Consumer Reports best used vehicles

Source : http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/used-cars/cr-recommended/best-used-vehicles-under-20000-406/overview/index.htm

$10,000 - $12,000	$12,000 - $14,000
Acura CL ‘03; MDX ‘01; RSX ‘03 BMW M3 ‘98; Z3 ‘99 Buick LeSabre ‘04; Regal ‘04 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (2WD) ‘01 Dodge Neon ‘05 Ford Crown Victoria ‘05; Escape ‘04; Explorer Sport Trac ‘03; F-150 ‘01; Focus ‘07; Ranger (2WD) ‘04-05 GMC Sierra 1500 (2WD) ‘01-02 Honda Accord ‘03; Civic ‘04; Civic Hybrid ‘03; Civic Si ‘03-04; CR-V ‘03; Element ‘04; S2000 ‘00 Hyundai Elantra ‘06; Santa Fe (V6) ‘04; Sonata (4-cyl.) ‘06 Infiniti I35 ‘03; QX4 ‘99 Kia Optima ‘06 Lexus ES ‘00; GS (6-cyl.) ‘00; LS ‘98; RX ‘00 Lincoln Town Car ‘02 Mazda B-Series (2WD) ‘05-06; MX-5 Miata ‘02-03; Tribute ‘04; 3 ‘04 Mercury Grand Marquis ‘04-05 Mitsubishi Endeavor ‘04; Outlander ‘04 Nissan Altima (4-cyl.) ‘05; Altima (V6) ‘03; Frontier ‘03; Xterra ‘03 Pontiac Vibe ‘05 Scion xA ‘06; xB ‘04-05 Subaru Baja ‘03; Forester ‘03; Impreza ‘04; Impreza WRX ‘02-03; Outback ‘01 Toyota 4Runner ‘01; Avalon ‘02; Camry ‘03; Camry Solara ‘03; Celica ‘03; Corolla ‘05; Highlander ‘02; Matrix ‘04-05; Prius ‘03; RAV4 ‘02; Sienna ‘03; Tacoma ‘01; Tundra ‘02; Yaris ‘07 Volvo S60 ‘02; V70 ‘02	Acura MDX ‘02; RL ‘02; RSX ‘04 BMW 5 Series (6-cyl.) ‘02; M3 ‘99; Z3 ‘00 Buick LaCrosse ‘05; LeSabre ‘05 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (2WD) ‘02; Silverado 1500 (V6, 2WD) ‘03; Silverado 2500 (2WD) ‘01 Dodge Ram 2500 (turbodiesel, 2WD) ‘03-04 Ford Escape ‘05; Explorer Sport Trac ‘04; F-150 ‘02; F-150 (V6) ‘03; F-150 (V8, 4WD) ‘02; Fusion ‘06; Ranger (2WD) ‘06 GMC Sierra 1500 (V6, 2WD) ‘03; Sierra 2500 (2WD) ‘01 Honda Accord ‘04-05; Civic ‘05; Civic Hybrid ‘04; Civic Si ‘05; CR-V ‘04; Element ‘05; Fit ‘07; Odyssey ‘03; S2000 ‘01 Hyundai Elantra ‘07; Santa Fe (V6) ‘05; Tucson (FWD) ‘05 Infiniti QX4 ‘00 Kia Sportage ‘05-06 Lexus ES ‘01; LS ‘99; RX ‘01 Lincoln Town Car ‘04 Mazda MPV ‘05; MX-5 Miata ‘04; Tribute ‘05; 3 ‘05-07 Nissan Frontier ‘04; Pathfinder ‘03; Xterra ‘04 Pontiac Vibe ‘06-07 Saab 9-2X ‘05 Scion tC ‘05; xB ‘06 Subaru Forester ‘04; Impreza ‘05-06; Impreza WRX ‘04; Legacy ‘04; Outback ‘02 Toyota 4Runner ‘02; Avalon ‘03; Camry ‘04; Camry Solara ‘04; Corolla ‘06-07; Highlander ‘03; Land Cruiser ‘98; Matrix ‘06; RAV4 ‘03; Sequoia ‘01; Tacoma ‘02-03; Tundra ‘03 Volvo V70 ‘03
$14,000 - $16,000	$16,000 - $18,000
