gdp's Comments

Hooniverse : Hooniverse Asks- What's Your Best 'They All Do That' Dealer Service Story?

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 21:04:33 +0000

My dad's usual go-to guy for carpentry work has one of those. They had a conversation something like: dad: "Hey, did you know there's a law that those GM pickups can only have one daytime running light working?" carpenter: "oh really?" dad: "Don't worry, yours has one out so you're legal."

Hooniverse : Hooniverse Asks- What Car Company Should Buy What Car Company?

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 02:19:16 +0000

Getting Chrysler's cash in exchange for a few shared components and platform hardpoints, and sucking it dry through excessive cost-cutting doesn't seem to have turned out too badly... for Daimler.

Hooniverse : Big in Berlin – Lucille is a 1972 Ford Country Sedan turned German

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 05:28:45 +0000

There's something you wouldn't even see every day in its home country anymore. My Cougar ('73) had the same door handles and rear side markers. I seem to remember that fiddly little heat exchanger adjacent to to the A/C compressor pulley from either that car's 351C, or from the 400's in the late-70's F-150's that were the family farm's work trucks till the early '00's.

Hooniverse : Last Call- Pleased to Meat You Bumper Sticker Edition

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 05:13:12 +0000

And what do they do if the kids want Spongebob popsicles? <img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3320/3601148794_6ac743fcf1.jpg" width="500"/>

Hooniverse : Last Call- Pleased to Meat You Bumper Sticker Edition

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 04:55:26 +0000

Alternate (could we say inverted?) version I saw on a presumable first-responder's car at the Ojibwe Forests Rally in 2009: <img src="http://i57.tinypic.com/2u7bvkj.jpg" width="500"/>

Hooniverse : Craigslist Crapshoot

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 04:42:20 +0000

Small pickups are a good answer for this, but I haven't seen an S-10 posted yet. Here's one with 73,000 miles, I4/manual/RWD but with a salvage title for $2800. http://fargo.craigslist.org/cto/4874770408.html <img src="http://images.craigslist.org/00808_fhw0IdJwQWI_600x450.jpg" width="500">

Hooniverse : Craigslist Crapshoot

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 04:34:34 +0000

Fiero at LeMons-eligible pricing. http://stcloud.craigslist.org/cto/4888158475.html <img src="http://images.craigslist.org/00k0k_gvCt1lzTAjA_600x450.jpg" width="500"/>

Hooniverse : Last Call- Rad Taxi Edition

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 04:46:49 +0000

I don't want to know what that fuzzy pink mustache looks like after a few months of road grime and dead insects. I'm not sure I even wanted to know what a fresh one looked like. From some Googling, apparently the pedestrian survived despite the Darwin Award attempt of crossing when neither he nor the PT Cruiser had right-of-way (which belonged to the car that ended up on its roof.)

Hooniverse : Last Call- Rad Taxi Edition

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 04:16:17 +0000

It can be interesting to compare car repair costs to motorcycles... -Some years ago, my '96 Thunderbird and my KLR650 both needed radiator replacements within a few weeks of each other. The T-bird's radiator came in an appropriately car-radiator-sized box (2'x3'x6"-ish) and cost under $200. The KLR's radiator could have been safely packaged in a shoebox (assuming the shoebox was for gunboat-class shoes like my usual US-system 12.5 or 13) and cost $300. -This is motorcycle/rider/road/tire-dependent, but it was routine for me to go through about 3 rear tires and 2 fronts for every 10,000 miles on the KLR running 50/50ish dual-sport tires and also about 50% pavement/50% dirt & gravel. My riding season would peak in June/July with the warm weather and the twilight lingering almost to the 11 PM hour, and I had times where a new rear tire installed in early June was due for replacement in late July/early August. It was hard to be too bothered when the tires cost $70-$80 and the worst part of the replacement was either a) not poking a hole in the tube or b) making sure the rear wheel and drive chain were correctly aligned after the reinstall.

Hooniverse : Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Sequel Model Names

Mon, 16 Feb 2015 16:45:56 +0000

The IH Scout series had a few methods of denoting an update: Scout 80 - Scout 800 / 800A / 800B - Scout II - Scout III [cancelled] The 800's sequence is similar to how many off-highway equipment manufacturers designate updates. Some examples in articulated wheel loaders of a certain size range that were updated in the last few years: Case 621E became 621F, Deere 544J became 544K, Cat 924H skipped I/J and became 924K, etc...

Hooniverse : Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Sequel Model Names

Mon, 16 Feb 2015 15:19:04 +0000

Low hanging fruit: Lincoln Continental / Mark series, I through VIII.

Hooniverse : Obscure Muscle Car Garage - Time to vote them out; These are the Obscure Muscle Trucks, and SUV's...

Sat, 14 Feb 2015 01:36:50 +0000

Well, they might have been obscure before that Car & Driver piece with the Ferrari...

