I personally wouldn't put much faith in the dealership shooting you straight with a fair value. Do your homework first without getting the dealer involved. First, find out the residual purchase price, along with what the procedure is for purchasing, including what kind of notice you have to give them. This should…

The $4,000 number is based on the itemized valuation that I obtained from the dealer before trading it in. The $1,500 gap is the reduction in trade-in credit applied by the dealer for having to repair the body damage.

We ended up trading it in on my wife's new car 3 months later at about $2,500 over what I paid as the residual value. That isn't a good representation though, because in that three months I had gotten some pretty substantial damage in one of the rear body panels. That dragged down the ~$4,000 overage that I…

No but's...it's like taking housecleaning advice from Mr. Clean himself.

Pay close attention to the residual value before you turn the car in at the end of your lease. Many luxury cars hold their value so well these days that the residual value (RV) may end up being lower than the fair market value (FMV), leaving you in a position for some profitable auto arbitrage. I encountered this a…

Here are a few more:

That's good paint right there.

Having been robbed of the opportunity to play ice hockey by virtue of my Louisiana upbringing, I have a basic question about skates:

Did you mean to write Ernie? Is there an awesome Ernie Haynie that I don't know about?

I believe his offseason accountability coaching program is run by his wife and Jesus. I guess they needed some story line fodder for his wife's upcoming role on Real Housewives of Orange County.

I don't know. Madden 1996 featured Cary Brabham (DB - Panthers) and Gordon Laro (RB/TE - Jaguars) in a preseason game. Brabham never even played a regular season game for the Panthers. Laro played a grand total of two games in the NFL.

Great article. I am honestly surprised that our self-righteous Congress has not attempted to federalize the role of the state Athletic Commissions, especially after their feigned outrage at - and meddling in - the steroids in baseball issue. If I were in charge of the UFC, I would preempt this sort of issue by…

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The Raiders and Ravens helmets are pretty badass. The Bengals and the Chiefs ones too. However, can we all agree that this is just a normal Houston Oilers helmet?

I was 15, and I'd had my driver's license for about 3-4 months. I had a little pickup truck, and I had gone somewhere (I can't recall where) with some friends, and I was driving myself and one other friend back home. We were being 15 year old guys, acting goofy with the windows down, and the music turned up, and I…

That would be stinky, and mostly instrumental :(

We had "The Kilowatt Club." It was basically a gutted old house on the property of an electrical power station. I have no idea who owned it, or if we were even technically supposed to be there, but whoever ran it did manage to book some decent 2nd and 3rd tier punk & ska bands to play there (e.g. 30 Foot Fall,…

What if you were lactating at the same time, smarty pants?

I don't date cheap assholes who want to steal from waiters...

This question comes purely out of my curiosity, and from my ignorance of the process of reporting an incident. I'm just a guy with no experience in this area, and asking an honest question, so please don't rage on me for asking: