I’m looking at buying a four-steater Cessna 172 for myself, one with good engines (low time since major overhual SMOH) time and updated avionics for about $45K. A two-seater Cessna 150-152 can be had for $25K. Figure in the 100 hour inspections, annual inspections, 2500 hour engine rebuilds, annual storage fees, fuel,…

When you step back, all that horsepower and cost seems incredibly stupid when you could just buy your own plane and actually fly. Here is a brand new Cessna TTx with a cruising speed of 235 kts or 270 mph. A brand new TTx will only cost you a measly $740K.

And it goes a whole lot faster.

I just couldn’t take it anymore and sold my Baja. The main problem with a beetle is that even when you do get everything running great, something else breaks. These cars were engineered as pieces of shit with 1930/40s levels of technology. VW sold so damn many of them because they were so cheap to buy and fix. Back in…

Actually we had a company minivan, a plymouth that went 250k miles before we were sick of it. It only required a transmission rebuild, it was a 1999, one of the craptastic 90's Mopars. We beat on that thing forever and it survived never being garaged and always driven harshly.

I already mentioned this but you need to service these things well. They can be loaded up with a ton of cargo and the brakes and transmission will reflect that heavy duty use. Just keep them serviced and keep a good watch on that transmission fluid and they will be reliable. Minivans are abused and neglected by soccer…

I had two and they were fantastic(2005/2008). I did service them myself and decided to have the dealer service the transmission early.

Camping and dating is especially awesome, stow and go yo!

Why not, they are quick and handle quite well while also being quiet and comfortable. The have Blue Ray DVD players, heated/cooled seats, safety radar and 360 video, plug-in hybrid powertrains, not to mention automatic doors.

I just had a 200 for a rental for the past few weeks, the rotary shifter actually gets quite convenient after a day or two.

Done:

Me too

Exactly, that’s how it should be, something breaks you fix it. You shouldn’t have to re-engineer the car to make it reliable.

There are a whole bunch of wacky and unrelated things that happen when a battery isn’t 100% happy in a new car. In modern cars, everything electric runs through a central computer and low power makes the car do strange things. Try a brand new battery and see if that helps. If that battery is really less than a year…

Is this it?

I used the MINI owners forums a lot for how-tos. For common repairs such as timing chain replacement, there are group buys or tool sharing programs that you can utilize. The internet will have everything that you need, you just need to do some detective work.

That’s a great movie, Amber Heard & Demi Moore.

I did the work myself damn it.

Push that B pillar back, other than that it looks good.

R56 MINIs have the exact same timing chain guide failures, I replaced the timing chain on my 2007 at 56K miles.