My car is 24 years old. It's still going but starting to show it's age. I did a sizeable prev maintenance to keep it going longer because I'm prioritizing house payments. Still, I'm saving away, little by little, so that hopefully I can buy something in 2 years.

Well, I think I'm about to start saving from scratch. Apparently trees in my yard (about 50' from the house) don't have sufficient social distancing - some funny, seemingly arbitrary rule (doesn't matter tree type, for example) in which drip zones must be about 15' from each other. I'm probably gonna need to cut down about 5 trees ($2000 each?).

And my yard is relatively sparse. Neighbors have much denser tree growth.

Does anybody know what the real risks are for an act of god fire spreading from trees to house 50' away?

First I think you should start off by getting 5 more bids to take out the trees... 10k !?!?!

quote:

Originally posted by Dzozer:

First I think you should start off by getting 5 more bids to take out the trees... 10k !?!?!

We had a tall pine that was dying, just a matter of time before it keeled over with likely damage to my house or neighbor's house.

Low bid to take it down was $1,700, plus another two hundred to a different guy who did the stump grinding and clean-up.

Based on that, konata's two thousand per tree does not seem out of line.

We just had a big oak tree cut down. It was just under $2000.00 and we didn’t have the stump ground

Huh - we had 3 large oaks removed and the stumps ground up - was $2800 total. This was a professional operation with large equipment and around 6 guys - they were done in a couple of hours. We did have to wait as they had 3 jobs in our neighborhood and they wanted to do them on the same day - I guess that may have had something to do with the price.
I wonder if there's a regional price difference? Of the 5 bids I received - the highest was 11k.

quote:

Originally posted by Dzozer:

I wonder if there's a regional price difference?

Highly probable.

quote:

Well, I think I'm about to start saving from scratch. Apparently trees in my yard (about 50' from the house) don't have sufficient social distancing - some funny, seemingly arbitrary rule (doesn't matter tree type, for example) in which drip zones must be about 15' from each other. I'm probably gonna need to cut down about 5 trees ($2000 each?).

Says who, association, city, county, insurance company?

IF others have dense tree coverage, and it's insurance then shop the carrier, find out who they use, even if it's a grand more for the year it's cheaper than what you would spend for the trees to be cut down.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
My car is 24 years old. It's still going but starting to show it's age. I did a sizeable prev maintenance to keep it going longer because I'm prioritizing house payments. Still, I'm saving away, little by little, so that hopefully I can buy something in 2 years.

Well, I think I'm about to start saving from scratch. Apparently trees in my yard (about 50' from the house) don't have sufficient social distancing - some funny, seemingly arbitrary rule (doesn't matter tree type, for example) in which drip zones must be about 15' from each other. I'm probably gonna need to cut down about 5 trees ($2000 each?).

And my yard is relatively sparse. Neighbors have much denser tree growth.

Does anybody know what the real risks are for an act of god fire spreading from trees to house 50' away?

Who is telling you, you have to cut the trees down? Doesn't make any sense and what is a drip zone? I paid a guy 1000 bucks to cut down a 80+ foot tree in my backyard that was half dead but I had him leave the larger pieces which I intend to cut up and use for firewood. It would have been 2000 to cut the tree down and haul away. If you're handy with a chainsaw and the trees aren't to tall you can rent a lift and cut them down yourself.

https://www.sunbeltrentals.com...anlift-articulating/

I rented a lift a couple years ago and cut a few trees down myself saving a decent amount of money.

I have a Silverado with 140k, still doing well. Once in a while I delve into another maintenance procedure, try for the warmer months.

Last Summer I did all the belts, not bad after schooling up with videos.

I don’t even want to think about buying a replacement for a while.

I would suggest that anyone considering purchasing a car 3 years from now think about getting a low mileage 10 year old used car.

Because in 3 years every car sold will have the speeds limited to the posted speed limit and no more than that. Your mileage will also be reported to the effected states so they can properly tax you for every mile driven. If there is a weather hazard warning in effect odds are good that local governments will be able to disable your car and it won't matter a bit if you need to pick up your heart medications. Basically in about 10 years we will all be riding bicycles because our cars have been shut off for a Carbon Emergency, bad weather coming, and we have exceeded our yearly allotment of miles.

Then there is the matter of how cars are designed and built today. Stupid shit like window motors needing to be "authorized" for the Body Control Module just to milk you for another 200 dollars for that 5 minute task are common. Somewhere out there I expect that Windshield Wiper Blades will go "electronic" and require registering the new blades with the BCM. The automakers are now doing their best to insure that even talented mechanics can't do a damned thing about replacing something as simple as a battery to insure they can milk you for every dime they can grab. I'll also note that IMO many major automakers are now designing engines that will typically fail at about 100,000 miles.

