Car Insurance

Many of us dream of buying a cheap used car. Well, let’s amend that a bit. Many people dream of buying a cheap, good, used car. Unfortunately it’s all too easy to get a cheap used car that’s, well, cheap. You’ve probably already got one of those, though. Here is how you can get one of the cheap, good used cars.

There are several things to consider. The first thing to think about when you’re looking for a used car is what your requirements are in a vehicle. If you need to drive yourself 40 miles a day to work, a Chevy Suburban is probably not your best choice. Conversely, if you take your family of 7 on trips while towing your boat, a Suburban would be a great vehicle for you. You can save quite a bit of money by getting only what you really need in a vehicle. While that may not be very exciting, the money you save will be.

Once you’ve decided what type of vehicle suits your needs the best, narrow down which vehicles in that category will be the most desirable. The less picky you are when it comes to things such as colors, brand, and features, the easier it will be to get a great used car, cheap. A few features you shouldn’t overlook are safety and reliability. After all you, and possibly your family, will depend on this car, and if you think about it, your lives are at stake every time you ride in it. Check Consumer Reports and MSN autos for reliability figures. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety does some very good tests to determine the vehicle safety in a variety of different collision situations. Check them out as well.

Once you’ve narrowed down the field a bit, it’s time to start looking for your new, used car (isn’t that an oxymoron?). Look for some of the less popular, but still functional, reliable, and safe brands. You’ll save some money for example, by foregoing a Honda for a Nissan, or skipping a Toyota and landing in the driver’s seat of a Mazda. One other point to consider is that today’s vehicles hold up remarkably well with far beyond 100,000 miles showing on the odometer. In fact, they can still look and run almost new at this figure. So, don’t let a few miles scare you. You’re buying the car for what it has left, not what it has.

Once you found a car that seems to fit your requirements, there are some things you should check to make sure you are in fact getting a good, cheap car, not just a cheap car. Locating one that has been well taken care of is vital. While today’s vehicles are remarkably robust, they do require regular maintenance to ensure they will provide the years of service of which they are capable.

They may run like Swiss watches, with the highly engineered, internal parts spinning about in a fine, choreographed ballet, but that example of modern engineering could turn into a pile of very expensive junk if it doesn’t get the care it feels it deserves. The subsystems for modern vehicles are very expensive. It’s not uncommon for a transmission to cost between $3,000 and $6,000. An engine may set you back almost $10,000. The moral here is that a bit of careful investigation could save you a big headache later. You need to act like a horse trader in the old west. Look at the old girl to be sure you really want to take her home.

When you’re out shopping, you should definitely check the vehicle’s history. You may discover all manner of horrors hiding in it’s sordid past. Carfax works very well for this. Bring a laptop or mobile device to access the web while you’re shopping. You can get unlimited uses for a month for a pretty reasonable price, so you can check out a large number of prospective vehicles as you’re shopping.

When you’re actually looking at the car, kneel down and sight down the car’s body lines. If they are wavy or you can see obvious imperfections in the paint, chances are the car has been damaged and repaired at some point. Another trick is to bring a small magnet with you. If the car has metal body that’s been repaired with body filler putty, the magnet will not adhere to the repair as well as it does to the other parts of the body. Crawl under the car and check the frame or unibody members for any signs of bending, corrosion or other damage. See if it looks like the car’s underside has been places you wouldn’t take a car you loved.

Pop open the hood. Pull out the dipstick to check the oil. See if the oil is between the “add” and “full markers, and if it’s black or a nice, golden brown. If it’s thick and black, the oil probably has been neglected. Check to see of there’s any white substance mixed with the oil. That’s usually engine coolant. It’s not supposed to be in there with the engine’s oil. If it is, there’s a blown gasket or an even more serious engine problem. That won’t be an inexpensive car, but it may be a cheap one.

Check the tires for uneven wear. If the tires need to be replaced soon, that may not be a trivial expense on many cars. You could spend $350 - $600 on a new set of treads, mounted and balanced. The car’s tires are extremely important to vehicle safety, handling, braking and acceleration however, so don’t skimp if you do have to put on a new set of tires. Just be sure you use the fact in your negotiations. Uneven tire wear may also be indicative of a greater problem, such as a suspension or alignment issue. It could also mean the car has been wrecked in the past and not repaired correctly.

