Does a dedicated work car make sense? 413

Welcome, everybody, to No Driving Gloves, the gloves-off to approach to the automotive hobby.

It's going to be a solo with John tonight, got a lot of things going on behind the scenes

with No Driving Gloves, and to be honest, don't know what direction or what's going

to happen.

We've got a lot of ideas.

It's just so much going on in everybody's lives.

We're working on a whole bunch of ideas, but I do promise we're going to take this back

to the raw way No Driving Gloves was, and literally a gloves-off approach.

We've got a bone to pick about, you name it, we're going to talk about it.

We're going to cover a little bit new stuff, maybe a little bit of old stuff.

Just going to be an interesting, excuse me, that's horrible, it's just going to be an

interesting thing.

What we're doing tonight, or what my topic tonight is, I had a couple of interesting

things happen to me, and it felt like something that should be discussed or talked to you

about, and really not a discussion, because it's things that happened factually, and be

a really good solo episode.

It all goes back to my 2015 Ford Fiesta that I've owned for about two and a half, almost

three years, December would have been three years, late December would have been, got

right about three months shy, four months shy, having it three years.

We're going to talk about why about the car, the numbers behind the car, the reason existed,

what it did, the overall impression I had with the car, what I knew going in, what I

know going out, and the very interesting thing that came up to me very late in the

decision, and that was the disposal of the car, is as regular listeners and their driving

gloves know, it suffered kind of a terminal failure that really came down to car value,

expected future life out of the car, and repair costs.

And we'll find out how I dispose of that, and whether or not I'm happy with the disposal

and then the overall ownership experience.

This is not a review of a 2015 Ford Fiesta, to sum it up really quickly, I'm considering

buying another Ford Fiesta, maybe a couple of years newer, a few miles, et cetera.

Don't know yet, that actually gets into an insurance question that will be discussed

later on, kind of putting this episode together for some of my co-workers, and that as I try

to explain the concept and the thinking behind having this Fiesta.

Many you know, I do auditing for a major computer company in retail settings and that,

training, product placement, security, making sure things function, making sure the stores

are doing what they're contracted to do, things like that.

It's not a numbers auditor or anything, but it's literally going in and I do five or

six a day, and I drive two or three thousand miles a month.

And when I accepted this job, I actually only owned one car, it's drastically different

over the years, and that was my 2020 Mini Cooper S model, two door coupe or hatchback, I guess.

And fun car, neat car to drive, not exactly the best long distance traveling car, not the

best car to put miles on.

This car, it's a Mini, and I've always had a love-hate relationship with Minis,

and for many, many, many years I had a relationship with Minis.

The Fiat 500 made me kind of love Minis again.

And then again, kind of considering Fiat 500 possibly to replace the Fiesta.

Probably not, but who knows.

So I got that the job in about May, and part of the job is your paid mileage.

And while everybody says, oh, you can write off mileage and you get this, and the government

allows this, when it comes down to being a W-2 employee for a company that you're expected

to drive, you get paid what their mileage is due to tax law changes in 2017.

And I'm surprised we didn't revert back with the recent big, beautiful bill.

Then again, they changed in 2017 with the same person who's in charge then as now.

And that eliminated the ability for people like me to go and write off the difference in

mileage from what the employer pays to what the IRS allows.

So simply put, at the time I was paid 35 or 36 cents a mile for what I drove.

So driving, say, 3,000 miles a month, simple math is that's just about $1,000 give or take

per month added to my income.

That is for vehicle expenses, gas insurance, wear and tear, maintenance, et cetera.

Driving 3,000 miles a month in a car that gets 40 miles a gallon is advantageous.

So you're looking at about 85 gallons a gas a month, $2 a gallon, $3, I guess the time

is about $3 a gallon.

Well, you're looking at $240 of that going out the window.

Insurance is a little bit of a different thing.

If you have the proper insurance and commercial insurance, it costs you a little bit more than

your commuter car, plus you're also driving an additional mileage, et cetera.

But I did that for the first six or seven months.

Now at the time, I also had an incident with the mini where it actually was in the

shop and got a motor replacement due to, we'll just say negligence on my part.

It really wasn't, but it's a long story.

Motor got damaged, motor needed to be replaced.

So I had a rental car also for a period of time.

So I didn't have the wear and tear to my car.

But needless to say, after 21,000 miles of driving and that, I had saved up a

little bit of money.

So I went out and bought and it's behind me.

I'll step away for a second.

My little black 2015 Ford Fiesta took that car.

I think out the door, it was about $5,800.

I looked at buying an extended warranty with it.

