Given the half dozen tasks I wish I had done in the days of yore
transmission
alignment
engine
tires
paint
I think each has a very special component, which, I posit, is the main reason most of us don't dare to do them, at home.
I'm just using logic when I say what I'm going to say, and what I say below is a summary, and it's not a statement, but more of a question as to what the MAJOR FACTOR is why we don't do these jobs at home, in general.
transmission
auto (takes a LOT of KNOWLEDGE we just don't have)
transmission
manual (takes some equipment we don't have normally)
alignment
(takes a TON of THINKING that would explode most heads)
engine
(takes a TON of down TIME that most of us just don't have)
tires
(it's just too EASY to have SOMEONE ELSE do them for us)
paint
(takes a TON of SKILL to make the job look good)
This is the first time I'm proposing this logic. What do you think about it.
What's the major single reason we don't do these jobs at home?
Your comment about automatic transmissions made me think.
Given the half dozen tasks I wish I had done in the days of yore
transmission
alignment
engine
tires
paint
I think each has a very special component, which, I posit, is the main reason most of us don't dare to do them, at home.
I'm just using logic when I say what I'm going to say, and what I say below is a summary, and it's not a statement, but more of a question as to what the MAJOR FACTOR is why we don't do these jobs at home, in general.
transmission
auto (takes a LOT of KNOWLEDGE we just don't have)
transmission
manual (takes some equipment we don't have normally)
alignment
(takes a TON of THINKING that would explode most heads)
engine
(takes a TON of down TIME that most of us just don't have)
tires
(it's just too EASY to have SOMEONE ELSE do them for us)
paint
(takes a TON of SKILL to make the job look good)
This is the first time I'm proposing this logic. What do you think about it.
What's the major single reason we don't do these jobs at home?
I've been discussing warp on rotors for many decades so you're never going to add anything to the equation until you begin to use logic on your own thought processes.
The first bit of logic *you* have to figure out is the difference between runout on the car and warp on the bench.
That's a crazy question, but it's a good first-time question.
You throw warped discs out. Period.
Technically, I guess, using logic, you "could" save them, I guess, but in the practical world, you will almost *never* be able to machine a warped disc because if it's really warped, you won't realistically have enough metal left to meet spec when you're done.
You can insult me for explaining logic to you, but anyone here who knew those cars knows what I say is a fact, where it was so *easy* to snap a lug bolt that I lost more than one before I realized they're threaded backward.
Now, you can fault me for being stupid after the first one, and I admit, it never occurred to me that lug bolts were threaded backward on *one side* of the vehicle.
But it happened, where I'm glad it did, because you want to know something? Lug bolts are *easy* to snap.
You'll never permanently bend a typical rotor on that car with lug bolts.
Then you never learned what I learned, which is that lug bolts are so easy to snap that you will never bend a rotor on that car with a lug bolt no matter how much torque you think you can apply.
Point is, that a rotor on that car isn't going to be bent by applying torque to a lug nut. You can avoid that logical fact all you want but it doesn't change that it's a logical fact.
Yes. I didn't even *think* that one side of the car was R and the other side of the car was L. I had cars before that, and cars after that, but only this one had reverse-threaded lug bolts and nuts - so I never tested lugbolt strength since then (which was in the sixties or maybe very early seventies as I recall).
Point is that it's so easy to snap a lug bolt on that car that you'll
*never* get anywhere near the torque required to permanently bend a rotor with lug bolts no matter how much torque you apply to that car.
If you can show some *other* car has superhuman tensile strength lug bolts, then let's look at your specs.
You don't provide enough data because we need to know a lot about the drums but we have been talking *ROTORS* all along, and not drums since we've been discussing disc brakes.
I don't doubt drums suffer from similar issues than disc brakes but the entire geometry is immensely different (as you know) and besides, what matters first and foremost is the tensile strength of the lug bolts anyway.
What's the typical torque applied to those lug bolts? What's the tensile strength of those lug bolts?
Without that basic information, we can't move forward on your drum brake example, even though we've been clearly talking disc brakes so far.
