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1. About rust, bodywork, paintjobs.
   
2. About Theatre Research speakers (or similar).
   
3. About buying stuff from the states and having them declared as gifts.
   
4. About faking your car to be stolen just to collect on the insurance.
   
5. About pics posted on Pcmtl, and why a pic of you or your car didn't make it.
   
6. About washing your car in the winter.
   
7. Buying a used car privately
   
8. So you want to sell your car yourself...
   
9. LED bulb comparision chart
   
10. http://www.360vm.com/
    
11. http://www.onthescene.tv/
    
12. http://firewire.co.nz/
    
13. http://www.teckademics.com/
    
14. http://www.gripvideo.com/
    
15. http://www.1320video.com/
    
16. http://www.goldensilk.com/
    
17. http://www.youtube.com/RomeoTV
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About rust, bodywork, paintjobs.
Bodywork is a trade in precision, and requires skill, a different type of skill not related to any type of motor mechanics. If you want a shop to (in the exact order): cut away rusted metal, shape and weld the repair metal, grind down the welds to flush, fibreglass filler, grate, soft filler, grate, sand 80-grit, sand 180-grit, sand 400-grit, prime, sand 400-grit, sealant, reducer wash and wipe, tape, rockerguard, valueshade coat1, valueshade coat2, base color coat1, base color coat2, base color coat3, dry, urethane clear coat1, urethane clear coat2, dry, block, wet sand 1200, wet sand 2000, polish compound, water polish, polish gloss : this results with a factory-finish job. Now if you absolutely want the lowest price in town, i have two facts to teach:

1. You will get what you pay for--as some of the steps above can be eliminated if you don't want to pay for it.
2. The amount you decide to spend, is relative to how much you love your car. If you don't care about your car, you won't mind getting a primer-less single heavy coat of enamel that will look like crap after it's painted and look even worse 3 weeks later.

And that is all.

Addenum: You can get Urethane-in-a-can at any Bodyshop Supplier (shops that sell DuPont and Ppg to bodyshops). This is a quick-fix clear coat.


About Theatre Research speakers (or similar).
It's not a scam. The speakers are not stolen. They purposely act shady to make people think that are getting a good deal on stolen stuff. The speakers are horrible quality knockoffs built wth poor quality materials from China. The sellers buy them from the importer at about one-quarter the price they sell it for ($700). In one day they will approach about 100 people, and 1 person will buy. That's a good profit for a day's work.

These guys are not doing anything illegal. The only thing they are doing wrong is "soliciting in a no-solicitation area". And the cops know that, so they won't do a thing. You can waste 15 mins of your life to find the shopping mall rent-a-cop to chase the speaker sellers away. You have as much legal right against them, as to a school girl selling chocolate bars.

If someone is dumb enough to buy nameless-brand speakers out of a truck and pay cash and get no receipt and no warranty, they deserve to be ripped off, and 1-nothing for the sellers without overtime.


About buying stuff from the states and having them declared as gifts.
If plan to mail order merchandise from the states, you can get all the rules and tarifs before you make the purchase from the CCRA. They have a website that explain all the calculations. CanadaPost is a good idea if you want to aboid paying brokerage fees.

If plan to bring merchandise in person from the states, you can get all the rules and tarifs at Customs Canada before you pass the border, and even run scenario examples with the customs agents. They are very helpful and cooperative, and will tell you exactly how much you have to pay when you return back to Canada.

Playing dumb and pretending you didn't know about the rules and exemptions, doesn't make them go away. There are no such thing as first timer tax cuts. Gifts are no longer exempt (they have not been for many years since a rule change), and merit their full value, as if the goods were self-purchased. If you threw away the receipt, then they customs agent guess the value, which is usually the full retail value (they use a book for doing this).

Thinking of smuggling? Customs agents aren't very forgiving if you "forget" to remember to tell them about some goods you are bringing, in which case they get seized and then you have to a choice to pay a seizure tax -- which is 100% on the value of the seized goods.

Good luck. Like the roads we drive on, keep it legal and you'll be safe.


About faking your car to be stolen just to collect on the insurance.
Insurance companies have different rules for theft of cars that are older than 5 yrs old. They are commonly suspicious and aware of the possibility that it was staged by the owner, for the obvious reason--to collect on an insurance that would pay out more than the market value of the car.

When a car is more than 5 yrs old and gets stolen, it is flagged for investigation, the insurance agent may conduct an investigation of the owner's background with department of justice for criminal history, and then in the extreme case, interview the owner and their family to determine if there exists a possible motive, like financial troubles. If the extreme and all suspicion have been ruled out, they wait a long time (sometimes more than 3 months), before they write the car off as "non-recoverable loss", and then finally issue a check for the car.

Another downside to file an insurance claim to cover loss of a used vehicle is that your premium next year will go up. In the world of insurance nothing is for free--you just pay for it later. If you had a used car where the payout was only going to be a few thousand dollars, then it's not worth it to ask for a payout, since you'll just be giving them back that money over the next 10 years, and then perhaps more.


