On Mon, July 31, 2006 12:34 am, Terrible Tom said:
>
> Bleh - I lump this one up in the realm of a freak accident.
I'm sure it was. Easy to get distracted, though. To be honest, the reason
that particular quote came to mind is I'm using it all the time on myself when
I notice I'm not paying attention to whatever I'm supposed to be doing at the
time. Like work, for example.
(You'll never again be able to watch that scene of Empire Strikes Back without
laughing. You're welcome.)
> I drive the used car lots around here VERY frequently.
Are you seriously shopping for something, or just daydreaming?
> MMmm yeah I just had a feeling that caliper was getting flakey. The
> ridge on the inside of the rotor only, is a tell tail sign that a
> caliper is dragging. I'm glad you had it taken care of prior to hitting
> the road.
Yeah, I remember, which was why I was inclined to believe what they were
telling me. It might have been okay if I just had them extract the bleeder
screw, grease everything and put it back together, but I didn't want to be
taking any chances with it on that long of a drive with the trailer behind us.
Now I'm wondering how long until the passenger side is going to get replaced.
> LOL@ the rusty comment. Gotta keep in mind these guys out
> west don't see the harsh winters and barges of road salt that we see.
Oh, they get winter all right (you saw the snow that's STILL left from last
winter) and I'm sure they probably use their fair share of road salt. I think
the thing that makes the big difference is the humidity level. Things dry out
too quickly, and rust doesn't form very well without a good source of
moisture. I seem to remember reading an article at one point about how most
rust actually forms in the summer due to the higher temperatures and humidity,
the salt hurts mostly because it's impossible to wash out every last bit of
salt that gets picked up during the winter. Or I might be completely
imagining things, it's been a while since I've read anything about it. Things
do rust out west, I thought it was kind of weird that they were so surprised
by the condition of our Dakota. Maybe they're just used to working on brand
new trucks at that particular location. If you want to avoid rust, I think
you have to move to Arizona and buy a new vehicle every three years.
> How do the brakes stop now that you had the fluid replaced and the
> caliper changed out? Do you still have the soft spongey feeling?
It wasn't night and day different, but it's definitely better. I still get
better braking in my '95 for whatever reason. Of course, being a 5-speed
might have something to do with that. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out
for that booster problem that's been mentioned.
> I'm going to get
> estimates later this week if possible, and see what it will cost a body
> shop to repair it.
Any chance your insurance would cover that sort of thing? Or is that just
more of a hassle than it would be worth?
> I'm trying to decide if its worth fixing a car that
> has had three cyl. heads on it, high milage, and could have power train
> issues at any given moment.
Well... at least you already have a pretty good idea what its problems are.
If you got rid of it and wanted to replace it with something else, who's to
say that the replacement would be any better? Unless you spent the cash on
something considerably newer, of course.
On the other hand, now that you don't have the horrible commute to work, maybe
you don't need a fuel efficient car as much. That's something to think about.
My commute isn't too bad, but every time the price of gas goes up I figure
out how much it costs me per month to drive the '95 Dakota every day and how
much I'd save if I traded it for a Caliber. It's still nowhere near the point
of actually saving any money overall. I guess it just doesn't make much sense
to spend $20,000 on a car to save a few $4 gallons of gas (who woulda thunk
it?). Even a Smart car wouldn't do it. The break even point is somewhere
around an '01 Neon, but who knows what the history of something like that
would be. Like I said, at least I know what the Dakota's problems are.
Any thoughts on your Ram? I know you had mentioned you were thinking about
whether you really wanted to keep that or not. If you sold the Neon and Ram,
that would give you some cash to put down on some other vehicle if you wanted
to do that.
Personally, if not for the fact that my insurance premium would crush me out
of existence, I'd love to have a variety of different vehicles around for
various purposes. You've just gotta weigh the extra maintenance hassle and
expense. I look at it this way: for the money, you can either have several
old vehicles or one new one.
-- Jason Bleazard http://drazaelb.blogspot.com Burlington, Ontario his: '95 Dakota Sport 4x4, 3.9 V6, 5spd, Reg. Cab, white hers: '01 Dakota Sport 4x4, 4.7 V8, Auto, Quad Cab, black
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Aug 01 2006 - 10:33:42 EDT