One of my favorite sayings is “time is money, and money is time.” It can be applied to so many parts of life. I can spend a bunch of money on a mechanic and have more time to spend with my wife, or I can spend tons of time fixing something myself to save money. David recently experienced this as he decided to save money by moving by himself with a U-Haul trailer rather than hiring movers. Yet, was it all bad?
In some ways, yes. David got to learn that furniture seemingly weighs a million pounds, mattresses don’t like being moved, and that a kid complicates everything. Our poor hero probably sliced a year off of his life with all of the stress. But you know what? It was still gratifying because David got to put his K1500 to work. Musicman27 understands:
Sometimes doing crap the long, hard, or roundabout way, just to see something do what its supposed to do, is awesome.
I also hate moving by myself, but you bet I have the biggest smile on my face when I pull away in a Smart carrying an apartment on its back.
We also wrote about how the Wienermobile is going racing at Indy. Amazingly, that wasn’t something that Jason wrote about, but Matt. TheDrunkenWrench:
Post-race interview:
“How much did you win by?”
“Not much, just the tip.”
Zeppelopod:
I saw it, he won by a country mohel!
TheDrunkenWrench gets a second nomination for this one:
Every national Pizza joint has to field their best delivery driver. In whatever vehicle they normally perform said deliveries in.
I can’t wait to see Kia Rondos with exhaust leaks racing against Civics with fart cans and Walmart wheels.
DriveSheSaid:
Despite their various placements, there will be only wieners and no losers here!
KITT222 aka The Vibe Guy aka Nick remembered that we said there would be big news today:
All the speculation of Singer, Keonigsegg, etc and it ends up being Wienermobiles is the payoff I needed.
Jason wrote about how his hometown had a single VW Rabbit as a police car. Comme çi, come alt:
I don’t see the point in having one Rabbit in the fleet. Two, however, will multiply to hundreds in no time.
Sadly, the joke falls apart because of Oldcurmodgeon’s hilarious comment:
Jason, Watauga Dr. here, GPD had 2 VW Rabbits. One silver and one brown. The brown one nailed me on Pisgah Church and Battleground. It took him to Martinsville Rd. before he got me. Of course, I was sitting in the bank parking lot (probably wasn’t there when you lived in Gboro!) waiting on him. He got out laughing because I was waiting for him in my 530i.
Slow police cars are hilarious. Have a great evening, everyone!
Regarding the delivery driver races:
When you spend time in a relatively wealthy college town you see some weird stuff. When I was in Ann Arbor there was a Korean joint that had a long-standing driver with an STI (and not an old, clapped out one). You’d see Lexus RXs doing Dominos runs. I would imagine (and growing up a bit poor, all I can do is imagine) that if my parents could afford to send me off to college with a nice car they could throw me $75/week so I didn’t have to deliver pizzas.
This very reason is why I like older technology and analog stuff. It may not work as smoothly or as efficiently, but that’s part of its charm.
And How the heck did that get comment of the day!?
I mean, my one life goal has been completed, but NGL I never thought this would be the comment that got me it lol.
It’s always the comments you least respect, or something like that.
Its also interesting that this happened on the day i’m changing over to another email (Schools shutting down the school email I used) and updating my username to match my other accounts.
I noticed the notifications are from a different person. Goddamn Synths.
Really wish I could just plop in a photo for my pfp instead of doing the gravatar crap again.
I was always planning to do this, but I’m glad I waited since now I got to screw with the editor. 😀
Being that the Smart was rated for towing 330kg in Canada (at least for the first gen) and, as far as I recall, 0kg in the US as the American model had not been rated for towing – what would insurance say should the Smart get into a collision (even if not your fault)?
Insurance would probably be quite cross about it. Sort of wild that U-Haul not only installed the hitch but also rented the trailer and told me it could tow 2,000 pounds. Clearly, they just took the hitch rating and applied it to the whole car, because there’s not a chance in the world that you’re towing 2,000 pounds with a 2nd-gen Smart and not breaking something. The trailer in the photo was about 1,100-ish pounds. Handled well!
When I worked at Uhaul the system would tell you what trailers you could rent out based on the tow vehicle. I thought it was pretty comprehensive at the time, but it’s not impossible you were the first person to show up with a Smart.
I wonder if anyone has been there more recently and can verify? Circa 2011 you were still not allow to rent ANY trailer to ANY Ford Explorer, regardless of age. I would think now, over a decade later, they allow newer models?
