I still say these systems (past the first generation Sync) are stupid, overly complicated, and wastes of money all the way around...

But Consumer Reports is full of feces for making the problem seem worse than engines or transmissions blowing apart. You still get where you need to go. The car still starts and runs just…

I used to. And my insurance cost me about $400/yr then, too.

Remember - I stated that was an OLD report. Do a quick search for a newer one and you’ll find that survival rates are much higher. Or do you think cars built in 1990 were no more reliable and long lasting than those built in 1977?

I got my oil changes thrown in free for the life of the car. Fools didn’t know what they were agreeing to... :)

What’s a party? :)

yeah, and your costs will keep dropping the longer you keep the car....

I know I’m on the low end, but seriously, these costs are massively overblown.

Yes. But not by nearly as much as you’d think. After 15 years, a car is worth nearly the same no matter how many miles it has on it. And maintenance schedules aren’t always in the favor of low-mileage vehicles. I drive mostly city, which means more wear and tear in many respects than driving more miles but putting…

The article you point to refers to the average age of cars on the road - no the average lifespan of a vehicle. Those are two distinctly different things. For example, say every car lasted exactly 16 years and the distribution of ages was uniform, so you had, on the road, 1 new car, 1 car that was one year old, 1 that…

Absolutely absurd. These costs are supposed to be for an average sedan. $3,654 per year in depreciation? Sorry, but the average sedan lasts about 16 years. Depreciation isn’t linear, but over 16 years that would be $58,464. Even over just 10 years that would be $36,540 assuming no residual value. See the point? Even…

Sadly, the Yamaha V8 was one of the least reliable bits they put onto that generation of Taurus - and the mainline ones were pretty rock solid, if a bit eccentric. Are they sport sedans? No. But they handle better than a Camry and were more affordable, but the masses went for the dull.

Well, I’d consider all the delays to be engineering problems. And when it comes to the supply chain, I’d consider that to be an engineering problem, since they shouldn’t have allowed work to be moved around that would cause such problems. I’d also consider it an engineering problem that they designed a plane that…

The Airbus A380.

So the plane hasn’t been that bad in and of itself. However, consider the following:

And yet sadly people believe a lot of this nonsense - even though rollover rates were statistically identical in every other vehicle equipped with the defective tires, even when inflated at higher pressures.

And you can’t stand it on end. because the large lid is even leakier.

Who ever made that claim? The fact is that the default rate for high rated corporate bonds is near nonexistent. That’s also why a fair number of these companies have periodically had yields LOWER than US treasuries of similar maturity. When bond traders put 4% yields on 30 year corporates, they’re saying there is…

Yeah, but try to get an electric company to do ANYTHING with speed anymore. :)

Mine was slow to grant approval for connection - until I called. Then they fixed their issues quickly.

100% risk free? No - but do you know the default rates on them? Almost 0. If you spend your entire life chasing risk free everything, you’re going to end up poor in mind, spirit, and pocket. It’s not like I’m saying to go gambling in Vegas with the money. I’m saying take almost no risk and end up much better off.

Well, they’re the first I’ve heard of. Some of the utilities in Ohio are fighting over any reimbursement rates - so if you go over 100% of your energy consumption over the course of a full year, they pay you cash for the excess. Currently, that’s only at the generation rate, not the generation+distribution rate. Some…

I’d kill for your setup.

Here in Ohio, we have zero state credits, apart from subsidized loans, so I got a ridiculously low interest rate. So I only got 30% in credits to offset the system directly, but I got to meter my costs out over 5 years for next to nothing (which helps the IRR calculation). My system ended up…

I’d suggest looking at your numbers again. If you could invest $10k now and eliminate $90 a month from your electric bill, then over just a 20 year period, you’re looking at a 9.3853% annual rate of return, assuming that electric rates don’t increase one cent. Seriously. Go into Excel. In cell A1, enter -$10000. In…