The time has finally come! I drove out to Washington state and hauled my new kei car home. It needs a really good detailing and a couple of repairs (what 30 year old car doesn't?), but the car is a dream come true!

Huge recommend to The Import Guys. They made the importation of this thing easier than buying a new car, seriously!

Did my first mod, the sweet shift knob by @CobraJoe ! The knob is waaaay better than the factory one, which you could really only fit a few fingers on. lol

Oh, and I have a mini warehouse, now! Electricity and enough space for six cars and all of my motorcycles.

My tow vehicle was stolen and subsequently destroyed (that's going to be a wild story), so I replaced it with something really stupid. The car that brought my Beat home is a suspiciously cheap Volkswagen Touareg that somehow didn't break in the 4,200-mile trip. lol

My Japanese imports are so close that I can almost taste them!

Against the great advice of Oppo, I decided to go full steam ahead with my plans of importing cars by myself with the help of my fiancée.

The first car is a 1991 Honda Beat. I paid $1,910 at auction for it then had an importer, The Import Guys, handle the rest. It has arrived in Washington state, is now legal with a title, and is ready for me to pick it up. Total cost thus far is $4,700!

It'll need a few cosmetic repairs, mainly to some faded paint and minor corrosion. Otherwise, it's ready to daily!

For a short cost breakdown:
$1,910 for the car.
$1,000 ocean shipping via RORO.
$1,100 flat fee to The Import Guys.
The rest went to land transport to port in Japan and a bunch of fees, totaling $4,700.

Note: According to The Import Guys, my auction actually went a bit over budget. However, the extra it went over was low enough that they just discounted that from my total so it stayed on budget.

The second vehicle is the one that we're handling mostly ourselves. I used Japan Car Direct to handle paperwork in Japan, place my bids, and to arrange transport. The rest is on us. It's a 1989 Suzuki Every Turbo RX. I spent $1,250 at auction for it and at the moment, I'm in $3,200.

Like the Beat, the van needs some cosmetic fixes, but nothing too big.

For a short cost breakdown:
$1,250 for the van.
$620 to Japan Car Direct.
$1,000 ocean shipping via RORO.
$350 land shipping to port + auction fees for a current total of about $3,200.

Now I make a fun trek out to Washington to pick up the Beat! Stay tuned for further shenanigans. Next, I do an ISF filing for the Suzuki for its journey to America.

My Passat W8 met an unfortunate fate under the hands of an illegitimate tow company. I'm not likely to ever see the car again and if I do, we already know it's trashed.

So I've taken this irritating moment to do something a bit dumb but really fun. I replaced the W8 with none other than a V10 TDI. I paid a suspiciously cheap price for it. Like, so cheap that my fiancee was 50% sure it was a trap.

But aside from the air suspension compressor not working it runs great! It doesn't even have a check engine light.

It seems maybe the seller didn't know what they had, and priced it on the low end of blue book value.

If you've never driven a V10 TDI, DON'T. This engine is as addictive as a drug and the intoxication will have you ignoring the prospect of removing the engine to do... anything.

In typical VW fashion, I've already had to do a repair. Someone put 5-Amp fuses in places that draw a bit more than 5. New fuses in and it works even better.

I launched a series where I attempt to buy a decent car from Japan. Oppo gave me great advice, like contacting Flavien, but I decided to do things the silly way, instead.

And I'm happy to say I won an auction on a Honda Beat!

We've been finding the process so fun thus far that if it goes as well as it has been, we're just going to start bringing in more Kei cars for fun. Maybe we will bring them here, clean them up, drive them around, then sell for a little bit of profit.

What's next? Maybe an Acty Van? She also wants an Acty Truck. Of course, we're looking to spread our wings and get out of this apartment. We're looking to move someplace where we can have a massive garage and no HOA.

I learned such yesterday when I bought one for $2,500. Sat for two years and turns out, the thermostat is stuck closed.

But aside from the sticky thermostat, this thing is MINT. Barely a ding on the body, not a tear in the leather!

But man, it liked running hot on the highway.

Took me 6 hours to do the 3 hour drive home. Kept that temp needle out of the red, but only barely. At some point I realized that it keeps itself cool at slower speeds, so I intentionally drove through slow traffic and through side roads.

Funny enough, when I pulled over for one of my cool down stops I stopped only a mile past a broken down Phaeton that was having a way worse day than mine.

Of course, I had to sell one vehicle to get another. That vehicle was that silly slammed wagon.

Got home without turning the coolant into milkshake and everything works as it did before. Didn't even trigger the overheating light. So, I think I succeeded in keeping it just cool enough. Time to assume the service position!

Hiya Oppo! I've become more of a lurker but I haven't forgotten my home. I have a fun fleet update, too.

