May 27, 2011 at 11:41 am
jcrawf02 (5/27/2011)
Kiara (5/27/2011)
GSquared (5/27/2011)
A friend of mine says that what a friend of his does is buy old clunker cars, usually for around $2,000 or so. Then the only maintenance he does is adding gas to the tank. The cars don't last long enough to need anything more than that. He usually goes through a car a year. Note that this is all friend-of-a-friend, so it may just be BS. But if it's true, he's paying less that way than most people making payments on a lease/lein on a more usual used car. Of course, he's also riding around in an old clunker that's likely to die halfway to work, and it certainly can't look good or be comfortable.That's actually a fairly common situation for commuters out here (Chicago area) or for folks who live downtown. If the car is pretty much only used to get to and from the train station, a clunker works well. And if the car is routinely parked outside on Chicago city streets and where public transit is a fairly common mode of transport, well, I know several people who vote for the clunker approach...
My father would like your friend, although he NEVER would have paid $2,000 for a car. His averaged about $500 every time. I grew up driving a Ford Pinto, then a Mercury Bobcat (knock-off Pinto), then Ford Festivas (had about three of those, one of which my older brother TOTALED by running into a STOP SIGN when avoiding a stray dog.
I'm convinced he was trying to kill us off by buying unsafe cars to save him even more money, but that may be unfair...
I loved my 1990 Ford Festiva. That's the car I went 30,000 miles without an oil change. It got 50 mpg, had its first mechanical work (right front toe arm) done at 101,000 miles, changed the original spark plugs, wire, rotor, and distributor at 105,521 miles (mpg had dropped to 40), and first (and only) brake work done shortly after that. The car was a trooper.
May 27, 2011 at 12:07 pm
jcrawf02 (5/27/2011)
Kiara (5/27/2011)
GSquared (5/27/2011)
A friend of mine says that what a friend of his does is buy old clunker cars, usually for around $2,000 or so. Then the only maintenance he does is adding gas to the tank. The cars don't last long enough to need anything more than that. He usually goes through a car a year. Note that this is all friend-of-a-friend, so it may just be BS. But if it's true, he's paying less that way than most people making payments on a lease/lein on a more usual used car. Of course, he's also riding around in an old clunker that's likely to die halfway to work, and it certainly can't look good or be comfortable.That's actually a fairly common situation for commuters out here (Chicago area) or for folks who live downtown. If the car is pretty much only used to get to and from the train station, a clunker works well. And if the car is routinely parked outside on Chicago city streets and where public transit is a fairly common mode of transport, well, I know several people who vote for the clunker approach...
My father would like your friend, although he NEVER would have paid $2,000 for a car. His averaged about $500 every time. I grew up driving a Ford Pinto, then a Mercury Bobcat (knock-off Pinto), then Ford Festivas (had about three of those, one of which my older brother TOTALED by running into a STOP SIGN when avoiding a stray dog.
I'm convinced he was trying to kill us off by buying unsafe cars to save him even more money, but that may be unfair...
Sure, it's unfair. It wasn't about saving money. It was about all the cool tech toys he'd be getting from you will when you were gone. @=)
May 27, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Brandie Tarvin (5/27/2011)
I had to add my two cents about Craig's article and blog about it too. I hope that drives more traffic to the site.
Cool, that's always nice. 🙂
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
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May 27, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Congratulations Gail and Grant for getting spotlight sessions at the PASS Summit this year!
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
May 27, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
May 27, 2011 at 1:59 pm
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?
Sure, I could go, and attend the precon and the spotlight!
Side note for those not on Twitter, I accepted a 6 month contract position in Concord, NH today. The majority of the work will be performance tuning stored procedures for an application ported from Oracle to SQL Server. One of the curses of having been a jack of all trades is that they always find .NET work for me to do too.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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May 27, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Jack Corbett (5/27/2011)
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?Sure, I could go, and attend the precon and the spotlight!
Side note for those not on Twitter, I accepted a 6 month contract position in Concord, NH today. The majority of the work will be performance tuning stored procedures for an application ported from Oracle to SQL Server. One of the curses of having been a jack of all trades is that they always find .NET work for me to do too.
