RX in NC

I'll soon need tires for my much-beloved 1999 Dodge Ram 1500-series pickup since it's current set of Dunlop Radial Rover A/T tires will be six years old in early November and are down to an average of 4/32 tread depth all the way around. Based on my very positive experiences with Firestone Destination LE tires on my wife's previous 2000 RX300 and my daughter's 2000 Grand Cherokee, I'm going to put a set of them on my Ram as well. As always, I checked with tirerack.com first to establish a baseline. With shipping, I can get the P265/75R16 set that I want for about $502. I'll then have to pay about $40 to $50 to have them balanced and mounted. Next, I called my local Firestone district office and asked for the store manager, not just a counter guy answering the phone. I then struck up a pleasant conversation with him about how pleased I've been with these tires on the two vehicles I've run them on in the past. When he responded by saying "Drive on over this afternoon and we'll put a new set on your Ram for only about $650", I purposely hesitated for a few seconds and softly said, "Well, that's why I'm calling you - in this tough economy our family has really tightened our belt and I'm checking all available sources for this tire including the on-line vendors and your price is way out of line right now." He responded with "What will it take to get your business?" I said, "Are you running any sales right now?" He said, "Yes, but not on that tire." I said, "But that's the best tire for my particular application and that's the tire I'm going to buy once I find the best deal, so what can you do for me?" He thought for a minute and said, "How about if you buy 3 of the Destination LE tires and I'll throw in 1 for free?" I said, "That sounds great - quote me a price including tires, taxes, valve stems, balancing and mounting. I don't need the road hazard or any of the other upsale fluff - just give me your best deal." So he ran the numbers and said, "$487 out the door, how's that sound?" I said, "Great, let me write down your name. Here's my name and number, get the tires in stock by next week and call me when they arrive so we can set up my appointment to install them." I finished by saying that I greatly appreciated his willingness to work with me and that I looked forward to seeing him next week. In a nutshell, I saved more than $160 off the initial Firestone quote in an elapsed time of less than five minutes on the phone by being pleasant, stating that the tough economy is causing me to shop price points very carefully, and proving that I was already an informed consumer by indicating that I am going to check with all potential sources for the tires that I want. This is not rocket science - automotive vendors and retailers in all categories are hurting for business and would much prefer to deal rather than lose a customer. I was pleasant but firm and made it clear that I had other potential sources to check. The store manager knew instantly that he had just a couple of minutes to either cut a deal or let me walk away. As it turned out, I'll be paying almost exactly the same price for a new set of Firestone Destination LE tires as I paid for my current set of Dunlop Radial Rover A/T tires in November 2002, and the Destination LE is a much better tire. So if you plan to buy tires soon (regardless of the tire brand), do your homework on tirerack.com first, find a tire you like and can source there, then call around locally and take the same approach that I did. Use this tough economy to your advantage while you can - your checkbook will thank you....

jcrome04, Here's your assignment for the day: Break out your trusty Webster's edition (assuming you own one) and look up s-a-r-c-a-s-m....

Quit dancin' around the f%#king subject and tell us how you REALLY feel, nc211. You're holding back far too much with your pansy-assed wallflower attitude, my friend....

Bush wasn't assassinated solely because he had Cheney protecting him in the line-up. Any potential assassin realized that having an idiot in the captain's seat is always preferable to having to deal with a certified diabolical madman....

You are discounting the assassination factor that faces Obama. It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge. I don't know if Obama can survive four years. Hell, I don't even know if he can survive long enough to be sworn in come January 20th. I really feel for the Secret Service and although those guys can't show emotion in public, I guarantee you they are sweating bullets as the election draws nearer....

