Hmm… honestly, I guess it all depends on the day. Today, for example I was on my way to work and I shared a four-way stop with a brand new Cadillac CTS driven by an elderly lady of about 80 years old I’d venture to guess. I didn’t really ‘judge’ her (as she was actually one of the few drivers that didn’t make an idiotic mistake on while we drove up the one way Fitzroy Street), but I did start to wonder how the transaction must have transpired that got her into that $75K vehicle (I’m guessing).

I then read an article today at one of my favorite sites “The Financial Blogger” whom wrote and asked “Do Big Cars Equal Big Money?”. The article was great, but one part of it actually struck a cord and got me to write what you’re reading. The following article:

…people severely question the choice yet they don’t really have an issue with couples who blow $3,000 – $4,000 each winter for a week down south every year. They don’t talk about the guy who renovated his kitchen and sunk $25,000 on it, including granite counters. And they certainly won’t argue with the $5,000 home theatre system with a giant screen during the Superbowl!

How true! So I decided to take the $3000 that many people likely spend on vacations in the run of a year and upgrade my car to see what I could be driving.. I’ll do this with the help of leasebusters.com which can give me a good estimate as to what people are generally leasing cars for. (This is just for a quick reference, I realize pricing is different for purchases, etc.).

I currently pay $375 for my Vibe per month, if we take that $3000 and instead put that towards a car – that’s a new budget of $250 more a month or $625.

The Results:

2009 Mercedes-Benz C-Class 230 4Matic Sport/Premium package $454.29	2008 BMW 3 Series 323i w/Sport & Premium Package $548.00
2005 Jaguar X-TYPE VDP AWD $660.74	2007 Lexus IS 250 Premium Luxury package $595.49
2008 Lexus ES 350 $680.00	2008 BMW Z4 3.0 si Premium, Comfort, Sport and Premium Sound Packages $684.37

Yeah I’m not making this up – click on any of the links above for the details on the offers. So all you folks whom crave the yearly trip or two and spend $3000 (or more!) on vacations – the alternatives for some is to not go on vacations but have a really nice ride like this. I suppose the amount of gas and the amount of increase of car insurance, ha, and life insurance rates would go up quite a bit as well.

Now I’m sure that a lot of folks get the opportunity to do both (nice cars and nice vacations)– but for those of us whom don’t, I guess I shouldn’t judge the little old lady anymore when she drives around in her brand new Cadillac – perhaps she just doesn’t spend the extra money going to Florida or Cuba for the all week drinking binges

I’ve written before about how bad Islanders are at driving.. and generally it’s when I’m on my way home for lunch every day. I’ve decided that once I get a little mini-HD camera, I’m going to mount it to my dash every day and just record my daily commute home. I swear to you there isn’t a day go by that someone doesn’t do something stupid.

Ok, back to my tip for the day.. and it’s not the first time I’ve heard about this tip either, but I seem to go back to my old ways for some reason which I will try to avoid in the future.

My car has horrible blind spots, or at least I think it does. Let me ask you.. how do you line up your rear view mirrors? Obviously the one in the middle of the windshield is going to be facing straight back (and not checking to see if your adult acne treatment is working while you’re driving) – but your two door mirrors, are you like me and adjust them so that you can see a little bit of my own car, and the rest is ‘hope for the best’?

Well, what Car and Driver suggests is that you take that you move those mirrors outside their ‘normal’ range and put them just outside the range of your rear view mirror. This will basically extend the range that you can see, and in most cases, eliminate your blind side.

Here is the article from Car & Driver:

For the past few years, various carmakers have been offering blind-spot detection systems for their cars’ side mirrors. Often complex, these systems employ cameras or radar to scan the adjoining lanes for vehicles that may have disappeared from view.

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) published a paper in 1995 suggesting how outside mirrors could be adjusted to eliminate blind spots. The paper advocates adjusting the mirrors so far outward that the viewing angle of the side mirrors just overlaps that of the cabin’s rearview mirror. This can be disorienting for drivers used to seeing the flanks of their own car in the side mirrors. But when correctly positioned, the mirrors negate a car’s blind spots. This obviates the need to glance over your shoulder to safely change lanes as well as the need for an expensive blind-spot warning system.

The only problem is getting used to the SAE-recommended mirror positions. The cabin’s rearview mirror is used to keep an eye on what is coming up from behind, while the outside mirrors reflect the area outside the view of the inside rearview mirror.

Those who have switched to the SAE’s approach swear by it, however, some drivers can’t adjust to not using the outside mirrors to see directly behind the car and miss being able to see their own car in the side mirrors. To them we say, “Have fun filling out those accident reports.”

Hello Vibe!

As I was just calling to have insurance taken off of it, I started wondering about how much the car that I currently have is costing me on average per month, here’s what I’ve calculated.

Lease Payment – $375.00 (taxes in)
Insurance Payment – $85
Gas – $80 (roughly 2 fillups at $40 each one)
Oil Changes ($30 x 2) = $60 divided by 12 =  $5 a month
Undercoating –  $100 divided by 12 = $8 a month

So all in all that totals over $550 a month and that’s just what I can think of right now! That’s $6600 a year in case you wanted to know.

But before I decide to trade in my car and g

I do miss the Cobalt

et a used one, it’s interesting to note that to drive a used car sometime can cost quite a bit more depending on how lucky you get with the condition of it.

Car total cost = $12000
Years driven = 4 years?
Monthly Cost =  $250
Interest Cost On Loan = 5% = $600 a year or $50 a month
Insurance = $50 (probably)
Gas = $80 (just a guess, but I’ll keep it the same)
Oil Changes = $5 a month
Parts/Problem = $500 a year (average) =  $42 a month

Of course that last one is a very rough estimate as there are likely years that there are no problems, and then of course there are years that the damn thing never leaves the shop. That all totalled is equal to over $477 a month and this is for a $12000 car!?!