I let that go after having it a couple of months because it was, even though it was

Ford, it was sold through an aftermarket company that was backed by Ford and I don't know.

It just was difficult to make the payments on the damn thing.

They couldn't integrate the two loans.

So I let it go and it turns out I didn't really need it.

It did go into service.

I had that warranty.

I bought the car with 82,000 miles at about 90,000, 92,000 miles.

The known problem for 2014 to 2016, possibly a little bit earlier, possibly a couple of

the later years that just hit or miss if you go beyond 16 and prior to 14, really.

They had transmission issues and it was the transmission control module or the TCM and this

car suffered from that and I got that replaced but it was actually a recall.

If it had never been done under the car, it was replaced under the recall, not necessarily

the warranty.

So that was taken care of.

I ran flawlessly, never had another real big mechanical problem for the next well until

about 150, 155,000 miles, got 35 to 42 miles a gallon day in, day out.

I put the miles on it, put the gas in it, paid the insurance on it and the full coverage

on this car was about $110 a month for somebody with my driving record, which is reasonably good.

I don't have tickets or anything.

So I was real happy with the insurance rate, et cetera, drove the car.

It was very comfortable on long drives.

Using a Fiesta, it was small and nimble, tempting to get the Fiesta ST.

Any of you that listened to, I can't think of his name, has been on the show before

too.

Matt with the smoking tire, he had his Fiesta ST and absolutely loved it, a big guy, squeezed

into it and ended up, as soon as the Focus ST came out, he stepped up and bought

a Focus ST.

It was one of the first people to have one delivered and absolutely hated that car because the Focus

is just a little bit bigger, a little bit more comfortable.

So the Fiesta was always fun to drive, especially these back country roads when you're going

to the middle of nowhere, Mississippi or middle of nowhere, Tennessee or middle of

nowhere, Alabama, or I even took it to Illinois a few times, visit my family.

Just a good driving little car, excuse me.

And I enjoyed it.

Radio worked well.

Hate the Ford Sync 1 system, which that car basically had.

Horrible to navigate, horrible work through, but this always connect Bluetooth or hard

wire in my iPod or iPad, depending on what I was using at the time.

And that car was literally dedicated to work.

I had a desk in the passenger seat.

I had supplies in the back seat, things that I may need, things that I have to take to stores

and luggage and stuff in the back when I was traveling overnight, but worked out great,

very secure.

Like I said, never really had any problems.

And then I had to replace the set of tires on it.

One of the first times in my life, I've actually ever had to replace the set of

tires normally on a car long enough.

Actually, I've replaced two sets of tires on this car earlier this year, spring of this

year I put a new set of tires on the car.

And again, like I said, worked great, handled, did the job, talked to people that I work

with.

If you properly do this job, you put the money into, you put your mileage money

into the vehicle and don't count on it as income.

It's a great financial thing to have this other car, because for me to have put approximately

women around at 100,000 miles on a mini, as it sits today, I'd have a mini with almost

160,000 miles on it, which is a completely worn out, junk mini and extremely expensive

to fix and maintain and BMW issues and would have worn out the car.

And that car is meant to be a fun toy.

My girlfriend absolutely loves it.

She had actually said she goes out with me because I had bought the mini.

She saw it on my dating profile, and that was what inspired her to say yes to our

first date and here we are years later, she's in the other room, happily watching

TV, hopefully the podcast.

But I didn't have to wear out a fun car and plus I had to change the cars.

What was work was work and what was personal was personal.

It was great.

And after about a year, I go, hey, I enjoy cigars.

So I stepped up and had said nobody else who rides in this car, this car set up

for one person.

I'm going to start smoking cigars in it.

So I smoke my cigars in it and it I mean, it just worked.

It was good to drive.

It was did I've said it multiple times and I will say it again.

It did everything it was supposed to do.

I did have a battery go bad last fall and went up the Walmart 110 bucks, bought a

battery for it, stuck it in it and it just purred right along.

A year and a half ago, it was having a couple of issues making a squeaking noise

in that.

So I took it up to one of the local service centers and said, hey, go through

this thing and tell me everything wrong with it.

And they came back with a list needed a timing belt because nobody knows when

the timing belt was done should have been done at 80 or 100,000 miles should

have been done.

Nobody knows if it would have been done.

That would have been set $1500 repair.

It needed a rear wheel bearing.

That was the main reason I took it in the $500 on the estimate.

I should have pulled out the sheet.

I think I still have it somewhere around here needed a new cooling fan.

Can't remember that cost.

They recommended rear brakes and a couple other things.

Basically, their estimate came back to me at about $3,000 or so and I'm

sitting here thinking $6,000 car $3,000 repairs.

