Hello!

You folks have been a real help in the past and so I'm asking for help again, if you don't mind.

I went to KBB and Edmunds and tried to see what I could ask for my car but those places want one to jump through a bunch of hoops instead of just letting a person enter the pertinent data and get an answer.

My lovely car has just under 9,000 miles on it and last week, just for the heck of it, I went to the Ford dealership where I bought it a year ago (for $15,109.13 OTD) and they concluded that they'd give me $8,000 for it. It does have some damage to the front of the hood where my motorcycle was shoved into it ... and for them to repair it to where "it's not noticeable" would cost me around $1,000 (which I don't have). So that of course is money I'd have to deduct from what I'd otherwise get.[:(!]

Other than said damage, the car's if fine condition. I just looked at craigslist and I saw there an '06 with 44,000 miles on it and the person is asking $8,000, albeit it does have more features.

My living situation is in very seriously jeopardy due to having my job outsourced over a year ago and not having been able to get another one. (There's no big demand for 57-year-old schmucks I've learned.[bigcry]) For that reason I need to unload it in a hurry but would like to not take too big of a hit if I can help it (though chances look good that I'll end up going to the dealership and accepting their offer.[bigcry])

One other thing ... a moment ago I read where someone in this place said it's not a good idea to put seat covers on Focuses like mine because it could keep the airbags (in the seats?) from deploying properly. I have some cheap Walmart ones on it now but don't wish to put whoever buys it in danger if such is true. Any confirmation regarding the matter?

I thank you in advance for any comments![cheers]

P.S. Forgive me for being a hog, but, does anyone know if there's a way to get one's ad on craigslist to go back to the top of the list? I won't ask how to do it (if it's possible) as I don't want to take that much of anyone's time, but I am curious. (I put it up a week ago and it's now like on page 4-million.[:0])

O-55 is about my luck alright. Oh well, thanks anyway.

^you have to wait a bit to get an answer.


The only way to get your craigslist ad back to the top is to repost it, which you're not supposed to do.

As for your situation, $1000 is insane if the damage is as minor as you describe. Take it to Maaco and get the bumper repaired/ replaced for a few hundred, then go back to try and trade in. The paintwork might not be great, but what do you (or the dealer) care if it's going to someone else.

According to Edmunds, your car in "average condition" is worth $9,000 dealer trade in price.

I don't know what the seat cover thing has to do with anything...

^you have to wait a bit to get an answer.


The only way to get your craigslist ad back to the top is to repost it, which you're not supposed to do.

As for your situation, $1000 is insane if the damage is as minor as you describe. Take it to Maaco and get the bumper repaired/ replaced for a few hundred, then go back to try and trade in. The paintwork might not be great, but what do you (or the dealer) care if it's going to someone else.

According to Edmunds, your car in "average condition" is worth $9,000 dealer trade in price.

I don't know what the seat cover thing has to do with anything...

Thanks Much for the feed back, I appreciate.[cheers]

It hurts to think my car, along with the hood damage, is only worth $9,000. It has so few miles on it....[:(]

Maybe I'll just put 4-sale signs in it and put "Best Offer" to see what I get. Man, this being out of work is the pits.[mecry]

Take Care and, again, Thanks!![thumb]

It's a base model of an economy car sad to say.

I'd put an ad in your local paper:

2010 Ford Focus
9k miles, (maybe some options here)
$10,000 OBO
(xxx)xxx-xxxx

Don't mention S model, or any of the damage in the ad. If they call, talk up good points, maybe mention "there's a few marks on the front bumper" if they ask. The first step is getting someone out to look at it.

Good luck!

Okay, thanks for the great suggestions!

I don't get it. You have a two year old car with a mere 9,000 miles that seems to have no mechanical issues whatsoever (it shouldn't seeing as it's virtually brand new), you're unemployed, don't have $1,000 to fix the damage that it has (no insurance either?), yet you want to get rid of it and get into something else?

