already peeling and that CarMax deemed as "meeting their standards." I'm out the transport fee from getting the car here, but that's not a huge deal.
Next step: maybe an AMG S 65 Coupe, at some point in the future. But I'm prioritizing other things at the moment, and $70K is a lot to spend for a decade-old German flagship, even with a V12.
I also turned in the Escalade IQ after two weeks of Cadillac having my Lyriq, and will post a pretty thorough review of the former on Substack; look for it soon.
And, finally, the 2005 Phaeton is being weird, because of course it is. When I go to start it, sometimes, it will refuse to acknowledge I'm trying to crank the engine. It will turn on and off just fine, but won't even attempt to crank the engine. This seemed to coincide with car washes or heavy rain, so I'd thought that maybe the sunroof drains were clogged and were letting the KESSY control module under the floorboards flood. But it sat in the sun for three days and still wouldn't start, causing it to need a tow to the specialist. And, surprise, surprise, it started right up and drove off the tow truck under its own power. And also, my VW/Audi specialist informed me that he was booked out until mid-July, so I had to go and pick up the car, anyway. It now sits in the garage, and I'm nervous to drive it in case it refuses to start. I know it's not the brake switch, because you need to press the brake to shift it into neutral for a tow, and it recognizes that just fine. It could be the ignition switch itself, the KESSY unit, or--frankly--anything in between. It could still be that water and corrosion are the issue. But intermittent issues are irritating.
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As far as purchasing cars goes:
One of my favorite purchasing tactics is when I actually let a dealer find me a loan, and then they try to do tied financing. "Well, your rate is [x], but Toyota really wants you to get the warranty on this new Venza, so if you do, we can lower the rate to [x - y]." In essence, they are agreeing to buy down the loan a bit if I take a warranty, which is higher profit for them. Instead of pointing out how wrong and potentially illegal tied financing is, I just smile, take the lower rate, and then cancel the warranty for a full refund against the balance of the loan. I'm sure it pisses them off, but I don't care.
One area in which I really struggle when I buy older (10+ year-old cars) is being impatient about finding the right car, and settling for something I don't want or that's available. Especially if the car is rare, and especially if I miss out on a better instance of that car earlier. Another thing I'll do is put a ton of money into a car, and then not be satisfied with how it turned out or the experience of it, and sell it at a loss. To wit, when I mentioned tuning my '17 Q7 (which is long gone), my boyfriend said, "Right on! The next owner will sure enjoy that!"
For an example of both bad behaviors, back in October of 2023, there was a 2008 Lexus LS 600h L in Tulsa, and I specifically remember wanting to look at it after we had our meetup there. That one was a gorgeous Jade Green Metallic, had relatively low miles, and--crucially--had had the hybrid traction battery replaced. Well, when I called to inquire about it, they said someone had actually put a deposit on it from the East Coast, and was coming to take a look at it.
Cue me finding an example in Detroit that had more miles, was in Starfire Pearl White (white is almost never my favorite color), and questionable history. But I didn't care. I rushed out and bought it for $11,000...despite the fact that when I got there, the chrome wheels were corroded, the leather was more worn than I'd liked, and the engine seemed to start up a lot more than it should. I'd neglected to check the Lexus Owner's Portal, which will let you input the VIN of any car as though it's yours and instantly see all the dealer visits it's ever had, in detail, including diagnostics for failing components. I also neglected to get the Dr. Prius app and a compatible OBD2 reader, which would have let me test the traction battery, on the spot.
Sure enough, it had a failing traction battery.
$4,200 later, I had a refurbished traction battery from Greentec--great people, btw--and then it was another $1,000 for a replacement set of alloys, in the much more attractive satin silver, 5-spoke format. Plus $500 for a GROM that brought integrated CarPlay to the OEM infotainment system. And $1,000 for a new air strut (the prior one had a leaking damper for the variable damping function) and another $800 for aftermarket control arms.
And then I still didn't like it, didn't think it got the fuel economy that it should have, and wound up selling it for $10,000 on the LR4, which was a nightmare of its own (naturally).
So, here's to new patterns and not doing that from here on out.
I mean, it had the CarMax warranty and would’ve been covered to 125,000 miles (with 55K on the ODO); it was just still not worth what the car cost in exchange for how much fun it was(n’t).
You are not alone in this pattern...it's the story of my life buying "fun" cars. Sometimes I do ok; more frequently I lose my ass, your ass, her ass, the dog's ass, etc. My wife says the same thing your fella does..."that didn't last long, I'm sure the buyer will enjoy it." I've definitely jumped on a not great older car just because I want that model and it's hard to find a better one. Oh well.
Nothing compares to actually restoring a car for ass-losing, though. My 1974 Dart Sport, purchased as a partially completed project, was my biggest cash sinkhole ever. I actually sold a fair number of hard-earned Deferred Stock Units to finish that car, which from the perspective of [the current year] was a massively stupid move.
Yet the siren song of Facebook Marketplace calls...there's always another car I want. Much like my romantic life, the next bad decision is just around the corner.
I never buy a car expecting to make money, or break even, or whatever else.
I do have a problem where I buy a nice example of something and then hyper-fixate on making it into this perfect overly nice example. Usually this involves countless hours of hunting down parts on eBay and Facebook.
The end result is typically something I have too much money in and is too nice to use as intended. I’ve done this with everything from an RC car to real cars.
I only suggest this because it happened to me recently, but the lead wire for my Mustang’s starter failed where it attached to the solenoid, and the car had the same problems you’re describing in the Phaeton.
Intermittent start failure, with totally normal starting behavior once service resumed.
"...and, like every suburban kid from every Rush song, wanted to tear it down."
"Subdivisions" is my favorite Rush song but I HATE the message, and every time I listen to it I think, "You punks just don't get how good you have it." Despite the flak it takes from the disaffected malcontents, the upper-middle-class American suburb is actually the apex of human civilization.
Chesterton's Fence, folks. Don't tear down that fence without knowing WHY it's there in the first place.
HOAs and generally speaking neighborhood Karens are one of the funniest First World Problems ever. Not to say they can’t be incredibly dangerous but you don’t get HOA demerits in Sudan or Bangladesh
My neighbor behind my house is a dear friend and also an embroidery customer (he's a ritual scribe and I personalize prayer shawl bags and the like). Last fall, he complained about the smell from my cannabis plants, concerned that there might be health issues for his kids and grandkids. (Note: It's a completely legal grow, 12 plants, the legal limit, inside a locked fenced enclosure). I tried explaining that I'm allergic to lilacs but I'm not going to tell a neighbor that they can't grow them because they annoy me. "But have you done the research?" "Yes. The cannabinoids aren't volatile and in any case they aren't psychoactive unless decarboxylated with heat first. What you're smelling are terpines and those aren't psychoactive, they just affect flavor and smell." "But have you done the research?"
Is it like that part in "Big," where Tom Hanks is watching an action movie the first night in his city apartment and there are gunshots, sirens and screaming. Then he looks around, turns off the movie and the gunshots, sirens & screaming keep going?
It's about not belonging, which is something to which I could relate at the time, but it's a fundamentally infantile song. Having a family and raising them in a safe place is not selling your dreams for small desires. It’s the only dream that lasts.
I have a hard time listening to John Mellencamp's Little Pink Houses, Jackson Browne's The Pretender, and Was Not Was' In KMart Wardrobe without thinking that the songwriters are making fun of me.
I remember listening to WNW's Are You OK? album and thinking, wait, I shop at KMart.
It is a funky tune, though.
David Weiss is the brother of a good friend's wife and grew up in the same suburb where I currently live. Their dad, Rube Weiss, was one of Soupy Sales' original sidekicks and played Santa in the Hudson's Thanksgiving Day parade. Don Fagenson is from the family that owned Faygo. My guess is that they didn't get their first guitars in pawn shops, or KMart.
I have a hard time listening to John Mellencamp PERIOD.
Or really ANY of what I call "Schlunk Rock," which is rich musicians cosplaying truck drivers, union factory guys, farmers and any other blue-collar men they wouldn't be causght dead actually living like.
I'm biased because I'm a Detroiter, but Bob Seger actually comes from a working class background. His father worked as a lab tech for Ford.
Seger gets VIP credentials to the Detroit auto show media preview, where I've met and spoken with him. The last time he was there he was looking at a Jeep Rubicon for his daughter. Yeah, he has a McLaren at home but I think he's still pretty down to earth.
When he was criticized for licensing Like A Rock for Chevy trucks he said, paraphrasing, "A lot of those guys working in Chevy factories buy my records. If I can help them sell some trucks, that's fine."
From what I've read, I think I'd rather work for Seger than "The Boss," though Bob's longtime bass player, Chris Campbell, sued him for royalties, and Seger's companies countersued. It looks like there was an out of court settlement.
