03-22-2011, 02:19 PM
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#161 (permalink)
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The PRC.
Join Date: Oct 2009
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Edinburgh.
That is all.
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[I]So long and thanks for all the fish.[/I]
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 Today
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03-23-2011, 10:29 AM
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#162 (permalink)
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Hypermiler
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 2,321
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To continue the traffic light complaints:
A light that's triggered by cross traffic. That sometimes gets triggered by butterflies or something - no cars in sight.
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11-mile commute: 100 mpg - - - Tank: 90.2 mpg / 1191 miles
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03-23-2011, 10:29 AM
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#163 (permalink)
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aero guerrilla
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Warsaw, Poland
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Today's annoyance: The prices of used auto parts in Europe  I'm so jealous when I read how Americans go to a junk yard and pull whatever they want for a small fee. Here, you can't poke around old cars and pull what you want. Instead, the used parts market is in the hands of people who want to make lots of $$$ (or more like ). I'm seriously considering buying a second car just for the spare parts, and I'd still come out ahead.
A car like mine can easily be bought for 6000, if it's crashed than 3000-4000. If I sell the seats (2x250 + 3x125), the wheels (5x20 plus tires), and a few small doodads I'll get 1000. Anything out of the engine bay is worth its weight in gold. No, really: any tube, wire, nut/bolt, piece of plastic, etc., goes for 10-150. But it gets better: The same part can be priced differently depending on what car it came from. For example, an EGR cooler for my engine costs 50 if it is from a Pug 307, but from the newer 207 it goes for 55, and one from a 308 is worth 65. I've seen the same air filter box go for 5 (13yo Pug 406) and for 20 (5yo). So I sell off stuff saying it's from a newer model and I can break even right there. Then I sell the chassis for scrap, and I'm ahead, plus any spare parts I've saved are free.
Now, if only I had a few thousand spare and somewhere to store the donor car....
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e·co·mod·ding: the art of turning vehicles into what they should be
What matters is where you're going, not how fast.
"... we humans tend to screw up everything that's good enough as it is...or everything that we're attracted to, we love to go and defile it." - Chris Cornell
[Old] Piwoslaw's Peugeot 307sw modding thread
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03-23-2011, 10:34 AM
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#164 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: scotland
Posts: 1,434
Thanks: 90
Thanked 95 Times in 79 Posts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Piwoslaw
Today's annoyance: The prices of used auto parts in Europe I'm so jealous when I read how Americans go to a junk yard and pull whatever they want for a small fee. Here, you can't poke around old cars and pull what you want. Instead, the used parts market is in the hands of people who want to make lots of $$$ (or more like ). I'm seriously considering buying a second car just for the spare parts, and I'd still come out ahead.
A car like mine can easily be bought for 6000, if it's crashed than 3000-4000. If I sell the seats (2x250 + 3x125), the wheels (5x20 plus tires), and a few small doodads I'll get 1000. Anything out of the engine bay is worth its weight in gold. No, really: any tube, wire, nut/bolt, piece of plastic, etc., goes for 10-150. But it gets better: The same part can be priced differently depending on what car it came from. For example, an EGR cooler for my engine costs 50 if it is from a Pug 307, but from the newer 207 it goes for 55, and one from a 308 is worth 65. I've seen the same air filter box go for 5 (13yo Pug 406) and for 20 (5yo). So I sell off stuff saying it's from a newer model and I can break even right there. Then I sell the chassis for scrap, and I'm ahead, plus any spare parts I've saved are free.
Now, if only I had a few thousand spare and somewhere to store the donor car.... |
Parts are relatively cheap here in Scotland..
Wonder if the Airfreight cost would make it prohibitive? |
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03-23-2011, 01:10 PM
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#165 (permalink)
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NightKnight
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Placerville, CA
Posts: 1,595
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian
To continue the traffic light complaints:
A light that's triggered by cross traffic. That sometimes gets triggered by butterflies or something - no cars in sight.
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Nearly as annoying: when the fool (a ways) in front of me takes a wide right turn, and runs over the sensors in the opposite lane of the road he / she is turning on to... triggers the light, and I have to stop for no other reason than his / her idiocy and lack of driving skills... 
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03-23-2011, 03:01 PM
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#166 (permalink)
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EcoModding Apprentice
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Sussex/Kent, UK
Posts: 108
Thanks: 4
Thanked 23 Times in 12 Posts
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You're making me glad that I don't live on the Continent, Piwoslaw! Over here, you do get some chancers selling off parts for silly prices (no offence  ) but overall prices tend to be reasonable. Breaking used cars tends to be the most economical way of doing things, especially if you're planning an engine swap of some kind.
As for today's annoyances, I've not left the house all day and so have avoided the ugliness of humanity 
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Spoken like a champion. Oh no, disaster!
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03-23-2011, 03:14 PM
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#167 (permalink)
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Hypermiler
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 2,321
Thanks: 611
Thanked 433 Times in 283 Posts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian
To continue the traffic light complaints:
A light that's triggered by cross traffic. That sometimes gets triggered by butterflies or something - no cars in sight.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NachtRitter
Nearly as annoying: when the fool (a ways) in front of me takes a wide right turn, and runs over the sensors in the opposite lane of the road he / she is turning on to... triggers the light, and I have to stop for no other reason than his / her idiocy and lack of driving skills... |
I've seen that as well, at this same intersection.
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11-mile commute: 100 mpg - - - Tank: 90.2 mpg / 1191 miles
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03-23-2011, 03:25 PM
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#168 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
Join Date: May 2009
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 389
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
^That's not annoying; that's fun, free entertainment!  |
It's annoying!
Ever since i moved up to New York State, just outside of the city, i've noticed a majority of the drivers here drive like that. Don't they realize their temper tantrums behind the wheel is costing them more and more money every time they do it? Gas prices just hit $3.97/gal for regular here. Don't they care?
I know i care. It's not so much the money, honestly.... its the fact that i know most of our military operations and political interests are because of oil. Why do you think we are attacking Lybia? Sure, it's terrible that innocent people are being harassed, but we wouldn't be over there if Lybia was absent of oil beneath them.
Why do you think President Obama was in Brazil a week or so ago? They just discovered lots of oil offshore there.
It disgusts me. Instead of pursuing alternate forms of energy, an important part of Obama's campaign ("change"), we are still all over the world trying to get our straw into the foreign oil pool. It's not like we don't know how to make the switch to electric!!!!! |
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03-23-2011, 06:27 PM
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#169 (permalink)
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The PRC.
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Elsewhere.
Posts: 5,304
Thanks: 285
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Continuation from here about Merging morons.
Case in point this morning was Mr "Giffer" in a Suzuki Wagon R. OK its not sporty is it ?
But I think it can do more than 40 mph last time I looked.
I'm happily trundling along in the nearside lane on the Edinburgh bypass and Mr G wants to join. His speed matches mine but he is ahead so I lift off and enjoy 3-5 seconds of 2567MPG. Oh no, Mr G is also slowing. So I slow more and flash my lights.
Now this is where it gets complicated. Pretty much since God has worn short trousers (contraversial) flashing your lights in the UK meant "go on, I'll let you". However sometime in the 1990s someone at the AA decided to clarify that flashing your lights was a warning, aka "I am here. Caution". Now if they had just left this alone then everyone would have been happy.
Anyway Mr G sees my flashing and slowing and, er, slows. So I slow. He slows.
So I give up and leave him.
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[I]So long and thanks for all the fish.[/I]
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03-23-2011, 06:32 PM
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#170 (permalink)
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The PRC.
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Elsewhere.
Posts: 5,304
Thanks: 285
Thanked 536 Times in 384 Posts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian
To continue the traffic light complaints:
A light that's triggered by cross traffic. That sometimes gets triggered by butterflies or something - no cars in sight.
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See earlier pages on my battle with a park-and-ride here in Embra...
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[I]So long and thanks for all the fish.[/I]
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