Car Thread - VROOM VROOM

[Troon_Patrol]

Body shops replace parts and do paint these days. Most probably don't even pull frames and stuff. I am sickened at the prospect of having to find a body shop to work on one of my uncommon old cars if anything were to happen to them because I just know most of them will look online, see that new parts don't exist and turn me away.

You tell me if I'm being stupid and or naive here, it's an S197-2 premium package GT, half auto parts stores in the country have the factory OEM paint in a can enough to do the entire bumper, it's $10 in bondo $10 in sandpaper and what 3-4 hours labor? I'll probably just pocket the money, pull the bumper and do that shit in my garage just for the fun of it.


I hear you when it comes to rare/vintage cars or just unusual vehicles. Those are some of my biggest money makers. I had an Italian scooter the other day. Relatively new uses the exact same security system as a Ducati sport bike, high security key with a transponder chip. Client calls 20 companies "A what? whats it called? No we don't work on those" I have to spend an hour tracking down the replacement for the vandalized ignition, then deal with the electronic anti-theft system after a new one is fitted. I charge a lot for things like that.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

You tell me if I'm being stupid and or naive here, it's an S197-2 premium package GT, half auto parts stores in the country have the factory OEM paint in a can enough to do the entire bumper, it's $10 in bondo $10 in sandpaper and what 3-4 hours labor? I'll probably just pocket the money, pull the bumper and do that shit in my garage just for the fun of it.


I hear you when it comes to rare/vintage cars or just unusual vehicles. Those are some of my biggest money makers. I had an Italian scooter the other day. Relatively new uses the exact same security system as a Ducati sport bike, high security key with a transponder chip. Client calls 20 companies "A what? whats it called? No we don't work on those" I have to spend an hour tracking down the replacement for the vandalized ignition, then deal with the electronic anti-theft system after a new one is fitted. I charge a lot for things like that.

Have you ever painted before? A bumper is a big panel with curves, not the easiest to paint well first time. The prep work is easy enough if you're going to do the entire thing, but it's a lot of work to sand, clean, prime, sand, paint, sand, clear, sand, polish, a whole bumper. More than 3-4hrs for the inexperienced imo. The only thing I've ever helped paint was an ultralight airplane - flat surfaces and white easy job in comparison.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Have you ever painted before? A bumper is a big panel with curves, not the easiest to paint well first time. The prep work is easy enough if you're going to do the entire thing, but it's a lot of work to sand, clean, prime, sand, paint, sand, clear, sand, polish, a whole bumper. More than 3-4hrs for the inexperienced imo. The only thing I've ever helped paint was an ultralight airplane - flat surfaces and white easy job in comparison.

Yes painted many things via compressed air, probably 40-50 projects. including bodywork on 3 cars. One of which even required a slide hammer to pull the frame just behind the door on a coup, a coup I REALLY fucked up when I was younger. It's really a matter of opinion like everything else in this world. Maaco vs low tier bodyshop vs 20K paint job. I was satisfied with the results I had done. It's just labor the more time you spend the higher quality you get. I watched a coworker lose his fucking mind over a brand new Corvette he purchased 2 days prior and swore he saw a "swirl" pattern on the left fender behind the headlight. That's not me.

The trick is to simply mount what you want to paint at good angle where you can hit everything with one pull of the trigger and then make another pass slightly overlapping. You find yourself stopping/starting midway through the part and your going to get runs, orange peeling and worse. I'd pull the bumper and mount it same angle as it would be on the car on a 2x4 standing about 4' off the ground for best access. Sanding/buffing/waxing I'd just lay it "ass to the sky" across a couple of saw horses and some shop rags. You can get surprisingly good results with the most basic of tools and patience. I'm sure you know this already but if you sand have a dust particle remover or high grade breathing mask. slightly wetting the floor if this is done a garage is nice trick to trap the dust. When it's painting/clear coat time this should be done in a "windless" room not outdoors where a gust of air peppers your freash paint with dust natural organic dust. Tons of great youtube videos if you are just aiming for an OEM grade job. I find auto repair fun as long as I have some music, I find it EXTREMELY relaxing and satifying but that's me. Like to fix things.

 

[anklyscr]

Here's a dumb question about automatics and different countries.

In America it seems like personal vehicles are 103% autos and 0.1% manuals[somehow the yanks have automated everything] but commercial vehicles seem to be a 50/50 mix of manual and auto. Big rig truckers seem to love having a manual.

Whereas in Europe the split is different . In private vehicles autos account for about 40%[IDK] of the new cars and manuals the rest. Although euro manufacturers have realised they can game the testing regimes if they put an auto in. Commercial however has gone 100% manual. I don't think it's possible to order a new HGV with a manual anymore. The best you can do is SCANIAs clutched autobox.

