NAR 2.5L Engine & Gasoline Banter

[Uwe]

Cars prior to 2000 are 6 monthly.

So if I own something that's bordering on "classic" that I hardly ever drive, I'd have to get it inspected twice a year in kiwi-land?

-Uwe-

 

[NZDubNurd]

So if I own something that's bordering on "classic" that I hardly ever drive, I'd have to get it inspected twice a year in kiwi-land?

-Uwe-

Hahaha! Exactly!!!

But if you buy a brand new car, drive it for 3 years and 150,000 kms (or more!!!), they expect nothing to go wrong with it, or the tyre wear and blown bulbs etc will all get sorted out by the owner or service agent... if it gets taken in... Like the morons I work with my colleagues, who managed to blow out a tyre on a highway; they never check the pressures or wear on our BiTDI Transporter, so they wore right through the cords on the tyres inner edge... Every time I see that van (rare) I notice more wrong with it! rims dented, bad alignment, low tyre pressures, dents, cracks etc.

My Suzuki Cappuccino would sometimes do 30 to 50 kms between inspections... Once time, I recall it was 8 And the Model A was 3 miles (1.5 each way from Dads garage, to the testing workshop).

 

[Uwe]

they never check the pressures

I have TPMS on just about all the vehicles I drive (it's been mandatory here for ~15 years), but I'm still OCD about manually checking pressures before heading out on a long drive, and I like to run my tires 3-5 psi over the recommended pressure. Strangely, I have no dented rims despite the fact that I'm regularly on several miles of unpaved roads that are often in poor condition.

But yeah, I've seen what happens if you don't do at least a visual check on your tires before you drive:

That's our "company truck" (roughly two years ago, and being a 2001, it lacks TPMS) so it appears colleagues are the same everywhere.

-Uwe-

 

[NZDubNurd]

OOF. That's nasty!

I tend to give tyres a hard time, so am pretty anal about them. Even when I was a travelling rep, I used to only get 28k kms (17K miles) from a set on my 2001 Corolla, or the 2004 Nissan Pulsar sedan (Horrible, HORRIBLE cars!). That was 80% driving between towns, but we have no freeways - it's all country highways, mostly corners.

I once wore out a set of snow tyres on an imported car, in hot summer weather, in 1 day in an AWD Subaru Mostly, one piece of state highway one (the MAIN highway - it's been closed for repairs for about 2 years though!)... there is a sign that says the road is twisty, next 13 kms (8 miles)... I used to count the corners: 135. Those snow tyres spent the entire time squealing, except the transition from a left to a right and the occasional straight. I get carsick on that road if someone else is driving, but I made MYSELF sick a couple of times and sometimes the brakes would get really smelly Even when the auto was just locked in 2nd the enitre way.

I drove it every second week, but only one way. No way, was I this slow, though... It's 17 minutes of the same road:

I generally run my pressures high, too. We live on the back of an extinct volcano, there is FAR more corners than straights, plus it seems like it's uphill both ways Especially when I used to ride my electric bike to work! Half way to work in the Volcano, the other half is across town (6 miles total) I get about 18K kms (11k miles) from a set of tyres on R32ran, my mrs only gets about 20% more. And that's on the continentals I run for long life, instead of the bridgestones I used to run for "sportiness"!

See how we aren't even talking about fuel, anymore

 

[Uwe]

It's 17 minutes of the same road:

That looks like a fun place to ride a motorcycle -- except you guys drive on the wrong side of the road, and I fear my almost 50 years of engrained "keep right" would turn me into a hood ornament on a car coming the other way before the ride was over.

-Uwe-

 

[Crasher]

Please bear in mind that drivers licenses and car registrations are all a function of the 50 individual states, and the US Constitution (ostensibly) limits the functions that the federal government is permitted to engage in:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

-Uwe-

Hello, I am from the government and I am here to help

 

[Uwe]

Hello, I am from the government and I am here to help

-Uwe-