The rich look down upon us from on high and because they don't understand what they're seeing (and don't really care) they make shit up about how terrible it all must be.
I grew up poor. But I wouldn't go back and change a thing. I had a fantastic childhood. Probably because we didn't know we were poor. We didn't act like the 'poor' you see in movies or the losers who are poor because they're assholes and idiots and shit where they sleep.
However, because the losers are more visible (we had a family of them on our street I think only 1 of the kids is still alive because he's probably still in prison), that's what the 'rich' folks see. So that's what they imagine life is like for everyone. And hence the condensation and the BS.
(As a side note: In the 60's the rich didn't self-segregate from the poor, yes their neighborhoods were nicer, but all of the kids went to the same school system - I knew kids whose parents were famous, powerful, and quite wealthy - yet we all hung out together and treated each other the same. As long as you had manners, the parents didn't care if your folks were poor or not).
I remember reading how Walmart in Bentonville knows when a single tube of toothpaste is sold in one of their stores in Japan.
I still can't figure out how Sears, which more or less invented online sales in the 19th century, using the internet of the day, the U.S. Mail, managed to screw up the transition to the internet. Yeah, I know, some corporate raider gutted Sears, but still they were positioned far better than most brick and mortar retailers. Order online, pick it up at the store.
While I'm ranting, how come Grainger's doesn't have after hours pickup lockers outside their stores? A lot of the folks "who get things done" are busy during the hours that Grainger stores are open. I think the local store closes at 4PM.
The only WNW song I know is “Walk The Dinosaur.” Probably because that was the only song that got airplay during my college years, when I didn’t have a tape deck in the car for my commute.
It’s the teens who are going out into the city lit up like fireflies searching for the action that end up selling their dreams for small desires, not their parents who moved to the suburbs.
That’s about teen pregnancy ruining your life. Or drug addiction. It’s about making a bad choice in the search for some strange that fucks you for life.
Now, about the car sales biz, while I absolutely adore “Used Cars” and believe it is one of the greatest movies ever made, if you really want to know what automotive retail is like, you need to find the film “Suckers”, THAT movie is damn near a documentary about my previous life as an auto sales consultant. Every thing in that movie really happened to either me, or a co-worker.
We need to have a deep dive into the “end of the car business” as a topic soon.
Now, pardon me as I fire up “Red Barchetta” and go for a drive.
What is the name of the fictional car salesman in “Don’t Get Taken..?!” I have the book, but I’m too lazy to find it. I remember him being portrayed as a consummate sleazebucket! I do remember the author constantly referring to Frank Sinatra/Sammy Davis, Jr., et. al. songs in the book. Probably an aficionado of supper clubs and their various and sundry accoutrements, such as surf & turf, much like our own Mr. Klockau.
I also have “Drive It Forever,” written by a guy who took a cross-country road trip in a 1983 Ciera V6 with his wife, in order to see what the state of car repair was at the time. He did so by eyeing a service station or other repair shop, then would sneak down the street, pull a plug wire, and just let it sit and short against the block while he pulled into the repair shop and asked if they could help, and what the problem was. The pile of parts he collected, everything up to and including a remanufactured transmission, was eye-opening! All that was wrong was a disconnected spark plug wire!
The book didn’t detail the trip—there was an article in “Reader’s Digest” that had that travelogue. At least in THAT day, they could still get parts which presumably WORKED out of the box!
So how about THIS for a future article topic: Why did the whole Sex, Drugs & Rock n' Roll thing take over popular music, and why does pop music cater so slavishly to The Young and The Disaffected?
I live right down the street and am social acquaintances with the lead singer Tim from Rise Against. He lives in the least punk place imaginable, a little updated farmhouse style place worth maybe $900k on a nice street in a very nice suburb. Drives an Audi SQ8. Like okay man, at what point are you what you’re Rising Against?
I don't see Morello giving up the standard 7-12% of wholesale he's likely getting from Fender for his signature guitar, which retails for about $1,400.
My favorite signature guitar is the Paul Westerberg First Act. He was on tour and at a big box store buying shampoo or something and noticed a FA ME501 guitar on sale. On a whim, he bought it and used it at the sound check that day and dug the guitar, which he stripped down to a single bridge pickup. At the time, First Act was also operating a custom shop near Boston staffed by former Gibson luthiers, making custom guitars for prominent musicians and also designing a line of decent, guitar shop quality imports that were sold through the Boston store, besides their cheap stuff in the big box stores. They heard about Westerberg using one of their production guitars and approached him about a signature model. I don't know whether it was Westerberg's idea or not, but those guitars were sold through big box stores at very affordable prices.
Martin just came out with a Billy Strings signature guitar. There are actually two. The 3k one for Boomers and the $800 one that Billy wanted for pickers just starting out. Billy seems like a stand up guy compared to Morello.
Love the Westerberg story. Big fan of the replacements in college and still enjoy their music. First time I saw them they were playing at the student center at my SEC school in around 87-88. All the stories you hear are true, the first 20-30 minutes of the show were band members coming up on stage asking "where Paul was"....."Paul we are ready to start the show" etc. Once he showed up on stage way more than half drunk, they played a great show.
I've done embroidery work for three-patch M/Cs. They were always buying extra custom patches to put on the front if their "cut". An M/Cs vest, though, is just another uniform and one of the definitions of that word is "all the same."
The Platty is nice now but unlike most owners I wont replace it with a new Platty. 15 years from now it will still be here, with 250,000 miles and not a clean panel in sight!
I love my Chrysler but it comes off to the general public as "hoodrat ex-rental, Carvana value $4,999".
Actual neighbor reactions to cars I rolled home in: '78 Toronado. Older lady sadly shook her head like I had personally disappointed her and then wagged her finger at me.
'89 Jag XJS with LT1 swap: different neighbor came over yelling that this wasn't a drag strip and made not so veiled threats of physical violence.
For a brief period both cars were in the driveway at the same time...creating a Lansing / Coventry portal to the underworld.
I think mine have finally accepted the inevitable. They probably cringe when the tow truck arrives with the newest purchase but I'm usually kind enough to have it dropped in the garage first
At least half of my “new cars” seem to arrive via trailer and get pushed up the driveway. The one neighbor finds it funny, the others probably not so much.
In the ephemeral nature of The Current Age, does it matter at all if something won’t be “nice” a lifetime from now if it’s very nice today?
And any good chop shop/thief/urban entrepreneur knows your Chrysler is worth nearly ten times that number!
I am now reminded of the Rivian I saw with ladder racks, the 2nd gen Escalade I’ve seen pulling landscaping trailers, and the 2013ish F250 Lariat with an 8ft utility bed, re: your Platinum’s fate 15 years from now. I appreciate how age humbles us all.
Give it another couple of decades. The other night, when I woke up for the second or third time to urinate, I smelled charred hot dog. I had made two for a late meal, and forgot that I left one of them in the pot on a low heat.
I enjoy cooking but then I worked in a chemistry lab for over 20 years. Cooking is just practical chemistry. Hell, I even made real mac & cheese a couple of weeks ago. A lot of cooking has to do with making emulsions, getting stuff to mix that doesn't really want to mix. Baked potatoes taste good because the sugars start to caramelize.
A couple Sunday’s ago I put on some sugar in water to dissolve for the hummingbirds. I forgot it until there was black smoke rolling in the kitchen. Only time in a decade when I’ve done that.
Badly burned sugar is actually pretty interesting and it scrubbed out of the all clad pot a lot easier than I thought it would.
Just like using your brand-new, fully-optioned Yukon Denali XL or Escalade ESV to haul horse trailers out at The Property and never washing the damned thing.
I own the Blue Ray. It is the quintessential 70’s movie. When they broke into the Carter speech and afterward the Secret Service shows up and the guy says that some radicals did it and they were screaming “Ayatollah, Ayatollah” cracked me up then and seems somehow timely today.
I find it ironic Mamdani went to Bronx Science through the testing pathway and he wants to eliminate that as it benefits too many Asians lol. I went to college with these nyc elite hs kids and they’re the sons of cabbies, chinese restaurant chefs and the nyc working class strivers. They mostly came from little, butI guess they’re privileged in some way. Me thinks he’s pulling up that ladder..
The dem establishment deserves him though. How the hell do you let Cuomo be the front runner?! The Mamdani takedown of him at the last debate was effective and could have been done by a college kid. In reality it should have been done in private and months earlier and they should have found a more acceptable candidate.
