The Official Rants and Trolls Thread

fuel economy complaints

Ok... as usual, it's winter and cold, and it seems we have an influx of newbies complaining about mileage who don't know what goes into the EPA test. What irks me is that some post the usual complaints w/scant or no details. Some seem to ignore all pleas to answer my questionnaire or supply more info.

One complainer about his mileage drop who is in VT (not clear what city) even went as far as to make the statement "The weather doesn't seem to make that much difference." My reply was

Some of the mileage whiners even go as far to wanting to get rid of their Prius because of "poor mileage". What would they replace it with? No currently sold (as new) mass market ICE vehicle gets better mileage...

 

winter driving and traction control trolls

Ok, another annoying one is these trolls who have complaints like:

followed by a litany of complaints. They complain about traction control, braking, etc.

Sometimes, they don't indicate what tires they're using and surely, I'd bet 99% of those folks don't have proper snow tires and the 2nd gen folks have the stock Integrities, which aren't great in the snow.

I suspect another problem is that some of these folks don't properly modulate either pedal. I've heard of people who use the brakes and accelerator in an on/off fashion meaning it's pretty much slam on the brakes and floor the accelerator w/nothing in between. Not a good idea in slick conditions...

For me, it's hardly worth reading these threads when the solution is... snow tires.

 

puzzling car buying habits of others...

So... back in January, when we had snow in the Seattle area w/treacherous conditions, an acquaintance posted on FB about how she had a really scary drive in her BMW Z4 (I know nothing about her car, when she bought it, etc.). I ask her what are the make and model of tires on it, to see if they happen to be summer tires w/0 snow performance (not unheard of for OEM tires on sports cars, 350Z and RX-8 come equipped that way). She has no idea...

A bunch more people comment and then I find out she also has a Land Rover (unknown model or age). From the above, obviously, she's not buying cars for their reliability and if she has no idea what tires are on her car and it snows... well, tells me she doesn't know much about cars.

Since my Z has 2 tires w/aforementioned 0 snow performance, I never drive it if there's any danger of snow.

Today, she asks on FB: Mercedes ML 550 or Lexus RX 350? She's a single student w/no kids and I seriously doubt she needs (referring to the MB) a 5.5L V8 382 hp SUV that's EPA rated 13/18, 15 mpg combined that requires premium... It almost never snows here. Some years, we have 0 days of it. Some people just make me wonder.

 

Re: puzzling car buying habits of others...

cwerdna, your patience is saintly with those mileage questionnaires.

 

Re: puzzling car buying habits of others...

RX350 hands down. Talk her into a 450h perhaps.

 

You ought to give her the old 80's ad line: "Michelin: Because so much is riding on your tires." Think she'll get it?

 

Re: puzzling car buying habits of others...

oh YEA ! now yer talkin'


My rant is only that the (toyota) Lexus HSD is too gutless to tow. NOT true

.

 

Re: puzzling car buying habits of others...

Yeah, I pointed her toward the RX350 simply because it has a much better reliability record than the data available on the ML.

For the only year of V8 ML w/available data (the rest were insufficient data), it was worse than average. For the V6 versions, ML reliability was clearly inferior to the RX but this was no surprise. Mercedes reliability is pretty hit or miss, but mostly below average.

 

Sigh... yet another FB from that post about that person of "Omg, X5M melts my heart!!!!!"

I'm sure the student who didn't even know what tires were on her Z4 nor their suitability in the snow (or lack of) really needs a 555 hp SUV w/MSRP starting at $85,700 and (if I've got the right vehicle at Side-by-Side Comparison), gets an EPA rated 12 city/17 highway, 14 combined...

 

What part of "Omg, X5M melts my heart!!!!!" don't you understand? There's just no accounting for preference. Rodders and Ricers don't get us either.

- D

 

Ha! There's always the joke about BMW == Brings Me Women.

I personally find the X5 to be an unattractive vehicles w/earlier gens being very ugly. If I were to blow $85K+ on a car, it certainly wouldn't be on a BMW SUV.

