ShopVac

The father should be in jail - leaving his child unattended in the car...much less running?

Thanks - The MINI is a 2006 S convertible. We only drive it in the summer - never seen snow. Doubt that will hold now if this becomes my daughters DD.

Hi everyone. I currently own a 2011 Ford Edge, and decided to make a switch. My mother-in-law's vehicle was getting rather old, so the Mrs and I decided to give her the Edge, and go for something new. First - some thoughts over the 3 years of having this (currently at 51,000 on the ODO) Likes - Never had any major issues with the car - never had it in for any warranty work, unscheduled visits, etc. Which is always great for a vehicle. Other than my POS Mazdaspeed6, I've always felt I've been lucky in this aspect. Car always seemed classy and looked good on the road. Never had an issue with power - car accelerated well for what it was. We did have an accident - where my wife hit a 5-pt buck. While the deer did over 12K in damage to the car, both my daughter and wife were safe. Very spacious on the inside – maybe even too much. Car feels bigger than it really is. One thing that I'm really going to miss is that keypad on the door...it's really a great feature when you want to lock the keys in the car (when I go running or biking). Dislikes - Top of this list is the Ford Sync system. It was horrid at best. Navigation was awful to use, whether by POI, or address entry. It was so bad, we found it better to enter this into MapQuest and download it through the phone. GPS from the maps would take 20 minutes or longer to put the car on the road Voice commands were bad – could not use it at all to enter an address. I’d rather have a root-canal (which I’ve never had) with no Novocain. Driver display on right side always defaulted to a generic setting when turning the car on. Not a huge deal – but why doesn’t it come back where I left it? Buttons from the radio would rarely show on the main screen. Phones were slow to connect to the car (sometimes 10-15 minutes). The latest update from Ford helped Sync...but it was still bad. I’m really glad that Ford stopped promoting this in their ads – as it’s clearly the weakest part of this cars brains. Advertised gas mileage. I realize I live in a hilly city – but I never even came close to the low end of this – with a ton of highway driving. Typically, we’d get 18.5MPG with 70% highway driving. I hit 20MPG once, with almost all highway driving. I’m thinking this is another one of Ford’s lies. Disconnected feeling while driving. While I know many of the cars I have are sporty – there’s a disconnect between the wheel and what the car does. Almost a numbness feeling when turning. It’s hard to explain – but if you drive some other cars, you’d see what I’m talking about. The ‘piano black’ center console. Looks great when clean – but shows every little speck of dust. Front seats felt like a bench seat from an 80’s pickup. There’s no lateral support what so ever. Two setting seat heaters. (why only 2, when the Focus has 5). Of the two settings, you have ‘burn your arse’ HI and ‘can’t even feel it’ LO. They really need to fix this. Plastic wheels - really, in a 45K vehicle? So, on to the new With our daughter turning 16 – it looks like she will be getting our MINI. So what was our winter only drive with the Ford Edge, will now be a full time vehicle. We were looking for something that was similar in size – and since my wife drives 70 miles round trip to work, could easily get an additional 6 to 10 MPG more. Enter the Jeep Grand Cherokee Diesel. Currently, we have 1200 miles on this, and I can fully state that we're already hitting above the claimed mileage. In combined driving, we're averaging 25.5MPG and constantly hit over 29MPG on the highway. I'm hoping that this will only get better as the engine breaks in. Where we were filling the Edge twice a week - we can now go a week and a half between fillups. Sure - the cost is higher to fill up, but time is money too. Backseat is smaller than what the Edge has, but cargo space is higher. Basically, bad for the kids, great for the dog. Time will tell if this ends up being a good vehicle, we got a free 'lifetime powertrain warranty' with this - so we're hoping to go the long haul...we'll just need to see if I'm still in love after the honeymoon period is over I still plan to lurk around here - as I'm sure I'll be looking up items for my mother-in law. Appreciate everyone's time over the past 3 years. Joey

Did the stripper version include 4.10's?

