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Right to repair

Checkerboard Strangler said:
Vote blue and there is a better chance we "get to have nice things" and by that I do not mean "free stuff", I mean GOOD STUFF that lasts for generations and enhances the quality of life for the largest number of Americans.

We have a chance now to invest in ourselves in some very profound and positive ways if we just give ourselves permission to do so.
And if we do, we will appreciate the payoff.
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I don't usually vote straight down the party line. I also see good points on both sides. I'm generally pretty conservative, but sometimes liberals have good ideas, and they have done some very good things for the country in the past. I wish Democrats would get off the identity politics and return to being the party of working people. Because neither beltway party gave a rat's ass about the silent hardworking middle class that Donald Trump got elected. And if the Democrats don't wake up soon and find a candidate who does care Trump will be re-elected.
 
PirateMk1 said:
Now I call BS. I have seen how it works on the roads out here in California as I have been involved in the transport of the materials for reconstruction of several major highway portions out here including I-5 and Hwy99. The waste fraud and outright abuse of the system is appalling. These roads are supposed to be built to standards that including hauling without breaking convoys of tanks that weigh on the order of 70+ tons and their transport on the order of 45+ tons empty. They are supposed to last 20 years plus at those weights which are rare in everyday current use. The construction of our roads is shoddy to be blunt. The reason being is all the people in the know are taking cuts and cutting corners. Then there is Cal Trans deliberately cutting holes into newly built roads only see those sections repaired shoddily and deteriorate even faster. I pay a **** load of money to have access to these roads, my money is not buying what it should. Not by a longshot.

Oh and the billions spent on the train to nowhere. Why are we spending billions on a bloody train going from Bakersfield to Merced? Where is all the money that went to that boondoggle?

We NEED water but we sure as hell dont build or even hardly repair the dams that collects it.
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I don't see these problems as exclusively being caused by liberal Democrats. It happens under Republicans, too. WHY? Mostly I think because everybody involved is spending somebody else's money...taxpayer money. And the taxpayers can't be missing work to oversee their investment. The people building have no incentive to do better, be more honest, and neither do the government employees who are supposed to oversee the projects. It simply ain't their money. And they won't lose their jobs even if the bridge falls down. There is just NO incentive anywhere down the line to do excellent work, or excellent planning. And since most of it is pork funded, and the choice of projects political, you also get rail service to nowhere.
 
Waddy said:
I don't usually vote straight down the party line. I also see good points on both sides. I'm generally pretty conservative, but sometimes liberals have good ideas, and they have done some very good things for the country in the past. I wish Democrats would get off the identity politics and return to being the party of working people. Because neither beltway party gave a rat's ass about the silent hardworking middle class that Donald Trump got elected. And if the Democrats don't wake up soon and find a candidate who does care Trump will be re-elected.
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This is why Bernie and Liz interest me. I think there is a place for the identity stuff but it is not always at the fore.
Some of it is and some ain't, just like every other party. And, just like every other party we have those who overplay it.
But if we are truly interested in core solutions that ease a multitude of sins and problems, we need to address the core.
And from where I sit the core is the despair quotient.
And the cure is to just ease it back some, from a variety of approaches.
Healthcare, decent paying jobs and access to the skills desperately needed are core components in need of care and feeding if we want our country to get back some of its vitality and even some of its honor.
 
Rexedgar said:
I started my first shop in 1980. I had maybe 3 years of dealership/independent shop experience. One day a doctor found his way to the shop. He said he had an XKE that needed valve cover gaskets. Was this the type of work that I did? Yes, sir, three bags full, said I. I can imagine my face when I opened the bonnet and saw that immense V-12!

Another customer asked, do you work on Subarus? Hell yes we do, I had never heard of a Subaru.