You need to decide where you want to look for your car. You can choose a private party. You can often get a great deal from a private party. See if you can discover their reason for selling the car. Some insight here may determine if you have a highly motivated seller and give you the upper hand in the negotiation. Another benefit to a private party is that you’ll often get the car’s service records. These can boost the resale for you later and shed light on any past problems.

You can obviously buy from a dealer. There are hundreds of lots brimming with shiny used cars in most metro areas. You won’t get as good a deal from a dealer (?) in most cases, but you won’t have to meet 46 different sellers either. In addition, you can possibly get some kind of warranty of the dealer offers one. If you do elect to avail yourself of a warranty, read the entire contract vewy, vewy carewfuwy.

You can buy your cheap, used car from an auction. There are many different kinds of vehicle auctions. Many law enforcement agencies sell off vehicles confiscated according to property forfeiture laws. These laws allow the agencies to keep property of those arrested for a variety of crimes, particularly drug crimes. If the perp had pride in his ride, you can get a very nice vehicle. Other auctions are held to dispose of vehicles seized by customs officials, abandoned at towing yards, or to satisfy tax liens. You can also find fantastic deals at auctions held to liquidate vehicle fleets of large businesses, such as phone and utility companies. It’s not uncommon for vehicles to be sold for far lower than they would in any other marketplace, often at only pennies on the dollar..

The downside of auctions is, you guessed it, you know nothing about these cars. In addition you can’t drive them in most cases. In the cases where you can drive them, you’ll only be permitted to take them for a slow spin around the auction yard. Another downside is inventory selection at many vehicle auctions. The selection can range form outstanding to very limited. You know what, though? Many used cars on dealer lots are found at auctions. The dealers keep this little secret tucked safely away inside their little book of tricks. If you could get your new car at an auction you could pay what the dealer’s pay, sometimes less.

Next time you need to buy a cheap, used car, remember there is one for you out there somewhere. You just need to find it. Remember, cheap and good!

Over the last 30 years there has been a mass migration to the suburbs and with the latest housing boom even more homes were built. Now that everyone has moved to the suburbs and brought their bad driving habits with them, the traffic in the suburbs is just as bad, if not worse, as it was never designed for this level of traffic. In some suburb cities that were once quiet bedroom towns, no matter what time of day that you drive the traffic is insane. Yes that is a huge issue and let’s take a few examples;

1.) Houston, semi suburb in the Westheimer Corridor, traffic is a disaster.

2.) Santa Monica, Huntington Beach, New Port Beach, Pasadena, San Diego, Palo Alto CA, traffic is outrageous.

3.) Atlanta Suburbs all bad.

4.) North Boston Suburbs “free parking”

5.) DC Adjacent; “mixing bowl” and suburbs, bad anytime of day.

6.) Dallas-Ft Worth suburbs, are a disaster.

Having been to every city in the Nation over 10,000 people I already see it. Give me my Net-Centric Flying Car! Help. Even in Missoula Montana, they have a place the locals call “Dysfunction Junction” and it is a 15 minute wait in traffic (one intersection) in Montana? Nuts I tell you!

Many suburban areas were set up due to urban flight and they are “Bedroom Communities” then the bosses got tired of driving into town and so they brought their companies to the suburbs. Now the change is another paradigm shift “albeit” it started slow and is now in full-bloom everywhere.

I watched this trend in Southern CA, before the Silicon Valley Changes when small service businesses started getting called to residences for those who worked out of their homes. Lots of people, and nobody really ever did the stats on that other than Home Business Licenses at city hall, but most people never bothered to get one.

The average city with 100,000 people has about 1000-2000 members in the chamber of commerce and that is usually 10-20% of the businesses that have business licenses. About 10% or 10,000 per 100,000 are self employed with business licenses, but that number in reality is higher.

As things change, “Knowledge Workers” ie… “Business at the Speed of Thought” workers working out of their homes will continue to grow just as you showed in your study. 20-35% is not hard to imagine at all.

We have discovered that good cold, dense air increased the volumetric efficiency of the combustion chamber in an engine. Turbo kits, air intakes, superchargers, bigger injectors, and nitrous oxide are all ways of sweetening the air fuel mixture in the combustion chambers, but there is another form of boost that is often overlooked.

