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

I hate when people use the line 'those small turbo European cars wouldn't work here because of our climate (Canada) gets too cold' or ' They design these vehicles for perfect conditions in Las Vegas where they never see snow or cold'

1. It also gets bloody cold in Europe, and in some places COLDER than we do. They have the same kind of seasons the rest of the world has, temperature fluctuations as well. Small turbo hatchbacks would be fine here climate wise. What we do have here is a large majority of people who think anything below 300whp isn't worth it and HAS to try and mess with things and results in parts failures because they jump in with zero knowledge to 'make more power'

2. No, manufacturer's do not. If they did NO vehicle would have a good heating system. What they can not design for is human beings with zero mechanical sympathy and figure that if the vehicle is running that's good enough and who cares that its -40 out, all the fluids should be good to go right now because I am late! Slow down there Suzie. That's how you burst out seals and pressure lines because cold fluid don't flow that great and need a little bit to warm up. It's like boiling water, it needs time to get to it's operating temperature then everything works a lot better. 

I work in parts sales and I hear these two comments sooo much from fellow counterperson's and mechanics it's absolutely mind boggling. How can you possibly believe such rubbish to be true? 

In reply to DjGreggieP :

Small turbo European cars like my Volvo V50 with heated seats, a brick- like reliable turbocharged engine and 275,000 kilometers on it?

In reply to DjGreggieP :

That must be a northern thing. I've never heard anyone make that statement. 

I mean, going by German HVAC systems it never gets cold in Germany.

Whose bright idea was it to pull air for the center vents from before the heater core?  I don't want sub freezing air blowing on me, thanks.

But Swedish cars are the best.

Visited my dad in the ICU. He is delirious and incredibly out of it, like.....he's not there at all.

I very much recommend that you never see your loved ones like that. berkeley berkeley berkeley berkeley berkeley berkeley berkeley berkeleyity berkeleying berkeley berkeley

In reply to Antihero :

Been there, yeah it sucks.

Sorry man :(

In reply to Antihero :

Sorry he's going through that, and sorry you had to see it.  Had a similar situation happen with my dad before he passed away.  Thankfully, he pulled through for a while longer and that wasn't my last memory of him.

In reply to Toyman! :

We only speach slowly so Yankees can understand us. Normally, we sound like drunken pirate- auctioneers.
 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I mean, going by German HVAC systems it never gets cold in Germany.

Whose bright idea was it to pull air for the center vents from before the heater core?  I don't want sub freezing air blowing on me, thanks.

 

But Swedish cars are the best.

The idea is that you can warm your body with the other vents, but still be able to blow cold air on your face to stay awake.  Personally, I always use the floor vents for heat, Blowing hot air on my face makes it hard for me to breath.

In reply to mad_machine :

That's something I really like about my E36... being able to get cool air from the center vent while everything else is blowing warm air.

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

Had a E36 M3 week at work.

Traffic driving home last night was horrible. I hate driving here. Contemplated commiting vehicular homicide multiple times. 

I got about 3 blocks from home and the clutch and/or flywheel became VERY unhappy. Lots of vibration and won't shift into gear. Sigh. I have a clutch kit and solid flywheel (stock is dual mass garbage) already but limited tools and no space to work. Looks like I'll be farming this one out. Given today's labor rates and book time of 7.5 hours, I expect this to be $1k+. IF I can find a shop open this weekend. IF I can limp it to the shop.

 

I found a highly recommended shop 3 miles from the house. All in I'm looking at $1,300 which is half of what I paid for it. They can't get to it until the 2nd so I'll have to perform some interesting logistical gymnastics with the GF so we can both get to work with only one vehicle.

They wouldn't use my parts (liability reasons) which I completely understand so now I'll have extra parts. Why do I always fall into this pitfall? I guess I'll never learn. 

mad_machine said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I mean, going by German HVAC systems it never gets cold in Germany.

Whose bright idea was it to pull air for the center vents from before the heater core?  I don't want sub freezing air blowing on me, thanks.

But Swedish cars are the best.

The idea is that you can warm your body with the other vents, but still be able to blow cold air on your face to stay awake.  Personally, I always use the floor vents for heat, Blowing hot air on my face makes it hard for me to breath.

I agree - I hate hot air blowing on my face.

Plus, at least on my E46, there was a manual temperature blender wheel right next to the center high vent, so you could get whatever temperature air you wanted out of that specific vent, regardless of the ambient temperature setting.

Swedish cars are best?  I wish my Volvos had that feature for the center vent, and they're 15 years newer than the E46.

Center vents are not designed for use in the winter.  Heat rises, so all the air goes to the lower vents, unless you need defrost.  Blowing air in your face is not the way to be warm.

Air conditioning relies to a certain extent on air flow past your body to remove the surface layer of warm air.  That is when you use the dash vents.

Signed,

 A guy from Saskatchewan.

PS: Recirc is only for defogging.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

My hands get cold in the spring and autumn.  Because it is hard to drive with your hands under your butt, I want warm air on them.

It is not bad enough that they go blue and necrotic, but under about 50-55F my fingers go white and numb.

Someday someone will make heated tools, and I will buy them.

But the floor? Who cares.  I have gone months with permanent snowdrifts in the floor.  I have boots for that.

Last Wednesday my wife's friends took her out for breakfast for her birthday. One of them mentioned that her daughter had been exposed to Covid but she had tested negative. On Friday night my wife had a bad sinus headache and slept like crap. On Saturday morning She took a Covid test and was negative.  We went out for dinner with her parents Saturday evening . Last night my wife tested positive for Covid. She texted her group of friends and sure enough her friend said that her daughter tested positive on Thursday and she tested positive on Friday. Maybe you should have mentioned that to everyone you've been around. Happy berkeleying birthday!
 

