sparkyboy Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 (edited) 13 hours ago, GeneralDisorder said: You might have someone at a NAPA that actually knows what they are doing - that is not at all the norm. But it does say a lot about a person when you consider all the angles doesn't it? GD Indeed it is not the norm. The napa in aurora, co is independent and has a machine shop across the street for cylinder heads and boring blocks and what not. The hydraulic presses are in the back of the store. They also have a neat paint mixing corner where they mix colors by vin. This shop sponsors the best cruise of the summer, 3 miles long. Now the napa in boulder sucks like all of em. I have a hilarious and cautionary anecdote about considering all angles... If you tend to enjoy the "work" it takes to properly maintain a vehicle and/or lack deep pockets please by all means avoid the e53 bmws. That is the first gen x5. They are simply not a joy to work on the axle goes through the oil pan for example. Anyway if you lock or unlock one of the doors manually and the doors get out of sync for the power locks and then you lock it in the unsyced condition manually... No big deal usually but if the battery dies...oh boy. You simply can't get in. The ignition is supposed to recharge the key fob but if that also fails as is often the case then you need to pop open the key fob and change the battery...common battery? Oh no you have to desoldier the connections first. Slim jim will not work. The master key without the fob is the only one that will open the only mechanical lock on the car. Then the ignition has be resynced with a video game style code. Bmw will sell you a new key for $300 tho! This happened to my dad it took me 2 days to figure out this nonsense, none of it is in the fsm either. All youtube. The whole time he is complaining and ready to smash a window. But i am the only one who examined all angles of the issue and fixed it free! I had a spare battery lol! The e53 can be had for beater prices and there is a reason. The damn things dont even ride very nice or go fast and the stupid air suspension over cambers the rear and wears out tires. Next time you are driving behind one have a look! Riding all goofy every time! Cheers boys! Edited May 17, 2019 by sparkyboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 Lucky Texan Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 yeah, I'm constantly amazed at how car designers/manufacturers never seem to learn anything from the past too. Like, we've been making cars for over a century and there's an entire range of year-models with oil consumption problems or bad head gaskets? crap o-rings that can't seal a system for more than 3 years?...brake lines recalled to be sprayed with some protective goo?... have we made NO advancements in alloys/materials/design/manufaturing since 1910?! I get abuse or rare defects...but folks shouldn't have to worry about catastrophic failures just driving/using a car normally. Does no one TEST their vehicles/engines anymore? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartless Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 12 hours ago, 1 Lucky Texan said: yeah, I'm constantly amazed at how car designers/manufacturers never seem to learn anything from the past too. Like, we've been making cars for over a century and there's an entire range of year-models with oil consumption problems or bad head gaskets? crap o-rings that can't seal a system for more than 3 years?...brake lines recalled to be sprayed with some protective goo?... have we made NO advancements in alloys/materials/design/manufacturing since 1910?! I get abuse or rare defects...but folks shouldn't have to worry about catastrophic failures just driving/using a car normally. Does no one TEST their vehicles/engines anymore? not for durability, no... at least it doesn't seem like it crash testing, yes - got to have those crash test ratings.. aerodynamics, possibly... better air flow means better fuel economy... but long term durability/reliability? yeah, not so much... just like everything else, cars these days are made to be "disposable" - 3 to 5 yrs (or basically as long as your loan or lease lasts) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olnick Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 Yeah--far cry from what Subaru did in January 1989 at a track just outside Phoenix, AZ. Brand new platform (Legacy) and new engine (EJ22) set the automotive world on its collective ear! https://www.torquenews.com/1084/subaru-history-how-they-set-2-world-records-and-13-international-records-set-same-time-video 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkyboy Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 (edited) On 5/17/2019 at 6:54 AM, 1 Lucky Texan said: yeah, I'm constantly amazed at how car designers/manufacturers never seem to learn anything from the past Does no one TEST their vehicles/engines anymore? Nah. Used to be manufacturers would have a factory team to race all their models in various ways to test em out. Take the 70s chevy for example, camaro in international race of champions (iroc) and trans am, corvette in le mans, whatever they had in nascar, of course nhra drag racing, and hold onto your hats - the chevette for rally racing that set several records until audi and subaru started dominating with 4wd cars in the early 80s. Each division of gm raced something, hurst olds anyone? Pontiac can am? No need to do so anymore since it seems like your average consumer treats a car that looks like an appliance well...like an appliance. Some big league race cars are appliances too in the name of fair competition. Win on sunday sell on monday ended in the 80s. Now its drive a car for a few years, then when the warranty expires and no more free maintainance, trade for a newer, prettier one that will work with the newer, prettier iphone. Or when nascar says the sbc2.2 will be phased out and fuel injection is mandatory so that the cars are sorta "stock" about 25 years too late lol! Nascar is pretty wack now with stage racing, that car of tomorrow was such a piece a crap lol! As far as im concerned, it takes at least 100,000 miles or 10 years for any real problems to surface if any on a given model. Then if a particular model or manufacturer stands the test of time it becomes more widely known to non enthusiasts. Thats why i like gm and Subaru. They keep an engine design for a long time compared to others (pushrods forever!) Ford modular engines anyone? What piles of garbage, what kind of engine just spits out spark plugs and can't be reinstalled? They are held in by 3 or 4 threads! And threads cut right into the aluminum rather than a steel insert. When people are risking destroying a cylinder head by pre-emptively heli-coiling all the (angled!) plug holes i think I'll steer clear thanks, hot rod magazine agrees. If ford woulda just put an f'n steel wire in the spark plug threads then the only complaint would be that the engine is gutless. Chevy and subaru are much better, but certainly not perfect. The head gasket issue that each company suffered from were the result of a poor choice of gasket material, not faulty engine design. It was the iron duke 4 cylinder in the 70s for gm that made them look bad, but lots of companies put aluminium heads on iron blocks. People ignorantly blamed the different heat expansion of iron and aluminum. Or gm being crappy, go buy a toyota (and be bored all the time. Fast forward to today and i cant find my favorite sub compact, a 2 door chevette, any year. Rwd is best, then dual range. That's it. People to this day ignorantly bash the 2.5 subaru as a "bad engine" when its just the factory copper gaskets from the early years of the 2.5 corroding and failing eventuallt. Probably corporate trying to save 7.5 cents per gasket times a million cars. It must have been so embarrasing to have to SELL that subaru coolant conditioner! I think it was only like $15 from subaru, but come on! I'll say this, the US auto manufacturers have made me extremely proud by surpassing the horsepower levels of the muscle car era, while keeping the man happy enough. That is, keeping up with safety and emissions standards. I find it hilarious that gm paid back all the money they didn't really want to borrow, dealt with being called "government motors" while ford was praised for "standing on their own two feet" (my asss!!!) Now land rover and jaguar are owned by Tata (india) instead of ford, mercury is gone. No halo car. Their best car is so unsafe it injures innocent bystanders. While gm, a real American company paid the man back right away with interest and still owns autovoz (russia), opel (germany), holden mw (australia- engines only now), daewoo (korea), saic and faw light equipment, among others (china), Renault /vauxhall (uk), torino italia srl (engine research, italy) and a sh!t load of other companies. Now the almost 800 horsepower, supercharged Lt1 (pushrods still! original Lt-1 dohc by lotus) is coming in the MID ENGINE corvette? But auto trans only? *SIGH* wtf? I shoulda never made fun of the porsche gt3 for being auto only lately. Who got deep pockets and want to invest in my new company? Mmcms? Mid mounted corvette manual swaps! Might need some money to design a pedal set prototype, a program to disable the tcu and of course bumping the power up! Edited May 18, 2019 by sparkyboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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