Why do the yanks prefer to shift the heavier and more awkward things themselves and choose to automate the easier stuff?

 

[Mikoyan]

Here's a dumb question about automatics and different countries.

In America it seems like personal vehicles are 103% autos and 0.1% manuals[somehow the yanks have automated everything] but commercial vehicles seem to be a 50/50 mix of manual and auto. Big rig truckers seem to love having a manual.

Whereas in Europe the split is different . In private vehicles autos account for about 40%[IDK] of the new cars and manuals the rest. Although euro manufacturers have realised they can game the testing regimes if they put an auto in. Commercial however has gone 100% manual. I don't think it's possible to order a new HGV with a manual anymore. The best you can do is SCANIAs clutched autobox.

Why do the yanks prefer to shift the heavier and more awkward things themselves and choose to automate the easier stuff?

In trucks... it's a lot of things. Initial cost of an automatic or automated shifting manual-ish transmission is stunningly higher. $15-20k might not seem like a lot in the context of a six figure rig but in fleets that adds up quick - as does the service money. For an individual owner-operator it's still a chunk of change and those guys are more likely to be concerned about the other reasons. The 'other reasons' aren't always applicable anymore but they include higher fuel consumption and 'lack of control' in low speed 'creeping' situations. Add in that frequent shifts are less of a thing in US OTR vs. Europe and you have some okay but not always true reasons for it.

In cars? Unless you care about and enjoy shifting it's a hard sell for normies. With plenty of gears and computer controlled converter lockup in most of them there's no longer really a fuel consumption reason to go manual. You could also make an argument that an auto - where modern ones more often live up to that 'lifetime' billing - can actually be less troublesome than someone with poor clutch habits (a lot of people) in a manual. Point A-B drivers aren't going to row their own for the diminished benefits making it an enthusiast option.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

Why do the yanks prefer to shift the heavier and more awkward things themselves and choose to automate the easier stuff?

Force of habit? For the longest time heavy duty automatics that would do the miles long haul truckers did were non-existent so almost all heavy trucks had manuals. Now automatics are common in short haul trucks and ubiquitous in medium duty (only the old UPS and fedex trucks have manuals everything else is auto). Manual is still the standard in long haul trucks because of longevity, I'd guess. And the fact that an automatic doesn't pose much advantage when most of your miles are in your top 3 gears on the open road. It's similar to how almost all of your euro trucks are cab overs to minimize turning radius, American truckers are just going longer distances in bigger places on average.

Yes painted many things via compressed air, probably 40-50 projects.

Well you have dozens of times the paint experience I have then, I've done plenty of spray painting but none of it body work unless you count engine bays or spraying rustoleum on a repaired floor pan rust hole. I don't see a flaw in your plan given that experience, unless you can find 2K instead of whatever they have at an auto parts store.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Well you have dozens of times the paint experience I have then, I've done plenty of spray painting but none of it body work unless you count engine bays or spraying rustoleum on a repaired floor pan rust hole. I don't see a flaw in your plan given that experience, unless you can find 2K instead of whatever they have at an auto parts store.

Pardon how long this is, I feel the DIY culture the "get yourself out of jam" is lost, I won't PL but, it started right about my generation when promoting college over trade was not only heavily implied but actually promoted in media with statistics of income numbers, sure they left out the part about that 200K student loan, the 4 years of your life without any income and percentage of college degrees that are never applied to the career but, the math check out, right? Right...?

I have nothing against blue collar work, I am blue collar. Compared to people I went to HS with I'm probably in the top %10 financially speaking. I barely graduated HS I think half of it was they were tired of dealing with me, that's a whole other thread. What I do takes years if not decades of to learn and there are no trade schools for specific kind of work I do. There used to be classes to get you into the industry and you'd get a leg up on the most basic work other than that unless you are truly apprenticing for someone when you hit a rare problem you are fucked. If you don't what you are doing you can cause 10K in damage in 2 mins. I'm not talking down about electricians or plumbers or guys that do auto-body work but, in the days of youtube it's all right in front of you how to repair/replace %90 of things in your daily life. People like us who understand how mechanical things work and know how to use a wrench aren't necessary any smarter or dumber than Doctors or attorneys but here's hypothetical: The white collar guy notices his kitchen sink is backing up, the garbage disposal is making that electro-mechanical "buzz" noise but nothing is moving or draining . It's 6 pm on a Friday he calls a plumber, plumber comes out charges a $95 service call just to look at it. Maybe he shines a flashlight into the drain hole, pokes around with a screwdriver tries the Allen wrench underneath wrench to force it to rotate or even just acts like he's trying to diagnose or perform a simple repair. Then he tells the white collar guy it's fucked, time for a new one. lucky for you I have a compatible model in the back of the van, Parts are $450 Labor is $500 and the Service call was $95 for being after hours of course. White collar grinds his teeth as asks if the plumber will accept CC's or Zelle as payment. 60 mins later new disposal unit is installed. Typical garbage disposal unit is around $200-$300, it's dirty work and you are going to definitely get dishwater on your hands. The profit margin was $750 for about 2 hours labor for the plumber, if the customer paid in cash or zelle Plumber might not even let the IRS know about that day. Now I understand there are some ethics involved here as to what the plumber charged, and that is open for debate. The point I'm trying to drive home here is I get the feeling you and I and really anyone in this thread would just watch a 5 minute video on garbage disposal replacement, go to the local hardware store and DIY that shit in 2 hours.

