|
Midget Fist posted:I found when I lived in the US that tons of people didn't use their parking brakes. You could tell when they parked because they would take their foot off the brake and it would roll forward until the transmission caught it. One of our friends eventually started to use hers to 'humour' me because I harrassed her about it so much. I can always tell when someone doesn't use their parking brake because their vehicle lurches forward every so often as the engine is slowly turned by the wheels. Usually it's a car but I saw a roadwork / construction truck parked near me lurching forward recently.
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2013 08:13
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:05 |
|
|
some texas redneck posted:
Bang Me Please posted:Customer states vehicle pulls to the right after alignment. Recheck alignment for 0.0 FRH Depends on the place. Last place I got the Fairlane aligned he told me to bring it back in a couple of weeks so he could check the tyres wear patterns and recheck it on the alignment machine to make sure it's still true. Before that they already had a repeat customer. On headlights I'm always worried about loving up with the Niva. I've already done a mod that moves the main switch to the instrument cluster instead of next to the heater fan, but the park / low / high three state lever is parallel with the indicators right behind it, so a bit of clumsy fingerwork while turning can either turn off / put the headlights in high. Terrible design. I'm enjoying these tales of woe. Besides not being a real mechanic I just don't hear these kinds of stories that often this side of the pond, although I'm convinced with the new generation of people that only know how to operate their iThings stories are bound to be abundant.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2013 23:04
|
|
|
some texas redneck posted:I wound up with a flat today. Would you wander around with a bolt through your foot? I can help you find out the answer if you want? Going back about 10 years there was someone I knew doing an I.T. degree who had to call NRMA to change a tyre because he had no idea how to. How can someone training in a tech related industry not even attempt to figure it out. It makes me even sadder than people who drive around their car with a "Low oil light" on.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2013 06:29
|
|
why don't you just put air in it?
Because it has a hole in it. See where this bolt is sticking out?
|
Saga posted:The instructions are in every manual for every car I've ever owned. And it needs muscle only if you've lost the jack and have to do it Superman the Movie style. People are just lame. Or if Donkey Kong put the wheels on last. I've had to take cars to tyre shops a couple of times because nothing I've had could budge the nuts. now the comment about people being able to change a tyre, that wasn't aimed at me was it? Because I was shocked that someone training for a technical field at university wouldn't even try to figure it out. I'm probably as  as hell but I always like to read the manual for new to me things. Now I say that I have one of the copies of the Niva's Operation manual sitting in front of me. Besides the sometimes questionable translation it's a shame car manuals aren't like that any more. It's vaguely reminiscent of a 1950's VW manual but a bit more hardcore. It has instructions on everything from opening the window to bleeding and adjusting the brakes, tuning the engine etc.The service manual is far more detailed, has many more things and does most things differently but the operation manual is designed so farmer Joe can keep his ride running and know how to look after it. I've even been a little nonplussed by some things in manuals. The user manual for the Fairlane is next to useless and doesn't even seem to give all the values I'm after, but does have a few useful things like a section on towing. In the end it comes down to needs. Most people don't need to know anything to operate their car, or at least that's what they believe.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2013 22:05
|
|
|
Brigdh posted:To be fair, the manufacturers are not helping. Every time I pickup my rental for business travel, I have to spend 10 minutes finding the damned headlight switch since it seems like putting it on a stalk in a standard location has become passe. On the dash is a really common location in Australia too. But generally speaking it's a big knob just to the right of the instrument cluster in plain sight.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2013 05:03
|
|
|
Falken posted:
It's not hard. I've been switching between RHD / LHD layouts since I began to drive and I still do it daily.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2013 21:43
|
|
|
johnny sack posted:What in the hell is this craziness? Fond memories.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2013 00:39
|
|
|
Previa_fun posted:Those single spoke steering wheels make me feel vaguely uncomfortable when I look at them. I just had to go check but our Magna had / has (Car's long dead but still here) a single spoke wheel. The stereo controls were on the center of the wheel too. Also of not it didn't have stalks. It had a couple of big lumps sticking out each side of the column. There was a tab for the indicator, and knobs for other functions. It also had a slider with a needle for climate control on there too... oh and cruise control. Essentially they crammed everything on to those square protuberances. Found a photo of the same model, rehosted. 