I share an ethnic heritage with Mamdani, but not a religious one. It’s telling to me he only falls back on the latter. If you look closely at who his mother is and her family background it’s evident he comes from great privilege. If he is to be discredited, someone should really follow the money. CAIR and gov of Qatar are likely very close. Surprisingly enough he did an interview on Pakistani tv a couple of weeks ago as well. Weird thing for a mayoral candidate to do, even weirder when both his parents are of Indian heritage…
As for car prices. I got a $78k msrp 2025 MB E450 for that otd oct 2024. There was one car in the area in the colors I wanted and I got it on a free day. There’s a jackass on the MB forums who says I should have gotten 10k off. Who knows.
Someone, a car dealer I believe, once pointed out that people who didn't negotiate and paid MSRP for a car were usually a lot happier with their purchase, and would recommend the dealer to their friends & family members.
The chiselers, the ones who seemingly wanted a DEAL more than they wanted a CAR, were almost invariably miserable individuals who complained about everything and were never happy with their purchase.
A car salesman friend of mine summed it up nicely. He asked, “Did you get the car you wanted at a price you thought was fair? If so, be happy and enjoy it.” I have bought over sixty cars in my fifty-two years of driving and this has become my mantra when purchasing.
Joe Girard once sold over 1,400 cars in a year at Merollis Chevrolet in Detroit. In 2017 Ali Reda sold over 1,500 cars at Les Stanford Chevy, in Dearborn. They did that by treating so many customers fairly that they ended up selling cars to those customers' grandkids. Reda's accomplishment is pretty impressive since people don't replace cars every three years like they did when Girard was selling. Pretty sure Reda built up a clientele of Arabic speakers.
Girard's published three books on selling, How To Sell Yourself, How To Sell Anything to Anybody, and How To Close Every Sale.
Jack mentioned that the one driver was Joe Cauley, the son of a Detroit-area Ferrari dealer. Would that be Jim Cauley? I seem to remember that name on a list of dealerships.
Do you know offhand if Roy O’Brien Ford is still at Nine Mile and Mack in The Shores? (Also, is there still a Cadillac dealer just north of the I-94 surface drive? Used to be McGlone back in the day.)
I live on the west side of town but the last time I was at Nine Mile and Mack, within the last year, Roy O’Brian Ford was still there. I’d love it someone released a compilation of ‘60s era Detroit radio and tv jingles.
Cauley closed in like 08-09. Them and Audette Cadillac next door. We used to hot shot GMAC lease returns from there to the Copart yard in Woodhaven.
The Ferrari dealership moved into the former Chevrolet dealership. Audette and the original Ferrari buildings were torn down for a new Ferrari dealership. Then the Chevrolet building was torn down and is going to be apartments or something.
Before Cauley was the Ferrari franchisee in Detroit, we had Sportiva in Dearborn. There’s a picture of me as a kid sitting on the fender of an LM002 in the early 90s. One of my first car memories is that and seeing a 250TR there. IIRC, Sportiva also had something to do with racing F40s.
My grandpa said much the same thing. I'll detail my best purchase in a separate post but it didn't involve any negotiation on my part. I hate the aspect of fighting it out at the dealership so I'll search for the best deal upfront and go from there. The last new car I purchased was done over the phone. I flew to OKC with a bank check and the loan paperwork already completed at my credit union. Of course the F&I guy still wanted me to purchase his extended warranty. So much so that he swore he was actually losing money on it. I laughed at that...
I actually originally paid $80k flat for it otd and I guess they over charged me on taxes so they refunded me $1800 They sent me a check in the mail without telling me which of course felt like a windfall lol
Years ago a former new car dealer in the little town where my in-laws lived had the mantra that ‘You have to screw your friends because your enemies won’t do business with you.’
"Surprisingly enough he did an interview on Pakistani tv a couple of weeks ago as well. Weird thing for a mayoral candidate to do, even weirder when both his parents are of Indian heritage…"
He thinks communicating with Pakistani Muslims is important for the mayor of NYC but bristled at the notion of visiting Israel.
Did you see how his victory party was almost entirely made up of people of pallor? The only group he did well with was college educated (?) white folks. Cuomo did better with Hispanics and Blacks and white folks whose brains haven't been warped in the indoctrination factories we call universities.
To be fair, I think anyone running for office in *America* should have this reaction. I'm a first gen immigrant and it drives me up the wall at how many "fellow immigrants" still have very overt allegience to their home country. Perhaps the #1 problem facing the country in my opinion. Non-assimilation or whatever you want to call this fence-sitting. No dual-citizens in office especially.
I don’t have a problem with mayors or governors making trade missions but I do think it’s silly to ask primary candidates for local elections questions about international geopolitics. My point was Mamdani’s obvious bias.
BTW, if you ask why Jews like Jerry Nadler would endorse him, at any one time somewhere between 5% and 20% of Jews are hostile to other Jews, Judaism, and Jewish interests, and that’s putting aside those who are self-serving contrary to the interests of the larger community. There were Kapos in the camps and Judenrats filled with collaborators. Some of the worst Jew-haters in history have been renegade and apostate Jews.
"The dem establishment deserves him though. How the hell do you let Cuomo be the front runner?!"
The Dem establishment is an absolutely feckless institution, with no idea how to operate. They have failed to evolve in any meaningful way over the past decade as a proper answer to the GOP that's built in Trump's image.
It is why you see them trot out the likes of noted sex pest Cuomo, Clinton, Biden, etc. Just these ancient lizards sunning themselves on the rock of stagnation. To hell with the lot of them!
It's ALSO why people like Mamdani, AOC, Bernie Sanders and the like get a lot of traction and have somehwat of an actual following. They ARE exciting. They ARE answering right-wing populism with a left-wing version of it. You can debate the merits of their policies, but something like 62% of registered Democrats feel that Dem leadership must change. This is the direct result of their staunch refusal to address any of it.
The dems do deserve him. Unfortunately, he's apt to get elected and if even 20% of what he espouses gets passed, we'll all take it in the shorts when DC comes trotting in to save NYC from their own whims
No I think I did fine. It was a good deal considering the ratio of 4 bangers to I6 cars and the fact it was a 2025 bought when 2024 were still on the lot
how do you like your w214 e450? I really like the looks of the car, don't like the all touchscreen interior and passenger screen etc. Also concerned about the hybrid aspects and all the complexity. This coming from someone who grew up in a classic mercedes household 70-80-90's era etc. and regret selling my w212 e400. Really like the looks and performance of the e450 wagon, but worried about reliability.
Last weekend's 24h of Nürburgring race brought a little bit of controversy, not in small part thanks to two GT3 drivers who in the short time of two days managed:
Driver A ignored 9 (nein!) red flags waved at him, had some bullshit excuse and was allowed to race with a 'suspended race ban'. I shall call him Homeslice from now on.
Driver B booted a GT4 car off the track because the low hanging sun blinded him (he's been following the GT4 for a few corners) so when they turned onto a straight, he just nailed the throttle. He got 100 seconds.
Shout to my buddies in a GT4 car that got category 2nd, only because the organizers classified a GT4 Cup car into their group solely on engine size. You could see when they reached the Cup car, it would just catapult out of the corners. No chance so they drove to a safe 2nd.
My post may get buried because it’s a Friday, but I’m just learning about the eSkootr Championship:
https://youtu.be/sjUqW7KV21g?si=8IzVmayPGvY4D3KW
This reminds of me when Goped racing was popular in the early 00s.
That's hilarious!
Hmmmmm....is barstool* racing still a thing?
*completely unaffiliated with that Portnoy jackass.
This week in IndyCar:
- Alex Palou got back on form at Road America, winning his 6th race of the year. If Honda can't find a seat for him in F1, his life in America is a pretty good place to be.
- Kyle Kirkwood is on pace to finish 2nd in this season's IndyCar championship, which is one of two requirements for him to get a super license for 2026. The other one is to get some miles in in F1 free practice. I'm not sure if Andretti Cadillac still have a mandate to hire an American driver to partner Valttieri Bottas; if they do then Kirkwood is the frontrunner over Colton Herta, who doesn't have the cash to overcome his lack of consistency.
- Penske's B-team, Foyt, did better than the mothership with both Foyt drivers finishing ahead of all Penske cars. Foyt driver Santino Ferrucci celebrated his podium by chugging a beer thrown down from the crowd: https://youtu.be/CREXIDJb5E0
“…the great Remar Sutton’s Don’t Get Taken Every Time…”
Wouldn’t happen to kin to Willie would he?
You'd think, right? I think he's made jokes about it.
Ah yes, the 52 year old doof dressing like he's 25.
Next.
"Hello, fellow children."
Viper Club event? My invite must have been lost in the mail.
