Nonsense Thread

[varg]

I have yet to see a single component design on any VAG product where I thought "nice," or "clever," or "well thought out." Generally it's only WTF were they thinking.

My only instance of "nice" with VAG was finding out just how tunable my friend's B8.5 S4 was with an overdriven supercharger using electronic boost control. Easy to make it pretty quick. However, the same car was burning out its parking brake actuators because of a bad module (WTF were they thinking), uses TTY hardware on the spindles just so that replacing the wheel bearing is harder (WTF were they thinking), is prone to pulley separation with the supercharger being driven by the rubber isolated part of the harmonic balancer (WTF were they thinking, hey wait BMW did this shit too driving accessories off the balancer), oh and the quick disconnects were a bitch as always when upgrading the intercooler system's heat exchanger. I'll never own a VAG car, not a single one of their cars interests me, aside from the ones I'll never be able to afford (the fast 911s and 4.0 cayman).

[rturbo 930]

What year A3 and when did they start using those thermostats?

Seeing failures like that only reinforces my distaste for new cars.

[MrBurgundy]

For real lol

Her car may have caught on fire if she didn't bring it in when she did.. 40k miles *insert skull emoji*

[Northern]

[khiobrien2]

So I had an A3 come in that was basically about to catch on fire.. It was smoking from under the intake and starting to overheat while running.

Audi/VW new thermostat tech uses a gear driven system to flow water, opposed to the standard thermo spring style that works lol.

So what we're seeing happen is the water starts to leak into the sealed off section where the control board resides and controls the servo motor. When the water enters there it shorts it out and keeps the gear closed and starts to generate tons of heat. By the time I got the intake off the therm was 300 degrees LOL

Untitled by Omar Mountain, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Mountain, on Flickr

I am not even surprised.. modern VAG products are questionable at best. My mom had an new RS7 that she got rid of after 6 months because it had to be sent in for random electrical issues seven times in the first five months.

[2mAn]

Audi/VW new thermostat tech uses a gear driven system to flow water, opposed to the standard thermo spring style that works lol.

Buncha VAGs over there...

[roguetoaster]

Seems like an aftermarket opportunity to retrofit functional thermostats.

I have yet to see a single component design on any VAG product where I thought "nice," or "clever," or "well thought out." Generally it's only WTF were they thinking.

[MrBurgundy]

So I had an A3 come in that was basically about to catch on fire.. It was smoking from under the intake and starting to overheat while running.

Audi/VW new thermostat tech uses a gear driven system to flow water, opposed to the standard thermo spring style that works lol.

So what we're seeing happen is the water starts to leak into the sealed off section where the control board resides and controls the servo motor. When the water enters there it shorts it out and keeps the gear closed and starts to generate tons of heat. By the time I got the intake off the therm was 300 degrees LOL

Untitled by Omar Mountain, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Mountain, on Flickr

[Northern]

I don't like electric cars, but whether I'd entertain owning one varies.

I think with manufacturers other than tesla producing electric cars now, it's possible to get one that isn't a shitbox with a huge price tag, but nobody can do the range that tesla can, probably for the same reason.

Maybe a small/cheap/electric shitbox makes sense for commuting if the range works, but only if it directly replaces another vehicle.
For me, that means the mini or the e30, which isn't happening.

I'd only be interested in some sort of massive cushy family SUV thing, but the range/$/vehicle doesn't exist.
PHEVs are kind of cool if you buy new, but hard to predict reliability/life expectancy, and new interest rates aren't what they used to be.

Used car values seem to be starting to soften, which hopefully dominoes into the new car market as well.

[2mAn]

Honestly, if you want a commuter to save money with.. Get a 2006 Jetta TDI... Park it on the street, go to WaWa and get super tech gallons of oil for 4 dollars and put 500k miles on it.

I'm not about all the tech, I can drive my own car and put a Bluetooth head unit in and save myself 35k..

[MrBurgundy]

Def makes sense to get as a throw away commuter for some, but I can see why not being able to charge at home kinda ruins it all...

My neighbor bought a model 3 in 2020 and now has a little one on the way, so he inquired about trading his 3 in for Y and Tesla offered 15k for a car with 35k on the clock LOL

They sell for WAY more than that on the used market, but I think it's hilarious that Tesla lowballed that hard.