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2013 02:54
|
|
|
yesterday evening I had to do the groceries and run a few other errands including finding a cordless phone to replace the mysteriously missing one. It's always a harrowing affair so I was exhausted and just bought takeaway for the family. When I was going to pick it up I was driving behind a special snowflake. Driving behind them on the main street they were going 50km/h which is the limit. No worries. Then they slowly started to slow down until we were going less than 30km/h then the turned where I needed to turn. They continued to get slower until I was in 1st, barely idling and considering stopping briefly to knock back to low range. They turned just before I needed to pull up and they stopped. Urgh. Why do people bother driving when it's faster to be on foot.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2013 01:23
|
|
|
The Niva has the wiring for a rear fog light. It's just the light and the switch on the dash aren't there. I've considered other alternate uses but can't think of a good one.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2013 11:33
|
|
|
dissss posted:Where I live we have annual safety inspections that includes a check of headlight aim. The Niva's headlights look all cockeyed but I parked it in front of the shed and they actually are going where they should be. I have absolutely no idea what the deal is. I also find low beam is easier to see with than high beam. Part of me feels like they were wired backwards but I can neither confirm nor deny this. Nobody has ever flashed me. It just seems to be a better scatter on low.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2013 03:10
|
|
|
Cakefool posted:Just a random suggestion but yours is an rhd conversion, I'm not sure whether they used different lamp units or just re-aimed the lhd units. Not the original headlights. It would have had open beams when it was made, but at some point fitted with sealed beams so I really have no idea.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2013 22:56
|
|
|
A few days ago I noticed the ute (it's either a nissan or a lowlux. Don't pay much attention) that a P plate neighbour owns parked in their front yard with the left front nicely crushed in. No P plates on it any more for some reason. I'm not complaining. It doesn't look bad enough that anyone was injured but at least I won't be sharing the road with him at least in that vehicle for a while. He drove like a dick around town. Not as bad as the lady in the blue XR6 that ignores school speed zones zones and school crossings. My family isn't the only one that's nearly been ran over by her. The police have a presence there when school starts / leaves so she must have been done at some point, but she still does it. gently caress some people, seriously.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2013 01:10
|
|
|
Huge_Midget posted:Yeah, it says merging vehicles can use them to merge for 50 feet. Being generous and doubling that to 100 feet is still well within the realm of acceptable to me. It's the loving soccer moms in their SUVs that will literally go a block and a half trying to merge that make me want to murder them. That poo poo is why I hate driving the Fairlane. Not only is it long and low, it doesn't have the greatest visibility off to the sides and it's one of those cars that seems to provoke people to block me merging. People also seem to sit hard up its rear end no matter what speed I'm driving too. No problems with either at all with the Niva. Checked both speedometers with GPS too. Some cars just seem to bring out the inner rear end in a top hat in people. Like big black SUVs with stick families on the rear window.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2013 21:34
|
|
|
Technically this doesn't fit here because it's not a road. More than once during business hours when there are many people wandering around the mall I've seen stray cars driven through there. It's pretty obvious cars have no business being there. Yet the occasional person somehow misses this. Some honk at people that dare to be in their way. Others look confused and just crawl along looking at the shops while waiting for people to get out of their way.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2013 22:11
|
|
|
some texas redneck posted:My dashcam showed up today. Holy crap that's good quality. What sort of recording time or mb/min or whatever does it get?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2013 13:01
|
|
|
xzzy posted:This is how Russia finally beats America, by spreading their addiction of dashcams to us capitalist pigs. Isn't it an insurance thing over there?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2013 21:03
|
|
|
We had to do everything manually for calculus. Pen and paper. Nothing else. I was lucky enough to have a proper mathematician for a lecturer who could actually teach. Looks like he's been in the game for a while too. I just searched for him and found an article he wrote for SMH which has the old name for CSU. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RNRYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HOUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5082%2C5558906 Dude really loves him some math.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2013 03:18
|
|
|
Well, it's not much but there's a person driving a Yaris or something that seems to have a deathwish. They've nearly been splattered in the main street reversing out from the angle parking a couple of times that I've seen. Logically this means it happens a lot. First time they start reversing out when there's a semi bearing down on them. Lots of honking and brake locking ensued. They pulled in a little. As soon as the truck had passed they continued to reverse out again without looking. This time it was a car that nearly ate them. I've had to swerve a couple or times to dodge this person too. How is it people like this seem to have pristine cars? I mean my cars even cop damage when they are stationary. Parked in the same street, a tradie was wandering a long with a long piece of wood with nails removed from a renovation. He's not paying attention. It swings and hits the front of my car leaving a nice dimple and taking off paint. He doesn't even slow down, the dickbag. Wasn't anything I could really do about the whole thing either 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2013 21:18