As for dealership stories, I have a few. The best I suppose was buying a new Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost in 2017, back when I still commuted 100 miles a day. Gas was still pretty cheap so no one wanted a weird 999 cc 5 speed car except me. The sticker was something like $16,700, and the car was advertised on the dealer site for $11,XXX, which importantly included a $3000 Ford rebate. I went in, test drove it (almost certainly the first to do so in the 6 months it had been there) and started talking numbers. The sales guy asked me to write my number on a paper to show his boss, so I very carefully wrote $9,999. He asked me no questions just took it back. When he returned, he wrote $9999, *subtracted the $3000 rebate from it*, and gave me a bottom line of $6999. I confirmed this was an offer to sell me the car and went for my checkbook.
No one in the managers office, the finance office, or anywhere said a word for the 90 minutes or so it took to complete everything, even when paying cash, and it wasn’t until I was out to eat later that night that I got a call from the dealer saying they made a mistake and would I bring the car back? I asked them if all the paperwork was in order, or if there was any issue with my payment not matching what was proposed to me, on the sheet I still had with me. They had no recourse and obviously folded right away, which is how I got a brand new car for $6999 in 2017.
Drove that car for 5 years and sold it with 80,000 miles for more than I paid new.
7k for a brand new car is insane
great purchase man
It was surreal, I literally stepped out of the dealer, called my dad, and asked him what he paid for his new 1983 Sentra, which he told me was about the same.
My parents paid 11k for a ford mondeo* in 1999 ish and it was a screaming deal.
*it was a contour
You would think dealer’s would have a “reality check” stage in the ridiculous process that is buying a new car. Good for you and bad for them to not double check what was happening.
I kept expecting the back room guy to say something, but he just didn’t. Can’t explain it
Oh my. That's an amazing mistake.
Nice score!
Not really a car-buying negotiation tactic, but a potential way to get out of the dealer faster and with less hassle: Last time we bought a car (agreed upon at MSRP as COVID was wrapping up and this model had crazy waitlists and markups) we brought my 4-year-old son along. When we went into the office to do the paperwork and generally when they spend a lot of time trying to sell you extended warranties, tire guarantees, lojack, etc., my son came in and then was pretty hyper and annoying and also farting constantly. Closed-door office started to get stinky pretty fast. They got us out of there really quickly with only a very half-hearted pitch at a extended warranty.
I think I’ll try that myself next time. I’m an old guy. It happens!
Stop at Taco Bell on the way. *evil laugh*
That would likely get me 0% financing and invoice less holdback!
My recent negotiations with Toyota and Lexus are as follows:
Here's the price.
Can you do any better?
No.
I will elaborate.
My immediate family bought 3 Toyotas and 1 Lexus in the last 6 months. With 3 of them being purchased in the last two weeks. All 4 purchases were because someone on a list backed out or weren't approved once it arrived.
My Tundra had a sold sign on it when I entered the lot. The person backed out before I left. It went up in MSRP $3500 for '25.
A Sienna was a four month wait. Someone didn't get approved.
Another Sienna was just over a month of calling every dealer in a 500 mile radius every week until someone finally couldn't get approved.
My wife regularly perused the Lexus dealers websites for a GX since they came out. There just happened to be one in the background of a recently listed vehicle. She called and it was available (someone backed out). We didn't have our ducks in a row and another salesman got it sold first. But that put us on the list for what would be a two month wait. The salesman told us multiple times we wouldn't believe how many times he could have sold that vehicle.
I despise toyota dealers with a flying passion. I think they're the new GM
No, they think they're the OLD GM. As in, Chevy or Pontiac or Cadillac circa 1961.
They're not that bad in Canada. I much prefer my dealer experiences at Toyota over GM. They don't go over MSRP here. One dealer did demand that extended warranty be purchased but that can be cancelled within 30 days easily.
I’d be nuts about trying to get a good deal at a Toyota dealer because they’ve got to pay their middleman distributor, and that I couldn’t order what I wanted if necessary, even if it actually meant that there would be dealer trades involved. You pick from what they have, or you wait until they have what you want.
Substack pulls more stupid shit outta their ass and turns the “Mailbox” view into something with 0.004-point type, and puts the Submit button for Comments on the LEFT! 🙄🙄🙄🤬🤬🤬🤦♂️🤦♂️💩
That has been our experience with our last two Toyotas. Honestly, I'm good with paying MSRP when that is what everybody else is charging and the process is pleasant rather than a battle with a greasy pig.
I feel the same way. Ford and Chev advertising huge discounts but in the fine print it's for cash only. I don't even care to go in. What is the actual price?
I did luck out with 1500 off MSRP on the truck though. The salesman misquoted a credit for a warranty as a vehicle credit. I dropped the warranty and held him to the credit. After a huddle with the sales and finance managers, they okayed the mistake.
I just hope shit gets less shitty before the next time Mrs. Duderson wants a 4Runner in a “special” color.
They dusted off and dragged Andrew out of political purgatory, what did they think would happen?
NYC, as always, deserves what happens to them.
i have no idea why men of importance and vision arent clamoring for the reins of one of the most important cities in the world
I think it misses how much of politics has become like those grade school elections - promise the world and get those wide eyed activists to vote in primaries..
It also doesn’t help that most of the city councils are captured by radicals who just perpetuate the dysfunctional machine and “non-profit”groups around it.
Non-profits. Source of endless trouble, that lot.
We really ought to be wary of people who claim they're not in it for the money.
People dont realize how much the non-profit industrial complex dominates many of these local city races, and the revolving door between them and councils. Folks make $250k+ salaries paid for by taxpayers as grants to orgs that then advocate for them to be elected or promise jobs after they leave politics. NYC is notorious for this since the council members added term limits. They serve 2 terms then go off and join some taxpayer funded “non-profit” and make bank
Them and public employee unions are typically the biggest money and supporters of local elections, which then explains a lot of how our taxpayer money is spent.
I often think of how financially-awesome my life could be, if only I didn't have a conscience.
Ice Age :
Doing the right thing is like pissing yourself whilst wearing a dark suit :
It gives you a warm feeling but no one else notices .
-Nate
Did you see the clip of the head of the Chicago teachers union smugly say, "Yeah, we do own your kids"?
Oh, and she sends her own kid to a private school.
You can't make this shit up.
the fact that they said that out loud tells me they arent smart enough to care for children
Here's a Big Picture question: Why do we allow politicians to lie to us?
In any other industry, such malfeasance would be grounds for fraud lawsuits or arrests. But in politics, we not only expect the practitioners of the art to be dishonest, we excuse them for doing so.
"Why do we allow politicians to lie to us?"
because we havent forced consequences for their actions and as such they are allowed to continue unimpeded
Need to get out the tar and feathers
yeah thats not strong enough of an incentive
With the polarization endemic in the United States, one side would try to do that to the other as soon as they get in.
Oh wait..one side DOES try to do that to the other, yet can (literally, arguably) get away with murder!
Expand this- it is legal for the federal government to lie to you (politicians, 3 letter agencies), and very illegal for you to lie to the feds. That is not government of the people, by the people and for the people.
becuase modern democracy is extremely gay
The customers like what they’re selling and don’t focus on the results. Most are not very informed, and like to blame the others for their actions rather than look at track records because they all suck for the most part
Low-information voters!
I believe a late radio raconteur invented the term!
Probably the same reason reform-minded Japanese don't want to fix their government: The system has such powerful, entrenched interests that they'd constantly burn their fingers in the attempt.
NYC has roughly 8.5 million people, and Mamdani got 432,000 votes as of 30 minutes ago. Winning a primary should not be hard, but apparently no one of importance and vision wants to be NYC mayor. Those people of which you speak are probably worth 8 figures or more and don’t want the hassle of being mayor and the downsides to their reputation if it doesn’t go well.
Somehow, I think this one could be different. Primary was close and Cuomo still has a line for the general election ballot.
Business community is coming hard after Zohran now
On one hand 'Holy Shit!, they're gonna elect a Muslim Che*, mobilize!'. One the other hand, the demographic, social and economic damage has been done. And a large percentage of the NYC cloud people still huff their own farts. I think he may take it.
*Che was a bonafide killer. This guy looks like he mainlines Halal soy.
Che was a killer but most of his victims had no chance of fighting back. If he had been on the right, the left would call him a racist homophobe for his comments about blacks and how he persecuted homosexuals.
Mamdani's rise to (probable) power is the latest sad development that makes me ruminate on even the remote possibility that some form of "fascism" may ultimately be necessary to correct the sins of representative democracy...
Because it is.
('always has been' astronaut meme)
I know the right to vote is sacrosanct... But, extending that right to all, without at least some qualification beyond age and (ostensibly) citizenship, has inevitably empowered and emboldened certain participants in the process to deliberately and fervently undermine our country's founding principles that aim to foster the greater good for the productive, useful and engaged many.