I have a few cars, I'll pull the bumper and drive another one around while the paint / primer/ clear-coat dries. I'll do it all while listening to some STP/Greenday drinking a cold soda and having fun. And if it looks like shit I'll just toss it in my truck and take to a real paint shop and just tell them I want paint only, bondo work has been done. The rest of that $1200 is going into the bank account.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

The point I'm trying to drive home here is I get the feeling you and I and really anyone in this thread would just watch a 5 minute video on garbage disposal replacement, go to the local hardware store and DIY that shit in 2 hours.

Probably, but there are also a lot of people who just like cars and don't enjoy messing with them and it's a hobby so there's no point in getting deep into it if it's not enjoyable. I try not to pay anyone to do anything that is realistic for me to do i.e. I paid to have a new roof put on my house because that would not be realistic for me to do in a timely manner even though I technically could.

 

[Tiggie_Tiger]

Has anyone driven or owned a mk4 Supra? I've only driven the automatic one, which belongs to my Dad (he bought it new and still has it with over 150k miles on the clock).

I like the car, but not so much I'd own one myself. It is a little over rated imo.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

Has anyone driven or owned a mk4 Supra? I've only driven the automatic one, which belongs to my Dad (he bought it new and still has it with over 150k miles on the clock).

I like the car, but not so much I'd own one myself. It is a little over rated imo.

I have driven a single turbo converted MKIV, fortunately a manual. I enjoyed the car but I do think the Supra is a little bit undeserving of the incredible reputation it has. To me it's really no better than an E36 M3 in any way other than power. Comparing to its direct competition like a TT 300ZX I don't think the Supra is significantly better to drive, there's no question it's less troublesome and easier to work on though because those Zs are awful under the hood. To me the Supra is one of those cars that as an experience isn't just isn't worth the price of admission due to the hype. The Supra owner who I traded cars with to learn this lesson thought highly of my FD though he was surprised about how harsh the ride was (Corvette-like, he said).

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Semi related car story:

Last night get a call for a somewhat rare VW very old vehicle in good to moderate shape. The kind of car people have this nostalgia for. Customer loses his keys. Meanwhile I, like a dumb-ass somehow set my cell to silent so I miss his call 45 mins ago. I call him up there's another guy already out there. Customer says he can hot wire the care and it's a stick shift but the steering is locked as the key is missing. Now off the bat the customer is kind of hostile with me. I understand people in these situations are often panicked and upset they must spend hundreds of dollars for losing a .29 cent piece of brass. I try to be as sympathetic as I can and unless they insult me I do what I can. He tells me he called me but nobody answered fast enough he knows how to hotwire the car himself (and yes to his credit this guy did have an electrical engineering background FAR more required to start an old car with no electronic anti-theft system without damaging the vehicle) He's got some asshole out there who doesn't even have the proper key blank or even know how to make the key, this asshole is trying to convince him to destroy the steering lock and pay him for this. I'm a few miles away on speaker phone. I'm asking the customer "doesn't it make more sense to just make the key? you can lock your doors and won't spend $4-500 replacing the ignition, and then still have to pay someone like me to make the door key?" His response is "I just need to get home ASAP and he said he can pick the ignition and I'll be able to drive home and deal with the key situation later" I explain picking the ignition on that car is not easy to which the asshole says "well I might have to drill it" which 1 minute later turns into "I WILL have to drill/destroy your steering lock." As I said I'm on speaker phone and now I'm addressing this asshole pretending to know what he's doing.
"Why the fuck are you telling this man you can help him if you're just planning on destroying part of the car? You came out there without the proper part, or the know-how? Who the fuck taught you how to do this job?"
He actually responds "You actually know how to make a key for this car"?

