How I Spent Saturday Night

[Jack]

Something occured to me today. Mabey it's obvious, or mabey I am just slow.

Long story short, I realised that a huge number of people who oppose the rights of gays to be married have themselves been divorced and remarried once or even more than once. In fact, common statistics say that around 50% of heterosexual people who get married file for divorce.

Should devorced people be listened to when they say gay marriage is a "mockery" of traditional marriage? Divorce is just such a mockery, and much more prevalent and common.

It seems to me that getting married, divorced, and remarried is more of a "mockery" than marrying a person of the same gender one time.

I have long agreed wtih exactly that point, however, isn't this the wrong thread to post that in?

LMAO!! I thought I was making this its own post! Wrong window! Sorry, people!



I feel so stupid.

[Charlene]

So, Beowulf - how's your insurance situation going?

The driver who hit me had insurance. It moved along quite smoothly until the last few days.

The insurance company totalled my Blazer because repairs will cost more than 80% of the retail value of the vehicle. Because it's been totalled, the Department of Licensing is cancelling the registration - regardless of the fact that the Blazer passed the emission test 2 days after the wreck and regardless of the fact that I've been driving it for the past 2 weeks and not leaving a trail of parts! I can't re-register it until it's been inspected. It can't be inspected until it's repaired. And it can't be repaired until the shop gets the parts in. I just took the Blazer in to the shop today because I was waiting for the insurance check first.

So now we wait. And now we're back to one vehicle. What fun. NOT It's either have my husband take me to work an hour early, or take the bus, along with all the drug addicts headed to their rehab meeting. The part of town I now work in has been going downhill over the past 15 years or so. I can't walk around outside to kill time, because this is the red light district, and that's what the men driving by will think I'm after. I'm not going to drop my husband off and drive our new van and park it in this part of town, so I guess I'll just have to hang out in the break room for an hour.

[beowulf573]

Sorry, Charlene, didn't see your message.

Update...

Finally got back to playing yesterday, my shoulder still twinges but it is getting better so hopefully just a little more time is needed to heal.

The guy didn't have any insurance, wasn't even his car, oh, and had a blood alcohol volume that was twice the legal limit in Texas. Luckily I have uninsured motorist coverage but now I have to go through the work of getting money from my insurance company and buying a new car. A big car, maybe a Hummer. Luckily my wife is an attorney so I'm going to let her handle the paperwork.

Still, I remind myself, it could have been much, much worse. Side airbags are your friends.

[beowulf573]

Whoops, forgot add toughts on totaling cars...

I'm surprised they totaled your Blazer, usually they go for repairs, I think it ends up cheaper for them. I had a friend who was in an accident with an old car, just paid for the week before, and he was sure the car was totaled, yet his insurance company wanted to rebuild it.

Mine was totaled, but as the pics at the start of the thread show, that's not too surprising. Still dissapointing, I was hoping to get another 5-7 years of easy driving out of it before it started falling appart. At least my insurance company gave me decent money for it.

Now I get to buy a new car, oh joy, dealing with car salesmen, just what I want to do on my weekends (with apologies to any care salesmen reading). Some folks get a thrill out of neogtiation, I don't.

[cowtime]

Be glad they totaled your vehicle. Years ago, our daughter's truck should have been totaled but was not. The frame was bent and it was never right afterward. I've known of several folks who had the same experience.

But, after all , a vehicle is replaceable. If that's the worst, then you did come out very lucky.

The way folks drive around here, and the shape they are in while driving, it's a wonder there are not even more accidents........

[Charlene]

The repair shop just got all the parts in so I get to take the Blazer in on Monday. I don't think the frame is bent since all the vehicles were facing straight - she drove straight into my back end, and I went straight into the Mazda in front of me. But we will know for sure once the mechanics get a look at it. I still don't believe a little Chevy Lumina could hit with enough force to bend the trailer hitch down visibly. But it did.

When we bought our new van just a month before this wreck, my husband did all the dealing with the salesman. The salesman turned out to be pretty nice, but he had only just started on the job . I hate haggling over prices. Something is either for sale at a set price, or it's not. If I don't think it's worth the money, I don't buy it. I would never be comfortable in a part of the world where you are expected to barter for everything!

Hope you can find a vehicle you like at a decent price!

What is the legal limit in Texas? It's .08 here in Washington. I suppose the other driver wasn't hurt a bit (probably too relaxed!) and probably doesn't even remember the accident.

Re-reading the other posts, I guess cowtime's remark was directed to beowulf, not me. Oh well. I still think all the restictions the state puts on driving the totalled vehicle are silly - some common sense would show that in this case the Blazer is still perfectly drivable - but I know I'm dealing with government regulations, and "government regulations" and "common sense" are mutually exclusive phrases!

