Car Enthusiast Club [Now Motorcycle friendly!] - First thread to 150k! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sarra]

2 minutes ago, vetali said:

My civic was a good balance between tech and unobtrusiveness. This might be a bit much.

 

We just sold my old civic to a guy that had like a 99 civic hatch. Thing had 20k miles. He wanted something safer with all the trucks on the road now lol.

Yeah, not knocking a commuter car at all, it misses out on three of the things I look for in a vehicle: Power; Offroad Capability; DEEP Snow capability

 

If I did need a commuter (my Subaru gets around 18MPG), I would probably buy an older car, and do an EV conversion myself. My employer runs Hybrid Ford Transit vans, both Transit 150 and Transit 350, and they... Well suck. The T150's are 2 years old now, and get 10MPG. The T350's are brand new, and get around 14MPG, though it depends on the time of year, driver, etc. We also have some older Ford Econoline E350 vans, just with straight up V8's, and they get 10-11MPG. I really don't think the Hybrid conversion was worth the whopping doubling of the chassis cost for the T150's, but the T350's aren't too bad with their conversions. I still don't really see the entire conversion as being anything more than a waste of money, and the feel-good factor for slapping a giant green "HYBRID" sticker on the rear window.

[vetali]

4 minutes ago, Sarra said:

Yeah, not knocking a commuter car at all, it misses out on three of the things I look for in a vehicle: Power

7 minutes ago, Sarra said:

my Subaru

bruh

[Sarra]

2 minutes ago, vetali said:

bruh

lol I ran a 330WTQ/290WHP WRX for the better part of 10 years...

 

My Baja is probably closer to 280WTQ/240WHP. Gotta get injectors upgraded, and an exhaust, then it'll be time for a bigger turbo.

[vetali]

1 minute ago, lexusgamer05 said:

I was kinda joking about how they were all 39 except for the rear left one lol

Wish some customers would realize that though. Like, 1psi off ain't gonna matter in the mcdonalds drive thru dude.

[iDeFecZx]

9 hours ago, vetali said:

Wish some customers would realize that though. Like, 1psi off ain't gonna matter in the mcdonalds drive thru dude.

Could be worse, we had a customer come in saying that his tpms had stopped working, the car didnt have the system fitted and he'd owned it since new

[bcredeur97]

im Actually cool with not having a lot of proprietary tech in my car. It’s all so expensive to fix... just keep it simple 

[Bitter]

4 hours ago, iDeFecZx said:

Could be worse, we had a customer come in saying that his tpms had stopped working, the car didnt have the system fitted and he'd owned it since new

Had a customer get angry and accuse me of stealing two of his metal valve stem caps. "Steve, what am I going to do with just two of them? It was probably just some kid wanted them for his bicycle, you park outside and have kids around the neighborhood. Here, have a handful of black plastic ones"

[Bitter]

And the cameras caught a high speed police chase through our parking lot today. That was quick!

Too bad we didn't have them when some guy got murdered and died in our parking lot one weekend. He got shot a couple blocks away but ended up in our lot and was dead at the scene. We're in a good neighborhood.

[vetali]

Speaking of civic timing belts, doing this one because of age. 20 years old, 46k miles. Was starting to get the alligator skin warning signs on the belt.

[Sarra]

24 minutes ago, vetali said:

Speaking of civic timing belts, doing this one because of age. 20 years old, 46k miles. Was starting to get the alligator skin warning signs on the belt.

New, in the LTT Store: Gold Foil Timing belts for your Civic! Add even MOAR bling to your engine bay!

[Bitter]

33 minutes ago, vetali said:

Speaking of civic timing belts, doing this one because of age. 20 years old, 46k miles. Was starting to get the alligator skin warning signs on the belt.

How bad is it that I see one of those in the shop and it'll be the newest Civic I've seen all year? At the moment I think the average vehicle age in the shop could collect Social Security. 65, 65, 71, 83, 88, 04, 05, 12, 16, 18, I think that's all of them.

[vetali]

6 minutes ago, Bitter said:

How bad is it that I see one of those in the shop and it'll be the newest Civic I've seen all year? At the moment I think the average vehicle age in the shop could collect Social Security. 65, 65, 71, 83, 88, 04, 05, 12, 16, 18, I think that's all of them.

Its been a lot of old stuff this week, and people are spending that stimmy money so its been easy hours.

[Bitter]

35 minutes ago, vetali said:

Its been a lot of old stuff this week, and people are spending that stimmy money so its been easy hours.