I really want to do it.

And that's when I pulled back on my knowledge of my education, saved

myself $3,000.

I went ahead, did the wheel bearing myself.

I did the cooling fan myself.

Couple other little things, but basically I got the majority of the

list of things to worry about other than the timing belt.

And this comes into key play recently.

We got everything done and repaired for less than $500.

$3,000, $500, take the timing belt off, still saving $1,500, $2,000 in this deal.

So after that was done, car ran fine, car ran great.

Did everything good.

Up until about 150,000 miles, that's when that battery went bad and

it needed another set of tires, so we stuck a set, another set of tires on it.

About $400 per set of tires.

Can't remember, 195, 50, 16, something like that.

And bought them through Tire Rack, had discount tire, put the tires on.

Don't think I ever got the car aligned.

I mean, I did hit a huge, huge piece of steel in the interstate one day

and blew out a front tire.

I was one of the first people to get there, blew out the front tire on

my car, but by the time I had taken my front tire off, put the spare on the front,

taken the flat, put it on the rear, taken the rear tire, put it back on the front

because it's front-wheel drive.

You don't want the compact spare and all that drive of distance

on the same drive axle there, put the compact spare on the back.

By the time I got all that done, there were about 60 cars around me

with one, two, four flat tires from this huge piece of steel that was on the interstate.

And I buzzed on down the road.

I'm sure glad I wasn't one of the late arrivals to that

because you would have been there for a day waiting for your tow truck and that,

you know, if you need four tires, what a thing.

So it probably did need an alignment or something.

But I mean, it worked good.

Everything felt great.

Every now and then it would get a little bit funky in the rain,

which we eventually figured out what the issue was.

But I had, excuse me,

I was coming home

one day and in John luck, John seems to have pretty good luck.

Sometimes it goes bad, but John has pretty good luck.

I the belt, I heard belt squeaking, belt squeaking, belt squeaking.

And all I got to do is, you know, get home

and then we'll look and see if the belt's a problem.

Well, the belt snapped at some point.

And and I'm pretty sure I know where it broke.

And I got about another 40 miles down the road.

And then I started to get I got the red red light about the battery

and issues like that.

And I this happened.

Near a small town, about 10 miles from my house.

And I said, well, I'm just going to coast off the road into this grocery store.

Again, John luck, a local reputable service shop

had built another location next to this grocery store.

So instead of the grocery store, I coasted in there

and they looked at it and diagnosed it.

You know, I opened my hood and yet that the serpentine belt,

not the timing belt, the serpentine belt had broken.

So I needed to get any one of those, told them what the problem was.

He said, oh, yeah, we can get to you.

So took about three hours and they had to get some special tools

because a 15 Fiesta uses a stretch belt.

It doesn't have a belt tensioner.

It relies on the stretch of the belt to keep tension on it.

They popped it on and everything was hunky dory for a day.

And what ended up happening is I got up, go to do my route the next day.

Well, it's the next day or the day later.

And I got about halfway to where I was going, which is about 40 miles from here.

And the car started to overheat, never had an overheating issue.

Came back and decided I got more cars at home.

I'll turn around and decided to come home.

Got home and what had happened when they were putting the serpentine belt on,

no fault to the shop, no fault to the shop whatsoever.

They had hit a hard line and it had some gunk or something where the rubber

where it met the coolant overflow cracked.

And I mean, cars got 150,000 miles on it.

That piece was worn out.

So I was going to take it back to them.

They were going to take a look at it.

But as I started to go there 10 miles to their shop, I had, I'm not going to risk it.

So I pulled into a little shop that's two miles from my house or so,

dropped it off.

They diagnosed the problem.

They also diagnosed a bad tie rod, which probably goes all the way back to that

two years to that steel plate and is why the car handled roughly in the rain.

Had that done.

And they, you know, they repaired it.

And I think I was out of there for a hundred.

That first repair for the belt, they got me out the door for like 98 bucks.

And the next repair to fix that little coolant leak, the

the tie rod, the oil change, a couple of that.

I think I was out of there for like 150, 170 bucks.

And then everything was good.

And I'm debating how I'm starting to put a little bit of money into the car.

Do I do the timing belt?

I'm going to have to do the timing belt.

You know, the intention was to drive this car into the ground once it died

to quit my traveling job and get something more local,

which still is in the realm of possibilities.

And so I'm still thinking on the timing belt, still thinking on the timing belt in a month.

Well, let's say a month or two goes by, but probably.

No, 161,000 miles on the car, left the house, drove a mile and a half down the road,

got to the first stop light, went to go in the thing, just revs.

