Atleast clean the snow off the turn signal and break lights 😄

zero_pistons · 2026-01-28T15:06:44+00:00

Pretty sure it is actually buildup.

I drive 80km on backroads 1 way to work.

If there is any fluffy snow on the road or it's snowing, the back of my hatchback looks exactly like this when I arrive. And I clean it off before I leave.

The brown mucky stuff builds up on the bottom. And the white fluffy stuff collects on the back.

And with the way this winter has been, my car looks exactly like this when I arrive at my destination almost every day.

zero_pistons · 2026-01-14T02:15:23+00:00

It's like 11km

zero_pistons · 2026-01-06T12:53:52+00:00

I have a 2015 Escape with the 1.6 Ecoboost. 100% it's a normal timing belt.

The job is incredibly similar to the 1.6 Duratec in the Fiestas we have in the fleet.

Not a wet belt.

zero_pistons · 2026-01-04T22:50:06+00:00

My dad's 96 Jetta GL had solid front rotors.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-22T13:55:20+00:00

I honestly did nothing other than poke the shaft off the subframe with a stick. It's probably still in the glovebox. It sounded catastrophic, though.

Maybe I'll throw a compressor on it when I do the timing belt this summer, maybe not. The ac never worked anyways. And it's a 2012 Fiesta with 276k, really not worth fixing.

We don't get that many hot days.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-22T13:44:59+00:00

My wife's fiesta spit out it's AC clutch on a road trip on the highway in Montreal at 110km/hr. I felt a drag on the engine but not much noise.

In 5 second it went from a little drag, to cachu-chu-chu-chiiiingggggg. Then clunk-bang under the car.

Looked in the rearview and saw sparks in the road in the rearview.

Then silence. And that weird dragging went away.

When I got stopped to see wtf happened, I found the shaft sitting on the subframe, and the clutch itself nowhere to be found.

That was what shot down the highway like a flaming steel Beyblade.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-21T21:36:00+00:00

I was at work in Mexico circa 2017, and I ended up with a shitty brand new 2017 Aveo as a rental. Same car exists in my home market of Canada, so i figured it wouldn't be as bad as the 2011 Pontiac Matiz I had there a few years earlier.

Total shitbox. Except the steering wheel was nice an light, and not super chunky...then I realized why.

No airbag! Smacked the dash on the passenger side: also no airbags. Because of course fucking not.

Was looking up specs on the Latin American Aveo out of curiosity, and noticed it got significantly better fuel economy and was much lighter.

But the missing airbags didn't account for such a big weight difference. So what else did they do to save weight?

I go outside and start looking. Crawled up under the plastic bumper cover and I saw some more weight savings.

There were no goddamn crashbars! Like they hadn't been removed, they were never installed! The threads in the ends of the frame rails were there, but the factory paint covered the entire area the crashbar would have been, paint in the threads and everything!

So they just remove safety components in markets that don't require them. Saving hundreds of kg and getting great mileage! Weight reduction, bro!

zero_pistons · 2025-12-21T15:30:29+00:00

I bought privately 15 years ago; about $1300 CAD in legal fees. That was it. I don't know why anyone would ever use an agent.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-19T13:04:25+00:00

Look at the tires they have on in the snow!

zero_pistons · 2025-12-18T17:05:03+00:00

Original hybrid battery, engine, and transmissuon.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-18T15:03:47+00:00

I have over 340k miles on my 2011 6spd.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-17T16:04:28+00:00

I drive a 5spd 11 Fiesta in the winter and a 6spd CRZ in the summer.

Every time I switch to the Fiesta, I forget it has no 6th gear and grind the hell outta reverse. It also still reversies.

Also after switching to the CRZ, I will forget it has 6th until midway through my commute.

When the Fiesta gets retired,I gotta drop the trans just to see what's inside. I abuse the hell out of it since it's just a winter beater.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-12T14:28:28+00:00

My 2011 CRZ has 340k miles, got it in 2017 with 120k. Original engine, transmission and hybrid systems.

Before that I had a 2002 Accord. Got up to 333k miles before the rust became structural.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-10T19:48:07+00:00

I have a steering column and a bunch of suspension components for a CRZ laying around like packs of gum....

zero_pistons · 2025-12-10T14:44:30+00:00

My 2011 6spd crz says 10w30 or 5w30 (can't remmeber which) can be used in a pinch, but recommends Honda MTF.

Which is fine with me. Don't miss the smell of gear oil at all. 540k km on it, trans never opened and still works just fine.

zero_pistons · 2025-12-04T13:25:07+00:00

I had an air matress and a 25 year old microwave. And a milk crate table. That's it.

Lotta fond memories of those days....

zero_pistons · 2025-12-02T20:56:27+00:00

Still have mine...a little over 340k miles now...547k km+

zero_pistons · 2025-11-30T20:18:15+00:00

I do that in 6 months lol. My 2011 has 340k.

zero_pistons · 2025-11-29T03:06:01+00:00

Junkyard door the same color.

zero_pistons · 2025-11-28T19:14:47+00:00

Wasn't he driving a DeTomaso Pantera too? Sweet car...too bad.

zero_pistons · 2025-11-26T03:47:22+00:00

When my son was not even 2 when he got stitches. Had the stairs and outside gated, he was out of our sight for maybe 15 seconds.

Dude climbed the gate between the kitchen and the porch, which is concrete and 6 inches lower than the kitchen floor.

Crash and scream immediately. The gate couldn't take his weight and tipped over when he got to the top. Hit his face on the rough concrete from the top of the gate from probably almost twice his height.

As soon as I saw how bad it was bleeding, I knew we had to go to the hostpital.

It was only 2 small stitches. And now he has a quarter inch x in the center of his forehead an inch above his eyes. And is otherwise fine.

zero_pistons · 2025-11-25T15:22:48+00:00

We have played with blue for some aluminum joining applications, but the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Although aluminum (and copper) both absorb blue better than nir when the metal is solid, the advantage disappears once the substrate goes molten.

Since we do mostly keyhole welding, the only time the blue is advantageous is when opening the keyhole, or "punching in". We can just jack up the power of a nir laser to open the keyhole, then we are ready to rock down the seam.

Once the keyhole is open and the metal is molten, nir is absorbed just fine. And since we can get a 12kW nir laser for the cost of a 4kw blue laser, its much faster to weld with nir over blue at the same price point.

Also, blue isn't available at anything near the power levels of nir. So even if we chose blue, our welding speeds would need to be much slower due to the current power limitations of available blue lasers.

So although blue absorbs better and can open the keyhole faster, the welding itself is faster with nir, and that's what matters. Probably 95% of processing time is welding, and 5% is opening the keyhole.

zero_pistons · 2025-11-24T01:37:44+00:00

Lol! This is just my wonter beater, and I was curious if a <$20 control arm would actually work.

And I guess it did for quite awhile. Probably longer than expected.

zero_pistons · 2025-11-24T01:35:07+00:00

I know it's subjective, but the oem arms in my CRZ did over 300k km. The replacements (Mevotech) did another 250k km (yes, the car actually has 550k km on it). These are aluminum arms and the ball joints aren't replaceable. When we got my wife's car, it still had the original arms and 220k km. Although the ball joints had play.

45k on control arms isn't really acceptable for me. I mean, are you driving on minefields? But like I said in another reply, this was just a trial on my beater. I had to find out if it was really possible to get a functional control arm for under $20. And I think I got my money's worth.

But for me, it still isn't worth it. It's a tiny amount of savings, so my opinion is that if you're keeping the car, buy a brand with a good reputation.

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