Fifty150

Most of us, as end users, think in terms of miles per gallon. Very few people do the math to factor in price, and think about cost per mile. When the Prius first entered the USA market, there were cost comparisons which also factored in the price of the car. That was a game changer. If you compared a $15,000 Toyota Yaris, to a $30,000 Toyota Prius, can you save enough in cost per mile to pay double the money to buy the Prius? Sure, that wasn't a fair comparison, as they were different cars. But with a Transit Connect, which a lot of people are buying for about $20,000, is it economically feasible to pay $$$XXX for an electric, LPG, CNG, diesel, or whatever else they can come up with? Most conversions , or in the case of a diesel - a different engine, can add $5,000 to the price of the vehicle. Does that conversion pay for itself, and save money in the long run? I probably would have bought a Flex Fuel vehicle, but Transit Connect flex fuel was not available. 7 E-85 pumps are available within a 100 mile radius of my house. Imagine driving up to 50 miles, to fuel up with E-85. The Obama Administration set the goal of installing 10,000 blender pumps nationwide until 2015, and to support this target the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a rule in May 2011 to include flexible fuel pumps in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). This ruling will provide financial assistance to fuel station owners to install E85 and blender pumps. A major restriction hampering sales of E85 flex vehicles, or fueling with E85, is the limited infrastructure available to sell E85 to the public with only 2% of the motor fuel stations offering E85 by March 2014. A 2014 analysis by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) found that oil companies prevent or discourage affiliated retailers from selling E85 through rigid franchise and branding agreements, restrictive supply contracts, and other tactics. The report showed independent retailers are five times more likely to offer E85 than retailers carrying an oil company brand. As of November 2015, there were only 3,218 fueling stations selling E85 to the public in the entire U.S.

That is good to know. I recently rotated the spare to the passenger side front. Now I won't bother with trying to set the vehicle's system to read the TPMS in the spare.....since there isn't one. I'll just drive around with the low tire pressure warning on. Maybe a little tape over the light, if it becomes too annoying.

It isn't every day that a Nigerian Prince offers you $1,000,000

The HiAce never came to US either.

I'll drag this thread out of the grave. Does the spare tire have a TPMS unit?

Interesting that Honda & Toyota do not offer their vans in cargo configuration, stripped down, with no seats.

Transit Connect created it's own market niche, and filled it nicely. When Ford stopped selling Ranger, the idea was that every customer could just buy a F-150. Then the Econoline was phased out by the Transit. For a lot of people, the Transit Connect was like buying the van version of a 1/4 ton pickup. And in some cases, Transit Connect works even better than a 1/4 ton truck with a camper shell. For a lot of us, this has filled the void of the station wagons of yesteryear that aren't available anymore. Can you imagine filling up a $40,000 van with building materials, or garbage for a dump run? Those leather seats and premium floor mats would get ruined with the first can of paint to spill. Mike, you can do whatever you want. I don't think anybody is interested in censoring your right to free speech. No matter what anyone likes or doesn't like, you have a constitutionally protected right to express yourself. And if you want to post more fishing videos, you've got my support. I'm on your side until I get banned.

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And that is a bad thing? I will only go with a girl who say "yes". Next time you're out here, I'll get you on a charter boat. We'll take you out into the open ocean. Little bit different than lake fishing. Fish are a lot bigger.

Makes me wonder........I sent that Nigerian Prince $10,000, and any day now, I am suppose to receive a wire transfer for $1,000,000 from a Swiss Bank. I better e-mail him again. Really? Latvia? What does e-Bay do when the product never arrives? I had that happen a few times with purchases on Amazon. The seller gives you a tracking number, which may or may not be real, and then nothing. All of these were less than $5 items, and Amazon refunded me.

To a certain extent, most of the people in the U.S.A. are consuming some sort of food sourced from a farmer who receives a subsidy. At the grocery store, chicken is @ $0.69 per lb, and eggs are about $0.20 - $0.25 each, retail. That is a subsidized price. What is the real cost of raising chickens & eggs, plus the processing and logistics? It cost more than the $2.50 I paid for the chicken; just to put that chicken on a truck and drive it from the ranch, to the processing facility, to the wholesaler, to the distributor, to my grocery store. But farm subsidies are complex, and a tool used by the federal government to control the pricing and availability of the world food supply. I completely disregard the fact that Foster Farms, Zacky Farms, Tyson Chicken, are all sold in other countries, and at the same price point. I don't want to know how, or why, U.S. chicken is $0.69 per pound in a third world country. None of my business that U.S. chicken & eggs are saturating the market, driving local ranchers out of business, and leveraging those nations' economies. Not being an economist, or even socially conscious for that matter, I just like eating chicken. It's cultural. My people eat a lot of chicken. I never allow my mind to wonder as to why there are so many countries that suddenly experienced bird flu, which decimated their poultry production, and then suddenly those markets' voids are filled by U.S. chicken. No conspiracy theory will fit. I won't lose any sleep at all, if I save a nickel at the pump, and someone in China is starving because they don't get to eat the soybean or corn that is going into my gas tank. I am a typical self absorbed, selfish, fat, ignorant American, who pollutes the air way too much with my pickup truck. My idea of being socially conscious is to give an extra dollar to the girl on the pole who is working her way through college.