Keep in mind that McCain is desperate - his campaign realizes that he can't win on his own merits so he must disparage the opponent since causing voters to cast their ballots AGAINST Obama rather than truly for McCain might be enough to keep McCain in play for awhile on Election Night.... McCain did a better job verbally (most of the time) last night than he did in the first debate. But tottering across the stage as he did just emphasizes the clear fact that he is quite simply too old for the job. Last night I kept getting the image in my brain of McCain in a hospital gown slowly pushing a mobile IV drip along with him as he creaked around the stage. The last thing this country needs would be for McCain to drop dead during his presidency and be stuck reeling with deer-in-the-headlights Palin in charge. We'd all be jumping off buildings having to listen to that voice serving out a McCain term. The only way she should be allowed within a mile of the White House would be as an Undersecretary of Annoying Accents and Mannerisms.... Yep, McCain needs to cut out the "my friends" patter. But he also needs to quit repeating himself three or four times as his two-minute allotment of time winds down with each question. I found it hilarious that he came on stage claiming that the government should buy out every crisis-affected bad mortgage in existence in the U.S. yet not even 20 minutes later he's into his "we've got to cut out all the spending going on except for defense and veterans' affairs" routine. Where is the consistency? He's desperate, he's grasping for whatever can create a sound bite, and he probably realizes by now that Obama has the skills to out-debate him every time even when both candidates resort to their own individual rhetoric (which happened more often last night than in the first debate).... This election remains Obama's to lose. The Swift-Boat-type character attacks will be ramped up to full throttle in the remaining four weeks but Obama has shown a remarkable tendency to stay cool and far more "presidential" in appearance and demeanor than McCain is even remotely capable of. I think that Obama is too smart to allow the Republican smear campaign to rattle him. He's obviously learned from John Kerry's mistakes four years ago and he knows that he is on course to take this election. It won't be a landslide by any means but I think Obama comfortably wins on November 4th if his campaign continues along the path it has set. Again, I'm no Obama supporter, but I believe the U.S. will be far better off in terms of an eventual economic recovery (and gaining at least some of our global reputation back) with Obama in the White House vs. McCain....

I spent all day yesterday playing put options, essentially taking advantage of the most volatile market I've ever witnessed since beginning my stock options program right at five years ago. I was fortunate enough to experience a record-breaking day for me, netting just over $89,000 in four total option plays. The shortest I was in one play was about 26 minutes. The longest I was in one play was about 5 hours. I could have run that last play over into this morning but chose not to since I strongly believe that after yesterday's fiasco, the markets have to recover at least somewhat today. Since I was playing puts (meaning that I was betting on the price of the stock to go down for those of you who do not know how options work), I knew I had to close out that last option before 4:30 pm even though my charts suggested that I could ride it a bit longer into today.... All that being said, you don't know how badly I feel when I must play put options this way in order to make money off the current terrible market conditions. Yes, there's a lot of money to be made for those who know how to do it, but the long-term future of our economy hangs in the balance. My $89,000 day yesterday pales in comparison to what is happening to my IRAs, 401Ks, and other retirement investments. Hardworking fathers and mothers who have been struggling to put food on the table, clothes on their kids, and gas in their tanks will be losing their jobs in droves within the coming weeks and months. Countless small businesses will close, some that have grown their way through several generations. Many of the constantly-struggling small farmers who keep America fed through good times and bad will finally have to give up the ghost due to the credit market drying up completely. It's a sad state of economic affairs, the worst I've seen since my college days in the early 70s.... The current financial crisis (along with the Iraq War fiasco and Americans' disgust with the Bush administration in general) virtually sets the presidency on a silver platter for Obama's taking. It is absolutely his to lose now. As previously pointed out in this thread, a Democratic president along with a Democratic Congress will automatically allow for a faster economic recovery in 2009 that may very well require all of 2010 as well. I'm not an Obama supporter, but he's a far better option than McCain (especially from an economic perspective).... We're in deep, deep trouble for the rest of 2008. Let's hope that our esteemed representatives in D.C. will finally pull their collective heads out of their asses and get a painful-but-acceptable package passed this week....

The debate went better than expected in my opinion. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to the future debates. Both candidates got their shots in, but Obama clearly topped McCain because of these four factors: 1. McCain continually repeated himself as the night wore on, sometimes even in the same paragraph and sentence. He sounds more and more like a teetering old man who's been off his meds for a couple of days. He did manage to express his solid knowledge of foreign policy from time to time, but the frequent "senior moments" cancelled out his foreign policy strength far too many times. 2. As expected, Obama maintained his composure far better than McCain was able to do, especially when it was the other guy's turn to talk. We can't have another hothead (some would say warmonger) in the White House - the voters will not allow it due to universal Bush fatigue. 3. Obama nailed McCain to the wall when he hammered him on supporting Bush far too long on the pre-surge Iraq War strategies, tactics, and blunders. McCain cannot credibly use his "maverick" persona to argue the war results prior to the surge because he wasn't in maverick mode then - he is on record for supporting the vast majority of the Bush/Cheney intelligence and strategy which we have long known was faulty, in some cases flat-out concocted lies, and undeniably wrong. 4. Perhaps most importantly, McCain blew his "experience" trump card big-time when he attempted to pander to women and the religious right by selecting Palin as his running mate. As expected by experienced political pundits, she is turning out to be a disaster, staying hidden from the media while McCain's team attempts to get her through a crash course in Political Science 101 to 501. If you've seen the handful of interviews she's granted (primarily the Gibson interview on ABC and the Couric interviews on CBS), you've already witnessed what a deer in the headlights she truly is. She is at least a decade away from being prepared for the potential VP role and why McCain's army couldn't see that I'll never know. The VP debate will be the most entertaining to watch - polished and crafty ol' Joe Biden will have her for supper and she won't know what hit her. The best quote of the week referred to Palin being taken to meet some of the various foreign leaders at the United Nations in New York. They called it John McCain's "Take Your Daughter to Work Day". Man, that's classic....