Paraphrasing Rush Limbaugh, in a nation of such "children" Santa Claus will always win. I would argue that no civilized society can survive that for long without significant and damning consequences.
I’m not a fan of people who were not born in America holding any elected office. I would also exclude any foreign born person from any judge position, right down to traffic court.
I know that would exclude some good Americans, but it would also exclude some very bad people. We have more than enough people living in this country to be exclusionary about certain things.
Adams and Franklin knew it and warned us. Hell, Socrates knew it.
Rush put it that way the day after either the second Obama election, I think, along with us having gone from a “nation of makers to a nation of takers.”
If it were up to me, the drinking age would be 18. If you're old enough to join the Army, sign a contract, gamble or be sentenced to 20 years, you should be able to drink alcohol.
But the voting age would be like 55.
Politics is downstream of culture and we’ve totally debased ours.
Most of those “fascist” strongman leaders come in the correct the extremes of the university left that takes over and debases society.
The fun part is when this vanguard never seems to realize how totalitarian and actually fascist they become.
Mamdani went to Bowdoin, as you are probably aware.
Well maybe Cuomo will run independently and they can have a figurative lady killer and a literal granny killer.
He was also a filthy coward.
Literally. He didn't bathe.
The entertainment value of "Mayor" Mamdani will be virtually unlimited. He's Ted Lasso without the soccer team. Wealthy folks aren't just talking about leaving, I believe most are binging the Zillow site for property somewhere...anywhere as long as it is far away from NYC and government run grocery stores and $30 minimum wage. It is rather shocking that there are, in terms of absolute numbers, so many fiscally ignorant people in one major city. It's no mystery that one of his parents taught African Studies at Columbia, and it's even less surprising that she didn't teach in the Economic or Business departments. Margaret Thatcher certainly had NYC in mind when she offered that socialism was great until you ran out of other peoples money. New York wavers between being the greatest city on earth and the biggest shit hole on the planet. It is the finest of lines that separate the two. If this clown wins the election, there will be nothing left of NYC in five years. But he has the endorsement of AOC and Bernie Sanders which is critical in the demographic that includes adults who have never held a job in their lives. Buckle up...it's go to be a wild ride to the bottom.
Mamdani differs from your standard-issue Big City Democrat in that he OPENLY espouses socialism. Most try, with varying degrees of determination and success, to hide their socialist leanings.
Most fail.
Socialism is best symbolized by the human landfill that is Rio de Janeiro. You have a few islands of walled-off & guarded opulence, surrounded by a vast sea of grinding poverty & squalor. Isn't that basically New York? Chicago? The whole Goddamn state of California? A playground for the rich and an endless trial for everyone else?
And I'm not talking about the natural results of differences in ambition, personal drive or intelligence a free society encourages. I mean a system so broken it's basically coercion.
None of these people got rich HONESTLY, either. None of them invented or cured or built anything. They all just made backroom deals and shook down everybody not powerful enough to fight them off.
Here's the thing: Too many people these days don't understand either capitalism OR socialism. They think of socialism as a 1980s European welfare state with clean streets, nonexistent hospital copays & efficient subways, and they imagine capitalism to be their cable company, car insurer or health provider jacking up their premiums for marginal service YET AGAIN, seemingly BECAUSE THEY CAN.
So while everybody may be making a mountain out of Mamdani's open socialism, let's not forget the Gavin Newsomes and Eric Adams and Brandon Johnsons (who always struck me as looking like an evil Geordi La Forge, by the way) of the world, who rule over the ruins of once-great places using the same basic ideas, but which they hide behind populist rhetoric.
That was elegant and accurate. Could not agree more. Question - If NYC goes off the rails, do you think Stefanik might have a better chance in the NY governor’s race?
No idea, but if the average citizen of New York state is anything like the guys I worked with Bedford Hills, that place is gonna be dysfunctional till Judgment Day.
Edward O. Wilson, an award-winning entomologist who specialized in the social behavior of ants, said, “Karl Marx was correct: he just applied his theory to the wrong species.”
Socialism/Communism can be disproven by the simple fact that a three-year old very well understands the concept of "mine".
Looking at the choices for NYC mayor really tells me that nobody of any sort of quality or intelligence actually wants this job
Because they have quality and/or intelligence. Perhaps it's the only political seat where the graft is outweighed by the various downsides.
The mayor gets a lot of flack for the BS coming from the city council that really drives a lot of the NYC dysfunction nowadays, there’s truly not much upside
Update: I decided to return the AMG S 63 Coupe to CarMax. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, and it had also had a terrible re-spray on the front bumper that was already peeling and that CarMax deemed as "meeting their standards." I'm out the transport fee from getting the car here, but that's not a huge deal.
Next step: maybe an AMG S 65 Coupe, at some point in the future. But I'm prioritizing other things at the moment, and $70K is a lot to spend for a decade-old German flagship, even with a V12.
I also turned in the Escalade IQ after two weeks of Cadillac having my Lyriq, and will post a pretty thorough review of the former on Substack; look for it soon.
And, finally, the 2005 Phaeton is being weird, because of course it is. When I go to start it, sometimes, it will refuse to acknowledge I'm trying to crank the engine. It will turn on and off just fine, but won't even attempt to crank the engine. This seemed to coincide with car washes or heavy rain, so I'd thought that maybe the sunroof drains were clogged and were letting the KESSY control module under the floorboards flood. But it sat in the sun for three days and still wouldn't start, causing it to need a tow to the specialist. And, surprise, surprise, it started right up and drove off the tow truck under its own power. And also, my VW/Audi specialist informed me that he was booked out until mid-July, so I had to go and pick up the car, anyway. It now sits in the garage, and I'm nervous to drive it in case it refuses to start. I know it's not the brake switch, because you need to press the brake to shift it into neutral for a tow, and it recognizes that just fine. It could be the ignition switch itself, the KESSY unit, or--frankly--anything in between. It could still be that water and corrosion are the issue. But intermittent issues are irritating.
---
As far as purchasing cars goes:
One of my favorite purchasing tactics is when I actually let a dealer find me a loan, and then they try to do tied financing. "Well, your rate is [x], but Toyota really wants you to get the warranty on this new Venza, so if you do, we can lower the rate to [x - y]." In essence, they are agreeing to buy down the loan a bit if I take a warranty, which is higher profit for them. Instead of pointing out how wrong and potentially illegal tied financing is, I just smile, take the lower rate, and then cancel the warranty for a full refund against the balance of the loan. I'm sure it pisses them off, but I don't care.
One area in which I really struggle when I buy older (10+ year-old cars) is being impatient about finding the right car, and settling for something I don't want or that's available. Especially if the car is rare, and especially if I miss out on a better instance of that car earlier. Another thing I'll do is put a ton of money into a car, and then not be satisfied with how it turned out or the experience of it, and sell it at a loss. To wit, when I mentioned tuning my '17 Q7 (which is long gone), my boyfriend said, "Right on! The next owner will sure enjoy that!"
For an example of both bad behaviors, back in October of 2023, there was a 2008 Lexus LS 600h L in Tulsa, and I specifically remember wanting to look at it after we had our meetup there. That one was a gorgeous Jade Green Metallic, had relatively low miles, and--crucially--had had the hybrid traction battery replaced. Well, when I called to inquire about it, they said someone had actually put a deposit on it from the East Coast, and was coming to take a look at it.
Cue me finding an example in Detroit that had more miles, was in Starfire Pearl White (white is almost never my favorite color), and questionable history. But I didn't care. I rushed out and bought it for $11,000...despite the fact that when I got there, the chrome wheels were corroded, the leather was more worn than I'd liked, and the engine seemed to start up a lot more than it should. I'd neglected to check the Lexus Owner's Portal, which will let you input the VIN of any car as though it's yours and instantly see all the dealer visits it's ever had, in detail, including diagnostics for failing components. I also neglected to get the Dr. Prius app and a compatible OBD2 reader, which would have let me test the traction battery, on the spot.
Sure enough, it had a failing traction battery.
$4,200 later, I had a refurbished traction battery from Greentec--great people, btw--and then it was another $1,000 for a replacement set of alloys, in the much more attractive satin silver, 5-spoke format. Plus $500 for a GROM that brought integrated CarPlay to the OEM infotainment system. And $1,000 for a new air strut (the prior one had a leaking damper for the variable damping function) and another $800 for aftermarket control arms.
And then I still didn't like it, didn't think it got the fuel economy that it should have, and wound up selling it for $10,000 on the LR4, which was a nightmare of its own (naturally).
So, here's to new patterns and not doing that from here on out.
Zee Germans could over-complicate a free weekend stay at the Playboy Mansion, so my advice is to skip the old Benzes.
"A cheap Mercedes will always be the most expen$ive car you ever buy" .
