I just got it yesterday! !!!!!!!!!

PhaseIIPro said:

Dude,
Your being a clown. You are saying he could have gotten money from the junk man and used that towards the purchase of another vehicle. Why didn't you use your own advice, and get money for your van? Instead you paid a Stealership money to take your van from you. Then they will turn around and auction it off for even more money. No logic or common sense to your thought process.

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I know what they did with my old van dude. They put a sign on it as is and will look to sell it if they can. Isn't that what they are supposed to do dude? What would you do with it? Just have it sit on your lot collecting dust? Once I turned it in it was up to them to do whatever with it. All I know was I was tired of it. Whenever you trade in a vehicle to get another one they always check it out and s what it's worth. Then decide how much to give you for it and if you agree then you sign the title over to them and at that point they can do whatever they want with it. Hell they can set it on fire. If I did try to sell it I wasn't expecting to get no more than 2k and that was a stretch. First you got to try to find someone willing to buy it. Then after that I would have had to take that money along with some more money to purchase another vehicle. I don't have another vehicle to depend on like some of you do. Again why am I fighting with people on here. Like I said I did what I thought would be best for me. If it comes out I made a mistake I will have to live with it.

Let me say this. I took my mother with me who is 81 years old and when she got in it she said she doesn't curse but she said damn this is nice. Everyone who saw this including my sister who saw it liked it. My next move when I can get to do it is to have fun with my mechanic. Pretend I need more work to be done with my old van. Tell him I don't know what's wrong with it and pull up to the shop in the new van just to have fun with him. I tried to do it the other day but the shop was closed.

Jas said:

It's a case of new car fever.

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You said a mouth full there. I've never had a vehicle that I didn't pay for out right. This is the first vehicle I ever had that was anything like this or this new. The best vehicle I had besides this one got hit twice. The last time it was parked on a street near my house since I can't park on the street where I live at from 2-6am or you'll get a ticket. A person driving a stlen thrifty rent a car and hit it. They hit it so hard that it got knocked on to part of the sidewalk and knocked down the street cleaning sign. So that ended me with that van. The crazy part that it was a fight as to who was going to pay for it getting hit. My insurance Thrifty. I didn't give a damn who paid for it as long as it got done. I don't remember who paid for it. All I know is I took that money and got the van I just got rid of. It served it's purpose very well. It was just time to let it go.

ittigger said:

There's no point in getting a vehicle if it's not inspected. Without an inspection, you can't register it.

The normal person does not get just one estimate .. and contrary to what you did, most do not pay more than they have to. It is not cheap to get a transmission repaired or replaced .. nor is it something that a fly by night mechanic does. Again, most major repairs come with some type of warranty. I want a mechanic to tell me what my options are, good and bad, and let ME decide what I want to do. If it's a major job, I'll have a few opinions on the issue .. and I'll have estimates from a few places. If the tranny blows in my truck, it will be repaired.

Private sale means crap if the vehicle won't sell. If it has monthly problems, would you buy it? It also means crap if you don't have the money to buy it. A vehicle 'that old' may well be worth fixing if you own it and it's cheaper to fix than it is to get another one. Getting another one may get you a whole lot of other problems. Any vehicle can break down. What are your plans if yours breaks down and you have to pay out of pocket to get it fixed?

Isn't a water pump and brakes 'simple'? These issues are 'too much back to back'? Were you paying (on average) more than $419.94 monthly on repairs? I see that your previous car 'ran out of oil', do you think they don't need oil? Were you checking it regularly?

Similar with us, we do not know your situation other than what you say. Based on what you say, you overpaid for a vehicle you just bought but were complaining about not having money for other things in your life if your vehicle needed maintenance.



Because you come on here asking for advice .. then you completely disregard and overpay for something. What would you think of someone buying CV Earthquakes for $4,000 a piece? It's your prerogative to do what you want - but this is what makes some people angry with you.



This is true.



I wonder if any of these people would be as happy if they knew you overpaid.



If this is the same mechanic who overcharged you for your water pump, he just may find issues with it.

Have you done anything with the business plan?

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Sorry I guess you made a typo. You said I paid $4,000.99 for the Earthquakes. I paid $400.00 and they work fine. Used them on Saturday and they kicked major butt. I'll put a like to your post when I'm done with this post only because I like some of what you said. You made some good points. Let me ask you this. What year is this vehicle you have that you said if the tranny goes you'll just get it fixed? Like I said earlier what if something else major happened after that? What would you do then? Having a transmission put in a vehicle is not a simple repair that should only cost a few hundred dollars.

Sir the issue with the old van is that there were back to back to back repairs needed to get it running. Not just one simple thing but a chain reaction of things. Last month I spent $1,250.00 on that van. I had just had enough with it. Yes I did do a rush job kind of on getting this new van. I was tired of trying to find a van in the range the credit union wanted the van to be in. Used under $17,000.00 with less then 100k miles and couldn't be any older than a 08. Just to hard to find.

So I went where a friend of mine went to get her a car and saw this van. It fitted my needs and it was what I thought was at a good price. The thing that sold me is that it was an 2012 with less than 40k miles. I seen others that were only that old and had over 100k miles. I was just tired of looking. I let my frustration get to me. I did it and I got to live with my decision. Work is picking up with the business so I should do OK.

