Dumbest thing you've heard

I find that most people that I've ever had 'car' conversations with are so full of crap that I'm leery to even touch the subject.

DirtyBird222 wrote:

Jensenman wrote: I've done some stupids myself. Like the time I was covering a major service with a customer, she wanted everything possible done to her Rodeo because she was giving it to her daughter. Okay, works for me. So I get her approval for everything, including an automatic transmisison service, we go over fluid and filter and all that. She's all about that, happy I recommended it. I get in the car... ... it's a 5 speed. :oops:

One of my current service advisors sells some of the oddest E36 M3. Diff services on civics, Diff flushes on S2000s, and so on. As much as I would like the half an hour pay diff services do I can't do that to people and simply tell the advisor he's an f'ing moron. I also upsold a trans service (drain and fill trans fluid) because this lady had 90k on her accord and trans fluid was black. She insisted on watching me do this and then started bitching saying she was an artists and knew colors. Said the black goop coming out of the transmission was "more" red than the new fluid that was ready to go in. Did I mention she was about 80 years old and wore binoculars for glasses?

People like that crack me up. I have a regular who is an artist, she will tell you up front she has never held a job. Her husband died suddenly 4 or 5 years ago, left her a wad of cash and a big beach house. She makes a point of reminding everyone around her that she doesn't have time to mess with something so pedestrian as a car because she's an artist. Then she insists on going over the work done 'to make sure we did it right'. Fine by me, I just get done what it needs and take the $.

DirtyBird222 wrote: Canadian bacon is good, but you have to call it ham and put Maple syrup on it. Personally I'm a fan of regular bacon, especially chicken fried bacon.

Chicken fried bacon? You BREAD it?

BREADED bacon? Man, that sounds as bad as something I saw on TV a few weeks ago....chocolate-dipped bacon. And no, I don't mean strips of fried bacon that have been dipped in chocolate, but SLABS of bacon (3 or 4 inches wide and 6 or 7 inches long) dipped in chocolate.

At one autocross in 2005 when running my STS 91 Civic Si at one of our mall parking lots I was FTD and fastest PAX. I pull into pits and I'm swamped with people.

Mind you the mall autocrosses pulls out all sorts of rednecks, hill billys, muscle heads, "know-it-alls", ricers, etc...

One guy: Holy that is the biggest intercooler I have ever seen. Me: Umm that is the radiator.

Another guy: wow those Faulken (his pronouncation) Azeeniees are fast R tires. Me: They are actually street tires :)

Another guy: you have alot of stickers on your car (snickering) you must have like 500hp Me: Actually they are my sponsors who help me with my autocross season. Guy blinks in disbelief.

Another guy: you know you would be faster if you used your e-brake to get the tail to slide out. Me: that is drifting not autocross. Doing that is the slowest way around the course.

Another guy: does your car VTAK? Me: actually no this is the 91 Civic Si just before VTEC came out so it's the D16A engine not D16Z

Bunch of winnars! :)

It's funny how many people look under the snoot of the Abomination, furrow their brows and say 'WTF is that?' I usually say either 'beer keg' or 'nuclear reactor'.

I was told by a certified mechanic once (when I asked him)...."what is the torque on the intake manifold"....keep tightening until the bolts squeak!!!!

Jensenman wrote: It's funny how many people look under the snoot of the Abomination, furrow their brows and say 'WTF is that?' I usually say either 'beer keg' or 'nuclear reactor'.

For those of us who have never seen it, what is under the snoot of the Abomination that confuses people?

You should start telling people it's a 'nuclear keg' or a 'beer reactor'.

When Suv's became popular we traded up to an International Flatbed to better handle the weight. The number one comment from women we picked up was "Why do you have such a big truck?" "uhh, maybe because you do ?

YaNi said:Literally every conversation about my RX-7 with a person other than my friends ends up as follows. Retarded kid: "Nice Porsche (obviously mispronounced and pointing at my FC RX-7...) Me: "Gee thanks..." R.K.: "Does that thing got a v8?" Me: "No, its a rotary engine..." R.K.: "So how many pistons does it have?" Me: "None, its a two rotor 13B." R.K.: "So it only has two pistons?!" Me: reaches into rear bin and grabs club adjacent to the quarts of oil and premix.

The problem is you used the wrong word to describe the power source of the car. "Rotor" is not technical enough, instead you should use Magic Spinning Triangles".

Salanis wrote:

Jensenman wrote: It's funny how many people look under the snoot of the Abomination, furrow their brows and say 'WTF is that?' I usually say either 'beer keg' or 'nuclear reactor'.

For those of us who have never seen it, what is under the snoot of the Abomination that confuses people? You should start telling people it's a 'nuclear keg' or a 'beer reactor'.

It's powered by a Mazda 12A rotary. To those who know only boinger motors, it looks like the face grabber from 'Alien'.

