Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

There's another problem

For the obsessive compulsive, buying a used car has one big advantage: it comes already imperfect! Having purchased three new cars in my life thus far, I can say the agony of that first flaw - usually a curb rash on the wheel - hurts a metric ton. The car is no longer perfect, and it is all my fault.

A used car solves that problem. The previous owner(s) blemished the car already. It’s physical impossible to keep a car perfect, short of trailering it from the factory right into a hermetically sealed, climate controlled garage. Forever.

Sadly, the compulsion to keep something perfect rear its head in another way. A few months ago I bought a used 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI. Ever since delivery, I’ve been fighting a battle to refrain from making it perfect again. Existing curb rashes on the wheels? I should buy a brand new set. The leather steering wheel is excessively worn? A replacement isn’t that much money. What’s another interior trim piece to “fix” the unsightly scratches?

See the problem? Instead of obsessively trying to keep a new car perfect, I am instead obsessively trying to make a used car perfect. Both are bad, I do not recommend. Soon as they figure out a pill for this malady I shall be first in line.

The financially conscious part of me is doing its best to keep the spending in check. The goal is to have a functioning car, properly maintained. Perfection is optional. Replacing wear items like perished rubber window trim is entirely appropriate. Replacing an interior button because the lettering has worn down? I shall not go that far. Not in this economy.

I will be replacing the wheels on the GTI. Because one of them is bent. I’ll allow the extravagance of buying four new wheels, even though I could easily buy just the one to replace the broken rim. We car enthusiasts sure love new car parts, straight from anywhere, not just Japan.

Stop it. Get some help

Headlines are buzzing about the high price of new cars. The average transaction price for new vehicles in America is now over $50,000. The average monthly payment for a new car is nearly $750. As is the wont during these high inflation times (why would Joe Biden do this?), people are grumbling about the ever increasing cost of personal motor transport.

I do not have an ounce of sympathy for this situation. The beauty of the capitalistic system is that it takes two to proverbially tango. Sling all the greed accusations you want against the automakers and dealerships: car buyers still have to sign on the dotted line. The Truth in Lending Act dictates that consumers are given complete information on exactly what sort of loan they are contracting themselves for. No excuses.

The average new car may be selling for over $50,000, but a perfectly fine Toyota Corolla sedan can be had for $22,275 starting. It’s got power everything, and Apple CarPlay. And because it’s a Toyota, it will last forever with minimal maintenance. Now you may say that you need something bigger for your family. That’s a want, not a need. The Corolla is equipped with child seat anchors in the rear. For sure it’s not as convenient as a Toyota Sienna minivan, but do you have $40,120 starting for a Sienna?

New cars aren’t expensive - the cars people want to buy, are. If stretching your wallet for that three-row SUV is going to be financially difficult, then perhaps it’s just not in a cards for you. No one is entitled to a fully-loaded SUV with all the trimmings. Consumers’ unwillingness to purchase within their means isn’t the fault of the banks or the automakers. Let’s not strip agency - and blame - from fully functioning adults.

I will however get on Porsche’s case for raising prices so dramatically over the last year…

Too dark too soon

While I greatly enjoy this time of the year of cold and coziness, the whole getting dark super early thing is not the business. Who really wants to be commuting to work in the dark, and then heading home also in the dark? If they ever manage to get rid of daylight savings time, I hope they keep the set time to be whichever provides the most sunlight hours towards the end of the day during the winter months.

Because when it’s dark outside but it’s only 5:00 PM, I feel weird eating dinner at my normal 7:00 PM hour. We’ve evolved to equate darkness with sleepy time, so it’s disconcerting to be two hours into darkness only to then start making supper. If they ever manage to make permanently below-ground living a thing with artificial sun technology, I hope they keep a consistent sunrise and sunset hour.

Perhaps I should move to somewhere on the equator. Word on the street is $100,000 USD can buy a Thailand residency visa.

You how when you buy a brand new car you tend to be super careful about it? Agonizing over the perfectly harmless parking space, and worrying about the slightest hint of dust laying on top of the painted surface. This motivation to keep something perfect - is it rooted in evolution, I wonder? Did caveman get traumatized from a lightning strike destroying their once intact cave facade?

What we do know is that nothing keeps perfect forever. After the first rock chip on the hood, or the first scrape from another parked car, we tend to relax into not caring much about the car anymore. The solution then is to buy used cars instead of new. Second-hand vehicles already come pre-blemished! Who cares if I chipped the wheel on a curb - there’s already existing rashes.

What you don’t want to do though is to fall into a trap of making a used car “perfect” again. That scratched interior panel because the previous owner hauled something carelessly? Leave it be. Even if a replacement panel is only a hundred bucks or so.

Fine, I'll do it myself

At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the post-credit scene shows the villain Thanos putting on the Infinity Gauntlet, exclaiming, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

Thanos understands that if you want something done correctly, you indeed do it yourself. I would also add that it’s the same if you want something done timely. Those of us on the control-freak side of the spectrum can’t bear the uncertainty of waiting for someone else to perform what you want done.

It’s no big deal of course if the stakes are low. The horse I’m on isn’t high enough for me to look down upon the Starbucks barista making me a cappuccino. There’s no worry whatsoever the job won’t be done quickly and correctly. Unless I’ve pissed off said barista during the initial interaction. Then I should expect something unsavory added to the mix.