Another WW2 Marine flyer brought home a Datsun 1600 from Japan. It was only sold here when it became the 2000, a smart looking two seat convertible. The WW2 vet was named Jack Maas, said he knew Pappy Boyington, he passed away a bunch of years ago.
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A WW2 aviator, wrenching, and a Datsun 2000! This story has all kinds of good stuff in it! :thumbs:
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
LOL, you still shouldn't have paid the six grand for the battery, sorry...but okay.
At 255K it didn't really owe you guys anything anyway. Cheers on the garage queen condition and appearances but at two hundred and fifty five thousand miles, if it were me I'd have thrown in a budget refurb or reman unit and call it good for another two or three years.
Reman units run about 1500 to 2000 bucks and you get a pretty decent life out of them for the most part.

Yes, I know about the battery switcheroo process, it's not all that scary as long as you respect the 200 volts dealio. ;)
To be honest, it's changing and cleaning the battery vent fan that pisses me off, it's almost as labor intensive as swapping out the damn battery, at least on a Gen II model anyway.
I wish they'd have made the ventilation fan a modular pop-out/snap-in unit so people could clean the fan every six months with five minutes worth of DIY, like changing an engine air filter.
You shouldn't have to dismantle most of the rear interior just to clean a stupid squirrel cage fan!

The NiMH cells in the Prius battery pack don't like to regularly forced all the way up to 100% every single time you charge but 85-90% is golden, with some occasional one hundred percent charges spaced out after a run down to 45-50%.
As far as I know, the "ONE BAR" condition does NOT represent zero or even close to zero, it IS actually representing approximately 40-45%...that is the "artificial low" charge status indicated by "one bar".
And it is, as you probably know, based on voltage readings, not current.

Like your wife, I too was driving an awful lot in city traffic and like your wife, my driving did not always have enough long highway drives either.
But the battery has held up. I just hate the lackluster performance of the vehicle, especially when compared to my daughter's Chevy Volt, which is actually pretty fun to drive for what it is. It's not a Tesla but it has enough oomph "to get out of its own way".

My experience with NiMH and Li-Ion batteries is not from the automotive circles but instead from my career as a director of photography.
I started out in 1983 with a mix of gel cell lead acid and Ni-Cad battery packs and "battery belts" for my camera gear, then graduated to Nickel-Metal Hydride, then moved into Lithium-Ion and we've all "been friends" all along and I've learned the idiosyncracies of each system.

And I've had to train my crew in the proper care and feeding of these batteries as well, because as you said, if they aren't maintained and charged properly, the life expectancy drops.

But seriously, I think the ladies in your fam did okay because you did get 255 thousand miles out of that pack, which is pretty good.
Most Prius taxicabs will get 250-350 thousand miles out of one before swapping them out.
And from what I can gather, those taxi fleets are not buying the six thousand dollar OEM units either, because generally speaking after the second battery pack reaches the end of useful life, so has the taxicab.

You guys did pretty well. Maybe they could have squeezed another fifty thousand out of it, maybe not, but 255K is nothing to be ashamed about!
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Why am I not surprised a photographer knows a lot about batteries?
 
Waddy said:
I don't usually vote straight down the party line. I also see good points on both sides. I'm generally pretty conservative, but sometimes liberals have good ideas, and they have done some very good things for the country in the past. I wish Democrats would get off the identity politics and return to being the party of working people. Because neither beltway party gave a rat's ass about the silent hardworking middle class that Donald Trump got elected. And if the Democrats don't wake up soon and find a candidate who does care Trump will be re-elected.
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I can't tell you how many posts I've made in the past claiming the bolded. Dems ceded the working man's vote to Trump, of all abominations.

I suppose an argument can be made of the necessity to fight the culture wars. But they've been won. The Dems need to get back to attracting natural diversity by having universal ideas. And like before, those starts with working-class men & women and their needs.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Now you are reaching.

I didn't say that and you know it. (umanageable) I didn't even come close to making that scenario.

