Bruce's Journal

[farmerjan]

@Bruce ; @greybeard is much more knowledgeable on the possibility of what/how an automatic can be "started" but I know my son said that we cannot do it with the forester and all other automatics I have any knowledge of from when I was a kid, cannot be pulled or rolled and "popped" into gear to start. The newer vehicles I just don't want to get into because they are too complicated and costs too much to be worked on.
I have a friend that had an older prius, and they did have to replace the batteries. Not cheap. It had about 250,000 or a bit more on it. Don't know the year. They loved it.
My forester had 157,000 on it, I think, when I bought it in April, 2016. She did not put alot of miles on it and was fanatical about oil changes and such. Still it was a 16 year old car. Book value was a little over that, but that is what they were going to allow her for trade in on a new vehicle. I haven't had it for the last 4 months with the engine replacement, but it has about 280,000 on the speedometer.
The engine the guy got was out of a wrecked Legacy, with about 60,000 on it he said. The struts were new. One on mine was bad, so we just replaced both. The replacement cost was as much labor as the engine. It seems to be running good.
The 2wd ranger has about 250,000 on it now. The 4wd have no idea if it is right and it is an 86 I think, and they didn't go up over 100,000 so don't know how many times the thing had turned over. It runs, the heater works, wipers work, 4wd works. Rest doesn't matter. ALOT CHEAPER than a small utv although they have some handy features. But I cannot justify one for cow checking, when I have to go to different pastures and such.
Yeah, the salt tears up the older vehicles up there. My parents vehicles don't last because of the salt damage and the requirements for inspection. Glad we don't have near that much salt here, although they are now using that "brine" before any "weather events" . We have one of my dad's 4wd ford trucks, for the engine and stuff and the body is eat up. He used to run it between Ct and NH regularly when they still had the house in Ct before they completely retired to NH.

 

[Bruce]

You put 120K miles on it in 2.75 years? How do you have time to do anything BUT drive?

It had about 250,000 or a bit more on it. Don't know the year.

That could be important. The 2001-2003 model years are an entirely different body (4 door sedan) and engine and battery design than the 2004-2009 (4 door hatchback). Engine and battery changed again for 2010-2015 and again for 2016 - ..... I think the battery voltage is different in every one of the generations. I do know someone who bought a used 2003 a few years ago, don't know how many miles it had when the got it but at some point its traction battery went south. No idea how many miles they had on it when that happened.

Given the vast majority of people don't keep a vehicle even close to 200K miles I doubt many original owners ever see a bad traction battery. 250K miles at 15K a year is a 17 year old car. I see a number of 2004-2009s on the road with recent plates and I see some 2001-2003s as well. Far fewer of those were sold however being it was brand new and scary technology with a funky dash. The 2004 design seemed to hit the sweet spot, many months long wait lists to get one in the first few years.

 

[farmerjan]

@Bruce when I was testing more farms, I was putting an average 25-3500 miles a month on a vehicle. It was nothing to test 5-7 farms a week with over 100 miles round trip each farm. I have 2 that I test that are 125+ miles ONE WAY from my house, and a couple more that are 50-65 miles one way. Yes we get mileage. I figured I averaged close to 100 miles a day. That's 3,000 a month, plus.
Plus add in another 1,000 miles or more for the trips I was making to Pittsburg Pa for the prolotherapy treatments, every other month at least. To me 30-35,000 miles a year was nothing. And to be more accurate, I looked when I was outside. The car has 247,000, and it had 157,000 when I got it. So not 120,000 on it, but then I also drove the 2 wd drive for the last 4 + months. Got the car in April 2016, blew the engine in Sept 2018. 90,000 in 2yrs, 5 months.
The fewer small farms, the further I travel to the "bigger farms". I have lost several small farms in the past 3 years. And gotten a few bigger ones that are further away. My closest farm is 10 miles, the furthest is 127. Used to do all the farms once a month. That's alot of travel, more than it used to be. When I first started testing, there were 25 small (100 cows or less) farms in Rockbridge county, and over 40 dairies in Augusta, the county north of me that I tested alot there too. I didn't travel over 60 miles round trip to any, except one that was 102 miles. The only dairy in that county. Still do them. There are 5 farms in Rockbridge, and all are 125 cows or more. Only 16 or 18 in the county north of here. I travel to 7 different counties now. Average over 50 miles one way. Not all farms test. It is not a state requirement. We are not part of the state...

