Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

I read all that, and found out form the shop they use that the recalibration is $175 or so, so with the $50 deductible a windshield on a car with tech is like $225 (plus the premium you paid up until that time). So if I pay $190/y, get a new windshield in year three, I've in essence paid $795.

The type of glass is a worry but I think it's still supposed to be whatever is needed for the car, just not OEM.

Of note, I don't know what vehicle you have, but I found the RR's "camera recalibration" process was basically drive the thing around for a few kilometers. I had to hook up a two-way diagnostic tool (a $129 ThinkDiag will do it), select the option to begin camera calibration, and then just drive it. The calibration exercise is to allow the image processing module to re-learn obstacle detection, road markings, and signage. $175 just to drive your vehicle around for ten minutes is lucrative, pay me and I'll do it.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by dammage79

In my humble opinion, it's Michelin or nothing when it comes to performance rubber. Pirelli comes in 2nd.

I put Michelin #1 with Contis a very very close #2. I won't touch Pirellis again after 3 experiments.

Really sticky to start, but wore crazy fast and were garbage toward the end of their life.

[photon]

Sold the Cadillac tonight. Bittersweet, the BMW is way more car, but the Cadillac was very distinctive. So long and thanks for all the zooms!


https://i.imgur.com/jB7PNYc.jpeg

[Acey]

I'm so sad they don't make a coupe anymore. Imagine a CT4-V Blackwing coupe with a manual... I'd give a kidney.

[Table 5]

Cool car for sure, but from a design perspective I could never get past the giant slab of side metal vs puny window ratio of that generation coupe.

[photon]

It's definitely a LOT easier to see out of the M440i vs the CTS Coupe, plus I can rest my arm by the window where in the CTS it was almost too high to do that comfortably.

EDIT: I guess that'd be my only complaint about the BMW.. it looks like a car. A nice car, but the CTS looks more exotic, less like a regular car. And complaint is far too strong a word, more if I could wave my magic wand I'd get an M4 look for the M440i price.

[Erick Estrada]

What color M440i if I may ask?

[photon]

Dravit grey. I was just super happy to find something not black or white (I mean I like black cars, I just don't like owning black cars). Shopping for used cars sucks everything is such boooooring colours cmon people.

Grey isn't my favourite, I like the arctic racing blue or the metallic red one.. or the orange I would have loved.

But this dravit grey is pretty cool, it's metallic and the metallic bits are kind of a gold/bronze, so the colour changes depending on the lighting conditions.. on a sunny day the car actually colour shifts from the grey to bronze/gold depending on the angle.

[Erick Estrada]

Dravit Grey and Skyscraper Grey are two of the more interesting greys out there in a sea of modern grey vehicles. Dravit looks Nardo grey in some lighting but has a golden hue that adds pop in direct sunlight.

[Fuzz]

It's primer grey.

[woob]

Originally Posted by photon

Sold the Cadillac tonight. Bittersweet, the BMW is way more car, but the Cadillac was very distinctive. So long and thanks for all the zooms!

Congrats on the sale, photon!
Soooo - how was the process? I'm about to list my 2014 GMC Sierra, and it'll probably draw a more general audience than your Caddy sale. But was it a slog? Any tips? Also, for payment and avoiding getting scammed, what did you ask for? Bank transfer before key/vehicle swap?

[photon]

Was pretty easy this time, there's only like 9 of them in all of Canada on Autotrader so I figured that helped reduce the nonsense to zero. My wife's Civic was waaaay more hassle. Didn't get much interest for a bit then had 2 people basically say they'll come and pick it up (from other areas of the province no less, there's no way I'd buy a vehicle private after driving a few hours and then taking it for a short test drive).

So can't provide much on tips other than make it look as nice as you can in the pictures.. I had it on Facebook and Autotrader and was starting to think about having to pay to promote the ads when I got contacted. All real interest came from Facebook, only contacts I got from Autotrader were scam attempts.

For payment what I did was say either cash or I also would accept a money order but we had to go to the bank together when they got it.. I guess you can also call a bank to verify the money order but I figured if I'm right there watching them get the money order in my name then that's about as good as it can get.. Also got their driver's license info (though I guess that could be easily faked).

I guess one other tip is it's easier to vet buyers a bit these days.. in both cases I was able to find their LinkedIn profile easily and their Facebook profiles looked real. Could even ask for that info before setting up an appointment to view.

