How much time per year on your car?

ProDarwin said:

My daily doesn't get waxed.  Its an appliance.  It gets preventative maintenance, and repairs.

Sure, I vacuum it every few months, but I bet that added to my list of maintenance above is still under 4 hours per year.

 

I consider time used to maintain a car to be wasted time and to avoid wasting time I will buy a new car every ten years and spend maybe 5-10 hours on maintenance like oil change and brakes. Washing and waxing  and detailing is not a thing for a DD toaster. It works for me, not the other way around. 

BUILDING cars on the other hand is entertainment, and I spend hundreds of hours each year on the hobby. When they are done, they go away where someone else can do the maintenance.

In reply to frenchyd :

Everybody is different.  I do not judge people who treat the daily driver as the appliance it is.  I do what I do for pride.  I like a clean shiny car. With waxing up here in the rust belt it stays looking that way longer. 
    Although long periods at sub zero  I don't go to the car wash. Locks freeze when you do that and leave the car out.  
 

Wtf is this thread?

frenchyd said:

In reply to Tom1200 :

I have OCD when it comes to things I push to the absolute edge.  So post race it gets a complete nut  and bolt check. Fluids are drained, including the 28 quart dry sump.  
      It's put on Jack stands so tires  don't flat spot,   battery is carefully charged. paint and body examined for potential work. Wheel knock offs are loosened  ( removed  one at a time for polishing  while watching TV.  Each wheel takes about 1 movie  to polish). 
      1 week prior to next event the pre race check list is gone through. 

The nut and bolt check takes 10 minutes because I used nylock nuts, Loctite or safety wire everything on the F500. 

For the Datsun white nail polish painted on the nuts/bolts makes it real obvious if somethings coming loose. 

My system is a hour in the shop, every night, after the kids are in bed.  Some nights I get zero time, but there are also occasional weekend days when I get 4 or 6 hours in the shop doing something.  So, it probably averages out to about an hour a night.  So 365-1/4 hours per year spent on working on cars, +/-.

Does posting on GRM count as working on my cars? 

Unfortunately, I am some 350 miles from my cars, so this year has been zero so far.

Pretty sure last year, if you count the time I thought about working on the car as well as buying parts and dreaming about it in my sleep I had 6000 hours easy in it. Easy. maybe more. and then maintenance on the rest of the fleet, and thinking about that was at least 3000 hours on top of that. pretty sure I have 10k hours in maintenance and working on my cars last year. I go crazy and recheck literally every bolt. I will pull oil pans and check rod bolts and cam covers to check cam bolts and pull and test every sensor on the car before and after a weekend. EVERY weekend. Plus I work 50 hours a week at my day job and then put another 5-10 hours per week on the side gig and helping others. I'm pretty much living 2 years for every one of your years. Totally serious. 10k hours a year in car stuff plus 2500 hours a year working and I try to get at least 9 hours of sleep a night. My days last 39 hours per day. they fit into your 24 hour day just different way to measure it. I call it "metric time".

I think everyone needs to start using metric time. You can get so much more done in a day. 

gearheadmb said:

Wtf is this thread?

The ramblings of a dude who is bad a math and has no shame about being bad at math.  

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

Everyone should be spending at least 1500 hours a year on their car just to keep it on the street. If not you're obviously a danger to society. 

Folks,

I think ya gotta admit that Frenchy's rants are more entertaining, than Colin Wood, Dave Wallens, and all the other GRM homies put together....

IMHO...

Rog

frenchyd said:

Olemiss540 said:

Agreed with doc here, sounds like you work full time on your cars. You said you work 1300 hours per year on your personal cars or around a 50% part time job? 

 

There are 2080 hours per year or something like that for a 40 hour work week.....

You must be missing a decimal or I am missing the point.

24x365 = 8760 hrs.        
 

 

 

 

 

Yes, he was saying a full-time job, which is generally considered 40 hours per week, ends up being 2080 work hours in a 52 week year. Which doesn't take into account things like if you have a long commute.

Since I no longer have a track car and relatively new dailies since 2014, it would be incredibly low. 

I'm not counting things like spraying it off at the car wash or taking it to the shop for an oil change. As I typically do the latter during the week and just hook to the shops WiFi and work from there while they work on my car. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Does posting on GRM count as working on my cars? 

Unfortunately, I am some 350 miles from my cars, so this year has been zero so far.

From what I can gather you can count time spent thinking and planning on your cars. No work required.

Frenchy, you misunderstood me.  I was pointing out the improbability of working on your car 4000 hours a year.  Especially when you're also working a full time job and have family commitments. 

