How I spent my weekend......

[Bum-bling-B]

Decided to do a panel swap - after that decision was made and my post office called to say the package I had been waiting for. Post Office call? I live in such a small town it's like Green Acres - the General Store has the post office in it and if I'm expecting something really important I'll let them know and they'll call me when it comes in. What was the package? My Area451 Cruise !

Panel swap took longer than I wanted because I "rattle canned" the lower skirts as I will be spraying both cars or sets of panels in a both in the upcoming months as it gets less humid.

Cruise addition didn't take too long except the Area451 website went down and I didn't have the directions saved or printed. Thanks NICHOLAS and NSCALER - you both were HUGE helps and I've got cruise now in the yellow car (old one).

This is how I spent my weekend - quite productive IMO. No more Bumblebee though.

Here's a few pictures of the swap (click to enlarge) -

Before




A sea of panels.......


A bit closer to the naked Smarts


My week old baby without it's clothes


The old one with the new baby - both naked


Complete!


Once again - Complete


A little joke just to mess with people (if you have a sense of humor you'll understand - if you don't get it ask someone to explain it. We have a HUGE golfing community here and I've got the OK to drive on one of the courses if I want)

[Bum-bling-B]

Something I forgot to mention earlier and maybe some others may have the same problem.

The wife feels this will save us money in the long run and has already cleared the purchase of additional panels in the not too terribly distant future to help combat my automotive illness - "The Three Month Itch". It seems after 18 years of marriage the wife has finally gotten a clue by doing the math and discovered we've on average gotten a different car every 3 months. She feels that by me doing a panel swap every few months with a new (custom) color it will keep us from getting new cars in an effort to save money.

We'll see if it'll work - I know if I want to quit I'll have to get the will power to stop buying a new car so often. I know one way we've been combating it was just get a cheap car - $2k-$4k. It was working though I still got them at the same rate I was able to drive for a few months and then sell for or over what I paid for them.

Funny thing is she didn't do the math right - we've had MORE cars than her math led her to believe, she left a few out. (maybe 15-20)

If you have the same illness as me, the panel swaps may hopefully be a cure. We'll see. Next swap (paint job) is due in about a month once it cools down slightly more and the humidity drops.

[SuperGeek]

Your wife is right. You change cars too often. The panel swap is a great idea and the Swatch influence probably used you as market research, secretly filming you like What Not To Wear.

Me, I just wash mine every three months, and whaddyaknow, I have a brand new car! Ok, I pay a guy a boatload of money to do it far better than I ever could. For 65 bucks he stripped off the wax, got rid of a 1/2" thick layer of lovebugs that Nibbler snacked on for 500 miles, washed and re-waxed the whole car, did the interior and everything. That's worth like a couple hundred bucks on a full size sedan. I don't think I'll ever subject my car to an automated wash after seeing what professional detailers can do.

I still have those scratches on three left panels from whatever I hit on day one. Do you know if I can buy just those three in black instead of using touch-up paint (I'm thinking resale value)? Maybe I should go all Punky Brewster and get four colors and... whoa, ideas... costing money... do I have to get a whole set of each color?

[Bum-bling-B]

You can get replacement panels no problem. Of course you'll have to wait for them. Resale value of the scratched panels.....oh yeah they're worth something. Especially to someone like myself who will be painting the panels anyway - molded color panels mean nothing when I can just spray right over them. Those scratches on your car didn't seem all that bad.

Wife is wrong though. She has a problem with books - we've got a couple rooms dedicated to her books SEVERAL 5'wx7'h shelves all around the rooms chalked full of them. I have one 3'wx7'h unit dedicated to my car books.

Let me know if you decide to pick up new panels and you want to sell the old scratched ones. Swap out is nothing, few minutes.

[msjohnson1974]

Yeah, my wife stopped my car swapping habit cold... but puts up with my golf habit so I'm not complaining. I was just amazed she was all for the smart purchase.

BTW, where does one find an EZ-GO sign?

[Bum-bling-B]

Originally Posted by msjohnson1974

Yeah, my wife stopped my car swapping habit cold... but puts up with my golf habit so I'm not complaining. I was just amazed she was all for the smart purchase.

BTW, where does one find an EZ-GO sign?

Luckily I don't have too many other habits to eat up money but the car thing does gobble up a lot of cash. I enjoy spending weekends at car shows but she doesn't. I did drag here to one of my club meetings last Monday night as ironically enough here work sponsors a HUGE show and she wanted to make sure I would help advertise it. (it used to be a decent show but two years ago they asked my recommendation as to what would make it better - they took my ideas and ran with them making it one of the more desirable locations to be on the last weekend of October)

The wife was 110% online for the Smart. Didn't bawk much when I said I wanted to keep my orphan and just have 2 Smarts since we put so many miles on the cars. She just wants me to make sure I keep a decent income coming in after I retire in a year and a half. I've been building my dream garage so most likely I'll work on cars - that's the obvious choice.

EZGO emblems, you said you golf so rip one off next time you do a cart rental - they owe it to you . JUST KIDDING DO NOT DO THAT!!! I picked mine up from eBay for a couple bucks, 2 for less than $10 ($9?) shipped. Check with a cart repair place, they most likely have tons of them.