My Honda Beat lands in Washington on March 17th! We're still figuring out how we're going to pick it up, but we have a few ideas.

My 6.0 Power Stroke Gambler 500 van was stolen twice in the same weekend.
The thieves were a trio of meth heads and they were so dumb that they parked it only 100ft away.
They also pimped it out with a class 4 hitch, a super expensive head unit, speakers, trailer wiring, and a brake controller.
Unfortunately for me, all of those items were stolen so the cops took them.

Oh and the guy that helped me find the van? He's a neighbor that's now in jail with bond set at a million dollars for doing this to the car he owns jointly with his girlfriend. I think he also had some other warrants, too. Oof.

Let's see, what else. My Passat W8 and TDI have been severely damaged by a fake tow company, but that's a nutty story of its own.
The school bus is fine. I've been waiting on better weather to start on it. I'm also nearing my first solo flight in my flight training!
I've been grounded for weeks because of the awful weather.

Speaking of the weather, it finally warmed up enough to dig out the Burgman and go for a ride!

The other vehicles are doing fine. Most of them aren't starting thanks to the stupid cold spell.
My girlfriend and I have lined up a really sweet house we hope to move into this year. It has so much space that we can park everything but the school bus in the driveway and garage.

How's your fleet holding up?

Hello, I'm Miss Mercedes! I've been around since roughly 2012 or so and building a collection of hoopties since 2016. I mean, my fleet includes two Japanese imports, a city bus, a school bus (for now), and four smart fortwos.

I'm on Oppo a bit less than I used to be as I now write for Jalopnik. But I always consider Oppo as home.

I should check my mail more often because a sweet shift knob from CobraJoe arrived on Sunday! This is easily the best feeling knob I've ever owned.

I'm not exaggerating. I've purchased knobs from big companies that didn't have the delightfully weighty feel of this guy.

Of course, I have to wait until my Honda Beat gets here to test it, but the fit and finish is good and I'm hoping for some sweet shifts out of this thing.

Happy Sunday Oppo! I hope everything is going swell!

For those of you who don't read the J-nik, here's a fleet update!

The Beat is still my favorite car ever, sorry little smarts:

I brought home a Touareg V10 TDI, because I hate money. I HIGHLY recommend driving one of these, they're absolutely stupid fun. No SUV should be this intoxicating to drive:

I decided to sell the school bus project. Replacing it? This Nova Bus RTS! Just drove it home 1,200 miles from Texas, narrowly avoiding a midnight tornado in the process. This bus has a lot of history. It's spent all of its life with Texas A&M and I've gotten to meet all of the wonderful people that's driven it over the years. Apparently it even went to George Bush Sr's funeral, too:

My Suzuki Every also arrives at port in about a week!

A lot of people ask how do I choose what to drive? And honestly I just pick some keys then take the car that belongs to them.

Lately, I've been driving this MkIV Jetta TDI.

Normally, I don't care too much for cars like this. It's uncomfortable, it has like a 5 foot paint job, and those poor rear tires are stretched. The poor suspension components have to deal with massive 2 inch spacers and I'm pretty sure that Ray Charles could have done better welds on the widebody. It's the dumbest car I've ever owned. But you know what? It's a giggle to drive.

It has a neat air suspension that allows me to slam it while parked, normal ride height while on the move, or even a lift...if I had a reason to do it. Guy that built it also gave it a decent tune and really good LED lights. Oh, and it's a Florida car, so no rust!

What's the dumbest car you've ever owned? How's your fleet doing?

I have the final boss of Oppo trucks!

@facw Spend enough time around O'Hare and you'll see some weird stuff. On my last trip through O'Hare I spotted a passenger Lufthansa 747, a bunch of cargo MD-11s, and a what was certainly a 727 parked...uh...I'm not really sure. My flight took about a million taxiways to get to its gate. lol

I love this YouTube idea, but not sold on Donut Media. In the past, they were accused of stealing content from other channels and some videos were so phoned in that they appeared to be reading a Wikipedia page almost word for word.

Their latest attempt at diving into motorcycles was funny because they were like "you can't have diesel motorcycles because diesel engines are too big!" then showed a Royal Enfield Taurus with a 300cc diesel a moment later. lol

I think the more Oppo thing would be to push Oppo through Oppo's own YouTube creators, if they're willing, of course.

Hot damn, is this guy an independent or does he run a shop? I'd love to have the few rust spots on my imports resolved professionally.

Got a quote from my local shop that was hilariously expensive ($7,000) to fix not even a third of the rust your rockers have.

@shop-teacher David is still a part of the crew, just traveling far off lands! Erin moved on, as did Justin.

While these positions are advertised as entry level they should pay pretty good. Without getting into specifics, I make more here than I have anywhere else. Don't let that entry level thing scare you!

