patrick.net

kt1652 says

Also don't buy the twin turbocharged all wheel drive version of whatever, your pocket book and mechanic will thank you.
I think you mean your mechanic will thank you for owning one. Mine is 18yrs old and I drive it all the time.
I never take it to a mechanic, it is a hobby.
Make a hard run at night and open the hood, the turbos glow red! The heat kills batteries too.

Believe it or not most mechanics want to see their customers happy, having to explain to a guy that it takes 7 hours of labor to change a timing belt on your amg,m3,rs whatever, because you have to drop the front suspension assembly, is not fun.

I worked for a transmission company to do repairs and service and on many of the transmissions the problems were mostly fouled up filters or a small leak which lowered there fluids causing the transmission fron functioing properly. Once in a while the bands in the transmission had to be adjusted to help the transmission to opperate smoother.If we had a transmission that was not working at all we would send it out for further tests to see if it could be rebuild or the purchase of a new one.
A newq manager took over the shop and on my first day working for him a woman drove in with a problem of the tranny was slipping in and out of drive which I discovered was a low fluid problem but the manager told me to drop the tranny on the floor which would ruin it so he could sell a new tranny to the woman only thing was that the new tranny was not new it was rebuild by his brother that owned a shop that rebuilds trannies.
I needed the job so I did what he asked and after a few days I felt so guilty I quit but not until I got the ladies address and phone no. and told her what happened.

SiO2 says

After changing oil, I notice that on the first startup the oil pressure light takes longer to turn off

Distress reports from General Aviation pilots increase after sunset.
BUT, Metal to metal contact is to be avoided at all costs. Slick 50 saved my assets on several occasions. Cold starting, or starting with a dry filter is slick 50s biggest advantage. The teflon coating on all metal friction surfaces avoids the inadvertent welding.
For $22 every 50k miles, it's like a sore pecker. Ya can't beat it !

slin says

it was rebuild by his brother that owned a shop that rebuilds trannies.

You mean he did addadicktomes ?
Atta boy Slin. Don't think confessing one sin will get you into heaven. You got a way to go. Me too. At One of my first jobs at a fillin station.
My hours were cut because I would not "short stick" the customers to sell oil. Or use a "razor ring" to sell fanbelts.

>

Lead in paint was also outlawed at this same time( lead of course was added to paint in the 40's after biodegradable hempseed oil was outlawed).

And yet some people want to get rid of the EPA?

Slick50 - just use a good oil and change at recommended intervals until warranty runs out. Then do whatever you want, it's your car. But I'd stay away from magic additives.

TMAC54 says

SiO2 says

After changing oil, I notice that on the first startup the oil pressure light takes longer to turn off

The teflon coating on all metal friction surfaces avoids the inadvertent welding.

Who is the honest looking fellow in the picture, is that the evil shop manager or is that you? :-)
My wife had a similar experience, her contour, (sigh, I know) tranny died. Probably due to non-adjstble bone head bands.
So the shop sold her a new tranny. When she picked the car, the drive indicator was so poorly aligned it was like on R.
The shop mngr offered to add a "light" to go on when it is in D!
She being sowhat non-assertive to manly hw just drove it with the light until she bought a new corolla.

slin says

I needed the job so I did what he asked and after a few days I felt so guilty I quit but not until I got the ladies address and phone no. and told her what happened.

Bap33 says

bob, everyone used white gas, added a little Marvel Mystery oil to lube the upper end, and even tossed in mothballs for power. Crazy guys even tipped the N can with white gas. But, Marvel was added to lube the top side in my world. Heck, I still put some MMO in the fuel

Spun bearings back in the day had as much to do with the casting and machining of parts, plus the bearing materials of the day, as they did the oils, pumps, and filters of the day, in my opinion.

I disagree about spun bearings. What back in the days are you talking about? I'm talking late 60's on. I use the exact same clevelite 77 tri metal bearings today as I dd then. The design of bearings hasn't changed since wwII when babbitt bearings were phased out. Casting and machining certainly weren't an issue on production cars of the 60's.

Naptha, Nitro, MMO, now that's pretty funny. I never realized you were a fountain of urban legends.

That's odd what you say about white gas, where I raced in the pre unleaded gas days only a couple other guys used white gas, everyone else used sunoco because the top grade had more octane. Same on the street. Under ss rules I was compression limited so I didn't need the extra octane and preferred a cleaner engine. All the circle track guys used sunoco, I used to pit for some of them so I know that to be true. It's seems strange that you have been non stop extolling the virtues of your use of leaded gas, now you say you used white gas which was unleaded. WTF? I'm confused.

