As a regular Avis customer (20+ rentals per year for work trips) and top tier member of their rewards program, I wouldn’t be surprised if I read a similar article about one of the locations I use on a regular basis. The way it is supposed to work is I check the app when I land and they provide me with a car and…

Yeah, I saw everything from electrical conduit to wall studs, electrical switchgear, HVAC equipment, and flashing skyrocket to where it is 1.5-2 times what we were spending in 2019. Even interior fitouts have nearly doubled in cost. I build turnkey spec suites in my property (high end feel with mid-level materials)…

Edit - the body shop handed me a key with a dead battery and not a dead body. I hope that wasn’t a Freudian slip because if it was, it’s time to go back to the therapist...

Oh wow, I should probably fix that.  I certainly did not get anything other than a dead battery.

Let’s see what happened when they raised the tariffs on Chinese steel a few years ago. Domestic steel also raised its price to within a few cents per ton of Chinese Steel. Not only did the cost of building with structural steel framing skyrocket, so did the price of pretty much every good manufactured with steel.

In other news, they are changing their slogan from “Make America Great Again” to “Trump, What Could Possibly Go Wrong.”

I had my X5 at the body shop for repairs (I was sideswiped by a semi on the way to a toll booth) and after doing a great job fixing the passenger side rear quarter bodywork, the shop handed me back the key with a dead body. They claimed they didn’t know how to replace the battery, despite having the ability to take a…

See my comment above. Lower-end Teslas are very popular amongst NPC drivers (at least 50% of the people on the road) so it is not a surprise that people with poor to no driving skills are getting into cars with instantaneous acceleration and are dying.

I am surprised there are no Jeeps on the list, especially Grand Cherokees, the official upper-middle class family hauler for assholes, and the Compass, the official entry level car for asshole drivers who don’t care about cars. Like pickups, Teslas, and Altimas, they tend to be driven by complete asshats.

Color me surprised that the Tesla Mode Y, a car favored by the same NPCs that used to buy Rav-4s, Camrys, and CRVs, has a high fatality rate. Put an average (inexperienced, unfocused, unable to improvise, and with poor eye-hand coordination) driver in a car with very fast acceleration and you get lots of crashes and…

My iX reliably manages 340+ miles on a charge, regardless of the temperature or driving type, and that seems more than sufficient for 99.9% of my road trips. Fortunately, most hotels have free level two charging these days (free fillup overnight) so I don’t even have to top up when on the road.

I used to think all those things matter but then I started a pretty shitty commute, and my experience with a PHEV lead me to a full EV.  They are so easy to use and the instant torque really helps keep pace in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  

Or an alarm that actually gets activated and security cameras.  Those were the first things I installed after moving to the NJ burbs.  And unlike most suburbanites, I keep my garage free of crap so I can actually store cars in there!

Wow, that Bear seems to open car doors as well as a human with opposable thumbs.

Ok, so flying helicopters with large wheels cars should be right around the corner?

That’s what the dealer gets for not properly inflating the tyres!!

Yeah, how quickly people forget that it will not always be smooth sailing and conditions are constantly changing. While it certainly was a tough time and I was always taught to be frugal, having the recession occur while I was still fairly early in my career and financial independence was the crash course on that…

Or wrapped around a lightpost.

A WELL MAINTAINED GT3 with lighter mileage will only appreciate with value (a 2022 with an MSRP of $180K will now set you back more than $250K), but it certainly is not enough to outpace the crazy amount of interest that will be paid, even if the person sells the car within a year or two.

Unfortunately it’s not only the tiktok and youtube assholes, but pretty much people from all walks of life who are projecting an image of wealth with nothing to back it up. I am in real estate and construction and I remember back before the great recession when things were booming for our industry. Contractors were…