Condescending bike shop employees

[Ernesto Martinez-Ordaz]

As a former bike shop mechanic, I think I know a thing or two about how to handle a bicycle. How to do this and that. How to fix what needs fixing. I even had a "door to door" bike mechanic gig a few years ago that was fun and profitable. I also have a full "bike room" with all the necessary tools to work on bikes.

Here's the story -

My wife works from Memphis, TN, every other week (we live in Chicago and also have a place in Memphis). Last January I drove down to meet her in Memphis. When I left Chicago, it was a snowy mess with road salt. I had two bikes on the hitch rack getting pelted with that nasty salty spray until I got to Central IL.

I got to Memphis and unloaded the bicycles. I hosed them down immediately with water from the hose, and lubed the chains, wiped them dry, etc.

So the months went on and (this being August, my first time since January in Memphis) I see the bike for the first time since I brought it down. The chain was rusty - I don't think I did a good job on it since I left it here last.

I went to the Trek store, and asked them to sell me a new 9-speed chain. A service rep immediately put the bike on the repair stand, looked the bike over, pressed the brake levers, examined the wheels, and she told me it was going to be over $100 to get the bike up and running. I said: excuse me? I just need a chain, and I forgot my chain tool in Chicago.

She told me the wheels needed truing (they didn't), and that the brakes needed to be adjusted (they didn't).

She insisted I go for some "plan" to keep my bike running. A plan to take the bike to the shop on a regular basis. I said: no thank you. I just need the chain. Everything else is fine and you know it.

She said to me: You think you're a bike mechanic? A service plan would take care of this bike.

I said: Ma'am, this bike doesn't even fit me, it's too short for me (1993 Trek 8300, small), it's my wife's. We have 15 bicycles all together and I took bike mechanic courses when I was younger.

She didn't know what else to say.

SRAM 9-speed chain, plus labor, $50. I'm fine with it.

Next time I'll bring a tool box like I used to.

Who was condescending. Her or me?

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

I was not there to witness the interchange, so I cannot comment on condescension. But I suspect part of her pay is based on sales she makes. So she was trying to increase her pay. I would have suggested you to say thanks, bye, and leave. Then go to Amazon and order a cheaper chain and chain tool and do the job yourself.

[Ernesto Martinez-Ordaz]

No. Chain is already installed. If I had bought a new chain and a chain tool, it would have costed the same.
I did say thanks.

[AMuzi]

Wrong shop for you!

When I owned a zippy little BMW, I never seriously
considered darkening the front door of a BMW dealer- their
service departments are legendary (although not to Mercedes
levels). Still and all, their service departments are always
busy.

Same thing here. For people who ride twice a year and don't
know or care from mechanical systems, this is a welcome
service. You're not one of them.

--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[AMuzi]

On 8/30/2022 6:38 PM, Ernesto Martinez-Ordaz wrote:

p.s. $50 for a chain is on the high side IMHO.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

He did say the chain was installed. So figure $40 for the chain (kind of high for 9 speed, yes) and $10 labor to install the chain. Unless at your shop Andy you include the chain installation as free if you buy the chain there? If you sell a tire to someone, do you include for free putting the tire on the bike?

That is why I said say "thanks, bye" and then buy the chain and tool from Amazon. $18 SRAM chain and quick link. So no need for the chain tool even. Or if you don't want to use the quick link included, then an extra $21 for a Park chain tool. Or $15 for a Topeak chain tool.

https://www.amazon.com/SRAM-P-Link-Bicycle-Chain-9-Speed/dp/B001A0A8KG/ref=sr_1_4_sspa?crid=3F82PA0UOXL30&keywords=sram+9+speed+chain&qid=1661907856&sprefix=SRAM+9+speed+chain%2Caps%2C196&sr=8-4-spons&psc=1&smid=AI815W1WMD729&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFVRk4yWDlBS0JLSkMmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAxNTcyNzQyS09BRElVOElPUVJaJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyNTEzMDAySkZFNlNDNlZaWVgwJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