Classic argument which I've seen for fifty years, so it's not unexpected. Anyone faced with basic logic for the first time always *attacks* the messenger.
The good news is that you will mellow, days, months, years, and maybe decades from now such that you'll think before you start trying to defend marketing bullshit.
It happens every time. You're smart enough to learn. You won't fall into the same mudholes as you did in this thread. What you'll do is be more careful about what you say because right now you're just trying to defend your emotions.
But in another thread, years from now, you won't feel the desperate need to defend your emotions. So I think we have seen some progress with you and that's good.
I certainly learned a *lot* in this thread myself, particularly on the major factors that make an engine run longer nowadays than in the days of yore, and for that, I thank you.
You do not have to thank me for asking you to think logically though, as I understand how people defend their emotions to the last breath.
That's logical thinking. It's like buying a Hummer so that when you do have an accident, you're more likely to be safe. At least it's logically true to your thoughts.
It's the same as if you bought a dump truck as your only vehicle because 1% of the time you need to haul soil. As long as you're logically true to your own thought process, that's fine.
Most people fall for the Marketing Bullshit so they're not logically true to their own thought processes. That's the crime.
If you're thinking logically, that's fine.
Again, if *that* is what matters to you, and if you think everyone in Chicago "missed a day" because they had RWD, then you're being true to yourself.
However, if anyone else got to work on those days who had RWD vehicles, then you're not being logically true again.
It's ok to think any way you want as long as you don't lie to yourself. It's the age-old advice we gave 30 years ago to people who said the same thing.
I'm not as dumb as you need me to be in order to believe in your "bro" science. You think I haven't heard what you just said, a billion times in the past
30 years?
The moment people start throwing "bro science" at me, I know they're just flailing for lack of any reasonable logic. Happens every time when people believe in Marketing Bullshit.
Here's some "bro science" for you...
I drove RWD in the east-coast states and I've seen in the morning cars all over the median and I've watched them smash themselves against the guardrails.
All (obviously) were driving too fast for the conditions.
The proof was that I was in a 280Z for heaven's sake, and I didn't smash into the guardrail or end up backward in the median.
So your anecdote is exactly canceled by mine (which is the age-old problem with your "bro" science anecdote).
Anyone who is forced to constantly resort to "bro science" to back up their claims is simply lying to themselves about the real issue, which is the most common thing that happens when they fall for Marketing Bullshit.
And I have a bimmer RWD that uses chains in Tahoe. No problem.
Again, you're back to logic and not bro science. If for 1% of the time you don't need extra weight or chains, then that's a fine reason for having worse handling 99% of the time.
Those tradeoffs are yours to make. Just don't lie about them.
The moment you bring in "bro science", I know you're not telling yourself the truth and that you are trying to defend Marketing Bullshit.
Logical. That's perfectly reasonable.
As long as you don't try to defend Marketing Bullshit with Bro Science, you're fine with logical people like me.
I agree vehemenetly with you that when you use logic, your decisions make perfect sense.
It's when people use "Bro Science" to back up Marketing Bullshit that bothers me, because they're just lying to themselves and to everyone when they do that. It's the age-old situation that never changes.
I have an off-color joke that is often used in such situations, which is that I have this fat ugly dumb girlfriend who keeps the bed super warm at night which is why I keep her around.
My friends ask why, and I can give them the logical answer, or I can start using "Bro Science" to defend the Marketing Bullshit.
LOGIC: I can say "she's ugly 99% of the time but warm as fire 1% of the time" and that's why I keep her.
BRO SCIENCE: What? Ugly? Fat? Dumb? No way. My girlfriend is a svelte, gorgeously cute rocket scientist, she is. Why my sister told me so herself just yesterday.
As long as you use logic to back up your decisions, and not bro science to try to back up Marketing Bullshit, then I have no problem with what you say.
Nothing you have said (or even can say) isn't something they said 30 years ago, so, just like with brake warp and drilled/slotted rotors, there's nothing new that you provided that wasn't already logically debunked 30 years ago.