You have zero comprehension of why one engine can burn a bit more oil than another in the very same engine family. There are hundreds of parts in various engine families that can create different engine life characteristics, and that was my point to begin with.

Car makers draw their parts from multiple sources, and that will definitely affect the differences between engines in the same families if any one of the suppliers sends certain parts that don't wear as well as the others.
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Well one thing I know is that unless the process has changed, rings (OEMs often buy from aftermarket ring manufacturers) are made from huge coils of steel wire of a specific alloy and then are formed and heat treated then depending on application coated with various compounds to generate the desired product. So yeah, the idea of major variations in one batch of material seems far fetched.
You are the one generating all the paranoid fantasies about wild variations in a batch of engines. Now you're attempting to deflect into a screed about how different parts interact, which is not what you started with.
Batches of components are QC'd dozens of times throughout the manufacturing AND assembly process, so when a batch of valves come in, for example, or camshafts, or blocks, they are all tested pretty thoroughly.
Blocks and cranks, for instance, are magnafluxed several times before getting assembled into a complete engine.
Valves, pistons, and rods are weighed and measured, measured down to the micron, in fact.

Goal posts...they should be set in concrete so you scragglers can't pull them up and move them when it suits you.
Since I know you are a last word freak, this is now your chance to make some idiotic comment about leftists.
 
Chomsky said:
I can't tell you how many posts I've made in the past claiming the bolded. Dems ceded the working man's vote to Trump, of all abominations.

I suppose an argument can be made of the necessity to fight the culture wars. But they've been won. The Dems need to get back to attracting natural diversity by having universal ideas. And like before, those starts with working-class men & women and their needs.
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I'm conservative but I do think Democrats have done some good things. They were responsible for the consumer protection laws passed back in the 70's. Those laws have been good for all of us. They also gave us what public transportation we have in this country. And they did good work on racial equality and desegregating schools, fair housing, etc. They have also made life better for seniors, with Medicare and Social Security, and other programs for the aged. And it was liberals that forced us to clean up the environment, and pushed for worker safety laws. But they seem so hung up on identity politics that they've lost sight of what their natural base, (the middle class) has so much angst about. People are worried first and foremost about automation and offshoring taking their good paying jobs and leaving them no alternative but to work at a Walmart somewhere, if they can get it. They're worried about their kids getting hooked on drugs like opioids. And they worry that their traditional values, like family and religion, are being trampled. Trump played on this angst like a champ. He isn't really a Republican, he's a populist. He talks like one and acts like one. If he runs against Sanders he'll beat him. Why? because the middle class knows Sanders is full of utopian empty promises. And they know who will pay for those promises if he ever got elected.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Well one thing I know is that unless the process has changed, rings (OEMs often buy from aftermarket ring manufacturers) are made from huge coils of steel wire of a specific alloy and then are formed and heat treated then depending on application coated with various compounds to generate the desired product. So yeah, the idea of major variations in one batch of material seems far fetched.
You are the one generating all the paranoid fantasies about wild variations in a batch of engines. Now you're attempting to deflect into a screed about how different parts interact, which is not what you started with.
Batches of components are QC'd dozens of times throughout the manufacturing AND assembly process, so when a batch of valves come in, for example, or camshafts, or blocks, they are all tested pretty thoroughly.
Blocks and cranks, for instance, are magnafluxed several times before getting assembled into a complete engine.
Valves, pistons, and rods are weighed and measured, measured down to the micron, in fact.

Goal posts...they should be set in concrete so you scragglers can't pull them up and move them when it suits you.
Since I know you are a last word freak, this is now your chance to make some idiotic comment about leftists.
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Paranoid fantasy's ? I never said it was a wide scale problem like you are trying to manipulate into this subject. I said engines of the same family are not, and never will be identical as how they wear........... Why do you keep shifting?

Parts are looked at randomly at the auto manufacturer for allowable tolerances, not pure precision as you speak. The auto manufacturer would go broke checking every individual part for exact precision.