https://www.amazon.com/Park-Tool-CT-5-Chain-Brute/dp/B000OYHCHG/ref=sxin_14_ac_d_bv?ac_md=2-1-VW5kZXIgJDI1-ac_d_bv_bv_bv&content-id=amzn1.sym.14453ffd-7768-40d0-9a7f-8d0063113f56%3Aamzn1.sym.14453ffd-7768-40d0-9a7f-8d0063113f56&crid=1PWEPUZKT76SP&cv_ct_cx=Park+chain+tool&keywords=Park+chain+tool&pd_rd_i=B000OYHCHG&pd_rd_r=8c51f34a-36ef-4884-996d-e77b1df778fd&pd_rd_w=vDr0a&pd_rd_wg=ec2ZV&pf_rd_p=14453ffd-7768-40d0-9a7f-8d0063113f56&pf_rd_r=YCYE7P0T757K1CVT8AQA&psc=1&qid=1661907968&sprefix=park+chain+tool%2Caps%2C164&sr=1-2-270ce31b-afa8-499f-878b-3bb461a9a5a6

https://www.amazon.com/Topeak-60101303-Universal-Chain-Tool/dp/B005EP95ZC/ref=sxin_24?asc_contentid=amzn1.osa.19a0d370-d213-4555-b504-d37abd690e85.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&asc_contenttype=article&ascsubtag=amzn1.osa.19a0d370-d213-4555-b504-d37abd690e85.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&content-id=amzn1.sym.ba0c9d69-41b9-43d5-a219-285e187e30fb%3Aamzn1.sym.ba0c9d69-41b9-43d5-a219-285e187e30fb&creativeASIN=B005EP95ZC&crid=1PWEPUZKT76SP&cv_ct_cx=Park+chain+tool&cv_ct_id=amzn1.osa.19a0d370-d213-4555-b504-d37abd690e85.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&cv_ct_pg=search&cv_ct_we=asin&cv_ct_wn=osp-single-source-pecos-desktop&keywords=Park+chain+tool&linkCode=oas&pd_rd_i=B005EP95ZC&pd_rd_r=2e2c7391-75cb-41e1-b93a-a578c99d40a0&pd_rd_w=6sHDN&pd_rd_wg=p72Gg&pf_rd_p=ba0c9d69-41b9-43d5-a219-285e187e30fb&pf_rd_r=J3SWQJ6GAAGNY5FZ9QK3&qid=1661908079&sprefix=park+chain+tool%2Caps%2C164&sr=1-2-c26ac7f6-b43f-4741-a772-17cad7536576&tag=cyclingnewsoa-20

[Frank Krygowski]

Her attitude does need improvement. She was pushing hard to sell you
something you didn't need. "You think you're a bike mechanic?" is pretty
disrespectful.

I suppose many of us have tales of bad shop employees. I once
volunteered to overhaul the bike of a friend as thanks for a big favor
she did for us. She first demurred, saying she had just had it
completely overhauled. But somehow the shop's "complete overhaul" didn't
remove the dried grease or dead wasp from the bottom bracket. Also, her
derailleur wouldn't shift into all the cogs.

I have other tales. Suffice to say, some shop employees are good, some
not so good. Some have much different priorities than those of the
customer.

About pushing hard to sell something: When closing the purchase on our
new car, the finance guy was very insistent I needed an upgraded
warranty. "This warranty covers _all maintenance_ for [I forget how
many] years!"

I asked "What maintenance?" He said "Well, oil changes, for just one
thing!"

I said "It's electric."

He said "Oh."


--
- Frank Krygowski

[Lou Holtman]

If you tell the truth politely you can't go wrong. Draw your conclusion for a next visit.

Lou

[John B.]

Amazon has a SRAM 9 speed chain for $20.56 so the added $29.44 must be
for the skilled personnel and required special tools and equipment to
install it. (:-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

I know absolutely nothing about electric autos so let me ask you. Does
the thing have a gear box sort of arrangement or are the wheels
directly driven by electric motors as in some trains and streetcars?
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Lou Holtman]

There is a one stage/fixed reduction.

Lou

[John B.]

Do you mean one main motor, like an internal combustion auto with a
central gear box and drive shafts to the rear, and maybe front axles?
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Roger Merriman]

Some do have two motors, Tesla for example there are dual motor versions.
But either way there is a reduction as plus differential though the exact
method I believe isn’t the same across the market.

And to throw a curve ball, get retrofitted EV which keep their gearboxes ie
stuff like VW beetles and so on, with battery pack added plus motor and so
on.