Agreed - if I could attend that would make summit better too!!
Congrats on the job. :-):-)
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
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May 27, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Congrats Gail and Grant. That means if things go as planned, I can meet all of you at the Summit.
I had a great time hanging around with Jeff last year. I am hoping he will be there this year as well. Then we can discuss SQL with a pint or two 😀
-Roy
May 27, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Jack Corbett (5/27/2011)
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?Sure, I could go, and attend the precon and the spotlight!
Side note for those not on Twitter, I accepted a 6 month contract position in Concord, NH today. The majority of the work will be performance tuning stored procedures for an application ported from Oracle to SQL Server. One of the curses of having been a jack of all trades is that they always find .NET work for me to do too.
Congratulations on finding something!
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May 27, 2011 at 2:44 pm
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?
So, you're aiming for a keynote address now?
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
May 27, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Stefan Krzywicki (5/27/2011)
GSquared (5/27/2011)
A friend of mine says that what a friend of his does is buy old clunker cars, usually for around $2,000 or so. Then the only maintenance he does is adding gas to the tank. The cars don't last long enough to need anything more than that. He usually goes through a car a year. Note that this is all friend-of-a-friend, so it may just be BS. But if it's true, he's paying less that way than most people making payments on a lease/lein on a more usual used car. Of course, he's also riding around in an old clunker that's likely to die halfway to work, and it certainly can't look good or be comfortable.Well, I paid $27,000 for my 97 Pathfinder. I got it new and it is still going. If you don't include maintenance and insurance, I've paid around 2K/Yr for the car and I've never had to worry about it. Plus, I've gotten tons of use out of it. It now has over 270,000 miles on it: 10 cents a mile. And that doesn't factor in utility: What I've saved with towing instead of delivery or renting trucks.
Of course, it also doesn't factor in maintenance, but that's just an oil change every 5K, tune-up every 60-100K, tires and a few real repairs.
I used to do this when I was younger, mostly because I wanted a different car. I'd buy something between $400-$4k, usually keep it for a year, then trade it in for something else. Sometimes I sold them, sometimes I traded them, but usually it was around $150/mn that it was costing me for a car each year. Sometimes a bit more if repairs came up.
Now we got the $27k Prius in '07, but got a $1500 tax credit and saved a ton of gas. It's about paid for and it's been a good vehicle across 80k+ miles. We also bought an old Suburban, '01, $6k, 110k miles that's a good family car when we need to haul carry stuff around. I anticipate that will live here for 10 more years, just as a spare that we can use when we have to carry 5+ people.
I think I've sworn off new cars from here on out. I like the old ones better. I can just go get keys made for them 😛
May 27, 2011 at 2:47 pm
bitbucket-25253 (5/27/2011)
Driving a Mercedes 300 1992 (Diesel with super charger) now at 303,562 miles. Change oil every 5,000 ... maintence every 10,000 costs $90.00, and runs like a charm averaging slightyl over 30 mpgWondering why Steve has stopped blogging about his car .. ? ? ?
I had a '92 240D for a long time, I think from around 110k miles to 160k. Same story. Now the 911 does that job 😀
The car blogging got too many people upset. It's an emotional subject and the Prius creates all these weird feelings, either the tree-huggers or the tree-hugger-haters disliked my take.
May 27, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Jack Corbett (5/27/2011)
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?Sure, I could go, and attend the precon and the spotlight!
Side note for those not on Twitter, I accepted a 6 month contract position in Concord, NH today. The majority of the work will be performance tuning stored procedures for an application ported from Oracle to SQL Server. One of the curses of having been a jack of all trades is that they always find .NET work for me to do too.
Congrats, Jack.
Those .NET skills are handy and will pay the bills.
May 27, 2011 at 3:09 pm
WayneS (5/27/2011)
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?So, you're aiming for a keynote address now?
Along with Dr DeWitte
-Roy
May 27, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Roy Ernest (5/27/2011)
WayneS (5/27/2011)
GilaMonster (5/27/2011)
Precon and spotlight! Could this PASS Summit get any better?So, you're aiming for a keynote address now?
Along with Dr DeWitte
She'll probably start correcting him.
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