"A Miata? That's such a girly car."

"You want a Genesis? But it's a Hyundai. I'd rather have an M-B C230."

Jensenman wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: Canadian bacon is good, but you have to call it ham and put Maple syrup on it. Personally I'm a fan of regular bacon, especially chicken fried bacon.

Chicken fried bacon? You BREAD it?

Yes. Just like chicken fried steak, but with bacon. The TV show "Texas Country Reporter" did a vignette about some back road diner in Texas that purports to have invented it. You can also get it at the state fair. (You can get just about anything fried at the Texas state fair: Coke(R), Twinkies(R), 3 Musketeers(R), etc.)

Jensenman wrote: It's funny how many people look under the snoot of the Abomination, furrow their brows and say 'WTF is that?' I usually say either 'beer keg' or 'nuclear reactor'.

Texas A&M's nuclear engineering department has a small nuclear reactor that looks pretty much like a beer keg except for the control rods sticking out of it.

billy3esq wrote:

Jensenman wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: Canadian bacon is good, but you have to call it ham and put Maple syrup on it. Personally I'm a fan of regular bacon, especially chicken fried bacon.

Chicken fried bacon? You BREAD it?

Yes. Just like chicken fried steak, but with bacon. The TV show "Texas Country Reporter" did a vignette about some back road diner in Texas that purports to have invented it. You can also get it at the state fair. (You can get just about anything fried at the Texas state fair: Coke(R), Twinkies(R), 3 Musketeers(R), etc.)

I have had the twinkies. they were good. And the musketeers. But how do you fry Coke?

Some of this stuff's pretty harsh - I've been that kid. When I was in high school, I used to tell people our 1978 Olds Cutlass had a "Corvette" engine because they were both SBCs. Hey, I didn't know. Good thing for me the web wasn't around at the time or I'd be the object of ridicule here.

But I have a weird thing. I have a fair collection of automobiles, and I meet both the clueless and the clued-in with them. Sure, most people think an old Land Rover is a Toyota and they all want to know how fast the Locost is and what mileage the Mini gets - but they're trying, and they're interested in the car so I'm not going to scoff at them. What really gets me is my Cadillac. Everybody knows it's a Cadillac. Hell, it's a block long and covered with chrome, what else could it be? Fair enough. But nobody, nobody, nobody can get the year right. Even the guy who was driving the 1965 version of my 1966 - right down to the color - couldn't get the year right. And they only used that style for two years, mine and his! I don't think anyone's ever identified it correctly. It's weird.

Many many years ago in a previous life, I worked at a tire store that also did service work. A couple of the funniest customers were first; a college aged girl with some type of generic car I can't remember came in because her engine was knocking. When we checked the oil, there wasn't any on the stick, and when we asked when her last oil change was, her reply was that since she bought it new, about 4 years and 80k or so miles previously, it didn't need oil changes. Yep, never had an oil change or oil added. When the drain plug was pulled, it all came out in chunks. It needed a new motor. She was stunned because "new cars don't need oil."

The second was an elderly man that bought tires. When we quoted the price with mounting and balancing, he said he didn't need them balanced, that he would "bounce" them himself, which he proceeded to do in the back parking lot before they were put on the car. You could see him in the back boucing them up and down until he was satisfied that they would work. Of course then he complained forever that we sold him crap tires because they made his car vibrate, and you couldn't explain balancing them to him, he thought that was a rip off.

Oh, and then there was the elderly woman in a mid '60's Galaxie that had never owned a set of radial tires. She was scared of them, but those were the only choices she had, so she reluctantly agreed. Some months had passed and she came back demanding we buy her a new hubcap as her old bias ply tires never caused her hubcaps to come off. Never mind the big dent and damaged rim, it was the radials that caused the cap to come off.

The best line though was from a Spitfire owner that was a VERY regular customer. He said they called it a sports car because you had to be a good sport to own one! I always liked that line!

Talking to a kid in a college auto class, who owned a Honda and I wouldve suspected to have known something about japanese cars, wanted to argue that Subarus were made in Australia AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Beat that one.

I was at a tire shop getting a new pair of tires for the M Coupe. Little Sally Sorority came in with a fairly nice E30 'vert. I'd still been looking for a track rat at that time, and had been thinking E30, so I was checking it out.

Aside from needing new tires, her bigger issue was that the previous owner had put too-big wheels on it (17" or 18") and she did not like how uncomfortably that made it ride. Fair enough. She wanted smaller wheels but didn't have much money.

The sales person told her the cheapest they could do for new wheels/tires was in excess of $1k. She of course could not afford this.

So I stepped in and informed her that I was a bimmer-phile, and I didn't want to step on the salesman's toes, but if she just wanted something simpler for wheels, she could go to the nearby auto-dismantlers and buy a set of used wheels. Or go on the internet and look for some on Craigslist. Then, once you got the new wheels, you could post an ad on CL for the ones you were getting rid of.

