RJ wants to party.

New digs this year - moved and bought a house in Reston - <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://g.co/maps/ba6jm">http://g.co/maps/ba6jm</a><!-- m --> (clicky)

For parking, you'll want to park along the road or around the island in the parking lot.

I'll supply the bird and probably do some sweet potatoes, and maybe some desert foods. What I need from you donkeys:

- Bacon Explosion
- Side dishes
- Desert dishes

For beer, we'll do the same thing we did last year - a few of us will chip in and pick up a 1/6 keg. I'll make the inquiries and find out where I can pick one up nearby.

If you need to crash here, let me know. I have a large couch, small couch and 2 futons.

ToC:
Introduction: mod 0 (Baseline)

So here's the thing.

Late last year, I changed jobs, and had a bit of a windfall in the process. I was able to eliminate a large part of my debt and decided that I would maybe spoil myself with a car.

So I decided to buy a new car. I had a pretty specific set of requirements:

Rear or all wheel drive
Manual transmission
At least 225 horsepower
At least 4 doors, preferably a wagon.
Under 400 dollars a month, with 8k down.

That's it! Seems simple, right? Straightforward?

Well it isn't. There's only really 2 new cars that meet that requirement:

#1: Subaru WRX
#2: VW Golf R

Now. I don't do VAG products, so that only leaves the Subaru. Sure, I could change 1 requirement and expand my choices, but I *didn't want to*, as a car that met the above requirements would suit my needs perfectly. Why compromise?

So I marched into my local dealer on October 5th to put 500 dollars down on a 2011 WRX.

Well I couldn't get a 2011 WRX. Ordering was closed. Whatever, fine, a 2012 then. Ordering for the 2012's opened on November 2, and my order for a 2012 Limited Plasma Blue Pearl WRX with In-Dash Navigation was placed November 3. Which, you'll notice, is when I posted this thread. I was told it'd be 6-8 weeks for delivery.

So delivery never happened. 80 days with no car. Not only no car, but no VIN, no estimated delivery date, bupkiss.

See, here's how Subaru's production line works:

Let's pretend that Subaru is burger joint for a minute.

"High welcome to Subaru Burgers, what can I get you today?"
Yeah, I'd like a double cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise.
"Great! That'll be $5.95."
Perfect, here you go.
"Ok, it'll be right up in 6-8 minutes."
Awesome.
8 minutes pass.
Hey where's my burger?
"Oh, I'm sorry sir, see, we've been waiting for your burger but the cooks haven't made it yet. They've been busy making chicken sammiches."
But, you have plenty of chicken sammiches! Look, there's a whole bunch under the heating lamps!
"Yes, I understand, but the cooks haven't made any double cheeseburgers."
So freaking TELL THEM to make a double freaking cheeseburger! It's on your freaking menu, what is the problem?
"I'm sorry sir, I'm sure it'll be here in another 4-6 weeks, I mean minutes."

And then, the punchline, is you never get your gd burger, other people get their burgers, single cheeseburgers, or doubles without cheese, or without lettuce or tomato but YOUR burger. Your burger never comes.

FHI just makes cars, puts them on a boat, and Subaru of America tries to match them up with orders. And if FHI doesn't make any plasma blue limited cars with navi, then all the people who order them (5 by the last count) don't get one. And there's not a damn thing they can do about it.

So anyway, I'm not getting the car I ordered.

But there *is* a Subaru with my name on it, which I should be getting before too much longer of a wait. So I figured I'd update this guy.

When it's here, I'll post pictures, specs, etc.

So I have decided it is finally time to let some of this old stuff go. I have tossed it on ebay but I wanted to post up here. MM can make me whatever offer. No PBR or single bill less then $20 need apply. Thanks for looking.