I'll assume you are looking to get rid of it because you have a payment on it, but it sounds like you're upside down so you'll either have to stick it out as best as you can or take a massive loss and hold the bag on some used car with a lot more miles and likely older which is just going to be a bag of unknowns.

At least you know what you have, I'd stick with it as long as possible.

I don't get it. You have a two year old car with a mere 9,000 miles that seems to have no mechanical issues whatsoever (it shouldn't seeing as it's virtually brand new), you're unemployed, don't have $1,000 to fix the damage that it has (no insurance either?), yet you want to get rid of it and get into something else?

I'll assume you are looking to get rid of it because you have a payment on it, but it sounds like you're upside down so you'll either have to stick it out as best as you can or take a massive loss and hold the bag on some used car with a lot more miles and likely older which is just going to be a bag of unknowns.

At least you know what you have, I'd stick with it as long as possible.

Hmmm I thought I've been pretty clear about things, though maybe not.[???:)]

I absolutely don't want to lose my car. But there's the matter of rent and keeping food on the table. The difficulty for me came in the form of a certain road construction contractor that told me for months in advance that starting in the spring I'd have a GREAT job with him and, thus, I'd have no financial worries. He kept stringing me along and stringing me along to where I got into a situation where I had to sell my beautiful KLR at a ridiculously low price and, yet, I still kept being the obsequious fool and believing him with all the excuses I was hearing but have just in this past week realized that he's an evil person and never intended to give me the job in the first place. On account of him, I lost my unemployment benefits and am now going to have to euthanize my cat and bail out of this place in a hurry PLUS take a giant loss by selling it back my Ford to the dealership for $8,000![bigcry]

I hope all that makes things a little clearer. [smackbum]

One other thing, I'm toying with the idea of getting the dough from the dealer and heading straight to a certain $25 poker machine (that takes 3 coins loaded up, $75-per-play!) and pray that The Good Lord will have mercy on me by having it pay-out a few full-houses or better ... so I that I can get another Focus AND get into a nice apartment while searching for work.

Desperate people do desperate things.[:0]

or id just take that $8,000, look for a used Acura, Honda or another Focus if you can find one... and by Honda or Acura id mean an Integra or Accord coupe... id shoot for an Integra coupe so at least you have something thats good on gas, fun to drive and has lots of aftermarket support... if thats your thing. w/e used car you buy i'd take it to a shop and have it thoroughly inspected though.

None of what you said sounds like a remotely good idea. Keep your car. Drive it around as often as you can looking for work. Do the legwork. Other options will wind up costing you more in the long run.

I still kept being the obsequious fool and believing him with all the excuses I was hearing but have just in this past week realized that he's an evil person and never intended to give me the job in the first place.

That is why I belong to a labor union. I got tired of being lied to by employers, and being overqualified and underpaid for the work I was doing. Sure, they still lie, they still string us along, but if I have to, I can go anywhere in the US that has work and work.

If you were trying to "do the right thing for the company" and not draw unemployment during your layoff or furlough- now you know how that works. Construction business pays the highest percentage of unemployment insurance no matter how many people are drawing off as a result of their layoffs. That BS about how drawing unemployment hurts the company is just that- BS.

Lots of people have screwed me over the years. I wish I could be there for everyone else before they got screwed, but that's not possible. Best of luck bro. I hope things work out for you.

Hmmm I thought I've been pretty clear about things, though maybe not.[???:)]

I absolutely don't want to lose my car. But there's the matter of rent and keeping food on the table. The difficulty for me came in the form of a certain road construction contractor that told me for months in advance that starting in the spring I'd have a GREAT job with him and, thus, I'd have no financial worries. He kept stringing me along and stringing me along to where I got into a situation where I had to sell my beautiful KLR at a ridiculously low price and, yet, I still kept being the obsequious fool and believing him with all the excuses I was hearing but have just in this past week realized that he's an evil person and never intended to give me the job in the first place. On account of him, I lost my unemployment benefits and am now going to have to euthanize my cat and bail out of this place in a hurry PLUS take a giant loss by selling it back my Ford to the dealership for $8,000![bigcry]

I hope all that makes things a little clearer. [smackbum]

One other thing, I'm toying with the idea of getting the dough from the dealer and heading straight to a certain $25 poker machine (that takes 3 coins loaded up, $75-per-play!) and pray that The Good Lord will have mercy on me by having it pay-out a few full-houses or better ... so I that I can get another Focus AND get into a nice apartment while searching for work.

