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TeamsterGrrrl

Pedigreed Bulldog
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Everything posted by TeamsterGrrrl

  1. You only have bad tires if you don't put on good tires and stay within their load and speed capabilities. Had one bearing go in the last 10 years, just have to keep them maintained.
  2. Keith, PBS and most public broadcasters don't care about ratings- Their funding tends to be long term, while commercial broadcasters will kill a show within days of a sponsor pulling their ads. As for pledge week, I know some of the folks who keep Pioneer Public TV on the air- They're a low budget operation that relies on us small donors to survive. You probably get Prairie or Lakeland Public TV, they're very similar low budget operations. As for my politics, I just weighed in on a facebook debate between some republican and democratic legislators over the 10 year old Ford pickup a republican just bought. I took to task a democratic legislator who told the republican he should have bought a new hybrid or electric car instead... And I'm a "progressive" "leftie" "democrat"?
  3. Agreed, once I discovered small trailers I had a lot less need for a pickup. Fleet Farm and Farm & Fleet stores in the midwest sell a 4' by 8' no floor trailer for $400 on sale- just add a sheet of plywood for a floor and make sideboards and a ramp if you wish, and you're good to haul around 1500 pounds!
  4. Engine swapping can be challenging, even within the same family... from the early 70s through the last Mack engine in 2006 Mack added and changed intercoolers, went to a 4 valve per cylinder head, increased displacement to 12 liters, added electronic controls, and then changed everything around again! That said, went to a TDI club Get ToGether yesterday and saw a TDI engine swapped into a Ford Ranger... Lotsa work, but gets 40 MPG on the highway! Not easy, but the guy that did the swap is a Cummins engineer.
  5. Mack upped the Maxidyne ratings by 5% when the switched to the chassis mount air to air intercooler.
  6. Nice amateurish attempt at character assassination. Being as you live in western Minnesota, we probably share a congressman, Colin Peterson. Colin supported Bernie as well as LGBT and native rights and labor, yet he's pro-life and an NRA endorsed 2nd amendment supporter. For most of the above reasons I strongly support Colin, but the progressive democrats don't always support Colin. Thus I spend as much time arguing for 2nd amendment rights and against EPA excesses with democrats from the cities as I do arguing against the "return to the 19th century" conservatives here. So your attempt at labeling fails, badly.
  7. Some of the left as well as the right doesn't trust public broadcasters, being as they're largely funded by big corporations. Given that the right doesn't trust public broadcasters either, that suggests that public broadcasters are relatively unbiased.
  8. I like the boxy interior, makes for more useful cargo space. Unfortunately the market doesn't share our opinions.
  9. I looked at compact tractors while I was in Florida and the prices were more reasonable for the age, but most had been used for mowing by golf courses, condos, etc. and had lots of hours on them.
  10. The 1070 is a nice tractor, price may have been reasonable because it weights around 3000 pounds bare. I've noticed that heavier tractors tend to bring lower prices, largely because they're more of a hassle to haul. Went to an IH collector's auction a couple years back and the Cub Cadets and Cubs went for the highest prices, followed by the smaller row crop tractors. One tractor had an old skool grader conversion and was in real nice shape, but went for less than a thousand... Probably too much hassle to haul around. The guy had a nice 90s vintage International diesel powered flatbed truck to haul his collection to shows, and IIRC it went for barely $2000.
  11. Compact tractor prices are nuts- Saw a nice but 30 year old Ford 1100 with loader a few years back, figured it was worth at most 20% of new= $2,500... Sold for almost twice that! Seen similar at auctions with beat up 30 year old junk bid up to 30%, 40%, even 50% of new price. Even saw an 80s Kubota with a loader that didn't fit or function, a beat up 3 point mower, wouldn't even start, and it went for $2000! People round here are so addicted to rusty old stuff that they won't even look at new, could buy a new Kubota BX18 for under $10k but they'd rather have a yardful of junk, maybe half of which actually runs on a good day!
  12. Those are the rare good deals on big pickups, what I see more of is 100k+ miles and asking darn near new fleet price. But I don't need a bigger tractor and thus don't need a truck to haul a bigger tractor anyway- For mowing the Deere 1 series is a bit too big, but it's the smallest tractor available with a front end loader that I need to move snow, etc.. I considered the next smaller Deere 700 series with the Yanmar diesel, but it runs about the same price as a 1 series and they don't offer it with a loader though you can get a 3 point hitch for it. Kubota's BX is about the same size and was thousands cheaper, but Deere came down in price and the dealer's a lot closer so I bought the Deere.
  13. Ford's Fleet eligibility requirements: http://www.fleet.ford.com/get-started/eligibility-documentation/
  14. Bulldog, as a consumer and a Ford shareholder I'm on both sides of the issue... As a shareholder, I love the F series pickups and the SUVs! As a consumer, Ford hasn't even been able to sell me even a Fiesta.