BY your premise, Chevrolet and GMC wouldn't have had to recall a few hundred thousand Castech 706 cylinder heads because of the thin walls in the heads near the torque bolts because they checked them each for precision. :roll:

Technical Service Bulletin 06-06-01-019B

81318.jpg


MY initial premise was that metallurgy between batches can vary from batch to batch from the very same supplier,never mind different sources.

You refuse to accept that engine of the very same family can have variable engine wear characteristics.

The very same car engines with different car owners can also have huge differences on how a engine wears throughout it's service life. One owner can be the type who turns the key and drives away, while the other owner is smart enough to allow the engine warm up before driving away.
 
Last edited:
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Well one thing I know is that unless the process has changed, rings (OEMs often buy from aftermarket ring manufacturers) are made from huge coils of steel wire of a specific alloy and then are formed and heat treated then depending on application coated with various compounds to generate the desired product. So yeah, the idea of major variations in one batch of material seems far fetched.
You are the one generating all the paranoid fantasies about wild variations in a batch of engines. Now you're attempting to deflect into a screed about how different parts interact, which is not what you started with.
Batches of components are QC'd dozens of times throughout the manufacturing AND assembly process, so when a batch of valves come in, for example, or camshafts, or blocks, they are all tested pretty thoroughly.
Blocks and cranks, for instance, are magnafluxed several times before getting assembled into a complete engine.
Valves, pistons, and rods are weighed and measured, measured down to the micron, in fact.

Goal posts...they should be set in concrete so you scragglers can't pull them up and move them when it suits you.
Since I know you are a last word freak, this is now your chance to make some idiotic comment about leftists.
Click to expand...

He didn't say anything about major variations. There doesn't have to be major variations for parts to perform differently. Sometimes minor variations can do that. Measuring weighing and magnaflux also don't tell the whole story.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Paranoid fantasy's ? I never said it was a wide scale problem like you are trying to manipulate into this subject. I said engines of the same family are not, and never will be identical as how they wear........... Why do you keep shifting?

Parts are looked at randomly at the auto manufacturer for allowable tolerances, not pure precision as you speak. The auto manufacturer would go broke checking every individual part for exact precision.

BY your premise, Chevrolet and GMC wouldn't have had to recall a few hundred thousand Castech 706 cylinder heads because of the thin walls in the heads near the torque bolts because they checked them each for precision. :roll:

Technical Service Bulletin 06-06-01-019B

View attachment 67272762


MY initial premise was that metallurgy between batches can vary from batch to batch from the very same supplier,never mind different sources.

You refuse to accept that engine of the very same family can have variable engine wear characteristics.

The very same car engines with different car owners can also have huge differences on how a engine wears throughout it's service life. One owner can be the type who turns the key and drives away, while the other owner is smart enough to allow the engine warm up before driving away.
Click to expand...

I don't think the metallurgy and piston rings and various other components will very much. But a slight variation can change wear life
 
RetiredUSN said:
Paranoid fantasy's ? I never said it was a wide scale problem like you are trying to manipulate into this subject. I said engines of the same family are not, and never will be identical as how they wear........... Why do you keep shifting?

Parts are looked at randomly at the auto manufacturer for allowable tolerances, not pure precision as you speak. The auto manufacturer would go broke checking every individual part for exact precision.

BY your premise, Chevrolet and GMC wouldn't have had to recall a few hundred thousand Castech 706 cylinder heads because of the thin walls in the heads near the torque bolts because they checked them each for precision. :roll:

Technical Service Bulletin 06-06-01-019B

View attachment 67272762


MY initial premise was that metallurgy between batches can vary from batch to batch from the very same supplier,never mind different sources.

You refuse to accept that engine of the very same family can have variable engine wear characteristics.

The very same car engines with different car owners can also have huge differences on how a engine wears throughout it's service life. One owner can be the type who turns the key and drives away, while the other owner is smart enough to allow the engine warm up before driving away.
Click to expand...

