61–70 of 88 posts
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That's slightly better I guess (though at driver in the article claimed otherwise), but the driver is still under the expectation that their vehicle will start when they turn the key. What happens when the car won't turn on in an emergency?
Is that any different from the car not being there because it's been repossessed?
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That's slightly better I guess (though at driver in the article claimed otherwise), but the driver is still under the expectation that their vehicle will start when they turn the key. What happens when the car won't turn on in an emergency?
Is that any different from the car not being there because it's been repossessed?
At least 10 years ago, a friend forgot where he parked his car in the Airport parking lot after a long trip. When he went to the booth embarrassed to tell them this, they said it was no big deal and did a quick tap-tap-tap on the keyboard using his license plate number to determine its exact location. They apparently scanned all the license plates in all their lots twice a day.
In 2001 my car was towed from LAX parking lot because they checked the plate (they told me they scan all plates daily) and it came back as registered to a different make. Turns out the dealer made a single-letter mistake in VIN when registering the car with DMV, and there is no check digit to reject invalid VINs.
I honestly don’t get why anyone goes in to debt to buy a car in this day and age. You can buy a car (or truck) for $3000 that will last several years without requiring any huge mechanic bills or exotic maintenance - heck, I’ve done it. I would much rather take the bus/bike/walk and save up $500/mo for 6 months to be a free man than buy or lease a car for $500/mo and be a space to my creditors. Besides, hoopties can b…
All this isn't so bad if you've been lucky enough to live at a low wage and not run into any major issues, but this is pretty rare.
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I will be in need of a car soon. I don't drive much but just need something that works and is safe. Do you have any tips on how you find your $3000 cars? Are you a car guy?
My general approach is to look at craigslist (one example query: https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=used+car&sor... ) to get a sense of the market. Spend a little while (maybe a week) checking in on a search like that to get a sense of the market. Once you feel like you've got a sense of what "normal" prices are for cars in your price range, get a consumer reports subscription†. Use CR to evaluate the ma…
CL now allows you to search by 'Owner' listings and eliminate dealers completely. Do that. If you're looking for a $3000 car, you don't want to touch the dealer realm, it'll be filled with straight trash.
> Once you feel like you've got a sense of what "normal" prices are for cars in your price range, get a consumer reports subscription†.
Nah. If you're targeting a $3,000 vehicle you can very quickly figure out what fits your requirements & budget. Volvo 240s, anything late 80s - early 90s Toyota, early-mid 90s Ford Rangers, 1st & 2nd generation Geo Metros, etc. These are just the cars that I've personally owned and as a result dug into and researched. There are TONS of makes & models out there that are fantastic vehicles that will perform extremely well for years to come inside your $3,000 budget.
> Prefer cars that seem like they've been well-maintained over their life and prefer cars that come from people who have kept documentation of maintenance performed on the car.
Find older people who are getting rid of their "daily" driver for good. I've purchased at least 6 of these that looked like they traveled through time and rolled off the showroom floor that day. They're generally one owner (since they pulled them off the lot ~12 years ago and aren't going to own anything else), dealer maintained, gently driven, with minimal miles; and they just want it gone at a fair price.
Also, look at the photos. Is their coffee cup from that morning in the holder? Is the interior a mess? Looks like they needed new wipers 6+ months ago and definitely need to hose the thing down at a minimum? That's a bad owner. They don't care for their vehicle. That means they didn't do scheduled maintenance on it. If you list a car for sale without taking the hour to clear your shit out of it, hit it with a vacuum, and take it through an automatic car wash – they're not the seller you're looking for.
> Finally, no matter where you're considering buying from—dealer or individual—take the car to a mechanic for a pre-sale inspection. This is a common service most mechanics offer.
Also hit the community forums for the vehicle you're considering. They exist for every make & model out there, I assure you. They almost always have a "purchase checklist" type document published. Give that to the shop that's doing your inspection and make sure they hit those bullet points as well. Every make of vehicle will have its quirks that you want reviewed.
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Well, if people start buying the cheaper cars, it seems like a win for society, as there will be less people getting into debt. Seems like a win win to me.
The question is, how many $3,000 cars can we actually produce. At the moment, we do not actually produce any. Instead, we produce expensive cars, and a non-trivial amount of people then choice to sell their current car at a lower price then it cost to construct the car in the first place.
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Well, if people start buying the cheaper cars, it seems like a win for society, as there will be less people getting into debt. Seems like a win win to me.
On a societal level, we externalize most of the costs associated with auto crashes. I suspect that if we better rolled the true cost of injuries into the cost of car ownership (say, by increasing the minimum liability insurance to the cost of several statistical lives) the cheapest cars to own would be small and fairly new.
Would you rather crash in a smart car or a small SUV
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I will be in need of a car soon. I don't drive much but just need something that works and is safe. Do you have any tips on how you find your $3000 cars? Are you a car guy?
Just buy a Toyota Camry or Corolla, typically can't go wrong with those things so long as someone remembered to occasionally check the oil.
> The company’s goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns. That's horrifying. It reminds me of how social security numbers evolved from something narrow in purpose to something that can be used to track an individual's every detail. Now license plates are evolving into a tool that is used to build databases of every individual's movement.
That's how the mafia used to work. Watch people during their fun times. Reveal patterns, then extort them.
Wow, everything in this article is horrifying: > the rising deployment of remote engine cutoffs and GPS locators in cars Wait, so people can remotely track my car or turn it off? This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all. > The companyʼs goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns…“Itʼs kind of scary, but itʼs amazing,” said Alana Ferrante, chief executive of Rele…