Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

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Jesus christ thats the worst one of “those things” I’ve ever seen.

I almost bought one of those to put in Side of Ranch Truck while @Der Stig was borrowing it last week. :roflmao:
 
I almost bought one of those to put in Side of Ranch Truck while @Der Stig was borrowing it last week. :roflmao:
Good thing you didn’t. He would have legally been allowed to lobotomize you if you had.
 
How. How do you even drive with that on there. Do they have an entire teddy bear on the shifter?
 
100% Genuine Muppet Fur.
 
Just got back from test driving an Ascent and shooting the shit with my favorite salescritter....

Why do I have a favorite Subaru salesman? I need to do this shit less often. That said, he's pushing his luck with that 'favorite salesman' crap with this deal.

Did it up as a 36mo lease for two reasons:
  1. Payment constraints. Two places to live, travel between them, we're living the expensive life with only one job that pays for shit!
  2. MY2019 is the first year for the Ascent, which is the first year for a fancy new turbocharged powerplant with a fancy new CVT. I fully expect to walk away at the end of the lease and get another one that's had the razor sharp edges filed off.


So... To run through the numbers:
Vehicle price: $38129 (actually, this isn't even the configuration I told the guy to look up, but it's close enough for estimating purposes)
Assorted fees and taxes and shit: $620
Sales tax: $2305

Tot all that up and it's $41k and change.
Apply the magical dealership formulas for 36 months/12000 miles to it and you get a nice table of down payment versus monthly payment.

Scroll down it until there's a number in our payment budget (under $250) and... Down payment: $12500.

Holy shit. That's only $50 a month cheaper than when I bought the damned BRZ for $30k and precisely dick for a down payment. That shit CANNOT be right.

So off to the Internet to educate myself on leases because I don't know shit about them. Running the numbers myself, I reverse engineered their MF (rate for those who don't speak lease) to .004. Which is roughly equivalent to a purchase APR of 9.6%.

Digging around on the Interwebs, I found that over on Edmunds forums, there are dudes who will just look up the applicable MF and residual values for particular packages. Nobodys asked about this particular configuration this month (they change monthly) but a typical-ish value of .00125 (about 3%) yields our payment target at a down payment of $8000. Which is entirely reasonable.

Some configurations this month are as low as .0004 (less than 1%). Personally, I'm hoping this is a case of "oops missed a zero" as opposed to "fuck you customer"
 
Just got back from test driving an Ascent and shooting the shit with my favorite salescritter....

Why do I have a favorite Subaru salesman?
well, either that or you're his favorite customer
 
Subaru Outback with poverty beam headlights, poverty beam fog lamps and 2 LED lightbars in the grill. Driver can go fuck himself with his fart cannon exhaust.

ViSqNkvl.jpg

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Let him pass when the road expanded out to 2 lanes and gave him a piece of my mind with the Mustang's giant fuck-you fog lamps and high beams.

Really want to wire up my brake lights to a switch so I can get morons like this to back off without actually brake checking.
 
Just got back from test driving an Ascent and shooting the shit with my favorite salescritter....

Why do I have a favorite Subaru salesman? I need to do this shit less often. That said, he's pushing his luck with that 'favorite salesman' crap with this deal.

Did it up as a 36mo lease for two reasons:
  1. Payment constraints. Two places to live, travel between them, we're living the expensive life with only one job that pays for shit!
  2. MY2019 is the first year for the Ascent, which is the first year for a fancy new turbocharged powerplant with a fancy new CVT. I fully expect to walk away at the end of the lease and get another one that's had the razor sharp edges filed off.
So... To run through the numbers:
Vehicle price: $38129 (actually, this isn't even the configuration I told the guy to look up, but it's close enough for estimating purposes)
Assorted fees and taxes and shit: $620
Sales tax: $2305

Tot all that up and it's $41k and change.
Apply the magical dealership formulas for 36 months/12000 miles to it and you get a nice table of down payment versus monthly payment.

Scroll down it until there's a number in our payment budget (under $250) and... Down payment: $12500.

Holy shit. That's only $50 a month cheaper than when I bought the damned BRZ for $30k and precisely dick for a down payment. That shit CANNOT be right.

So off to the Internet to educate myself on leases because I don't know shit about them. Running the numbers myself, I reverse engineered their MF (rate for those who don't speak lease) to .004. Which is roughly equivalent to a purchase APR of 9.6%.

Digging around on the Interwebs, I found that over on Edmunds forums, there are dudes who will just look up the applicable MF and residual values for particular packages. Nobodys asked about this particular configuration this month (they change monthly) but a typical-ish value of .00125 (about 3%) yields our payment target at a down payment of $8000. Which is entirely reasonable.

Some configurations this month are as low as .0004 (less than 1%). Personally, I'm hoping this is a case of "oops missed a zero" as opposed to "fuck you customer"

Check out leasehackr.com

It helped give me an idea on what to expect. With trading the mustang in, 3 grand paid the down payment to keep my GTI at $300 a month for 3 years and 7500 miles. I’m nowhere near it. I’m one year in and only just hit 8900mi and I signed the lease on February 28, 2018.

At the end of the lease I should end up at quite low as far as what I’ve paid over 3 years and paying up front. I’m not counting insurance and fuel.

Leasehackr helped show me what my payments will equal over a time frame. Basically how much it would take to pay off the car with the lease terms. As long as you’re far enough away from your term. You’re good. I ended up being 2 years higher which meant it would be 5 years before my current terms could pay off the car and I can have it for 3. Win win.
 