Simply put I went ahead and did something I never done before. I went to a new car dealer and got a car that I have to finance. For me I'm proud of myself because of where I came from and how far I have come. I'll tell you this and I don't disclose this info to just anyone. Especially to any potential clients. The last time I used drugs a little over 18 years ago I smoked at least $450.00 worth of cocaine by myself before I got tired of smoking by myself. That was just part of the night. That night I spent over 1k getting high. I didn't go to work the next day which was Friday. I just thank God to still be alive first. And then to be back doing what I love to do and believe I was born to do. So to come from where I was at to where I am now is nothing but God. Bottom line I jumped off the roof with doing this but I know I'll be fine. I prayed to God for what I was looking for and he delivered it to me. Now it's up to me to keep what he has blessed me with.

DJ SVO said:

In 30 years of driving (Moat of them legally ) I've blown one transmission and there was no rebuilding as the whole thing basically exploded and fortunately the scattershield did it's job. It didn't take more than a week to get the other replacement (Brand new and highly modified) to get along with the blown 440. The transmission worked like a charm and took some serious floggings at the track. It lived until my Ram was totalled but it was money well spent.

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That's great! After getting the transmission fixed were there any other major repairs you had to do to the vehicle? That's the big thing. What year was it and when did you buy it?

PhaseIIPro said:

For the third time Macho. What did you use as far as a processor with your earthquakes? Also the post above asked what would you think if someone paid $4000 for a set of earthquakes.

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We didn't because unfortunately we didn't have the right wires to hook up a crossover. It still sounded great. I just wish we did have the proper wires to do it with. We didn't realize it till we got to the event. So our bad. Sorry I read his post wrong. That would be a bad move of course. I did what I did and like I said I have to live with it. Some say it was a mistake while others have wished me good luck. Just so you know I just got off the phone with the guy who did the gig with me on Saturday which I will make a gig thread about in a few minutes. I told him about the brother who paid $2,500.00 to get a transmission put in a 2001 Ford Explorer. He said he got ripped off. He knows a lot about vehicles. He said a trans for that vehicle cost $500.00 and to install the trans it should have cost $500.00. So he said he got ripped off. I would say myself for a vehicle that old he should have paid no more than $1,500.0. I say that much because the mechanic got to pay his bills and then have money left over so he can have money to buy some groceries.

Jeff Romard said:

Mix I used to own and operate commercial vehicles, Taxis to be specific, and the odds of ever replacing a transmission twice are slim. I can think of one instance where I did in 20 years.

When I was in that business I calculated $150/week for repairs per car and put it aside. Now I didn't spend it every week but I knew sure as the sun would rise that when I did need a repair it would average out to that. I can tell you with the exception of the regular maintenance stuff (tires, brakes, etc) it would be a rarity that I would replace anything major more than once in the life of that car and most of them would be over 300,000 miles when I would be finished with them. The rare one over 400,000 and I had a couple over 500,000. Almost all the parts I bought were top dollar parts with lifetime or long warranty on them so if I did have to replace it was a lesser cost

Also take in to consideration I didn't have new cars most of them were close to 100,000 miles when I bought them

So let's do the numbers.....

$150/week X 52 weeks = $7800 for repairs a year

The average driver in North America travels 10,000 miles a year

My cars were averaging closer to 80,000 miles a year

I also had several drivers on each car in the run of a year which, no matter how good they take care of them (and most don't) up the repair expenses

Doing the numbers unless you have a complete piece of junk the repairs on your old van should be no more than $1000/Yr give or take a buck or two. Let's say you hit a good run of bad luck and double that to $2000/Yr it's still alot less than the $420/month ($5020 per year) that you will pay on a new one

The new one does provide show appeal and reliability in the short term but eventually it will need repairs too....likely in the first year

The point I'm trying to make is you were worried about repairs so you spent 21K to buy a new vehicle. If you wanted and could afford that vehicle that's great all the power to you but you aren't saving a dime you are only fooling yourself in to thinking you are

And just for reference a water pump installed should cost you no more than $400 on the top end

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One thing you missed. I never said anything about having to replace a transmission twice in a vehicle. I said very specifically what if their was something else that needed repair that cost a lot of money after getting the transmission repaired. What would you do? Get it fixed or let it go? Me personally I wouldn't put a new transmission in a vehicle that was a 2001 and it's now 2015. If I did get it repaired it would be used.

DJ SVO said:

Mix,
It was an 89 and after putting the suoercharged 440 in it I put 65000 miles on that engine with regular maintenance (Oil, tune ups, etc.) it never gave me any type of headache. It had enough power to make the world go round and the only thing that ever popped up were coolant hoses and I had backup for them as well as antifreeze I could repair almost anything with what was stored in the trunk.

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The key thing you said and I'm done is that you had stuff stored in the trunk that if need be you could fix it yourself. That's great for you. But what about someone who doesn't know how to do that? You obviously saved money DIY. Provided that every time you got it right. I'm no mechanic and that's why I take it to the mechanic I've been dealing with for around 30 years. Because they know what they are doing and are very reliable.