Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

mad_machine said:

Knurled. said:

Javelin said:

Antihero said:

Javelin said:

Used car lot sales roaches are the worst. You really expect me to believe that a "couple with 5 kids" was trying to buy a 6-passenger Mazda5? Or that a CEL meant it "passed mechanical with flying colors"? Then when I prove that 2013 and newer Gen 3's sell for your price, on your street, you still won't budge on price? Yeah, berekely that noise. Come crawling back to me in two months when it's still hanging around the lot and you're desperate to sell it.

Best line was "I sell 150 cars a month man, I know that it will get that price." 

My response: "And how many of them were stick shift minivans?"

Him: "Uh, none..."

Me: "Exactly."

I just finished watching your vid, I take it they wouldn't give you a decent price?

Correct. They wouldn't come off sticker *at all*. That car is a $5000 car if it's perfect (which it's not).

At least they still have the car.

 

I still get e-mail from a dealership in Dayton (about 220mi away from me) telling me about the virtues of the latest Ford Edge or whatever bloatosaurus failbox they are trying to pawn off, because I e-mailed them once about a NON-sunroof Mazdaspeed6 they had listed on Autotrader.

 

No, I don't want your SUV.  I do not have 15 kids and I do not need a forklift to get out of bed.  I want a car.  Specifically, a unicorn.  And I don't even want THAT anymore since I bought my S60R over two years ago.  Take me off your mailing list and go away.

I still get the occasional mailing from the Local Hyundai Dealer I bought my 1999 Tiburon at. Usually it is some sort of reminder for service.

We bought the Dancer's Colorado like 9 months ago from the dealership down the road, and have had it in twice for oil changes (per their own schedule the first time, the second because we knew we'd drop below the 10% oil life on the Christmas trip). They KNOW when the car has been in and should have a decent idea of the mileage (hell, I'd bet that the truck is capable of reporting the exact mileage to them if they wanted it to thanks to OnStar...). Yet according to her she gets a text from them essentially daily 'reminding' her that it's time for her to bring the truck in for an oil change...

Antihero said:

In reply to Knurled. :

I once called a place about a nice zx2 for cheap, they junked it because the seatbelt didn't work and " no one likes these things". I told him I was looking for something light with a manual for driving fun.

 

He called me 3 times with a Versa.......

At least you can FIND places with sticks... I've looked through the inventory on the websites for like half the used car lots in town (and as you know, this isn't exactly a small town and it has an overabundance of car lots), and only two have even shown anything (that wasn't a truck) with a stick- and both didn't have anything under $6k. 

Oh wow, Roadkill tried to use parts from Techno Toy Tuning and none of them fit right or were any good. Color me surprised. I bought a couple parts from that company and they were serious pieces of E36 M3. 

Managed to be extra clumsy yesterday and fall over one of the rose bushes out front.

scratched the heck out my hand and strained my pointer finger on my dominant hand.  This morning it's swollen and I can't apply any force with my first two fingers.  That's really annoying when dealing with toddlers and daily activities....

at least I finished the second toddler tower so they'll stop fighting over them and my son can feel a bit more included.

Dear Nissan

please teach your display engineers about light and polarity. I've had polarized lenses in my sun glasses for over 30 years now, and I have to say that it's unacceptable for you to sell a display that is partially polarized so that I can't see it wearing sun glasses. 
 

this is pretty basic physics. 

NickD said:

Oh wow, Roadkill tried to use parts from Techno Toy Tuning and none of them fit right or were any good. Color me surprised. I bought a couple parts from that company and they were serious pieces of E36 M3. 

They sell parts for RX-7s now.  I can't say anything about the quality, but they were clearly designed by someone who has no idea how suspensions work, or the idiosyncracies of RX-7s in particular.

In reply to Stefan :

This problem isn't the time with the bum digits, but that tower needs a little something.
 

Toddler Siege Tower sounds adorable and frightening at the same time. 