The object of the periodic inspections is to insure that parts are within allowable tolerances. The wider the tolerance, the wider the deviation from standard and therefore deviation from normal wear, greater or lesser. Precision and accuracy are two different things and vary greater or lesser depending costs and needs. I think Checkerboard is confusing the two.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Paranoid fantasy's ? I never said it was a wide scale problem like you are trying to manipulate into this subject. I said engines of the same family are not, and never will be identical as how they wear........... Why do you keep shifting?

Parts are looked at randomly at the auto manufacturer for allowable tolerances, not pure precision as you speak. The auto manufacturer would go broke checking every individual part for exact precision.

BY your premise, Chevrolet and GMC wouldn't have had to recall a few hundred thousand Castech 706 cylinder heads because of the thin walls in the heads near the torque bolts because they checked them each for precision. :roll:

Technical Service Bulletin 06-06-01-019B

View attachment 67272762


MY initial premise was that metallurgy between batches can vary from batch to batch from the very same supplier,never mind different sources.

You refuse to accept that engine of the very same family can have variable engine wear characteristics.

The very same car engines with different car owners can also have huge differences on how a engine wears throughout it's service life. One owner can be the type who turns the key and drives away, while the other owner is smart enough to allow the engine warm up before driving away.
Click to expand...

Nope, that isn't how you posed your original argument at all.
And I didn't say that each individual engine gets each and every nut and bolt individually checked either.
And I never brought individual owner care and feeding into the argument either, because that would be incredibly stupid to do so, as it is generally accepted that the way each engine is treated by the end user is perhaps one of the biggest factors of all.
And I am done, because I already made my point.
 
gino said:
It's the same thing with today's cars. Once you go over 100,000 miles, they fall apart. They even have a name for it, planned obsolescence.
There are SO many electronic parts in today's cars that they are going to fail sooner rather than later. You mention European cars. have you looked at a BMW lately?
Plastic everywhere, and that's under the hood.

Unfortunately, modern corporations have turned so greedy that I don't know what the answer is. Somehow, we have to end the unbridled greed that is running amuck and ruining our society.
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My 14 Nissan Altima has 96K+ miles and runs like the day I got it.
 
CLAX1911 said:
He didn't say anything about major variations. There doesn't have to be major variations for parts to perform differently. Sometimes minor variations can do that. Measuring weighing and magnaflux also don't tell the whole story.
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The way it sounded to me, he was trying to say that different batches of valve springs are going to vary widely in quality, just as one example, or piston rings...

And I am saying that quality and tolerances have tightened up, in the name of efficiency and cleanliness, in recent years.
We do a far better and much more precise job manufacturing things like engines than we used to...that was the crux of my entire original argument.
All one has to do is take apart an engine from 1963 with a hundred thousand miles on it and an engine from 2019 with the same miles on it and the evidence will be immediately apparent.

For the most part we do NOT individually balance and blueprint every single engine but when one makes the comparison between that vintage stock engine from 1963 and 2019, the difference in the standards is readily apparent. A mechanic FROM 1963 might be forgiven for thinking that the 2019 engine "MIGHT HAVE BEEN" balanced and blueprinted because the wear and tear would be much lower in the latter unit, depending of course on how the engine was treated, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that both engines were maintained normally.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
The way it sounded to me, he was trying to say that different batches of valve springs are going to vary widely in quality, just as one example, or piston rings...
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I think he meant in their alloying components which a slight variance in that can change the performance.
And I am saying that quality and tolerances have tightened up, in the name of efficiency and cleanliness, in recent years.
We do a far better and much more precise job manufacturing things like engines than we used to...that was the crux of my entire original argument.
All one has to do is take apart an engine from 1963 with a hundred thousand miles on it and an engine from 2019 with the same miles on it and the evidence will be immediately apparent.
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You are talking about dimensional measurements though. That is only part of the story.

