These are'nt really blogs but rather a collection of special interest discussion boards. Various companies take vehicles and convert them to limos, hearses, etc. The conversion of a Dodge Coronet to a hearse is a strange one. Evidently it was a lower price option for less prosperous funeral homes. Good luck with your search.

My bet is, if we had to do it again, we could probably have paid about $500 less, if we'd really pushed. [snip] I wish people could just be totally honest and we wouldn't have to play these games. Good ol' hindsight -- always 20/20! :-) Seriously, yes, you probably could have done better. But that likely would have taken far more time and information than you could spend. I know the insides don't really matter.......but this thing was like new inside. I hope the engine, etc. is the same way! The insides do matter. First, it's most of what you see when you're in the car. Second, if the inside was well-cared-for, the rest of the car should have been, too. But, in the future, you really should have a prospective used car examined by a mechanic you trust to make sure you're getting the deal you think you are. I have another question for you. I'm seeing some really low-priced cars that only have something like 25,000 miles on them. Can we read anything into that? Why so cheap?? The market for most used cars has softened considerably. Incentives on new cars (0% financing, rebates) and cheap leases made the price differences between used and new cars marginal and so people bought or leased new cars. With the continual incentives for new vehicls, used cars flooded the market. Speaking of flooding, there undoubtedly will be a bunch of cars from Katrina-stricken areas which some unscrupulous people will attempt to fix and sell off with a -- er, washed -- title. Those cars will be cheap to keep them moving. Also, most of these cars had a big yellow sign on them that said "No hassle pricing". To me, that means they just don't want to deal. What does it usually mean?? I think that statement is just plain silly. Are we stupid or what?? Are we supposed to think "Oh, how nice! We can just pay the asking price and have no hassles!" hahaha (We're stupid, but not that stupid) Lots of people enjoy haggling for a car as much as they enjoy getting root canal. Personally, I would venture that most of Saturn's success comes from their no-hassle, we're-all-friends-here demeanor, because it certainly isn't the cars or the great deals that keep people coming back. "No hassle" is an attempt to bring the price down some from full list to let buyers think they're getting a deal -- which they are, without the usual confrontational aspects of negotiationg; just not as much as possible. It should also be a little cheaper for the dealership because they don't have to burden their sales reps with so much dead time spent "speaking to the manager" -- they can be out selling cars. You'll notice that no one offers "no hassle" trade-ins (not even Saturn). Besides, how many things do you buy for which you actually negotiate? Groceries? Patio furniture? Insurance? Mortgages? In a way, "no-hassle" puts car-buying on the order of buying something in a department store. Don't like the price? Don't buy. I guess I was naive in thinking that it was safer to buy a used car from a reputable dealer. Am I totally wrong on that? The dealer has been nothing but honest and above-board with me on a regular basis. I've even taken my Odyssey in for weird things I've noticed, and they've checked it, and said nothing was wrong, when they could have ripped me off (like the volvo dealer used to). Maybe I should only feel good about buying their used cars, if they are precertified? Some manufacturers put limits on the cars they will sell "precertified" -- like how old the car is, how many miles it has,.... Just because a car is not certified does not mean it's bad -- though I would think less of a two- or three-year-old Civic sold by a Honda dealer that wasn't certified because that certification is worth more to the dealer. And the salesman said he couldn't do any dealing at all on the warranty....when we asked it to be included in our price. Of course, we just lowered what we wanted to give for the car, but have you heard of that before....that they don't include those in "the deal"? Well, maybe he couldn't deal on the warranty. But I'll bet someone at the dealership could. I've done it (and still refused the warranty). And I could see why the dealer would not be tripping over himself to swallow the cost of a "$1200" warranty in the price of an $8,000 car. I hate buying cars.......new or used. The reality of everything is just so variable! You've just provided Reason #16 why people like "no-hassle" pricing. :-) Buying a car anymore is a considerable investment. We all want to make sure we get it right. Having to haggle over the price when you don't know the real cost makes it that much more difficult.

quirky, my folks bought American cars for years. After horrible experience with an AMC product in the mid-70s, however, they went Japanese -- and never went back. When I met my now-ex-wife, she had a mid-80's Chrysler that pretty obviously was a "Friday car"; that piece of junk barely outlasted the payment book. Unless you count the Rabbit GTI that was built in Westmoreland, PA (not a great example of German craftsmanship), I've never owned an American car. But I see that changing. My ex has been driving a Ford station wagon for the last ten years that somehow survives despite the abuse. My sister has a Saturn that is nowhere near state-of-the-art, but is screwed together decently. American cars are getting better. What needs to improve is American-car-manufacturer management. Lear and Delphi and Collins & Aikman can build quality products. But when they're not partner to the design decisions and they're continually asked to tighten their belts on existing contracts, management is the problem. When GM cries that worker benefits cost them some $1,500 per car, management (who gave away those benefits in better days and apparently could not envision that the gravy train would stop one day) is the problem. (Special mention goes to UAW management, too, which also failed to believe that the gravy train could stop.) When Ford paints a dark picture of their future because customers are no longer buying Extinctions and don't want to buy outdated Foci, management (who green-lighted the priority for huge SUVs and chose not to sell the world-class European Focus) is the problem. American workers are capable of building cars as good as Japanese can make them. American parts, as used in hundreds of thousands of Camrys and Accords and Sentras, are as good as anyone else's. The difference is management and how little they seem to care beyond making this quarter's numbers. BTW, my perception issue with Toyota doors is that they're just too light. They close fine, the handles don't feel junky. But when I open that door and see that little hinge and feel the door fly away from my hand :-) I just don't feel really confident that the door is in it for the long haul. Obviously, it is. It's just a perception issue for me.

The all electric car will not decrease our dependence on foreign oil, or for that matter, domestic oil. BTUs (British Thermal Units) burned per mile may be greater that a gasoline fuled car. If you start at the power plant and compute system efficency, it is not very good. fuel is burnt in the plant to generate electricity. The conversion of energy to electric power in the best plants do not exceed 36%. Some car engines are approaching this efficiency. The power is tranformed to very high voltage for cross country tranmission, and then stepped down to local distrubution voltages, and finally stepped down again just before feeding a house. I don't have all the numbers for these transmission losses, but if you believe one ad, it runs to near 50% loss. I think its in the neighborhood of 20% to 30% loss. And now, the energy arrives at the battery. (There are losses within the home plus charging equipment. Let's say we have a relly efficient charger on the order of 92% and the line losses is 1%. This works out to a 91% efficiency.) There is a big loss in charging a battery and another loss when the battery discharges. This can be as great ss 50% loss overall, but let's be generaous and say it is only a 25% loss. The setimated overall efficiency between burning fuel in the power plant to energy used to urge the car down the road is 0.36 x 0.70 x 0.91 x 0.75 or 17%. In other words, 17% of the energy burned in a power plant is utlized to pushing the electric car down the road. (It's actualy less than this. I was generous with some of the estimates.) I can't see how this reduces energy consumpion per mile! All the elctric car has done is to transfer its energy comsumption to the power plant and the delivery system is not efficient. This is why I believe that the hybrid car presents the better solution. Overall, it is much more efficient than an all-electric car when you compare BTUs burned per mile, and it retains some of the advantages of the gasoline or diesel engined autos. Baker Electric made eletric autos ca 1920 - 1920s and these flopped. Since that time, huge advancements have been made in electical - electronic controls, but the basic battery chemistry and thermodynamics have changed little, so it is still an uphill battle. Electric vehicles do have and will have their place in urban life in the future; It won't be a direct replacement for the personal automobile as we know it today.