Got potato salad with lunch.  I like to drop some hot sauce, black pepper, and mustard into it.

Grabbed what I thought was my black pepper from the cabinet, popped the lid, and shook out... garlic powder, and there were no shake holes in the container.

Well, this is going to be interesting.  That's about a teaspoon of garlic powder.  

that siege tower needs more diaper launching trebuchet...

Knurled. said:

NickD said:

Oh wow, Roadkill tried to use parts from Techno Toy Tuning and none of them fit right or were any good. Color me surprised. I bought a couple parts from that company and they were serious pieces of E36 M3. 

They sell parts for RX-7s now.  I can't say anything about the quality, but they were clearly designed by someone who has no idea how suspensions work, or the idiosyncracies of RX-7s in particular.

I had a test-pipe from them where they tried to get cutesy and mill their company logo into the flanges.Except that that made the flanges so thin that they always leaked near that logo. Also, it came with what I thought was a black ceramic coating, or at least black high-temp paint. Nope, it was just regular black spray paint that instantly cooked off on the first fire up and made the car stink for a while. I gladly jettisoned that thing after a year for a nice stainless, resonated ISR piece.

The only people I've heard talk fondly of TTT are old-school Toyota guys, But no one makes parts for their stuff, so they're just glad that TTT makes parts for their cars, regardless of the fact that it absolute E36 M3.

In reply to NickD :

This thread reminds me that I need to make a YouTube video describing the rear suspension issues with RX-7s.

Everybody knew, when they were actively road raced and autocrossed, that you never put stiffer bushings in the upper links, or the suspension would stop articulating.  The fix used where rules allowed was to replace the bushings with roll bar padding and install a "traction bar".  What does TTT sell?  Rod end upper links.  They also sell shock relocation kits so you can make the car lower - except the stock shocks have about 2" more compression after the axle hits the body.  And you do not want to lower an RX-7 at all or the rear suspension will stop working, because of those upper links' geometry fighting everything.  Again, this is all old news.

They also sell steering box reinforcement brackets, which elicits a giant "huh???" because the mounting is the only part of the front end that actually works well.

Berking clueless.  

In reply to Knurled. :

They can't even get axle lengths right. The kit Roadkill was using let them put a 300ZX R230 differential in the back of a 240Z with 300ZX wheel bearings, and then used half-shafts that used 300ZX CV joints with the length to make it fit. Techno Toy overnighted them a total of 9 axles over multiple times trying to get them right. The first set the CV boots were too small to fit over the CV joint. The rest were all way too long and crammed the axles into the bearings and differential. Finally they had to stop filming for a week and a half to go do other stuff while they waited for T3 to get them the proper length axles. At one point, they even hunted down a set of T3 adjustable control arms, in the hopes they could run the adjusters out all the way to increase track width enough to make the axles work. Nope, even with the Heims threaded out all the way, the T3 lower control arms were shorter in length than the stock control arms, so you couldn't get more negative camber with those control arms if you wanted.

In reply to Wally :

Trust me, he gets plenty of distance using his own limbs.  Providing actual siege tools would be more interesting for a reality show based around babysitters, heh...

My older brother was a pretty good pitcher in High School (got a scholarship to OIT) I suspect my boy might be as well.  At 15 months he gets more distance and accuracy (usually my crotch or the worst place for him to throw messy food) than his older sister ever has.

Somehow in the process of trying to tighten the alternator belt I've managed to make it so loose the alt will not turn at all.  How did I manage to screw that up?

Edit: second time's the charm!  This should go in the minor win thread, I guess...  Turns out the socket stuck to the bolt on the alternator.  If the belt had been right the first time I wouldn't have realized the socket was stuck to the alternator bolt still until after I had the doghouse bolted back down!

Knurled. said:

Grabbed what I thought was my black pepper from the cabinet, popped the lid, and shook out... garlic powder, and there were no shake holes in the container.

 

So, how was it?