Roger Merriman

[Tom Kunich]

Seaton has made comment after comment showing that he has never worked on a bike in his life. I suggest you simply jump over any comments he makes since they are all conjecture and idiocy.

[Tom Kunich]

I think that was the installed price since he didn't have his chain tool with him.

[Frank Krygowski]

This one has the single motor, plus charging electronics, under the
hood. A single reduction gear takes power to the front axles.

But designs vary. IIRC a startup manufacturer near us has four motors,
one for each wheel.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

Tommy, I do know how to change a chain on a bicycle. And unlike you, I do not post inquiry after inquiry about why my brakes rub on the rim. Why won't my bike shift into gear. Why can't I mount the tire on the rim. Why does my wheel wobble. How do I pump up a tube. Etc.

I do worry about all the poor suckers who buy your eBay bikes. They will have to allocate several hundred dollars for taking their new/used bike to a competent bike shop and have it completely overhauled and fixed. Only a person wanting to commit suicide would rely on a bike you assembled.

[John B.]

Ah well, perhaps you are correct. But on the other hand you, who brag
daily about the difficulties of installing handlebar tape and seat
posts is hardly one to critique others. Why, just the other day you
announced that you were unable to tell the difference between a new
bearing and a worn out bearing.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

On Wed, 31 Aug 2022 10:36:48 -0400, Frank Krygowski

Ah, that answers my question. I asked as I worked, years ago, on a
"lift Truck", designed to quickly move aircraft that had fallen down
in some manner and it had a separate motor at each rear wheel, rather
like some trains and streetcars.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[AMuzi]

Drop a hint to your wife that this would make a great
birthday present:

https://www.rimac-automobili.com/

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

From your website.
"Designed, engineered and handcrafted in Croatia"

Never thought of Croatia as a hotbed of sports car production. Maybe some fired Ferrari employees sailed a boat from Venice across the Adriatic Sea over to Croatia to start a new car company.

[John B.]

There you go, picking on poor old Tommy.

Why, just the other day he announced that (really, truly) he had
accomplished the extremely difficult task of installing a seat tube!
And, he mentioned he is now working on handle bar tape and(my
conjecture) will master that in a week or so.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

(:-) When I had the pacemaker installed the Cardiologist commented
that "you probably shouldn't drive"and my wife seized on that and she
now Chauffeurs me around in "her" car while "my" old pickup just sits
there.

--
Cheers,

John B.

[AMuzi]

> From your website.
> "Designed, engineered and handcrafted in Croatia"
>
> Never thought of Croatia as a hotbed of sports car production. Maybe some fired Ferrari employees sailed a boat from Venice across the Adriatic Sea over to Croatia to start a new car company.

Italian regulation and tax on labor and capital investment
has been a windfall for Croatia, Romania, Slovenia.

For example much of Campagnolo's equipment is from their
facility in Romania.

[John B.]

I'm surprised it hasn't happened before - moving manufacturing to a
cheaper location. Seagate started making hard disks in Thailand 40
years ago. Nike has something like 700 factories, employing a million
people. all in foreign countries.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Tom Kunich]

At one time when California was the Golden State and Silicon Valley was making millionaires every day, you would NEVER see a Ferrari. Now with a violent divide between the rich and the working people, Ferraris are in fact, not that uncommon.

[Andre Jute]

On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 1:16:00 AM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
> >
> Drop a hint to your wife that this would make a great
> birthday present:
>
> https://www.rimac-automobili.com/
> --
> Andrew Muzi
> <www.yellowjersey.org/>
> Open every day since 1 April, 1971
>

Rimac made the car that nearly killed Richard Hammond -- the shortest of the Clarkson, May and Hammond trio who do silly things with cars on Amazon Prime -- on a Swiss hillclimb. -- AJ
>

[Tom Kunich]

I have always considered cars as transportation. I got fairly nice cars when I was in a position that required that I look at least passable - the first of the Mustangs and the Camaro 350. But I never bought a new car until I had my concussion and could be talked into anything by a salesman. Now I wouldn't even go onto that Ford dealership where I used to buy all of my used cars. The salesman gained a new car sale and lost a customer permanently. He was the same salesman I used to buy all of my lightly used Fords from. Now i have a Ford Taurus X and use it very lightly. I need to have some bodywork done on it but it only has 61,000 miles on it and runs perfectly. And people never expect what looks like an SUV to accelerate like a Tesla.

