Dumb things people say about cars.

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I hope I don't get any flack from this post, for being my first one and all, but I hear some very amusing if not questionable logic from WalMart customers just about every day I'm there. (Yes, I'm a TLE employee at WalMart, it's paying for school)

One woman who brought her '09 Silverado to us for an oil change and it had been discovered that the transmission was over filled by nearly 3 quarts while running the truck to check for leaks. After reading through the full disclosure of her vehicle's condition especially regarding the transmission fluid level at the register, her response was, "I didn't even know I had one of those!"


Another employee at our store not assigned in TLE (for good reason) also thought that engine displacement was equal to the amount of oil it needed, and that our reference guides were wrong. I'm glad he's gone.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
"my Civic has like, 400 horsepower"

crackmeup2.gif


Yeah! The Cold air intake adds 15 hp, header adds 30hp, exhaust adds another 15 hp, Iridium plugs add 20 hp, Nology wires make 100 hp, red wrinkle painted valve cover is 95 hp, JDM bumber(sic) pole is another 75hp and the JDM terry cloth wristbands around the brake master cylinder is another 25 hp.
I don't know how come I keep losing races to midsize V6 cars!....I mean, uuhhhhh....I beat a Corvette the other day.
 
"The guys who built my car are omnipotent, and beyond any question as to their recommendations.

Except they got every thing in the service manual wrong...including their scare tactics on tyre pressures that really only apply to the average driver anyway"
 
Ah, selective ignorance. You see that a lot these days, eh?

How about the "I follow this one particular traffic law to the letter, and you should too!" What about the other laws? They seem to get selectively ignored!
 
Originally Posted By: Dwight_Frye
Originally Posted By: refaller
I hear people talk about their V4s all the time. Most BMW mommies drive V6s as well. Never correct them.

ref


Saab did make a little sports car (the Sonnett ?) and a few other models with a V-4 engine in them in the late 60's.
I'll bet the owners saab'd every time they needed parts for them, just like modern Saabs.

The Saab engine was a Ford, they built and used lots of V4 engines in Europe.
There are still huge parts inventories for these engines as some are still used in industrial applications.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Originally Posted By: ChevyBadger
I know a guy that let the fluid out of his transfer case for a oil change. He poured more oil in the engine and away he went haha.
Pepboys did that here on a scout

As did Walmart somewhere.

While I was working at Wally, draining the transmission instead of the oil happened about every 6 months or so. Usually always on Subarus. They finally got smart and started not allowing new techs under them without supervision from the bay manager or a certain few techs like me. There is a training period, of course, but its based off of what happens to come in. If no Subarus come in while they are being trained, they would end up "certified" and still make this simple mistake.

Ive heard so much stupid stuff about cars, its unbelievable. I cant hardly remember it all.
I remember more stupid stuff about diesels for some reason.
I had a guy come in once with a brand new top of the line F350 with the 6.4L Diesel.
He wanted regular Mobil 1 10W30. He absolutely insisted it was the correct oil. I tried to move him towards RTS and he wouldnt budge. I wanted to refuse to do the service and shop management agreed. So he complained to store management and they folded like a wet paper sack so it ended up being done.
Had essentially the same thing occur with a mid-90s Dodge Cummins, except he was wanting our bulk QS 10W30. When I tried to steer him to Rotella or Delo, he became very agitated and stated they were a ripoff.
Did a GM 6.6L diesel for someone who hadnt owned a diesel before. After he paid, he went out and checked the oil. He became agitated that we didnt change his oil when he paid all this money. Of course it was done, but anyone with any diesel experience (EGR diesels especially) knows the oil goes dark as soon as you pour it in. He finally left, unhappy. He came back a bit later saying he had been by another quick lube and they told him that the oil hadnt been changed. Mgmt ended up capitulating and we did another oil change while he watched. After it was started up for the pressure check, my boss pulled the dipstick and took it over to him. Black as tar. He was unfazed.
 
Recently while shopping for our new truck we were checking out the Chevy Duramax diesels. While we were test driving my wife asked where to put the DEF fluid. She was curious because the Ford has the fill right next to the fuel inlet. The salesman said "that is the beauty of the GM system vs the Ford system. With GM you just add the fluid in with the diesel when the light comes on." My wife said "are you sure, that really does not make sense". He replied "oh yeah I am sure, they do it to make maintenance simple."

