All Posts Tagged With: "cars"

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking for a replacement vehicle … so when my buddy “Old Red” eventually dies on the side of the road (note: I don’t want this to happen anytime soon, believe me … because me and this car have history. We go like everywhere together, to be honest with you) I’ll at least have a backup plan ready to go!

So here’s the scoop: I’m actually no spring chicken when it comes to buying cars … in fact, this next purchase will be my eleventh one, and to be honest with you most of them were European even though I like to support the U.S. of A. (sorry American motor companies … try churning out some quality stuff like you use to back in the day, and that may all change. Highly unlikely though, I should add here, as I think you’ve forgotten how great you could be if you actually gave a crap). I’m also world-traveled, so I’m not going to ignorantly shout out that American cars are the best, because most of them are actually not (to top this off, I think most of them are pretty shoddy)! Continued

Got you eye on that latest piece of technology?

Well, you better take it off right now, because it almost never pays to be the first one on the block to be suckered into the marketer’s bulls@#t, and that goes with any new technology (these greedy bastards have to regurgitate the same old crap because it’s their jobs … but it’s not yours to be ripped off by them). Whether it be the latest computer (I think desktop P.C.s are going to be a dead technology pretty soon … I give them a year or two until that fateful death cry) or a new kind of cell phone (“Oh, this one plays …” I often hear. Who gives a s@#t, why do you need that stupid feature anyways?) a fancy new car or anything else that has the prefix “latest” to it — if you buy it too soon, you will be paying way too much for it, because at the time it will be untested and probably an unreliable product, which hasn’t had all of its bugs worked out yet! Continued

I used to be a New Yorker (not a rude one) and was once taught a valuable lesson from a cab driver who goes by the name Donny.

While on the subject of how he keeps his cab (it was not company-owned) running in tip-top shape he told me, “Maintenance is about either paying for it now or paying for it later. Not conducting proper preventive maintenance has a huge impact because it is very cheap, relatively, to fix something early on with your own two hands (as opposed to taking it to a garage). If you break down on the road, it will usually cost you at least triple the repair cost at these highway bandit shops they’ll tow it to.”

“But, the focus should be on where to spend maintenance money,” he said, “because you can go broke by over-maintaining your automobile as well, so you’ll have to determine the key areas on the vehicle you need to maintain. Pay special attention to your brakes, followed by the tires, axle’s alignment, air and fluid filtration, the cooling system, batteries, transmission linkages, and all chassis and body fasteners.” I didn’t know what all this meant at the time; today, I broke down on the highway, and found out the hard way!

A few rules of thumb for preventative maintenance, you’ll need to stay on top of, are listed below (abide by them, and learn from my costly mistake): Continued

The year was 1995 (or maybe 1994. Those years were a blur to me) when I met my good friend Jon Gosselin at Denny’s, next to the Berkshire Mall!

He lived two blocks away, with his dad and brother Mark (who, by the way, has never made in into the show. I guess he didn’t fit into Kate’s mold of the “perfect” American Family, since he liked to get high with my brother Nick all the time) on Wyomissing Blvd in Wyomissing, PA, while I was up on Penn Ave. He always used to tell me that he wanted a big family just like mine (I’m number six out of twelve) and I would answer back, “Not if they’re mostly girls!” The reason for that remark: I have eight sisters (big headaches when I was a kid, I know)! Continued

Thinking of adding all kind of weird aftermarket stuff to your car?

Well, as an average, middle-of-the-road car owner and buyer myself, I would have to admit that is a huge, dumb-a@* mistake. Why, you ask? Is it because I’m a grouchy Gen-Xer that just doesn’t “get it”? Maybe it’s the fact that I’m 36, and can no longer hear the voice of the next generation? Well whatever it is (perhaps sanity?) at least I know that when it’s my time to buy a new car, I’m certainly not going to buy one that some crazy young kid has messed all up!

Yea, a lot of young people are ricing up their cars these days (read: making them look like s#$t, without really knowing it themselves) and to me that is a crying shame. The media is telling these sheep that this is the cool thing to do, and you know how damn wrong the media usually is, don’t you? Well, I think it’s tremendously sad to see these kids wasting thousands of dollars dressing up a sh#$ty car to give the false impression that it’s faster than it actually is (you’ve had to have seen these eyesores on the road). What is even sadder is the fact that they could have ultimately saved this wasted money up to eventually buy something that is even faster … and cooler. Continued