[sms]

On 8/30/2022 4:38 PM, Ernesto Martinez-Ordaz wrote:

<snip>

> Who was condescending. Her or me?

She may have been in training for a job at a car dealer's service
department.

You're lucky that she didn't try to sell you a Bilstein Wallet Flush,
new rotors and pads, new tires with nitrogen fill, and a special
additive for the chain to reduce friction.

I recently received a coupon for an $8.88 synthetic oil change at a
nearby Toyota dealer.

I normally change my oil myself, since it's faster and less expensive,
and I know that it'll be done right, but for $8.88 I couldn't resist,
and I am fairly confident that the dealer's service department isn't
going to screw up an oil change like one of these quick-oil change
places is likely to do.

The service advisor was desperately looking for something he could
up-sell. He checked the tires, hoping that they'd be worn out but they'd
been replaced about 8000 miles earlier. The air filters were all clean
enough. He was crestfallen and actually said "I can't in good faith tell
you to replace your filters yet."

I was waiting for my car, talking to an 85 year old man who was waiting
for his car. He had paid $120 for an oil change and a $100 for a tire
rotation. A full-synthetic oil change at a dealer should cost about $80
in this area, and tire rotation is free at most tire stores, but not if
you buy your tires at the dealer like this guy did. The dealer service
departments really take advantage of super-seniors.

I hadn't been to this dealer in several years. They also discontinued
their shuttle service to take you home or to work, free car washes for
service customers, and worst of all, no more complimentary donuts in the
waiting room.

[sms]

On 8/30/2022 5:13 PM, AMuzi wrote:

<snip>

> p.s. $50 for a chain is on the high side IMHO.

Way high. More than 2x what he could have bought it for.

Personally, I'm happy to patronize the local store if they're charging
only 30-40% more than what I could buy the item for online. But I have
no problem ordering something online if I can't find it locally (I have
even ordered one thing from your store, that I could not only not find
locally, but that the local shops had no idea what I was talking about,
one of those weird 10.5mm x 26 tpi nuts for an SRAM Dual Drive).

The problem around here is that most bike shops have hours that are
worse than banker's hours, so forget about buying stuff before or after
work, and on weekends you want to be out riding. Performance, for all
its faults, had long hours.

I think that REI does so well in the bicycle business because of their
hours. Some LBSes used to stay open until 8 p.m. one night a week
(usually Thursday). In Silicon Valley, prior to remote-working, even 8
p.m. was often a stretch if you worked for a start-up, but being able to
get to shop by 5pm or 6pm was unheard of.

The local REI: Mon-Fri: 10am-9pm, Sat: 10am-9pm, Sun: 10am-7pm

The shop of someone that used to post here: Mon-Fri: 11:00am-6:00pm,
Sat: 10:00am-5:00pm, Sun: Closed.

One of our favorite rides when it's hot in Silicon Valley is the
Monterey Peninsula. We park in a shopping center with an REI in Marina
and ride to Carmel and back <https://goo.gl/maps/MHJYVaT2WVv8NAqWA>. If
we need any bicycle stuff REI is open, plus they have clean bathrooms!

[sms]

On 8/30/2022 6:08 PM, russell...@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

Hint: Amazon links can be

https://www.amazon.com/dp/itemnumber, i.e.:

<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001A0A8KG>

<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OYHCHG>

<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EP95ZC>

I have one of these in the seat bag on each bike:
<https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256803352687269.html> as well as 4"
adjustable wrench for bicycles with nutted axles
<https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256804318493207.html>.


