What vehicle do you drive?

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Burren

Burren

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,499
6,085
Cad said:
Back in the late 90's I drove around in a 240sx with a sequential dogbox for a couple days - totally awesome at WOT banging clutchless shifts (most of them have a throttle cut that cuts the throttle for like 0.05 second when you hit the lever) but it's embarassing and shitty just trying to pull away from a light, sounds like your transmission is going to fall out every time you clunk it into gear, and every gear shift its a massive ker-clunk.

They're really racecars only.
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Definitely race car only. Its old tech, but still efficient on the track.
 
Lambourne

Lambourne

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,999
7,140
Mizake said:
It's weird being the last generation to have driven naturally aspirated cars on a regular basis. To actually be able to identify a car based on it's exhaust notes from a block away. Just to hear these types of cars rushing towards you and then away from you. None of the new exotics, imo, can hold a candle to the last of the NAs.

I have no idea how the classic car market is going to be in 20-30 years. It's like how the younger generation is now drinking less alcohol than ever before, you have the younger generations growing up with electric cars, hybrids, and turbos, and no idea how to drive manual transmission. Will they even collect cars? Maybe just as an asset to be parked and stored for financial appreciation, but not for physical appreciation, such as taking it out on the road.
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Markets for classic stuff can develop in unexpected ways. My 16 year old niece asked to borrow my old 2 megapixel camera from 2001 because that was apparently a hot new thing in their age group, they thought a standalone camera with buttons and a tiny screen was cool to play around with.

I hang around in retrogaming circles and while it's obviously a lot of middle aged dudes reliving their past, you also get a fair number of 20 year olds that discover great games from the 80s and 90s and want to play on original hardware. That market didn't exist when I was 20 because there are essentially no games or usable PCs from before I was born. Prices for 90s/00s hardware have gone up a lot too, people asking hundreds of dollars for 486 or Pentium 2 systems that people were throwing in dumpsters 15 years ago. Working CRT monitors are fetching 100-200 by themselves.

1739006959028.png
 
Kobayashi

Kobayashi

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
947
2,645
Lambourne said:
Markets for classic stuff can develop in unexpected ways. My 16 year old niece asked to borrow my old 2 megapixel camera from 2001 because that was apparently a hot new thing in their age group, they thought a standalone camera with buttons and a tiny screen was cool to play around with.

I hang around in retrogaming circles and while it's obviously a lot of middle aged dudes reliving their past, you also get a fair number of 20 year olds that discover great games from the 80s and 90s and want to play on original hardware. That market didn't exist when I was 20 because there are essentially no games or usable PCs from before I was born. Prices for 90s/00s hardware have gone up a lot too, people asking hundreds of dollars for 486 or Pentium 2 systems that people were throwing in dumpsters 15 years ago. Working CRT monitors are fetching 100-200 by themselves.

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This could turn it around for that box of cables and random PC components I've had in the basement for 20 years!
 
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Borzak

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
26,333
34,867
Lambourne said:
Markets for classic stuff can develop in unexpected ways. My 16 year old niece asked to borrow my old 2 megapixel camera from 2001 because that was apparently a hot new thing in their age group, they thought a standalone camera with buttons and a tiny screen was cool to play around with.

I hang around in retrogaming circles and while it's obviously a lot of middle aged dudes reliving their past, you also get a fair number of 20 year olds that discover great games from the 80s and 90s and want to play on original hardware. That market didn't exist when I was 20 because there are essentially no games or usable PCs from before I was born. Prices for 90s/00s hardware have gone up a lot too, people asking hundreds of dollars for 486 or Pentium 2 systems that people were throwing in dumpsters 15 years ago. Working CRT monitors are fetching 100-200 by themselves.

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I'll be rich one day. I still keep a 386 running that the shop uses to run a very large beamline (machine that punches holes in a beam at the locations you program and pulls it along) that has autocad on it from around 1990. Every so often it gets a new power supply that I bought several of for them years ago. I have been told numerous times when it dies they will upgrade so.....but it still gets the job done.
 
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Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
28,247
46,005
Anyone got any idea what a good quality respray for hood and front bumper cover runs these days?
 
Burren

Burren

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,499
6,085
Palum said:
Anyone got any idea what a good quality respray for hood and front bumper cover runs these days?
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Ranges between free and a few thousand. Kind of all over the place depending on the shop and quality.

probably best to research local options and read reviews.
 
Burns

Burns

Avatar of War Slayer
7,716
14,969
Palum said:
Anyone got any idea what a good quality respray for hood and front bumper cover runs these days?
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It's been a while since I looked into it, but from what I recall paint is all over the place, even within the "good quality" range. People always seem to talk about percent of show quality. For example, an 80% show quality might be X_price and a 90% show quality might be 5 times X_price.

Finding quality shops is always a pain. I would select for quality then get quotes.

To expand on what Burren said, look at some of the big enthusiast forums and find sub-forum closest to you (if they have regional subs). See what people are saying about various shops around you, then call them with what you want done. The place I took my car too here in DFW was highly recommended on corvette forums, 10ish years ago. They had some top end color matching tech, an impressive shop full of super cars, and the dude even took me on a tour of the shop. The color on the panel that was painted still matches 100%. It was mostly covered with insurance though.

You may even be able to find a shop that would give you price break if you wanted to do some of the prep yourself (if the panels are already painted the wrong color).
 
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Palum

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Burns said:
It's been a while since I looked into it, but from what I recall paint is all over the place, even within the "good quality" range. People always seem to talk about percent of show quality. For example, an 80% show quality might be X_price and a 90% show quality might be 5 times X_price.