You keep believing it, since logic clearly isn't working within you.
Especially if you have an old car/truck. The one local shop that said they could do it on the 1970 Dodge pickup couldn't. I found another shop 20 miles away that said they could and actually did it -- I could feel it in the vastly-improved steering afterward.
I watched the guy do it. He used Channellocks during one of the procedures and was amused when I called them water-pump pliers. Is there an actual difference?
Thanks for commenting on my hypothetical summary of WHY most of us don't do those five jobs that most of us don't do at home.
transmission (auto more so than manual) +knowledge
alignment +thinking
engine +time
tires +lazy
paint +skill
Since I never did an alignment in the days of old, nor today, I have trouble feeling that inherently. I know most of my vehicles don't have caster, camber, and toe adjustments on all four wheels, so from that standpoint, alignment may be easier today.
But why would alignment be harder in days of yore, than today? (I'm not arguing ... I'm asking.)
That's an age-old question too (the name, not the use). Nobody has any business using them for alignment, but as for the name, I think we all come up with some kind of name for them. Channellocks is named by a particular brand, I think (although I use Craftsman brand pliers).
The other is named by a particular use, although my bimmer takes a special tool to hold down the waterpump.
There must be a good name for those slip-joint long-handled pliers that we can all agree on though. :)
Your point is well taken that when *deep snow* is on the ground, nobody expects you to be on time at work.
It's an unrealistic expectation.
It's *bro science* that someone implied that the only people on time at work on days with *deep snow* on the ground are those with FWD cars.
They expect us to believe their FWD bro science!
Only a fool tries to back up marketing bullshit with their bro science.
Many a fool has tried. And still tires. Even 30 years later, they still try. And yet, they lie to themselves more than they convince anyone else.
It's just not a fact that only FWD owners are on time at work when there is
*deep snow* on the roads.
Those who defend FWD on such merits are attempting to use bro science to defend their own crazy thoughts - since nobody logical will fall for bro science or anecdotal science that we've heard here.
I don't have a bug up my ass on FWD, since I already said that if you want to haul dirt 1% of the time and therefore you drive a dumptruck 100% of the time (so that you can haul dirt when you need to haul dirt), then that is a perfectly logical argument for driving a dump truck.
But if you start throwing in bro science to try to tell me that you bought the dump truck for *handling*, then you're just falling for the 30-year old marketing bullshit that FWD is for handling.
FWD is not for handling.
So my bug up my ass if for people who lie to themselves using bro science to back up marketing bullshit that they *believe*.
Oh I know they *believe* the marketing bullshit. What irks me is that they expect us to believe their "bro science".
So your *bro science* is where the bug up my ass lies. Not in FWD (which has it's merits because it's cheap, and cheap is good).
Never said anything like that. I was driving RWD. Most cars on the road were RWD. I had 300 pounds of sandbags in my trunk over the rear axle. Most people didn't have any extra weight in the trunk. Most people who tried to get to work were stuck in the snow or turned around and went back home when they realized they would probably get stuck in the snow. The whole point of relating that was 3-400 pounds of sand in the trunk makes a RWD car a "snow handler." Likewise, a couple guys standing on the rear bumper. When we had bumpers.
I never said nobody else got to work. Logically, you're not making sense.
Of course you haven't. It's the first time I wrote it here.
"Bro science" is your own marketing bullshit. The reason I mentioned 1978-1979 is it's an extreme example of your repeatedly claimed 1% being wrong. The real percentage is - including rain - might average close to 10% of the time I'm driving in conditions where FWD is advantageous. The most dangerous times of my driving. Without 300 pounds of sand in my trunk. Whereas RWD provides NO handling advantage at ANY time for me. I'm not a car racer.
Again, you're not thinking logically. Your trips to Tahoe don't equate to me living my driving life where it snows 4 months of the year.
You must be a car racer. I don't have worse handling with FWD. Better handling in fact.
You'd be easier to get along with if you didn't assume people are spouting "bro science" and lying to themselves.
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