-Nate
I mean, it had the CarMax warranty and would’ve been covered to 125,000 miles (with 55K on the ODO); it was just still not worth what the car cost in exchange for how much fun it was(n’t).
I feel you ~ as long as it's fun, no worries .
Once you begin to not like or actively dislike it, time to let it go .
-Nate
You are not alone in this pattern...it's the story of my life buying "fun" cars. Sometimes I do ok; more frequently I lose my ass, your ass, her ass, the dog's ass, etc. My wife says the same thing your fella does..."that didn't last long, I'm sure the buyer will enjoy it." I've definitely jumped on a not great older car just because I want that model and it's hard to find a better one. Oh well.
Nothing compares to actually restoring a car for ass-losing, though. My 1974 Dart Sport, purchased as a partially completed project, was my biggest cash sinkhole ever. I actually sold a fair number of hard-earned Deferred Stock Units to finish that car, which from the perspective of [the current year] was a massively stupid move.
Yet the siren song of Facebook Marketplace calls...there's always another car I want. Much like my romantic life, the next bad decision is just around the corner.
I never buy a car expecting to make money, or break even, or whatever else.
I do have a problem where I buy a nice example of something and then hyper-fixate on making it into this perfect overly nice example. Usually this involves countless hours of hunting down parts on eBay and Facebook.
The end result is typically something I have too much money in and is too nice to use as intended. I’ve done this with everything from an RC car to real cars.
I'm similarly afflicted, do you think novel pharmaceutical "Autizplexa" might address the root cause of this condition?
I only suggest this because it happened to me recently, but the lead wire for my Mustang’s starter failed where it attached to the solenoid, and the car had the same problems you’re describing in the Phaeton.
Intermittent start failure, with totally normal starting behavior once service resumed.
That could very well be the problem.
I’m likely way behind on your car ownership saga… but what happened to the ES?
"...and, like every suburban kid from every Rush song, wanted to tear it down."
"Subdivisions" is my favorite Rush song but I HATE the message, and every time I listen to it I think, "You punks just don't get how good you have it." Despite the flak it takes from the disaffected malcontents, the upper-middle-class American suburb is actually the apex of human civilization.
Chesterton's Fence, folks. Don't tear down that fence without knowing WHY it's there in the first place.
Chesterton's Subdivision
What about Chesterton's Homeowners' Association?
Every rose has its thorn!
HOAs and generally speaking neighborhood Karens are one of the funniest First World Problems ever. Not to say they can’t be incredibly dangerous but you don’t get HOA demerits in Sudan or Bangladesh
My neighbor behind my house is a dear friend and also an embroidery customer (he's a ritual scribe and I personalize prayer shawl bags and the like). Last fall, he complained about the smell from my cannabis plants, concerned that there might be health issues for his kids and grandkids. (Note: It's a completely legal grow, 12 plants, the legal limit, inside a locked fenced enclosure). I tried explaining that I'm allergic to lilacs but I'm not going to tell a neighbor that they can't grow them because they annoy me. "But have you done the research?" "Yes. The cannabinoids aren't volatile and in any case they aren't psychoactive unless decarboxylated with heat first. What you're smelling are terpines and those aren't psychoactive, they just affect flavor and smell." "But have you done the research?"
If called Chesterton's Householder Guild, the great man might have tolerated it.
And everyone thought I was crazy for buying a house in The Ghetto......
-Nate
Is it like that part in "Big," where Tom Hanks is watching an action movie the first night in his city apartment and there are gunshots, sirens and screaming. Then he looks around, turns off the movie and the gunshots, sirens & screaming keep going?
Just so ;
I came here in the Fall of 1970 and back then L.A. was _very_ spread out and cheap, mostly quiet, even the 'bad parts' .
Yes, I could tell scary stories of guys with BIG fucking "Dirty Harry" (.357) revolvers and so on but that's not the essence of living here .
Mostly The Ghetto is a quiet place where residents keep their heads down and try to work and raise up families .
This of course sounds boring because it is . so the news and general media tend to "punch it up" to sell more .
-Nate
That’s one thing that’s always blown my mind about LA. The “bad” parts don’t look like they do anywhere else that I know of.
There you go!
I never got the Rage Against the Machine 'tear it down' vibe from 'Subdivisions'. To me it speaks only of despair.
It's about not belonging, which is something to which I could relate at the time, but it's a fundamentally infantile song. Having a family and raising them in a safe place is not selling your dreams for small desires. It’s the only dream that lasts.
I have a hard time listening to John Mellencamp's Little Pink Houses, Jackson Browne's The Pretender, and Was Not Was' In KMart Wardrobe without thinking that the songwriters are making fun of me.
I remember listening to WNW's Are You OK? album and thinking, wait, I shop at KMart.
It is a funky tune, though.
David Weiss is the brother of a good friend's wife and grew up in the same suburb where I currently live. Their dad, Rube Weiss, was one of Soupy Sales' original sidekicks and played Santa in the Hudson's Thanksgiving Day parade. Don Fagenson is from the family that owned Faygo. My guess is that they didn't get their first guitars in pawn shops, or KMart.
I have a hard time listening to John Mellencamp PERIOD.
Or really ANY of what I call "Schlunk Rock," which is rich musicians cosplaying truck drivers, union factory guys, farmers and any other blue-collar men they wouldn't be causght dead actually living like.
I'm biased because I'm a Detroiter, but Bob Seger actually comes from a working class background. His father worked as a lab tech for Ford.
Seger gets VIP credentials to the Detroit auto show media preview, where I've met and spoken with him. The last time he was there he was looking at a Jeep Rubicon for his daughter. Yeah, he has a McLaren at home but I think he's still pretty down to earth.
When he was criticized for licensing Like A Rock for Chevy trucks he said, paraphrasing, "A lot of those guys working in Chevy factories buy my records. If I can help them sell some trucks, that's fine."
From what I've read, I think I'd rather work for Seger than "The Boss," though Bob's longtime bass player, Chris Campbell, sued him for royalties, and Seger's companies countersued. It looks like there was an out of court settlement.
Bruce sold his soul to the Democrats a long time ago.
The rich look down upon us from on high and because they don't understand what they're seeing (and don't really care) they make shit up about how terrible it all must be.
I grew up poor. But I wouldn't go back and change a thing. I had a fantastic childhood. Probably because we didn't know we were poor. We didn't act like the 'poor' you see in movies or the losers who are poor because they're assholes and idiots and shit where they sleep.
However, because the losers are more visible (we had a family of them on our street I think only 1 of the kids is still alive because he's probably still in prison), that's what the 'rich' folks see. So that's what they imagine life is like for everyone. And hence the condensation and the BS.
(As a side note: In the 60's the rich didn't self-segregate from the poor, yes their neighborhoods were nicer, but all of the kids went to the same school system - I knew kids whose parents were famous, powerful, and quite wealthy - yet we all hung out together and treated each other the same. As long as you had manners, the parents didn't care if your folks were poor or not).
KMart was a national treasure*, but for clothes, I'm with the Babbit brothers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fE0KiunvTs
* And much of its demise was the result of a badly-executed IT (inventory) system compared to its competitors.
I remember reading how Walmart in Bentonville knows when a single tube of toothpaste is sold in one of their stores in Japan.
I still can't figure out how Sears, which more or less invented online sales in the 19th century, using the internet of the day, the U.S. Mail, managed to screw up the transition to the internet. Yeah, I know, some corporate raider gutted Sears, but still they were positioned far better than most brick and mortar retailers. Order online, pick it up at the store.
While I'm ranting, how come Grainger's doesn't have after hours pickup lockers outside their stores? A lot of the folks "who get things done" are busy during the hours that Grainger stores are open. I think the local store closes at 4PM.
Why do junkyards in my area keep banker's hours?
Why do scrap dealers charge new-in-box prices for bits of their mountain of trash?
The only WNW song I know is “Walk The Dinosaur.” Probably because that was the only song that got airplay during my college years, when I didn’t have a tape deck in the car for my commute.
One-hit wonder, to be sure.
I feel better than James Brown.
I feel better now.
Oh my, you have it all wrong, Jack.
It’s the teens who are going out into the city lit up like fireflies searching for the action that end up selling their dreams for small desires, not their parents who moved to the suburbs.
That’s about teen pregnancy ruining your life. Or drug addiction. It’s about making a bad choice in the search for some strange that fucks you for life.
Now, about the car sales biz, while I absolutely adore “Used Cars” and believe it is one of the greatest movies ever made, if you really want to know what automotive retail is like, you need to find the film “Suckers”, THAT movie is damn near a documentary about my previous life as an auto sales consultant. Every thing in that movie really happened to either me, or a co-worker.
We need to have a deep dive into the “end of the car business” as a topic soon.
