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      05-26-2008, 09:33 PM   #1
PL99
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Colorado Drivers

Greetings from Buffalo :smile:

I just had some general questions about Colorado and the driving conditions. I will be flying out next week for a job interview and I am seriously considering making the cross country move if the price is right. I have never been there, but being a single young man it sounds like it would be a great place to spend the rest of my 20's. My 135 series should be here in about 2 weeks so I figured I would get some input from the board.

1. How bad is the snow out there? I know here in Buffalo we get the lake effect snow and that can make driving pretty bad for the morning commute. I had planned on keeping my other car for winters, but it is on its last leg (a 96 Eclipse).

2. How bad is the rock salt used on the roads in winter? Here it is considerable since there is so much and it becomes an issue for car maintenance.

And now for some non-car related questions:

3. The company is located in Arvada CO. I have heard the cost of living there is going to be more than in Buffalo. What would I be looking at for a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment (id probably get an apartment before I bought a house) with a garage of course .

4. Do you like it in CO? Honest answers...please tell me if you don't like it, or don't like certain aspects of it from previous places you have been. Keep in mind I don't know a soul out there, but I was born and raised in NYC so I can enjoy both a country or city environment.


Thanks in advance for your input, it's greatly appreciated!
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      05-26-2008, 10:09 PM   #2
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I'm living in Colorado Springs. The weathers aren't that bad. The main road rarely are covered with snow/ice. The don't put salt here...they use sand instead. I'm not sure about prices in Arvada, but I'm sure someone else will chime in. I LOVE the area/views. Good luck.
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      05-27-2008, 12:16 AM   #3
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I used to live in Parker, about 20 miles southeast of Denver, and my e46 328i did just fine in the snow. It doesn't usually stick around for long because of the intense sun. Yes, there's an occasional blizzard, but winters are mild for the most part. I rarely wore a winter coat.

As for the roads, the biggest problem I ran into was all the damn rocks. My windshield looked like it had been sand blasted after only a year of driving. Replacing windshields is fairly common.

But buying a windshield is a small price to pay considering where you live.
Colorado is one of my favorite states and I miss living there. Can't get enough of the mountains. And when you're not driving your new 135i, you'll appreciate all the walking, biking, and running trails around the entire city.

If you get a job offer, I say GO FOR IT!
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      05-27-2008, 06:50 AM   #4
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Thanks for the info!

Anyone else feel free to contribute their CO experiences.
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      06-01-2008, 09:39 AM   #5
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The problem with Colorado is you come as a young man looking to stay for a while and then never leave (willingly).

I love Colorado. In moving here more then 10 years ago I thought it would be a nice place to spend some time. Now, I can't even think of any place I would rather live. If you're at all the outdoors man you're going to love it.

As stated in earlier post the winters are mild. Probably WAY mild if you're use to Buffalo winters. You only see that kind of snow and cold in the Mountains here. Even then it's still a fairly dry cold, not the damn humid lake effect crap you get back east.

Colorado doesn't use salt on the road to my knowledge. We have been using sand (boo) and a liquid deicer called Magnesium Chloride. It can be a beeyotch to clean off you're car but the cars don't react adversely to it like salt. The sand is fine, they are usually quick to get it on the roads but slow to clean it up if at all. So for those of us who also motorcycle, it can be a pain.

If you are renting or buying a home look for one with a south facing garage. The Sun will do most of the shoveling for you in the winter and getting in and out in a RWD car will be a non-issue.

The housing marketing being weak right now you could probably rent a room for a pretty good price. When I moved out here I was paying about $700/mo. for just a one bed apartment no garage. I have no idea what to expect these days but would think that finding someone looking to rent a room in their house would be a good way and possibly cheaper way to go.

All my best in your journey,
Eric
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      06-03-2008, 05:12 PM   #6
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Don't move to Colorado, it is horrible here.

1) The snow is unrelenting. We get 8-10 feet of snow every day for 8 months. People die all the time in blizzards.

2) They don't even pave roads out here anymore, they just dump truckloads of rock salt and gravel over all the roads. Doors and wheels fall off of cars because of the rust, 6 months after the warranty is over.

3) There is only one apartment left for rent in Arvada. It is a basement studio for $1,799/mo rent plus utilities. There isn't a garage, but the Meth house next door is partially burned down, so you might be able to use their car port.

4) All of Colorado definitely sucks. All of those tourist pictures in the ads were all staged in a studio in Hollywood. All the job offers are all hoaxes to trap people into slave labor by human trafficing rings. It's really just empty space with nothing to offer anyone. Nobody else should ever move here. Ever.


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(whew guys! somebody almost learned all about our secret of how great it is here in Colorado. that was a close call, but I think I saved it with my post. Hopefully the old 'killer blizzard' ploy worked again....)
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      06-03-2008, 05:47 PM   #7
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I am from cleveland, and I can tell you the pros/cons for me:

Denver gets way less snow (that sticks) than any city in the lake effect area
Denver gets way more sun than buffalo/erie/cleveland area
the mountains (ski, bike, hike, etc).
Summers are about the same in terms of weather, but drier in denver

There is no lake of any appreciable size and the ones there are are usually very "deserty", that is the thing i miss the most.