Bio-fuel changes that. Pollution is less of a factor. Cost per mile will be variable depending upon market rates. Subsidized biodiesel can cost less per gallon. My own experience with biodiesel is that there's no black smoke coming out the tailpipe.

You're probably correct. Maybe even donated blood. Not so much that there is a black market to resell blood plasma products, but more to protect the cargo from being lost or tampered with. Although you have to wonder aloud in regards to the logistics of trafficking a stolen body part. But I like my fantasy of a real life version of the film Planet of the Apes. The damn dirty apes are taking over the world! Recently, I saw a Transit Connect driven by an armed, uniformed security guard, and he had a passenger in regular clothes making deliveries.......to a Petco store! The exotic animal distributor was tired of animal rights groups attacking his delivery drivers to set the animals free. Which is why Genentech has a private SWAT Team and Bomb Squad. I know a couple of guys who work there......darn lucky that they could transfer their military training into the civilian world. How many other private entities across the USA are allowed to maintain their own private paramilitary units?

You are correct. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is only pushing Bernie Sanders' platform. His ideas. Not hers. Before my time, when President Reagan was Governor Reagan, California had free college. Every public university in the state did not charge for admission. I don't know how he did that. But people went to institutions like UC Berkeley's Law School & UCLA's Medical School for free. Institutions which today, would be cost prohibitive to almost everybody, with the exception of a few who are privileged with wealth. Everyone I know has student debt. Nobody was able to pay for their education out of pocket. Even guys who went to a trade school program to learn welding, owe $$$XXX. People have to finance their "truck driving school" to get a commercial license, so that they can get a truck driving job. City College of San Francisco, is tuition free. That came from a property tax. Which translates to the property owner passing the cost along to the renter. A majority of the citizens of this community agreed to increase their cost of living, for the greater good of the community at large. The idea of Medicare for all is not unique or new. I recall that President Clinton, President Nixon, and President Johnson all had their own versions of "socialized medicine". Politics behind it are always about cost and profit. The people with the most to lose would be the insurance companies who are already making $$$XXXX in profits. Then there is the question of how will it all be paid for? Do we increase taxes? Do we shift the budget by cutting funding from other programs (like National Endowment for the Arts)? We all have our own idea of what priorities are. I would rather see a socialized form of some medicine, like everyone being able to access simple vaccines, chemotherapy, dialysis, and end of life care. With our population trends, there are now more seniors in need, and a finite amount of resources to care for the elderly. It just isn't right to not take care of the old people, who now cannot care for themselves. And every American, at any age, should be able to get a flu shot, in my biased viewpoint; as opposed to some guy who wants the government to pay for him to dance in tights. It is all a part of making America great again. While some may advocate for The Child Care and Development Fund; others might say that you shouldn't have all those kids that you can't take care of. Even in Liberal, Left Wing, San Francisco, California - we don't hand out free money to people who don't work. There is an increase in social services, but a drastic cut in welfare payments. Even the most conservative would agree, that you don't give free money so that people can spend it on drugs and alcohol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Proposition_N_(2002) Care Not Cash was a San Francisco ballot measure (Proposition N) approved by the voters in November 2002. Primarily sponsored by Gavin Newsom, then a San Francisco supervisor, it was designed to cut the money given in the General Assistance programs to homeless people in exchange for shelters and other forms of services. The major intent of this measure was to prevent the cash grants given to be used for purchasing drugs and alcohol, and to strongly encourage homeless people to enter shelters or housing and obtain counseling and other services.

What did people do before block heaters? Apologies for my ignorance. I live in a no snow zone. And whenever I go to the snow, I've never had an issue.

Sounds like you need to go into business for yourself. My boss ran into the same wall, repeatedly, so he opened his own business. And now, he has swiftly overtaken his previous place of employment. Same customers now spend more with us, for service. I've heard that every business, no matter what you sell, is a service business. That is the attitude which drives success. Anything that you can do to make the customer happy, is right. That more or less explains the success of high price retail. I look at all of those places which we frequent daily, and see that the successful operations all come out ahead on service. Even Costco, which is big box, high volume, discount pricing, will allow the customer to return almost anything. Last year, a woman returned a Christmas tree after Christmas was over.