"Yes, I'm auto locksmith, not a guy with a cordless drill, do you even have a license to do this kind of work?"
"yes I a have a license"
"Ok what is it"?
"I don't want to tell you"

The conversation ends there I go out to the car and 45 mins later he has two perfect keys, just like the one he lost. Customer is so happy. The fucking shysters in my industry make me want to find them and beat the fuck out of them for ruining this industry. This was the second time this week some fucking Pakistani sounding asshole took hundreds of dollars useless labor. The previous day a key that was made for a basic plain old 2007 Nissan failed within 24 hours as it was never programmed properly. I scanned the key they gave the customer didn't even have a chip inside it, they obviously knew the immobilizer would kick in almost immediately and leave him stranded and they still took hundreds of dollars gave him no receipt and blocked his number when he called back to tell them the key no longer worked.

 

[Preacher ✝]

The Rolls-Royce of the future.

 

[CaptainAutism69]

The Rolls-Royce of the future.

View attachment 6400068

Please never post that cunt again. All she does is gush over concept cars and suck cock

 

[Preacher ✝]

Please never post that cunt again. All she does is gush over concept cars and suck cock

I just want to see that car try and handle any street in Cleveland.

 

[Tiggie_Tiger]

The Rolls-Royce of the future.

View attachment 6400068

I hate these. So needlessly complicated. The kind of people who would buy these are mediocre rappers or other shitty celebs.

 

[.T.N.U.C]

Stuff like this also makes my pp hard:

Hell yes, I had one of these with the aluminium 5-speed gearbox. Lovely and tough, no wonder they were popular for use in hot streetcar projects.

Has anyone driven or owned a mk4 Supra? I've only driven the automatic one, which belongs to my Dad (he bought it new and still has it with over 150k miles on the clock).

I like the car, but not so much I'd own one myself. It is a little over rated imo.

Not owned one, but the big appeal of the mk4 (twin turbo) was how well engineered the motor and the 6 speed manual transmission and diff were. You could get quite a large increase in output for a relatively small amount of money/effort and without having to upgrade internals much or at all, just better air and fuel flow. I always thought they were the coolest-looking of the 90s Japanese sports cars, too.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Sad times when you do a massive cooling system refresh down to gaskets and random o rings to find a smallish leak a few weeks later.

 

[KittyGremlin]

to which the asshole says "well I might have to drill it" which 1 minute later turns into "I WILL have to drill/destroy your steering lock."

Why the fuck would you do that to a vintage car? Did he have any idea how much a replacement part would cost? Unless it's a Beetle or a bus, they still make fairly cheap replacements for those.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Why the fuck would you do that to a vintage car? Did he have any idea how much a replacement part would cost? Unless it's a Beetle or a bus, they still make fairly cheap replacements for those.

He was just some hack with a power drill. Actually had the audacity to ask for a $20 service call after I called him out for being useless fuck in front of the client. Coming out to the vehicle without proper tools, knowledge or even the .29 cent key blank. I looked up the assembly parts were not that expensive but labor intensive, security sheer-head bolts, a full wrap around ign housing as opposed to one with two security bolts holding it to the steering column. Someone would need a Metric steering wheel puller and possibly some special tools to do the job. Then just finding a guy who has the proper tools to be able to match a new ign lock to the doors would be a fucking nightmare. He'd need two keys, which is more annoying than it sounds I promise you. And if the ignition key were misplaced in the future the project just got 3X more complicated and expensive as the doors won't provide any data to generate that ignition key. When I was a rookie and I saw something above me I just politely explained that, if I hit a wall I walked away before breaking anything.

 

[KittyGremlin]

He was just some hack with a power drill. Actually had the audacity to ask for a $20 service call after I called him out for being useless fuck in front of the client. Coming out to the vehicle without proper tools, knowledge or even the .29 cent key blank. I looked up the assembly parts were not that expensive but labor intensive, security sheer-head bolts, a full wrap around ign housing as opposed to one with two security bolts holding it to the steering column. Someone would need a Metric steering wheel puller and possibly some special tools to do the job. Then just finding a guy who has the proper tools to be able to match a new ign lock to the doors would be a fucking nightmare. He'd need two keys, which is more annoying than it sounds I promise you. And if the ignition key were misplaced in the future the project just got 3X more complicated and expensive as the doors won't provide any data to generate that ignition key. When I was a rookie and I saw something above me I just politely explained that, if I hit a wall I walked away before breaking anything.

What VW was it? Most of the pre-80s models were extremely low-tech. Pretty sure that even Karmann Ghias used mostly Beetle parts and were just as simple to assemble/reassemble.

(sorry for the sperging, you just got me intrigued because I legit can't think of any VW that would fit that description)