And also I let up, thing just revs.

So I let up and I tried to shift it into part, shifted it back into drive.

Florida, the thing moved.

So I did a little fancy U-turn, came back home, had other cars.

This is a transmission issue.

These cars are known for transmission issues.

And it's the dual clutch automatic.

It's not really a stick shift or anything, but it actually uses a dual clutch

with the automatic that's oil lubricated.

And you can shift through the gears with buttons, but I think even

a tip tonic in a Porsche is a better transmission than this thing.

So I drove it home and then use the Mini and the Maverick a little bit back and forth

while I'm making a decision what to do with this car transmission place.

Believe it or not, I live in a very nice area of town.

Some of the wealthiest people, not that I'm one of them.

There's two shops down the road.

There is a Mr. Transmission.

I stopped by and talked to them and they said, well, it could be a clutch.

And then that's probably it could be an adjustment.

That's going to be six to seven hundred dollars.

It's going to.

If it's the clutch plates, you're going to be about 12 to $1,500.

And if it does need a transmission, you're going to be about five grand.

Now, when it comes to stuff like this, this is when John's luck doesn't work.

Hit back.

And I'm going is going to be for I'm hoping four thousand to five thousand dollars.

Well, in doing all the math, say it's even just the clutch plates.

If fifteen hundred bucks and if I'm going to put fifteen hundred into it,

then I got to put another fifteen hundred to two thousand for the timing belt

because for some reason my estimates kept getting higher and higher on that.

And then while it sat in the garage for a month while making my decision,

the battery went completely dead.

Now, yes, it's a cheap Walmart battery, a hundred bucks.

And I had still shouldn't go dead.

And I couldn't get the thing to recharge.

I hate new battery chargers, but so I took it back to Walmart

and had a warranty on it.

They just traded it in over the counter, put it in the car, car started up.

And about then is when I decided, well,

I'm going to go and buy another car for work.

But I can't have five cars basically due to covenants for my subdivision.

Her car, my truck, my mini, my broken car.

I couldn't come home with another car.

The shuffling's all about that.

And I was looking at CarMax stuff and I wonder if CarMax would take the car.

They supposedly will buy anything.

So I went ahead and did an, well, I went to CarMax and looked at a couple of cars.

I like buying cars at CarMax, especially in these situations, because for

on a Ford like the Fiesta, for about 2,500 bucks, you can get a warranty

that's good to 150,000 miles and possibly up to five years from the time of purchase.

And I'm looking at cars like 24,000 miles.

For $2,500 to have a 125,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty

for a national dealership that I could go to any CarMax in the country

or any of their partner repair places, to me, really seems worth it.

Yes, you pay a little bit more for the car and that we can we can debate

on buying cars at CarMax on a different episode.

But I go in and drive a couple and I asked the salesman.

I said, well, I don't have a trade, but I want to just get rid of this car

and sell it to you guys.

But I'll use it as a trade because I want to make sure you take it off my hands.

I don't care if you give me a dollar for this car.

I just need it gone to allow me to buy another car.

He says, we'll buy it. We'll buy it.

He said, just bring it over.

I said, well, it runs, but I don't trust the transmission to get it here.

And I'm not going to be that guy that tries to drive it because you know

that guy, he gets to be the first guy at a stoplight.

Car doesn't move.

You screw up traffic for everybody else.

And I said, I don't want to tow it here without knowing a deal

in case you guys reject it.

And he said, we're not going to reject it.

At least I've ever seen him pay his $100.

So I.

Looked at a few more cars than that.

And then finally this last Saturday, five, six days ago,

we're recording this on a Thursday night again.

I went ahead and called AAA and they sent,

kindly sent this little tow truck here.

Got here in an hour, maybe I'm actually 30 minutes or so

and did it through the app, came over, told the guy what I needed,

told him, unfortunately, the car doesn't start because the battery is dead.

So I have a Paris within a week.

Actually, a couple of days, the battery went completely dead again.

So not only do I have the timing belt, the transmission,

I have a parasitic electrical draw somewhere now, too.

Though I'm just looking, you know, it's going to cost as much as the car's worth

to repair it and it's all these little things.

And, you know, in 10,000, in 150,000 miles,

didn't have any problems granted.

I didn't have it for the first 80.

So I don't know why it wasn't true.

And in the last 10,000 miles where I have broken belt, broken hose,

you know, things are beginning to wear out.

And these life expectancy on these cars is 180 to 200,000 miles.

So I'm right there.

So he comes, he pushed it out of the driveway,

took him less than five minutes to hook it up and he's gone.