He has a 100 mile round trip daily commute. With mostly flat roads, and mild grades, he could probably go 20 miles per hour, with the right bicycle. Factor in bathroom stops, breaks for food & beer, he could get to work in under 3 hours if he learns to light his cigarette and smoke it while the bike is in motion. Save up all those car payments, based on a 60 month finance plan, and he could own another house in 15 years.....assuming that his local real estate market does not go up in that time frame, and the dollar has not devalued.

Here is a conversion that I saw on the road today. It was done with the lift gate. This style is completely manual. No electronics or hydraulics to flip or position the ramp. You have to physically push the chair up the ramp and into the vehicle. But I think there are a few different options available for design and configuration.

I wonder what you transport in an unmarked vehicle, that must be kept at low temperature. Obviously, it is perishable. And expensive, or worthy of security. My first thought was gourmet food product. Within a block of where I work, by the airport, there are distributors for Wagyu, live lobster, live Alaskan King Crab, foie gras, caviar, saffron, and truffle. Produce is ruled out. Nobody moves bags of avocado (the most expensive cash crop in CA) under lock & key in a little Transit Connect. Believe it or not, a lot of high priced food items, like baby formula & cigarettes, are hijacked, and are now transported with armed guards. Usually off-duty cops or military. Where that van was spotted, it was more than likely affiliated with Genentech. I don't even want to think about what kind of bacterial and biological weapon, experimental lab sea monkey in suspended animation, or other Planet of the Apes serum that he might have had under lock & key. Nobody else in America has to live next door to an armed fortress compound, with their own private SWAT Team & EOD Unit, and worry about when the monkeys get loose and take over the world.

We have better fishing. And California Girls..

Northern Tool is not Left Coast.

The door is certainly a safety issue. How do you file a complaint about a defective part, which the government already knows is defective? Can you report to the government that Ford is replacing the defective part, with a defective part? United States Department of Transportation Homepage R National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20690 1-888-327-4236 1-800-424-9153 (TTY) Submit Feedback >

Let's not take this too far. You will end up moving to New York City, joining the Bernie Sanders Socialist Movement, and electing a hot 28 year old bartender into Congress.........never mind that her whole platform is free education and MediCare for all. I don't care if that is fiscally impossible. Dang! She is HOT! From here going forward, I refuse to vote for wrinkled old people. That is how we got into the trouble that we are in now. I will only cast my vote for attractive young people. I am on The Left Coast. Only card I'm holding is my Sun, Surf, & Sand card. But I'm not giving up California Girls. Smart. You have know what problems to expect. You have to have an idea of how the manufacturer provides after sales support of their product. A buddy of mine bought a Chevy that was so bad, she got every penny back from the dealership, 7 years later. But who wants a car that keeps failing for 7 years? It took a lawyer to advocate for her. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/business/cobalts-were-seen-as-lemons-from-start-state-data-shows.html https://money.cnn.com/2014/04/17/news/companies/cobalt-failure/index.html I find that carpetbaggers and attorneys cannot be trusted. Especially NYC lawyers.....named Clinton! I'm still waiting for my refund check for my Mustang II. Honda 6 cylinder engines, from the Accord, Odyssey, Pilot.......were all known to surge under light acceleration and activate the maintenance indicator light because of a clogged EGR valve. Honda knew about the issue, and continued to manufacture cars with a known problem. Honda issued service bulletins for certain models which extended the warranty for the EGR valve, allowed the dealer 1.5 hours of labor to work on the issue, and sells a "kit" to the dealer so that the dealer can sell it to the customer. I went to the dealership with a half dozen Hondas with V6 engines, and they all had the same problem. It took hours of meetings with the service manager, threatening lawsuits, the service manager calling American Honda for after warranty support, etc. Honda's basic warranty was 3 years/30,000 miles.....the extended warranty for the EGR valve as per the TSB was 8 years/80,000 miles. What if you have a Honda with 100,000 miles? When I went in with the second car, the service manager remembered me from the first car. When I walked in the 3rd time, he asked "how many more are you going to bring me?" My answer was "as long as the check engine lights come on, you'll keep seeing me". It got to a point where everyone in the service bay knew me. I was in there every few months, for a period of 2 years. Sure, we could have paid for 1.5 hours labor and parts out of pocket. But why? Why should I spend money for an issue that the manufacturer knows about, and continues to make & sell cars with the existing issue. That's like selling soup with a fly in it, knowing about the fly, and continuing to make more soup with more flies. Having that problem with Honda has left me with a bad impression of how they provide service. Ford is not any better. Have I mentioned that they will not reply to my registered mail correspondence or return any phone calls, in regards to refunding my purchase of a Mustang II?

I have disabled the seat belt chime and autolock features. I hate that noise when I am not wearing the belt. And I will risk a carjacking, if it means that a first responder can open my doors. But I haven't gone as far as turning off traction control or airbags.