Finding quality shops is always a pain. I would select for quality then get quotes.

To expand on what Burren said, look at some of the big enthusiast forums and find sub-forum closest to you (if they have regional subs). See what people are saying about various shops around you, then call them with what you want done. The place I took my car too here in DFW was highly recommended on corvette forums, 10ish years ago. They had some top end color matching tech, an impressive shop full of super cars, and the dude even took me on a tour of the shop. The color on the panel that was painted still matches 100%. It was mostly covered with insurance though.

You may even be able to find a shop that would give you price break if you wanted to do some of the prep yourself (if the panels are already painted the wrong color).
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Well I want BMW factory quality to match the rest of the car, so I think I only need to look for 50% show quality.
 
Burns

Burns

Avatar of War Slayer
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Palum said:
Well I want BMW factory quality to match the rest of the car, so I think I only need to look for 50% show quality.
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Same. I just wanted it to match the factory, so that's probably around what I got too. Unfortunately I don't remember what my total bill was anymore since it was mostly paid for by insurance.

If it is under insurance, you should be able to take your car to any repair shop, not just the ones that they get the best deal with. Since mine was covered, I just went to the shop with the best recommendations on the local car forums and didn't really bother with price.

If it's not under insurance, things may get a little more hairy. I have been told, back in the 00s, that some shops don't even want to deal with non-insurance work if they are already busy. I'm not sure how accurate that was, but if true, such a shop might quote high; which is another reason to get a few estimates.

The Bimmer forum regional sub-forums should be the place to look for recommendations and possibly find a BMW focused shop. If you really wanted to make sure on the various places (or don't live in/near a big city), you could also look at Rennlist (Porshe) and Corvette Forums.
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
67,309
154,238
Lambourne said:
Markets for classic stuff can develop in unexpected ways. My 16 year old niece asked to borrow my old 2 megapixel camera from 2001 because that was apparently a hot new thing in their age group, they thought a standalone camera with buttons and a tiny screen was cool to play around with.
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yea my godson asked me for an old digicam on a trip to spain and i gave him my old nikon coolpix 990
65e8114f693834e0683943ba836fdbef.png


ungrateful shit ended up asking for the panasonic lumix i had instead
 
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Palum

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Burns said:
Same. I just wanted it to match the factory, so that's probably around what I got too. Unfortunately I don't remember what my total bill was anymore since it was mostly paid for by insurance.

If it is under insurance, you should be able to take your car to any repair shop, not just the ones that they get the best deal with. Since mine was covered, I just went to the shop with the best recommendations on the local car forums and didn't really bother with price.

If it's not under insurance, things may get a little more hairy. I have been told, back in the 00s, that some shops don't even want to deal with non-insurance work if they are already busy. I'm not sure how accurate that was, but if true, such a shop might quote high; which is another reason to get a few estimates.

The Bimmer forum regional sub-forums should be the place to look for recommendations and possibly find a BMW focused shop. If you really wanted to make sure on the various places (or don't live in/near a big city), you could also look at Rennlist (Porshe) and Corvette Forums.
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Yea it's just cosmetic non-insurance work. Hood attracts all the rocks, so getting near enough rock chips considering it if the price is decent. If it's not I'll just hold off still looks great at 5-10 feet away.
 
Burns

Burns

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Palum said:
Yea it's just cosmetic non-insurance work. Hood attracts all the rocks, so getting near enough rock chips considering it if the price is decent. If it's not I'll just hold off still looks great at 5-10 feet away.
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If that's the case, look at Dr. Colorchip for rock chips, as I've seen a ton of recommendations for it and it was a great match, even on my metallic coat. Otherwise, it would probably be better to have a shop do paint repair instead of a full repaint, because a full repaint would require stripping the current paint off the panels, which is a LOT of labor ($$$).
 
Palum

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Burns said:
If that's the case, look at Dr. Colorchip for rock chips, as I've seen a ton of recommendations for it and it was a great match, even on my metallic coat. Otherwise, it would probably be better to have a shop do paint repair instead of a full repaint, because a full repaint would require stripping the current paint off the panels, which is a lot of labor ($$$).
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Yes that's what I use. It is the best I've found. It doesn't fix everything though. I know a panel respray is strip prep and repaint, that's just the only total fix.
 
Burns

Burns

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Palum said:
Yes that's what I use. It is the best I've found. It doesn't fix everything though. I know a panel respray is strip prep and repaint, that's just the only total fix.
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Ah, yeah. I have not looked into it, but I would think a paint shop could actually repair the divot that Dr. Colorchip cant, without actually need to do a whole panel repaint. If the paint is level, I would hope that it would be very difficult to find the chips without actively looking, while close to the paint in the proper light.
 
Palum

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Burns said:
Yea, I have not looked into it, but I would think a paint shop could actually repair the divit that Dr. Colorchip cant, without actually need to do a whole panel repaint. If the paint is level, I would guess that it would be very difficult to find the chips without actively looking, very close to the paint, in the proper light.
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Problem is, it's not like 'one' chip or area. The Z4 hood covers part of the fender top as well and there's a wrinkle in the paint there from a rock (assuming highway truck kicking up something sideways) and a few things like that. So problem is, labor wise, it's probably cheaper to strip and redo it properly than spend tons of time on like 30-40 chips that are noticeable and level it out - not to mention no warranty or other stuff. I'd probably try finding a guy like that if it was only one thing.
 
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