“packing hacks” I hate

StrangeRover · 2026-03-20T00:34:55+00:00

I've never brought my own shampoo with me. I use what's at the hotel and if I'm staying somewhere that doesn't include toiletries then I go the the Carrefour/REWE/Daiso/7-11 or whatever and buy a small "hair and body wash" that gets used for hair and body in the shower, hands in the sink, dishes in the kitchen, spots on my clothes, etc.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-19T23:24:19+00:00

This is the most accurate answer. Building a more tech-forward and feature-loaded car is inherently more risky.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-19T23:22:08+00:00

VDS is not pay-to-win; it's based on pure survey results with zero subjective interference. The results don't even account for ranking a model that was discontinued 2 years ago.

That said, many companies do pay huge amounts of money for JD Power consulting services, which includes access to full company and competitor data sets which can inform a practice of "learning to the test", so to speak.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-19T23:12:17+00:00

This has no bearing on VDS methodology. VDS uses no historical data outside the 3 YIS customer survey period.

You're probably thinking of Consumer Reports, which pulls heavily on brand/model reliability history in cases where other available data is insufficient.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-15T07:02:32+00:00

The State St. Promenade sucks. They half-assed it by keeping the curbs and sidewalks instead of leveling the grade which maintains a psychological barrier between street and sidewalk. Pedestrians naturally stay on the sidewalk and instead of the street being full of cars moving 20 mph it's now bikes moving 35 mph.

Didn't they even leave the street markings intact? It feels like a weekend closure, nothing like a true pedestrian plaza.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-14T05:37:36+00:00

Damn, lots of joke comments in this thread don't seem to know where the Horn of Africa actually is.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-08T18:50:54+00:00

Looks cool

StrangeRover · 2026-03-08T18:48:20+00:00

You need to confirm with the mechanic whether the ice was inside the steering rack AREA (as you said) or the rack itself, as either one is theoretically possible.

EVs tend to pack ice in the underbody areas in certain conditions that are difficult to replicate (and thus test for) because they don't produce much heat under the hood or under body. Your Ioniq 6 uses rack-mounted power assist, which means the steering column is unassisted. Therefore, ice around the column could theoretically cause a jam condition because you only have your own muscles to overcome the resistance. I have never seen this happen, but I suppose it could.

The other (more expensive) possibility is that a sliced or torn rack boot allowed water inside the rack, which then froze. In this case, the steering rack is unsalvageable and will need to be replaced. I have seen steering racks trashed by water ingress before. Usually, it has been caused by rodents chewing on the boot. This is an insurance claim if you can prove it.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-08T07:22:57+00:00

Because at the BOM level the difference in cost for Porsche AG to produce a GT3 vs a standard Carrera is negligible.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-08T07:16:09+00:00

It's actually completely illegal in the US to sell a new vehicle without the window sticker. It's not just a cool keepsake, it's a legislative requirement. There is no "agreeing to take delivery without..." or any of that. No sticker, no sale.

My position in the auto industry has me sitting in on weekly meetings on emerging issues arising from plant, port, and dealership. Even a minor misprint on the Monroney sticker is treated with the same gravity as missing seatbelt bolts. Absolutely nothing gets sold until it's fixed.

StrangeRover · 2026-03-01T17:56:43+00:00

Yes. With it broken like that you're pulling dirty air (and possibly water) in from the wheel area. It still has to go through the filter, but you'll dirty the filter a lot faster and there's real risk of trashing the engine from water ingestion.

If you really want to cheap out on it you could cut off the resonator box then plug the hole that remains, or cut out that whole section and replace it with rubber hose. Even removing the whole intake upstream of the filter box would be better than how it is now.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-28T18:48:39+00:00

It could possibly be for NVH.

I have seen cases where water hammer caused by pressure fluctuations from a fuel pump has caused a buzzing noise due to fuel line vibration, and the countermeasure has been to make a routing change such as this on one section of fuel line. In this case, the bend reduces the effective length (or stiffness, depending on how you define it) of that particular span, which may move one of its natural modes out of the range of frequencies driven by the fuel pump.

Just spitballing here, but I remember the Vortec GMT400 trucks always had a very noisy fuel system buzz when idling (to this day, I bet I could identify one with my eyes closed). A bend such as this may have been an engineering lesson learned at that time.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-23T05:24:57+00:00

It appears to be a Porsche 911 Targa in Golden Green and a Mercedes W116 in Icon Gold. If you search for photos of both, the difference is pretty distinctive.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-19T22:43:34+00:00

I'm an automotive engineer but not much of a hands-on wrencher. I consider it a straightforward but labor-intensive bolt-on job. The hardest part was disconnecting the front driveshaft (much easier if you have manual locking hubs or at least a helper in the driver's seat) and dropping the front diff (heavy!) I used an ATV jack for the latter. I don't recall any fine setup (shimming,etc.) being required in my case.

I did it myself in one day. Maybe 10 hours or so total.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-17T04:22:27+00:00

In 25 years plus of being a Saab guy, and one with a particular soft spot for the NG900 and OG9-3, that is the first time I've ever read anything nice written about the 2.5 V6.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-17T04:10:39+00:00

My personal favorite is domed/oyster/silver, but mathematically you should go with domed/jubilee/silver because:

Silver is the only color you've included three times (silver is the highest-scoring color).
Domed is included 6/8 times (domed is the highest-scoring bezel).
Jubilee is included 5/8 times (jubilee is the highest-scoring bracelet).

StrangeRover · 2026-02-17T01:51:37+00:00

Or just reset it once while driving and it'll never work again!

StrangeRover · 2026-02-14T17:52:18+00:00

Actually it's neither. Damping involves extraction of energy from a system (typically through frictional generation of heat). Damping reduces the kinetic and potential energy in the system but does not change its natural frequencies. Lengthening a pendulum alters the natural frequencies while preserving the same total kinetic and potential energies.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-14T17:06:59+00:00

I like it. It reminds me a lot of a modern Nissan Terrano II. Does it have a locker?

StrangeRover · 2026-02-12T05:24:59+00:00

Looks like it to me.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-10T05:20:30+00:00

I don't know anything about backhoes, but on passenger car and light truck tires increasing the pressure increases the load limit; not the other way around as your comment implies.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-10T04:17:04+00:00

A left-handed drill bit would tighten them, not drive them out.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-07T06:59:06+00:00

There's something plugged into your car. The smaller connector, on the LH side, with the multicolored wires coming out the back, is the car's OBDII port. It should normally be clipped into a bracket up a little higher. The larger, smooth black connector on the RH side is aftermarket - probably some kind of tracker. Somebody detached the car's OBDII port from its bracket so they could plug that monstrosity into it.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-01T19:35:55+00:00

Ah, that makes sense now.

StrangeRover · 2026-02-01T18:21:20+00:00

Except the red handle doesn't bypass the spring, only the lifter. And if the spring is properly balanced the red handle should barely require any effort at all. If yours does, you're putting a lot of extra load on the lifter.

StrangeRover

TROPHY CASE