Thread: Just a quick rant!

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I recently acquired an 86 Z-28 with a 305 t.p.i., and a 700r4. My gripe is, why do people abuse stuff like this? What I'm talking about is, when I disassembled the engine it was in pitiful shape! The thing had so much baked on oil and sludge, one broken piston skirt, metal chips in the pick-up screen, and a lot of plastic chips off of the timing gear, it's a wonder it did'nt jump a tooth! Every passage in the throttle body was plugged, and a couple injectors plugged with carbon buildup. My first clue that it was screwed up, was when I cut the tail pipe off, and oil started dripping out!!! You know,it's a lot easier and cheaper to maintain a vehicle, than to run it till it quits, then try to fix it!

That's it....I feel better now.

As much as I hate to admit it, I don't really maintain my daily driver well. I just drive it and put gas in it. I learned a long time ago that when you start doing work to a car they begin to demand more.

No, seriously, I am one of those people who waits till the brakes start squeeling to replace the shoes, and I change the oil like once a year, maybe. Not saying this is the thing to do, I'm just lazy in this respect. I just did a tune up on it for the first time in the 5 years I have owned it, and only did that because my gas milage went from 22-23 down to 15-16 mpg.

Don

Don!
I just can't help myself from doing oil changes every 3-4 months. Cars seem to like it!
I'm embarrased to say the harley gets the once a years oil change due to neglect this last year, and garage time vs hiway time!

I'm really bad about servicing automatics. I just paid the shop $1600 last week to rebuild the 4L60 in my truck. Vehicle has 150,000 miles and had never had the pan dropped. It was still shifting good, just every once in awhile it didn't shift from 2nd to 1st when coming in for a rolling stop. Oil gets changed every 3-4k miles, but tranny's get ignored for some reason.

Ya know I never understood why people can't be bothered with simple, cheap preventive maintainence. Actually on multiple occassions people have admitted to owing a car that they finally quite chainging the oil and filter on and simply added oil as needed!!!! If I did that I'd be to embarrassed to admit it. Can you belive that!

Twitch, I met a gal from Canada who owned a car that she drove for 50,000 mile with no oil change. I talked with her about her car problems, and started to ask the general routine questions, like last oil change, tune up, airfilter, spark plugs. She looked at me like I had a hole in my head! I couldn't believe it. I'm thinking didn't your parents teach you these things...No! In my family all valuable things, came with hard work, so we strive to keep them in the best shape we can. I still remember my autoshop teacher, Mr. Spellenberger, saying, " A clean car is a happy car!" I.e. keep the parts clean and it will last longer.
The Harley hasn't had a oil change in a year, because I only got out three times to ride it in the last years. So with only 3-400 miles on it I haven't stressed too much, but a year is my limit, so in a month or so, it'll get an oil change, and tune -up in prep for Alaska this summer, when I'll ride the hell out of it. It also sat a lot last year due to electrical stuff, that is fixed now. Expensive to own it and maintain it, but a hell of a comfortable ride!

once i get my Jimmy back from the shop i'm changing it over to all synthetic so all oil and fluids will be serviced. i want to see if it actually gains MPG since its only getting about 15 - 17 mpg and get all new filters maybe K&N rotate the tires so thats where my tax checks are going

i seen guys on the show trucks do it using royal purple brand oils and tranny fluid and they gained mpg and hp & tq so i'm going to try it on mine.

Nope, not for me. I'm religious about servicing my rides. It's the 2nd biggest investment next to your house. Besides servicing, I wash once a week and polish once a month. Even my bike. It's an 83' Suzuki 1100E (runs 11.20's). I went to look at new bikes and the salesman thought my Suzuki was a new bike. When I came out of the showroom, there were 5 guys around my bike offering to buy it.

You guys WASH your cars???????? Why do you think it rains?????


Don

Don
You crack me up. When I lived in the Florida Keys, the humidity and salt and sun ate my paint overnight. I imagine you spend quite a bit of polishing time. Did you ever try that Bike Bright Stuff, cleans in a jiffy, quite nice?

No Steve, I've got to pick some of that up. I actually don't mind spending whatever amount of time or money to keep my hot rod maintained and clean, but I really do neglect my daily. When someone is going to ride somewhere with me I'm the guy who is tossing lots of stuff into the back seat to make room for them.

It's not right, I know, but for some reason I just do very little work to it.

Don

Stovens- same thing happened to a young woman my wife worked with once. Bought a new Toyota, drove it 32,000 and burned up the engine cause she supposedly didn't know about oil changes.

here they make you test your blinkers and brake lights and hand signals but they still cant drive woth a sh*t !!!!?

My wife and I have no children but we do have a favorite niece and nephew. When my niece turned 16 we offered to give her my '80 280ZX. But we had attached a few strings to the gift---one she had to keep and maintain her grade average, two no moving violations ever, three she had to maintain the car as I had done since it was new. Her mom and dad offered to pay half her insurance costs but she had to pay for the other half and for gas and maintenance. She found a job and worked through high school and college

Well suffice it to say, she earned an academic and athletic scholarship, never had a ticket other than parking, and she learned how to maintain the car, even doing her own oil/filter changes and rotating tires, after her father showed her how(we weren't living in CO then and we drove the car out here from WA for her).
She's 26 now, established in her career and just got married. About four months ago she called and asked if we'd be upset if she sold the car, No, of course not(I should've bought it back from her, Other than normal wear and tear it still looked/ran great for a 27 year old car with over 160 k miles )She traded it in on a new Audi A-6. She learned and respected the gift we gave her.