Monday, December 12, 2011

Common Failure

A local dealer has a 2004 Mazda RX-8 for sale. I was just doing some searching on the RX-8, and apparently, according to Edmunds reliability ratings, "a periodic problem on this vehicle is failure of the Engine. This failure may prevent the vehicle from starting." Really? Failure of the engine "may" prevent the engine from starting? And "cost to repair the engine" is listed as $6,282 for parts and another $722 for labor (at an unrealistic labor cost of $65/hour - when was the last time you had a mechanic charge you just $65/hour for labor?). So, $7,500 for the car, and reserve another $7k to replace the engine at some point in the future. Yeah, I think I may pass on this one, thanks anyway (the car is way out of warranty, so any additional mechanical expense would be my burden).

Another failure: why can I stream HD movies from Netflix on my PS3, yet YouTube can't seem to reliably stream low-def videos? I'm not quite sure I follow that.

So, anyway, merry Christmas!

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