Acura RSX ‘05 BMW 5 Series (6-cyl.) ‘03; Z3 ‘01 Buick LaCrosse ‘06 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 (2WD) ‘02 Chrysler Crossfire ‘04 Ford F-150 (2WD) ‘04; Fusion ‘07 GMC Sierra 2500 (2WD) ‘02 Honda Accord ‘06; Civic ‘06-07; Civic Hybrid ‘05; Odyssey ‘04; Pilot ‘03; S2000 ‘02 Hyundai Sonata (4-cyl.) ‘07; Tucson ‘06; Tucson (FWD) ‘07 Infiniti G35 Sedan (RWD) ‘03; I35 ‘04; Q45 ‘02; QX4 ‘01 Jeep Compass ‘07 Lexus GS ‘01; LS ‘00; RX ‘02 Mazda MPV ‘06; MX-5 Miata ‘05 Mercury Grand Marquis ‘07; Mariner ‘05; Milan ‘06; Montego (AWD) ‘07 Mitsubishi Endeavor ‘05 Nissan Altima (V6) ‘05; Frontier (V6) ‘05 Scion tC ‘06 Subaru Forester ‘05; Impreza ‘07; Legacy ‘05; Outback ‘03 Toyota 4Runner ‘03; Avalon ‘04; Camry ‘05; Camry (4-cyl.) ‘06; Camry Solara ‘05; Highlander ‘04; Land Cruiser ‘99-00; Matrix ‘07; Prius ‘04; RAV4 ‘04; Sequoia ‘02; Tacoma ‘04-05; Tundra ‘04 Volvo S60 (FWD) ‘04; XC70 ‘03	Acura MDX ‘03; TSX ‘04 BMW 3 Series Coupe & Conv. (RWD) ‘02 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (V6, 2WD) ‘06 Dodge Ram 2500 (turbodiesel, 2WD) ‘05 Ford Crown Victoria ‘07; Escape Hybrid ‘05; F-150 (2WD) ‘05 Honda Accord ‘07; Civic Hybrid ‘06; Civic Si ‘06; CR-V ‘05; Element ‘06-07; S2000 ‘03 Infiniti G35 Sedan (RWD) ‘04 Lexus ES ‘02; IS ‘01; LS ‘01; LX ‘99; RX ‘03 Lincoln Town Car ‘05 Mazda MX-5 Miata ‘06-07 Mercedes-Benz C-Class (4-cyl.) ‘04 Mercury Milan ‘07 Mitsubishi Endeavor ‘06 Nissan Altima (4-cyl.) ‘07; Frontier (V6) ‘06; Maxima ‘05; Xterra ‘06 Subaru Forester ‘06; Impreza WRX ‘05-06; Legacy ‘06; Outback ‘04 Toyota 4Runner ‘04; Highlander ‘05; Land Cruiser ‘01; Prius ‘05; RAV4 ‘05; Sienna ‘04; Tacoma ‘06; Tundra ‘05 Volvo S80 (5-cyl.) ‘04; V70 ‘04
$18,000 - $20,000
Acura TSX ‘05 BMW 3 Series Coupe & Conv. (RWD) ‘03; 325i Sedan (AWD) ‘04; 325i Sedan (RWD) 05; 330i Sedan (AWD) ‘03; Z3 ‘02 Chevrolet Corvette ‘99-00; Silverado 2500 (2WD) ‘04 Dodge Charger (V6) ‘06 Ford Explorer Sport Trac (V6) ‘07; F-150 (2WD) ‘06; Five Hundred (AWD) ‘07; Freestyle ‘07 GMC Sierra 1500 (V6, 2WD) ‘06; Sierra 2500 (2WD) ‘04 Honda Accord Hybrid ‘05; Civic Hybrid ‘07; Civic Si ‘07; CR-V ‘06; Pilot ‘04; S2000 ‘04 Infiniti M ‘03; QX4 ‘02 Lexus ES ‘03; GS ‘02; IS ‘02; LX ‘00 Mini Cooper Hatchback ‘06 Mitsubishi Outlander ‘07 Nissan Altima (V6) ‘06; Frontier (V6) ‘07; Maxima ‘06; Xterra ‘07 Porsche Boxster ‘01 Subaru Baja ‘06; Forester ‘07; Legacy ‘07; Outback ‘05 Toyota Avalon ‘05; Camry (4-cyl.) ‘07; Camry Solara ‘06; Prius ‘06; RAV4 ‘06; Sienna ‘05; Tacoma ‘07 Volvo S60 ‘05; S80 (5-cyl.) ‘05 XC70 ‘04

an interesting evening

ever get the feeling that something’s gonna happen in the next couple of hours? Yeah - Happened to us last night.

