Category: Greg’s Stuff (Page 10 of 12)

A hot engine in the winter is your friend,
In the summer, it?s your deadly enemy?..

Cars won?t go away till they?re fixed?

What breaks on cars these days is on the molecular level,
And I can?t see down that far?

It takes 10 years to get some idea of what you are doing..
And 20 years to get good at it?

You have to find out for yourself what the customer screwed up on his car?
He won?t tell you?

10,000 miles or more is too long to go on an oil change?
No matter what the manufacturers insist on?
(Your engine won?t blow up till it?s out of warranty?)

The cars engine compartment never gives back a dropped tool?

If you drop a small part on the floor that parts doesn?t have?
You won?t find it for 3 days

You can?t teach a guy not to break plastic parts (such as dash trim)
It?s a learned skill?

You?re gonna get cut and bloody?
But you do get good at getting blood out of upholstery..

Rust never sleeps?

greg

In my last blog on this subject, 2009 VW ROUTAN.. Sheep in Wolfsburg clothing?, this whole rebadging thing has been bugging me. I work in a European car (Saab) dealership and here is how I see what this means to them.

The mechanics that work there have probably been doing VW’s for most of their working lives. There are some gypsy mechanics , but for the most part, you make the best money when you know the product well, and that usually takes years. These guys are immersed in VW culture, including how their manuals are written and how their tools work.

Now, here comes the Chrysler minivan…. along with it comes a huge pile of tools (none of which work on their normal cars) and computer manuals (none of which translates to how they have learned to do things) and scan tools (none of which will also work on their normal cars, or even work the same).

So now these guys are the guys that are going to service your new minivan. They obviously have mechanical skills or they wouldn’t be working there. So they will get rushed training to quickly get up to speed, and here comes the new minivan on friday at 4:50 pm with a check engine light on, and a customer who wants it taken care of quickly and be on his way. Good Luck!

So, in the end, this minivan thing will go on for a few years, it will never really generate enough sales to keep it going, and VW and Chrysler will eventually drop it. The few cars that they made will drift back to Chrysler dealers or independents to be fixed. If there is a market for a VW minivan, and they engineered their own, it could have been a contender…

greg

Rat rods are the latest thing in hot rods. A return to the pure roots of hot rodding, when guys on a shoestring tried to make their heaps go faster and look cool. This could even be considered a lifestyle. Low buck.. cutting and welding is just your time. The rougher the better. Check out more rat rods in the gallery…

The Pumpkin Run is the premier street rod show in southern ohio… The Clermont county fairgrounds are swamped with a bewildering variety of iconic American art. And you can drive it to…
See you there.. Oct 3,4 and 5th…

greg

Modern convertibles are one touch affairs where you press the down button, on the dash or remote, and the electronics do everything to get your top and windows down and stowed away. This activity is almost breathtaking to watch, the hydraulic and electric dance of motors, servos, sensors and cylinders.

But this array of electronics and motors doesn’t come cheap. Most Saab convertibles (for instance) come with 5 year and 50,000 mile warranties and the factory guarantees your top will work during that period. These top designs are usually farmed out to companies like AST and are not designed in house by the manufacturers. And practically all modern convertibles are done this way.

Now that your car is out of warranty and the top breaks (which it will) what are you facing? Parts are extremely expensive… even aftermarket parts on the internet don’t give you much of a break. Top cylinders are usually $500 bucks apiece, and where they use motors, they are usually more, around a grand apiece, and there are at least 4 of them in the usual top. Potentiometers and sensors are all over a hundred each, and there are lots of them. If you have a tonneau cover that covers up your top automatically, there are more motors and cylinders involved. Then there’s the guy that’s gonna put it all together for you, he usually comes in at a hundred dollars an hour.

I’ve always been a kind of minimalist kinda guy, and I was always a fan of how Fiat did their tops in the 70’s. It took one hand to put it up or down. Nothing to break. Unfortunately there was plenty other things on a Fiat to break. Buying an older used convertible can easily turn into an expensive purchase.

greg

What is VW thinking? I’ve seen a lot of funny stuff from manufacturers but this is hilarious This is not a microbus but a Chrysler town and country minivan with a VW nose hung on it. Not only is the body Chysler stuff but the drivetrain also. I guess this is one way to make the minivan trendy.

Why couldn’t VW’s engineers come up with their own bus. (My own theory is that all the good German engineers already work for Mercedes and BMW, and there aren’t any good ones left over.) Admittedly, Chrysler has got the minivan market down, and do build a pretty good product, but this global borrowing of everybodys stuff is making me woozy. With Ford transmissions made in Japan and Harley engines designed by Porsche, I guess it’s not that much of a stretch to rebadge an old Dodge minivan. But why would VW cheapen their mystique on an old bus?

greg

p.s. I just saw septembers issue of Autoweek, and in it is an add with Brooke Sheilds touting the German engineering of the Routan. The only German engineering I see is the grill.

But it is a nice grill…