What is really positive and has helped you being a member of BITOG community

I didn’t know much about oil when I joined the site. Been working on cars/tractors/motorcycles since about 1974, so, have some experience, but oil was oil to me for a long time. That has certainly changed.

Every single day that I am on BITOG, I learn something new from the people who are experts in their field. I hesitate to name them, because I can’t include them all, but we are very fortunate to have the members that we do. Very fortunate. It’s a unique intersection of people who share a common interest in oil/automotive topics but who come from vastly different and diverse backgrounds and occupations.

It’s easy to get frustrated by the normal “friction“ of interpersonal discourse that happens on the internet. Simple text, posted on a page, can be misinterpreted, or misunderstood, because it exists without the normal social cues of body language, facial expression, tone, etc. that aid in understanding the speaker. But members here do a good job overall in presenting information, and helping each other with problems.
 
ollie said:
It's not only the idiosyncratic personalities we deal with. We also learn to understand each other and communicate. It's a challenge for all of us but can be a productive one...moderators here have a tough job trying to sift through all of our personalities,,,includes my own.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you brought this up. Clearly we are all different. Something that's been on my mind for a while. Here at BITOG, there really are some interesting folks. I enjoy the vast majority of the personalities here. I've had some great input from the top-tier members here, and I hope I can provide some valid input from time to time.

Note: As Director of Maintenance of a high end corporate flight department, I have to deal with a fairly wide range of personalities, maybe I've learned to accommodate differences. Some pilots (myself included, just kidding) believe they are God's gift to aviation, and others are more normal. A+P mechanics are often a bit of a different breed too.

My point: A+P's often demand facts and a good outcome. Many of us are less concerned with personality and much more interested in proper results. This results in conflicts with flight crew and aircraft owners. We are very often correct, and there is no way to "sugar coat" some mechanical issues. Doesn't matter, it's perceived as being an (insert bad word here) and often results in the perception that personality matters MORE than results.

I've got to say, in 'aviation maintenance' the only thing that matters is a good result. Personality, even a quirky one, is OK when results are always good. Problems crop in only when that personality results in refusal/inability to do proper work. One guy was busy talking with the tech rep and gave me the middle digit instead of working as a team, forcing me to climb down from my location and retrieve a 5mm open end wrench. He was gone the next day.

Had he given me the wrench, the extended finger would have been acceptable as maybe I deserved it...
 
I honestly find it interesting what others spend their time stressing over. I’ll worry about grease long before I ever tough something with a grease gun when others are worried about the “best” Freon for their AC system. On top the knowledge here is amazing. It takes all types to make the world go around and it’s interesting to see the variety here.
 
Cujet said:
I'm glad you brought this up. Clearly we are all different. Something that's been on my mind for a while. Here at BITOG, there really are some interesting folks. I enjoy the vast majority of the personalities here. I've had some great input from the top-tier members here, and I hope I can provide some valid input from time to time.

Note: As Director of Maintenance of a high end corporate flight department, I have to deal with a fairly wide range of personalities, maybe I've learned to accommodate differences. Some pilots (myself included, just kidding) believe they are God's gift to aviation, and others are more normal. A+P mechanics are often a bit of a different breed too.

My point: A+P's often demand facts and a good outcome. Many of us are less concerned with personality and much more interested in proper results. This results in conflicts with flight crew and aircraft owners. We are very often correct, and there is no way to "sugar coat" some mechanical issues. Doesn't matter, it's perceived as being an (insert bad word here) and often results in the perception that personality matters MORE than results.

I've got to say, in 'aviation maintenance' the only thing that matters is a good result. Personality, even a quirky one, is OK when results are always good. Problems crop in only when that personality results in refusal/inability to do proper work. One guy was busy talking with the tech rep and gave me the middle digit instead of working as a team, forcing me to climb down from my location and retrieve a 5mm open end wrench. He was gone the next day.

Had he given me the wrench, the extended finger would have been acceptable as maybe I deserved it...
Click to expand...

I am a firm believer that my flight experience although fairly limited made me the tech I am today. While most of the stuff I deal with isn’t exactly life or death like an A&P would see I still demand a successful root-cause analysis. We could have an auger bearing fail that shuts production down for a couple hours while the repair is made but my job doesn’t stop when the auger works again. I want to know the nature of the failure, why it happened, and how to prevent or postpone a future failure. Huge respect for the guys keeping aircraft safe and in the air.
 
