it’s all in the approach, man.  you nailed it right there. 

very few sales people are interested even in the least about laughing at you or getting some sick satisfaction out of taking advantage of someone - they just want their boss to pat them on the back for bringing in revenue, they want to be at the top of the sales margin board, they want the big fat commission…

As the world gets more global, there’s an interesting set of skills developing FAR more broadly than has been necessary historically - It’s fascinating to observe Americans negotiating with Indians and Chinese - they often come off to Americans as very off putting in their negotiating style - and the Indians and…

Folks like you, and there are a lot of them, is why CarMax exists....and what spawned AutoNation, Carvana, Vroom.   It’s perfectly OK to prefer that style of transaction.  It costs you more cash, but it saves you grief that you value more than cash. 

that strategy of what’s called in Economics “market clearing price discovery” absolutely works - but there are many ways to conduct a buy/sell transaction and not all strategies work in every scenario.  Ideally, you want to have several tools in your personal toolbox.  I prefer to do my car negotiations in person -…

Literally everything is negotiable....hell you can even arbitrage a can of Campbell’s soup. 

if my project car doesn’t have a hell of a good forum for support, I find a different project car.  I’ve owned like 6 or 7 Panther platform cars at this point for that very reason.  Learned my lesson HARD on a Lincoln LS. 

it mostly depends on what you buy - the CPO market exists to offer ‘this thing is like brand new - it even has a warranty’ cars for substantially less money than the same car actually new. Chasing extreme value comes with associated risks.  It ain’t new, and the best part of its lifespan is already used up.   If you…

that’s what you’re paying extra for - the warranty. Simple as that. If you really take advantage of that warranty in the first few weeks, you can end up with a completely new front end suspension or whatnot,...but you gotta know what to look for, you gotta play the game well, and you gotta have the time and put in the…

What really kicked that off for the masses was the VW type 3 - fastback and squareback from the early 60's in any sort of real volume - but the Civic was really competing with the Rabbit (Golf) in the cheap import non-’murican niche.

there’s a few meaningful differences to these two trucks which are essentially the same truck - King Ranch Expedition will have greater towing capacity than the Navigator by about 1000#. It will also not require Premium fuel (debatable - most guys run premium when towing the Expedition too). Tires - the taller tires…

in further other news, glorifying automatic rifles may be a touch myopic in today’s world- yet we apparently ate that up to the tune of $60MM in box office receipts - irony?  disingenuous?  two-faced?  idk, but it’s curious to me how on one hand it’s the root of all evil, and on the other hand it’s a superhero.

especially if you have the diesel, which eats up a TON of payload.

That is absolutely the fact, Jack. 

I had that on 2 Lincoln's..worked well but falsed a lot and would brick the system on a boulevard with trees in the center. My expy has the spot mirrors instead which work great for me.  That's a lotta dog to see around for sure

Any EL (extended) Expedition automatically has the heavy tow stuff, trans cooler, brake controller, bigger rad, etc...and ones that are 2-3 years old are selling in the low-mid $20's....ridiculous value. They don’t get Pro Trailer tho until the 2019 models, and those are crazy money.  Super nice truck tho, and has…

what about us guys that have both a big ass honking truck and a papier mache’ tiny relic?   IDENTITY CRISIS!!!

I had that 300 I6 in an 94 F150 - it’s legacy is as a tractor motor, and it does its job well.

Marketing people have driven this horsepower thing beyond any practicality. The most Horsepower you can put into a brand new 13 liter Peterbilt semi truck is 500HP , with, of course as much as 1850 torques.

this really is the modern day equivalent to a 460 of yore with 7.5 liters, 375 horse and 450 torques.   Same structure, same purpose, utterly timeless - these young’uns just don’t remember how nice it was to drive big blocks in heavy vehicles.