A former coworker (he doesn't know much about cars) was for some reason a fan of the previous gen Mercedes C-Class (when it was the current gen). It was at the time they were selling the C230K, C240, etc. here. Man, at the time, the C240 was a fricking joke: overpriced, overweight, unreliable, w/ancient recirculating ball steering, small inside and out, and a lame 2.6L 168 hp V6 engine.

This is during the era when the Nissan Altima's standard 2.5L 4 banger was 175 hp.

On the TV ads of the time, Merc was trying to tout the C230K is being fast w/its also lame ~190 hp supercharged 4 banger.

If I "had" to go German, I couldn't figure out why someone would buy one of the above over a BMW 3-series...

I owned a much cheaper and more reliable (although FWD) 255 hp Nissan Maxima at the time.

Both of the above people are from China, so maybe that's it. (Although it's not exclusive to them) It seems like some folks from mainland China have this weird fetish/admiration "German engineering". I'm Chinese myself but born and raised in the US and I don't get it...

 

wasteful Suburban driver

Ok, another rant. I went to a local fast food joint for lunch today and saw a current gen Chevy Suburban (aka monstrosity battering ram of death) idling outside. I came out >25 minutes later and he was still in the parking lot idling. I don't know if he ever shut off his engine in between.

Not sure why... talk about a waste of gas. (Yeah, it's cold out... ~35 F, but still, he was in an area w/plenty of open stores around him.)

I know of big rig drivers leaving their engines running to sleep in their cabs at night for heat or cooling, but this was in the middle of the day.

 

Re: wasteful Suburban driver

Actually, big rig drivers leave their engines running, generally in winter, so that they don't have to call a service truck to get the engines running again. Those huge diesel engines will ice up, and the fuel turn to jelly, in a heartbeat. It's actually cheaper to leave them run.

My biggest gripe about those drivers is that way too many of them are using drugs to stay awake while driving. They are no longer "professional" drivers. :nono:

 

Re: wasteful Suburban driver

Ahh... I see. I can understand about winter.

I'd heard about IdleAir | Sleep Better. Save Money. from MotorWeek: Energy Smart Fuels & Vehicles Special long ago. I don't know how widely they're used but from now looking at Locations | IdleAir, it doesn't seem like there are nearly enough locations. I just discovered that they went bankrupt before, so I'm sure that didn't help w/expansion.

 

another fueling rant

Ok, today I was filling up and I saw a monstrosity class SUV in front of me w/the engine idling. It was a current gen Chevy Surburban or extended length Tahoe (couldn't tell which since it was debadged).

Turns out, the driver left his engine idling to go inside to prepay. Of course, he still left his engine running while filling up the whole time. Hope he gets a check engine light from running his w/engine w/the gas cap off.

He also had massive non-stock wheels (I'm guessing at least 21"). I guess this guy has more money than sense or has money to burn...

 

Most with rims can't afford them, but would rather look like they are well off then actually being so.

 

Ok. I've been a bit annoyed again by posters w/a single post, asking some questions to never return w/no additional activity after they've posted. It seems they've tossed a grenade and run.

Meanwhile, a bunch of people have taken the effort to write a reply. In one that I just encountered, it's been over 3 weeks since the OP posted. There's been zero activity from the OP after the day of the post.

In another, it's been more than 1.5 weeks. There were >26 replies. I do not know, but it seems like the OP just wasted a bunch of our time.

 

My first thought is - maybe some of these are comment spammers. Spambots lately can almost act human, but what gives them away is they generally act clueless on the forum's subject matter.

 

Giving the benefit, maybe it's newbies (like myself) to forums who don't fully appreciate or understand forum protocol; i.e. they get their answer and off they go without acknowledgement. Okay, that's rude but just trying to give the benefit of doubt. Or maybe they're in multiple forums and can't remember where they posted last? Okay, enough excuses, they're trolling!

 

Note my modification, maybe some of them.

Where I help moderate, there are newbie's that post at odd hours with a greeting that is so generic I suspect comment spammer....an investigation often confirms it. I don't rule out xRummer and some human spammers might be getting better on posts.