Desperate people do desperate things.[:0]


I have no helpful ideas for you, but have to give you kudos for using the word "obsequious". I haven't seen it in years.

I have no helpful ideas for you, but have to give you kudos for using the word "obsequious". I haven't seen it in years.

Yeah, it's nice to take a break from the barely-literate rantings of a good share of the internet. Then again, he did say he was an older fellow, if I recall.

or id just take that $8,000, look for a used Acura, Honda or another Focus if you can find one... and by Honda or Acura id mean an Integra or Accord coupe... id shoot for an Integra coupe so at least you have something thats good on gas, fun to drive and has lots of aftermarket support... if thats your thing. w/e used car you buy i'd take it to a shop and have it thoroughly inspected though.

I'm not sure how this is all going to play-out, but at the risk of boasting, I know that for a very long while I've been treating people like they're gold and in return, frankly, such decency hasn't been extended to me in kind. It's just how I am; I can't help but see the truth of things and be honest about them.

If I'm in life seeing so many people that are (based on my experiences with them) total scum-bags, then I have to wonder about how this universe is setup if the love and good things are going in their direction but not at all in mine.

Sorry for getting a little philosophical there, but in my heart I know I've been through a ton of crap ... and when this insanity that's got a lock-grip on my life soon forces me to drop BIG BUCKS into $25 and $100 poker machines (as it seems to be where we're headed) in a desperate attempt to give myself some breathing room, then I'll know it my heart how out of whack IT is if some divine force can't work a little bit of magic to flush-out a few full-houses and flushes (never mind the royal flushes and four-of-a-kinds) from a computer chip to give a decent schmuck a break in this gawdawful world. (And I'll not say a word about those basketball players getting $110-million dollar contracts to do little more than bounce a ball and do a chewing gum commercial or two that lands them in mind-blowing mansion!:-(

or id just take that $8,000, look for a used Acura, Honda or another Focus if you can find one... and by Honda or Acura id mean an Integra or Accord coupe... id shoot for an Integra coupe so at least you have something thats good on gas, fun to drive and has lots of aftermarket support... if thats your thing. w/e used car you buy i'd take it to a shop and have it thoroughly inspected though.

Thanks, but as I mentioned a moment ago in reply to another post, my heart leans towards getting the 8-g's and then getting a belly full of alcohol and playing the casino poker machines with the big-payoffs. With an $8,000 bankroll and loading the hands up, it's within the realm of possibility that I could find one that's in a pay-off mode and get it up to some serious money in a hurry and then cash-out and FINALLY be done (for a while) with this perennial poverty that's been nothing but h*ll for so long![shhh]

Your problems are only liable to get worse, then. But, we're not your therapy group, so it's not our job to make you feel better about it or validate your ideas. Just giving you a 'nickel's worth of free advice' as a very bald man once said in a movie. Best of luck to you though, sounds like you need it. I hope you catch a break and you get an interview for a good job.

None of what you said sounds like a remotely good idea. Keep your car. Drive it around as often as you can looking for work. Do the legwork. Other options will wind up costing you more in the long run.