I'm proud of you for finally deciding to buy late-model used when the time comes to replace your current car. From a financial standpoint, it's the only way to go (as you now know).... But I'd really like to see you stretch your current car out as far as you can. I know it's well-maintained and as long as it continues to hold up without taking your maintenance costs way up the charts, why replace it?

Yep, unfortunately the government has no choice. And nc211 is correct - the "bad stuff" has to be completely exposed to the light of day so we can all understand what we're dealing with and exactly where it is. But I also believe that when you steal from the public trust to the degree that we're witnessing now ("public trust" - what a contridiction in terms these days), you should be capitally punished. Either send the CEOs/CFOs/COOs to prison for life or execute them, preferably the latter since it will cost us taxpayers far less in the long run. Yes, I'm that cold and unwavering when it comes to this topic. I don't think that nc211 or SW03ES are, but I sure am. I make an honest living on the markets and I don't cheat or steal anyone else's money to do it. So try to understand why I feel the way I do when the ridiculously greedy, dishonest *BLEEP*s out there in Corporate America have been stealing from all of us taxpayers for years now....

I've been a Republican since I registered to vote upon becoming eligible way back in 1972. But I cannot vote for McCain for many of the reasons that SW03ES has already listed. But the most critical McCain drawback to me is that he has no clue concerning how domestic economics much less global economics work and that is primarily the skill required at this point (along with getting us the hell out of Iraq) to begin restoring this country to our previous position as the best and most respected in the world (a moniker long since obliterated by WPE and his cronies). Throw Sarah Palin into the mix and you have one of the most disasterous presidential tickets I've ever seen - the late-night talk show hosts are in absolute paradise right now and man, can Tina Fey nail Palin. She's as good doing Palin as Frank Caliendo is doing WPE.... But I also have difficulty with Obama. He's brighter and smarter than WPE and McCain combined (granted, I know the two of them set an awfully low bar), but his lack of experience is definitely a valid chalk mark against him. But the choice of Biden as VP helps Obama in this instance, and I believe that there is a very real possibility that Biden will assume the presidency due to the Obama assassination factor that cannot be discounted regardless of how many Secret Service guys they glue to Obama's hip 24/7. Obama greatly helped himself with his VP choice whereas McCain clearly didn't think it through beyond the initial public interest bounce and wound up pandering as usual.... So I'm in a quandary. All I can say at this point is that there is no way in hell that I can vote for McCain. I firmly believe that the election remains Obama's to lose, and he's too smart to blow it all by himself. The infamous Republican garbage-spewing machine will continue to look for anything they can find or manipulate to Swift-Boat him, but I think he'll manage to survive that because this country now realizes that without a true regime change the day-to-day lives of most Americans will continue to get worse, not better. There's no question that Obama is going to have to get tougher and meaner in a hurry to fight off the smear attacks, and he's shown stronger evidence of being able to do that this week. I don't think that we should forget that McCain is forced to wear Bush like an anchor regardless of how much distance his campaign is now trying to put between the two. McCain cannot go back into history now and change the support in words and deeds that he has previously shown for the current administration. That, more than Obama's actions and reactions, dooms McCain come November 4th. He reminds me of the ghost of Jacob Marley, and nothing he does, says, or tries can release those chains and free him in the public's eyes between now and then.... And nc211, you're right on the money with your comments about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. My dream day would be to have Bush, Jackson, and Sharpton with me in a locked, empty room for just five minutes. The winner would be the last one standing and able to unlock and open the door and then step out of the room. Man, what I wouldn't give for that opportunity....

While the 2000 RX300 models have a number of consistent failure issues, the timing belt is not one of them. Most fully-informed owners don't consider changing the timing belt until at least 120,000 miles and had we kept my wife's previous 2000 RX300 AWD longer than the 130,000 miles when I sold it, I wasn't planning on changing the timing belt until at least 150,000 miles. A number of owners on this site have reported that their timing belts still looked pristine even at more than 120,000 miles and wish they had waited to change them. Of much greater concern to you are these potential pitfalls in any 1999 or 2000 RX300: 1. Transmission failure, especially if your vehicle is AWD. 2. Rear main oil seal failure. 3. Exhaust manifold cracking. 4. Front strut mount rubber bushing failure. 5. Multiple oxygen sensor failure. Spend some time on this site searching using the above key phrases. You'll discover that your timing belt is nothing to worry about compared to these potentially wallet-emptying problems....