I hopped in the truck, went over to CarMax,

looked at a couple of cars that I had transferred in, still undecided on those

when I hadn't did the sale.

And in the end, 700, they gave me $700

for my semi-running 2015 Ford Fiesta with good tires,

with a tan interior, so the driver's seat was stained in a mess.

I didn't clean the car out.

The carpets were dirty, et cetera.

Started and ran after a jump box was put on it.

The passenger door from the incident back in March

where I was turning left and somebody didn't yield in the right turn lane

hit me in the door and I always intended to go buy a $300 door

and replace it, just never got around to it.

Yes, it's the work car who the hell cares.

So big dent in the door, stains in the seat.

Cigars, cigar connoisseur driven and cigar usage in the car, et cetera.

I did an online thing that came up at $700.

Also did it for Carvana and Carvana would have come and got the car

and they told me they'd give me $300, but they would have to take it back,

evaluate it, and then I could collect, they would wire me or send me my $300.

I took the gamble, had AAA towed the car over to CarMax.

CarMax looked at it, did their thing and offered me the same amount

that they did online.

We didn't even cross-reference my online estimate to the in-store thing.

I have a feeling that had to do something with the salesperson

and probably some commissioner kickback, but I got $700 for it.

So the real easy sale and why I was debating from the time

I did the online thing with CarMax to actually selling the car to CarMax

and towing it over there, I did see a YouTube short where some YouTubers,

and I don't know who they are, maybe you do, they had acquired

a Corvette C8-Z06 that was absolutely totaled

and it needed new frame horns on the front

and the Chevy dealer refused to put them on.

So since they couldn't get a certified shop to do that repair,

in Georgia they couldn't do anything with the car,

so they had taken it to CarMax to see what CarMax would give them for it.

And the woman was, I don't know, we'll get a buyer out here to look at it,

but we're not going to get what you expect and who knows what they were expecting.

The short ended and I never tracked it down.

But I go, well, maybe I'm not so crazy taking a broken car over to them.

And in the long run, I don't think I was crazy.

So if we do quick loose math on the car, $5,800 for the car.

I gave you about $1,000 in repairs.

Put on two sets of tires for another $800.

Figure, I didn't do oil changes regularly.

Maybe every 10,000 miles figure 50 bucks in oil change.

So 10 oil changes, not even that, probably like six oil changes.

So $300 in oil changes.

So $5,600, $800, at $6,400, add $1,000 for repairs, $7,400,

add the oil changes in, about $7,700.

So we'll say eight grand for the car and the maintenance repairing it.

Then take into effect, we put, I sold the car with 161,000 miles on

and I bought it with 82,000.

So we put basically 80,000 miles on the car.

I did the gas math, et cetera.

And I came up with basically I had about $20,000, $22,000

into gas insurance, maintenance, buying the car, et cetera.

And while our mileage rate varied a little bit with work, I used a figure

and I think it was 33 cents a mile or something.

The car earned me somewhere around $28,000, $28,000, $29,000.

But basically when I was done, my cash ahead was about $10,200.

I don't have the notes that I sat down the other night and actually wrote out.

So even though people think, well, I'm just going to drive my car,

I'm going to drive my car, but you buy a brand new car in November

and in June, it's got 30,000 miles on it.

You've worn out, you've wasted the warranty.

Yeah, you could have bought an extended warranty.

Makes the car more expensive.

It's, you know, you have all of these little issues that you depreciate

the thing out overnight.

You can't write off depreciation because it's not a company car.

You get your 30 some cents a mile and you're getting $3,300.

Again, every 10,000 miles at 30,000 miles on car, they paid you

$9,000, you've got a $35,000 Hyundai that's got 30,000 miles on it.

It's wholesale value might be 20 plus you've put gas in it and

showed it you're way behind in the game.

Me, I went out, I took a risk.

I mean, you're buying, I bought a, at the time, eight year old car

with a lot of miles on it with a known issue.

These, the transmission is a known issue on fiestas and focuses and

that, like I said, of that era.

So I took the gamble and in my opinion, I won.

I enjoyed the car immensely.

I hated to see it go.

I really thought about going, well, if I put five grand into it, I know what I got.

And then it's just fix other things.

You know, put five grand into this car or 10 or 15 grand into another car.

Put five grand into this car.

I still got $10,000 for additional repairs.

The problem is when I'm 300 miles from the house and it breaks.

Even if I've got, and I do have triple A's top insurance, they'll tow it home for me.

But the amount of money I lose, the days of work I lose.

I can't take that inconvenience.

And that was the final decision that I couldn't take that inconvenience.

So the Ford Fiesta went away a few days ago.

I am a static about my ownership of it.