Actually sinc'd it up the other day. Happy to state that it did bring all my contacts in...and it's reading text messages again like it did with my DriodX. I'm not sure why the Galaxy S3 was such a misfit...but the S4 does work.

I feel lucky when I can get 19...but with the hills in Pittsburgh, we're typical to get a few less than what's listed in the sticker. Ironically, since I have a hard time with the voice commands, I'm kinda opposite of the new Ford commercial, "I get bad gas mileage AND I can't get voice commands to work."

Hmmm, popular place for pictures

I just got the S4 a week ago, after breaking my S3. My droidX never had issues with Sync, but the S3 would never sync up my contact list (and I never got around to downloading the app to make it work correctly). I'm hoping to have better luck with the S4 in this regards...but just asking, you got all your contacts to go in and everything?

Awesome pictures...love the location. I might need to use your idea above...as I'm really out of ideas at this point.

I thought we had one of these? Needless...

Your shots are nice...you may want to work a bit on where you place the subject matter in your shot. Many of your shots have them dead center, which is typically a photography no-no. Think of a picture in a 3x3 matrix (like a tic-tac-toe board) and place the subject in one of the cross marks. The shots inside the trees are cool...I like the effect. Lighthouse needs cropped and tiltled ~ .75 to 1 degree CW, but I'm really nit-pickin' now. ***Take it with that grain of salt, as I'm not an expert by any means.

Doesn't look purple at all, I like it though Welcome to the group.

What's that phrase, "size isn't everything" Here's my shot for the day...sticking with some foreign themes above.

Cool picture...like what you did with the guitar pedal.

Don't go with a D5100...while newer, it's a downgrade from the D90. The D90 is equivalent to the D7000, so going to that model would be a slight upgrade (but not by much). It's worth it to go to the D7000 if you take video...but the rest of the functionality is similar.

My wife curb rashed my 18's in the first week of ownership...I can state that the 18's are cheaper to replace Since mine is a primarily a winter vehicle only, the better snow performance of the 18 was chosen over that of the 20. I actually wanted the smaller...

May sound dumb...but an eraser works well as getting rid of the wax on the back trim molding. If you have a smaller area, it's easier than breaking out the jar of PB. ^_^

Sounds like you had a great trip...my wife flew down their last year just for the ghost tours. You have some nice pictures there. Night shots are rather difficult to take without a tripod, as the flash won't let much of your subject show and extending your exposure (as you should) will just blur the shot. With what you have in the cemetery, it looks like it just needs a little white balance from the type of lighting. I hope you don't mind, but I just took a few minutes to try and regain some of the color from your photos. (If there's an issue with what I did, I'll take the pictures down) Probably need to tone down the detail and soften up the picture some...but I like the subject matter Needless, did you hit any good restaurants? Paula Deen's was a bit difficult to get into without a reservation...

With the new navigation cards that were given out earlier this month...I'm now sitting on a 16GB SD card (the old navigation) that does nothing for me. I was thinking that this would be a nice backup card for my SLR camera for when I'm on extended vacations...however, there's a hitch with this. I can't seem to clear it. I've tried formatting, deleting, copying...nothing seems to work. I've verified the tabs in the right position (even tried the locked position) and tried the tape trick (around both sides). Anybody know how to clear this thing...or is it just junk now? Thanks Joey

Another HDR image

Yeah...some are overdone and cartoony. What can I say, I'm a rookie. Thanks for the compliment though

Wow...well, we all make mistakes in life. :D Worst car I ever owned. I just posted a pic on mine on the 'other car' thread...28 consecutive days in the shop. I think I hold some sort of record.

Love your nature shot...and the time lapse from NYC. Hell of a tripod too

Thanks, I just replied to you on the 'other car' thread...you should remember me from the Mazda6 site...JoeyC.

Small world Bova...you should remember me from the Mazda6 site...JoeyC, also from Pittsburgh. This was my POS that I traded in on the 335. Sorry to see that you were in a wreck...hopefully everything's okay.