I don’t know, I’d really like to continue this discussion on the pros and cons.. I guess certainly a pro on the used car is that after 4 years you have no more car payment as opposed to myself whom will be faced with a $5000 option to buy it (or give it back and start over).

The pros’ on the newer car are pretty obvious as well with warranty being right up at the top, but other ones would be having something you really enjoy driving, better technologies in the car, better safety, etc.

What do you think? Any thoughts of comments are certainly welcome.

As a side note – I nearly got in 3 accidents today driving home for lunch as I watched as a person near changed lanes on Kent St. right into me (I was driving next to them), I watched the classic stop sign move of someone “following” the car in front of them right through the stop sign not realizing I suppose it’s supposed to be “one at a time”, and then my personal favorite was the person checking out their GPS system (on a one way street with a PEI license plate.. go figure), and turning right from the far right lane in front of me right next to Holland College.. I mean seriously.. wtf?? I won’t go into my “GPS on PEI” speech right now, cuz I do appreciate the devices and when travelling I find their usefulness infinite.. but for someone who doesn’t even drive off the Island? Ok nevermind..

**UPDATED INFORMATION**

I actually almost forgot another reason for posting this article.. it’s cuz I wanted to do the simple calculation of how much on a daily basis my ‘ride’ to work is costing me:

Now, on a tank, I can get.. say average of 450 kms.. and I fill up twice a month on average as well.. that equals 900 km’s a month. Since my monthly cost is $550 – that means that I’m paying over $1.63 every damn kilometer!

Judging by google maps, my commute to work is 4.8 kms.. and I do go home every day for lunch.. so in total, I drive 19.2 kms every day to work.. that means that for me to drive to work everyday in my car, it’s costing me $31.30!!!

Suddenly the price of $2 a way for the bus is lookin mighty fine eh? Of course.. to save that money I’d have to get rid of my car intirely which isn’t going to happen.. but wow.. that’s really nuts when you look at it that way.

I really don’t know what kind of old school alert system that they have in London for cases like this, and I don’t know how long buddy was gone when he parked illegally, but I’m telling you that this is a little bit… umm.. how do you say.. drastic!

London police blow up sports car

Bottom line, I love it.. even though I’m not driving it at the moment (you’re welcome Liz) due to the fact that we’re looking for a new car for Liz.. I have taken it on all the things that I’ve intended me having it for, including to and from hockey rinks with my enormous gear packed in tow, it’s been to the dog parks and around town with the hounds many times, and it’s extremely good on gas.. better almost in town than out in the highway!

One of my favorite new features of it, is that you can ‘slide’ over the gear shifter paddle to down-shift when you need more power without touching the gas like you have to with most automatics.. don’t you remember having to really ‘tramp’ on it in order to down-shift for more power when you’re passing that car on the highway and an 18-wheeler is heading your way? Yeah, I don’t have to worry about that.. I just down-shift and more power is there! My Vibe averages over 510 kms per tank of regular fuel both on the highway and city… the reason they are close is that I usually ‘downshift’ quite a bit on the highway which would eat up more fuel, last tank I went to St. Andrews on I got closer to 600 kms on the tank. Of course these aren’t the crazy numbers you’re hearing from the Hybrids or Chevy Volts, but it is noteworthy that the tank is a full 4 liters smaller than my old car.. so it pretty much doubles my old mileage on the Cobalt SS (350 kms per 50 liters.. brutal!).

I am very excited about getting a new remote starter on sale somewhere for this winter. I’ve gone without for over 14 years and I’m now to the point that I really want one. I was extremely jealous of Liz being able to hop into a nice warm car on those Winter mornings heading to work. A few other things I want to would be to get a new set of rims (save up for next year), and get some winter tires for this winter. That way I’ll be able to sell my newer all-seasons which are on there now to perhaps cover most of the cost of the winters.

My mother also really loves the car.. (I’m still trying to decide if this is a good thing).. as I let her take it to Halifax the weekend of August 1st… she came back and seemed really impressed, if it had more room in it (for her two dogs), then she would want one for travelling back and forth to Florida once a year.. but unfortunately, they still need a van for that.

All in all, I’m extremely happy. No, it doesn’t have the power or the looks of my old Cobalt Supercharged.. but I really don’t mind that at all. Hopefully someday I’ll have a cool little sports car to zip around in for the summer, but until that time, I’m definitely glad I chose more practical this time around.

a. hair dryer
b. can of compressed air (CO2)
c. this video

Obviously I would have saved the labour costs which a garage would have charged me, but all in all.. it still cost me about $140 to put new routers and brake pads on the front two wheels. I guess that’s not so bad.. but actually.. even more important than that was the knowledge that I took out of it.. I will likely never have to go to a garage for changing brake pads or routers again! Thanks to my Dad (whom was a mechanic for the best part of his younger days), I watched every second of it.. and would be able to do it again without issue. I guess now would be a good time to say that I did turn a screw the wrong way and broke it off which was .. hmm.. let’s say a little bit of a setback. The good news however, is that Dad being the awesome handyman that he is.. was able to save all the parts but the broken ones, and I simply went to Nissan and got the parts I broke off and put the back on.. good as new.

I’m trying to think of a way to pay back my Dad for his expertise here and the afternoon we spent together doing it.. truthfully he didn’t ask for anything, but I think maybe a bottle of rum is in order.. he did mention that he needs to do some things around the house, like buy a new faucet for his kitchen.. perhaps I can get him one of these Delta faucets I’ve seen online.. In any case.. it was well worth it.. I’m pumped I was able to do this somewhat by myself.