I'm not sure what's up with the location requirements. Automakers have no problem dropping off cars and flying you places, so your location isn't really a problem. Could be an upper management thing.

@pip-bip V8! No way are you getting a W12 for anywhere close to $2,500. lol

I learned such yesterday when I bought one for $2,500. Sat for two years and turns out, the thermostat is stuck closed.

But aside from the sticky thermostat, this thing is MINT. Barely a ding on the body, not a tear in the leather!

But man, it liked running hot on the highway.

Took me 6 hours to do the 3 hour drive home. Kept that temp needle out of the red, but only barely. At some point I realized that it keeps itself cool at slower speeds, so I intentionally drove through slow traffic and through side roads.

Funny enough, when I pulled over for one of my cool down stops I stopped only a mile past a broken down Phaeton that was having a way worse day than mine.

Of course, I had to sell one vehicle to get another. That vehicle was that silly slammed wagon.

Got home without turning the coolant into milkshake and everything works as it did before. Didn't even trigger the overheating light. So, I think I succeeded in keeping it just cool enough. Time to assume the service position!

@nowhere It's not you, login issues have been a problem for a while. I do believe there are tickets open with dev on this.

I cannot reliably login from an Apple device no matter the browser. I've found this to work most of the time if I'm trying to edit/post from an Apple device:

• Hit profile pic icon.
• Attempt to log in using Google auth.
• It fails, bringing me back to the login screen.
• Instead of trying again, I hit the X.
• Hit profile icon, then try again.

Sometimes I have to clear browser data for it to work. Sadly, no ETA is available on a fix.

@just-jeepin Nooooooooo, come to the Valpo bus derby! I'll be there!

@ranwhenparked said in Jalopnik Comments: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Update, False Alarm:

@miss-mercedes And New Gawker has no connection to G/O Media, or Mr. Denton, correct? Its like a totally different ownership team now?

Correct. New Gawker has a lot of old faces as writers and editors, but its owner is Bryan Goldberg of Bustle.

@eric said in Jalopnik Comments: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Update, False Alarm:

@bison78 said in Jalopnik Comments: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Update, False Alarm:

Let's not forget that Splinter news had their "Great Greying" in which all commenters were put into the grey and 6 months later Splinter was dead.

Comments are what keep the site alive. The recent changes to Kinja that make it difficult and in some cases impossible to see a reply to a post must have reduced page views.

The same happened to Jalopnik, but if you were a reasonably active commenter they'd have ungreyed you. The problem was getting out of the grey was a long and arduous process for new people, so the comment sections ended up dominated by long-time regulars, which have slowly declined by attrition.

Kinja already hides comments until you click a link to show them, then they split them between staff and others, with only the staff ones visible until you dig.

Realistically, the management is completely out of touch with how to run a modern tech/media company with high visitor engagement, which is usually driven by comments. Note that every high-engagement site supports visitor comments.

@bison78 said in Jalopnik Comments: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Update, False Alarm:

@eric said in Jalopnik Comments: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Update, False Alarm:

@bison78 said in Jalopnik Comments: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee - Update, False Alarm:

Let's not forget that Splinter news had their "Great Greying" in which all commenters were put into the grey and 6 months later Splinter was dead.

Comments are what keep the site alive. The recent changes to Kinja that make it difficult and in some cases impossible to see a reply to a post must have reduced page views.

The same happened to Jalopnik, but if you were a reasonably active commenter they'd have ungreyed you. The problem was getting out of the grey was a long and arduous process for new people, so the comment sections ended up dominated by long-time regulars, which have slowly declined by attrition.

Not quite sure how I managed to get out of the Grey on Jalopnik. I was out of the grey (one of the editors had kindly done this) and then they had the Grey Ungreying (my term), when all (perhaps all ungrey) commenters were pulled out of the grey for the sub-blogs also.

Kinja already hides comments until you click a link to show them, then they split them between staff and others, with only the staff ones visible until you dig.

I have had replies that I simply can't get to. Mostly grey comments that are deep in the comments.

Realistically, the management is completely out of touch with how to run a modern tech/media company with high visitor engagement, which is usually driven by comments. Note that every high-engagement site supports visitor comments.

Yes. Completely agree. Jalopnik will die within 6 months of cutting off comments. If any of the editors are promoting this, they are utterly clueless and over-rate their own value.

On some days I intentionally go into the grays and promote readers with sweet comments. A number of my cool tool recs come from formerly gray readers.

I'm not entirely sure what's up with the comment system, lately, as we also have trouble reading and accessing specific comments.

Anyway, as far as I know, there are no plans to kill the commenting system. I believe PG is talking about new Gawker, which doesn't have any form of commenting system as of right now.