Scooter123,

We were seeing that exact issues with window switches having to be programmed through the BCM on some GM products, the TrailBlazer and Envoy comes to mind of 2009 and earlier vintage.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
Scooter123,

We were seeing that exact issues with window switches having to be programmed through the BCM on some GM products, the TrailBlazer and Envoy comes to mind of 2009 and earlier vintage.

The switches communicate with the BCM. The replacements are blank and have to be programed. Different options and applications require different software. 2008 was around the time the Silverados started with it.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
Because in 3 years every car sold will have the speeds limited to the posted speed limit and no more than that.

Based on how my 'intelligent' CC behaves on my drive to work, that would make for an interesting/frustrating commute.

There are 2 places where the center HOV lane drops to 45mph & the cruise interprets that as the mainlane speed limit & drops the set speed to 45mph.
Similar closer to my office, it'll see the frontage road limit & adjust the mainlane limit.

Opposite happens on the frontage sometimes, frontage limit 45mph, mainlane limit 65mp & it'll accelerate when it sees the mainlane sign, even when it's odscured by another car

My beater/plow truck is an 04 f350 5.4 gas. 75k miles on it but it's had a bit of a harder life. Shes fairly crusty underneath but runs pretty well and does what I need it to do.

I overpaid for it as I had to buy it at the peak of used car prices. It's had its share of needing things and some things I replaced or upgraded just because or while I was in there.

Every time I get frustrated at it needing something more (parking brake cables, inspection, etc.) I take a quick browse on CL, FB, autotrader for newer/nicer trucks. Then suddenly I don't feel so bad about a couple hundred bucks every month or two on a paid off truck that does what i need it to.

Wife's car is a 2017 with 85k miles on it, 42k of which have been in the last 1.5 years. Bought it with a warranty til 6yrs or 150k miles. That MF ain't going nowhere until that warranty's up no matter what.

My car is also a 2017 with a shorter warranty (Mercedes...was not buying without a warranty). Once the warranty goes on that one I'll have a really hard decision to make. Bought it a year ago with 13k miles, have only put another 12k on it and absolutely adore the car. IMO, best engine and transmission combo that came in the body style, and really is only lacking a couple gimmicky things that newer ones have. Prices on those are nutty.

it's a tough market for cars right now.

quote:

Originally posted by jcat:
My beater/plow truck is an 04 f350 5.4 gas. 75k miles on it but it's had a bit of a harder life. Shes fairly crusty underneath but runs pretty well and does what I need it to do.

I overpaid for it as I had to buy it at the peak of used car prices. It's had its share of needing things and some things I replaced or upgraded just because or while I was in there.

Every time I get frustrated at it needing something more (parking brake cables, inspection, etc.) I take a quick browse on CL, FB, autotrader for newer/nicer trucks. Then suddenly I don't feel so bad about a couple hundred bucks every month or two on a paid off truck that does what i need it to.

Wife's car is a 2017 with 85k miles on it, 42k of which have been in the last 1.5 years. Bought it with a warranty til 6yrs or 150k miles. That MF ain't going nowhere until that warranty's up no matter what.

My car is also a 2017 with a shorter warranty (Mercedes...was not buying without a warranty). Once the warranty goes on that one I'll have a really hard decision to make. Bought it a year ago with 13k miles, have only put another 12k on it and absolutely adore the car. IMO, best engine and transmission combo that came in the body style, and really is only lacking a couple gimmicky things that newer ones have. Prices on those are nutty.

it's a tough market for cars right now.

Nowadays you have to be careful of Engine choices, because there are a lot design mistakes out there. For example Mercedes tried ceramic sprayed on cylinder liners in some of the V6 engines and that liner wears off at about 100K miles, which means the engine is a total loss. Ford Ford has a whole host of poor design choices and I wouldn't purchase any recent Ford V6 because all will fail at around 100K miles. I'm sure that GM has similar poor engineering but don't have enough experience with newer GM engines to identify what's bad.

Frankly I miss the days of a 3 on the tree manuals and hand crank windows. Today's auto's are so overladen with "convenience" gimmicks that long term reliability isn't likely. And it only gets worse when those gimmicks have to be registered with the BCM. The current C8 Corvette that is all gee whiz and super sleek will become a boat anchor on the day GM stops making parts for all those gimmicks on the Corvette.

Chairman Mao declared that no one should have a bicycle until everyone had a bicycle.

Our current administration was listening.

My sister had a tree cut down and hauled away . Stump ground . Right at 1k . The guy was a Fireman that did this on the side , and he was licensed and insured .

I'm currently having 2 Norway Maples in the 60-75 foot range removed and 1 large Black Ash that has been rotting with Ash Yellows since 2001. Total cost for all 3 with stump grinding is 2400 bucks. IMO a real bargain basement price because a quote from a larger Tree service back in 2018 as 7000 dollars. Yeah the guy is an independent but all three trees are now at the base ready for the stump grinding tomorrow. What amazes me is he did it all by climbing the trees and it's been less than a week.