I believe I will just concede to your opinion that lead in gas was wonderful stuff. After all engine life and oil change intervals tripled after it was phased out. Certainly proof positive. Plus it's really even more terrific stuff to paint your childrens toys, playroom, and bedroom with. Bonus points, if you spew enough in the air you also get to enjoy the health benefits of having heavy metals in your bloodstream. Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

It is the nature of service Industry in the states. I worked at Fry's electronics as a sales man. We had to meet a quota of warranties. In 2002, It was like $1400 per week. How the hell can one meet those quotas? Outright lying by saying "we will give you a new laptop/tv/refrigerator, if your product stops functioning". Who will buy such lies? Of course, the salesmen know those prospects.

Sure, you can blame the salesmen. In my opinion, it is not the salesmen, but the corporations themselves. Roland Arnall became a billionaire by encouraging his employees to fake everything. Of course, these corporations never say explicitly--but they put pressure on the folks by mandatory sales training at 6 am. Every salesman learns how to lie by looking at fellow 'successful' salesmen.

One can argue that these sales people should quit their jobs and find another job. Guys, there are no frigging jobs outside of cold calling sales, sales on the floor, door to door sales (recall Kirby salesmen), etc. I applied for a job at Walmart, Mountain View, in 2003; they never called me back: there was and is so much competition for all low wage jobs. In order to make $2000 to $3000 a month in the bay area and LA, one has no choice but to do what is necessary for paying rent, etc.

You know why you were asked to sign up for a credit card/store card when you shop at big chains. These people have quotas to meet like 2 card sign ups per every week. If you don't meet that quota, you will be compared with other employees, who meet that target. Fry's has that: so, employees started signing up fake people: fake/real name, with a fake social security number, just to meet their quotas. Now the management knows the game employees played. The next requirement they put was: name and ssn should match, otherwise the employee would be written up.

Read this interesting article: Confessions of a car salesman

http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/confessions-of-a-car-salesman.html

kt1652 says

her contour, (sigh, I know)

Darn it. How many miles on it when the tranny died?

im never going to a corporate auto chain again

always will deal with small one owner shop that does not advertise. Jiffy Lube can get away with scams, they have billion dollar ad budgets to get more customers.

The small guy can only exist by word of mouth as in 'go to my mechanic he is honest' - he cant advertise in any big way so he has to be honest (mostly!) or go under.

Am i wrong? it seems to be a structural issue of why you get screwed at the big chains and why they continue to get away with it and still make money/stay in business.

bob,

I already said you were king, geeeze man.

where were you in '62 bob? lol

what speed shop was near you?

and what circle track did you pit at? I am a bit of a historian in that depo. I have Racing Wheels going way way back, so I should be able to cross reference this conversation, unless your stories are not west coast based. I hope they are, because that kind of stuff is pretty darn cool. I have National Dragster from long ago too, but only like from 69-70 or so.

anyways bob, I know amoco had non-lead-added blended fuel that was great for compression and it was called white gas. Since you mention health effects, I wonder what the health effects of the chems that were used in place of lead were? THat could be a pretty good story.

and bob, if you were not such a prick about things, I think I would actually like you.

seaside says

kt1652 says

her contour, (sigh, I know)

Darn it. How many miles on it when the tranny died?

I think it had 90-100k, I never saw it.
Believe me, she would have drove that pile off the Fiscal Cliff. She said it kicked her every time she slow downed at the light! But I was tortured by a similar rental Contour from Alabama to New Orleans. The transmission searched btwn gears at 60. If I went faster the 4bangr whined like a cheap hairdryer.

Dan8267 says

elliemae says

econolube

Econolube sounds like the cheap option from a brothel's menu.

Gentle Reader,
Which brothel did you say that was?
Regards,
Roidy

The one where Ruki works.

PockyClipsNow says

im never going to a corporate auto chain again

always will deal with small one owner shop that does not advertise. Jiffy Lube can get away with scams, they have billion dollar ad budgets to get more customers.

The small guy can only exist by word of mouth as in 'go to my mechanic he is honest' - he cant advertise in any big way so he has to be honest (mostly!) or go under.

Am i wrong? it seems to be a structural issue of why you get screwed at the big chains and why they continue to get away with it and still make money/stay in business.

That's pretty much how auto chain stores get by. If you have a problem and complain to the corporate off they say "that's an independent franchise, we can't do anything".

kt1652 says

Who is the honest looking fellow in the picture, is that the evil shop manager or is that you? :-)
My wife had a similar experience, her contour, (sigh, I know) tranny died. Probably due to non-adjstble bone head bands.
So the shop sold her a new tranny. When she picked the car, the drive indicator was so poorly aligned it was like on R.
The shop mngr offered to add a "light" to go on when it is in D!