Ram Air Kits can get you cooler, high velocity air into the intake increasing horsepower. These kits usually use a hood scoop to channel air into an air “funnel” that tunnels the air into a 2-3 inch pipe connected to the intake. These ram air kits essentially give you increasing amounts of “boost” as the vehicle speed increases. They do not give any additional boost at idle, because ram air kits use the force of the outside air to push air into the intake, but at highway speeds, they can perform very well with 70mph of wind velocity reaching the intake!

These ram air kits are fairly easy to install, and for the money can be a good upgrade. There are some ram air kits available that can attach to a cold air intake, giving you the added gains of the cold air intake coupled with the gains of the added boost at higher speeds. To install one of these, you would need to install an aftermarket hood with a scoop already in place. These are sometimes called induction style hoods, and are available in fiberglass and carbon fiber. Or you can fabricate your own by purchasing a hood scoop and cutting the hole in your existing hood, but I would recommend an induction hood designed for this type of application.

There is a small difference in the outcome of a body kit installed for street use and a body kit installed for show use (less than 1/4 inch difference). In a previous article, “Body Kits - Installing Them Right Scores Major Style Points,” we gave instructions on installing your body kit. Those instructions will give you a good, factory looking finished product. If you are interested in a show quality, perfect finish, these are the instructions for you!

We will assume that the body kit has already been sanded and prepped for paint. Now, we are going to custom fit our aftermarket body kit to the vehicle using a technique called “bedding.” To do this, we will apply body filler to the pieces we are installing and use the body filler to fill in the seams. Start by placing some masking tape over the area where the body kit meets the car. Now sand or grind the edge of the body kit to get a rough surface. Apply a good layer of body filler to the body kit using a quick setting body filler mixture. This is simply a mixture of body filler with a higher catalyst to filler ratio, and depending on the color of catalyst (usually blue or red) it will be a dark red or dark blue color. You want it to set in a matter of a few minutes, so once the body filler is added to the body kit, get it in place quickly and accurately. Place the body kit in its final position and hold securely for a few minutes. It may be wise to have some help with this. Once the filler is set and hardened, remove it from the car. Now check to see if the gap is completely filled in. If not, repeat the process until you are satisfied with the outcome. Then sand the body kit smooth by blending the body filler into the body kit. Once sanded, test the fit again. You may find you want to touch up some area, and if so, add a small layer of body filler and repeat the process again. Resand and retest.

Now that it is prefect, remove the masking tape from the car. Drill your pilot holes for your rivets (they tend to not come loose and we recommend them over screws) and secure it in place with rivets. Once secured, the car is ready to be painted, and you will have a perfect fitting, show quality aftermarket body kit installation.

Be warned. This is a time consuming endeavor, and should only be done by a competent installer. We still highly recommend a body shop install these body kits, but if you have the time and patience to do it right, go for it!

Auto Maintenance can get you down, but the solution is simple. Let me share three super simple ways that I use every day to keep track of auto maintenance on my own vehicles.

The most obvious method you can use is a simple trip record book that you keep in your glove box, write down the mileage on your vehicle when you get out of it every evening, along with any expenses you’ve had during the day. These can include gasoline, tire repair, service work, or cleaning. But those little books get lost, dirty, and loose pages, so at the end of the year, you’re wondering what you’ve done.

1. Keep a record in your calendar.

I keep a general record in a calendar in my office, including mileage, expenses, and details of service. This includes oil changes, hose and belt replacement, tire repair, and other nitty gritty details of upkeep and maintenance. I tuck any receipts inside the calendar and write them off at the end of the year on my taxes. Owning my own business means all those costs are deductible, since I have another vehicle for our personal use. Because the calendar stays with each vehicle, I prefer to keep a separate calendar for each vehicle. Keep the calendars in a file after you’re done for the year and you’ll have a record of all maintenance when you are ready to sell your vehicle.

2. Keep a record on your computer.

While this record needs to be printed and kept in a folder for security (computers are not as reliable as your Ford Truck), the computer makes an ideal method of keeping records current. Open a spreadsheet and give it weekly break points, each week, insert your totals in each category of costs. If you keep your checkbook in Quick Books, you can also add the information to your check memo and keep a good running record there - with printable reports.

3. Purchase a good manual with record sheets.

Purchase a good manual with record sheets for keeping regular information about your vehicle maintenance. Not only will you have legible spaces to record information, but you’ll have detailed suggestions as to necessary care and maintenance of your vehicle. A Maintenance Manual will help you keep up with daily details, provide information, and keep you abreast of necessary improvements you’ll need to make to keep your vehicle running in tip top condition.