After getting home from the gym we were travelling down our street which has speed bumps; Infront of us was an old-ish VW Jetta and the dude was travelling reasonably slow - so we’re getting closer and closer and then he stops… starts to creep over the speed bump by which time we’re behind him - then he speeds up, jumps out the car and waves us on.

Then I realise he’s pissed at us because as we go over the speed humps he’s getting flashed - is that our fault? Seems he think it is.

He then follows us down our alley and starts to threaten us - Why? WTF? Maybe this is a sign it’s time we’re ready to leave that BS behind to the interesting times in the ‘burbs… where you have to buy stickers to put on your rubbish bags before they’ll remove them…. weird.

27 songs for the ultimate Brit Pop/Rock playlist

When going through my iPod songs I realised there are a lot of British bands that produce some awesone songs and decided to put together my ultimate playlist for playing at gentleman’s parties, etc. There is one exception to this list of artists… I included The Killers who actually hail from Las Vegas… I think they’re style is very British in keeping with peers such as Kasabian, Franz Ferdinand, etc. Here’s what I have so far… I’m sure there are some I’m missing, so if you’d like to suggest some too…. all but one have their YouTube videos too … which was nice.

1. Squeeze - Up The Junction

2. Ultravox - Hymn (Vienna is too slow!)

3. Republica - Ready to Go

4. Supergrass - Alright

5. Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue - The Kids are Alright**

6. Stereophonics -Local Boy in the Photograph

7. The Cult - Sun King

8. Sisters of Mercy - Temple of Love (’92)

9. Carter USM - Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

10. The Doves - The Pounding

11. David Bowie and Queen - Under Pressure

12. EMF - Unbelievable

13. Feeder - Just a Day (awesome video btw)

14. Hard-Fi - Living for the weekend (now you know where this blog title came from!)

15. Kaiser Chiefs - I predict a riot

16. Kasabian - Club Foot

17. The Wonderstuff - Unbearable

18. The Killers - Mr Brightside

19. Manic Street Preachers - From Despair to Where

20. The Metal Gurus - Blockbuster* - can’t find a YT of it but here’s something else

21. Muse - Time is running out

22. Franz Ferdinand - Take me out

23. Ride - Twisterella

24. Scouting for Girls - She’s so lovely

25, Sugarbabes - Freak Like Me

26. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

And one to close out….

27. Pink Floyd - High Hopes - Although a little bit depressing for some, this song always takes my mind back to my childhood - and the reason is the bell sound; sounds exactly like the church bell that used to ring behind my grandparents cottage in Kirtlington. Looking back it makes me appreciate what a blessed childhood I had with my family. Anyway, here’s the live version too - didn’t know GIlmour used that instrument to do the solo… Although not generally a Floyd fan, I also love the live version of Comfortably Numb…. awesome guitar from 5:00 onwards. Genius!

Here’s the lyrics from “High” that particularly reverberate:

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river

Adding more!

Radiohead - You Do It To Yourself

* The Metal Gurus were a side project for The Mission UK where they covered some of their favourite glam rock songs

** I’m not a big Robbie fan but this does have that good feel to it … the sort of good feel you find towards the end of a night at your favourite disco stroke club stroke wedding.

Bands that did not feature

U2 - South of the border Irish and therefore not a part of the UK

Keane - Some awesome tracks but I don’t think they’re really ones that make you want to bop around and pretend that you’re 18 again.

Firefox 3 - brief report from the field

I’ve been a big fan of Firefox since version 2; As a developer it has been invaluable to have especially with all the add-ons that are available which allow you to do all manner of things.  The one trouble with FF2 2 was that it had a couple of memory leaks which, after a few hours browsing, would consume memory and CPU and you’d have to restart. It would also chug at rendering certain objects that IE would not balk at.

Enter Firefox 3

FF3 promised less memory requirements, enhanced usability and a whole host of other things - but did it deliver?

Yes it does! It’s not earth-shattering by any means compared to FF2, but the memory usage is great even with a whole host of add-ins; It’s never crashed once (FF2 used to at least once a day) and the rendering speed seems (anecdotally) to be far improved over it’s predecessor.