It was a great car.

Like I said, to the point, I really want really thinking about getting another one.

The issue I'm having with another one goes to insurance.

Well, actually, Jason said if you see a Ford Focus, no, they knew right away it's a Fiesta.

It's going to get wholesale or it's going to wholesale, going to auction.

It won't be at a CarMax.

You'll see it somewhere else.

CarMax doesn't sell cars with that many miles on it anyway.

The issue is this car cost me $110 a month to insure.

I looked it in 19 and it was going to cost, well, put it this way.

This car was $660 every six months, full coverage.

And I carry top of the line.

I mean, it's like $250, $500, $500.

Just because my umbrella policy requires me to carry maximums on my car.

It's not the minimum insurance.

I could be a lot cheaper if I wanted.

I have rental car.

I have towing, roadside assistance, $150 deductibles.

So, you know, I pay for my insurance.

I know nitpick can be cheap with it.

But that, you know, $660 every six months.

So $1,200 and $1,300 a year to insure this car.

A 2019 Ford Fiesta SE hatchback, going hatchback this time, almost $1,000.

I think it was $980 to insure.

And I can't understand the $300 every six months, $600 a year difference.

It's an extra $50 a month.

I mean, heck, the insurance payment is as much as the car payment.

I looked at a Focus hatchback.

Actually, no, I got quotes on a Focus hatchback, a 19 Focus hatchback,

and a 19 Focus sedan, titanium-level sedan, SEL-level hatchback.

And those were north of $1,000 through my insurance company,

where I have multiple policies, accident-free, longevity discounts,

and I get like eight different discounts from them.

Funny thing is, as I said, well, we're on a 16 Ford Focus ST.

Now, maybe I want the little sporty version, but no, there's no way

I'm going to want to pay the insurance.

Insurance was just south of $900.

It was cheaper to insure the ST, 2016 ST.

Then I got a quote on a 2013 Ford Fiesta, excuse me, Fiesta.

Very low miles, very, very low miles.

I think it's about 90,000 mile car, $2,500 for the warranty.

So I'd pay $2,500 to have 55,000 miles of warranty give or take.

And I'm not sure if that would have been worth it.

And what do I want to say?

What was I saying?

Oh, that insurance was still like $190 a month.

It was it was still right at that 990 level.

And I'm just confused on all of this.

Oh, I got fed up with these stupid numbers I was getting.

And I found a 2015 Ford Fiesta SE sedan exactly like the one that's

behind me in the picture if you're watching Sun YouTube, except it's

a red car with different wheels.

And they're just factories for premium wheels, whatever.

That car came in about 140 something a month.

So it still was 40 or some dollars more than the car that I just got rid of.

Can't figure it out.

I did spend four hours with my insurance agent today talking about it.

And he's got some questions.

We've got some questions about some rates and he's going to really

try to get to the to the bottom of this.

Why I'm not, I don't have any at fault accidents.

I don't have any payouts on the insurance other that are active on my policy

other than the motor, which was a comp claim.

And so it does not affect my rates.

Um, to be honest, my Maverick, when I bought it in April, it was 475 every

six months.

Now it's 750 every six months before I've even had it six months.

And it's supposed to go up to 996.

I think it is upon renewal for six month renewal in October.

And he can't explain that one either because the mini goes up five bucks.

Why that car is having such massive price jumps.

We don't know, but I'm not knocking State Farm.

Great agent.

I've been with State Farm 30 years.

I'm not, I'm not, um, I'm willing to go elsewhere.

If I can get a deal, um, with a reputable company.

But I've say I've always had great luck with State Farm.

But then again, I've only this, I've only used State Farm one

or two times in my life to actually make a claim.

I really just enjoy sending them money.

Um, so the insurance thing is what's keeping me out of the new car.

Um, getting great financing rates, finding great cars through CarMax.

Again, you know, I can go not CarMax and I can buy this, uh, say a 2018

Fiesta with similar miles from a local use car lot for 12 nine instead of 14 five.

But for $1,500 CarMax markup and the ability to have, you know, give them another $2,500 to

have the extended warranty, which I'm sure the use car dealership would sell me an

extended warranty, but I don't know the reputation behind that extended warranty.

I know how CarMax's works.

I've got a friend with, uh, who had a Mercedes until unfortunately it was totaled

that was bought through CarMax and they took care of the stupidest things.

They give you loaner cars, et cetera.

There's a couple of YouTube videos on how great the CarMax Max care warranties are.

I did look at a BMW 228.

I, um, the warrant I would not buy that would not be a car I would consider at CarMax.