Hope they deliver as promised for you. And you've learned something new with this set of tires - unless you're planning to enter your car in a Le Mans professional rally event, H-rated tires are fine for typical everyday driving. You'll save serious money and your treadwear will be extended as well.... Final cost to purchase and mount this set? What's your current odometer mileage? Just curious. I know you didn't intend to keep this car as long as you have, but it was absolutely the smart thing to do. Stay in it as long as you possibly can, especially as our economy continues to spiral downwards....

Haven't played with any spiders since we studied a few of them during a 5-week options class I took back in the summer of 2004. If you can provide some specific symbols and names (I presume you're talking SPDR EFT funds, but maybe not), I can attempt to run them through my progressions on Q-Charts and see what turns up, if anything....

Yep, I also consider it a design flaw. My wife's previous 2000 RX300 AWD always required at least 3 to 4 miles of warm-up driving before the transmission would shift properly. Her current 2004 RX330 AWD requires slightly less, perhaps 2 to 3 miles. My 1999 Dodge Ram pickup has a far smoother transmission (at any temperature) than either RX we've owned. Toyota builds the lousiest transmissions I've ever had in nearly 39 years of driving. Sad but true....

I don't believe we've hit bottom yet. That will not happen until after the election. Frankly, Wall Street doesn't much care who wins - it just wants to move on with "WPE" no longer stinking up the White House. Wall Street can and will quickly adjust to either Obama or McCain coming out on top. But the bottom will not occur until the election is settled. It could happen between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I think it is more likely in 1st Quarter 2009. No, Virginia, there will be no Santa Claus Rally this year. And as a full-time options player rolling my own money on every deal, nobody hates that more than me. I've made a ton of money during Santa Claus rallies in previous years, but it ain't gonna roll that way this year. I hope I'm wrong, and that we're indeed bottoming out this month. But I've learned to trust my charts (as well as my instincts), and both say that the bottom is still months away, well into 2009....

nc211, You've been so busy yapping on this thread that you didn't even take the time to carefully read what I posted. I wrote "patriotic LEANINGS", not "learnings". Totally different intention and meaning, my friend. That juxtapositional error on your part essentially negates the need for the entire first paragraph you rattled off on your keyboard after reading my short post.... Also, where in my post do you see me blaming Bush ALONE for the mess that our country now finds itself in? Culpability runs wide and deep, just as you implied. But just like the CEO in the business world, in politics the head honcho (I think that "decider" would be a more appropriate term here) is by default responsible for the operating policy and ultimately must bear the burden of the consequences. And again, if you'll carefully read my post, I used that exact phrase - bear the burden.... You're preaching to the choir when you talk about fiscal responsibility on both a personal and a corporate level. I run the tightest household ship of anyone I've ever met - just ask my routinely-complaining wife. I can document every penny that has flowed into and out of this household since October 1979. My system is breathtakingly simple, all on paper still to this day, and requires only 24 8.5-by-11-inch sheets of paper per year, all stored in just two large three-ring binders in my home office. I designed my system over the course of a weekend back in September 1979 and have had very little need to do any modifications to it, just a tweak here and there as a new category was needed (i.e. broadband expenses) or an old category dropped off (i.e. childcare expenses). As a direct result of my simple yet persistent diligence, we've been totally debt-free (no mortgage and no consumer loans of any kind) since June 1990. Credit card and insurance companies continue to beg for my business when they should have realized decades ago that they will never earn a penny off of me in interest or fees. If more American citizens would run their households as hard-hearted as I do, this country would not be in nearly as bad a fix as we find ourselves in now. Most folks don't understand the difference between spending and investing, and even more don't have the unwavering discipline to apply that knowledge to each and every expenditure they make, day in and day out, year after year. You don't get rich and debt-free in one fell swoop unless you win the lottery - you do it gradually by applying proven fundamental tactics to your bank accounts every single day. Yes, it's boring and it doesn't constitute the next best-seller at amazon.com. But you know what? It freaking works for those who stick to it.... Most business people today are beside themselves on what happened over the weekend with Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, and what might happen with AIG. Who's next to fall? What about my 401K? How am I going to handle that big home equity loan I took out last year to buy that stupid Hummer that I can't sell now? Not me, buddy. I'll spend today buying up some pretty cheap options mostly in the tech sector but perhaps just a couple of plays in the financial sector. Some will be calls, and some will be puts. While most people are still close to the panic stage, I'm out there looking for deals. It's a damn fine (and fun) way to make a living these days, don't you think?!

