Toyota longevity

You let him into your home?
:grimacing:

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@wolyrobb We are still using a Eureka vacuum cleaner I bought in 1977. I can still get bags and belts for the machine at Walmart.
Back in the early 1960s when I was buying my first car, a mechanic advised me to stick with Fords or Chevys because parts were readily available. As for vacuum cleaners, I suggest sticking with Hoover or Eureka for the same reason.

I know Consumer Reports tests products thoroughly. However, all I want a vehicle to do is reliably get me to my destination and not consume my time getting it repaired. I don’t care if my lawnmower can cut my grass like a golf course green. If it starts and cuts the grass reasonably well, I’m satisfied. I don’t need a vacuum cleaner with an altimeter to indicate how much suction I lose when vacuuming upstairs as opposed to downstairs. I don’t need a smart refrigerator that communicates with my smartphone to let me know what is stored in the refrigerator. As long as my refrigerator keeps my beer cold I’m happy.
Why do I have a subscription to Consumer Reports? I like to know what rich people buy.

You have a subscription to consumer reports?
I am going to make a motion to throw you out of the cheapskates club. I get CR at the library. I don’t know why I trust their judgement on things I don’t know about, when I disagree with them on the things I do know about.

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"oldtimer_11
I am going to make a motion tom throw you out of the cheapskates club.

Second the motion.

Heh heh. I would put good retirement money that they do not represent the general population. Maybe some years ago but not now.

My mother had a Kirby. It was her pride and joy. Sometime in the 50’s she had it refurbished so they polished it up and got a whole new set of attachments. I used the sprayer attachment to paint my bike, HVLP. She was reluctant but I was careful not to get a drip on the machine. Never had a problem with it though but was very heavy. I bought my Sanitare about 30 years ago. A commercial model. I was interested in sheer power and suction which it had. I’ve replaced a few parts but it is still like new. A couple years ago I replaced the motor brushes just because I thought it was time and they were still less than half used. I do all the vacuuming so I get to choose and pay for it but I think it was over $300 back then. I’ve never owned a Toyota though.

Back in the 1980s, Consumer Reports actually tested and ranked beers for taste. This really appealed to a slob like me. However, CR didn’t include Billy Beer, brewed by Fall City on its test. Billy Beer was being phased out and Billy Beer was available in my area at the great price of 99¢ a six-pack. Until it was all gone, that is what I drank.
CR hasn’t done a test of beers since that time to the best of my knowledge.

They’d have quite the time rating the wild array of beers available now.

To keep it car related, Old Speckled Hen beer is named after a car. The beer was originally a commemorative brew for the MG factory’s 50th anniversary. That factory had an old MG used as a factory runabout, which had an unusual paint job consisting of a black undercoat with flecks of other paint on top (stories differ as to whether it was intentionally painted like this, or got the paint flecks over the years of running around as the factory workers were painting cars). The car became known as the “awd speckled 'un.”

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Back when I drank beer it was mainly Grain Belt. Hamms tasted like soap and Colt 45 was nasty stuff. Never really acquired a taste for the stuff.

@bing When I have made trips to Minnesota, I always brought back a case of Grain Belt beer. We don’t have Grain Belt in Indiana.
Getting back to cars, I was o.k. with the Ford Aerostar and Ford Windstar minivans that I owned. I also had a good experience with the dealer. However, Ford quit making minivans, so I bought a Chevrolet Uplander. Then GM quit making minivans, so hence the Toyota Sienna.

I still have our first Vacuum (sort of) a ,mid 50s Hoover Convertible. I think almost everyone had one of those at some time back then. Then after 15 or 20 years people in our neighborhood started throwing them out. I started scavenging them figuring I could use them for parts. To my surprise most of them just needed a good cleaning and a little lubrication. I kept one upstairs in the little used bedroom and on in the basement.The upstairs still has the case of the original one but I don’t remember what parts are inside.

When Hoover came out with the windtunnel we bought one, a non self propelled model. My ife was vacuuming our couch with the attachments and did not realize she was pulling on the hose making the vacuum lean.

This model did not shut off the brushes when locked in the upright position and it ate a hole in the middle of the 14 x 24 carpet.

I called Hoover and they paid 80% of the cost of my 7 year old carpets replacement and sent me a new self proprlled model that shut off the brush.

Quite an honorable company Hoover. I wish they made cars, I would buy one.

As I explained to the Kirby salesman, “You make a good quality $300 vacuum, the trouble is you want $1500 for it. It is also an old design and won’t go under modern furniture.”

It does not matter how much power you add to a vacuum cleaner, you are still limited to a percentage of atmospheric pressure and doubling power will only result in a small increase in vacuum. Buying a vacuum by watts of power consumed just rewards manufacturers for making cheaper to build less efficient vacuums.