Most transmission shops are con artists. They can't fix a transmission, so they standard line is that all cars that come in always need a new transmission, even if it only needs a small part. There is way more profit in that, and people are gullible enough to believe it.

I have a 1995 Ford Escort with ~208,500 miles on it on it's original automatic transmission, and that's in Baltimore - Washington DC traffic. Right now it needs a shift solenoid which I will eventually get around to replacing, but so far I have only changed out the fluid and filter and did a TSB update (20 minute job to replace a spring and valve in the externally mounted transmission oil pump), and I have adjusted the transmission oil pressure (it uses an external cable). Once I replace the solenoid, it will work perfectly again. Most people don't maintain their automatic transmission properly and at the first sign of trouble the incorrectly assume that they need a new one. They often end up at a shop that does shoddy work or really just repairs the existing one, then cleans it and charges them for a rebuild.

kt1652 says

I think it had 90-100k, I never saw it.
Believe me, she would have drove that pile off the Fiscal Cliff. She said it kicked her every time she slow downed at the light! But I was tortured by a similar rental Contour from Alabama to New Orleans. The transmission searched btwn gears at 60. If I went faster the 4bangr whined like a cheap hairdryer.

Thanks.
You know, ford contour, mercury mistique and mercury cougar has the same platform(cdw27), the same tranny(cd4e auto) and even the engine choice is the same. All have been discontinued. Two people I knew that bought cougar/contour right after I got mine did not have them any more. Tranny failure. Both of them at arround 80K. Mine has 125K so far. Tranny is... well... not dead yet, getting kind of weird though. Only 3K in this year because of that, and now I am using it as a grocery getter.

kt1652 says

Slick50 - just use a good oil and change at recommended intervals until warranty runs out. Then do whatever you want, it's your car. But I'd stay away from magic additives.

I had also heard of hundreds of "additives", but when I learned the FAA approved the Slick 50 "treatment" I tested it about five different ways. It actually makes an immediate significant improvement.

Redlines at 11,000.

http://www.skepdic.com/slick50.html

TMAC54 says

kt1652 says

Bap33 says

where were you in '62 bob? lol

what speed shop was near you?

and what circle track did you pit at?

Not driving in 62, started in 69. started helping with race cars 2 years before I started driving. Pitted at wall stadium, wall nj, plus others around the area (flemington, new egypt, orange country, etc.) when my buddies traveled. The only team I helped out with that you would have heard of was the Blewitts, one of the grandsons was a big nascar guy but got killed a couple years ago. I raced myself at Raceway Park, englishtown NJ as my home track as well as many other tracks around the area (atco, lebanon vly , maple grove, us 13) in SS then bracket racing. Haven't been on a track since 89 when I got very seriously into windsurfer racing. More girls, less money, clean fingernails.

Sorry if calling nonsense, nonsense makes me a prick.

kt1652 says

http://www.skepdic.com/slick50.html

http://www.skepdic.com/comments/slickcom.html
As an empirical test, we also took three ordinary saloon cars to Mallory Park racing circuit. Two had been given the Slick 50 treatment. On arrival all three had the engine oil drained from the sump and were then driven around the circuit at a steady 50 mph. I recall that the untreated engine seized up within one mile, but the other two lapped continuously for 50 untroubled laps - one was being driven by rally champion Roger Clark.

I owned a small fleet of taxi cabs and occasionally a driver would continue driving after a water hose or freeze plug or something popped. Slick 50 saved those motors. For $20.00 It's cheap insurance for your family as well. Another test, Finished 6 laps of a race on a 3/8 mile dirt oval (Baylands, Fremont) with a Chevy 350. On accident, I left the radiator cap loose. The water temp was pegged. The motor got so hot it finally burnt a hole in the top of one piston. NO WEAR SURFACES WERE GAULED. Also; The layer of teflon is too thin to plug up any galley ways. I got over 250K miles out of each taxi motor.

Lets give you the benefit of the doubt that the unlubricated engine test was valid. It proves nothing in regards to long term wear reduction on bearing surfaces. They are two different types of stresses.

No oil in engine - there is no oil film anymore. There is metal to metal grinding. This is a gear test. Teflon is actually good as a gear oil additive. I wont even add it to my gear box, since synthetic gear oil is plenty good enough there.

FTC took them to task with their claims of reduced engine wear.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1997/07/slick.shtm

I cant think of a single reason why they'd settle by paying $10M in penalties and crapped on their credibility. $10M can run a lot of testing to vindicate their claims.
Slick50 is never going into my twin turbo DOHC 24valve.