> https://www.amazon.com/SRAM-P-Link-Bicycle-Chain-9-Speed/dp/B001A0A8KG/ref=sr_1_4_sspa?crid=3F82PA0UOXL30&keywords=sram+9+speed+chain&qid=1661907856&sprefix=SRAM+9+speed+chain%2Caps%2C196&sr=8-4-spons&psc=1&smid=AI815W1WMD729&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFVRk4yWDlBS0JLSkMmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAxNTcyNzQyS09BRElVOElPUVJaJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyNTEzMDAySkZFNlNDNlZaWVgwJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Park-Tool-CT-5-Chain-Brute/dp/B000OYHCHG/ref=sxin_14_ac_d_bv?ac_md=2-1-VW5kZXIgJDI1-ac_d_bv_bv_bv&content-id=amzn1.sym.14453ffd-7768-40d0-9a7f-8d0063113f56%3Aamzn1.sym.14453ffd-7768-40d0-9a7f-8d0063113f56&crid=1PWEPUZKT76SP&cv_ct_cx=Park+chain+tool&keywords=Park+chain+tool&pd_rd_i=B000OYHCHG&pd_rd_r=8c51f34a-36ef-4884-996d-e77b1df778fd&pd_rd_w=vDr0a&pd_rd_wg=ec2ZV&pf_rd_p=14453ffd-7768-40d0-9a7f-8d0063113f56&pf_rd_r=YCYE7P0T757K1CVT8AQA&psc=1&qid=1661907968&sprefix=park+chain+tool%2Caps%2C164&sr=1-2-270ce31b-afa8-499f-878b-3bb461a9a5a6
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Topeak-60101303-Universal-Chain-Tool/dp/B005EP95ZC/ref=sxin_24?asc_contentid=amzn1.osa.19a0d370-d213-4555-b504-d37abd690e85.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&asc_contenttype=article&ascsubtag=amzn1.osa.19a0d370-d213-4555-b504-d37abd690e85.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&content-id=amzn1.sym.ba0c9d69-41b9-43d5-a219-285e187e30fb%3Aamzn1.sym.ba0c9d69-41b9-43d5-a219-285e187e30fb&creativeASIN=B005EP95ZC&crid=1PWEPUZKT76SP&cv_ct_cx=Park+chain+tool&cv_ct_id=amzn1.osa.19a0d370-d213-4555-b504-d37abd690e85.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&cv_ct_pg=search&cv_ct_we=asin&cv_ct_wn=osp-single-source-pecos-desktop&keywords=Park+chain+tool&linkCode=oas&pd_rd_i=B005EP95ZC&pd_rd_r=2e2c7391-75cb-41e1-b93a-a578c99d40a0&pd_rd_w=6sHDN&pd_rd_wg=p72Gg&pf_rd_p=ba0c9d69-41b9-43d5-a219-285e187e30fb&pf_rd_r=J3SWQJ6GAAGNY5FZ9QK3&qid=1661908079&sprefix=park+chain+tool%2Caps%2C164&sr=1-2-c26ac7f6-b43f-4741-a772-17cad7536576&tag=cyclingnewsoa-20

[sms]

On 8/31/2022 2:06 AM, John B. wrote:

<snip>

> Amazon has a SRAM 9 speed chain for $20.56 so the added $29.44 must be
> for the skilled personnel and required special tools and equipment to
> install it. (:-)

First of all, the bicycle shop is not selling the chain for the same
price as Amazon. Second, at a shop with $100 per hour shop rate, the
$29.44 is not unreasonable. I don't think that $50 is unreasonable for
parts and labor.

During the pandemic, and even before, you'd have people bringing in old
neglected bikes to a shop and being shocked when told how much it would
cost to bring it up to usable condition. New tires, cables and housing,
new chain, new brake pads, all at retail prices, plus labor to install
all that stuff, plus labor for wheel truing and gear adjustments. It
easily could exceed the cost of buying a new bicycle.

[sms]

On 8/31/2022 3:58 PM, russell...@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

> I do worry about all the poor suckers who buy your eBay bikes. They will have to allocate several hundred dollars for taking their new/used bike to a competent bike shop and have it completely overhauled and fixed. Only a person wanting to commit suicide would rely on a bike you assembled.

I doubt that anything Tom did to an aluminum-framed bicycle would
malfunction to the point of causing fatal injury. From the descriptions,
these bikes are made up of a mix of parts from all over the world that
no one else wants. But not necessarily dangerous parts that would fail
catastrophically.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:58:07 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich
<cycl...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Now i have a Ford Taurus X and use it very lightly. (...) And people never expect what looks like an SUV to accelerate like a Tesla.

Not even close. Zero to 60mph on a 1/4 mile track:

Taurus X (various years):
<https://zero60times.com/0-60-times/ford/taurus-x/>
6.2 seconds.

Tesla Model S:
<https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-acceleration-0-60-mph-video/>
2.28 seconds.
<https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/>
1.98 seconds.