Had to brainstorm with the boss about how we're gonna get this high torque starter to clear the Hedman headers on the 383 stroker in the 71 Camaro. Figured it out, had to trim the starter mounting block some, need to clock the starter way from the #1 runner tomorrow. Just annoyingly time consuming things that should be a 20 minute operation now are a 90 minute affair because we're doing it correctly not quickly. Autozone starter got him into this mess in the first place, ate 3 teeth on his flexplate. Oh that was the other fun adventure, figuring out exactly which flexplate we needed for this engine since it's weighted and there's a myriad of options for weighted, non weighted, TC size, number of teeth, etc. Another 90 minute odyssey to get the right part. Owner is great, trusts us 100% and will pay whatever we charge him because he knows we do stuff right.

[vetali]

Some of those old GM starters need to be shimmed after the re manufacturing process. Buuut I think thats like the late 80s and early 90s era ones. Been a loooong time.

 

But yeah, been a lot of older cars lately. Which is nice. The only warranty thing I've done in week is a battery.

[Bitter]

6 minutes ago, vetali said:

Some of those old GM starters need to be shimmed after the re manufacturing process. Buuut I think thats like the late 80s and early 90s era ones. Been a loooong time.

 

But yeah, been a lot of older cars lately. Which is nice. The only warranty thing I've done in week is a battery.

Yeah this is past shimming, I've shimmed plenty of starters.

[Bitter]

3 hours ago, AlexCaffe said:

I felt sorry for the money spent. But I have already ordered a turbine from a trusted store, and soon I will have it

Turbine like 1/2 of a turbo charger or turbine like a wind turbine to generate electricity?

[iDeFecZx]

Last few bits arrived. Once its all on then I can finally get the 182 booked on for a trackday

[bcredeur97]

21 hours ago, vetali said:

Its been a lot of old stuff this week, and people are spending that stimmy money so its been easy hours.

I could see ppl fixing their cars more with these inflated car prices 

[bcredeur97]

No one mentioned it but Sabine Schmitz apparently died.

 

she was the crazy Nürburgring lady, appeared on top gear (UK) a few times for a few seasons.

 

 

she apparently had cancer. I didn’t know. 
 

RIP

[arnavvr]

24 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

No one mentioned it but Sabine Schmitz apparently died.

 

she was the crazy Nürburgring lady, appeared on top gear (UK) a few times for a few seasons.

 

 

she apparently had cancer. I didn’t know. 
 

RIP

Yeah, I loved that one video where she tried to race Jeremy on the Nürburgring with a van while he used a sports car.

 

She was the best, and she was pretty young too, only 51  

[vetali]

1 hour ago, bcredeur97 said:

I could see ppl fixing their cars more with these inflated car prices 

Its really a perfect storm. Lots of demand for cars, new car production is slow due to chip shortages, used car market inflated, people selling broken stuff to unsuspecting people because of the inflated market. I haven't had a day below 15 hours in a week now.

[arnavvr]

1 minute ago, vetali said:

Its really a perfect storm. Lots of demand for cars, new car production is slow due to chip shortages, used car market inflated, people selling broken stuff to unsuspecting people because of the inflated market. I haven't had a day below 15 hours in a week now.

And the 1.9T stimulus package just passed, which means that prices for everything are just going to continue to go up.

[vetali]

5 minutes ago, arnavvr said:

And the 1.9T stimulus package just passed, which means that prices for everything are just going to continue to go up.

Yeah I am fine with not having any more stimulus checks aside from the people that legitimately need it. I have no idea what to spend this check on. I don't need the money. That said, I have been throwing some hail marys on inspections and been getting nearly everything, like that civic timing belt earlier.

[arnavvr]

1 minute ago, vetali said:

Yeah I am fine with not having any more stimulus checks aside from the people that legitimately need it. I have no idea what to spend this check on. I don't need the money. That said, I have been throwing some hail marys on inspections and been getting nearly everything, like that civic timing belt earlier.

Yeah all the things I want to buy are really expensive right now...

 

The only question is, will waiting lower prices or is the new normal?

[vetali]

1 minute ago, arnavvr said:

Yeah all the things I want to buy are really expensive right now...

 

The only question is, will waiting lower prices or is the new normal?

Heard somewhere that goldman sachs is predicting record economy and GDP growth this year. So likely the new norm. Might spend the money and have the trans in my durango rebuilt this year. Not sure yet though.