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I’m fond of Old Engine Oil, a black porter from the UK. The story goes that a mechanic opened a brewery to make a beer that looks like old oil just drained from an engine. It does resemble old, blackened oil, and tastes good. Much better than the oil would, I imagine.

We frequently drove by the Grain Belt Brewery in our car. But never stopped in at the park.
When I worked in Plymouth, MN drove over the Hennepin Bridge daily, before I got my drivers license would sometimes bus downtown and walk the bridge back home.
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@jtsanders That Old Engine Oil black porter must have been heavy detergent or it wouldn’t have been black.

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When I first became a union pickup and delivery city driver in 1960 there were still 3 Breweries in Buffalo, all on the East side. Drivers that delivered to these companies got free beer. Limited to two per driver. Larger trucking companies had drivers that picked up and delivered in limited areas of the city. That meant that an East side peddle driver could get 6 beers before lunch and 6 after, (You delivered all morning and picked up all afternoon. I was picking up freight one afternoon at a connecting carrier that ran for Buffalo to Cleveland when I saw one of their straight trucks pull into their terminal but he did not back into the dock, he just left his truck in the middle of the yard. I asked the dockman who was bringing me my freight about it and he said,“That’s Otto, our East side peddle man, he has hit too many other trucks trying to back in, he will go sleep in his car a while before he goes home. I will back his truck in when I am done with you.”

@oldtimer-11 The Eureka upright vacuum we have is great on carpets, but there isn’t much suction for the attachments. However, when I was walking through our Sears store, Sears had a canister vacuum marked down to $19.95. When I asked about it, I was told that all the tools had been lost and $19.95 would just buy the canister and the hose. I bought it because I was sure the attachments from the Eureka upright would work which they did. The Sears canister was convenient for cleaning upholstery and for vacuuming out the car. The problem was that Sears didn’t stock the bags for the vacuum in the store and I had to order the bags through the parts department. What really made me angry was one time when I was inspecting the vacuum cleaner, I found that it was made by Singer. There was a Singer store in our mall where the Sears store was located and the Singer store stocked the bags that fit my vacuum cleaner. Of course, Sears didn’t tell me that.
You said that you wished Hoover made a car and you would buy one. Back in the early 1950s, Sears sold a car called the Allstate. Sears probably didn’t tell its customers that the Allstate was just a rebadged Henry J and parts and service were available at the Kaiser/Frazier dealer just like I wasn’t told I could get bags for my Sears vacuum at the Singer shop.

That was always the trouble with Sears products, you never knew who made them. When I was looking for a used Snowblower I went to a moving sale, they had a two year old snowblower, a large two stage mode, really cheap. The homeowner told me they had a Sears protection plan that paid to repair anything Sears , but this machine had been imported from Italy for only one year and Sears no longer had a relationship with the manufacturer and could not get parts, sorry. The warranty depended on parts availability.

If I knew much about snowblowers back then I would have realized a good independent repair shop could have found a carb that would do the job even if they had to fabricate an adapter.

I remember the Allstates lined up on the sidewalk in front of the Sears store on Main St. in Buffalo. The main difference I rememberbetween the Allstate and the Henry J was that the Allstate had a trunk lid and the Henry J did not. Several early 50s cars did not have trunk lids, that was so inconvenient that all added them in later years. Corvette, Henry J and Nash Metropolitan come to mind.

Several years ago I retired a still working almost 40 year old Kenmore canister vacuum that had been a great workhorse. But its motor was running dangerously hot. It had been overhauled once before only a few years previously.

Much as I liked its performance until it got dangerous to use, I decided to get a lighter weight vacuum with a swivel hose that is easier on my arthritis. I ended up getting a Simplicity that is made by Tacony Corp. which also makes Riccar vacuums that are slightly fancier versions of Simplicity.

I drove about 95 miles to the factory in St. James and bought the vacuum at factory direct price. Even after the cost of the round trip drive, I saved a lot of money.

As a road trip note, there is a vacuum museum at the factory. It’s free of charge to visit and rather interesting. It has all sorts of vacuums of many brands from earliest to recent decades models. If you like stopping at small museums to break up a road trip, just hop off I-44 at St. James, MO and spend 30 minutes free fun. Oh, and you just might see “Matilda” there, the Kenmore vacuum I retired. I donated it to the museum. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ve had the same Hoover for 10yrs, and at some point I’m switching to laminate floors.

I fell for the free cleaning demonstration, won’t let a soul into the house and only deal with sales guys on the front porch, told the next Kirby guy that he might as well cross my house off the list. It was the car dealer sales press but even worse, I’'ve been treated so much better buying a car but have had to adopt a blanket no-go policy with door-door sales.

My family has had a subscription to CR for decades but it’s only one reference to rely on.