Now, pardon me as I fire up “Red Barchetta” and go for a drive.
What is the name of the fictional car salesman in “Don’t Get Taken..?!” I have the book, but I’m too lazy to find it. I remember him being portrayed as a consummate sleazebucket! I do remember the author constantly referring to Frank Sinatra/Sammy Davis, Jr., et. al. songs in the book. Probably an aficionado of supper clubs and their various and sundry accoutrements, such as surf & turf, much like our own Mr. Klockau.
I also have “Drive It Forever,” written by a guy who took a cross-country road trip in a 1983 Ciera V6 with his wife, in order to see what the state of car repair was at the time. He did so by eyeing a service station or other repair shop, then would sneak down the street, pull a plug wire, and just let it sit and short against the block while he pulled into the repair shop and asked if they could help, and what the problem was. The pile of parts he collected, everything up to and including a remanufactured transmission, was eye-opening! All that was wrong was a disconnected spark plug wire!
The book didn’t detail the trip—there was an article in “Reader’s Digest” that had that travelogue. At least in THAT day, they could still get parts which presumably WORKED out of the box!
The sleazy salesman is named “Killer.” Don’t remember a last name.
So how about THIS for a future article topic: Why did the whole Sex, Drugs & Rock n' Roll thing take over popular music, and why does pop music cater so slavishly to The Young and The Disaffected?
teenage boomer rebellion against entirely satisfactory (by todays standards especially) lifestyles in exchange for hedonism with a safety net
Because nobody ever went broke trading on teenage angst.
Teenage angst?
Read this:
https://paulgraham.com/nerds.html
what a nerd
I live right down the street and am social acquaintances with the lead singer Tim from Rise Against. He lives in the least punk place imaginable, a little updated farmhouse style place worth maybe $900k on a nice street in a very nice suburb. Drives an Audi SQ8. Like okay man, at what point are you what you’re Rising Against?
How angry can a 46 year old vegetarian be?
If i never ate a steak, id be pretty angry
Rightfully so .
Cows _are_ vegetables, they eat grass right ? .
-Nate
Sounds just like raised-in-Libertyville IL faux-ragist Tom Morello.
I don’t mind people enjoying their success, just don’t fucking lecture me about anything.
I don't see Morello giving up the standard 7-12% of wholesale he's likely getting from Fender for his signature guitar, which retails for about $1,400.
My favorite signature guitar is the Paul Westerberg First Act. He was on tour and at a big box store buying shampoo or something and noticed a FA ME501 guitar on sale. On a whim, he bought it and used it at the sound check that day and dug the guitar, which he stripped down to a single bridge pickup. At the time, First Act was also operating a custom shop near Boston staffed by former Gibson luthiers, making custom guitars for prominent musicians and also designing a line of decent, guitar shop quality imports that were sold through the Boston store, besides their cheap stuff in the big box stores. They heard about Westerberg using one of their production guitars and approached him about a signature model. I don't know whether it was Westerberg's idea or not, but those guitars were sold through big box stores at very affordable prices.
Martin just came out with a Billy Strings signature guitar. There are actually two. The 3k one for Boomers and the $800 one that Billy wanted for pickers just starting out. Billy seems like a stand up guy compared to Morello.
Billy Strings worked with a couple of guitar companies to supply guitars to every one of the 208 kids in the elementary school he attended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly7pOiWW3yI
https://www.jambase.com/article/billy-strings-donates-guitars-elementary-school
My favorite part of his interview with Rick Beato is the obvious love he has for his stepfather, who taught him some chords as a four year old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlzuPGQNahc
I saw him play a few years back at Peter "Madcat" Ruth's 70th birthday party, with many world-class musicians and he blew the house away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXh76moXHPo
Love the Westerberg story. Big fan of the replacements in college and still enjoy their music. First time I saw them they were playing at the student center at my SEC school in around 87-88. All the stories you hear are true, the first 20-30 minutes of the show were band members coming up on stage asking "where Paul was"....."Paul we are ready to start the show" etc. Once he showed up on stage way more than half drunk, they played a great show.
Yes, the "nobody understands me!" whine of the mysterious, misunderstood Raven, 16-year-old Master of the Night.
"I want to be different... just like all the other kids."
Said every Harley rider.
I've done embroidery work for three-patch M/Cs. They were always buying extra custom patches to put on the front if their "cut". An M/Cs vest, though, is just another uniform and one of the definitions of that word is "all the same."
And who is not even Master of His Domain.
Who was the first character in “Seinfeld” to give in? Kramer or George? Too lazy to Google it.
WIKI says it was Kramer, of course just minutes after affirming the bet. Elaine was next to lose after meeting and fantasizing about JFK, Jr.
in all but physical form i am a wolf
awoo
Then you clearly need this shirt. Read the reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Mens-Three-Short-Sleeve/dp/B000NZW3JS/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_i?th=1
A True Classic!!
“The Radical is my last and only “nice car”’
I feel like you and I have very different views of “nice.”
The F250 Platty and the 6.4 Chrysler aren’t “nice”? In what world!?
The Platty is nice now but unlike most owners I wont replace it with a new Platty. 15 years from now it will still be here, with 250,000 miles and not a clean panel in sight!
I love my Chrysler but it comes off to the general public as "hoodrat ex-rental, Carvana value $4,999".
Actual neighbor reactions to cars I rolled home in: '78 Toronado. Older lady sadly shook her head like I had personally disappointed her and then wagged her finger at me.
'89 Jag XJS with LT1 swap: different neighbor came over yelling that this wasn't a drag strip and made not so veiled threats of physical violence.
For a brief period both cars were in the driveway at the same time...creating a Lansing / Coventry portal to the underworld.
I think mine have finally accepted the inevitable. They probably cringe when the tow truck arrives with the newest purchase but I'm usually kind enough to have it dropped in the garage first
Your neighbors sound nice.
Not.
Morons who probably think a frickin' CR-V is bee-you-tiful! :/
At least half of my “new cars” seem to arrive via trailer and get pushed up the driveway. The one neighbor finds it funny, the others probably not so much.
Semantics!
In the ephemeral nature of The Current Age, does it matter at all if something won’t be “nice” a lifetime from now if it’s very nice today?
And any good chop shop/thief/urban entrepreneur knows your Chrysler is worth nearly ten times that number!
I am now reminded of the Rivian I saw with ladder racks, the 2nd gen Escalade I’ve seen pulling landscaping trailers, and the 2013ish F250 Lariat with an 8ft utility bed, re: your Platinum’s fate 15 years from now. I appreciate how age humbles us all.
God knows it is humbling me.
I’m not poor but sure feel like it driving around.
It’s why this will always be one of my favorite car ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zobUe1O8Ckk
It is really all about the front, and it’s even better when people are too dense to realize they used it wrong…
Give it another couple of decades. The other night, when I woke up for the second or third time to urinate, I smelled charred hot dog. I had made two for a late meal, and forgot that I left one of them in the pot on a low heat.
This will never happen to me. If I have to cook for myself I will simply sit down and die.
I enjoy cooking but then I worked in a chemistry lab for over 20 years. Cooking is just practical chemistry. Hell, I even made real mac & cheese a couple of weeks ago. A lot of cooking has to do with making emulsions, getting stuff to mix that doesn't really want to mix. Baked potatoes taste good because the sugars start to caramelize.
A couple Sunday’s ago I put on some sugar in water to dissolve for the hummingbirds. I forgot it until there was black smoke rolling in the kitchen. Only time in a decade when I’ve done that.
Badly burned sugar is actually pretty interesting and it scrubbed out of the all clad pot a lot easier than I thought it would.
You do not want to be burned by burning sugar. It's like dropping burning plastic on your skin.
My kitchen timer is the smoke alarm!
That's thinking like a rich man!
Just like using your brand-new, fully-optioned Yukon Denali XL or Escalade ESV to haul horse trailers out at The Property and never washing the damned thing.
Not just the general public Jack, just sayin.
To be explicit, 75% of the reason I bought it was BECAUSE it's disreputable.
Jack wearing a fur coat with a walking stick
And spats ? .
-Nate
Jack? Spectator wingtips, surely.
"Buc Nasty, what could I say about that suit that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan? It looks bombed-out and depleted."
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Most Platty owners won't replace it with a new one because they still aren't producing them them in the numbers they used to.
"Watch out, Marshall Lucky, it's high prices!"
Seeing that image made my day. File that under movies you can't make anymore.
When he shoots Squiggy and says "Jesus Christ", I almost pissed myself.
Same! Blew my mind watching it for the first time as an 8 year old. Watched it recently with my wife, it is still quite entertaining.
AND when Fuchs kicks in his TV!
I die when they load Luke up in the Edsel and are dousing him in gasoline. "Oooooh shit he smells".