There have been some issues with some of the add-ins not working - most notably (non beta) Firebug, BugMeNot, GridFox and Yapta but there is hope - I downloaded a beta of Firebug which seems to work (v1.05), BugMeNot also had a download that apparently works with FF3. GridFox however does not want to play nice with FF3 so I’ve uninstalled it at this time. Which brings me to my “Paul’s list of FF Extensions”

Paul’s list of Firefox Extensions

Depending on how you use a browser some of these might be useful; they’re more for developers and designers really, but take your pick:

BugMeNot - fed up with filling out forms to access info? Use this then.

Firebug - edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page

JSView - view the source code of external files and regular files - nice formatting too.

NoScript - The best security you can get in a web browser! Allow JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from sites you trust.

WebDeveloper - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Pretty cool when developing sites

YSlow - YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on Yahoo’s rules for high performance web sites.

I also have GoogleGears and GoogleEarth installed but don’t tend to use them at this time… I’m sure I will soon. Other extensions that have just come to my attention are…

The Pencil Project - GUI prototyping and diagramming add-on - great for mock ups… Just found so have yet to take it for a spin

Google Lively - A new Virtual Room add-in from Google - Installing it on my lappie yielded a frozen screen. Might try later on a better network.

There are tons more extensions out there and I’m sure you’ve got your own favourite … and if you have, please add yours to this list by commenting! As regards Firefox 3 - it’s a great browser. I will test it against Opera 9.5 but right now the add-ins available seperate it from the pack for someone like me who uses it for development.

Featured in Chicao’ist Blog! (and Schmapp!)

Had a couple of photos published recently:

http://chicagoist.com/2008/07/05/accidents_plague_the_holiday.php

www.schmap.com/chicago/sights_theloop/p=10597/i=10597_8.jpg

www.schmap.com/chicago/sights_southloop/p=10598/i=10598_1.jpg

Chicago Violence

Since the introduction of new Police regulations, the city is becoming more violent…

http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/2537572.php?contentType=4&contentId=2366808

This stems from the fact the Police Commissioner has made it policy to protect the Police from lawsuits and in doing so, removed the sting in the Police tail…. cue gang violence. Moving to the ‘burbs never came at a better time!

Cars and automobiles

I wrote about buying cars a while back cause I am absolutely mad to get a car that I can say is mine (so to speak). Since then I’ve been doing a ton of research and wotnot - there are some cars that I’ve considered but are now off the list (BMW 3 series - I really like the current gen. look but it’s way expensive). The Audi A4 only makes an appearance as an outsider as I really like the new look… but again I don’t know if this isn’t out of the price range atm.

Also as a surprise is the Audi TT MK1 - introduced in 1999 it’s getting long in the tooth perhaps and also burnt my bum when the engine blew up on me when I owned one. That being said I would go for a 2003 onwards model which has more reliability … they really are great cars when they work! The A5 is aspirational.. still expensive but what a gorgeous car!

I’ve also marked down some SUVs which would be potential replacements for our current SUV - Rach likes the Ford Edge, which I have to agree is pretty funky, but I also like the Nissan and Infinit - the latter being a pricey number so unless we get a good deal is unlikely to feature.

I’ve also included the Civic Si - the Type R equivalent in the US - based on the fact I owned one previously, I continue to be impressed by the Honda’s quality…. Other outsiders are the Mitsi Eclipse - great car, pretty good performance, but when you pit it against the Civic Si… difficult one.

So here it is… the list so far….

	Type	MPG HW	MPG TN	BHP	Cost/25m	Notes
Audi TT (Mk1)	Coupe	29	21	225	5.13
Honda Civic Si	Coupe	29	21	197	4.68
Mitsubishi Eclipse GT	Coupe	25	16	265		2009 model gets a facelift
Audi A5	Coupe	27	18	265	5.39
Ford Mustang	Coupe	28	19	210
Nissan Maxima	Sedan	25	19	255	4.3
Nissan Altima	Sedan	23	32	198	3.26
Mazda 6 (6 cyl)	Sedan	18	25	212		156bhp 28/21 MPG
Honda Civic Si	Sedan	29	21	197	4.68
Audi A4	Sedan	30	21	200	4.49
Mitsubishi Lancer GTS	Sedan	28	21	168
Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart	Sedan	–	–	235		Not avail until 2009
Nissan Murano	SUV	24	19	240	4.51
Infiniti FX35	SUV	20	15	275	4.99
Ford Edge	SUV	24	17	265	5.67
Lincoln MKX	SUV	24	17	250	5.37

Discussion I walked into in the office

(Referring to “The Taste of Randolph” - where all the restaurants on Randolph Street sell samplers of their food)

Colleague A to Colleague B : “Do you like to go down for the taste?”