  15. Ford will give you fleet pricing even if you have a fleet of one such as a taxi owner-operator. If you have a small fleet like many farmers and small businesses do, you can probably get fleet pricing from all of the big three. Or you can get fleet pricing by joining an organization- Farm Bureau members in many states can get fleet pricing, and Cenex Co-Op members can even get discounts on Paccar trucks. There is also supplier (X Plan) pricing- Just about every big company is a supplier to the big three, and you can get Ford supplier pricing by owning Ford stock for 6 months. There are also the group buying deals offered by Costco, etc.. Thus it pays to price out several different ways to buy a vehicle- Before VW came out with a great deal on new TDIs I was pricing out a new Ford Transit Connect using most of the above options.
  16. Everybody and their brother wants a pickup around here, so it's a sellers market that the dealers take advantage of- I often see 5 year old pickups selling for about the same price I can get a new one for at fleet pricing. Get much older than that and you start seeing expensive rust problems on the underside of vehicles- My Ranger cab and box looks great but I've had to replace almost every brake line due to rust, and some of the 10+ year old Rangers have had frames rust through. and after I've spent $20k on a 5 year old pickup I still have to worry about a $5k engine or transmission rebuild. And that $20k pickup only gets 15 MPG. The good deals are in small cars, which are cheap to begin with and depreciate fast- I can buy a new Focus, Cruze, etc. for around $15k new and way less used. They get around 30 MPG, and put on a trailer hitch and you've got the payload capacity of a half ton pickup. You just have to quit thinking "pickup" and start thinking "car", or at least "minivan"
  17. Agreed, but I'm not going to take 1800 mile trips with a 10 year old vehicle I don't know the history of.
  18. One of the benefits of freedom is people are free to do stupid stuff. I've found I can move anything I need with a VW Golf diesel, and it's hard to get worse than 40 MPG with one. My 2003 has cost about $10k for fuel and depreciated around $14k in 138k miles. My 1998 Ranger 4 by 4 pickup has cost around $15k for fuel and $17k in depreciation in a mere 92k miles. Other expenses like maintenance, tires, insurance, etc. were similar for both vehicles. So the 40+ MPG Golf cost $8k less to run half again more miles than the 17 MPG Ranger, and those dollars went into my retirement funds and grew even more. If I'd put as many miles on the Ranger as the Golf the differences would be even starker- about $16k more to run the Ranger than the Golf diesel has cost. The costs would have been even higher for an F150 or similar full size pickup. Anytime you buy a big tractor, boat, or RV you doom yourself to buying bigger vehicles for the life of that tool or toy. For example, if I'd bought a heavier tractor than a Deere 1 series I'd have to upsize to a vehicle with a 3500 pound tow rating. Cheapest vehicle with that tow rating is a compact pickup or Ford Escape for around $25k and they get around 20 MPG, half what my VW diesels get. BMW's diesel SUV will tow 7700 pounds and get 25 MPG, but they start at around $60K! And don't get me started on full size pickups- $30k for a stripped one that gets only 17 MPG!
  19. I'm not criticizing you guys that need a big pickup for work or farming. What rankles me are the condo and townhouse dwellers that buy a full size pickup when the biggest thing they ever haul is a full cartload from Sams Club or Costco.
  20. 1 Series Deere is as big a tractor as I need and my Golf TDI can tow it. Local farm store and elevators give me full ton price on wood pellets and corn and let me take it home in half ton or less trailer loads. My Ranger can handle a half ton+ on it's back or a ton on the trailer, but I haven't needed it in months. So I pretty much don't even need the Ranger, never mind a full size pickup. Buy buying what I need I can pay cash and got to retire early...
  21. Full sized pickups are an expensive addiction- I'd double my cost per mile if I switched to one. Unless you need the load capacity, why waste the $$$?
  22. Looks like another 237 that got a "virtual upgrade" to a 300 when it came time to sell it. Described as a '68 when the Maxidyne 6 didn't get upgraded to 285 HP until '73 and didn't become a full 300 HP until the early 80s. 300 would have a front of radiator aftercooler, this one doesn't even have the 285 HP Maxidyne's engine mounted aftercooler.
  23. 81k pounds is a lot for a 237, I ran 85k pounds with a 237 once, started the load fine but even a barely discernible upgrade pulled it down to 45 MPH. I suspect you're having a hard time finding used parts because recyclers tend to crush stuff that's 20+ years old because there's so few 20+ year old vehicles left to need parts.
  24. If you've got a 5 speed Maxitorque in there, you need a Maxidyne engine. If it had a 300+ initially and the intercooler and plumbing is still there, hopefully it will match up with a 285 HP Maxidyne. 300 and higher HP Maxidynes used a front mounted air to air intercooler and that didn't come along until the mid 80s.
  25. I'd avoid the 2007 to 2009s because of the half assed emissions system, and if you can afford a used 2010 or later dump you may as well buy new. I like the first few generations of electronic Mack engines which have a lot of benefits like cruise control and easier cold starting without the hassles of the newer electronic controls. I live in the land of ice and snow so at least ABS is a must, especially on a tractor. So my favorites would be early 90s through 2006.
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