Well crap! Wife in a Car Accident.

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f6john

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I have owned and drove cars from the 40’s, 60’s,70’s,80’s,90’s, 00’s and 10’s. There were some dud’s in their but I can say that the cars have consistently gotten better, more expensive for sure but much better. If you put a 4 cylinder car from the seventies up against a four cylinder car of today the difference is amazing. I enjoy all the assists that they put in the new cars although they do come at a high cost.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that people are getting major miles out of their vehicles compared to the earlier vehicles. The first new car I ever owned, a 1975 Monte Carlo, which I loved at the time but it literally rusted and fell apart so bad that I parted it out and hauled it to the crusher when it had less than 100,000 miles and 10years old. I had a 98 GMC 3500 van and it had 300,000 miles on it when I sold it.

I have been frustrated with the cost of vehicles. I remember wanting to buy a new Corvette in Athens late seventies, it was $8000.00 and out of my budget. As time went by I made more money but the next generation of Corvettes were $20,000 even more out of my budget. As the C4’s ran from 84 to 96 they were in the mid $30k range and well out of my budget so I bought a 95 Impala SS for $22k easily the most I had ever given for a vehicle. The C5 came out in 97, the most technologically advanced Corvette ever and the cheapest version was $40k. 20 years later the entry price is around $55k, so I finally bought what I could afford in the 99 model I have now and have been quite pleased.

I guess what has surprised me the most of late is the number of young guys running around in $70k pickup trucks! Farming must be doing great these days.
 

bucket

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I guess what has surprised me the most of late is the number of young guys running around in $70k pickup trucks! Farming must be doing great these days.

Yeah, I've noticed that too and it puzzles me. The high dollar, well-optioned diesel trucks are everywhere you look. But just about anyone you talk to in the farming industry acts like they don't make any money. It doesn't add up.
 

f6john

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While I’m not a farmer, I do live in a farming community. It’s big business with the small farmer trying to get bigger or just becoming a hobby farmer with a regular job. The big boys have to make major investments in equipment and planting season is also a major investment time. But it does afford them a very comfortable lifestyle. It’s not for everyone, and your have to be a very astute business man to stay on top, even small mistakes can be very costly.

I would be very concerned if the small to medium size family farms disappear all together. I don’t want to have our food supply controlled by a few big corporations who could ultimately be bought by foreign concerns.
 

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Concrete, hummmm, I’ll keep that in mind. I have come to the conclusion that these newer cars are designed to sacrifice themselves to protect the occupants. This was a very low speed collision, the air bags did not inflate but yet the whole front end is pushed over to one side and rearward enough that the drivers door touches the rear edge of the fender and the body gaps are opened up on the passenger side.

One of my biggest concerns will be the paint match because the car color is called diamond white and it is “pearl” finishof some sort. I’m quite anal about color match with the cost of body and paint work today. I would not want to be the person who is trying to please me.

They are. Thanks to all the federally regulated safety standards. The crumple zones are designed to protect the occupant and the ******* that you hit too. That's why everything has such a high hood line now. No more sleek low nosed designs. (don't know how the 'vette gets away with it, maybe because it's not a high volume car?). Gotta protect the dipshits that want to walk in traffic.
 

bucket

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While I’m not a farmer, I do live in a farming community. It’s big business with the small farmer trying to get bigger or just becoming a hobby farmer with a regular job. The big boys have to make major investments in equipment and planting season is also a major investment time. But it does afford them a very comfortable lifestyle. It’s not for everyone, and your have to be a very astute business man to stay on top, even small mistakes can be very costly.

I would be very concerned if the small to medium size family farms disappear all together. I don’t want to have our food supply controlled by a few big corporations who could ultimately be bought by foreign concerns.

I grew up not in farming, but in a farming community. The last several years I have worked in the agricultural biz. I've talked to a lot of farmers in different areas of the country.

I can say one thing for certain, the smaller farms are going away. A lot of property gets passed on to family members that have no interest in farming, so that land gets bought up by other land owners/farmers in the area, or rented out to other farmers. The folks that can afford to make payments on the larger tractors and more equipment are going to have a better chance at doing well. The ones that do well are going to aquire more land to farm, and it all just snowballs from there.
 

