Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
spdrun
ParticipantHow about Portland?
“People move to New York to be in media or finance; they move to L.A. to be in show business,” Renn said. “People move to Portland to move to Portland.”
(Article’s way too heavy-handedly stereotypical in the way the NY Times often is, but anyway…)
ParticipantFlyerInHi, because I’m a cheapskate’s cheapskate. $2500 “down” four years ago. Maybe $25-50 per month in repair costs in a bad year. Besides, I’m blue-collar at heart and actively enjoy grease monkeying. Did I mention that if I buy used, I own the car and can resell it as I please AND only carry liability insurance (no collision, UIM, or comp).
Plus, “driving” a Camry is a sleep-inducing experience. I’d prefer not to fall asleep from boredom, crash into a tree and die.
Screw the idea of paying a few hundred bucks a month for a car, or dropping cash that can be used on another property down payment. And no thanks to your creepy idea of having a car that phones home — will it send my location to DC too so they can tax me by mile and maintain a permanent record of whereabouts?
Maybe you’d feel more at home somewhere like Singapore?
Actually, given adequate charging stations, I wouldn’t mind a 100% electric car. But ideally one that’s simple and skips the Big Bro features. Something like an electric Miata or Tesla Roadster would be perfect.
Electric cars don’t emit smog and don’t have much to break that would reduce efficiency, so why on Earth would they need to phone home to Big Bro unless it’s just another means of controlling the sheeples’ lives?
ParticipantActually, setting all readiness indicators can take hours to days of driving.
ParticipantNot really. You can reset the ECU to clear codes. But all OBD readiness indicators have to be “ready” before you can pass emissions, which requires a certain length and type of drive cycle.
So basically, if you have a fault, you can repair it and clear it, but then you have to drive the car for a given distance to allow it to test itself.
Interestingly, the average age of a car registered in the US is 11.4 years now. It’s hit a plateau since 2009. People are actually keeping cars longer than ever. Despite Cash for Clunkers, Bernanke Bucks, and all that crapola designed to encourage them to spend like drunken sailors at a Port Said bordello.
ParticipantIt’s a lot easier to freelance in technical fields in a market that’s not saturated with techies like the Bay Area. (It may be easier to be a W-2 bendover bitch in the Bay Area, though.)
And no, it’s not illegal to be a freelance tech person unless you’re working on 1099 to a middleman. Direct 1099 relationships are perfectly legal, subject to the usual IRS tests.
And then you don’t have to work for a bunch of arseholes who dictate your entire life to you as if you were a kindergartener.
ParticipantPerfect project for auto shop classes, and as a parts donor for real school buses. Truck chassis probably has some parts commonality with some school bus, somewhere 🙂
Hey, it was free. Some mo govahment cheeze, if you puh-leeze.
ParticipantThe work unculture in SV is sickening. SD is more laid back. Do you really want to give your life and firstborn to a tech firm?
ParticipantNoisy is good — it makes you feel like you’re driving a machine, not a bloody Internet-connected sensory deprivation couch in a padded room on wheels. Most of the work can be DIY’ed if you have an IQ of over 75.
Parts are not a significant problem for 80s models, even oddballs like stick shift 220 and 240 diesels. Seriously, I have an older 240d and it just works for the most part. There’s very little to go wrong compared to modern cars.
Main seal is an issue since it’s an oddball rope type seal. You either live with it, or have it done once and it will last another 200k miles or so 🙂
ParticipantToo much money in it not to have duplicate bureaucracies. Someone is making money certifying the parts for CA use, not to mention selling the certified parts for an inflated price.
The ironic thing is that I actually see more smoky clunkers on the road in CA than around NYC. Not sure if safety inspection gets rid of the worst of the worst, or if they simply die due to rust before they can turn into smoking messes.
ParticipantWhat about the Northeast, New England or NJ/NYC? Still plenty of fork-lost (stick a fork in ’em, babeh! — owing to judicial foreclosure taking 3-4 years) properties that can be picked up relatively cheap, interesting people, good outdoor sports if you’re into them, generally intelligent and interesting people, sizable tech industry in Boston and around NYC.
Not as overheated and prone to bubble and bust as the Bay Area, either.
ParticipantBecause there’s a whole industry around visual inspections that would scream bloody murder if their gravy train were taken away? And also, lack of visual inspection would make circumvention easier.
ParticipantI actually doubt that smog (at least in CA) would be done wirelessly, as the bureaucrats would want to see the car. Otherwise, you could have a Prius with a 400 hp V-8 with no smog equipment shoehorned in back for all they know. Stock drivetrain would be 100% intact, of course.
Or for that matter a mobile app that’s pretending to be a car to the bureaucrats’ computers 🙂
Also: does CA do physical inspections for things like brake pads, tires, steering, and lights?
ParticipantUh, no….
VW also made diesels that were smog-exempt if that floats your boat…
ParticipantGet a pre-1997 diesel. Problem solved, no smog test required. And Mercedes made some damn nice cars in the early 90s that would last forever 🙂
-
AuthorPosts