Personally maybe I put in a few hundred hours a year actually working on the cars/dirt bike.  No, filling them up with gas or washing them doesn't count.

There are 8760 hours in a year   2040 in a full time job. 4000 working on race cars leaves 2720 for sleep and etc  the race gets flagged off at a certain time and if you aren't ready you lose. I learned. time management in the Navy learning how to fly.

 Most of my classmates  came to Pensacola with at least a private pilots license many had commercial.  With absolutely zero experience  I had a lot of learning to do.  I'd study until lights out then go in the  head ( bathroom ) where the lights stayed on all night.   I wouldn't quit until I had every single word memorized   Usually 1-2 AM  and then sleep until revile  at 04:30 

When I was putting in 4000 hrs a year  a lot of time I'd put 48 hours straight. My wife would send out a meal for me and I'd munch on it working on the car.   
  Occasionally  I'd put in an all nighters and go straight to work after cleaning up.  
     The one flexibility I had was sleep. 

 Count the time you put gas in and run it through a wash.  It doesn't fill itself or change its own oil.  If you have it done then count the time you spend waiting for it to be done.

 Now days I'm down to about 700 hours a year.  It's 30 minutes to fill up each vehicle.  That's 26 hours just on filling with gas. 

Does not seem like a great use of my time to spend it calculating how much time I spend.

I have two friends that in the 40 years I've known them, work on 6hrs of sleep a night.................I find it nuts but they do it.

With that said to me working on a car that many hours is really diminishing returns. 

For me this hobby is meant to bring joy to my life...........not take it over.

If I'm doing it right, I might spend 40-60 hours a year actually performing modifications, repairs, and maintenance, including prep for HPDEs or races.  Reliability is key for me.  

I think it depends on whether your core hobby is driving or building where you focus your limited resources.  

I have all of the constraints that (most) of us do: time, work demands, family, rest, money.  If I had unlimited time and money, I'd probably invest a little more, but not thousands of hours.  We all do a balancing act of figuring out where a hobby fits in the spectrum of limited resources.  To each their own!

wait, 30 minutes to fill a car? Are you putting it in with a table spoon?I just filled the car at Costco on lunch. It took under 3 minutes for the entire transaction.

gearheadmb said:

Wtf is this thread?

BS

bobzilla said:

wait, 30 minutes to fill a car? Are you putting it in with a table spoon?I just filled the car at Costco on lunch. It took under 3 minutes for the entire transaction.

Try again!    it takes 30 minutes to drive to the filling station fill the vehicle and drive home. 
oops. That's on me.  
   It take me 10 minutes or so to drive to the station that accepts my Cub Rewards card.    Since that can be up to $1.50 a gallon off it's worth the trip. 
 10 minutes there+ or - 10 to fill up + or -  and 10 to drive home.  30 minutes.  2 cars the F150 & the Honda 
     The Station I buy my E85 is much closer and right now it's $2.39/9 gallon. Stuart said he saw a station in Shakopee that was at $1.99/9  ( but that's too far away )  But costs me a couple of mpg 

So we're just making E36 M3 up now. Cool. Well I'll stand by my 10,000 hour a year then. 

bobzilla said:

wait, 30 minutes to fill a car? Are you putting it in with a table spoon?I just filled the car at Costco on lunch. It took under 3 minutes for the entire transaction.

Costco? 3 minutes?  Not here.   Closer to 30 minutes in the waiting line.  Same with Sam's  Club. I think that one might be even longer.  Not to mention both are a considerable distance from my home.  
  I like their prices. But my Cub Rewards is up to $1.50 a gallon off normal gas prices.  Plus the line typically is only one or two cars per pump

bobzilla said:

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Does posting on GRM count as working on my cars? 

Unfortunately, I am some 350 miles from my cars, so this year has been zero so far.

From what I can gather you can count time spent thinking and planning on your cars. No work required.

Mayhaps time spent on GRM counts as working on cars? If so, mayhaps my ex-job owes me a lot of overtime pay. Just kidding ex-boss in case you are reading! Kinda. Not really.

NOHOME said:

In reply to frenchyd :

4000 hours is two full-time 8 hour jobs. If you have a real full time job then you have another 8 hours that consume the rest of the 24 hour day. No breaks for eating.

So you work(ed) 24 hours a day. Non stop for a year.

4000 hours @ even $10/hour would get you $40k a year to buy a new car. Every year of your life. Or lease a new Jag for 5 years. 

Begs the question.

365x24 = 8760 hours.  Full time job  2040+  4000 = 6040- 8760 = 2720 hours to eat sleep etc.    I typically slept  4-6 hours a night.   Leaving me plenty of time.