But as I said, many farms are testing every 6 weeks or every other month. My travel in the last 6 months has lessened alot. Still, when you travel twice as far to one farm than you used to travel to 3 small local farms, it adds up.
It's 20+ miles to a town of significant size, with a "grocery store", Walmart, or other type stores.... so that is 40 miles round trip. I can get gas 5 miles away, and Mcdonalds, or Wendy's or Burger King at the truck stops there.... and a Dollar store 12 miles away.... but that's about it.
We live in the country, farm land....out in the "boonies" although with the interstate traffic, it is getting quite congested now. Most people here travel at least 30-45 miles one way to work.
It is 5 miles one way to the pasture where I keep my nurse cows. When I was going twice a day, when they first came fresh, that was 20 miles a day. I try to combine trips when I am coming from or going to work. Doesn't always work but you do try to not make extra trips. Still, there didn't used to be much traffic. You have to travel 10-12 miles to find a traffic light. If it was 30 miles to work, you figured 35-40 minutes. Especially with me, I am out at 3 a.m. so no traffic except for trucks on interstate and no one on the back roads at that hour. Longer to come home at 8-9 a.m..
All our vehicles have high miles. All the 4wd drives, the farm trucks have over 200,000 on them. The one we finally had to retire, had over 450,000 and the floor boards were rotting out and the frame was getting weak. Kept engine, trans, other parts when we scrapped it. You rebuild it, not replace it if possible.

 

[Bruce]

Wow. I think I would have contracted with people to provide a bed so I could sleep instead of dringing home after doing one farm and the go to the closest one the next day.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Hey bud, just stopping by to see how much your aching today....hope you are on the mend and resting.

 

[Bruce]

I am indeed improving, thank you for asking. The ER nurse was correct (not surprisingly) that the 2 days after were the worst. I went for my regular every other Tuesday Bowenworks massage today. After I mentioned the wedge fractures (which she didn't know anything about) she decided to stay away from my neck but did do shoulders and back and I'm sure that helped. I have an appointment at the orthopedist next Wed, I guess that means they aren't too worried or they would have figured out a way to get me in quicker, they had the MRI to look at.

This was my car. Technically it still is but it isn't a car I can drive. Had DD2 and her BF take me over to clean it out this morning.


And for something more pleasant to look at, this is DD2's cat Christofur on top of the cat tree.


We left the house at 1 and drove to a Toyota dealer an hour away, I had seen a car in their inventory and the pricing showed lease and loan payments. I emailed and asked what the cash price was. Seemed reasonable, Toyota has a $4K cash back and the internet sales lady had pulled off another $1,360 off MSRP. I hadn't driven a Prius Prime and won't buy a car I haven't driven so we went down. Liked the car, the salesman came back with a price. I showed him the lower price the internet lady gave me and he said OK, that is the price then. So, note to anyone looking to buy a car, check with the internet sales team AND the 'on the floor' team, they don't necessarily play with the same pricing rules.

Since it is a plug-in, there is a federal tax credit of another $4,500. Not sure what the insurance company will give me, they haven't checked the car yet but the KBB average private sales figure is about $6K. After I get the insurance payment, I can recover some of the state sales tax. They tax what you paid the dealer minus the value of the "trade in", or in this case "caved in" vehicle (if any).

 

[B&B Happy goats]

When are you getting your new car ?

 

[B&B Happy goats]

I liked the cat picture, your car makes me sad....glad you are ok.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Oh Wow!!.....that was a hard blow to absorb!!....so Glad ya wasn't hurt worse than ya was.........hope things workout on the other car and ya get a bit more than expected on the trade-in.........thanks for the pic of Christofur....been wondering how he was doing....and...I was wondering if ya had an opinion as to whether ya liked the Welsumers.....I apologize for not remembering their names.....

 

[Bruce]

Oh Wow!!.....that was a hard blow to absorb!!....so Glad ya wasn't hurt worse than ya was.........hope things workout on the other car and ya get a bit more than expected on the trade-in.........thanks for the pic of Christofur....been wondering how he was doing....and...I was wondering if ya had an opinion as to whether ya liked the Welsumers.....I apologize for not remembering their names.....

Christofur, the short term barn cat, turned house cat is doing well. I still have to tell him "Stop chasing the cat" (which sounds weird since he is also a cat). He is a bit over 2 years now and still loves to play.

The Welsummers, Veronica (2017) and Betty (2018) are friendly enough birds, lay dark eggs though not as productive as I had hoped. Meyer says they lay Medium eggs but mine are laying Large so no complaints there.

When are you getting your new car ?

It is parked at the house, plugged in to start charging the 8 kWh battery at 9 AM when the sun should be hitting the solar panels. It doesn't really matter when I charge, what I send to the electric company is credited at the same rate as I pay when I pull from them. Just figure it would be nicer to use my own 'juice'. It will, presumably, go 25 miles at highway speeds (I think that means like 60-65, not 75-80) on electric alone. If that is the case, I can start with the battery full and make it down to the health food store 25 miles away, plug in there while I shop (and sit for awhile since it takes 2 hours at regular charging station Amperage) and get home using no gas at all. These days, a regular week for me entails 1 trip down that way and a few closer to home, well within the 25 mile all electric distance. For long trips I can theoretically go about 600 miles on a tank of gas. I've done that with my 2 prior Prii in the summer but they didn't have any "all electric" capability.