Fifty150

Ah yes. Back in the days of Ford Vans that nobody bought. Your brother may have the last of the Freestar vans, AND the only one sold in his zip code.

A "dealership" at the flea market does the exact same thing. It is legal. They are a licensed car dealer. Buyer beware is the rule. But in some cases, the buyer has no credit history and no options. Nothing new, since unscrupulous used car dealers have operated for decades with used car lots and fancy TV commercials. Even worse, the buyer knows absolutely nothing about how cars are bought & sold, how the value of a car is determined, or they wouldn't consider buying a car at a flea market. Typical customer is a young person who does not have anyone to guide him/her. Or a recent immigrant. They sell the car based on color, rims, sound system, and wax. Then they charge you whatever they can get out of you each month in payments, and finance you into 72 or 84 payments. So some kid or immigrant ends up paying $500 a month, for a total of $42,000, for a 10 year old Chevy Malibu or Hyundai Sonata with over 100,000 miles. They do the math to show the sale at whatever amount it takes to finance at 20%, so that the number fits into the "negotiated" payment. In some ethnic immigrant communities, there are "car brokers" who operate without inventory or a lot. You meet with them, and they determine what you are willing to pay monthly on finance or lease, get the particulars on make & model of you choice, then source the car and deliver it to you. The buyer is a recent immigrant. The sale is handled much in the same fashion with outrageous finance, and the vehicle being sold for way over Blue Book value. With the brokers, the more common scam is the lease. Once they have determined that you want a black BMW, 3 Series, or some other "luxury " brand, with nice rims, they will source a salvage title, or 10 year old used car with 100,000 miles that another used car dealer couldn't get rid of. Then they lease it to the customer for for $500 or $600 monthly, Imagine buying at auction, a 2005 Mercedes-Benz C-Class C 240 Sedan 4D, with a Kelley Blue Book of $1,086 - $1,777, and cleaning it up real good with a new coat of wax. Then some guy from The Ukraine or Korea is willing to give you $100 a week to drive a shiny Mercedes. In a year, you generate $5,200. But he doesn't even get to buy the car from you. He leases it from you, and whenever he doesn't want that car anymore, you get to sell it off at auction or to another used car lot, and probably recover the $1,000 you paid for it. Not bad for no lot, no inventory, and doing business with a cell phone, meeting your customers at a coffee shop. These guys only need a continuous supply of new immigrants to make a good living. Is this greed? Well, they are not in the non-profit sector. Taking advantage of poor people, with no sophistication in finance, and even less knowledge of things like Kelley Blue Book.....not exactly nice, but not illegal.

When it comes time to lay down and stretch out, The current generation Long Wheel Base may offer you more room.

Ford wants $3 to install a little green tree that smells funny.

The Transit Connect is certainly not a "Shaggin' Wagon". Believe me. I've tried. Bead curtains. 3D posters. Lava lamp. 8 separate tracks of high fidelity sound.

That has changed in a few years. A lot more wagons on the road now. It used to be only commercial vans. What does a 2024 model year look like? Got any pics?

I am only guessing that you pushed the bikes in there by hand. No way you could have driven the bikes up that ramp with a little bit of clutch friction zone. I'm surprised also that you were able to strap the bikes down, and transport them without them tipping over. Kind of hard to tell in the photos where you anchored your ratchet straps. I guess I'm too old and used to doing things the old fashion way. I just don't think I can do that with my Harley. I am used to having a bigger ramp, and actually riding up into a pickup truck bed, where I already have a wheel chock mounted for the front wheel of the bike, and truck bed has anchor points for the tie downs. Now I want to go buy a little sport bike, just so that I can drive around with it in the back of my little van. Maybe one of those little Honda Grom bikes. Those look like a lot of fun.

My visors are fine.........just too darn big and block out half my field of vision.

At the local Acura dealership, they charge for that service. Yes! Honda owners will pay the dealership to "install" a little bottle of Techron.

Mine popped right out after removing the torx screws. It is kind of fitted with the lamp housing assembly. But should pull right out once you remove the screws. With the price of fuel being what it is, and me getting only 18 MPG with California fuel, I probably can't afford it.

