Remote works perfectly

The new remote for the Pathfinder arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and I programmed it this morning. Everything works perfectly, and it cost less than $35.

The Pathfinder is ready to sell, and in fact would probably be gone by now if some family issues hadn’t come up. No details needed, but a week long hospital stay was involved.

Let hope that this week I’ll no only get the Pathfinder off to it’s new home but will get a new horse in the stable for training.

Remote key fob, dealership should be ashamed

The Pathfinder has remote keyless entry as you might expect, but I don’t have the remote. Furthermore, I only received one key with the vehicle when I got it.

One of the first things I did was head to a hardware store to get a new key made. It would just suck to lock the key in the Pathfinder and not have a spare. Unfortunately, like most cars these days the Pathfinder uses a transponder in the key to make it harder to clone so my backup key does nothing buy open the door. That’s ok for my purposes.

But not having the remote to open the doors, that’s a negative for a buyer so I needed to solve it. I knew a dealership would be too expensive but I called anyway. For the remote itself they wanted $105, then another $100 to program it. If I wanted a transponder key, that would be another $95 and if I didn’t order them together it’d be another $100 to program it. So, for $300 they’d give me a key, remote and make them work. That’s completely insane!

Haven’t programmed keys myself before I hit Google to see what it took to do it for a Nissan. It’s so simple that the dealership should be ashamed for what they’re trying to charge. How simple? Insert and remove the key 6 times within 10 seconds, the hazards will flash. Put the key back in and turn to ACC. Press any key on the remote. That’s it, you’re done. And they want $100 to perform that bit of work.

What do you think the odds are of me using that dealership for any work?

As for the prices on the key and remote, you can get them online for less than half of what they were charging.

So yes, I’ve ordered a remote online for the Pathfinder and will do the “o so difficult” programming myself. The buyer of the Pathfinder will be able to lock and unlock their doors properly.

Trying to add to my inventory

Now that the Pathfinder is ready to sell I figured it was time to buy the next vehicle. While I’ve said many times “inventory = death” due to carry cost associated with inventory, some inventory is a necessity so that you always have something to sell. After all, if you’re not selling you aren’t making any money.

I spent several hours on one of the auction lots yesterday going over 76 cars that met my criteria. To get the list that small I filtered it to cars with a CR of 3 or higher, under 80K miles with an MMR of 10K or less. Also, no dealer cars, I only want cars from finance companies. You’d think that with 76 cars to choose from I’d have had a long list to bid on this morning, but you’d be mistaken. I had 4. Yep, my bid list was for 4 cars.

Yes, I’m being picky, but when there’s deep scratches, torn seats, loose bumpers and all other sorts of issues I think I’m correct in being this picky. After how much I’ve had to spend on the Pathfinder I’m understandably reluctant to step into something that I can see up front will cost a decent amount to bring up to shape.

So 4 cars. Trucks and SUV’s actually as that’s what filtered to the top this time around. Unfortuantely the people bidding today were out of their minds. Think I’m exageratting? How’s this:

2005 Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Base model, no crew or extended cab and was obviously used to haul things that scratched the bed all up. People really should use bed liners, but I digress. It had 53K miles on it which is good for the age. The MMR number was just under $6K, but if you factor in mileage it should have sold for around $7K. The Kelly Blue Book “person to person” value was $8600. The winning bidder paid $9000. Excuse me? 9K?

2006 Chevrolet Colorado. Again, base model and I do mean base. No power windows, locks or anything special. No extended cab, base. However, it was in SWEET shape and only had 11K miles on it. Yep, this was someone extra vehicle that was hardly ever used. Average MMR was $6200, but when you factor in the low miles that jumped up to $8000. The KBB price even factoring in the miles was $9000, and trucks with similar low miles are selling on Craigslist for $8000. The winning bidder paid $9700. After fees that means they paid $10K for a stripped out truck just because it had super low miles.

A similar story on the other two vehicles I was bidding on, people just paying way too much.

I’ve been listening to other dealers as I mozy around the various auctions and I’ve been hearing them complain that it’s hard to find good cars right now. I guess that’s causing them to bid the prices up on the good ones that are spotted, but how do they plan to make margin on these things when they bid like this?

Let’s assume the Colorado has nothing wrong with it. The dealer still needs to sell it for at least $11K to make it worthwhile, and $12K would be a better bet. But what buyer out there is going to pay $12,000 for a 3 year old truck when they could get a brand spanking new one for just a bit more?

Obviously I’m missing something here.

Pathfinder rides like new

I guess I can’t say that as a statement of fact since I didn’t drive this Pathfinder when it was new, but you know what I mean.