I mean the warranty was $4,800 and it would only go to 125,000 miles, not 150.

But we all know BMW 228Is have service issues, uh, buying a used Mini from CarMax, same,

say warranty rates.

So it's kind of expensive, you know, depending on the car, it's expensive.

He's running the mill every day, Fords and Toyotas and stuff like that.

Yeah, the warranties, two to three grand, that's based on the $600 deductible level.

Honestly, if I bought it, I'd do the $400 deductible because the 600,

there's usually only about 120, $130 difference in those two levels.

So one repair covers the price difference.

Um, do two repairs your way ahead of the game.

Now to go down to their $50 and $200 deductible levels, it gets pretty expensive,

but you should, I mean, you should be willing to put 400 bucks into a car repair.

Um, all right, yeah, if, if you can't put 400 bucks into a car repair,

you really need to be having a warranty on your car and it's kind of a catch 22 thing.

Because if you also don't have $400 to put into a car repair,

you probably don't have $2,500 to put into a warranty.

And that's not knocking that, I mean, that's just facts of life.

And like I say, I take these things into consideration because of what I do, my driving,

we'll see how it all works out in the very end.

I'm sure I'll be telling you guys in the next couple of weeks,

yeah, I bought such and such if I decided to keep this job.

Going a little bit off topic, we'll, I've brought up that hustle and heritage is my new

men's focused gift shop. We've got the certificate of occupancy, it's a store within a store,

so it's a large store that has multiple booths. A lot of people can relate to it,

like an antique mall or something, but these are all individual small businesses,

not necessarily hobbyists. And it's fairly new items, it's new items, clothing items,

what I want to say, gift items from, there's 100 and some people in the store,

and everybody's got a different idea on what to have. So it's a good little place to go

for gifts and quality items, very little antique, very little vintage, you're prohibited from selling

used items, but you can sell antique or vintage, which I don't know how you get to antique or vintage

and not be used. But then again, I just watched a video on 160 mile Chrysler Crossfire.

So I guess that's almost antique and never been used, but whatever. But we know I'm opening

that business, I'm working on looking for commercial real estate for warehousing for my antique business

and that business and a podcast production studio. So there's a lot of things in play for me,

there's a lot of things in play for Derek, he could be seeing some changes and he may have

to step away from the podcast. Him and Dave do an excellent podcast together, one of the

conversations has been, I stepped back a little bit and let Dave and Derek do the collector car

podcast with me kind of as a producer and I might pop in with a little quote or something

instead of being, I feel a lot of times on that that I make a crazy, crazy statement, if

don't know if Dave and Clayton, who was a guest on their show, which thank you everybody,

that is one of our best performing shows ever. I think the only show that's showing

in recent history performing better is the ones with Courtney Hansen and that happened to be the

same week Courtney came out with her new photo spread with the side boob and everything else,

which everybody's guilty of liking a little bit of side boob. So I mean, I'm sure before

searching Courtney Hansen and that's why we saw a bump in her show's numbers. So don't know if we're

going to do that, don't know if we're going to split it into two shows, don't know, don't know how

it's all going to shape out, don't know if I'm going to find a co-host, whether I'm going to

go to an interview on the show, we're tossing around a lot of things. We love bringing,

you know, driving gloves, it's a good break to our week. But we have been doing it for eight years.

The numbers aren't quite where we want it to be. We're happy with the listenership that we

keep looking a lot of eight-year-old shows and they're doing a little bit better. But then again,

I look at a lot of eight-year-old shows that are doing a lot worse. You know, Jason saying

the chemistry is good. Let's see what else. He's had a couple of comments and unfortunately,

I can't watch it when I'm also doing the whole show. But do I think this will be one of those cars?

No. This car, Jason's asking, is this one of the cars that I wish I had not sold?

Because we do talk a lot about and I wish there's a few cars I've had that I wish I hadn't sold.

There are some cars I'm glad to hell I. But this car was bought.

I rarely do this and this is probably more of a Dave Ramsey thinking than a John Viviani thinking.

This car was bought with a purpose. It was bought as a tool. It served that purpose.

The experiment worked out where I came out ahead at the end of the game

and why I love the car and I probably say there's a good chance I'm going to replace it with the

same car. I might do the hatchback just to be a little bit different because I almost bought a

hatchback the day I bought this car but there was some car dealer manipulation when that came

to it. No, I enjoyed. I will look back fondly on this car. It's a Fiesta but it's not.

What do I want to say?

It did exactly what it was supposed to do. I said I got my money out of it.