Suprf1y said:

Knurled. said:

Grabbed what I thought was my black pepper from the cabinet, popped the lid, and shook out... garlic powder, and there were no shake holes in the container.

 

So, how was it?

Not *quite* as garlicky as the time my girlfriend in high school gave me a head of garlic the size of a small apple and I ate it on an empty stomach, but close.  At that time I actually developed stomach cramps so severe that I had to leave school for the day (she could eat garlic like that no problem, as a lil' 85lb thang vs my gigantorness, so my awe for her went up three levels) but this just left a bit of a tingle that was enough to remind me that I was stupid.

Also, epic garlic burps.

It was also really gritty, somehow, even though I tried to cut it with more mayo to try to dilute everything.

The funny thing is, I got home and found out my family made garlic chicken for dinner and saved me a plate.

Ashyukun (Robert) said:

Antihero said:

In reply to Knurled. :

I once called a place about a nice zx2 for cheap, they junked it because the seatbelt didn't work and " no one likes these things". I told him I was looking for something light with a manual for driving fun.

 

He called me 3 times with a Versa.......

At least you can FIND places with sticks... I've looked through the inventory on the websites for like half the used car lots in town (and as you know, this isn't exactly a small town and it has an overabundance of car lots), and only two have even shown anything (that wasn't a truck) with a stick- and both didn't have anything under $6k. 

That sucks, I actually passed a car lot somewhere on the route from the Walmart to the hotel we stayed at that had 2 zx2s sitting there.

I would have looked at them if I hadn't been there to get the rampage lol

Sister in law was over visiting this weekend. Flushed a tampon down the toilet to predictable results. She is 29 years old. And thanks to her we had E36 M3ty toilet piss water on the floor. I’ll just leave it at that.

Thankfully a plunger took care of it.

Tesla or Boxster? No, I am not buying a car, I am buying a boat. I have to go down to Tampa at the end of Feb to look at it and I am going to rent something interesting through Turo for my two day visit. Out of all the cars there, the Model S and the Boxster are the two that catch my eye.. I am afraid I can't choose between them

mtn said:

Sister in law was over visiting this weekend. Flushed a tampon down the toilet to predictable results. She is 29 years old. And thanks to her we had E36 M3ty toilet piss water on the floor. I’ll just leave it at that.

 

Thankfully a plunger took care of it.

So...how hard did you smack it upside the head with said plunger?

I took a day off to get all the Christmas stuff down and out to the garage.  It's 18 degrees, everything is iced over outside, and my left leg is killing me.  I don't know what I did but it feels like something is too tight from the back of my knee down to my ankle and the muscle seems sore.  Getting old sucks.

And I can't pay my mortgage. I have the money, but the last bank went out of business and the new one doesn't have any info so they said keep paying the old bank until it's sorted out.  The old bank says don't pay us anymore. If I outlive the bank can I just stop paying? 

Wally said:

And I can't pay my mortgage. I have the money, but the last bank went out of business and the new one doesn't have any info so they said keep paying the old bank until it's sorted out.  The old bank says don't pay us anymore. If I outlive the bank can I just stop paying? 

Writing! Every bit of that needs to be in writing! Hell, I'd get it notarized if possible. Document every single phone call. Record it if you can, because when the new bank finally gets back around to you nobody will know a damn thing that was said to you, and deny ever saying it to you.

In reply to slefain :

I have been. Everything is going through email.  I'm hoping we're at a point we can refinance with our credit union. This is the seventh bank in twelve years and there have been issues with each transfer.

Pardon me if I don't believe the car insurance company when they say "trust us" when I ask about the weasel word language they tacked on my initial property damage settlement check. No I don't trust you. In fact, I trust you so little I already had a chat with my state's insurance commissioner's office to confirm that indeed yes, this was a B.S. tactic. I didn't go so far as to quote the actual state law (O.C.G.A. 33-6-34) that forbids trying to shoehorn binding language into a settlement check memo area, I'm holding that one for their next B.S. reply.