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I've told this story before. About 10 years ago I took a car for a test drive one weekend. On Monday I told the guys at coffee that I had just driven the most fun car I had driven in years on the weekend. I asked them to guess what it was. These car guys looked from one to the other and all...

I owned a '00 BMW 528i 5 MT M-Sport for 18 or 19 years. Bought used with low miles. Supposedly one of the more reliable BMWs of recent years. I really enjoyed driving it. It looked great, rode great, handled great, felt great to even sit in it. It didn't even cost a lot to maintain - lots of DIY...

Speed Queen products are a bit difficult to get in Canada. And I'm not sure where that would leave you when you needed a repair.

I like the idea of a commercial grade product. The way our laundry area is set up we pretty much need a front opening washer and dryer. Hope those will be available when we need our next washer or dryer.

My decision to repair or replace is based on the cost of parts, whether repair is feasible (often meaning, by me), my impression of how good the article is, and the cost of a new one. Two examples: I junked a dishwasher of a non standard brand, of an unknown age - but seemed quite old, that...

Cheap "durable goods" aren't cheap. I'd be prepared to pay 50% more for durable goods with a real 10 or 15 year warranty, meaning the manufacturer will make rapid repairs if anything does go wrong. If something has a real 10 or 15 year warranty it'll probably last longer than that, which is what...

In Saskatoon at least as late as the 1970s there was an ordinance against galloping your horses on the old iron bridge.

Plastic repair seems to be a real thing. There are several YouTubes on doing plastic repair. Assuming you can find the broken parts, watch several and try a method that looks reasonable. I have never needed to do a plastic repair myself so I can't recommend any one method.

My friend replaced 5th gear on his Honda Prelude on a Saturday morning before lunch. I was amazed. It was under a side cover.

Not today but possibly later in the week.

There is a story (possibly apocryphal) about machinists in the USA during WWII. There was a need for some very high precision parts, possibly for the Manhattan Project. The machinists said it wasn't possible to work to that tolerance. So they hired people who weren't machinists who didn't know...

First of all this should be a warranty repair. This part might just be defective. In addition I wonder if there was an earlier model with an identical but metal part. Worth checking.

At age 39 I started a 4 year upgrade. That set me up for the rest of my career. My best move ever.

I'm a big fan of "widows' and orphans' stocks." I like dividends and steady if unspectacular growth.

The S&P 500 and Tech have been very strong over the past 5 - 10 years. For good or ill, this movement may have largely run it's course. I will keep some S&P 500 investments and Berkshire Hathaway of course, but I've been adding to EAFE (Europe Australasia and the Far East) and I'm going to add...

And anyway you shouldn't count on any one thing to keep a vehicle raised.

I expect so. The Canadian OAS is only age dependent. And if you make too much money by some combination of working, pensions or investment income they "claw back" some (or even a lot) of it. It becomes a badge of honour how much the government is clawing back!

.. or a real gal. I know several real gals who work on cars. One restores early '50s Detroit Iron. And puts many of us to shame.

That's the story of the cobbler's shoes, and the carpenter's cupboards - or more precisely the lack thereof. I spent 10 years as a General Practitioner (GP) and some of my most frightening stories were about physician's children and problems ignored. I learned to spend extra care whenever I saw...

Or 61, even 71 again.