fire delays my new seat

[Thorin]

I bought a heavily-used car last year, a 2004 Mazda 6 GT Sport Wagon.  It's a pleasure to drive, but it has been used lots (bought it at 240,000km on the odometer).  I paid $3,800, and I fully expected things to go wrong with it.

The first big expense was new tires.  Well, I knew about that.  I ended up buying a second set of wheels so I can swap my summer and winter tires easily by myself, instead of having to book an appointment for it.  Spent about $2,000 on tires and wheels.

The next big expense was brakes.  The back brakes really needed replacement.  They'd been left too long and the pads had completely worn away and damaged the rotors.  That was about $500.

The next big expense here is the driver's power seat has failed.  The electric motor to slide forwards and back has failed.  Alright, getting the electric motor replaced is about $900, but the garage I deal with said they can just buy a used seat that works and then save on the labour of rebuilding a seat, so that'd cost about $650.  Great!  They could even get it delivered and installed today!

Except...  The place they're getting this seat from is inaccessible due to a big fire on the west end   http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/crews-battling-major-fire-in-west-edmonton-1.2787112

Lesson 1: cars are expensive
Lesson 2: used cars have more headache-inducing hassles than new ones
Lesson 3: new cars cost more
Lesson 4: when debating new versus used, you're really debating more money versus more hassles
Lesson 5: FIRE TRUMPS EVERYTHING

Just like in Minecraft...

[Mr. Analog]

Were there any Dwarfs or Spacemen spotted in the area?

Lewis: Why aren't you panicking?!?!?!
Simon: I kind of like it...
Lewis: What do you mean you kind of like it? the house is on fire!
Simon: Everything will be reborn in a baptism of fire...

[Melbosa]

LOL Fire sure does...

Myself been looking at tires for my Venza.  Found a great deal with www.1010tires.com with rims, winter tires, bags, balancing, lug-nuts, AB Environmental Levy, shipping and GST for $1350.64.  My Venza tires are low profile so they are typically hard to find replacements for as well (245/50R20 (102H)), so I dropped the rims down to 18" in the deal with Winter Tires (245/60R18 104T) to match the profile I had before.

But before I buy going to look at a 2012 tonight with new tires and less K....

Sorry you have to wait to adjust your seat

[Thorin]

Just the one set of tires, though, right?  I spent about $2k (just under) on two sets of tires, one set of wheels, with all the little extra costs like balancing and installation.  The only thing I didn't get was tire bags.  The bags are to stop the tires from off-gassing, but really, if you'd had those tires on your car all year round they'd still be off-gassing and in fact would be exposed to the sun more, causing more degradation than if you store them in your garage for half the year.

At least the seat is properly adjusted for me, so I'm driving the car everywhere this weekend while my wife takes the truck everywhere.

I still want to buy a used Civic or Corolla with a stick shift

[Lazybones]

For me the decision between used and new is purely expected life cycle.

New:
Is it the sole / primary vehicle
It will get lots of mileage / be used for long trips
It will be used by more than one person
Expected to own / last well over 5 years.

Used:
Emergency / can't afford new
secondary / non-critical vehicle
single driver / narrow use vehicle (commuter car, or holiday vehicle)

[Darren Dirt]

Except...  The place they're getting this seat from is inaccessible due to a big fire on the west end   http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/crews-battling-major-fire-in-west-edmonton-1.2787112

1. Glad I am able to rely on LRT/bus for most of my transportation needs.

2. Wow the photo taken from downtown sure tells you how mega this fire is...


btw, interesting angle of that photo -- on the bottom right you can see the new LRT station, and everything to the left of THAT seems to me to be the construction site of the new arena and surrounding complex...

[Mr. Analog]

man... I feel bad for the students that have to live around that mess egads!

But yeah, that's a big plume, I wonder what went up?