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Newer cars are designed to be as cheap as possible to slap together and to maximize damage in a collision , which means more $$ for the manufacturer either in repair parts or a replacement vehicle
And designed on purpose to be needlessly complex to prevent anyone from being able to repair them and to cause them to break down often

Does a car need a computer in each door to lower the window ?
They have em

Does a car need a 9” touch screen or 37 buttons to control the heat and ac ? When two sliders and a fan control accomplish the same thing
It’s impossible to adjust the temp in a modern car without taking your eyes off the road , in an old squarebody you can do it without looking

The car folds up around a passenger cell with airbags inside. It's designed to absorb the impact inertia so the occupants body or bodies don't have to get folded spindled and mutilated. It really does work. Folks walk away from accidents that you would've seen the ambulance driving away from with no sirens even in the 1980's. Vehicles can be replaced. You only get one body.
Peoples is expensive to fix, if yer can fix em, and they ain't never the way they wuz before they got crunched.

The CAN modules cut down on the amount and number of wires that travel through the vehicle for all the creature comforts that folks have decided they can't live without. You could literally have a wiring harness through the car with four wires... CAN +, CAN -, Power, and Ground running front to back with a BCM sub-module in the engine bay, dash, doors, and trunk.
Example: The Trunk module controls and or communicates with the rear speakers, tail lamps, XM/Sirius radio unit, blondestar, Fuel pump, and various other emissions sensors and solenoids on the fuel tank.
Building this way actually uses less copper with simpler wiring keeping that car with all the bells and whistles in a price range that Joe Sixpak can afford.

Honestly It'd be refreshing to buy a truck with crank-em windows, vinyl floor, vinyl bench seat, manual shift transfer case, locking hubs, CB, and AM FM Mono Radio.
Wait... I have three of em. LOL. I do like delay wipers but the rest I can live without. I can even live without the delay wipers as long as I can have my Rain-X.
I do like the fuel mileage from the 6L80 6 speed auto and 5.3L LS motor in my '14 Suburban... I can live without the keyless ignition and all the other crap that will eventually break. The increased fuel mileage from the 8L90 transmission would be real nice but not nice enough to buy a new Suburban.
 

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I like my old squarebody because it was built solid, no air bag needed. Unless my other half is in the passenger seat.

But even with 'new' technology they, the designers, have forgotten the KISS method. Makers say they have the latest tech but as Scotty said, 'The more they take over the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." Technology does not have to be complicated.

Example, why is the dash laid out for the person in the back seat and not for the driver? Why, as someone mentioned, have all those controls when you used to have a fan switch and a temp slider?
Analog audio was so much more precise and faster than digital controls.
They even have "Back Seat Awareness" for people too stupid to remember that their kid is in the backseat.

With apologies to Honky King Jr., by impact tests, if the '84 - '88 Pontiac Fiero were built today it would not require air bags.

WTF can't they build vehicles like that NOW!?

I've been thru enough junk yards to know the one car I will NEVER be in is a Mazda 626. Designers should have to spend a quarter of their schooling in a junkyard to learn how to NOT design vehicles.
The other quarter they should spend having to work on them.

I'll stop now.

My best wishes for you and your wife's healthy and speedy recovery.
 

Honky Kong jr

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I like my old squarebody because it was built solid, no air bag needed. Unless my other half is in the passenger seat.

But even with 'new' technology they, the designers, have forgotten the KISS method. Makers say they have the latest tech but as Scotty said, 'The more they take over the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." Technology does not have to be complicated.

Example, why is the dash laid out for the person in the back seat and not for the driver? Why, as someone mentioned, have all those controls when you used to have a fan switch and a temp slider?
Analog audio was so much more precise and faster than digital controls.
They even have "Back Seat Awareness" for people too stupid to remember that their kid is in the backseat.

With apologies to Honky King Jr., by impact tests, if the '84 - '88 Pontiac Fiero were built today it would not require air bags.

WTF can't they build vehicles like that NOW!?

I've been thru enough junk yards to know the one car I will NEVER be in is a Mazda 626. Designers should have to spend a quarter of their schooling in a junkyard to learn how to NOT design vehicles.
The other quarter they should spend having to work on them.

I'll stop now.

My best wishes for you and your wife's healthy and speedy recovery.
What did I do now????? I did this though....
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Dougnsalem

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What did I do now????? I did this though....
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Man, that's messed up they go and do that. That thing looked beautiful...
 

CSFJ

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Man, that's messed up they go and do that. That thing looked beautiful...
Iirc, that was a show winning car prior to that too. All to prove that the older cars aren't safer than the new ones just because there was more metal in them. Pretty sad.
 

Honky Kong jr

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Hold on I have a better one I just gotta find it.
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Found it
 
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