[beowulf573]

Yeah, I thought the same regarding totalling it, as much of a hassle it is to buy a new car, the old one would have never been the same so it's probably for the best. Luckily, I saved a bit of money from my severence package when I was laid off earlier this year, so I won't have to dip into my savings.

Texas is 0.08, it was 0.10 until around 1999 or so. One good side about buying cars nowdays, and I did this with my Explorer in 2000, is that you can do a great deal of research online, invoice prices, dealer stock, etc.

[missy]

DH got hit Tuesday morning. Some idiot ran a red light, just as DH was turning right. He saw the guy coming and tried to get out of the way, the other car clipped the front end of DH's car. Thankfully THIS guy had insurance. DH's car is at the shop, getting a new front fender.
The other guy's insurance wasn't going to talk about a rental car - but DH insisted. So we have a little Cavalier for two weeks (DH's car is 9 years old, so it'll take a while to get the parts).

I HATE buying cars. I did as suggested for my last one, a lot of internet homework beforehand, knew what I was willing to pay, and walked into the dealer with copies of stuff off the internet in hand.
No hassle at all! First price they offered was only $25 away from what I had figured on paying beforehand.

Missy

[OutOfBreath]

I just bought a new car and was happy to find lot's of info available online. I subscribe to consumer reports online so I bought their three-month "new car buyer's kit." It's forty bucks but saved me probably $1500, so was well worth it. One of the things the kit provides is the actual amount the dealer paid for the car (not the dealer invoice, which is meaningless). The CU report shows all the current hidden holdbacks and whatnot that don't show up on the "invoice."

Curiously, I tried really hard to buy a Ford Focus and the dealer wasn't interested in selling it to me. I'd made the rounds of the dealers looking at minivans and small SUVs (I need an upright seat for my back, one of the reasons I was getting rid of my 2001 Neon even though it only had 76k miles on it). (THe other reason was that the Neon was a POC that had been in the shop twice for major issues and was starting to make wierd noises from the front end and the extended warranty had just expired. It's going to take one whale of a salesman to ever sell me another Chrysler product!)

After looking at several minivans and small SUVs I decided to try a Focus hatchback because in the past I've had great luck with Fords and I like small, nimble cars. To my surprise the hatchback models have a very good driver's seat (the Sedans don't).

I won't own an automatic transmission with a four cylinder engine so I asked the dealer if they had a five-speed hatchback with ABS and side-curtain airbags. There was one at the distribution center that had every option available, but the dealer (a large dealership with probably 1200 vehicles on the lot) wouldn't get it unless it was under contract because "they didn't want to get stuck with it." I told them I wouldn't sign a contract sight unseen unless it had an escape clause in case the car arrived with paint that looked like it was applied by a roller or something. I told them to give me a call and let me know when would be a good time to come in and haggle and if we could agree on price I'd sign a contract as long as it had such an escape clause. They never even called back.

So, I went back to the Kia dealer the next afternoon and bought Sportage equipped exactly the way I wanted it, and got far more vehicle for a couple grand less than the tricked out Focus would have cost me.

No wonder Ford's credit rating has been downgraded to junk status - their dealers aren't interested in selling cars anymore!

[Charlene]

My Blazer is legal again. All fixed (well, at least what was caused by the wreck) and inspected and legally licensed again. Two cars again - YAY! It gets so hectic trying to get two people to work and one to school with one car. Sometimes I've had to take the bus and since the neighborhood I work in is going downhill, I have to ride with all the drug addicts and prostitutes. At least in my own car I can lock the doors!

It cost almost $500 more than what the insurance paid. Still cheaper than a new car and less hassle than going car shopping.

[springrobin]

Curiously, I tried really hard to buy a Ford Focus and the dealer wasn't interested in selling it to me. I'd made the rounds of the dealers looking at minivans and small SUVs (I need an upright seat for my back, one of the reasons I was getting rid of my 2001 Neon even though it only had 76k miles on it). (THe other reason was that the Neon was a POC that had been in the shop twice for major issues and was starting to make wierd noises from the front end and the extended warranty had just expired. It's going to take one whale of a salesman to ever sell me another Chrysler product!)

That's because Ford loses money on every Focus. The Focus helps bring Ford into compliance with mandatory CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) because of the gas-guzzling SUV's they sell. It doesn't really cost Ford $30,000 less to build the Focus than the Excursion- there are only so many parts to any vehicle and separately the smaller parts don't cost THAT much less than the bigger ones to make. The kicker for the car companies is that in order to sell enough of the smaller cars to offset the lack of fuel economy of the profitable bigger vehicles, they have to take a loss on the smaller ones. Unfortunately, if fuel becomes too dear and folks go for the economy models, they can't up the prices on those to make a profit.

Personally, I'd pay more for something I can depend on keeping for a long time than something that is impressive so I do pay attention to ratings.