|
|
|
InitialDave posted:I agree, it's only the consequences for my licence that prevent me cruising at a ton-twenty in those conditions. Not the unlubed baton, car confiscation and massive fine too?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2013 00:56
|
|
|
Might as well toss this in. It's very common here to have people driving at 80km/h maximum when the limit is 100, or occasionally 110 if there are any of those zones actually left. Roads, even highways are usually just one lane each way too. This can cause traffic to really back up sometimes because it's not always possible to see. The person might be towing a caravan or trailer, or perhaps heat haze is bad enough that it's too hard to tell if there's oncoming traffic. I seem to be one of the last people in existence that will pull over enough to let people see what's coming when I'm one of the slowies, and pull over completely occasionally to let people pass. Part of it is also people driving at 80km/h in a desperate attempt to save fuel. People take that 80km/h as the most efficient speed as gospel. Sure there's less wind resistance but gearing has a role too. For example I know that the Fairlane gets better economy at 100km/h than 80km/h because it has a trip computer with the whole instant and average economy thing. But this also comes back to the octane penny pinchers too. I got better economy pulling a plant machinery trailer with the Niva on it while running 98 than I do without a trailer running 91. People will do anything in the false pursuit of economy.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2013 20:03
|
|
|
Ferremit posted:I had a delicious bit of Schadenfreude this morning on the way to work. I'm driving along, on single lane hills roads doing the speed limit when a wanker in a lowered commodore comes speeding up behind me, total spankers car, lowered, lovely body kit, massive chrome rims, HID fogs on (clear morning in summer) music up so loud I can hear it over my engine when I pull up at an intersection. This makes me so happy. Every single time I have someone hard up my arse while driving it's a Commode with a body kit and various accessories. Not the same one either. At first I was wondering if there is a common fault with their speedometer because after being an irritating dickflop for ages they tear off at probably 140km/h+ along the reasonably rough, one lane each way, heavily policed road. I hope they find policemen with unlubed truncheons waiting for them. ^^^ Yeah them too. Especially.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2013 01:41
|
|
|
SFH1989 posted:What is with the desire to sit up high in everything? Better visibility? Disregarding potential height advantage over other vehicles, a little extra height goes a long way when it comes to seeing what's going on.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2013 21:14
|
|
|
Last week two separate instances of cars driving along really slowly on the verge indicating right (I live in a land where cars drive on the left) So I slow down to let them on to the road, because experience has taught me that people doing this like to try to make the cars mate forcibly. Both cases the car just keeps driving along slowly while indicating to get on the road until in both cases the driver gave what I percieved to be a rather irritated "go past" gesture out the window. Goddamnit don't drive there and indicate to merge if that's not what your intent is. Also I had a highway buttrider. I ended up slowing down to about 40km/h before they eventually went past. Don't loving tailgate me on a multi lane road! No-one else on the road either of course. They would have been sorry shortly after in the hills. The Fairlane doesn't like hills.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2013 23:13
|
|
|
ijustam posted:Buses have this, but for railroad tracks. The bus I drove was an automatic, so I had to just sorta creep along at 1000 rpm because the "no shifting over railroad tracks" includes automatics I guess it's the same everywhere. I remember no shifting over railway tracks or at intersections. Because when you are out of gear you are out of control. And the whole buses must stop before rail crossings thing, which didn't apply to trucks. Passed my drivers theory and practical no worries for car. For truck passed the written but failed the practical first time. There's one set of lights out of town in an 80km/h zone with long greens and a stupidly short amber. It changed at the exact wrong time and I was forced to blow through. No way in hell I could have stopped a freightliner loaded with concrete blocks in time. The instructor had to get me to pull over and he had to drive back after. Regulations and all that. But he said that in real world conditions I did what anybody would have done, but he had to fail me because of test conditions. Part of the training was reading traffic, especially at that stupid intersection to try to predict when the light change would be. Not much traffic at that time though. D'oh! Speaking of which, there was a pretty high noncompletion rate for that course. The people we don't share the road with. Be grateful some of of these people aren't driving heavyweight murder machines around.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2013 23:23
|
|
|
I saw something new today. Wish I had a dashcam. There was a car driving beside a horse. When I got closer it was a little more than that. The lady driving the car had one hand out the window, holding the horse's reins.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2014 04:36