Your Taurus will also be shifting through the gears as it accelerates,
while the Tesla doesn't need to shift.

One of the big advantages of electrics is that they deliver lots of
torque at low RPM's, such as off the starting line. Gasoline burners
need to rev the engine up to high RPM's before they can deliver any
torque.

"Horsepower vs Torque - Gasoline vs Electric Cars"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuTpPr3Uv0> (9:08)
Note the torque horsepower curves.

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[AMuzi]

On 9/1/2022 12:49 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:58:07 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich
> <cycl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Now i have a Ford Taurus X and use it very lightly. (...) And people never expect what looks like an SUV to accelerate like a Tesla.
>
> Not even close. Zero to 60mph on a 1/4 mile track:
>
> Taurus X (various years):
> <https://zero60times.com/0-60-times/ford/taurus-x/>
> 6.2 seconds.
>
> Tesla Model S:
> <https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-acceleration-0-60-mph-video/>
> 2.28 seconds.
> <https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/>
> 1.98 seconds.
>
> Your Taurus will also be shifting through the gears as it accelerates,
> while the Tesla doesn't need to shift.
>
> One of the big advantages of electrics is that they deliver lots of
> torque at low RPM's, such as off the starting line. Gasoline burners
> need to rev the engine up to high RPM's before they can deliver any
> torque.
>
> "Horsepower vs Torque - Gasoline vs Electric Cars"
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuTpPr3Uv0> (9:08)
> Note the torque horsepower curves.
>

+1

Thus spoke Carroll Shelby:

https://www.inspiringquotes.us/quotes/kj4J_QfETpvKL

[Lou Holtman]

On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 7:50:00 PM UTC+2, jeff.li...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:58:07 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich
> <cycl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Now i have a Ford Taurus X and use it very lightly. (...) And people never expect what looks like an SUV to accelerate like a Tesla.
>
> Not even close. Zero to 60mph on a 1/4 mile track:
>
> Taurus X (various years):
> <https://zero60times.com/0-60-times/ford/taurus-x/>
> 6.2 seconds.
>
> Tesla Model S:
> <https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-acceleration-0-60-mph-video/>
> 2.28 seconds.
> <https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/>
> 1.98 seconds.
>
> Your Taurus will also be shifting through the gears as it accelerates,
> while the Tesla doesn't need to shift.
>
> One of the big advantages of electrics is that they deliver lots of
> torque at low RPM's, such as off the starting line. Gasoline burners
> need to rev the engine up to high RPM's before they can deliver any
> torque.
>
> "Horsepower vs Torque - Gasoline vs Electric Cars"
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuTpPr3Uv0> (9:08)
> Note the torque horsepower curves.
>

Compared to todays standards of EV’s the Nissan Leaf is a ‘slow’ EV. A ICE has no change at a stoplight sprint.

Lou

[Tom Kunich]

Anybody that likes the idea of a electric car should buy one. That won't last long.

[Ernesto Martinez-Ordaz]

On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 4:13:18 AM UTC-5, John B. wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Aug 2022 21:54:58 -0400, Frank Krygowski
> <frkr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >On 8/30/2022 7:38 PM, Ernesto Martinez-Ordaz wrote:
> >> As a former bike shop mechanic, I think I know a thing or two about how to handle a bicycle. How to do this and that. How to fix what needs fixing. I even had a "door to door" bike mechanic gig a few years ago that was fun and profitable. I also have a full "bike room" with all the necessary tools to work on bikes.
> >>
> >> Here's the story -
> >>
> >> My wife works from Memphis, TN, every other week (we live in Chicago and also have a place in Memphis). Last January I drove down to meet her in Memphis. When I left Chicago, it was a snowy mess with road salt. I had two bikes on the hitch rack getting pelted with that nasty salty spray until I got to Central IL.
> >>
> >> I got to Memphis and unloaded the bicycles. I hosed them down immediately with water from the hose, and lubed the chains, wiped them dry, etc.
> >>
> >> So the months went on and (this being August, my first time since January in Memphis) I see the bike for the first time since I brought it down. The chain was rusty - I don't think I did a good job on it since I left it here last.
> >>
> >> I went to the Trek store, and asked them to sell me a new 9-speed chain. A service rep immediately put the bike on the repair stand, looked the bike over, pressed the brake levers, examined the wheels, and she told me it was going to be over $100 to get the bike up and running. I said: excuse me? I just need a chain, and I forgot my chain tool in Chicago.
> >>
> >> She told me the wheels needed truing (they didn't), and that the brakes needed to be adjusted (they didn't).
> >>
> >> She insisted I go for some "plan" to keep my bike running. A plan to take the bike to the shop on a regular basis. I said: no thank you. I just need the chain. Everything else is fine and you know it.
> >>
> >> She said to me: You think you're a bike mechanic? A service plan would take care of this bike.
> >>
> >> I said: Ma'am, this bike doesn't even fit me, it's too short for me (1993 Trek 8300, small), it's my wife's. We have 15 bicycles all together and I took bike mechanic courses when I was younger.
> >>
> >> She didn't know what else to say.
> >>
> >> SRAM 9-speed chain, plus labor, $50. I'm fine with it.
> >>
> >> Next time I'll bring a tool box like I used to.
> >>

