You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[81MC]

My wife’s year old car - won’t start, gotta ####ing work the hood open, take a heat gun to the door latch to get it to work again, won’t even take a boost.

Meanwhile my 30 year old beater - starts, door closes, I can open the hood and check fluids.

Grinds the #### out of my gears when a well maintained new family vehicle is less functional than a neglected junker on the days you need it most.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by 81MC

My wife’s year old car - won’t start, gotta ####ing work the hood open, take a heat gun to the door latch to get it to work again, won’t even take a boost.

Meanwhile my 30 year old beater - starts, door closes, I can open the hood and check fluids.

Grinds the #### out of my gears when a well maintained new family vehicle is less functional than a neglected junker on the days you need it most.

Most things are like this. I got a new fridge and it's awful. I'm not sure it'll last half a long as my old fridge did.

[Mr.Coffee]

There does need to be regulation into forcing better quality for products generally speaking. Especially if we “care about the environment”.

[Fuzz]

Well it's probably becuase we "care about the environment" that new cars have issues. So many computers and emissions control devices that can go wrong in the cold.

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Frost bite. Took longer trying to help a stranger with their car last night than expected. Didn't work.

After a nights sleep... ow. It's swollen and painful.

And I wonder if maybe the fuel line must have been frozen or something. USB jump starters AND hooking up the battery directly to a car battery didn't work. Car would turn a few times but not start. Yes, we did wait a few minutes before trying to turn the car several times to give the battery a chance to have a little more juice.

Is there something else I could have tried to help last night? Our only recourse after 15 minutes was to tell the stranger that they needed to call a tow truck. Pushed the accelerator while trying to start the car or something?

Had something like that once, turns out they killed the battery trying to start it, and wouldnt start with a jump. It was actually a broken timing belt.

[CliffFletcher]

Speaking of going wrong in the cold, when I was driving last night I saw five streetlights on the fritz. And not all clustered together - spread out over several roads. Maybe they’re not reliable at these temps?

[OutOfTheCube]

Products in general just aren't designed to function properly in -40, even 'cold weather' stuff.

[mrkajz44]

I'm actually kind of shocked at how much outdoor stuff is still actually working given the conditions.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by 81MC

My wife’s year old car - won’t start, gotta ####ing work the hood open, take a heat gun to the door latch to get it to work again, won’t even take a boost.

Meanwhile my 30 year old beater - starts, door closes, I can open the hood and check fluids.

Grinds the #### out of my gears when a well maintained new family vehicle is less functional than a neglected junker on the days you need it most.

I think a huge issue is the power drain on newer cars due to the computer and creature comforts. Sometimes if I turn the headlights to off (vs auto) and turn off the seat heating button, the vehicle doesn't sounds a lot better trying to start. It's probably easier to start a car that doesn't need a power draw that also will feed lights, comforts, navigation, more powerful on board computer, extra internal lights etc.

I've occasionally wondered why newer don't just have vehicles designed to draw nothing but the most basic power draw when starting up and then wait 5-10 seconds to start putting power to the other things in the car needing it.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

I'm actually kind of shocked at how much outdoor stuff is still actually working given the conditions.

Ya, all of my servants have been working outside all day so far without any problems.

[Ped]

Next to a guy at a light, light turns green, I'm going faster but not drastically so. I get ahead and move over safely because I want to be in that lane eventually. Im now moving the same speed as him so I'm not impeding him. He moves over, speeds past me very fast, moves back in front and brake checks me. I did nothing to him.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Ped

Next to a guy at a light, light turns green, I'm going faster but not drastically so. I get ahead and move over safely because I want to be in that lane eventually. Im now moving the same speed as him so I'm not impeding him. He moves over, speeds past me very fast, moves back in front and brake checks me. I did nothing to him.

In this weather? Well. It seems clear to me that this person is out their goddamned mind.

[Ped]

Im in Ontario. Not snowing here (yet)

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Ped

Im in Ontario. Not snowing here (yet)

California?

[bc-chris]

Originally Posted by Ped

Im in Ontario. Not snowing here (yet)

so, just to clarify....

Originally Posted by chedder

Ontario, California. Suburb of Los Angeles.

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Ontario is a city in California

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Getting word from my sources that Ontario is, in fact, in California.

...lame joke unless you visited the "Kylington trending to play on Thursday vs Ontario" thread


**damn it Locke!

[Locke]

Ahaha! Victory is mine!

[RichieRich]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Speaking of going wrong in the cold, when I was driving last night I saw five streetlights on the fritz. And not all clustered together - spread out over several roads. Maybe they’re not reliable at these temps?

Now how about those lights on the new Stoney Bridge in the West? About 3 consecutive high power lights, not even in 3-4 months, and already shooting off like big camera strobes. Very disconcerting having those as you drive south across the bridge.



And then there's all the other now-very-blue lights along Stoney headed north from the Bow river up towards Country Hills/Sarcee. Apparantly they're NOT the city's problem as it's a provincial highway. So many blue lights...

[btimbit]

Yeah the blue ones are a bad batch of led bulbs, you can find articles about blue lights from all over the world

City didn't use theirs other than on their own property, alberta transportation said screw it and is just using them

[TorqueDog]

I f-cking love the blue lights. Make them all blue. You have headlights for a reason.

[White Out 403]

I miss the heck out of Edo