Posted on 02/03/2019 12:02:55 PM PST by Yossarian
Edited on 02/03/2019 12:44:05 PM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
Bloomberg content cannot be posted to FR.
PUs are a waste of time and money for most people, true, but remember FReepers are older, more rural, and more self-reliant than average.
The best-selling SUVs are the length of compact cars and give up only a couple mpgs to sedans. Worsening roads and fatter and older people make them good choices - easier to get in and out and more ground clearance.
Drive a Toyota sedan get 35-40 mpg so 29 mpg is a long way down. Thanks you, but no. And all the SUVs I see are much taller than my car. The PUs are almost the size of a semi these days. I’ll stick with the under $25K - you can have the $35-50K and up cars which fo me is just too much money for transportation. Old School here and money is money - affordable smordable - I’ll keep the difference and put it to better use than a hunk of overpriced, gas-guzzling, light metal and plastic.
Excellent suggestions if I ever find myself in the hinterlands. Thanks.
We had a block heater on our car once. Strange to see a power cord hanging out of the of the hood.
Way back around 90 years ago, my grandfather would empty the radiator on the ground at night and fill it up the next morning.
It’s their money, as long as the cars are not subsidized by the government.
Those subsidies should be a crime!
It’s their money, as long as the cars are not subsidized by the government.
We, the taxpayers, are paying for their ego toys.
#36 Plus you get free heat for the interior as a by product of a gas engine. Electric car owners have to decide on dressing warm or using the heat generated by the batteries and a much shorter range. Reverse for summer.
My rule of thumb has long been that once the temperature drops below -20 F, life in Iowa will get complicated. So much that we take for granted either fails completely or works marginally.
How a car parked outside is going to keep a charge in "Russian Front" conditions (when I can barely keep a good LED flashlight going) is a mystery to me. I have no desire to change from the gasoline-fueled IC engine at present. For the past seven years, I have run synthetic motor oil in my daily driver and I keep the block heater plugged in at night. In that time, only once have I had it fail to start, and the culprit was part of the keyless system.
One bus I had for a short while has some sort of gasoline heater, but no way in hell was I going to try and use such a thing.
I had a ‘63 Volkswagen bug the heater of which consisted of opening up a valve to who-knew-where and enjoying about as much heat as lighting a match gives.
Drive up to Bemidji MN., Baudette MN, or Kapuskasing ON next winter. You'll see them being tested there.
The heater “worked” by passing cooling fan (always running) air over the outside of the exhaust manifolds, IIRC. Hence the leaky exhaust gassing you.
i rented chevy in Minnesotta in the 80’s. It dipped to -27 and you could no turn the key to open the door (I leave them locked). The grease was so thick from the cold the key would not rotate.
3 buckets of warm water to thaw it enough to operate the key.
hey - you think tesla is the only one with problems?
People just complain now on twitter.
I didn’t get gassed but didn’t get warm either. The same car didn’t have a gas gauge. You had to use something like an oil dipstick to see how much gas you had. It was awful.
But the little bugger was watertight! We had flooded underpasses from a heavy rain. The water came up to the bottom of my windows and the wheels weren’t always in contact with the road, but I kept revving the engine and popping the clutch until we were on the other side of the underpass.
There was a couple sitting on the hood of their stalled Mustang as we went by, sending waves that left the Mustang rocking. It was great.
A week later, the clutch burned completely out. LOL
Caveat emptor.
That would be a PITA on a car. Foolproof though, no gauge to trust being accurate. Something like older bikes.
For many decades, popping the tank open and sloshing the gas around was how you did it with motorcycles. Never trusted the gauges on newer bikes, always double checked.
The car I was driving before the VW was a ‘67 Riviera Gran Sport, which got 9 MPG in town, 12 on the road. (It’s a long story.) The VW got some incredibly high mileage compared to the Buick, so I was constantly checking the gas level afraid to run out at any minute. Comical, now that it’s over.
If you have enough money to buy a Tesla, you would think you have enough money to own a garage to stick it in at night so the door handles aren’t frozen in the morning. Just sayin....
A co-worker bought a model 3 and I couldn’t get over the fact that the dashboard was basically an ipad. I don’t know, it just seems so weird to me...
\thread hijack/
Aw, geez, that the monster with the dual 4bbl cards?
Was out looking at cars with my dad about 66-67 and got behind the wheel of some spiffy looking Buick at the dealer. Keys were in and I started it. Did not sound like your grandfather's Buick. Popped the hood and there that monster sat. Might have been a Gran Sport.
Funny, later years, dad bought some Pontiac (I think) honker that the seller said had a good fuel mileage engine. Turned out to be some 400+ cu in monster. Not so fast in that tank, but is sure drank gas.
POS had GM engine idiot lights.,. Engine temp was out or sensor Tango Uniform, dad burned it up.
Next car he bought, had them put in real gauges. He learned his lesson with GM idiot lights. Never another GM either.
I think the cars should stand on their own. If they can compete price-wise, then fine. If they can’t, they shouldn’t be subsidized by the federal government or states.
Yeah, if I ran into a bunch of the nuts trying to pull that routine, I’d let them know they’re full of it.
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