When we stopped I showed him the fluid fill for DEF under the hood. I did not want him to tell that to a clueless customer and have them ruin their new truck.
 
my son knows VERY VERY little about cars. he was working selling cars. he left after just short of 2 mo. i hate to think what he might have become if he hadnt left.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Dwight_Frye
Originally Posted By: refaller
I hear people talk about their V4s all the time. Most BMW mommies drive V6s as well. Never correct them.

ref


Saab did make a little sports car (the Sonnett ?) and a few other models with a V-4 engine in them in the late 60's.
I'll bet the owners saab'd every time they needed parts for them, just like modern Saabs.

The Saab engine was a Ford, they built and used lots of V4 engines in Europe.
There are still huge parts inventories for these engines as some are still used in industrial applications.


It was the basis for the Cologne V6.

Honda and Yamaha still make V4s (ST, VFR, VMax) and Suzuki did (Cavalcade, Madura) I can't remember Kawasaki making one but they might have in a side by side Mule or personal watercraft.

Whenever I hear a Civic enthusiast refer to his engine as a "V4" I ask him if he got it from an Interceptor or a Magna
 
Originally Posted By: Spazdog


Whenever I hear a Civic enthusiast refer to his engine as a "V4" I ask him if he got it from an Interceptor or a Magna



For whatever reason, the incorrect use of "V4" is quite popular among Civic "enthusiasts."
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Dwight_Frye
Originally Posted By: refaller
I hear people talk about their V4s all the time. Most BMW mommies drive V6s as well. Never correct them.

ref


Saab did make a little sports car (the Sonnett ?) and a few other models with a V-4 engine in them in the late 60's.
I'll bet the owners saab'd every time they needed parts for them, just like modern Saabs.
Later they bought an OHC 4 from British Leyland, but the quality from the UK was so bad they bought the tooling and built it themselves. The last real SAAB OHC engines trace their roots to that BL motor.
The Saab engine was a Ford, they built and used lots of V4 engines in Europe.
There are still huge parts inventories for these engines as some are still used in industrial applications.
 
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Originally Posted By: MCompact
Originally Posted By: eljefino
If you want some sadness/ ignorance look at a craigslist ad.

"Needs wheel barons" (Imagine a verbal diagnosis report by a New England mechanic.)

altinator, cadillac convertor, tire thread, all exist in unicorn land.
Grammer and spelling are lost arts with this crew but they ALL know exactly who should be President. Yuuuuup.

Try reading the posts on mazdas247.com. Someone has a raddle in their dash, another unfortunate needs to fix the squeek in his break peddle, and elsewhere a member needs to know how to remove the front bumber.
 
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Originally Posted By: berninicaco3
someone's low oil light came on.
she asked her coworkers about it, and was told that most cars took 5qts of oil.
so --blindly assuming that her car was OUT of oil, which it was not-- she topped it off with 5 qts!

We emptied 12 qts out of that car, it was meant to take about 7.



Had someone at autozone try to tell me that my camry did not HAVE rear wheel bearings, maybe it was an option?
I went to advance instead... they found the bearing in their computer.



coworker got a car with all 4 tpms sensors showing faulty. he replaced all 4. of course, it turned out to be a CEM software concern that caused it to lose communication with all 4, and he'd wasted his time
smile.gif

I had a moron at Drippy Lube tell me my Camry didn't have a differential, it had a "transaxle". I asked "how does it go around corners?"
 
I think people say "v" because they hear people say v6. I asked my wife if she know what type of engine was in any of our cars and she went 0-3. Did use v configurations for each one too!

ref
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: tom slick
"GMC trucks are built heavier duty and have thicker sheet metal than a Chevy."


Ooooh, I really like this one. Can just imagine the salesman's self-satisfaction level when the customer swallowed that one!
Saab actually stamped the competition rally versions of their 96's out of heavier sheet metal.
 
I spent a lot of time troubleshooting a Nissan Altima for a coworker. His initial complaint was the car didn't have as much power as it used to. When I rode with him (so he could demonstrate) he was slower than my grandmother, which is saying something.

I said "you need to press the accelerator down more". He said, "no, I press it the same as I always do, but it has less power than usual." He also shops for/rates cars based on how much power they have, but to him the power is this micro-movement of the go-pedal and how much go he gets from the pedal. He'll hop into another vehicle, press the identical distance, and if it doesn't pull away harder than what he has it has no power.

Over a loonnnngg time and a few mechanics (he was pretty cheap too) it was an intake manifold gasket leak.

One day, he got a speeding ticket for going 60 on the 110 freeway (strangely zoned for 55 north of downtown L.A., which caught him out as he passed the CHP). I started calling him Speed Racer.
 
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