She looked at me like I'd grown a second head. She told me she wouldn't know how to do any of that.

"Umm... 'www.craigslist.com'? Go to Sunrise Blvd and go South? Look in a phone book? Pull out your cell phone, dial 411, and have them look for a "BMW dismantler"?"

Besides, she told me, that was a really rare BMW and you couldn't find parts for it just anywhere.

"Umm... it's not. Even if it were, it shares the same wheels with the more common variations of that same car." I left out the: "If you want to see a rare BMW, I can show you a genuinely rare one. I do not have any problems finding parts for it."

Nope, she didn't want to do that. She wanted to finance $1k on wheels and have the tire shop take her old ones off her hands for her.

I'm less boggled by her lack of knowledge about cars, and more boggled by her general lack of knowledge.

this does not suprise me in the least!

Call it Bimmer "snobbery" or ? Just the state of educashun. in the good ol USA

SoloSonett wrote: Call it Bimmer "snobbery" or ? Just the state of educashun. in the good ol USA

Except that it was an '89 or '90 E30!

"It's really rare."

No. It's not. It's an E30. Doesn't mean it's not a nice car.

At that time I did not know much about bolt patterns. If I'd known better I could have informed her of all the other cars that she could get wheels off of.

I think she was just lazy and uncomfortable shopping for car stuff. It was easier for her to waste $500 than spend 2 hours learning something about a car.

My favorite was my friend telling me his '87 300Z non-turbo made 700lb-ft stock. Or there was a guy who had an old contour and said it could do a 10 second quarter mile because the taped on hood scoops added 300hp.

Lennyseleven wrote: Talking to a kid in a college auto class, who owned a Honda and I wouldve suspected to have known something about japanese cars, wanted to argue that Subarus were made in Australia AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Beat that one.

I can actually understand that, seeing as they ran that Australian TV add for so long.

Did he think Subaru was an Australian company? Or just that they built their cars in Australia?

Salanis wrote:

SoloSonett wrote: Call it Bimmer "snobbery" or ? Just the state of educashun. in the good ol USA

Except that it was an '89 or '90 E30!

But if its a convertible, it is a snob car. I have one, and everybody thinks that Daddy bought me a really expensive German automobile, even though its not really mine (I technically don't have a car), and it cost less than almost all of my friends cars.

And the chicks that I can pick up, they all think I'm loaded and can't understand why I where clothes from Value City. Sorry ladies, I have to go to work so I can go to school.

My dad told me this one. He was working as a mechanic at K-mart in the early 80's when the proverbial little old lady drives up in the proverbial '71 Nova. No options, 250 six with a 3 on the tree. She's complaining about a loud banging noise that it makes under acceleration. Dad gets in the car to check it out. It has 6000 miles on it (granted, only ten years old or so at this point, but still!). He fires it up, drives off the lot, and puts it through it's paces. Can't replicate the sound no matter what. Car drives like it's new.

He goes back to the garage, asks some more specific questions. She tells him that it seems like it's coming from the back of the car, that it does it every time she accelerates from a stop, and that there's absolutely no way you can miss it. She says it goes away at about 25mph.

Dad gets back in the car with a buddy riding in the back seat. (To be fair, my dad is like half-deaf and has been for a long time. Too much Ted Nugent in the formative years.) They drive around. Dad accelerates fast, he accelerates slow, he panic-brakes a couple time to see if something will jar loose, but nothing happens. Dad still can't hear anything, neither can his buddy. They drive back to the garage.

By this point, little old lady has been sitting for 45 minutes. She looks at my dad and his friend like they're martians when they tell her, very apologetically, that they just don't hear the sound. She sighs, then tells them to get in the car. She gets in the driver's seat and they get ready to pull out.

Little old lady takes off from the stoplight in first, gets up to all of 8 mph, then skips second and shifts into third. The car predictably begins bucking violently and chugging, she's feathering the gas to keep it running, and the banging noise starts up from the back of the car. She wasn't kidding, it's louder than the doomsday whistle. And it goes away once the car (eventually) gets up to 25 mph and the car smooths out.

So they pull back into the lot, my dad and his friend get out and poke and prod around under the back of the car. Punching the gas tank results in an echoey clang. Apparently, this lady had been instructed to drive the car like this since by her husband, who had passed away several years ago. He had told her this was the best way to save gas. She had been doing it so long that the baffles in the gas tank had shaken loose.

The kicker? She absolutely refused to modify her driving habits, no matter how much my dad, his buddy, or either of the bosses tried to explain or demonstrate how to drive it normally (and how it probably wouldn't hurt her mileage). She finally left after my dad assured her that the clanging noise wouldn't hurt anything.