Yes, I donāt think my '99 Honda CRV has ever been to the car wash either. Certainly not in the 8 years Iāve had it. And I live in New England. But then, last winter the car didnāt really move from its parking spot for the entire months of February and March.
Probably only applicable where they sprinkle NaCl onto the roads to melt snow.
Donāt speed up very slightly every day as you round the corner coming home from work until you manage to find the exact speed where you can put the car up on two wheels without flipping it.
Especially donāt do this in a 1967 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, or any other air-cooled flat-four with a gravity-fed oil distribution system. Gravity systems donāt function properly when the direction of gravity is off by ninety degrees.
For all your shade tree mechanic and dangerous kluge needs.
#2 is very region dependent. Not every part of a continent has seasonal glaciers on pavement. In warmer climes, snow is the yearly carwash.
I hate those stupid glasspack mufflers. Someone in my apartment building has a car with one and I can hear it every single time he turns on his car no matter what room I am in. If I had the time and energy I would love to go out in the middle of the night and replace his muffler with a real one. It would be priceless to see his reaction when he starts his car and it doesnāt sound like shit.
The dealer BS should absolutely be removed by the dealer prior to the car leaving the lot. Other than that, I donāt see any problem with adding a few bits of shiny chrome to your ride just because. A now-dead Altima I used to drive had a big chromed ā4X4ā badge on the rear, just above the bumper.
And Sneeze_weeās recommendation about aftermarket parts, well, he just sounds like Donny Downer. I plan on buying an old Geo Metro in the near future for an art-car project, and Iām gonna mod the hell out of it (mostly insane bodywork, but still).
āFor the lulzā is absolutely an acceptable answer to āWhy did you do that to the car?ā
He would rejoice to know this. It means his car is working as intended. Why not make his day, by leaving an angry note on the windshield? That way heāll have something to show his buddies!
But how will we have https://www.24hoursoflemons.com/ ?
This is probably ok, if you know what youāre doing, save the stock bits, and itās reversible. If you need to sell your car, put back the stock pieces. Most normal people donāt want a modded car.
Can I add stancing? It looks silly, it messes up the ride, it eats your tires, and you might lose bumpers to a tiny, tiny curb.
Which they certainly do in many parts of New England. My car looked like a salt lick.
Iāve not washed my current car since I bought it. In fact, apart from windows/plates/lights (which are compulsory to keep clean here), Iāve not washed a car for about 15 years.
Mind you I do make sure to drive through some big puddles in the spring, to wash the road salt off the underside.
How does that salt sprinkling, year after year, not kill everything for several meters from the roadside?
As in Romans salting the fields of their enemies.
Gonna call BS on #10 if your car does not come with a front strut tower brace. Best and easiest improvement for your carās steering and handling that you will ever find. Of course, it does not add to the āpimp appearance factorā so most d-bags will never buy one.
Add, āI have poured maple syrup into your fuel fillerā to maximize the effect.
I assume that it gets washed down the storm drains when it finally rains, but I donāt know for sure.
Here on the West Coast of BC the car wash is known as āparking outsideā.
Washing windows once in awhile makes sense, but the skies wash my car often enough to save me the trouble. And on the very rare occasions it snows going out on the roads becomes a suicide mission as most locals just turn on their 4x4 and continue to drive at 20 over the speed limit (directly into the nearest ditch and/or other vehicles).
There are occasional issues, such as protected newts killed by road salt while migrating across a car park, and some plant damage.
The roads round here are salted every year, though, and Iāve never seen any signs of vegetation damaged by it.
I once had the Low Tire Pressure lamp light up on our '07 RAV-4. Went by a gas station and checked my tire pressure, all four were nominal. Bought a new pressure gauge, checked again, still nominal. I was flummoxed by this for a couple weeks until I realized how the Low Tire Pressure system worked. Sure enough, the spare was low. That spare had never been used in its seven years of existence, and I had no idea the wheel itself would contain some kind of wee transmitter to tell the car that its air was low. I always figured the car had some complicated suspension-monitoring algorithm that determined when one of the tires was low.
Iād be keen to learn if the percentage of motorists who check the pressure in their spare tire exceeds 3%.
I have to imagine a majority of cars left on the side of the road with a flat tire that Iāve seen are due to flat spares or inexperience.