If I felt at all a bit suspicious about a buyer when I sold the Civic I just met them at the Circle K near the house for the first viewing.

Alberta has a bill of sale you can print: https://www.alberta.ca/standard-bill-sale

So he test drove it, we went to the bank he got the money order, went home, signed the agreement and I took off my plate and gave him the keys.

EDIT: I also got the Carfax before so I could send it to anyone who asked.. and if someone sends you a link to a different car accident report site that's also a scam

[GioforPM]

A week or so ago I advertised a CRV with 260K on kijiji and a dying engine and got a ton of calls within a half hour, sold it in a day for pretty much asking price which was well above what I expected.

My hope is that they rebuilt the engine cheaper than I could have and picked up a little profit. My fear is that they tweaked it, turned off the check engine light that was active and sold it as a working vehicle (because it visually looked great).

I did get a carfax scammer emailing me as well.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Any opinions on buying a vehicle from the Driving Force? I've seen them pop up in some searches for a vehicle I'm looking for and didn't realize they sold too. Thought they just did rentals.

[curves2000]

Perhaps belongs in the gear grinder thread or here but the quality of aftermarket parts for cars has gone down the drain. A lot of OEM parts for some older cars are getting harder to find thus being forced for aftermarket. The aftermarket ones are poor quality even if you upgrade to the higher grade stuff.

In an ironic twist I purchased some quick assembled struts and paid $75 a strut more for the name brand, Monroe that are made in the USA. I get the box from Partsource and see they assembled in the USA.

Open up the box and the struts are stamped "Assembled in Mexico". Auto parts are now the new cocaine, smuggling them in! LOL

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Perhaps belongs in the gear grinder thread or here but the quality of aftermarket parts for cars has gone down the drain. A lot of OEM parts for some older cars are getting harder to find thus being forced for aftermarket. The aftermarket ones are poor quality even if you upgrade to the higher grade stuff.

In an ironic twist I purchased some quick assembled struts and paid $75 a strut more for the name brand, Monroe that are made in the USA. I get the box from Partsource and see they assembled in the USA.

Open up the box and the struts are stamped "Assembled in Mexico". Auto parts are now the new cocaine, smuggling them in! LOL

What happened?

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Wormius

What happened?

Just an overall degrade in quality and lack of factory quality parts. Had an absolute mint Toyota written off for minor damage due to parts availability last year. Insurance company got scared about having the car stuck at garage and wrote it off. These cars are literally everywhere and sourcing some body parts appears harder and harder.

Needed to replace some suspension components yet again on a Honda. Originals lasted forever but I have now gone through 2 of various "premium, lifetime warranty" items multiple times. Lifetime warranty is worthless, even the parts guy's say it's a scam.

The issue with the struts mentioned earlier on a Nissan, I found that one funny. I inquired about some filters last year and again this year on a specialty car . Cabin air filter is $170 and back ordered until September. Aftermarket filter is about as useless as can be.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Just an overall degrade in quality and lack of factory quality parts. Had an absolute mint Toyota written off for minor damage due to parts availability last year. Insurance company got scared about having the car stuck at garage and wrote it off. These cars are literally everywhere and sourcing some body parts appears harder and harder.

Needed to replace some suspension components yet again on a Honda. Originals lasted forever but I have now gone through 2 of various "premium, lifetime warranty" items multiple times. Lifetime warranty is worthless, even the parts guy's say it's a scam.

The issue with the struts mentioned earlier on a Nissan, I found that one funny. I inquired about some filters last year and again this year on a specialty car . Cabin air filter is $170 and back ordered until September. Aftermarket filter is about as useless as can be.

Did something happen with the new struts you bought? What was wrong with them?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Did something happen with the new struts you bought? What was wrong with them?

He made a comment on how nice of curves they had, and they bounced on him.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Did something happen with the new struts you bought? What was wrong with them?

Fingers crossed with the new struts but not the problem. I have had to replace some suspension components way earlier than needed, replacement parts are poorer quality and factory parts are either hard to come by, non existent or very hard to come by. Autobody shops are dealing with it, dealerships as well.

It's kind of an industry issue with more and more components coming from China which I understand but even the higher grade ones are not to the same degree as they should be. You see it more also with the lack of core charges on auto parts as it's cheaper to build things from scratch to lower standard than to rebuild existing things. Rebuild parts are still available but it's not the same degree.