The problem turned out to be the upper and lower control arm links, all had to be replaced. This was only a 2 hour labor charge, but unfortunately the parts are a bit expensive, so it cost $765 to get fixed.

Yeah, that’s expensive. I certainly won’t be putting 4 new tires on it at this point, maybe not even the two I was considering.

Mechanically the Pathfinder is now complete and ready to sell, but there’s a couple of cosmetic things I need to take care of before placing an ad. Soon though.. soon.

Still waiting

In case you think I’ve fallen off the real-time wagon, I haven’t, I’m just still waiting on word that the Pathfinder has been repaired.

Heck, I’m waiting for the shop to call me and tell me exactly what’s wrong with it so that I can give them permission to repair it, but I doubt that’s gonna happen.

They’ve had it since Wednesday morning, you’d think they would have at least given it a test drive by now since I was told it would be done today. But then, maybe I’m jumping the gun here and my phone will ring any moment now with them saying “it’s done, and it was only $200!”

Sorry, I have to keep a little bit of a fantasy life going ya know.

.. and Goodyear passes!

Turns out the wipers were disconnected. No idea why, but it was no charge to plug them back in so I’m happy.

They also had some tires from a Mercedes ML that had 50 miles on them that they could make me a deal on. Unfortunately that deal was $513 out the door, so it looks like I might be selling this thing needing rubber.

Oil change was cheap though at $22 and some change.

And now to the real issue.. the boogie-oogie. They don’t know. He gave it a drive, talked it over amongst themselves and gave up. I do appreciate this though as the auction took an incorrect guess and cost me money, but that does mean I’m still unsure what’s wrong with this beast.

I took it to a second neighborhood shop and this guy swore he knew what the problem was. He was booked up today and tomorrow though, so I’ll take it to him Wednesday morning and a few hours later (and $5-600) it should be good as new.

That sound you just heard? Yeah, that was my margin flying out the window.

Goodyear has the ball

I’ve taken the Pathfinder to my local repair shop and am greatly looking forward to seeing what they find out. I described in great detail the boogie-oogie action and made it very clear that they needed to drive it in a certain way to get the full effect. Hopefully they’ll actually do that.

I also orderd up an oil change and quote on new tires.

It was raining a bit this morning when I took it over so I had the occasion to learn that the wipers don’t work either. Very good chance that’s just a fuse that was probably damaged when the speedometer fuse was screwed around with.

So who wants to place bets on what the total quote will be?

Bearings repack solved the problem? Not so much.

Pick up the Pathfinder yesterday and discovered that the boogie-oogie dancing motion is still in full effect. Unfortunately the repair shop was closed when I got the vehicle so I couldn’t tell them they were wrong in their diagnosis. Looks like that was a wasted expense on my end. Not to say the bearings didn’t need to be repacked as I have no real idea, but it’s certainly not something I would have just done on a whim.

On a positive note, the A/C is working! Best guess is the same fuse that was screwing up the speedometer / odometer also had something to do with the air. Weird that it didn’t blow cold when I gave it a short drive earlier in the week. In any case, I have cold air now so I won’t look this gift horse in the mouth.

Next up on my list is to get the Pathfinder to my local repair shop and have them figure out what’s wrong with the Pathfinders dance moves. Best guess at this point is that it’s something with the rear suspension. I hope it’s an inexpensive fix because I still need to put tires on this thing, and those are looking to be over $125 each, and it really needs all four.

I was going to take it to be looked at today, but being the day before a holiday I decided that I’d skip it. I figure there’s virtually no chance of it getting done today, and wouldn’t really want the guy working on it today anyway since he’s probably thinking more about what his plans are for the weekend that what he’s working on.

Bearings needed re-packing

I talked to the guy at the auction repair shop yesterday afternoon and he says the weird shimmy motion was being caused by loose wheel bearings on both front wheels. Thinking about it, that makes sense. He didn’t have a quote ready for me yet and asked me to call back in 5 minutes..

While he worked on the quote I made a quick call to my local repair shop. They said it’d be $125 per wheel to do the job, including all parts and labor, so for $250 the Pathfinder would stop doing the boogie-oogie down the road.

Called the auction guy back, he wants $220 to do the job, so he wins. I wouldn’t drive the Pathfinder all they way there to save $30, but since he already has it I’ll take the savings. He also wanted $285 to put two new tires on the back. This truck does need tires, but $140 each? Hopefully I can find that cheaper near me. A friend suggested Costco, and that sounds like a darn good place to check.

Hopefully it’ll be ready early this afternoon, that’s when they were shooting to get it done. If that holds true then the Pathfinder will be back in my possession in a few hours, then I can see about the A/C and tires.

I feel like I’m doing a re-furb on a house rather than fixing up a car for flipping.