Search results

  1. M

    Lifetime filled fluid, what are you thoughts?

    Yup our Prius's tranny is the same way. 2 plugs, drain from one, refill from the top via a pump. The color of the old fluid was not pink/red.
  2. M

    Paying off vs trading-in car

    Yeah I guess I should've added that I have taken some long highway-only drives and I never got close to 35. It has always been 27-28ish with both mixed and pure highway. If it's only city it goes down to 24. I'm not disappointed that much in the MPG though considering the HP is so much.
  3. M

    Paying off vs trading-in car

    Fuel economy I'm getting 27-28mpg mixed driving. Better than the old engine vs the newer Drive-E, but nowhere near the 35mpg advertised. Yes the seats are pretty nice, but the blind spot on the right-side is annoying because of the sloping door.
  4. M

    Paying off vs trading-in car

    Haha, yes I may have been using the dipstick wrong. Yes I did let the wife dictate this decision, but yeah oh the regrets. Good point on the tax regarding a trade-in. I'll ponder that more. In the end there isn't any inherent problem with the car. I have enough cash to pay off the car super...
  5. M

    Paying off vs trading-in car

    What I don't like about it is goes into the realm of me not doing full research and going into a dealership with the wife and having her steer me towards this car. Essentially I'm one who likes keeping cars for a longer time and working on them as they get older. The car doesn't have a dipstick...
  6. M

    Paying off vs trading-in car

    So I have a 2015 Volvo S60 that I'm not really digging anymore. I owe around 14k on it and I think it has depreciated to around 20K (trade-in) or so. I bought it for 26k so it's lame that this European car has depreciated so much within 8 months. (I'm used to Hondas and Toyotas which kept their...
  7. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Great to hear! There's nothing worse than having a defective car. At least you didn't have an Acura back in the early 2000s with their problematic trannies.
  8. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Wow thanks for that bit of info. I had read a few postings about oil burning issues but most of them were with the early 1st gen TSX. Sucks to hear that it still existed in the early 2nd gens. How is your A4 doing?
  9. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Nope this was the one and only S60 they had for this year. I think they might've had a 2005 but I wasn't looking at it. I don't see many newer Volvos anywhere.
  10. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    I got the T5 which has the newer: Drive-E 2.0-liter 4-cylinder turbo w/ 240hp and gets 25/37 (city/hwy). I am very curious to see if the car can get anywhere near those numbers. Although I didn't test drive the newer IS, I did ride in a few from the last generation. I really didn't like it...
  11. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Well I test drove the A3, TSX, ILX, and S60 today. TSX was good, but the one the dealership had was a little bit too scuffed up. Driving dynamics were good though. The ILX was pretty much the same as the TSX in terms of feel but it was lacking in power relatively speaking. A3 was solid, with...
  12. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Yeah the one I'm looking at is listed through carmax at $26k for a 10k. I may test drive it today...just not sure if I'll be paying 5k more than I wanted to vs a comparable tsx. I recall that super old volvo's were pretty bulletproof but then in the 2000s they became more problematic. Probably...
  13. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    I just found another car during my research to add to the list...how about the 2015 Volvo S60? Looks like it has a new engine that has pretty good mileage and one model has both a turbo and supercharger.
  14. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Yeah I was looking at the TLX as well, and there seems to be a transmission problem. I think they have a service bulletin for it, but it's of concern.
  15. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Thanks. So there doesn't seem to be any unicorn stories of an A3 or A4 going through 150k miles with only standard maintenance and nothing ever breaking? I'm sure this has happened in the Acura/Lexus line so yeah thus my concern about going away from a Japanese brand. I used to have an Infiniti...
  16. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Yeah I was looking more at a 2012+ sedan w/ tech.
  17. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    Oh yeah, definitely counts. So you wouldn't go the Audi route because you like BMW better or is there something specific? The main thing I remember of BMWs are that they are nice inside, good driving dynamics, but a few executives at companies I worked at had them and they all seemed to be...
  18. M

    Acura TSX or A3?

    So I've almost always stuck with you're average Honda/Toyota/Subaru brands and have gotten used to the low maintenance and reliability. Fast forward to today where I want something better and nicer now that I'm getting closer to my 40s. I've gotten down to 2 cars and would like any feedback...
  19. M

    This is why everyone should install a dash camera ....

    She should call corporate as well
  20. M

    What car is this?

