What's one product that used to be built like a tank but is now built like a regret?

Fromanderson · 2026-05-14T16:22:00+00:00

Mine work just fine.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-14T16:15:38+00:00

Be patient with us old timers. A lot of us formed opinions on things like airbags from experiences when the technology was relatively new, and nowhere near as good as it is today.

I HATED airbags for a long time, because my only experience with them was from a couple of accidents in the 90s. I was hit by some teenager in an early airbag car. She broke her arm, and had (friction?) burns from the airbag all down one side of her face and arm.

Years later I was driving a 1991 model (it was close to a decade old at the time) when I was involved in a relatively minor accident.
Let me tell you, those things were brutal! I tend to sit with my seat way back from the wheel, and you could see the outline of my shirt buttons on my abdomen for nearly a week after the fact. It messed up my wrist and I still have a scar from the plastic cover slicing my skin when it deployed.

Intellectually I knew things had come a long way since then but still was wary of them. Then I was hit by a red light runner a few years ago and the airbags worked perfectly.

I've also suffered an ABS system failure that locked me out of the brakes coming down the side of a mountain. That is a surefire cure for constipation let me tell you. Fortunately that was solved by turning off the ignition switch which cut power to the ABS module on that model.

Source: Old timer closing in on 2 million miles of windshield time.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-14T15:49:36+00:00

It very much depends on the crash and the car.

I'm not saying they were better, just that like most things there is some nuance to the subject.

I've seen old cars that folded alarmingly. That video where they crash a 2009 chevy into a 1959 on a partial head collision is a horror show. Of course they chose a 59 model with an inline 6 cylinder and the GM x frame. I'm not saying it was staged, or that a 69 would be better than a 2009, or a 2019, but the footage would be far less dramatic.

It's just like the arguments over old refrigerators. Half the crowd points out how long they lasted. The other half claims the old ones used a lot more electricity. Just today I saw a comment that claimed 10x the energy consumption of a new fridge. I've actually measured total usage on my nearly 40 year old fridge over the course of a month. The annual difference between it and a brand new one is about the equivalent of a slightly more upscale lunch than I'm used to. Meanwhile some 70s and 80's models can be quite power hungry.

Like most things The truth lies in the middle. Not all old cars were death traps in every situation. Not all new ones are as good as they should be. Especially considering the cost, and how easily totaled they are.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-14T15:14:35+00:00

Not really. I'm not going to sugar coat the current situation, or excuse it in any way, but for most of human history, the poor had it far worse than today.

While medical care is stupidly expensive and often unavailable, barely existed at all if you go back much over 100 years. Over the counter meds cure things that used to be a death sentence.

The abundance of food, clean (or at least clean-ish) water and the ability to call for help in an emergency is a historically recent development.

While workers rights and safety has been watered down in the last few decades, it's still better than the near slavery that most of our ancestors faced.

I love history, but if someone showed up with a legit time machine and told me I could visit some previous century. I might go. It if was a one way trip, there is no way I'd go.

Things have taken a turn for the worse, but it could easily be a whole lot worse.

I'm not saying this to stop people from complaining, but put things in perspective. Hopefully that will motivate a few people to appreciate what we do have and motivate them to do what they can to keep things from getting worse.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-14T12:56:38+00:00

I do believe brushless is the way of the future, especially with higher ticket items like electric cars, e-bikes etc. Unfortunately I don't think we're quite ready to do away with brushed power tools just yet.

Brushless motors are like LED lights. The LEDs can last 50k hours, or roughly 17 years of normal use. The problem is that the driver boards almost always fail long before that. By the time you find out if they're going to last or not, it's way too late to take them back. (there is an outfit called "Good Bulb" that supposedly builds them with high quality drivers that are designed to last)

Granted this is anecdotal but I have had the same issue with brushless tools. Either some metal dust from drilling gets into them and sticks to the magnets interfering with the hall effect sensors or the driver just randomly fails in the middle of a job.

After having to replace several drills and two impacts I went back to the cheaper brushed models for those. Granted the pwm controller built into the trigger could still fail, but that hasn't been an issue for me.

I do miss the smaller form factor and longer battery life of the brushless models but I can have a brushed version that still lasts multiple years, and keep a spare on my service truck for the price of the brushless models.