> >> Who was condescending. Her or me?
> >

We have a Rivian. It kicks ass.

[Frank Krygowski]

Mary Barra is betting against Tom Kunich.

I wonder which person is smarter?

--
- Frank Krygowski

[John B.]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 10:33:28 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
wrote:

>On 8/31/2022 2:06 AM, John B. wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> Amazon has a SRAM 9 speed chain for $20.56 so the added $29.44 must be
>> for the skilled personnel and required special tools and equipment to
>> install it. (:-)
>
>First of all, the bicycle shop is not selling the chain for the same
>price as Amazon. Second, at a shop with $100 per hour shop rate, the
>$29.44 is not unreasonable. I don't think that $50 is unreasonable for
>parts and labor.
>

You know that says something about the U.S. That a USian willing pays
$50 for someone else to do something that any normally dextrous bloke
could do himself in, what? 30 minutes. At most!

--
Cheers,

John B.

[Jeff Liebermann]

I didn't select a 4 year old video because of the vehicles the author
was comparing. I selected the video because of the authors clear
explanation of the difference in acceleration between electric and
gasoline vehicles. If the video compared more modern vehicles, the
graphs on the whiteboard and the explanations would have been mostly
unchanged.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 13:29:47 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich

Nice change of topic away from "acceleration".

"Electric vehicle sales to surpass gas-powered cars by 2040..."
<https://electrek.co/2017/05/05/electric-vehicle-sales-vs-gas-2040/s>
Note the graph of the projected world sales:
<https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/05/screen-shot-2017-05-05-at-9-50-29-am.png>
also note that the article was written in 2017, well before the
pandemic. Don't assume that the increasing EV sales are due to some
form of coercion by various governments. That won't happen until
2035. Among various friends who purchased new vehicles in the last
few years, only one bought a gasoline burner. All the others were
electric.

Got any more amazing facts and generalizations?

Incidentally, I usually ignore one line opinions because they always
fail to provide any basis for the opinion. However, for you, I'll
make an exception. So, what do you mean by "won't last long"? Will
the car die prematurely? Will the buyer die prematurely? Will both
die prematurely? Or perhaps after buying an EV, the buyer will
experience instant remorse and sell the EV on Craigslist so he can buy
a gasoline burner? Hmmm... whom do I know that does that with
bicycles? Anyway, please explain your reasoning, logic,
rationalization, inspiration, or whatever you substitute for research.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 12:15:39 PM UTC-5, sms wrote:
> On 8/30/2022 6:08 PM, russell...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Hint: Amazon links can be
>
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/itemnumber, i.e.:
>
> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001A0A8KG>
>
> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OYHCHG>
>
> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EP95ZC>

OK. But my longer links worked just fine too. Other than adding lots of extra blue space to a post, they don't seem to do much harm. They still work.

[John B.]

I remember when California came out with their first emissions law for
autos.... and people said, "I won't last long"...
--
Cheers,

John B.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

Right now Tommy can't size a chain correctly. Too short. So someone tries to shift into the big cog, breaks off the rear derailleur hanger, throws the derailleur into the spokes, causes the rear wheel to lock up, causes the rider to lurch sideways and crash under a passing car. Not unrealistic at all. Tommy can't get handlebars to not rotate. Person brakes hard and bar dives down, rider goes over handlebar and busts neck. Not unrealistic at all. Tommy doesn't know the difference between single and dual pivot brakes. He misadjusts the brakes so they do not work. Rider comes to a stop sign and applies the brakes. No stopping. Rider goes into the intersection and gets run over by a car. Not unrealistic at all. Tommy can't get seatposts to fit in frames. Not sure how bad a seatpost dropping down in the middle of a ride would be. But it might be unpleasant during a high speed turn.

