Recent content by TmanP

I love a big ol' American boat, and the Grand Marquis is definitely near the top of the list. Growing up, one set of grandparents had a Town Car and the other had a LeSabre, so I developed a taste for old man cars early in life, in my teens. (My first car was a Buick LaCrosse with the 3.8 so I...

I have kept track of maintenance, but not costs beyond saving receipts for things that have lifetime warranties or things done at shops, so I estimated some below. Above is my spreadsheet for the past four years/from 100k to 220k. I would estimate DIY parts costs of: --- Oil changes - 14@ $40...

I never have had enough loyalty to a single station to consider an oil-major branded card (plus, we are mostly Casey's/HyVee/QT/Kwik Shop/Maverik (former Kum and Go)) in this part of the world, minus the occasional BP/Amoco or Phillips 66. Fuel-ups on road trips are whatever I find convenient...

I've had two complete flushes (from a dealer) in the Camry with BG, as they didn't use WS, and have been happy with that. I didn't DIY that as it seemed rather involved and a scan tool was suggested. I believe genuine WS is rather tough to get reliably, but have to imagine that the vast majority...

Wow, impressive shape/low miles, for sure. I'd drive the heck out of it. If I was going to have another early 2000s GM product, I'd really want it to have a 3800, for what it's worth. But that's a beautiful Buick (as a minor gripe, it could use some factory wheel covers, but that'd easily be...

At the risk of sounding super young, I've only had cars that recommended 5w30 or 0w20, starting with a 3800-powered Buick in 2015 (5w30 on the cap - a few years too late for GM to call for 10w30), including our old Sienna which still calls for the same. I think I missed the common 10w30...

They are dramatically less common here in Omaha than they were a few years ago. We had a big local chain called Bucky's which sold Shell, BP, or Phillips 66 fuel, depending on location - they were acquired by Casey's. And our Speedee Mart (another local chain) now sells Amoco fuel instead of...

Are you talking about a can of purpose-built stop-leak? I would not do that, and count yourself lucky that you have a pretty good idea of where the leak is for easier repair. For what it's worth, essentially every hose/can combo available (like what you used a few years ago) has some amount of...

I have, twice, been able to get O'Reilly to price match Walmart on the Super Start Extreme (Everstart Maxx equivalent). I first did this in fall 2019, and then a few months ago as that 6.5 year old one was starting a bit harder when particularly cold. If you can do this (worth a shot) it'd be my...

I'd get the nicest Sienna you can find up to the '20 model when they discontinued the V6 in favor of the all-hybrid model. (A lot of that is me loving that tried and true V6 with gobs of power, but the hybrid ones would be a good forever choice too.) They ride nicely and have an absurd amount of...

My folks have a Carrier Infinity furnace (95% 3-stage modulating) from 2010. It runs the majority of the time on low (~40% of max output, I think). The Infinity system will run lower on low than the board-controlled models with a basic stat, which instead tend to bump themselves to high stage...

I saw $2.64 for regular on my way to work this morning, and most stations were up to $2.99 this afternoon. (I paid just $2.39 at QT a few weeks ago.)

That's an absurd failure rate. The article mentioned signage issues as another reason for failure - I wonder if there's labeling issues or something like that which cause automatic failure. This seems to make a case for buying fuel from a corporate-run chain (think QT, Kwik Trip, Casey's, a...

I've used my Noco GB 40 more than a couple times on other peoples' cars in parking lots and the like, and it's impressed me every time. I have been surprised by how well it's worked. All I do is set a quarterly phone reminder to charge it (although it's never substantially drained). That said...

I've never changed either proactively, but I do keep a close eye on the temp gauge and coolant level (I tend to check oil and coolant for something to do when filling up) and have a very good understanding of the warmup behavior of the car. If I noticed that it was taking any longer to warm up...