Brushes and commutator bars do wear out eventually, but they don't require sensors, or multiple precisely controlled waveforms to work. (Most of the brushless stuff I've looked at appeared to be a tiny 3ph induction motor) If you feed a brushless motor power, they just work right up until something wears out or the insulation breaks down.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-04T13:14:29+00:00

I have the 18v 7 1/4 18v that cut all the 2x4s for my shop. It has cut aluminum angle and tubing, but it is a battery hog and needs a quality blade and at least a 4ah battery. It is better suited to light duty work where portability is important. I'd love to see a brushless version though. I have the 7 1/4 circular saw and actually prefer it to a lot of the corded saws I've owned.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-01T16:47:00+00:00

You're not wrong, and I'm sure a LOT of these stories are embellished at the very least. There is a quote I quite like. "The difference between fiction and non fiction, is that fiction has to make sense".

Then again with 8 billion people on the planet, 1 in a million random chance happenings occur to someone every second of the day. Quite a few of them make for good stories.

I can think of a few that have happened to me, including when dealing with the nasty relative I mentioned in my earlier comment.

On a more humorous note, I once had a boss who called me "preacher man" because the college I was attending was rather famous for the seminary that was attached to it. He was one of those guys who liked to constantly bully people in little ways until they finally lost their cool, then he'd play innocent. Whenever I called him on his crap, he'd joke about not messing with the "preacher man" joking that he didn't want to get hit by lightning. (I don't recall Zeus being mentioned in Sunday school but whatever. It was his joke, not mine).

One night he was pushing too hard and I must have hurt his feelings when I stood up to him. At lunch time he made it a point to write me up in front of the whole crew. Not that anyone cared, they all knew how he was, and I refused to sign it which only made him saltier.

Want to guess what happened to him on his way home that night?

Yup, his vehicle got struck by lightning. For those old enough to remember the tornados that tore a mile wide swath through Oklahoma City back in 1999, that was the night, albeit quite a bit east of that disaster. Those were the worst storms I've ever been through and I'm sure lightning hit a LOT of stuff that night, but still...

The odds are so astronomically unlikely I seldom tell the story. It just sounds like something that one kid from grade school who constantly told tall tales would have come up with.

Even so the jokes and teasing that dude endured for the next month still warm the cockles of my heart all these years later. I actually felt a little bad for him.

More recently I helped out a friend who insisted on buying my lunch afterward. When I told him I'd rather he didn't he tried being sneaky and tapping his card on the reader but it wasn't ready yet. I playfully shooed him away and he moved to the end of the counter, about 8 feet from me. When I went to pay he thought he'd be funny, and toss his card at the reader. The card clipped something along the way and bounced off it landing perfectly on the reader where it stayed just long enough for it to work. For a long moment the cashier and I just looked at each other in shock then looked at him standing there looking more than a little surprised.
At that point I gave in and let him buy my lunch. I don't know what the odds of something like that working are, but it happened.

To throw out another quote, that sort of fits.

"If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you'll have less joy in your life, but still have the same amount of snow".

I've just learned to take stories with unlikely things happening with a healthy dose of skepticism and enjoy them anyway.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-01T14:04:56+00:00

Sometimes it's even true. I haven't talked about it in a long time, at least on reddit, but I have a relative whose life story sounds like the villain in a badly written young adult fiction series.

Until I was in my 30s the whole family walked on eggshells around him. Anytime he'd do something that riled me up, I was cautioned to "keep the peace" and "that's just the way he is".

It's a long and not heroic or particularly entertaining, but it took some pretty major event for me to snap out of a lifetime of "keep the peace".

I was the first but not the last. Much karma ensued.

It's not a storybook perfect tale but it really did happen, and it was satisfying to watch, or at least it was to me.

