You are such a clone to my favorite brother in law AND my father. I was raised in VWs. Old school. My dad was an obsessed mechanic who had a love of German made vehicles. He adjusted the valves on our VWs (there were two, a 62 beetle and a 64 bus) constantly. I assert that he may have been the only early VW owner who never sucked a valve. He seriously understood the early motors. My Dad insulated the crap out of our VWs (foam rubber insulation inside, coated with *something* not flammable). He installed more and needed gauges that spoke to him, whatever they said. Protection that gave way with the noise reduction. He demanded both. I spent many a night in that 1964 VW bus that was burgundy and white. Daddy had a traveling gene and a love of road maps that avoided regular routes. We almost pushed the Bus up Pike's Peak and always slept in it, (he made a homemade bed in the back of a removed seat, out of wood and foam padding. Kids slept on the two remaining seats, smallest kid straddled the front gear shift.)We often slept on the side of the road. (Hated it when we ended up near railroad tracks.) In my family, God help you if you had to turn over at night. Daddy liked his sleep and was easily disturbed. No making the car shake by turning positions and he always knew. Little biting bugs in Kansas came right through the vents. Uh ugh. We started to notice the bites almost immediately. Then there was no relief at all. I was raised with German motors. My dad and now my BIL. Been there and done that.

Deeinohio, thanks for the suggestions! Sorry you had such a bad experience, Dee. It's no fun to be stranded. Bumblebeez, thanks so much for sharing that. I appreciate it. Pesky, wow, you are quite informed about cars & auto service issues! That's wonderful. You make a lot of good points that I will keep in mind. Les! Yes! I just discovered what you are talking about last night, after I left GW. I did a Google search--"Blown gasket, Subaru Forester," thinking really, that a search that specific would yield me diddly squat. Guess what? It produced a full page of complaints, chat room discussions, & general angst about serious & frequent Subaru Forester head gasket issues! The 1999 Forester (& 2001) seem to be the most vulnerable to this. Amazing. Never heard anyone talk about this flaw in the system before, but it's evidently been a widespread occurence. Looks like Subaru has responded & NOW builds their Foresters with a completely different sort of head gasket, so newer Subi owners, don't despair! Thanks for sharing this, Les! Oakley, yes... I think so! Again, y'all have been fantastic. So many good points have been raised & I feel so much better about this situation. Armed with your feedback, when I call the service dept. Manager this morning, I will feel confident to inquire about & dig a little deeper into the diagnosis. Also, here is one of (The Many) links about the horrors of Subaru Forester gaskets! It's from a chatroom discussion & the last poster suggests getting a written guarantee on the work. Not a bad idea, either. Here is a link that might be useful: A tisket a tasket, I think I blew my gasket...

I very much dislike stainless steel. As an accent, it can work well, but I always feel like I'm entering some industrial factory when I run into kitchens whose major appliances are covered in stainless steel. In addition, having had a Cuisinart drip coffee maker for several years now, which is mostly stainless steel (hey, an accent!) it is impossible to get the smudges, fingerprints and whatever else off it. I keep waiting for the thing to die a natural death so I can buy a new one. I prefer black, white, or certain colors (but for colors other than black or white, as others have noted, matching up the appliances is near impossible). My current major appliances are white, and my fridge, which is about five years old, has that yellowing plastic handle for no good reason I can determine. It's been yellowing noticeably for at least two or maybe three years. No sunlight really gets into the room, and I've never cleaned the handle with bleach. I use Simple Green or Method on it. In my upcoming build, I am going with black major appliances. I've had a brand new black microwave for nearly a year now -- it seems to be easy to keep clean, and I plan for it to move with me. The previous one was white, and at age 25 years of service, it had itself gone notably yellow. It did have something of a plastic frame. (I got rid of it partly for that reason, but mostly because I figured after 25 years of service, who knew what it was leaking...) The main problem with paneling major appliances in my view is the added expense that I'd rather put elsewhere into my build. (edit due to adding clarity on old microwave...) This post was edited by Artemis_MA on Fri, Feb 6, 15 at 18:12

Wow.....you would have had my brother at the first toot. He's awfully impressed by farts. I think we've all had a similar experience, sans the expensive shoes!