CarTalk.com Best of Deals Car Reviews Repair Shops Cars A-Z Radio Show

Toyota longevity

General Discussion
#161

When we go to Ohio, we usually pick up some Yuengling (ying-ling) beer. I think the brewery is the oldest in the country with limited distribution. Might be out of Pennsylvania. The wife likes it and a treat for friends. They might have it in Indiana.

When we built, I plumbed the house for central vac but never put it in. All set to go, just have to run about ten feet to the garage. Had to space the inlets for their 20’ hose or something. Then started wondering about dragging 20’ of hose around and lost interest.

I did put one of those wall mount vacs with a long hose in the garage though for cars. I can reach both cars with it. Then I have my shop vac for portable stuff. I guess I’m vac-ed out. None of them spray paint though like the Kirby. When everyone died I sold my mom’s Kirby at the auction house along with everything else. I don’t think it brought more than $20. I hope she forgives me.

#162

I didn’t think you needed to drain oil out of a British car. I thought the car handled that job itself as you drove it. :wink:

4 Likes
#163

Correct, Pottsville PA

Also correct

Since we’re all on vacuums now, I purchased my wife a Shark Apex UpLight for her birthday last fall (her request believe it or not!), and it has been fantastic for us! (someone bump this in 10 years and I’ll let you know how it’s running).

1 Like
#164

Well ok I guess, but the rule is never give anything with a cord. I bought my wife one of those big deal mixers too for Christmas once but it was from Santa. Barely squeaked by.

#165

My parents have one of those wall mounted shark vacuums (honestly it looks more like a dust buster than a vacuum to me :man_shrugging: ), but I like the one we got better (cord and all :wink: ). And don’t knock a good mixer! They’re worth the money!

#166

I used to invite the Kirby salespeople over to clean my rug and for entertainment. They won’t come anymore. The last salesman called his boss in to help close the deal. He wound up yelling that you people must like dirt, look what we pulled out of your rug!
I said, yes we love dirt, we buy special equipment and rent campsites, just so we can sleep in it.

#167

Kind of like when we used to go to timeshare presentations, for the food and cheesy gifts.

1 Like
#168

Timeshare presentations? I’d rather have a root canal…

5 Likes
#169

The very first automotive story I wrote was a comparison of the MR2 to the Fiero. I was in a college creative writing class. Guess the year?

#170

84? The Fiero’d been out for a year and the MR2 was just coming on the scene.

Either that or some time in the 90’s when the used cars were becoming cheap enough for some college kids to get their hands on them.

#171

I’d go for the free weekends

#172

Yup. I was in my 3rd year I think, so around '88. I didn’t actually get my hands on one!

#173

Did you happen to write about the Fiero’s alarming propensity to burst into flames after a connecting rod went through the side of the engine block? If you take a ridiculously high percentage of defective con rods, and then factor in the reality that the capacity of the oil pan was reduced to only 3 qts in order to be able to provide adequate ground clearance, you have the perfect storm for broken con rods, with resulting engine fires.

Even for GM, the Fiero was a design and engineering disaster. However, in typical GM tradition, it became a good vehicle by its final year of production… just in time to be discontinued.

"Safety issues escalated rapidly by the summer of 1987, when the fire count for 1984 models reached a rate of 20 blazes a month. Fieros were exploding at the rate of one for every 508 cars sold, and no other mass-market automobile ever came close to that record.[20] Pontiac engineers knew about the problems early on: one wrote an urgent memo dated October 6, 1983, to report that two Fieros had suddenly caught fire during test drives. This was only 3 months after the production of the Fiero began. It was first thought to be caused by antifreeze leaking out of badly installed hoses but in reality it was defective connecting rods. After one meeting with the Saginaw foundry manager, he wrote that “60 percent to 90 percent of the rods produced do not exhibit defects.” This means at least every 1 out of 10 rods produced were defective and possibly 4 out of 10 were also defective. The Associated Press quoted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as saying it had “…received 148 complaints regarding Pontiac Fieros catching fire including reports of six injuries.”

2 Likes
#174

The Fiero was overweight, the Mr2 was not. Building in lightness is expensive and not something GM likes to spend money on.

#175

Normally Yes, but it did get us a weekend ski trip at a resort, even if it did take forever to get over the pass. We spent most of our resort credit on dinner at 9pm just before the restraunt closed.

#176

The Fiero was originally envisioned as a small “city car”, and part-way through its design/development stage GM decided that it would instead be marketed as a pseudo-sports car. However few changes were made to the suspension and the steering mechanism, so the resulting vehicle was almost entirely a non-sporty little car beneath its skin.

Finally, by its last year of production, it was altered sufficiently to be a real sporty-car… just in time to be discontinued.

1 Like