My wife's parents are in their 80's and they just visited my SIL and her mom who is also near 80 last night. I hope they don't get sick. 

Sister-in-law, bless her heart, has a lot of issues.  Her life revolves around the conspiracy theories.  

Wife talks to her and then she runs with a few of them and then tells me what's going on. 

I show her evidence of fake-ness and then I'm a dick for not buying into it.  Do your research and stop getting pissed off at me.  
 

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

What I don't get, aside from the obvious conspiracy nonsense, is that a lot of these people pretend to care about freedom.  If it's not a mandatory why does it matter that other people choose to join the program?  

Years ago she taped a dime over the camera on her laptop.  Why?  The government and people in general are watching her through the camera.  Also an old boyfriend was watching her.  

What? Where did that come from?  That's not happening.

Then I watched the Snowden movie and I wondered if she had her finger on the conspiracy pulse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

In reply to tuna55 :

I'm lactose intolerant as well- it was rather annoying at first because at the time a) what dairy alternatives there were really sucked and b) I hadn't really figured out how to handle it. Early on I just tried avoiding dairy and taking Lactaid when I couldn't/didn't want to- but Lactaid never really did much for the gaseous component, it just kept me from having to run to the bathroom suddenly.

Then at some point a LOOOONG time ago, I read/heard something about how the bacteria in Kefir helped with lactose intolerance- so I got some and tried it... and I've been drinking about a cup or so of it every morning since and only really taken Lactaid when I've flown someplace and couldn't take any Kefir with me for the day. I basically eat normally and whatever I want and only drink a bit extra if I'm having a LOT of cheese (like when we have fondue). It's not perfect- but it's by far the best solution I've found/heard of. One bit of advice: unless you like plain yogurt (a lot), don't get the plain, unflavored Kefir- pretty much every major grocery store I've been to for the last 5 years or so has carried Lifeway Kefir, and I usually get either the lowfat-based Strawberry or Blueberry since they're what our Kroger normally stocks. Some health food stores and other random ones will have the more interesting flavors (the Peach is a non-seasonal flavor that's good but Kroger rarely has it).

Datsun310Guy said:

Years ago she taped a dime over the camera on her laptop.  Why?  The government and people in general are watching her through the camera.  Also an old boyfriend was watching her.  

What? Where did that come from?  That's not happening.

My high school had MacBooks for the students, and naturally it had a webcam integrated. In my junior/senior year, I wondered If I made a conspiracy that the Tech Support* was watching us through the camera- or just COULD- I wonder if everyone else would copy me? So I scotch taped a post-it note across the camera and when asked, I just told them tech could potentially use the camera to watch me and I didn't want them doing that. Didn't sound crazy, just kind of a "Eh, I'm just making sure" tone with something I could easily reverse.

It took on like wildfire. A friend of mine took a lighter and burned out his camera. Kids everywhere covered their cameras with stickers, paper, tapes of any sort. "Tech support COULD watch you" quickly morphed into "Tech Support IS Watching you", to the point where they had to mass email everyone to preform damage control. Anger against tech became markably worse with students cracking laptops out of spite, not simply because they were kids who wanted to use them for anything they wanted. When my high school time ended and I could chat with the head of tech, I told him that I had "accidentally" spread that rumor and he told me it was responsible for tens of thousands in damage JUST to webcams alone.

*Enemy of all, naturally, since they took away all your game emulators.

Ashyukun (Robert) said:

In reply to tuna55 :

I'm lactose intolerant as well- it was rather annoying at first because at the time a) what dairy alternatives there were really sucked and b) I hadn't really figured out how to handle it. Early on I just tried avoiding dairy and taking Lactaid when I couldn't/didn't want to- but Lactaid never really did much for the gaseous component, it just kept me from having to run to the bathroom suddenly.

Then at some point a LOOOONG time ago, I read/heard something about how the bacteria in Kefir helped with lactose intolerance- so I got some and tried it... and I've been drinking about a cup or so of it every morning since and only really taken Lactaid when I've flown someplace and couldn't take any Kefir with me for the day. I basically eat normally and whatever I want and only drink a bit extra if I'm having a LOT of cheese (like when we have fondue). It's not perfect- but it's by far the best solution I've found/heard of. One bit of advice: unless you like plain yogurt (a lot), don't get the plain, unflavored Kefir- pretty much every major grocery store I've been to for the last 5 years or so has carried Lifeway Kefir, and I usually get either the lowfat-based Strawberry or Blueberry since they're what our Kroger normally stocks. Some health food stores and other random ones will have the more interesting flavors (the Peach is a non-seasonal flavor that's good but Kroger rarely has it).

I'll try it!

And now for the most minor, petty rant of the day:

Jason's Deli no longer has free ice cream. Nor are toast/muffins included with every meal. You want toast/muffins, order the salad bar. The toast/muffins were the key to bringing the kids occupied before the meal arrived.

I ordered our lunch and waltzed to the back to get a pre-meal ice cream cone (because I'm Dad) only to find...nothing. My dreams of rootbeer float to go...dashed. The $50 I dropped for the family to eat didn't seem so bad at the register when I paid thinking dessert was covered...but it was not so. Back to my first world problems.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

The fact that it actually happened somewhere would make believing it could happen elsewhere seem reasonable.

eastsideTim said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

The fact that it actually happened somewhere would make believing it could happen elsewhere seem reasonable.

It was after my high school years actually! When it became "real" I had... emotions, lmao.

What I really learned from COVID is adults forgot how to wash their hands ,  and most importantly which one of your friends and family were closet bat-E36 M3 crazy.