Subaru Outback with poverty beam headlights, poverty beam fog lamps and 2 LED lightbars in the grill. Driver can go fuck himself with his fart cannon exhaust.

ViSqNkvl.jpg

00WOEl9l.jpg


Let him pass when the road expanded out to 2 lanes and gave him a piece of my mind with the Mustang's giant fuck-you fog lamps and high beams.

Really want to wire up my brake lights to a switch so I can get morons like this to back off without actually brake checking.
I been wanting to pick up a light bar and mount it on the back of the car for morons like that
 
I been wanting to pick up a light bar and mount it on the back of the car for morons like that
Some guy on CrownVic.net managed to turn the spotlight on his P71 around, and used it against tailgaters.
 
Check out leasehackr.com

It helped give me an idea on what to expect. With trading the mustang in, 3 grand paid the down payment to keep my GTI at $300 a month for 3 years and 7500 miles. I’m nowhere near it. I’m one year in and only just hit 8900mi and I signed the lease on February 28, 2018.

At the end of the lease I should end up at quite low as far as what I’ve paid over 3 years and paying up front. I’m not counting insurance and fuel.

Leasehackr helped show me what my payments will equal over a time frame. Basically how much it would take to pay off the car with the lease terms. As long as you’re far enough away from your term. You’re good. I ended up being 2 years higher which meant it would be 5 years before my current terms could pay off the car and I can have it for 3. Win win.
Yeah, Leasehackr's calculator is the one I was using.

Leasehackr the forum, however, are less than helpful because, like all financial min/max nerds, they brainlock the second someone asks them about a transaction that violates one of their rules.

"Hey, is it just me or is the MF on this proposed deal utterly insane and out of line?"
"THOU SHALT NEVER PUT MONEY DOWN ON A LEASE. THOU SHALT INVEST IT INSTEAD"
"That doesn't work with the budget. And have you seen the market?"
"BUY IT INSTEAD"
"That EXTRA doesn't work with the budget"
"BUY USED"
"There aren't any used."
"BUY SOMETHING ELSE"
"There are physical cargo space constraints involved that place hard limits on what will work. Listen, I know it's effectively lighting money on fire and I accept that risk, I just want to know what variables could possibly cause such a large variation between the active program and the numbers they're throwing out so I can be an informed negotiator"
"THOU SHALT NEVER PUT MONEY DOWN ON A LEASE."

In other news, we've found another cage manufacturer that is twice the price, but manages to slim things down enough to add the Nissan Pathfinder and Outback to the list. And a whole plethora of shit that ain't sold in the US.
 
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Modern Pathfinder is utter shit, they completely ruined it by switching to unibody.
shrug it's for schlepping humons around paved roads, it's apparently got the cargo space, and it's available inexpensively used. I'm not too bothered by Pathfinder enthusiasts being upset about their truck being replaced by a mere car.
Now, if it's a shit car on the other hand, that would be a problem. And given it's a modern Nissan, I expect it's dismal rental trash and will get stricken from the list.

I really don't try to buy so many goddamned Subarus, but they're the only car manufacturer that manages not to step on their own dick all the time.
 
Nononono. Please for love the god, do not buy a pathfinder. CVT and the nonadjustable headrest make it the most annoying car ever. Couple that with the stereo that ignores your devices controls. You know how every car starts playing a song? You usually have the phone in your hand and you hit pause. On the pathfinder, the radio forces it to play again, you have to pause from the stereo.

I had one recently for a rental. @LP and @rickhamilton620 can attest to the awesomeness that is the pathfinder.

Regarding the forum thing, yeah I read that everywhere. The thing is, it’s fine to put money down as long as the lease term total and your down payment do not exceed the total paid isn’t he term. If you go over, on, I can see what they mean.
 
There are very few things more annoying then people who insist on going the Exact Same Speed as the other lane, while driving right next to another car, the only car even in the lane anywhere remotely nearby. And it is worse when someone is doing it intentionally for no reason?

Nothing like being late for something and having to deal with someone who passive aggressively speeds up every time you try go around them then slows down to block you when you aren't.

Like I don't even generally tailgate people unless I am completely blocked from passing for several miles. The left hand lane is the PASSING lane I am pretty blocking traffic because you refuse to pass the car to the right of you isn't supposed to be allowed any more then speeding is.
 
Nononono. Please for love the god, do not buy a pathfinder. CVT and the nonadjustable headrest make it the most annoying car ever. Couple that with the stereo that ignores your devices controls. You know how every car starts playing a song? You usually have the phone in your hand and you hit pause. On the pathfinder, the radio forces it to play again, you have to pause from the stereo.

I had one recently for a rental. @LP and @rickhamilton620 can attest to the awesomeness that is the pathfinder.

Regarding the forum thing, yeah I read that everywhere. The thing is, it’s fine to put money down as long as the lease term total and your down payment do not exceed the total paid isn’t he term. If you go over, on, I can see what they mean.
CVTs are unavoidable these days. Of course Nissan's is the worst.

But that radio thing is utterly unforgivable.

So. I guess that leaves the responsible solution at another Outback.
 
Outbacks are good. I had one in Idaho for work. Cruise control stopped around 115mph so if you’re planning to go faster than that, it’s not the car for you. :)

2.5l is a bit lacking in power, 3.6 fixes that.
 
Last I heard, the 3.6L often had a pretty nasty oil consumption issue though.
 
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