The following is a guest post from reader Andy, who bought his last vehicle on Craiglist and shared some of his experiences and advice.

I bought our last vehicle used on Craigslist (CL) and am a big advocate of buying used and direct from private parties (i.e. not from a used car dealer). New cars depreciate significantly when you drive them off the lot and that works to the disadvantage of the used car seller and the advantage of the buyer. Also, provided you can avoid lemons and rust, with regular maintenance today’s cars (especially those with a V6 engine) can reliably last up to two hundred thousand miles before they need to be replaced.

I think you can get a better deal when buying from a private party because you cut out the middle-man (the dealer) and can often negotiate on price if you are a serious buyer and show up with cash. The market for used cars is inefficient. That doesn’t mean you can show up and steal a late model Mercedes from a seller for $500. Kelly Blue Book values on just about all models are easy by anyone. However, the market for used cars is inefficient with regard to quality. In general the KBB value on a car (same make, model and mileage) that has been thrashed by a teenager and never had an oil change is the same for one that has been babied by a retiree who only drove it on sunny days and took it regularly to the dealer for all scheduled maintenance. To me, getting a great value on a used car is finding the latter and avoiding the former, and being willing to pay close to blue book value when I do.

Unlike going to a used car dealer, when buying a car on CL you need to do some research upfront and determine the make and model of car you want to buy, or at least narrow it to a couple of options to narrow your search. Also I try to know what year(s) I am looking for. Models change every few years and while it is cheaper to buy a car dating to just before a model change you want to be sure there are no significant upgrades in the more recent model that you’d prefer to have (i.e. less rollover risk in an SUV, airbags, or a significantly better engine). Also, Consumer Reports is an excellent source of information on the performance and reliability of brands, makes, models, and years. Once I know what car I am looking for I next begin my CL search.

Within the cars and trucks section of Craigslist there is a drop-down box next to the search box that defaults to “cars+trucks.” I always click on this and bump it up one selection to “cars & trucks – by owner” which eliminates most of the used car dealers, though not all. Another reason I avoid dealers in addition to the lack of transparency is adverse selection. Used car dealers may carry some cars they bought at auction that may have had damage or other unsavory history. This is a big investment and I’d prefer to avoid those risks. Here are the steps I use to find a car I feel comfortable buying on Craigslist:
[Read more…]

I was reading my monthly Costco Connection magazine and saw that they had an article about their in-house Kirkland Signature line of craft beers. At $19.99 for 24 bottles (12 oz.), that is about 1/3rd cheaper than most brand-name ales.

I’ve tried a few of them, and they seemed fine to drink, but it was interesting that the article kept skirting around who actually brews the beers for them. They only say that they meet the criteria of the Brewer’s Assocation that they be small (less than 2 million barrels a year), independent (less than 25% owned by some big corporation), and traditional. Also, they follow the German beer purity law of Reinheitsgebot where the only ingredients allows are water, barley, and hops, and yeast.

There are two contract breweries, one on each coast. Some quick online research turns up both of them:

West Coast Brewery

On the bottle, it is printed as:

Hopfen und Malz Brewing Company in San Jose, CA

The brewer is better known as Gordon Biersch (Wikipedia page ). Best known in some areas for their line of restaurants (good garlic fries), they also make beer for Trader Joe’s.

East Coast Brewery

New Yorker Brewing Company in Utica, NY

The brewer is better known as Matt Brewing Company (Wikipedia page), the fourth oldest family-owned brewery in the United States. They are also known for their Saranac line of beers.

Consumer Reports reviewed the beer in August 2010 and said:

Great price, decent beer. On average, our untrained panelists liked the Costco beers about as much as the same-style name-brand beers. Our consultants said that although the brand-name beers were more flavorful, clean-tasting, and complex, the Costco beers were quite quaffable and, to use the consultants’ technical term, “party-worthy.”

Environment Magazine has an detailed article about how the average household can conserve energy and thus reduce carbon emissions. An integral part of the discussion is about increasing efficiency (investing in equipment that lowers energy costs without sacrificing desired services) vs. curtailment (cutting back on normal and desired activities).

For example, replacing all your bulbs with CFL bulbs vs. turning of all the lights whenever you leave the room. Or buying a more energy-efficient furnace vs. lowering the thermostat. Which do you think saves more energy?

A comparison of energy saved by curtailment and by increased efficiency in Table 2 reveals that efficiency-improving actions generally save more energy—and reduce carbon emissions more—than curtailing use of intrinsically inefficient equipment. For example, buying and maintaining a highly fuel-efficient vehicle saves more energy than carpooling to work with another person, lowering top highway speeds, consolidating shopping or errand trips, and altering driving habits in an existing gasoline-inefficient motor vehicle. This general finding challenges the belief that energy savings entail curtailment and sacrifice of amenities. Not only is efficiency generally more effective than curtailment, but it has the important psychological advantage of requiring only one or a few actions. Curtailment actions must be repeated continuously over time to achieve their optimal effect, whereas efficiency-boosting actions, taken infrequently or only once, have lasting effects with little need for continuing attention and effort.

Also, here’s their “Short List” of the most effective actions you can take to save energy usage, based on initial upfront cost and potential energy savings.

Via TechCrunch via ELYM.

The auto review issue of Consumer Reports is always very popular, due in part to the fact that they can be more impartial by actually buying all the cars they test anonymously and not accepting any outside advertising. (This is not the case with any other car magazine.) Here’s a few charts and graphs from Consumer Reports summarizing their car reliability data by brand.

Long-Term Reliability

This chart below shows a graph of problems vs. age of vehicle for 8 major automakers. The data is from their 2008 Annual Auto Survey, which had more than 1.4 million responses. A typical eight-year-old Volkswagen has almost three times the number of problems as a typical eight-year-old Toyota. [source]

Overall Test Scores and Reliability Ratings

This second chart, released in 2009, plots major automakers on two scoring scales: those from road tests by CR staff and predicted-reliability ratings based on surveys. Being in the top right corner is best. [source]

If you know of any more recent versions of these charts, let me know!