    Yup a 2nd gen Prius...not sure about that front seat either. In a 3rd gen I think there would be more of a hump.
  21. M

    Please take my survey (for academic purposes, should last 3-5 minutes long)

    Gosh, way too many variables. Better for research but people was way too lazy to complete it.
  22. M

    How's my CL ad look?

    Looks good.
  23. M

    Has anyone changed their name?

    I changed my name officially after I graduated college. (Swapped middle and first name). Interestingly enough when I registered with my university I had applied using what I wanted it to look like on all of my documents. Not sure how I pulled this off, but this was before computerized systems...
  24. M

    Selling a car private party

    I've sold a bunch of cars on CL and I have USAA. Here is what you do. Post your car with a good description and lots of pictures. You should start getting responses. There are lots of flaky people out there so be prepared to return txt messages or people asking you questions that you had...
  25. M

    Outside of spark plug wire(s) is wet with oil....

    Yeah take it back to the dealer...they may have done the gasket job wrong.
  26. M

    Question about University rankings

    You're doing too much planning and too little DOing. One step at a time. Finish your base degree and hope you're a 4.0 student and can max out those GRE scores.
  27. M

    What car should I get my Fiancee?

    I've owned a Fit and Impreza during the same time and we live in a snow region. Based on that alone I recommend the Impreza or if you can find a used, moderately priced CrossTrek that would be better (more clearance with same stats on engine). It seemed like I could fit more in the Fit and the...
  28. M

    Is Qi Wireless Charging a must for you or gimicky?

    I used Qi charging all the time with my Nexus 5. Missed it a ton when I went to a OnePlus One. Super jazzed to have it back with a S6. Just have a charger at work and you almost never have to charge it at home until the weekend.
  29. M

    OnePlus One: Experiences?

    I owned my OPO for a year. To sum it up the OPO had the best battery life of any phone I ever owned, had a great screen, and I enjoyed the doubletap to wake feature. Negatives were that it had a horrible camera that never worked properly with many different programs, CM stopped giving consistent...
  30. M

    Laid Off w/ Severance But Not Getting Interviews To Return

    It takes x number of $$ and time to onboard a new employee through HR and "the system". Considering that you were laid off out of the blue and was not given a good heads up about this, it means that they (as a company) don't want you. If they were cool they would've tried to move you over to...
  31. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Agreed to a certain extent. The house was built towards the end of the bubble so yeah there were indeed cost cutting going on, but I forgot to mention that they didn't even bother to twist 2 wires together before connecting them into a wire nut. This was found on all 4 outlets tested; that's not...
  32. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Yeah fail indeed. The electrician said he had seen this type of setup before so he kinda had a feeling of where to look. He shook his head saying that the contractor who built the house kinda sucked. lol. Well thank you everyone for assisting. In the end it was as predicted...not the first...
  33. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Solved by Mr. electrician. So it turns out that in my washer/dryer closet (the type that is double-stacked in a small closet), I can only see a 240V plug, but way underneath it on the same wall, there is a regular 120V outlet and that was the culprit. The contractor used that outlet as the...
  34. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Humm yes the attic I only glanced around a bit since there is only a very small space I can move around in. The rest is covered up in white insulation and I don't think I can walk around everywhere up there. But yeah if the wires go from the circuit breaker to a junction box and then to the...
  35. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Yup indeed I did this exact same test. When the breaker is "on", the multimeter shows up as 120V with the Hot and Ground line on the outlet. Next I go and turn the breaker "off" and the multimeter shows as 0V for everything. So I am playing with the correct breaker. Now with the breaker off...
  36. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Yeah I would think so too. I did end up checking to make sure every single light/outlet worked with the GFCI breaker turned off so there weren't any fishy results there. Yeah out of ideas. I'll definitely report on eventual results after I get an electrician out here.
  37. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Interesting idea DrPizza. Yeah I already tried to tighten all wires going into the neutral bar and that didn't change anything. I tested all light switches and outlets and everything works but some light switches are connected to dual overhead bulbs. Sometimes these bulbs go out and I think I...
  38. M

    GFCI Outlet

    Is there a way to find out which specific neutral goes to my questionable circuit? There is a long neutral bar with many connections going to it. Maybe I should cut the power to the whole house and start tightening?
  39. M

    GFCI Outlet

    So I finally got around to taking apart all 3 GFCI outlets and did multimeter tests. 2 of the outlets are "down the chain" and all mutimeter tests show that it is getting no power from any of the lines. So let's concentrate on the first outlet that has a live wire. Within the first outlet...