Also, denver is a big city that is sort of in the middle of nowhere, unlike ohio or ny where there are larger citys relatively close by. I guess this could be a plus depending on what you are looking for, but it is "out west" and feels like it.

On balance, I'm happy I am here and ohio is a great place to visit but I'm glad i dont live there anymore.

if you work in arvada you don't have to live there, you can get a nice 1 bedroom for 100,000k in a few areas (prob. including arvada).
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      06-05-2008, 01:09 PM   #8
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Thanks again for the responses. I'm flying out tonight for the interview, so I will get to see some of this first hand
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      06-05-2008, 01:23 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PL99 View Post
Thanks again for the responses. I'm flying out tonight for the interview, so I will get to see some of this first hand
What field? I work in IT might know some of the same people...
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      06-05-2008, 02:55 PM   #10
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From Atlanta

Quote:
Originally Posted by PL99 View Post
Greetings from Buffalo :smile:

I just had some general questions about Colorado and the driving conditions. I will be flying out next week for a job interview and I am seriously considering making the cross country move if the price is right. I have never been there, but being a single young man it sounds like it would be a great place to spend the rest of my 20's. My 135 series should be here in about 2 weeks so I figured I would get some input from the board.

1. How bad is the snow out there? I know here in Buffalo we get the lake effect snow and that can make driving pretty bad for the morning commute. I had planned on keeping my other car for winters, but it is on its last leg (a 96 Eclipse).

2. How bad is the rock salt used on the roads in winter? Here it is considerable since there is so much and it becomes an issue for car maintenance.

And now for some non-car related questions:

3. The company is located in Arvada CO. I have heard the cost of living there is going to be more than in Buffalo. What would I be looking at for a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment (id probably get an apartment before I bought a house) with a garage of course .

4. Do you like it in CO? Honest answers...please tell me if you don't like it, or don't like certain aspects of it from previous places you have been. Keep in mind I don't know a soul out there, but I was born and raised in NYC so I can enjoy both a country or city environment.


Thanks in advance for your input, it's greatly appreciated!
I moved here (Denver) in 1999 from Atlanta, but I am originally from Columbus so I think I can give honest answers to all your questions.

1. The snow here is nothing. I drove all last winter in a 335i (NOT xi) on snow tires and never got stuck once. We get occasional 12-18 inch blasts but they generally dont last very long as the sun is out the same day or the next day 99% of the time. I spent a lot of time in Syracuse and Oswego as well, so I KNOW what real snow is, and Denver is not real snow.

2. Theres almost no salt/rock here on the roads. What is used most is Magnesium Chloride which is damaging if you dont wash your car. However, I have found that if you wash within 48-72 hours you are fine - no lasting effects.

3. Arvada is a decent part of town with easy access to the city which has a nice, safe downtown, Boulder which is a great college town and of course the mountains are about 15 minutes away. If you worked in Arvada you could live anywhere from Golden to the Superior/Louisville/Lafayette area in either direction and have a decent place for not too much money. Because of how inflated the market was in real estate, you can score some deals here right now. Colorado is one of those markets that went way up in price in the 1997-2002 period and has dropped off quite a bit in the last few years. I dont know that Buffalo is cheaper, but it might be.

4. My wife and I love Colorado. We are in our late 30s and have 2 teenage daughters 13 and 15 and we all love it. The climate is the best kept secret anywhere. It is dry most of the time which is great for allergies, and the winters are nowhere near as bad as we thought they would be. Most people associate Colorado with places like Aspen, Breckenridge, etc and dont realize that Denver is at lower elevation than those places and has a relatively dry and arid climate like a New Mexico or Arizona climate but further North.

I say try it - Its a great place and we would all love to have another 1 series here!

Cheers

JaMa
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      06-05-2008, 02:59 PM   #11
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^^^ what he said
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      06-05-2008, 08:08 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PL99 View Post
Thanks again for the responses. I'm flying out tonight for the interview, so I will get to see some of this first hand
While you're out here, you may notice that the vegetation is very green right now. Typically, it is only this green for about a month or so during this time of year due to all the rain. The open grasslands and foothills you may see become more of a light brown color over the summer, which is typical for the steppe desert climate here. I'm not trying to detract you by any means; Colorado is a very beautiful place. The previous posters have summed it up well. Also, if you like to ski or snowboard, you will be in heaven come winter time. Good luck with the interview.
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      06-08-2008, 09:49 AM   #13
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I flew out Thursday evening for the Friday interview.

Let me tell ya, you guys are really lucky to live in such a nice place. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see as much of the area as I wanted to cause I was literally in and then out, but driving into the facility with the mountains all around was amazing, the weather was perfect!

The interview went very well (there was even an M6 in the parking lot too!) so I may be joining you out in Colorado if I get a good offer. I could easily picture myself driving around CO in my 1 . Everyone was very friendly down to the rental car people who were nice enough to give me a complimentary upgrade in cars as well (turned out to be an H3...really made me appreciate the 1 :biggrin

Again, thanks for all the insight. There very well could be another 135i joining you in the near future
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