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2007 Infiniti G35X AWD

55,600 miles
Leather, sunroof, heated seats, smartkey
new tires, new brakes

kbb value: 20800
price: 19800
tell yo friends price: 19200
MM price: 19000

I probably should have just PMed Ryan but who knows maybe someone else has a pickup or a trailer and needs/wants a box. I have the Diamond plate box off of my pickup I am looking to sell. Too tall to work well with the gooseneck trailer. Better built brand. Few small dings here and there, nothing major. Looking for $100 or there abouts.

Looks like I am finally going to swap the extended studs onto the front of my car this week. Rears were simple and done in about 15 minutes per side. Pull the drum open, take off the spindle nut, remove piece that holds studs (spindle?), pound studs out, pop new ones in, tighten stud with washer and socket combo until it was seated. However, the fronts require the hubs to come apart and bearings out. As Justin recommended, I will probably replace the wheel bearings at the same time. Can anyone recommend a decent place in Harrisonburg to get the new bearings pressed in? Or does anyone local have a press and be willing to do this?

Let's beat this dead horse a little bit more. My daily driver is currently on Yoko S-Drives, I made it through last winter just fine, provided I drove extra-carefully in rain/freezing rain conditions. However, once snow got on the ground, a RWD ~3,400lb car on 245s just isn't going to do much in the snow. (To Ken's delight).

However, back in snowpocalypse 2010 I drove the very same car on 235 all seasons from my job in Roanoke 30 miles to my parents house in Bedford. It took 3 hours, and I had to treat the pedals like glass, but I chugged right along with my 4" of ground clearance and RWD on all-seasons past all the AWD SUVs in the ditch. I'm planning on suffering through another winter on summer tires. I've got the option to work from home if I need it, and we live in a dense population area so it won't be like waiting for them to clear the roads in Bedford. I can always ride with Jake too.

The reason I'm bringing this up is for my Girlfriend's car. She's got that 540i on 235/255 Hankook Ventus summer tires. On saturday when it was raining and nasty out, she was heavily engaging traction control starting off from stop lights. If I was daily driving the car, I'd probably have the same approach I do with the M3, whatever I can make it through. With her though, she's never had the experience of driving on summer tires in the winter, and I've told her how to adjust her driving style, increased braking distances, using the pedals softly, etc, but she still hasn't had the experience of sliding around in a car like we all have, so I don't know if she'll know how to react. Luckily she does have traction control and ABS, but those are just aids, and can't stop her on snow and ice.

She's a little worried about it too, she drives 1hr each way to work on 95. We've discussed getting winter tires, but that would involve another set of wheels, which she doesn't really want to invest in. I'm thinking about moving to a good, decent performing (meh), good treadwear all season, and buying them now, keeping her hankooks (with over 50% tread left) to save and try to sell in the spring.

What I'm wondering, is if the difference in cold weather performance between a road-car summer tire, and an all-season are drastic enough to justify the cost. Clearly they aren't going to perform as well as a winter tire, but the winter tires are an easy $500, and would require another set of wheels for ~$400, which is more than she's wanting to spend. She could get a set of Kuhmo all-seasons for $450, she has a free alignment waiting for her at her shop in Fredericksburg, so it'd just be $100 to mount and balance them. Then in the spring she can hopefully get ~$200 back for those perfectly good hankooks, so it's really not all that expensive to make the switch. Any thoughts on the best course of action to keep her on the road this winter and out of a guard rail?

Looking for a cheap set of all season or winter tires, sized 205/55/16 (or close.) Not picky about brand, but prefer that they have 60% tread or more.

Dan P. has opened his place up in Copper for us to take advantage of some BBC Top Gear viewing tomorrow night. We'll start watching around 8:30, feel free to head over around 8 if you want. There should be plenty of Visitors spots if you'd like to drive over. If you want to bus it from campus check out Rt. 32. PM me for the address(will be in the email as well)http://www.harrisonburgva.gov/fileadmin/...ute_32.pdf

Okay, well i hated the hks hi power axleback on my car and already got pulled for it anyway. I just sold it and i have around 175ish to spend on a "custom" axleback... any suggestions for local shops/ prices all i need is the axleback, i still have the hks piping all the way back.