Watching it again tonight. “That’s TOO FUCKIN’ HIGH!”
A friend of mine has a VHS copy of "Used Cars," autographed by Kurt Russell.
Watch out for red cars, too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2iT4iVj7uM
I own the Blue Ray. It is the quintessential 70’s movie. When they broke into the Carter speech and afterward the Secret Service shows up and the guy says that some radicals did it and they were screaming “Ayatollah, Ayatollah” cracked me up then and seems somehow timely today.
Is that “Used Cars,” as implied by @Ice Age?
Yes.
I find it ironic Mamdani went to Bronx Science through the testing pathway and he wants to eliminate that as it benefits too many Asians lol. I went to college with these nyc elite hs kids and they’re the sons of cabbies, chinese restaurant chefs and the nyc working class strivers. They mostly came from little, butI guess they’re privileged in some way. Me thinks he’s pulling up that ladder..
The dem establishment deserves him though. How the hell do you let Cuomo be the front runner?! The Mamdani takedown of him at the last debate was effective and could have been done by a college kid. In reality it should have been done in private and months earlier and they should have found a more acceptable candidate.
I share an ethnic heritage with Mamdani, but not a religious one. It’s telling to me he only falls back on the latter. If you look closely at who his mother is and her family background it’s evident he comes from great privilege. If he is to be discredited, someone should really follow the money. CAIR and gov of Qatar are likely very close. Surprisingly enough he did an interview on Pakistani tv a couple of weeks ago as well. Weird thing for a mayoral candidate to do, even weirder when both his parents are of Indian heritage…
As for car prices. I got a $78k msrp 2025 MB E450 for that otd oct 2024. There was one car in the area in the colors I wanted and I got it on a free day. There’s a jackass on the MB forums who says I should have gotten 10k off. Who knows.
No matter WHAT deal you get, some anon online did better. Or he will go on a rant about how everyone knows "X" is worthless and how you paid too much.
It's what some of these people have instead of lives.
Someone, a car dealer I believe, once pointed out that people who didn't negotiate and paid MSRP for a car were usually a lot happier with their purchase, and would recommend the dealer to their friends & family members.
The chiselers, the ones who seemingly wanted a DEAL more than they wanted a CAR, were almost invariably miserable individuals who complained about everything and were never happy with their purchase.
A car salesman friend of mine summed it up nicely. He asked, “Did you get the car you wanted at a price you thought was fair? If so, be happy and enjoy it.” I have bought over sixty cars in my fifty-two years of driving and this has become my mantra when purchasing.
Joe Girard once sold over 1,400 cars in a year at Merollis Chevrolet in Detroit. In 2017 Ali Reda sold over 1,500 cars at Les Stanford Chevy, in Dearborn. They did that by treating so many customers fairly that they ended up selling cars to those customers' grandkids. Reda's accomplishment is pretty impressive since people don't replace cars every three years like they did when Girard was selling. Pretty sure Reda built up a clientele of Arabic speakers.
Girard's published three books on selling, How To Sell Yourself, How To Sell Anything to Anybody, and How To Close Every Sale.
https://www.joegirard.com/books/
Jack mentioned that the one driver was Joe Cauley, the son of a Detroit-area Ferrari dealer. Would that be Jim Cauley? I seem to remember that name on a list of dealerships.
Do you know offhand if Roy O’Brien Ford is still at Nine Mile and Mack in The Shores? (Also, is there still a Cadillac dealer just north of the I-94 surface drive? Used to be McGlone back in the day.)
I live on the west side of town but the last time I was at Nine Mile and Mack, within the last year, Roy O’Brian Ford was still there. I’d love it someone released a compilation of ‘60s era Detroit radio and tv jingles.
This really swings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa0WsxWACuc
Not Detroit specific, but from the same era:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prVRwXAWFeA
Cauley closed in like 08-09. Them and Audette Cadillac next door. We used to hot shot GMAC lease returns from there to the Copart yard in Woodhaven.
The Ferrari dealership moved into the former Chevrolet dealership. Audette and the original Ferrari buildings were torn down for a new Ferrari dealership. Then the Chevrolet building was torn down and is going to be apartments or something.
Before Cauley was the Ferrari franchisee in Detroit, we had Sportiva in Dearborn. There’s a picture of me as a kid sitting on the fender of an LM002 in the early 90s. One of my first car memories is that and seeing a 250TR there. IIRC, Sportiva also had something to do with racing F40s.
My grandpa said much the same thing. I'll detail my best purchase in a separate post but it didn't involve any negotiation on my part. I hate the aspect of fighting it out at the dealership so I'll search for the best deal upfront and go from there. The last new car I purchased was done over the phone. I flew to OKC with a bank check and the loan paperwork already completed at my credit union. Of course the F&I guy still wanted me to purchase his extended warranty. So much so that he swore he was actually losing money on it. I laughed at that...
I actually originally paid $80k flat for it otd and I guess they over charged me on taxes so they refunded me $1800 They sent me a check in the mail without telling me which of course felt like a windfall lol
This sounds like something a car dealer would say.
We chiselers want the bargain and the car!
My favorite line about car dealers from a friend of mine:
“They lie to you, so you lie to them”.
Years ago a former new car dealer in the little town where my in-laws lived had the mantra that ‘You have to screw your friends because your enemies won’t do business with you.’
I’ll say it because I haven’t seen anybody else say it yet but….don’t mess with the Zorhan!
"Surprisingly enough he did an interview on Pakistani tv a couple of weeks ago as well. Weird thing for a mayoral candidate to do, even weirder when both his parents are of Indian heritage…"
He thinks communicating with Pakistani Muslims is important for the mayor of NYC but bristled at the notion of visiting Israel.
Did you see how his victory party was almost entirely made up of people of pallor? The only group he did well with was college educated (?) white folks. Cuomo did better with Hispanics and Blacks and white folks whose brains haven't been warped in the indoctrination factories we call universities.
"but bristled at the notion of visiting Israel"
To be fair, I think anyone running for office in *America* should have this reaction. I'm a first gen immigrant and it drives me up the wall at how many "fellow immigrants" still have very overt allegience to their home country. Perhaps the #1 problem facing the country in my opinion. Non-assimilation or whatever you want to call this fence-sitting. No dual-citizens in office especially.
I don’t have a problem with mayors or governors making trade missions but I do think it’s silly to ask primary candidates for local elections questions about international geopolitics. My point was Mamdani’s obvious bias.
BTW, if you ask why Jews like Jerry Nadler would endorse him, at any one time somewhere between 5% and 20% of Jews are hostile to other Jews, Judaism, and Jewish interests, and that’s putting aside those who are self-serving contrary to the interests of the larger community. There were Kapos in the camps and Judenrats filled with collaborators. Some of the worst Jew-haters in history have been renegade and apostate Jews.
weird how whites are voting for him despite not appearing to give them any deference
"The dem establishment deserves him though. How the hell do you let Cuomo be the front runner?!"
The Dem establishment is an absolutely feckless institution, with no idea how to operate. They have failed to evolve in any meaningful way over the past decade as a proper answer to the GOP that's built in Trump's image.
It is why you see them trot out the likes of noted sex pest Cuomo, Clinton, Biden, etc. Just these ancient lizards sunning themselves on the rock of stagnation. To hell with the lot of them!
It's ALSO why people like Mamdani, AOC, Bernie Sanders and the like get a lot of traction and have somehwat of an actual following. They ARE exciting. They ARE answering right-wing populism with a left-wing version of it. You can debate the merits of their policies, but something like 62% of registered Democrats feel that Dem leadership must change. This is the direct result of their staunch refusal to address any of it.
The dems do deserve him. Unfortunately, he's apt to get elected and if even 20% of what he espouses gets passed, we'll all take it in the shorts when DC comes trotting in to save NYC from their own whims
We can only hope. Accelerate.
Or this is the change. The essential devolution of Democrats to their now core instincts.
So you got a (slight) discount on a current model year car when quite early in said model year? How is that bad? It's not an EV.
No I think I did fine. It was a good deal considering the ratio of 4 bangers to I6 cars and the fact it was a 2025 bought when 2024 were still on the lot
how do you like your w214 e450? I really like the looks of the car, don't like the all touchscreen interior and passenger screen etc. Also concerned about the hybrid aspects and all the complexity. This coming from someone who grew up in a classic mercedes household 70-80-90's era etc. and regret selling my w212 e400. Really like the looks and performance of the e450 wagon, but worried about reliability.
The drive is great. It’s comfortable, quiet and very fast.
The large middle screen is great for navigation and the voice controls work well but it needs more hard point buttons. I fear when the screen dies
I didn’t get the passenger screen and avoided cars that had it.