About pics posted on Pcmtl, and why a pic of you or your car didn't make it.
Pcmtl will use a combination of 2 or more cameras at each covered event. Because our work is for web, we shoot in the lowest res of 1280x1024, so we can cram as much as possible into about 1Gb of flash memory. No event produces fewer than 1000 pics, for larger scale events like the Grand Prix, we can have over 3000+ pics. The difficult part is choosing the handful that goes on our website. A horrendous process of elimination is done to all the pics. Instantly omitted are ones that are technically unfit (out of focus, unproper cropping, wrong shots), boring, typical, and obvious. By the time we are done sorting, we've picked out the top 10%, which is still in the hundreds. Then we look for pics that are bold, striking, statementful, and very "blown away" types. After that, they are batch-compressed to under 40k per pic for quick web viewing, and thumbnailed to the website. It's too bad our videos aren't as so simple :)


About washing your car in the winter.
The weather over the next few days will near zero. This as you know, is the time you car will rust from any salt on it, as salt excels rusting about 100 fold. You can prevent this by both washing your car and running a hose on the entire underside of your car, fenderwells, wherever you think metal will be. Don't worry about freezing locks, it's too warm for any freezing to occur, the sun shining on your car will actually keep it to about 0-degrees. Get that salt off your car, so it'll keep on looking great.

I just realized How much crap can accumuate in just 2 days. I washed the undercarraige of my car two days ago, all this white and grey shit just rained out of it,and when I did it again today, the same amount of white and grey shit just rained out of it!

Fact - Salt doesn't make your car rust - salt mixed with water does
Fact - Snow and salt doesn't make your car rust - The snow has to melt first
Fact - Snow does not make your car rust - snow without salt is no different than rain.
Fact - Oil treatments doesn't stop rust, it just HELPS in SLOWING it down.

(Ever see a rusted MUCTC bus? Some of those are more than 20 yrs old. They are washed every night at the end of their stop. Despite the fact most of the body panels are aluminum, the undercarrages are not. It's cheaper to hire folks to wash the buses every night, than to shell out more bucks for bodywork and paint! Same goes for Police cruisers and Ambulances.)


Buying a used car privately
Be well informed – Don’t buy on impulse. Take the time to get all the information you need. If you’re a CAA-Quebec member, the organization can help with information on vehicles that might interest you as well as a theoretical price guide.

What’s a fair price? This is a touchy subject for both buyer and seller. As a buyer, you may want to browse through the classified ads in your daily newspaper. Once you get a “ballpark figure,” you can refine your estimate by consulting theoretical price guides available in well-known print publications such as Guide Hebdo, the Canadian Red Book or the Canadian Black Book. Other considerations that will affect the price of a used vehicle include kilometrage, the popularity or scarcity of specific makes and models, and equipment/features. Note, however, that the prices you will see in these various guides are so-called book values; i.e., “ideal” values based on vehicles in mint condition. Normally, you will want to subtract the value of any estimates of repairs deemed necessary to restore the vehicle to proper running condition. Even a car three to five years old will almost never be in A-1 condition, bumper-to-bumper, so the book values should only be used for what they are—benchmarks. The actual selling price will be decided between buyer and seller.

Test-drive the vehicle and have it inspected – Drive the vehicle you’re interested in. Pick a familiar route that offers varied road surfaces. Pay attention to the vehicle’s handling. Be alert for strange noises or smells, etc. Try all the accessories and controls. Examine the bodywork for defects.

Now, the most important pre-purchase step: inspection. Have the car inspected by a mechanic you trust. What you want is an expert opinion from a third party. This will help you decide whether you’re looking at a good deal, or should look elsewhere. If you’re still interested in buying, you’ll have gathered as much information as possible and be in a position to negotiate a fair price based on the actual condition of the vehicle.

Record the sale in writing – You should have a signed contract to make the transaction official. While not mandatory, this is a highly advisable step. CAA-Quebec can provide members who request them with easy-to-use standard contracts. A standard contract is also available on the http://www.caaquebec.com Web site.

Was the vehicle leased? – Before you buy, make sure the vehicle has been paid for in full. You can do this by consulting the Quebec Register of Personal and Moveable Real Rights, either by phone or via the Web, at www.rdprm.gouv.qc.ca.

Warranty and taxes – The seller is not bound to declare any warranty, except as regards latent defects, as stipulated in the Civil Code of Québec. Only a merchant can offer warranties on a vehicle less than five years old and with fewer than 80,000 kilometres on the odometer. In Quebec, private sales are exempt from the GST, but the buyer must pay Quebec Sales Tax, on either the actual purchase price or the book value per the Guide Hebdo, less $500, whichever is higher. (Note that vehicles over 10 years old are no longer listed in the Guide, so with older cars, the QST is calculated based on the actual purchase price.)

Latent defects – The term in the Civil Code of Québec used to define the warranties of a sale is “warranty of quality.” It includes a warranty against latent defects, which, when a sale is conducted privately between two individuals, the seller must declare to the buyer. The Civil Code defines latent defects as those that render the property for sale “unfit for the use for which it was intended or which so diminish its usefulness that the buyer would not have bought it or paid so high a price if he had been aware of them.” The warranty applies to the property sold as well as any accessories. An apparent defect is one “that can be perceived by a prudent and diligent buyer without any need of expert assistance.” The law also states that the buyer must report a latent defect to the seller in writing, within a reasonable amount of time (which in fact means as soon as possible) after discovering the defect. The buyer then has three years in which to bring proceedings against the seller if the latter refuses to settle the matter to the buyer’s satisfaction.