This forum has many smart members that provide solid information on a myriad of topics. Automotive, household, financial, scientific, leisure, hobbies are some that come to mind.

The absence of RSP keeps things focused on stuff that matters. I've seen other boards deteriorate because of too many RSP threads that got out of control.
 
Joe1 said:
This forum has many smart members that provide solid information on a myriad of topics. Automotive, household, financial, scientific, leisure, hobbies are some that come to mind.

The absence of RSP keeps things focused on stuff that matters. I've seen other boards deteriorate because of too many RSP threads that got out of control.
Click to expand...
RSP?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4WD
I joined maybe a week ago but haven't posted anything. Discovered this site around there, I had no idea there was a form dedicated to motor oil. I'm at IT guy and recently started to heavily get into doing my own maintenance when I bought an 04 Chevy Silverado.
 
In my late teen years and early 20's my relatives and I had access to a 4 car garage that our grandmother owned, and we could all use to work on cars. One of the more knowledgeable members of that group put it well when he said "I will not do the work on your vehicle for you. But I will stay around and tell you how to do it if you need any help figuring out how to do it." And he topped that off with always being available to add extra muscle when part of a job took more than one person alone could handle even if that meant crawling under the vehicle with you or getting grease or oil on him. We had a good gang, and helped each other with our vehicles and the vehicles of our families. And we are still good friends.

I still remember when one of them who was beginning a career as an air-conditioning heating and refrigeration repair person had a small deep freezer in the garage that he had repaired and put quarts of different grades of oils in it overnight to get them down to the very cold temperature. Then took them out and shook them to see and also show us the results. You could hear that some of them still sloshed about in the container and others were too thick to do that when they were very cold. There really is a difference in the way different oils perform when they are cold.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have learned several things here on BITOG that have improved the way I take care of vehicles. Thanks for that.

And members here were a HUGE HELP when some of them ran the vin number on a site that I had not even heard of for a vehicle I was seriously considering traveling a long distance to see and possibly buy when I was seriously looking to buy last year. The price was lower than most others of that year with that low of miles, and that made it a vehicle to seriously consider buying. And they showed me why that price was lower. It had been in a major crash and had frame damage. I would never have found that out until after I had bought it, because I did not know about the site to check the vin on that they used. I very well may have bought that vehicle if they had not helped me with running that vin. Thank you, a lot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some times I have shared information on subjects that I knew something about. And a few times I was wrong. I am sorry for those honest errors.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think in general the vast majority of people who post on BITOG are people who want to help others when they can. It is great to find such a group of people to get information from.
 
Last edited:
This place has been amazing, in that it is a resource FREE (that means doesn't have) of the NONSENSICAL and SENSATIONALIST information that is on other forums I either used to frequent.. OR, can log into just fine and use, and just don't.

No crazy (and I do mean ABSOLUTELY INSANE) politics, a la a board that has the word City in it. And I can log in there anytime I want.

No crazy spam-ish articles, hidden LUNATIC fringe politics (in signatures and in the attitudes of the "management") and non-stop discussions amongst both closeted and actual millionaires.. I just don't find relevancy, in a board I can log in and use just fine (but don't) that has the word Boards in the title.

And as to car-specific boards.. I just don't have that many issues with my car to be on there for that long, and when I do, I find it difficult to integrate into the community. This board is better and more helpful, anyways.

Thanks.
 
^^^ And to add ... the new board software platform is awesome.
 
ZeeOSix said:
^^^ And to add ... the new board software platform is awesome.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.

It's better than really any I've used up to this point. And one of the boards used to brag non-stop about "what they could do with their software."

Shoulda been NarcissismBoards.com ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

slo town
Our trip to the 108th running of the Indy 500
2
Replies
30
Views
1K
Carmudgeon
dnewton3
  • Locked
  • Sticky
BITOG Standard of Conduct
Replies
0
Views
4K
dnewton3
J
Are you on the "autism spectrum"? And if so, what are your + and - skills?
3 4 5
Replies
83
Views
10K
mobilnissan1991
3
Synthetic oil bad in a lawnmower? Any truth in this self proclaimed experts statements?
10 11 12
Replies
221
Views
63K
weldor
P
2015 Kia Optima LX QT/300 Miles Oil Burned Solved/Fixed
2 3
Replies
44
Views
28K
kschachn
Back
Top