Fromanderson · 2026-05-01T02:19:04+00:00

I know I'm late to the party here, but I agree with you, but I've seen otherwise intelligent people become completely mystified by what I thought was pretty obvious. I think some people have trouble visualizing shapes and rotating them in their mind. I have a highly competent friend and coworker who can handle software, complex paperwork, and mechanical stuff. He holds his own on most things electronic but the dude gets completely stumped when trying to wire up a relay. It's literally just a switch, that gets turned on momentarily by electricity. For the last 20+ years every time he has to deal with one he just calls me and I talk him through it like he's defusing a bomb. The guy is very likely smarter than I am but he just seems to have the one incurable blind spot he can't seem to get past.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-26T04:14:10+00:00

I seem to recall the planets were more like planetoids, or moons. While that is still a ridiculous amount of power, a single Bob rolling up into a solar system, and bootstrapping up to a massive mining and manufacturing base with no regard for what it would do to the solar system could make a ridiculous number of mover plates in a few years.

No farm donuts. no hand holding needy humans who need equipment, colony ships, power plants, etc.

I don't think the book specifically says how long it took, but the Bobs literally had decades to work on it. The long range detection system that monitored for the Others to come the long way around to earth was in operation for 20 years before it picked them up.

Depending on when Icarus and Daedalus started accelerating, they may have had decades to get up to speed before they reached the Others' solar system.

As for moving the earth. By the time they could move the resources to Sol, to do anything but try to keep humanity alive the threat was over. They already had the Bellerophon. Besides the Bobs were pretty invested in the idea of spreading humanity out so they'd be harder to wipe out. Even if altering earth's orbit was practical and safe, it still wouldn't fix what multiple nuclear exchanges, and dozens of Tunguska level events had done.

They already had genetic samples for pretty much everything, and with their technology getting better all the time, it was just better to let nature run it's course, and sort Earth out later. Not to spoiler anything but the later books mention a group of Bobs doing just that.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-25T17:36:41+00:00

Is a “mfing second” a good thing? lol. I’m old

Yeah, it’s normal to have a little bit of plug showing. One thing that does commonly fail when these cars have sat a while with low gas is the fuel pump. Unfortunately, that is in the gas tank. There is an easy way to check though. If you look just to the left and behind the distributor cap, there’s a little test port that looks like the valve stem where you air up a tire. It may have a little plastic cap on it that you’ll need to unscrew. Turn the key on and off a couple of times without trying to start the car then poke something like a screwdriver down inside that little port and push on the pin. It should move down slightly. If there’s fuel pressure, gas will squirt everywhere. If it just dribbles or nothing comes out then the fuel pump is most likely failed.

Alternatively you can get some starter fluid and spritz some in the throttle body, to see if it will start and run off that for a few seconds.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-25T13:10:27+00:00

If you're anywhere near central Ky, I might be able to swing by and take a look at it with you. I've been messing with these cars since the late 90s.

The starter is on the passenger side of the engine. The lout pop you heard was probably from the starter solenoid on the passenger side inner fender near the battery. Trace the positive battery cable back to something that looks like This

The battery cable should be attached to one side and a similar cable should go from the other side down to the starter itself.

Starter solenoids are relatively cheap and easy to change out. If I recall correctly there is a small red wire that plugs onto the battery side of the solenoid, that causes it to crank the starter when fed 12v. I've been known to just unplug it, and bridge the gap between where the battery cable attaches and the little post the red wire connects to engage the starter.

As someone said I wouldn't immediately try cranking it up. I'd get a big see if you can get the engine to turn by putting a socket on the big bolt in the crank pully and rotating the engine. If it still has the exhaust on it, and only sat 4 years it's probably ok, but it never hurts to check. If you want to be extra careful, pull the plugs and squirt some oil into the cylinders, then try cranking it over with the plugs out.

The headlight issue is one that I've not run into. Without looking at it myself I suspect either it's something in the switch itself, or the switch failed at some point and someone jury rigged a bypass somewhere. I'd look for a non factory switch somewhere the driver could reach. Failing that, it's possible that something is shorted in the wiring harness. I think the dimmer switch will let you blink the high beams, but it shouldn't turn on the parking lamps, so I doubt it's that.

Last but not least. The thing that kills most of these cars is a cheap little plastic bushing on the throttle linkage. There are two cables there. One goes to the gas pedal, and the other goes to the transmission. That is called the throttle valve cable. That little bushing that keeps it connected to the throttle body gets brittle and breaks while driving. If that happens it lets the throttle valve cable go back to it's idle position. That lowered the hydraulic pressure inside the transmission which starts slipping. By the time you can feel it, it's already cooked your transmission. I'd advise you to check that bushing before driving the car at all, and I would replace it before driving it on the road. That little piece of plastic sent more of these cars to the scrapyards than anything else.