You might want to brush up on Politics 101 there, buddy. Wearing a $330,000 suit is a very stupid thing to have exposed by the press when your husband is running for president. I guarantee you that many "normal" Americans who were on the fence about McCain vs. Obama automatically crossed McCain off their list for the oh-so-prevalent "he's way out of touch" reason when this story came to light....

Bush does indeed bear the burden of our economically-diminished country, and it will indeed be years before the ship gets fully righted again. Regardless of your patriotic leanings, nc211, history will deem George W. Bush as "WPE". That's the acronym for Worst President Ever. He can bring the troops home tomorrow, he can donate his entire estate and assets to the U.S. Treasury, he can humbly 'fess up and admit "man, I really blew my chances these past eight years didn't I?", hell, he can even learn to correctly pronounce the word "nuclear". It's all far too little and far too late. He will be remembered as a bumbling moron who was so far out of his league that the commissioner never even called.... Don't know who the current Village Idiot is in Crawford, Texas, but come January 21st, he's going to have to step aside by default....

On the morning of 9/11/01 I was upstairs in my home office on a conference call with some of my Nortel colleagues in Australia. It was actually one of those blokes who interrupted our call with the news of a small plane apparently crashing into one of the WTC towers in NYC. Everyone on the call expressed the typical reaction of "how in the hell could some idiot not be paying attention while flying a small plane around NYC and then be stupid enough to slam into a skyscraper?" We quickly went back to business on the conference call. Within just a couple of minutes my wife (who had been watching one of the morning news shows) came running upstairs to tell me that another plane had crashed into the other tower. I immediately broke into the call with the fact that this is terrorism, guys, not a stupid accident and everyone on the call quickly agreed that we needed to end it and individually find out what the hell was going on so we could each take our own measures of safety and protection. Like most Americans, I spent the rest of the day and all night watching the networks, shaking my head in disbelief, and wondering how a coordinated effort like this could have been pulled off by what were obviously insane fanatics of some type. I've only experienced one other similar event in my life before this one - I was barely 10 years old on the day that JFK was assassinated (11/22/63) and was home from school that day to watch it all unfold on television. I'll never forget the intensity of either of those days....

No one can count on Corporate America providing for most of their retirement funds any longer. That security blanket will never return. It is one of the reasons that I took control of my own destiny about five years ago with my stock options trading and investment program. The risk and uncertainty of such an endeavor is not for everyone, but it has certainly done the job here in our household. Whatever pensions we eventually reap from my previous corporate positions will be nothing but chump change compared to what I can earn by playing in the options world. I am truly fortunate in this regard and I never lose sight of that fact....

Please convey my kindest regards to your mom. I truly do feel for her....

My wife has had her SunCom phone for years now and it's been a great service for about $36 a month (with her corporate discount), unlimited calling to her 10 chosen mobile-to-mobile numbers. She talks for many, many hours each month with her parents in Florida and her selected friends all over the country and the bill is never more than $36. Been that way for years. Unbelievable. But now SunCom has just been purchased by T-Mobile. Her calls have suddenly started dropping out, she can't get signals in areas where she was always fine in the past, and T-Mobile wants to jack her plan up to about $50 a month and keep the lousy service just as it is. She essentially told them yesterday to go hose themselves, they realized that they would have to let her out of her contract due to the severe service degradation since T-Mobile took over last week, and she's out talking with her Verizon rep as I type these words. I won't be surprised if she comes home with a new Verizon contract. Our home phone and DSL account are both through Verizon, so hopefully she'll get a great package offer to switch. We'll see.... As for me, I hate cell phones and haven't carried one since I got out of the corporate world back in November 2002. Hope I never have to carry one again. I see them strictly as "electronic leashes". No thanks....

I'm quasi-okay with the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailout at this point as long as either one of the following occurs with all involved CEOs and CFOs at both of the institutions: They are all immediately terminated with no additional salary, bonus, benefits, health coverage, or golden parachutes beyond their termination date - not one penny, period.... .... or.... They are all herded out behind the woodshed where they are promptly and cleanly shot.... I think either option would be fair to the general public....

If you go Bridgestone, make sure it is the Alenza tire and not the various and sundry other Bridgestone Dueler models. All other Bridgestone Duelers EXCEPT the Alenza are very mediocre and some Duelers are actually poor. So if you go Bridgestone, it is Alenza or nothing. I still say that you would be wise to check out the Firestone Destination LE. It gives you 90% of the Alenza's features and warranty at just over half the cost....