When the stakes are higher, so is anxiety that stems from the uncertainty. I recently purchased a used car. It comes with a limited 100 day warranty, so of course I took it to the dealership service to check things over. The inspection report returned some items that need addressing. No big deal, right? Surely the dealership can coordinate with the warranty company to get it all sorted.

Except it’s been an entire work week, and there’s yet to be any movement since the inspection. I’m not placing blame on either party here. It’s taking a long time, nothing I can do about it. Except - to do the work myself. The warranty items were cheap enough and easy enough to DIY that I went ahead and ordered the replacement parts. Over this very weekend I swapped them in. Now I can rest easy knowing the problem is fixed, and I can move on to the next.

Endless anxiety

Back in the olden days when I used to build by own PCs, I can kiss my sleep goodbye if anything inevitably goes wrong. I simply cannot soundly sleep until a problem is fixed. The graphic card is giving out errors? It’s got to be remedied, even though it’s currently 2:00 AM in the morning, and the end is still not in sight. This is why I exclusively use Apple Macintosh computers now: reliable, with a warranty.

Imagine me owning a home, and the washer goes out. It’s too bad there isn’t a 24-hours Home Depot!

This inability to calm down until a problem is solved can’t just be idiosyncratic to me, right? I don’t know how to explain it. Impatience is the wrong word for it. It’s definitely anxiety, but for what purpose? Life is but an endless stream of problems - good or bad - for us to solve. The fallacy is that I seem to think there is a some happy equilibrium to reach, that once reached, everything will be okay forevermore. That’s of course not how it works.

It’s the wrecking my sleep that I find alarming. No amount of Buddhist breathing methods can calm my mind down for slumber. (Medical options, perhaps?) It doesn’t like open-ended questions. I recently sold my BMW for another car - a very simple and easy transaction. Even that, I had difficultly sleeping over the two days when the transaction was ongoing. I cannot relax until the thing is finished.

The new-to-me car arrived with some minor things to be fixed. (That’s typical when you buy a used car.) Cue up another bout of anxiety and sleeplessness! I fully understand that parts and shop time literally cannot happen overnight, and yet the anxiety over an “unfinished” car remains ever present. I just want to get it done and move on - but to what? Like I said earlier, life will only keep throwing problems at you to fix.

Am I then destined to suffer from anxiety continuously? On the flip side, isn’t it good to have things that make you want to get out of bed to solve? Tricky one, this.

Buona fortuna

I was at Costco doing my usual weekend shopping when I noticed the usual five pound bag of whey protein by Optimum Nutrition is now over $67! That is crazy. I’m old enough to remember when the same bag was only $35. Us weightlifters are in shambles when it comes to feeding our protein addiction. Instead of picking up weights ever, I should have joined a monastery…

The annual Monterey car week was only a few weeks ago. It’s always fascinating to me how certain car enthusiasts can drop multiple six figures on a car like it’s nothing. These people spend on vehicles like how I don’t think twice about paying extra for the larger size of fries. There’s a certain level of wealth that I cannot fathom or comprehend when way more than my entire net-worth is concentrated into a single object.

How bad can the overall economy be when hundreds of enthusiast cars are changing hands on a daily basis on sites like Bring a Trailer and Cars And Bids. People are capable of dropping $50,000 - $100,000 on what is most certainly a secondary car (if not tertiary or further). Heck, I don’t even have that. I’ve been contemplating and strategizing on buying a second car to compliment the BMW M2 for over two years now - still can’t financially justify pulling that trigger.

I can certainly relate to those Youtube videos about how seemingly everybody else has more money than me. Granted there’s zero envy involved here. I understand fully my income situation and how much I can spend. It is what it is, and it’s the only thing I can control. But one can always daydream, right? Especially when the PowerBall jackpot is sitting at 1.8 billion dollars.

It would only be due to buona fortuna if I am ever in a position to drop six figures on a car like ordering appetizers at a restaurant.

Eat the rich

Someone on Bring a Trailer just paid a hair over $200,000 for an Acura Integra Type R with 4,800 miles. Plus buyer’s premium to BaT, and the relevant taxes and registration. Though surely someone with this much coin to drop on essentially a toy would no doubt have a Montana LLC to register it under. No taxes, baby!

Needless to say, that is a metric ton of money for that car. Even the most shortest of wheel-base early model Porsche 911s do not transact for this much. Caveats, of course: this looks to be the most pristine sample of the Integra Type R outside of the one tucked away in the Honda museum. The high price is also due to a bidding war between two rich guys desperate to own this legendary piece of Japanese automotive history.

Bottom line, an item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay. The only way to measure whether or not $200K for an Integra Type R is “worth it” is to have another auction with an almost exact copy of this car. Except you can’t. Honda did not make that many Integra Type Rs to begin with. I bet there isn’t another one of these with this immaculate of provenance.

So we will never know. Us peasants can only dream of dropping $200,000 on a static toy like it’s nothing. You can cut three zeros to that figure and I’d still agonize over whether or not $200 for a pair shoes is worth it. Heck, I’m still teeter-tottering on spending $40,000+ on a second car. $200,000 on something with only artistic value! The new owner won’t ever put miles on this Type R: each additional mile is a hatchet to the car’s value.

(Tongue firmly in cheek) I can understand why a subset of folks want to “eat the rich.” When you see such figures spent on cars like it’s nothing, or paying $100,000 markup on a 992 GT3 that already starts at $250,000, you realize there’s a whole entire separate world of car enthusiasm that you have no access to. Let envy get the best of you, and yeah, you’d want to “eat the rich”, too.