Honestly, if you want a commuter to save money with.. Get a 2003 camry... Park it on the street, go to walmart and get super tech gallons of oil for 4 dollars and put 500k miles on it.

I'm not about all the tech, I can drive my own car and put a Bluetooth head unit in and save myself 35k..

Honestly, buying anything new for a commuter IMO is just stupid.. Spend money on something you'll actually enjoy.

[McGyver]

Honestly, I like the idea of EVs. I've driven several Tesla Model 3 and Polestar 2 rentals. I've also driven the rest of the standard rental fleet (Turbo4 Mustang and Camaro, C300, various Volvos, Toyota, Chevy, Kia, Honda, Subaru). The EVs were on par with the rest, maybe even had some better tech for long highway drives. My only gripe is with the charging network. I really like Tesla fast chargers, I get really annoyed at slow non-tesla Level 3 chargers. It's also annoying that I'm limited to Tesla or Everything Else for charging.

I don't drive that often, but I could see getting an EV for daily driving or road trips so the e30 is saved for fun stuff. The only issue for me is that I live in a city and my single car garage is reserved for the e30 or car work, so I wouldn't be able to charge at home and I don't like the idea of having to take the car to get charged (even though its about the same time as stopping for gas).

[MrBurgundy]

This part made me laugh.........“My husband and I actually fight over who’s going to drive the EV to work,”

My WIFE* and I actually fight over who's going to drive the EV to work,"

[808ETA]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/opini...nos/index.html

This part made me laugh.........“My husband and I actually fight over who’s going to drive the EV to work,”

[varg]

My main issue with "electrify everything" is that it just is not practical from a physical point of view. Bar an immense breakthrough in battery technology (which is perpetually 5-10 years away), batteries will always have laughable energy density in volume and mass. Batteries which approach the energy density of gasoline, will be by the very nature of how batteries work, quite dangerous. We know how volatile Li-poly (basically high current Li-ion) batteries are, you bend one in an RC airplane crash or puncture it and it burns. Chuck it into water as it burns and it keeps burning under water. Imagine if that same battery had 1/4 the energy density of gasoline instead of 1/44th of it. It's a higher potential reaction, which will be more volatile. Ultra batteries aren't going to be like C4; incredibly energetic but so stable it's nearly impossible to trigger the reaction accidentally. EV proponents at least have some misguided sense though. Maybe it's just because I am an engineer in the aerospace industry and a once-pilot, but I find electric airplane proponents to be basically morons. My electric RC airplanes are great, less mess, more convenient, good performance though limited flight time vs gasoline or glow fuel. But the square cube law applies, and real airplanes are not models. Aircraft benefit greatly from the fact that they become lighter as they operate, having a MTOW that is higher than your MLW is great for designing structures and landing gear that don't have to tolerate the same severity of landing forces at MTOW because they will not be regularly operated there. They say a tesla motors Model 3 gets 4.17mi/kWh or 142MPGe, so call that 5.5x as efficient as a 26mpg 2.0T Accord (comparable car). It's 5.5x more efficient but gasoline has 5.86kWh/lb and the battery is 0.134kWh/lb. so even though you have 5.5x the efficiency you have 0.02x the energy density in your "fuel". Quick and dirty thing to do here but think about how these numbers might work for airplanes. Your engine might be lighter (the motor, its gearbox, its speed controller/inverter) but if your efficiency is 5.5x higher and your fuel is 1/44th as dense you get 0.125x the distance per pound. So now to approach the same range with the same weight you need a battery that has 1/8th the energy density of gasoline, not 1/44th. And your airplane still isn't going to get any lighter before you land. And that's reciprocating vs electric, not gas turbine vs electric. Gas turbine engines have better specific output than electric motors.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/opini...nos/index.html

I was never a bully, I was on the receiving end of it, but this guy makes me see where the bully was coming from. I want to tell him "shut up, nerd". Not just a lame opinion, but written in a smug and irritating tone. You can tell this guy is one of the ivory towers types.

Must be nice. Here in Sydney the median price is now over 1.6mil, which is a shade over a million US. I moved back here to go to university, and will likely only be here for my degree.

Major cities are kinda cheating if you're on a whinge about the housing market like I am. They're always ridiculously expensive, bar a sluggish economy.