OneOfOne

I just read your entire thread stereorob. my condolences to you. my mom died of alzhemeiers a year ago and while that is terrible she was 83 not 57. my suggestion to you is simple. you have learned a very painful life lesson but you have also been well taken care of by your dad. I suggest you reward your wife with the ride of her choice as payment for the terror she suffered from your ls 400. seriously. she is a keeper and you should do that. then take as much time as you need until you can find your 460. your dads car is a gift that you will cherish much more as its a part of him that you can keep and enjoy daily while you think of him in a positive light. he has also given you the ability to stick to your guns. dont buy any car that isnt what you want. we only go around once. and I know youll enjoy the journey as well as the reward at the end.

Stereorob

they moved the starter? REALLY?!

Stereorob

Ive been letting my wife drive the mustang. she loves it! if my dad hadn't passed away we were going to trade it in for a low mile SC430. ive had it for about 6 months and it has been acting funny for the last few. last time I saw my dad I was in the Ls400, a few days before he died. he used to pick fun at my Ls400 for being a "dinosaur" and that I needed something that had "common sense". when I got it 4 years ago he thought it was foolish to waste money on such an old car that would blow up after a year anyway.. well, it has lasted all these years later. during my last visit we ran up to the 7-11 to get a 6 pack of corona -his favorite beer, its kind of been a tradition for us for many years, and he rode in my Ls400 and he couldn't believe it had lasted so long and still looked so good. he said "man you work at lexus why don't you just trade-in the mustang and get another lexus" which is something I NEVER thought id hear him say being that he was all about german and American cars and always thought of lexus as an "overpriced camry" and a "fools luxury car" as well as "people that have almost made it in life drive lexus, but winners drive BMWs" -yeah he was one of "them" that bought into the german lie lol but he kept commenting on how nice it still ran and that he was almost considering getting a new Ls460 as his next car because he finally was starting to believe -I had been trying to convert him to the dark side for years but it never worked haha! I got the mustang from him 6 months ago as something to hold me over till I got something more modern cause he felt bad that I was driving such an old car. he really loved his mustang but wanted me to have it. he acted totally different the last few years of his life than he did before. he was always kind of a hard *** tough love type and we didn't have a great father-son relationship growing up which was partially my fault, actually MOSTLY my fault. I was the black sheep that was always screwing up. I had a lot of trouble with the law, had a serious drug problem that landed me in rehab 3 times. I was the shame of the family, plus me and my father never really saw eye-to-eye. I moved out of my hometown when I went to rehab and ended up staying in the area it was in for almost ten years, to start over and get my mind right. my dad always believed in me though and he was the only one that ever came to visit me down south when I was there. I moved back to my hometown in 2013 as a responsible adult and not the junkie punk lowlife I left as. my dad saw the 360 I did and was really proud of me, and we had never had a better relationship. I was estranged from my family for a long time.

Stereorob

I had my whole life set up for me down south. I started in rehab in Delray Beach and stayed at the facility so long I started working for the center and ended up as a night tech on their payroll. I got heavily involved with "the program" and went to 12 step meetings religiously for years. met the girl of my dreams, got out of the rehab and took a job with a telemarketing company. I got so good at it I eventually became a team leader, then a floor manager, finally office manager. I was in school to get my real estate license (long story behind that but several people wanted me to work for them) I was about to close on a house in west palm but I kept getting this feeling in my gut that I needed to be home. you know.. that little voice that's nagging that wont go away. after I was gone for 8 years my family saw that I was doing really well and seriously missed me, but I still had no interest in returning to my hometown. anyway the feeling in my gut got stronger and stronger to the point that I couldn't ignore it anymore. plus a series of life events happened that sort of helped me along. the deal with the house fell through, the call center was closing and moving to Miami and they fired everybody but me and wanted me to start the new one so I would have had to move and didn't really want to. it was around that time I got my Ls400 which was nicer than my landlord/slumlord (another long story) car -a 20 year old E class, and he was so jealous over it he decided to evict us so at that point I HAD to move but was looking at places in Miami for the new call center, then one day I was google earthing my old neighborhood and discovered to my horror that my old family home was seriously falling apart and they were knocking down everything around it to build mcmansions because it went from a decent neighborhood to a seriously wealthy one, and I wanted to save my old house. -dad moved out years before but kept it as a rental/income property and just let it go because he was going to sell it to a developer once the market peaked (house was on a triple lot which is the kiss of death in my neighborhood) but he offered it to me and things just started lining up and all things pointed at moving back to Orlando, so I listened and just packed a truck, left most of my crap behind and moved back. my family was really happy to have me home and it felt good to be back. I ended up buying half interest on the old family home and me and my father jointly owned it together, he wanted to sell but knew that it was really important to me so he wanted me to have it. so I moved back, took a part time job with an old boss I had many years before, and spent most of my time/money fixing up the old family home. a few months later I landed a job at Lexus of Orlando, -I was always in there buying parts for my ls400 and looking at the new ones, so much that one day the owner of the dealership approached me and offered me a job! anyways 4 months into me moving home, out of the blue, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer... -the voice in my gut was there for a reason, a total god thing. ill never forget it. we met for lunch at a normal place we always went to, and his skin had turned bright yellow from jaundice. im so so glad I moved back when I did because my dad got to see a side of me he never had, and he turned into a very different person I had never known him as and we became VERY close. he spent 3 years battling the cancer because he had everything to live for, wasn't old enough to retire, and really wanted to be a grandpa eventually. im a big guy, 6'4" and 235. so was my dad. about the same height and weight but really healthy and he looked like he was in his late 30s. people thought we were brothers when we went out because we looked so much alike. anyway a few months before he died he started running out of money, -the money people knew about and had to keep paying for the chemo treatments. we sold the old family home, sadly to a developer, which plans to knock it down and build a condo in its place -this was very tramatic and upsetting to the whole family, but it was to help my dad so I did it gladly. we really didn't think he was gunna die. neither did he. anyway we closed on the old family home on the 3rd of November. -he died on the 6th and we really didn't see it coming. every time I would spend time with my dad in the last year, it got longer and longer and we talked about stuff we never had before. I would go over for what was supposed to be a few mins and it would turn into all evening. it was pissing my wife off lol.. the last time I saw him I was at his house and we were shooting bottles with bb guns in his backyard. -something he always loved to do that he never grew out of lol. we had a great time but he was complaining of stomach problems when I left. that was Friday evening. at 1am the stomach pains were so intense he went to the hospital. Saturday morning they did a scan and saw that tumors were growing rapidly all over his body and his stomach was full of them. sunday morning he slipped into a coma and never came out. he was gone Monday evening.

sorry for the long story but I gotta talk about it someplace.

Stereorob

That's my dad I took this a few weeks before he passed. He never told me or anyone really how sick he really was. He didn't want to scare us. Anyway he knew it was coming so he set everything up so that me and my sister would be taken care of. Turns out most of the money he was supposed to spend on chemo really just went into a trust for me and my sister over the last year. Pancreatic cancer kills you. Bottom line. You don't survive it and he knew it. Anyway back to the cars..

salesguy

Thanks for sharing your personal details about your family and father. I lost my father when I was 39 and it was a complete surprise and unexpected. I got concerned after a few days of not being able to get him on the phone or email, and had to call the police to go check things out. I knew after a long delay (after they were onsite) that they were waiting for the coroner to do this thing. I lived 6 hrs away so I couldn't go check myself.

Life is short and unexpected things happen. Best to enjoy every moment with family and friends as you never know what tomorrow will bring.