Author Topic: F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead  (Read 2750 times)

gillstone

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F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead
« on: December 16, 2014, 08:25:33 AM »
So I earned my facepunches this morning.  I've been biking to work through the winter, even when -20F.  Today I decided that since I have a meeting across town at the end of the day I should take my car instead.  It would have added a staggering 5 miles to my total daily commute, but I felt lazy.

Because my car sits idly for weeks at a time it had been through a couple freeze and thaw cycles this winter and had to be chipped open.  After prizing my door open I had to spend 15 minutes scraping windows and clearing snow.  In the time I spent "being lazy" I could have done most of my extended commute.

Fuck that. I'm riding my bike next time.


kendallf

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Re: F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2014, 08:35:11 AM »
Congrats on riding in those conditions!  Funny how much work it is to get a car ready for the road in intense cold/snow..

My daughter is at Michigan State in Lansing, and has used her car so little since the start of the term it's still on the same tank of gas.  The battery died in the cold last month, and she finally got somebody to jump start it, drove it to Autozone and put a new battery in it this past weekend.  Her longboard gets a lot more use.. which I'm very happy about!   :-)

MayDay

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Re: F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2014, 09:52:40 AM »
If it had been a few weeks, it probably was good to drive it, though, right?

gillstone

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Re: F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2014, 10:53:40 AM »
If it had been a few weeks, it probably was good to drive it, though, right?

Kind of no....It has an oil leak in the intake manifold gasket.  In a normal car I could fix it with $50 in tools, a new part and a few hours of work.  But in a 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix its absurdly complicated so it's $950 to a mechanic.  The nature of the leak is such that if I don't drive it, it doesn't leak oil.  Not driving it lets me accrue interest on the money until I either sell it for a wooden nickel and a button or trade it in for pocket lint.


kendallf

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Re: F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2014, 10:59:15 AM »
BTW, if it's a 3800, which I assume it is, the intake manifold really isn't hard to pull.  Even if it's a supercharged car, pulling the blower and the lower intake is maybe a two hour job.  I had two supercharged Regal GSs and did this a couple of times.  I really hated doing plugs on those motors; the easiest way involved pulling the front motor mount, jacking up the motor/transaxle from the bottom to give more room in the back cylinder bank.. and even then it was a sqeeze.

eil

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Re: F*$k it! I should have ridden my bike instead
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2014, 11:37:30 AM »
Protip: If your clown car is going to be sitting for some time, be sure to dump some StaBil (or generic equivalent, if there is one) into the gas tank on every fill-up. Gas starts to go bad if it sits for more than a month or two and can gum up fuel lines, the pump, filter, maybe injectors. Bad gas also doesn't burn as efficiently, so you'll have you running and mileage problems too. Treating the gas could save you some expensive (or at least time-consuming) maintenance later on down the road.