I never regretted one day getting into it to drive it. As a matter of fact,

there are some days I'd get into it just to drive it over the many or possibly even the

Maverick when the cars actually overlapped. There weren't very many months that they

all overlapped but again, it's just a fabulous little car. The local CarMax, like I said, for

14.5 hopefully nobody goes out and buys it or reserves it has one with 28,000 miles on it.

There's one with 24,000 miles on it for Fiestas and there's two focuses that are about the

same money, same model year that are 50,000 mile cars. Focuses do hold the value a little bit better

and if you want to compare my comparison it's kind of Matt Farah-ish. I absolutely loved driving

the Focus. It was comfortable. The seats were comfortable. Good driving position. The size was nice.

It had a couple more features than the Fiestas did

but it didn't feel as possible. It didn't feel as fun. It felt like a heavier, bigger, heavier car

and while it's only a couple inches bigger or such, former co-host Sean Yoder, he had a Focus ST

and he said he liked the Fiesta better except he didn't fit in it. Now Farah fit in his,

I don't know why Yoder didn't fit into his. They both are about the same size when those cars were

relevant. I just think I might like the Fiesta because it does everything I need it to do. I

don't really need the space but the comfort. I don't know and that's why I walked away from it

for a little bit deciding as I was standing in the car back slot on Saturday and I could not tell you

which was the better of the two cars and I just couldn't write a check. Whatever I bought

there's going to be days ago boy I wish I had the more comfortable bigger car

like when I bought my pizza oven. We squeezed a pizza oven, one of those Blackstone $700 pizza ovens

into that black car with my luggage because I was going out of town and it was my first store on

the road trip. So we squeezed all of that in there. Had to come out of the box but it all

fit in there. Focus it would have been a little bit better so I don't know but overall the

Fiesta was a great car. I came out ahead. I'm not disappointed one thing to do with it.

CarMax was a dream to deal with on selling the car back to them. No questions asked. Like I said,

I put the information in honestly that the car had been smoked, that the car had body damage,

that the car had no reported accidents. Now that's a key thing. If it would have had a car fax,

if I would have had that fixed through a body shop or something it would have dinged the value.

I'm pretty sure of that. But I acknowledged that the car had damage but it had not been in an

accident because that question means does it have a car fax not has it been in an accident?

And that's what the salesperson explained to me too.

And I mean they went through and they were picky on it. They complained about it had some rear bumper

damage to it. The seats were stained. They said the back seats were stained and I don't know how the

back seat was stained because it was exactly the same way I bought it because I covered it and

then like I said I had my refrigerator on one side and a box of stuff on the other.

So overall, wonderful experience. One of the best ownership experiences I've had with a car.

Yes, it's just a mundane cheap Ford but go way back to when I started looking. I said to Derek,

I said, well what do you know about these things? And he goes, well we used to have,

I think they had a focus of the previous generation like an 0809. And I can't remember

if that was him and his current wife or him and his ex-wife. But at some point he had owned one

and he liked the car too. So there you go. I've bored you for about an hour talking about my

Fiesta, talking about the logic behind buying a car solely for work to preserve your personal

vehicles and my car max experience. So I think all of that combined, hopefully that didn't

make for a boring episode. I tried, I had my sheet out with all the numbers down to the penny and

I didn't want another boring numbers, numbers episode for you. I wanted to talk to you honest

and kind of off the cuff. I put the numbers together. I knew roughly what the numbers were

in my head. So I think everybody who's watched and who has enjoyed the show tonight,

best thing you can do for no driving loves is tell somebody about the show,

share the show. We've got over 400 episodes in our back catalog, some big name celebrities.

To be honest, our Courtney Hansen interview since we brought her up earlier is one of the longest

interviews with Courtney Hansen that's out there. Most of her interviews are five or six

minutes. We had her for almost an hour. So Jason's going to, I'm going to do Jason's quote and I'm

going to probably get out of here, but he says it's not what type of car it is, whether it's a Fiesta

or 812 Superfast, which Jason's in the market for if anybody has one. It's all about the

memories created and how it makes you feel. He said it's a great story and that's true.

I didn't mind getting out of that Fiesta and looking back at it. It always made me feel good.

The only time I dreaded getting into it is when I'm like, God damn, I'm going to work.

And that's why maybe a Fiesta STs could be the next thing in the driveway.

But with that, you know, my story, it's time to get off your ass, go burn some gas,

oh, and check out Hustle and Heritage on the web. One side goes live September 7th, 2025. Check that out.

Now, get off your ass. Go burn some gas because the John is out.

Does a dedicated work car make sense? 413

About this episode

Ford Fiesta

Fiat 500

Ford Maverick

Chevrolet Corvette

BMW 228Is

Chrysler Crossfire

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