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Maybe I've just lived in a lot of rural places, but I've DONE that. When you lose a section of fence a have a few horses scattered about sometimes it's the easiest way to deal with it on your own. Same here but I've never seen that. Your reason is sound though. That never occurred to me. Location was a little odd though. She was maybe 100-200m from the edge of town heading towards it. Hermaphrodite posted:Last year I saw a trophy wife in a Lexus suv following her little girl as she rode her bicycle (with training wheels) down my street. I've seen this too. Pretty regularly. Can't recall the vehicle though. Just idling along beside the kid. Lucky there's next to zero traffic because most people just walk here.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2014 21:45
|
|
|
You Am I posted:In my state there is a huge mixture of power/light poles, ranging from the old wood ones, to concrete "insta-death" ones and the hallow aluminium ones that sit on a flange near the bottom and held on with four large bolts and nuts. There is an old farm road near my place which is now a main access road for large housing developments these days which has a number of wood and concrete power poles within a metre of that road scares the poo poo out of me. If I recall the main road heading from T'town to Preston, before the railway crossover clusterfuck has wood poles hard up against the side of the road. On topic, most of the people I share the road with drive maybe 20km/h, have no concept of how right of way or turn signals work. Why yes, many of them are ancient and driving cars I'm pretty sure they have owned since the '70s, and kept in excellent condition might I say. But I also see tractors, mobility scooters and the occasional golf buggy on the streets around home too. Once I got to see an elderly farmer driving a really neat looking electric quad on the pavement too. Nothing really offensive locally. Just thought it'd make a change from the ranting. Although, there is one thing that does piss me off. An entire group of people walking side by side toward / away from school. The group consists of parents and children, spanning all the way from the side of the road and across the lane. I think it's great that you can find the time to walk to school but please don't make me idle along for half a block behind you before you decide to move. You know drat well I can't go around you because there's trees in the middle of the road.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2014 13:14
|
|
|
Geoj posted:gently caress you if you're part of a group walking abreast and blocking an entire street, especially when there's a perfectly good sidewalk. I'd put people like this in the same category as those who cross feeder lanes in a parking lot at the most oblique angle possible while cars are trying to move through. That's exactly it. Just widely spaced abreast. Nobody in front or behind. There is a perfectly good pavement on the other side of the street. It doesn't bother me that they choose not to use that. The streets are pretty wide and usually even a group of people wandering along causes no issue. There is no need to be a walking roadblock.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2014 22:51
|
|
|
ijustam posted:School bus was picking up kids this morning and opposite direction stopped, as they're supposed to. Everyone traveling towards the stoppage slammed on their brakes as they didn't see the stoppage occur, 3 cars had to go onto the shoulder, and a dump truck almost took the cake. I'm going to get rich selling a software / hardware combination to the masses. it includes a forward mounted bluetooth camera, and a program with SMS and facebook connectivity which has a background with a live feed from the camera. PATENT PENDING People piloting huge slabs of mass need to pay more attention to their surroundings.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2014 23:13
|
|
|
I saw another one yesterday. A young girl pedalling along on her bike with who I assume to be a parent driving along beside her, treating me to a brake light disco and a nice weave all over the place all the way across town. I got past eventually when I was at a block without trees in the middle of the street. When they reached the block before school the car turned off to go wherever. So they don't trust their child to ride in a straight line down nearly empty streets that are massively wide and have perfect visibility, yet they are happy to leave them before a prick of an intersection at the busiest time of day? And of course be a rolling traffic hazard along the way too.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2014 22:08
|
|
|
jamal posted:
How do the two relate?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2014 04:38
|
|
|
FogHelmut posted:Last night on 76 through Philly, guy behind me had his high beams on, guy in front of me had no lights on. So on average there is no problem! Confessions: On trips I drive with earbuds in to listen to music. Technically a no-no but the roads are soooo boooooooring. No hills, pretty much all straight lines, maybe a car every 1/2 hour or so. No ambulance is sneaking up on me out there. Also when I'm driving the Niva I don't, or rather can't use the side mirrors. They are tiny, flop if someone looks at them funny and just generally useless. On the bright side there are no real blind spots. It's really quite great for visibility. It's the only reason I haven't been all "OHHH poo poo!!! I'M GONNA DIE" with them like I have with other cars if they got broken or whatever. I also caused issues on a recent trip to a place which I'm sure had a traffic engineer who was a sadist or something. Sorry, people of Albury / Wodonga. But you have some really hosed up intersection designs which I'm sure I will see nowhere else, ever. At least I didn't actually run into any one... although I did come close a few times. And also buzzed blocks like a blowfly because which lane for what direction wasn't visible until it was time to go straight / turn. A trip of angry yelling and swearing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2014 00:05
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:05 |
|
|
I saw this today after hearing the notification in the supermarket. That Wrangler is parked.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2015 04:49
|
|