There's a lot to be said for plodders in their pragmatic ways. But me? I'm a burned out 57-year-old duffer that's tired of all the [:)][:)][:)][:)][:)]-eating and vicious game-playing that goes on in corporate America. I could write a book about it.[:(]

IF I have to go to the dealership and "do the deed," then God Himself would have to intervene in order for me to not head for the casinos with the dough in hand and try my luck on the aforementioned poker machines. For too long I've tried to be the upstanding guy working my tail off in some low-paying job only to get called into HR and learn that some grossly obese fat lady in an office cubilcal that smelled like a pig reported ME for having BO (even though I take showers EVERY DAY and wear clean clothes ... whereby with the petty, back-stabbing pigs that play such games tend to NOT change their stink-pads AND don't bother bathing -- only occasional sponge baths for them![:(!]

That is why I belong to a labor union. I got tired of being lied to by employers, and being overqualified and underpaid for the work I was doing. Sure, they still lie, they still string us along, but if I have to, I can go anywhere in the US that has work and work.

If you were trying to "do the right thing for the company" and not draw unemployment during your layoff or furlough- now you know how that works. Construction business pays the highest percentage of unemployment insurance no matter how many people are drawing off as a result of their layoffs. That BS about how drawing unemployment hurts the company is just that- BS.

Lots of people have screwed me over the years. I wish I could be there for everyone else before they got screwed, but that's not possible. Best of luck bro. I hope things work out for you.

Thanks my Friend![cheers]

In my situation, the way the whole thing began tumbling down was when the economy began to rock in '08. Around then my company brought in a new CEO and she did zero other than have some silly signs plastered all over the place giving little quips about how one needs to do a better job. She of course never got her finger nails dirtied, but her title allowed her to come off as if she were Almighty God. (Actually, now that I think of it, God strikes me as having more humility than her.)

So what this greedy, evil skank did was get with her fellow board cronies and -- because it's ALL about one hand washing the other -- took a bonus in which she got $6.4-million after having been there for just 6-months!! (Incidentally, I was there for 18-years and got a couple of $1000 bonuses for having cleaned a few trillion urinals and toilets.)

And so guess what this clever CEO did after the OUTRAGEOUS crap of getting all that easy money?!! Why she immediately launched a "pay study" that -- lo and behold -- showed that HUNDREDS of us peons were "being overpaid"!!!

She at this point in time can boast to the companies shareholders about how she saved on the bottom-line (due to her chicanery).

Yeah; I'm mad. This country needs a revolution to rid it of all these two-faced CEOs that are taking waaaay too much of the corporate pie (and then sending the jobs overseas because "we must do what's right for those that invested in our corporations, as they deserve all the profits they can get)!!

Btw, I have no problem at all with CEOs that CREATE companies ... only those that come in like carpetbaggers and proceed to pillage the companies coffers (like Patti Hart did) do I have a serious problem with.

Things have to go full circle. That's what I see. Most people don't know that our Federal labor law doesn't require us to have any breaks at work. It does say that if you have a break, then you must be paid for it. What amazes me is the people who feel sorry for people like your CEO and other big company leaders, and follow along with this idea that the middle and lower class needs to give up more so the upper income class can make more.

I see a change that will have to come around, or things will start falling apart. For one, people are starting to realize that if the people on the bottom don't have money, then a consumer economy is doomed. No matter how much Sheldon Adelson can gives to the GOP, he can't and won't purchase enough stuff to stimulate the economy.

When it comes to construction- you get what you pay for. You can keep lowering and lowering what people are paid for work, but eventually the people who are qualified will start seeking higher pay. This thinking has trickled up, and I've seen where low cost engineers are designing structures that don't appear sufficient to this old hand. On top of that, the general contractor won't stop a job if inferior materials show up. There's a ball park in my town that was supposed to have fiber reinforced concrete stands. The steel was designed for it, but non-reinforced stands showed up. The man who protested was run off. It still stands today, but for how much longer? The famous glass Pyramid? People don't know that the foundations weren't shored up or designed for the silt it was built on. Before the building was closed there was a 500' crack running down the back wall because the bottom of the building was sinking into the silt. The Northeast blackout in 02 was a result of private companies lack of power line maintenance. We should never have allowed power distribution to be sold to any for-profit company. That should be government, or CO-OP run only. There are things in this world that simply have to be repaired or maintained without regard to quarterly profit margins.