I had no response to add to this ….

Life changing events

From the picture you can guess where this is going. Rach and I have been living in rented accommodation since we move to Chicago. This has been something I’ve always fancied the idea of and it’s been fun.

We’ve lived in some great parts of the city - the first place was in the heart of Lincoln Park, with bars and restaurants all around us. Everything we needed was pretty much walking distance and the general vibe of the area was awesome. On top of that, a short bike ride brings you to the lake which is just a great place to hang out in the summer.

It did come at a price of course; firstly the rent was pretty high - matched only by the Gold Coast. Secondly, because it is an awesome area, it is also very popular - especially in the spring/summer when the bars were heaving … especially one bar opposite us which would be banging on until 3am every Friday and Saturday May through September(ish). Having that much noise going on in front of your place keeps you awake unless you adopt the “Take a dose of Niquil to knock me out” approach, which worked for me.

Third is parking - parking in any city, including Chicago is a bitch, and Chicago’s traffic wardens are happy to share their paperwork with you as soon as possible. They have no qualms in letting you know their given agenda as the word “Revenue” is written on their clothing and vehicles. We managed to finagle $50 per month for our parking space, which is unheard of - when we got the lease renewal through it was $150 and the rent also went up $200.. which was an incentive to move.

The last, albeit minor is that to be close to everything means you probably will be either near a busy street and / or CTA Train (the “El”). In our case it was the latter - which was one of those constant background noises, but it did mean that during the warm weather that you couldn’t really have the window open and watch TV because of the noise of trains passing every 2-5 mins.

(oh, also in renting any place, it’s hard to make it your own as decorating and wot-not is a pain because you have to restore it before you leave)

With all that in mind, we both agree that the 10 months we lived there were pretty awesome and look back on it with fond memories. Even though sharing a laundry room with 5 other apartments did suck.

With our current apartment we moved about a mile east, which means a number of things:

• Because it’s no longer in Lincoln Park it’s quieter - we have more single family homes in the area and less through traffic
• Because it’s no longer in LP it’s slightly cheaper (closer to the lake and city raises the price - the current place is a block closer to the city but 8 blocks further from the lake [8 blocks equates to about 1 mile]).
• It’s further away from bars and restaurants - or rather they are fewer in number and proximity.
• There is free on-street parking (shhhh - it’s a Chicago secret!)

In all cases - and as with all cities - you do need to have your city smarts with you at all time. Certain parts of the city are just known as places where if you don’t hide your stuff in your car it will be stolen. We had our car broken into parked outside a bar in a reasonably busy area because we didn’t hide the boxes of old clothes in the back seat.

Lease is up - Do we move?

The lease expires in August - Since May we have been looking to buy a house in the suburbs. This also comes at a price - we miss out on all the things we love about living in Chicago… but the positives outweigh for us any negatives. We get our own place (yay!); we get a huge place - 4 bedrooms with a double garage and basement and a safe neighborhood, plenty of stores all around us, closer O’Hare, closer to Rach’s work, no change in my commute time…. all for about $30,000 more than my 3 bed, 1 garage place in the UK which is about half the size. Yes, that’s getting sold too - at last!!!

So we’re both really excited to move into our own place - driving home this weekend I realised how I was pretty much over and done with my fill of living in the city - the traffic, the parking issues, the 20 year olds out doing stuff that I did 17 years ago and am over it now and how moving to the ‘burbs felt right. Don’t get me wrong - I LOVE Chicago. It is a wonderful city that has so many treasures to share if you’re prepared to stay a while or seek them out, but with our plans to start a family and own a home it makes sense to move to Chicagoland aka the ‘burbs…. it also means I get to buy a car!!!

Next post will include at least one fart joke.

Things people say….

First and IM conversation with one of my US colleagues; In my MSM tag line I make reference to TCS through text like “Trashed Crashed Smashed” etc. Last week it was “Tossed Cat Stink”. He IM’d me the following:

T: “tossed cat stink” was a good one”

T: “i can relate to that one … i toss cat stink every morning”

then we IM each other at the same time….

Me: “LOL - Brit speak that could be taken to mean having one off the wrist… aka Jerk off”

T: “can’t wait for the wife to have the kid so she can get back to that chore”

T: “Oh…OK….”

Yesterday I was talking to someone who was telling me about her son :

Her: “He majored in Statistics … I don’t even know what Statistics is!”

Me: “30% of people don’t know what Statistics is….”

(cue silence)