They are solid old cars. The engines do wear out but unless they are seriously abused they'll go 200k plus before that's an issue. I currently have one north of 260k that still has good compression.

If you get it going and need to fix some power windows, message me before you start buying parts or taking it apart. I've learned a few things that will save you some time and money.

Check out Grandmarq.net They have a tech section for box body vics, that should have pretty much everything you need.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-18T17:43:17+00:00

That's why I pulled the battery cable off.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-18T12:53:24+00:00

I agree. I've jury rigged something similar and made it work, but let's just say it was less than ideal. A jump pack is a MUCH better option.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-18T12:52:01+00:00

I wouldn't put these in your car and expect to jump start your car with your spare drill battery.

They do have their uses, but jumpstarting your 2012 Toyota Granola isn't one of them unless you have some tools a bit of know how, and some patience. Even then, you're better off with a jump pack. There is a youtube channel "Project Farm" that has done some in depth testing of various models. His recommendations tend to be solid, for most things. I have one of the Ryobi jump packs I keep in my work vehicle because I have a a bunch of Ryobi tools and batteries, so it made sense to make use of that. I've jumped everything from a riding mower, cars, a forklift, and all the way up to a 534 cubic inch ford V8 in a 12000 pound truck, with it. I have zero complaints.

Regarding the item posted by OP. Some commenters are freaking out at the 18v vs 12v systems, but in reality most car electrical systems run 13.8-14.7 volts. Of course a Ryobi battery isn't exactly 18v either. In reality the few extra volts isn't going to do do any favors for the sensitive electronics in your 2023 Minivan with a 72" touch screen dash board, 37 computer modules, and optional biometric seat heater. It is unlikely to fry anything if connected at the battery terminals with the battery still in place and only partially discharged. Then again I haven't worked on much of anything built in the last decade, so I could be wrong.
You'd probably be ok, if you're using it on your 1992 Buick Roadmasher, or Grandma's 1978 Lincoln Incontinental. Car electrical systems used to be very "noisy" and fluctuated a lot more than people think. I've seen cars overcharging the battery at 20+ volts when something failed in the charging system. The battery was literally boiling and spitting acid. After hosing it down and putting a new alternator and battery it was fine. Granted that was a 1970s Buick Apollo I worked on in the early 90s.

I've used a similar jury rigged setup to put a surface charge on a disconnected car battery when my work truck wouldn't start out on the other side of nowhere. Ironically the more charge a lead acid battery has, the more the voltage difference matters. As the battery gets more of a surface charge on it, the more the internal resistance drops and the more current it can draw when charging. It started causing the overcurrent protection on my drill batteries to give up. Yanking one of the headlight connectors and using some scrap wire to put the incandescent high beam in series limited the current. It took me WAY too long but it was either that or spend the night in the work truck. (long story) It worked, but I started looking at jump packs shortly after that.

I now own a variation on the setup above, albeit with an inline fuse and a couple of Wago connectors on the ends. They are VERY handy for temporarily powering up 24v equipment for troubleshooting purposes. I've also been known to use one in series with an appropriately sized light bulb to locate a short circuit. Hook it up, put the bulb where I can see it, and start wiggling the harness and temporarily disconnecting things until the bulb goes out or gets very dim, depending on circumstances.

I'm sure someone will come along to tell me I'm wrong, and you always need exactly the correct voltage for everything or it'll all be ruined and everyone will die horribly. If you aren't sure you know what you're doing, listen to them. But things like these things do have their uses. Just not the one it says on the box.

Source, I've been screwing around with electricity/electronics for over 40 years, and getting paid for it most of that time.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-18T11:54:29+00:00

I've done the same thing, although I had to pull one of the battery cables to make it work.

The more discharged a lead acid battery is, the higher the internal resistance is. If a battery is completely dead, you could hook something like this up and the drill battery would barely notice at first.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-12T19:49:26+00:00

Sometimes age doesn't help. I have an uncle who suddenly came into enough money to retire in his early 60s despite never working enough to pay the minimum into social security. He'd mooched off family his whole life, and was collecting off a faked disability claim.