I don't doubt they do PMI but there is going to be variances in materials. The only way to avoid that is powder metallurgy or the hipping process that's too expensive so the components are typically cast or forged in the traditional way.
For the most part we do NOT individually balance and blueprint every single engine but when one makes the comparison between that vintage stock engine from 1963 and 2019, the difference in the standards is readily apparent. A mechanic FROM 1963 might be forgiven for thinking that the 2019 engine "MIGHT HAVE BEEN" balanced and blueprinted because the wear and tear would be much lower in the latter unit, depending of course on how the engine was treated, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that both engines were maintained normally.
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You are still talking about dimensioning. That is still only part of the story. The material the part is made of is part of the story.
 
American said:
My 14 Nissan Altima has 96K+ miles and runs like the day I got it.
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In the early 2000s and up to about 2010 Nissan's were bullet proof cars. Now they partnered with Peugeot, and their quality has slipped a lot.

I heard they are considering going back on that.
 
CLAX1911 said:
In the early 2000s and up to about 2010 Nissan's were bullet proof cars. Now they partnered with Peugeot, and their quality has slipped a lot.

I heard they are considering going back on that.
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I was in the auto service trade from 1976 until 2006. Datsun/Nissan was always, imo, third ranking in the cars from Japan. Mechanically, they are/were sound, but the sound when the door gets closed give away the game.
 
PirateMk1 said:
The object of the periodic inspections is to insure that parts are within allowable tolerances. The wider the tolerance, the wider the deviation from standard and therefore deviation from normal wear, greater or lesser. Precision and accuracy are two different things and vary greater or lesser depending costs and needs. I think Checkerboard is confusing the two.
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Exactly.
 
Rexedgar said:
I was in the auto service trade from 1976 until 2006. Datsun/Nissan was always, imo, third ranking in the cars from Japan. Mechanically, they are/were sound, but the sound when the door gets closed give away the game.
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I see cars bulletproof based on its longevity. It's not better than a Toyota, definitely better than a Mazda, slightly better than a Subaru.
 
CLAX1911 said:
I see cars bulletproof based on its longevity. It's not better than a Toyota, definitely better than a Mazda, slightly better than a Subaru.
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My third rank was based on Honda and Toyota being one and two, not necessarily in that order. Mazda has gotten better and Subaru surprised me with their engineering in the late 1970’s.
 
Rexedgar said:
My third rank was based on Honda and Toyota being one and two, not necessarily in that order. Mazda has gotten better and Subaru surprised me with their engineering in the late 1970’s.
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I don't know how I forgot Honda. Yeah I would say Honda's better product than Nissan. I agree.

but the worst thing to come out of your man that was highly marketed here in the US was Mitsubishi.
 
CLAX1911 said:
I don't know how I forgot Honda. Yeah I would say Honda's better product than Nissan. I agree.

but the worst thing to come out of your man that was highly marketed here in the US was Mitsubishi.
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I don’t follow this . Isuzu and Suzuki were forays into the US passenger car market that didn’t work out.

Aside; in the 1980’s Fiat left the US market and now forty years later they are back; I’m not sold on Fiat, even though they are in league with Chrysler.....
 
Rexedgar said:
I don’t follow this . Isuzu and Suzuki were forays into the US passenger car market that didn’t work out.

Aside; in the 1980’s Fiat left the US market and now forty years later they are back; I’m not sold on Fiat, even though they are in league with Chrysler.....
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I think Isuzu and Suzuki partnered with GM. In fact diesel truck that GM makes has an Isuzu engine in it.

The Suzuki samurai and the Geo tracker with the same vehicle.

Now I think they're partnered Daewoo.

Italian cars as a whole are terrible. They don't sell over here because they're not good enough. The only ones that do are more of a fashion statement then transportation.

With an exception of Ferrari. Everything else Italy makes it garbage.
 
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