Yeah, I've seen a ton of those "fuck it, we're making an access hatch" jobs. Friend of mine did one on his old 911, and people thought he was nuts. I thought it was genius.
I think they still sell hatch kits for 4th gens, but I'd rather not butcher up a box stock 26 year old car to save a few dollars. If it was a modified car, I'd probably do it though.
Basically the same thing, but there was a generation of F150's that had an access hatch for the heater core on the fire wall, book time was fuck all for those. Now? Almost seems like a minimum of 8 hours. I think it was our newer Colorado's that almost has a book time of 16 hours to replace the heater core.
The collector market is just now starting to pay attention to 4th gens and unmolested examples are pretty tough to find. The only real mod to it is the stereo system and speakers, everything else I added were factory options.
Finally got the car back today. I learned something in my 4 days of taking Uber to and from work: A lot of cars much newer than mine are in much worse condition. There were a couple of the cars I actually wondered if they were going to make it with their transmissions slipping, the rattles they made, the brakes grinding and the cars shuddering as they went down the highway. It reminded me why I put money into mine instead of getting something else, she's old but she's rock solid.
I know we've talked about the stupid used car market we're in, but I have another shitty example. My brother likes to get my opinion on vehicles, he sent me the ad for a '18 Titan, he wants to replace his 2013 Chevy 2500. I have one of these, bought it new in 2017. I knew right off that the asking price was at least close to original MSRP. I was wrong, it is $2000 above original MSRP for a four year old truck. That's fucking stupid.
I guess it's also fucking stupid that I looked at that price and immediately thought "Huh, that looks like a decent price"
I agree. At first glance, it's a decent deal when compared to new Titans, which haven't seen any major design updates since 2017. I'd hate to be shopping late model vehicles right now.
Any of you guys read what Ford did yesterday? All EV sales are now going through Ford and not there dealers. Guess they have had enough bad press about there dealers charging HUGE fucking markups on there F150 lightening's.
Good. The whole dealership model needs to die a long-overdue death. Luckily the last time I had to go to a dealership to buy a car, I was working at a company that had a special pricing arrangement with the manufacturer and they basically had to offer me the car I wanted at a pre-negotiated price so I was in and out in less than an hour. When this thing eventually runs into the ground, I guess I'll have to look at the F150 Lightning.
The US market gets the PRO model, which is basically an XL with a few fancy things, for like 40k. I wished we got that in Canada.
It's a version of an EV that I would actually consider at this time. Wife's Element has nearly 200k miles, be nice to replace it with something like a Lightning and keep my ICE truck for towing and long range driving. I read an article that range was reduced by about 50% towing a 23' airstream. Which just wouldn't work for our road trips.
From what i have read it gets reduced as much as ICE engines which makes sense, but then you have the charging times every so often which wouldn't work.
Yeah, it's the additional charging time that sucks for me. I want to be able to do 750 miles with only a few short gas and bathroom breaks.
As a 13 year flat rate mechanic at 3 different GM dealers, you couldn’t be more right about them needing to die a fiery death. When the big 3 we’re just starting out they didn’t have the capital to establish dealerships so they franchised them - then those franchises became a monster that they couldn’t remotely begin to reign in. Most states thanks to dealership groups lobbying efforts have strict laws against the direct sales model. The crash in 08 helped GM shed some of the bloated network of mom and pop dealers, some of the bigger ones consolidated, they are still over saturated. The current game is to fuck with warranty repair times and parts availability. Along with changes to the franchise agreements that require insanely expensive remodels and upgrades for EV products. The result is a horrible point of sale experience for every customer, fuck fuck games played with your trade in car keys, back and forth with the finance manager, dock fees, etc etc…. It’s a never ending siphon designed to fuck you as hard as possible without seemingly doing it on purpose. Car salesman and the managers would fuck over there own mothers if it meant making a sale - I’ve seen it done firsthand. We didn’t invent it, we didn’t build it, we provide nothing of value towards it but if you want it, you have to go through us. That’s the dealership in a nutshell.
I worked at a used car lot for a few months ~15 years ago. This is 100% true of the lifetime car salesmen. I've seen sales managers call their friends to brag how bad they buried someone in a car. Saw a customer who didn't know they had excellent credit get told by the sales manager that it was shit, bank approved him at ~7% (great for a used car back then) and manager wrote the contract for 14.9%. I've seen them get a low monthly payment and just gloss over the fact that it was a six year loan. I could go on and on. And that was only working there for a few months.
i have a cousin who has worked at all the local dealerships at one point or another. Basically a mercenary salesman. He’s so damn ADHD that he can’t hold down a normal job, but those same traits make him excellent at selling vehicles to a demographic with more dollars than sense. So he does it for half a year or so, makes a shitload of money he blows on clothes, watches, and literal blow, then gets burnt out and tries to find a “real job.” The process then repeats. fortunately I use his connections to get good deals, but fuck I’ve heard some messed up stories. Especially for the used cars sold “as is.”
Can I ask what the benefit is of this, to the dealership? I got in a fender bender last year, needed a whole new front bumper. Covered by insurance, minus deductible. Rental car covered for 30 days, repair took 31 - dealership body shop said the wrong bumper shipped first, so it delayed things. They didn’t get any more money from me, so what’s the reason for wanting to make me annoyed?
Two huge speed humps placed too close together. One wouldn't be so bad, but when they hit that second hump while the suspension is still compressed and loaded up from the first one... Ouch.