Sometimes dealers will offer an inspection report. Other times, dealers will simply announce that they inspected the vehicle. Some guys insist that the seller allow you to have your own mechanic inspect it. If you are competent, you can lift the hood and kick the tires yourself. But with used cars, there is always the chance that an issue will arise that nobody saw during the inspection, or that an unscrupulous person is hiding. Then there are things that you just can't see. You'll never know the condition of the timing belt or chain. You can check the fluids, but you won't be able to see what the inside of the engine or transmission looks like. I know someone who ran into a fire hydrant. High pressure water sprayed up into the engine compartment for over an hour. The car was flooded. After draining and airing out all of the mechanical parts, then replacing a whole bunch of parts, a shop got it to start and run again. But it never ran the same again. Then there were "phantom" issues with the BCM, ECM, and TCM. When the car's computer gets wet, even if you replace a module, there is corrosion in the contacts. Climate control would switch between heat & AC, lights flickered, turn signals activated randomly, high beams sometimes worked, you get the picture. Engine would occasionally bog down, misfire, randomly idle higher, et cetera. The car became "haunted". All in all, it became a piece of garbage. It was less than a year old. $100 worth of detailing, and the car looked great. Traded it in. Dealership tech looked it over, and it looked good. Everything on it was clean. We saw it on the used side of the lot for about 6 weeks. Next thing you know, someone else bought it, and by now, they are probably wondering how a next to new used car can be such a piece of junk.

A guy I know said that when he got married, he felt like the luckiest guy on earth. When he got divorced, he got lucky twice.

I would like to see a photo of 2 bikes & gear in the back of a Transit Connect.

On the surface, it's a bolt on operation. Seems like you guys should be able to swap with hand tools.

$200? I don't see spending that much on a Harbor Freight set, just to get one piece. I hate buying open stock tools because I know it's cheaper to buy a set. But then again, I've bought a lot of open stock tools, because I didn't want to spend more on a set, when I only needed 1 piece.

Sorry you had to use that for dump runs. I know guys who have flatbed trucks just for dump runs.

I'm sorry.

That all depends on what you can live without. I have a button on my dash for heating up the mirror mounted on my door. It never gets that cold here, that I need it. I now other guys who bought cars with engine block heaters, and they never use them either. I am living without leather seats. I am living without the top of the line stereo. I am living without the tow package. I did not get the OEM bumper insert cornering fog lights. I am living without the glass roof.

If you think that a used car will satisfy you, try searching with CarMax. I think buying used cars online is challenging at best. But it is an option. Just to see what is available and where the pricing is.

You could buy a taller ladder. Now that you the rack for it, you can carry an 8' ladder. Or think about carrying one of those multi-position ladders.

This is not your dad's minivan. It is not a "Soccer Mom" van either. While I respect those who think that the Transit Connect looks good. A lot of people don't, and these vans are not sold by looks. Nobody that I know has said to me, "looks good". One of my buddies said, "looks like shit". I don't care. The vehicle does what i bought it for. For me, the need was to seat more than 2 people, better on gas, and easier to park than the pickup truck. I have a Honda, but nobody but an infant in a car seat can really sit in the back of that, since the front seats slide right into the back seats. My Harley has a solo saddle, and nobody rides on it but me. My Explorer's odometer quit working around 650,000 miles, I wasn't sure what the real mileage was, and the body was rusting out with rain leaking from the sunroof channels. I wanted to efficiently transport seniors and children. An SUV was out, because old people even had a hard time with climbing into my Explorer. So despite the lack of bells & whistles, and no luxury, the Transit Connect saved me about $10,000 in comparison to a Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna. And if any of my siblings or cousins don't like it, they can drive the grandparents and all of their kids, in whatever car that they pay for themselves. They all have nicer cars, because I'm cheap and they don't mind spending more money. Looks alone, the Transit Connect was unique when it came on the U.S.A. market. I immediately noticed all the work vans, and the technicians using them. For my own purposes, it was just too small to be a work vehicle. Not able to carry a lot of weight, not able to handle 8'X4' plywood, not able to carry 10' pipe, well, no way was I going to forklift load a transformer......you get the picture. But for some people, it was perfect for what they did, because full size 1/2 ton trucks and vans were too big. Right off the bat, I knew that it would be great for telecom techs, service plumbers who don't carry pipe, auto parts runners, and all sorts of other trades. A local police department bought them for the crime scene technicians. My city's Park Rangers got them (Park Rangers do not engage in high speed pursuits). Then with the new body style, my city acquired an entire fleet of LWB wagons for personnel deployment. If you need 100 street sweepers at a special event, you have them all report to the maintenance yard headquarters, transport them in Transit Connects, and then send trucks out with their gear. For certain agencies like Adult Protective Services, Child Protective Services, and Homeless Outreach Team, the LWB has worked out really well.

Some of those older motorcycles can be refurbished and kept running forever. Older Harleys have tons of parts available, a design which hasn't changed much in about 50 years, and are simple. That gravity fed carburetor into the V-Twin is very simple. And even the motors can be rebuilt or replaced easily. And these days, every part on a Harley, from controls, to handlebars, to seats, to fenders, is available in abundance. There are even guys who will order all of the parts, and build a bike, from the frame up. Only drawback is that you have custom built, dinosaur technology, which cost way too much. I always think that I could buy a new bike, which runs faster and better, for less than what I put into the Harley. If I buy a little Ninja, or CBR, I could get better mileage, ride faster, corner better, save money, and not have to wear leather pants. Sport bike guys don't look like The Village People.