Toyota Nation - home of dumb people

General Discussion
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This will probably get Flagged . I look at that forum every once in a while and I am still amazed at the the dumb questions asked there .

Today a person wants to know since they live in an apartment and have no access to a water hose how do they wash their vehicle. Good Grief , have they never heard of self or full service car washes.

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Yeah, that is really dumb. I don’t recommend it, but if you want to see where the most clueless people congregate, take a look at Nextdoor.

A typical post on that site is something along these lines:
A person posts a pic of a Groundhog, or an Opossum, and asks “What is this weird looking animal? Will it kill me?”

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I tried Nextdoor and clueless is in full status there.

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Reddit is just as bad. The Ask a Mechanic sub or similar get far too many people showing bad video of a problem but not revealing the year, make and model of the car. Asking questions about warning lights because they don’t want to read the owners manual. And the body damage question EVERYbody asks
 can I DIY this repair? (If you have to come to reddit to ask, you can’t!)

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Let’s not forget about the people who ask for a recommended mechanic, without revealing any info about the state where they reside.

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In college in South Dakota, the car wash had the heaters. In the winter I’d actually wax the car for a few quarters to heat the bay up. It was ok as long as people were not waiting.

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We had a member recently post how great Quora was for information. I guess they never saw the article with heading ( If there are no stupid questions why does Quora exist ? ).

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Friend got a newer, nice townhouse and I talked him into getting a NG heater for garage since it’s cold here in MN. Then he asked how he could more easily wash his car. I said he needs a floor drain. And running water. He was annoyed with melting snow and salt stains.

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People clean cars in parking lots after a road trip, prior to a car show or at a racetrack.

At a car show years ago, a vendor demonstrated a waterless car cleaning product, claiming his car had never been subjected to a water hose.

We have cleaned ATVs and sand rails while at the sand dunes.

Somehow all the race cars at the dirt track are clean prior to the next day’s racing events. In a desert region they are not going to allow participants to clean 200 racecars in the pits using garden hoses.

Discussions can be educational, for those willing to learn. We learned how to install a license plate bracket.

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Heh heh. We had a wedding in South Dakota a couple weeks ago in. In the field adjacent to the hotel was a family of prairie dogs. Spent most of the time in the city or settled areas and had never seen one up close. They are as big as dogs but live like gophers.

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‘Ever heard’ of bots?

They often ask the simpleton questions you referenced.

Igor Sushko’s Automotive Forums has bots registering by the dozens per day, because they won’t migrate the site to a more recent forum software engine with a more secure, foolproof member registration system. Compared to what CarTalk’s looks like, or DriveAccord (Xenforo).

Asking dope schitt such as “What’s the best SUV to buy?” or “What oil type goes in my engine?”.

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I got on Nextdoor because I found a $500 Fluke meter in the gutter. I e-mailed Fluke with the serial number; it wasn’t registered. The only place to ask in the neighborhood was Nextdoor. I found the rightful owner.

I also found a bunch of ignoramuses. A lot of them are young and can benefit from the wisdom of age and experience. Most ignore it, but a few pay attention. I’ve helped out a few. Consider the possibility of public service.

There are excellent fora on Reddit - I can’t vouch for all of them. I’ve gotten a lot of useful information. I moderate an unbusy subreddit.

They’re frugal. I wash cars without a hose. I fill a bucket, get it wet, soap it up, fill the bucket again, rinse it off. Having an outside spigot makes it more convenient but isn’t necessary.

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Just my opinion, one of the worst cliches ever created is “there is no such thing as a dumb question”.
But as long as we have people that will believe 2+2=5 if a politician says so, we will get dumb questions.

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That stems from the old adage about “respecting” (assumed) “authorities” in varied subjects or avocations.

I was brought up, and lived during, an age where one questioned authority. where if I placed 2 pairs of pennies on a table in front of me, I always got 4, to use analogy.