Hooniverse : Obscure Muscle Car Garage - Time to vote them out; These are the Obscure Muscle Trucks, and SUV's...

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 19:53:22 +0000

Many of these are an "obscure muscle car" only in the sense of not having a strong claim upon the word "car". Lightning, 454SS, Little Red Express, Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited were the halo models of their lineups - not exactly obscure. I'd argue that Colorado/Canyon were just trying to get some sales that otherwise might have been Dodge Dakotas. There were scads of Dakota R/T's around. (And even more that were a lowlier model, then the owner decided to add the sticker.) I'll give the Warlock, Trollblazer, and maaaybe the Shelby Dakota "obscure" but they're still not cars. If the Syclone and Typhoon were on this list, they'd be my pick to vote out. Limited production, yes; obscure, hell no. All that leaves is the GMC Sprint, which is both half-car and vastly more obscure than its sibling El Camino. The rest can go to the hoon-worthy truck garage.

Hooniverse : Chicago Auto Show 2015: A Bit Of Brown On The Floor

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 04:34:19 +0000

That's a better kind of brown on the floor than the kind I witnessed at the Twin Cities Auto Show last year. Someone brought their dog with them. And the dog decided to do a number-2 in the midst of the FiatChrysler exhibit...

Hooniverse : Last Call- Low Down Dirty Shame Edition

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 04:23:38 +0000

Slight tangent (Two Wheel Thursday?) since I'm thinking about getting back into the motorcycle world* in the next few years: I don't understand the appeal of a low-riding motorcycle as found in most cruiser-type bikes. If you happen to be something like 5'0" [1524 mm] tall, are a beginning rider, and want the security of putting both feet down at a stop, OK I can see that in that circumstance. But I don't understand why so much of the motorcycle market seems to be targeted to 5th-percentile riders. For me, I'm 6' tall, ~~corpulent~~big-boned, and want a seat to pegs relationship that caters more toward the 50th-to-95th percentile ridership than to the 5th-to-50th. I put 40,000 miles on a KLR650 from 2005-2010 (with a 10,000 mile season in '09) and felt scrunched up even on that tall-person-friendly bike on longer rides; and if that wasn't a tall enough bike, I installed raising links in the rear suspension to adjust the suspension geometry and spring rate to suit its having me as the rider. *this might happen to follow from my particular automotive heresy, where the difference from a manual-transmission to an automatic-transmission car is several orders of magnitude less significant to me than the difference between a motorcycle and a car

Hooniverse : Last Call- Low Down Dirty Shame Edition

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 03:54:05 +0000

I can't hate the tailgate letters. They make me nostalgic for old pickups. <img src="http://i57.tinypic.com/2pplwjr.jpg" width="500"/> I don't like this particular grille, but I kinda like the Rebel's. Ford gets away with something like 8 grilles, looks like ~~Dodge~~Ram wants to get in on that kind of fun?

Hooniverse : Craigslist Crapshoot

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 04:42:38 +0000

What car? *looks again* Still not seeing it...

Hooniverse : What’s Aspirational for You?

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 04:11:53 +0000

My aspirations are more toward quantity than "quality" (of the snooty Mercedes/Lexus/BMW/Audi/etc. kind). I've got a good start with a midsize pickup (Dodge Dakota) and a late-model large-ish coupe (Dodge Challenger; either my current 2010 or upcoming 2015), and I keep another big coupe ('96 Ford Thunderbird) elsewhere. But I wouldn't mind having a C/D-segment sedan for people-hauling (Dart/Avenger/Fusion/Mazda6/etc.-ish), a B/C-segment hot hatch (Fiesta ST, Fiat 500 Abarth, etc.), and perhaps some kind of convertible (maybe an S197 Mustang GT?) Ideally I'd also have a few motorcycles. Probably something more dual-sportish (on a KLR650 / V-Strom 650 / Triumph Scrambler axis) and also something more road-oriented (600cc I-4 race replica? big displacement cruiser? UJM? etc...)

Hooniverse : Hooniverse Asks- What Car or Truck Actually Looks Good With a Factory Body Kit?

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 00:51:40 +0000

Needs moar Thunderbird <img src="http://hooniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Spring-Carlisle-Auction-Auctions-America-Mozilla-Firefox-3192011-114929-AM.bmp.jpg" width="500"/>

Hooniverse : Craigslist Crapshoot

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 00:39:44 +0000

1970 Challenger R/T 383/automatic, $10,500. I'm a little skeptical about "complete" when it's in a comparable condition to my dad's '74 SD-455 Trans Am, but at least this Challenger's pieces are all apparently in the same garage. http://fargo.craigslist.org/cto/4876853005.html <img src="http://images.craigslist.org/01111_2IdTmwZJS8I_600x450.jpg" width="500"/>