New car

[DaShi]

Nice. How much did that set you back?

[Alexander's Horse]

Good buy - Hondas are just about the most reliable car on the road, low fuel consumption, great styling and interior comfort, zippy too!

[Dinner]

1. I didn't ram anything.
2. It wasn't stationary.

What happened was a broken tire lying in the road got kicked up by a truck and slammed into my bumper while I was going 80 miles an hour. I had two options: 1) Allow the tire to hit my car or 2) try to dodge it and careen into traffic in the other lane. I picked 1.

Increasing following distance and decreasing speed to the legal limit would have helped prevent that. Just saying.

[Dinner]

BTW what is up with the east coast using tacky looking blacktop as drive way paving material? A friend of mine who moved to Buffalo recently posted a picture on facebook where his house has the same thing and it just looks odd to me. I mean concrete is more durable and doesn't have to be resurfaced nearly as often plus you can put all sorts of different finishes on it so that it looks classier. Around here the higher end new places even eskew concrete though and go with semi-permiable paving stones as they look nicer and are more environmentally friendly. To compare the blacktop has lower installation costs but much higher maintenance costs so it would seem an inferior choice? Is it that snow and ice will tool anyway so why not just go with the cheap stuff? Though, if that is true, I thought coastal NoVa didn't get much snow. I know we didn't get much snow in Maryland when my family lived there for a year (before fleeing back to the civilization).

[N35t0r]

Japanese cars

[Docfeelgood]

When I rent those cars from Enterprise, dog the **** out of them. Buyer beware.

[Alexander's Horse]

bought used too - good move - always better

[Hauldren Collider]

BTW what is up with the east coast using tacky looking blacktop as drive way paving material? A friend of mine who moved to Buffalo recently posted a picture on facebook where his house has the same thing and it just looks odd to me. I mean concrete is more durable and doesn't have to be resurfaced nearly as often plus you can put all sorts of different finishes on it so that it looks classier. Around here the higher end new places even eskew concrete though and go with semi-permiable paving stones as they look nicer and are more environmentally friendly. To compare the blacktop has lower installation costs but much higher maintenance costs so it would seem an inferior choice? Is it that snow and ice will tool anyway so why not just go with the cheap stuff? Though, if that is true, I thought coastal NoVa didn't get much snow. I know we didn't get much snow in Maryland when my family lived there for a year (before fleeing back to the civilization).

We've lived here for about 13 years and gotten our driveway resealed once. I don't see how it looks tacky. It looks normal.

[snoopy369]

Eschew. If you're going to use a fancy word, please spell it properly. Especially in the modern day with integrated spell checkers in browsers...

You don't automatically want to use concrete on the (northern) east coast, as the freeze/thaw combined with the humidity makes it far less durable. Asphalt expands and contracts better, especially if you get it sealed properly.

We have no driveway where I live (alleys with detached garages are the thing around here), but I think in other suburbs it really varies in the Chicago area.

[snoopy369]

bought used too - good move - always better

Not true necessarily. Accords and Civics with lower mileage are massively overpriced because of their good reputation and the used car market being low on supply lately (at least in the Midwest). When I was looking for a car (back in 2010) we intended to go used, but then realized a new car wasn't all that much more than a lower mileage used car, and much better interest rates/etc. as long as you're careful to pick a car from a reliable manufacturer that isn't a brand new model or something likely to have issues.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

BTW what is up with the east coast using tacky looking blacktop as drive way paving material? A friend of mine who moved to Buffalo recently posted a picture on facebook where his house has the same thing and it just looks odd to me. I mean concrete is more durable and doesn't have to be resurfaced nearly as often plus you can put all sorts of different finishes on it so that it looks classier. Around here the higher end new places even eskew concrete though and go with semi-permiable paving stones as they look nicer and are more environmentally friendly. To compare the blacktop has lower installation costs but much higher maintenance costs so it would seem an inferior choice? Is it that snow and ice will tool anyway so why not just go with the cheap stuff? Though, if that is true, I thought coastal NoVa didn't get much snow. I know we didn't get much snow in Maryland when my family lived there for a year (before fleeing back to the civilization).

Up here in NE, it's partially that yes, you'll have to rebuild it again in a few years anyway, and partially that traction on concrete is much worse when wet or frozen.

That said, my father was a general contractor who did a lot of road work for the state and always said that he could build a road that would last five times as long if he could win a bid at twice the cost. That's just not how bids work. :/

[Ben Kenobi]

Burgundy 2010 Honda Accord EX sedan. 42,000 miles. It has a working dashboard clock, which is a step up from my previous car, a green 2000 Honda Accord LX. We bought it for a very good price from Enterprise car sales.

That's been pretty heavily driven if it's just 2010. Mine is still under 80k and is 2004. Good luck with it HC!

[snoopy369]

42k in and of itself isn't worrying, that's 3ish years at 14k a year which is just over normal - 12k is considered normal (ie, "3 years/36000 miles" warranties and such), and a cursory search indicated 35k was considered average for an available 2010 Accord.

Rent-a-car I worry about a bit more since it's often driven harder, but who knows - it could be a ton of highway miles. Depends on whether it's airport-based or not I guess for most of its life.

[Sir Og]

[Docfeelgood]

Strange, I would've thought this would be all HC could handle.