Lots of people believe in trickle down economics, I believe in trickle up. All those people who have upper middle class jobs and are happy to join in beating down the lower classes will soon be standing alone beside their masters. Like the Khan told city leaders after he surrounded them: the calamity will reach you too. Go ahead, take our pensions, take our grand parent's pensions, complain about bus drivers who get paid $100k/yr because they work 16 hour weekend and night shifts on negotiated contracts. Now ride in that bus with a driver that makes only $20k/yr with no retirement or health care. Do you feel safer? Keep paying police and firefighters as little as possible, who do you eventually have in that job? Do you feel safer ?

Let the country fall apart, let the buildings, bridges, and dams collapse. Maybe then, and only then will a generation learn who really keeps this country running. The bad part about it is that we've let education lapse for so long in this nation that now we're too stupid as a people to be able to see what's happening. We'll believe any pundit who is qualified and has a following regardless of what should be common sense. When it does collapse, what do you think the power elite will do? Stay and help rebuild? It will be more cost effective and easy for them to simply move to another country. Now what?

On what you wrote, it is stupid that any board allows things like that. A CEO saves the company say $200k a year in labor costs, but gets paid a $4M bonus. That's the intelligence of Americans these days.

I was highly disappointed in the last presidential election when both candidates didn't jump on the chance to donate some campaign funds to floundering soup kitchens. It is legal for them to do so, or at least quasi legal. At the end of a campaign, leftover funds have to be donated to a charity, or a political party. That's what they usually choose- their party. 3 blind mice, see how they run....

On what you wrote, it is stupid that any board allows things like that. A CEO saves the company say $200k a year in labor costs, but gets paid a $4M bonus. That's the intelligence of Americans these days.

I was highly disappointed in the last presidential election when both candidates didn't jump on the chance to donate some campaign funds to floundering soup kitchens. It is legal for them to do so, or at least quasi legal. At the end of a campaign, leftover funds have to be donated to a charity, or a political party. That's what they usually choose- their party. 3 blind mice, see how they run....
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It's all about greed. The CEO that got all that dough did so with the help of the board members ... who'll themselves get her vote down the line for big, easy money when their time comes around for bonuses.

At the IGT YouTube channel the CEO boasts "our employees know they have leadership they can trust."

What a farce. As I said before, hundreds of good people lost their jobs and if Patti Hart had any honor or integrity at all she would never have accepted those millions but would have told her fellow board cronies that the money will stay in the companies treasury so we can avoid laying-off people.

I have such a problem with CEOs in general, but not those that actually built their companies, as those folks created jobs ... . I recall many years ago how the media made a big deal about Crysler's Lee Icola taking only a dollar for a year's salary. They and he acted like it was such an amazing act of generosity that he would do such a thing, but they left out that for many years before that he was being paid something like around $30-million-per year!

And that reminds me ... it was somewhere around the same time that Icola and CEOs from the other car companies decided that they'd travel to Japan along with POTUS to confront the "evil" Japanese CEOs for taking so much of the American auto industry. Well, as you may recall, those buffoons came back to the States with egg all over themselves because the Japanese CEOs simply pointed out how they get maybe four times the wages of their workers while American (car) CEOs were taking over TWO-HUNDRED TIMES the about of dough their workers were getting -- which could have gone into Research and Development!

With regard to your comment about elections ... I have been for a while now trying to open people's eyes to the need to replace the antiquated, corrupt system with one that does away with politicians by letting citizens participate directly with issues on the local, state and federal levels via their home computers. Have it setup with the Constitution and Bill of Rights programmed into it and be done with all these crummy, money-grabbing politicians once and for all!

We put machines on Mars and men on the moon, so make this happen and then watch how quickly things get a million times better![popcorn]