What is time again clip from Volunteers:
https://youtu.be/8Moh7DXMk8g?si=usMJKHUO6vSLJAc5
regarding Oldcurmudgeon’s comment, I did wonder just how much adding turbos to those diesel Rabbits helped their acceleration. I well remember my Floridian Grandmother stating, with strained voice and hands clenching the tablecloth, that they would never drive their diesel Rabbit up to Virginia again. As she was a phlegmatic Norwegian, I now wish I could have heard the whole tale. She declined to clarify at the time—possibly protecting marital harmony.
Having driven several turbodiesel A1 and A2 Jettas, the answer to that question is A LOT. No comparison, the turbos are much, much quicker cars. To the point I would actually call them quick for the day, even compared to the stock 1.6l gas cars. Similar horsepower, waaaay more torque once the turbo got wound up.
Not that I ever thought the non-turbo VW diesels to be “too slow” – those cars weigh about as much as a packet of Kleenex after all. SLOW is a battlewagon Mercedes w114 200D. A car where you can drink half a can of soda before it’s time to shift out of first gear. My 2.3l Peugeot 504Ds were rockets by comparison. Albeit much of the difference was in the lower gearing of the frogmobiles, since they weren’t meant to cruise the Autobahn for weeks on end.
I’ll take your word on the 114 200D. In my 617.952 phase, I test drove a 240D—and promptly noped out as I like to cruise the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway.
I literally got walked by a city bus up to 30mph.
That’s when I decided I wanted turbos if I was going to keep making my own fuel from fryer oil
Oh trust me, the 200D is notably slower than a 240D. But MANY of these cars are slower than the should be due to lack of maintenance. When I bought my ’79 300TD (non-turbo, T is for touring) it was slower than death. Turned out that nobody had ever adjusted the Rube Goldberg throttle linkage, and it was only getting about 3/4 throttle foot to the floor. And the transmission was out of adjustment, so it was shifting way too soon. And the valves needed adjusting. And the prechambers were carboned up. And the air filter was half clogged.
People buy into the myth of “diesels run forever with no maintenance” and the cars go to hell. Got everything to spec and the car was entirely adequate in acceleration, and cruised easily on the highway at 80+. I don’t have much need for straightline speed, and find that even in that car or the 57hp Peugeot 504D I would leave most traffic for dead around town. I would just use all the available performance, all the time. I don’t find much point in buying 300hp and never using more than half throttle, though that is certainly the American way. A properly running 240D is entirely adequate around town, and will cruise easily at 75 all day long.
I grew up in air-cooled VWs, not American iron, so the concept of adequate acceleration was not foreign. I wanted that 240D mostly because of the manual transmission, but its sloth made it not worth the asking as decent 617s could be had for $350-500 out of backyards at the time (that’s what I paid for 3 of my 5 DDs across 2 decades). I think they wanted $1500–and that was substantial to me at the time.
I miss the presence of my lowered 300TD on color-matched 16” Ronal wheels from an AMG, but I pilot a work van all day, so want something a bit sharper in the turns on my own time now. They certainly taught me the standard of serviceability: I will never forget the notch in the frame on the passenger side which allows one to remove the starter after some manipulation and turning the steering wheel to the left. So satisfying 🙂
A properly running 240D should be right on par with a 1600cc Beetle. A little more power, but a lot more weight. Adequate, and very similar in that top speed is cruising speed, and you just drive them foot to the floor at all times. But like I said, most of them, especially cheap ones, are so far out of whack that they are awful. Gas cars tend to either run or not, there is more leeway to run smoothly, but not make any power with old diesels. A bad gas motor will just run badly.
But for sure, even the non-turbo fives are notably faster, and the turbos are in a different league all-together. Every hp counts when you are 50-125hp in a 3200lb+ car. To the point that Peugeot specified the power output with and without the cooling fan engaged for my 504D – and you could *definitely* feel it when that kicked in – it made as much difference as turning the A/C on and off, maybe more.
Greensboro got the fun stuff. I don’t think Kernersville (right next door to the left on your map) got anything quite that adventurous…
Hooray! Mercedes lets me have TWO wieners!
Double wiener all the way!
Two wieners?! Are you a platypus?
You caught me, I’m actually Agent Perry.
Doofenshmirtz!