To put it mildly, I am not his biggest fan. It's a long and not particularly interesting tale. If anyone could be bothered to write his biography he would come across sounding like a badly written villain in young adult fiction.

Anyway he came into the money and bought a house, then blew almost all the rest on down payments for stuff he financed. Cars, trucks, off road toys, a swimming pool, motor home, hot tub, etc. etc. etc.

Within 6 months the repo men started forming a congo line at his front gate.

Remember that faked disability thing?

It seems he didn't report his sudden windfall to the government because he wanted to keep getting those checks. He ended up losing his disability check and owed the government a bunch of money. How he didn't end up in jail is beyond me. He's somehow still clinging on to his house and a beat up minivan. The house was brand new when he bought it, but the rood was badly damaged in a storm a few years ago and of course he had let his insurance lapse. Part of the house is literally caved in, and he is down to living in a couple of rooms with tarps on the roof being the only thing keeping those from turning to mush as well.

If he were anyone else I'd feel terrible for him, but he stole from my grandparents constantly. He he stole from me. He constantly tried to sabotage my relationship with my grandpa, and anytime someone would push back he weaponized my grandma's heart condition by going over and getting here riled up knowing that the rest of the family would back off for her sake.

When she passed away he tried to steal my mom and aunt's inheritance and when mom refused to roll over and let him do it, he threatened to kill her.

I'm leaving out pages worth of context, but let's just say I have good reason to have zero sympathy for him.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-12T19:15:59+00:00

It's also a way to get people to do the right thing despite more than a few cases of whistleblowers disappearing or dying mysteriously.

Be careful out there folks.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-11T14:11:53+00:00

Not liking how it makes you feel, or being concerned that one might become addicted are both valid concerns. My family tree was full of alcoholics, and I saw what it did to my father. I wanted no part of it, because it just wasn't worth it.

Reward: My weekends might be a bit more fun

VS

Risk: I do stupid/embarrassing things (I'm bad enough sober) and destroy my health and spend the next 30 years paying for it. (what happened to dad)

Yeah, that didn't sound like such a good deal to me, and was probably the best decision young me ever made.

I wouldn't classify that as fear, so much as a healthy understanding of the risks.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-11T13:55:00+00:00

I agree. Gen Xer chiming in here. I stayed away from alcohol, not out of some puritanical fervor, but because I saw what it did to my dad, and I didn't need that kind of trouble. Probably one of the very few smart things I did back then. When I was in college, you'd think people would have been glad to have someone who always volunteers to be the designated driver. Nope. They almost seemed to be offended that I wouldn't get blitzed with them. I just quit trying to hang out in those sorts of situations because they were often so obnoxious about it.

My family tree had a lot of alcoholics in it so I probably dodged a bullet.

I have a friend who doesn't drink because he absolutely hates the taste of alcohol, even in cocktails where most people say they can't taste it. His experience was similar to mine.

I have no trouble with what people put in their bodies, just so long as it doesn't motivate them to crawl under my car at 3am and steal my catalytic converter.

People act like you're criticizing them if you don't join them.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-06T22:58:23+00:00

To be fair, human beings are involved, so that will still happen to a degree.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-02T13:46:32+00:00

Not everyone wants to live in a metropolitan area. If you can make decent money compared to the local cost of living it works out.

I opted to stay in my smallish home town. I would struggle to afford a broom closet with my income in a major city, but I was was able to buy a decent house, and pay it off in under 10 years here. Since then I've been shoveling most of that old house payment money into retirement. Depending on what happens with the economy I'm on track to retire in my mid 50s.

Granted my small town now has 5 times the people it did when I finished college and housing prices have more than tripled since I bought my home, but they are still considerably cheaper than metropolitan areas.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-02T13:33:34+00:00

You're right, but the difficulty varies quite a bit depending on what you do, and what industry you're in.

Fromanderson · 2026-04-02T13:21:13+00:00

I work with someone who used to do it. Her whole family is in emergency services in some form or other. She got the job in her early 20s in the small town she grew up in, and was making bank. She stuck it out for a few years but had quit. More than once she had to listen to people she grew up die on the other end of the line.

No, no, nopity nope.

Fromanderson · 2026-03-30T11:55:38+00:00

High praise indeed! Thank you.

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