So you want to sell your car yourself...
Before you set out to sell your vehicle privately, there are certain steps you would be well advised to follow—to help ascertain its value, first of all, and also to lessen the chance of problems cropping up during or after the transaction.

Put together a record of the vehicle: gather all documents you have about the vehicle you are putting up for sale that might be useful to a potential buyer. These include the original sales contract, the warranty and maintenance manuals, repair bills, proof that any recalls were followed up, etc. A set of well-sorted invoices will, among other things, prove to your “customer” that your vehicle’s odometer displays the true distance travelled up to the present day. If your car has been in an accident, be up-front about it, and assemble any documents that may help you provide complete and appropriate information about it.

What about getting an inspection? Excellent idea: not only will an inspection help you better inform the buyer, but it will also help you set a price that reflects the true condition of the vehicle, based on the expert opinion of a neutral third party. You can also ask your mechanic to provide a written report on your automobile, a copy of which you can provide to the buyer.

A clean car is more likely to sell: take the time to buff up your vehicle to its original lustre—inside and out. Touch up the paint if necessary, get it washed and waxed, clean the rims, tires and hubcaps: whatever you can do to spruce up the car’s appearance will pay dividends!

Decide on a fair price: this, of course, is a touchy issue. If you demand too high a price, you probably won’t sell the car. Go too low with your asking price, and you’ll sell—but at a loss. What to do? Start by getting an idea of what the “competition” is up to. You aren’t the only person selling a car: go through the classified ads to find out the approximate value of a vehicle in the same age and condition as yours. Next, find out the “book value” for the make, model and year of your car. If you’re a member of CAA-Quebec, you have access to a variety of trade publications that list prices. All this should give you a good idea of how much to ask. Your mechanic, who knows your vehicle well, can also give an opinion on a fair price.

Remember that honesty is the best policy. When a potential buyer phones or comes to see the car, answer all questions asked of you to the best of your knowledge. Allow all prospective buyers to test-drive the car and have it inspected.

Do you need a contract? Under the law, you are not required to draw up a contract of sale, but to avoid misunderstandings, “getting it in writing” is the best way to go. CAA-Quebec can provide members with standard contracts that are easy to fill in. The basic elements to be included in any contract are as follows: names and addresses of the seller and buyer; description of the vehicle (including serial number, make, model, year, etc.); warranty (if applicable); statement that the buyer has examined and/or test-driven the vehicle and/or had it inspected; known problems and/or repairs to be done soon; proof that the car has been fully paid for by the seller; whether the vehicle was involved in an accident; and so on. It’s also a good idea to specify the conditions for the buyer taking possession. To make sure the buyer doesn’t have a change of heart and decides to leave you in the lurch, ask for a down payment. Make it non-refundable, and include a provision stating that if payment has not been made in full and the transfer of ownership completed by a certain date, the sale will be null and void and you will be free to sell to another buyer. When it comes to the actual payment, you can ask that it be in the form of a fund transfer, a certified cheque or bank draft, or cash.

Are you required to provide a warranty? The Consumer Protection Act does not apply to private sales; only merchants are required to declare warranties, on vehicles less than five years old and with fewer than 80,000 kilometres on the odometer. The Civil Code of Québec, however, states that the buyer must warrant to the buyer that the item sold is free of latent defects. The Civil Code defines latent defects as those that render the property for sale “unfit for the use for which it was intended or which so diminish its usefulness that the buyer would not have bought it or paid so high a price if he had been aware of them.” The warranty applies to the property sold as well as any accessories. An apparent defect is one “that can be perceived by a prudent and diligent buyer without any need of expert assistance.”

What about taxes? In a private sale, only the Quebec Sales Tax is charged, and it is applied by your local office of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec. In other words, you are not required to collect the tax yourself. In the case of a trade-in sale at a dealership, both GST and QST will be charged, but here again, you do not have to collect these amounts yourself.


LED bulb comparision chart
Below is a list of bulbs commonly used by the major car manufacturers. They are used for Parking Lights, Front Turn Signals, Rear Turn Signals, Tail Lights, Stop Lights, Stop Lights, High Mount Stop Lights, License Plate Lights, Back Up Lights, Front Sidemarkers, Glove Box Light, Map Lights, Dome Lights, Step/Courtesy Lights, and Trunk/Cargo Areas Lights. Some manufacturers will use the same bulb for different purposes in the same vehicle to make it easier for the owner to replace them easily. There are a total of 16 main bulb types that are broken up to different part numbers. They use the same socket and will produce the same amount of light depending on the part number. Different countries and manufacturers will use different part numbers but at the end they are completely compatible with one another.

Automotive Bulb Reference Chart.

Various-car-uses-super-bright-LED-01
Various-car-uses-super-bright-LED-02