Any bicycle Tommy works on could be considered lethal and dangerous for any rider if not properly checked and fixed by a competent person.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

?????????
Seems to me the worlds richest man right now is betting that people buying electric cars will last a long time. And every auto maker is developing and investing in electric cars for the future. Tommy, are you saying all of these people and companies are dumb and chasing a foolish dream?

[sms]

On 9/1/2022 3:57 PM, John B. wrote:

<snip>

> You know that says something about the U.S. That a USian willing pays
> $50 for someone else to do something that any normally dextrous bloke
> could do himself in, what? 30 minutes. At most!

Most of us here would do this themselves, including the original poster,
but he wanted it done right away so he went to a bike shop to buy it and
install it.

Personally, after leaving that Trek store with the bicycle I would have
went to REI in Memphis and bought a chain and a chain tool.

But I would not expect a bicycle shop, especially a Trek store, to sell
and install a chain for less than $50. A neighborhood bicycle shop might
be a little less.

[sms]

On 9/1/2022 5:31 PM, russell...@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

> Seems to me the worlds richest man right now is betting that people buying electric cars will last a long time. And every auto maker is developing and investing in electric cars for the future. Tommy, are you saying all of these people and companies are dumb and chasing a foolish dream?

We have a LOT of Teslas in my area. Most families with a Tesla, or even
two Teslas, also have an ICE vehicle for long road trips (typically a
minivan or SUV)If they don't have an ICE car for a long trip then they
will rent one.

It's not just the charging issue either. My neighbor just got back from
a trip up to Seattle to drop his daughter off. They drove their Honda
CR-V. They had one flat tire on the way. He put on the spare, drove to a
tire shop where they fixed the flat. On their Tesla there is no spare
tire. You have to call and someone will come out with a tire and wheel
or they will tow your car. It's possible to do long road trips in a
Tesla, but it isn't the best idea, at least out west where the distances
can often be very long between charging stations.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 17:17:33 -0700 (PDT), "russell...@yahoo.com"
<ritzann...@gmail.com> wrote:

>OK. But my longer links worked just fine too. Other than adding lots of extra blue space to a post, they don't seem to do much harm. They still work.

They work, but they're full of Amazon tracking information. I clean
up the URL using various browser extensions, add-ons, plug-ins,
band-aids and extensions. This week, my favorite is CleanURLs:
<https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearurls/lckanjgmijmafbedllaakclkaicjfmnk?hl=en>
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clearurls/>
Like most such fixes, some sites and web servers will break if the
tracking info is removed. That's because the site owner makes money
by selling the tracking info to advertisers. So, I click on the
ClearURLs icon, and temporarily switch off the filter function for the
site. The program also has a cut-n-paste URL cleaner feature under
"tools".

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 18:28:44 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
wrote:

>It's not just the charging issue either. My neighbor just got back from
>a trip up to Seattle to drop his daughter off. They drove their Honda
>CR-V. They had one flat tire on the way. He put on the spare, drove to a
>tire shop where they fixed the flat. On their Tesla there is no spare
>tire. You have to call and someone will come out with a tire and wheel
>or they will tow your car. It's possible to do long road trips in a
>Tesla, but it isn't the best idea, at least out west where the distances
>can often be very long between charging stations.

"Complete Compact Spare Tire kit - Fits 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3 -
Modern Spare"
<https://www.amazon.com/2017-2018-Tesla-Model-Complete-Spare/dp/B07KS3VLWT>

"Here's Why Teslas Don't Come With A Spare Tire"
<https://www.hotcars.com/heres-why-teslas-dont-come-with-a-spare-tire/>
- Drivers Use Spare Tires Less Today.
- The Standard Repair Rate For Fixing Tesla's Tires.
- There's A Spare Tire Kit Available But It's Costly.
- Tesla Offers Free Road Service.

"When a vehicle's life cycle concludes, the spare tire and tools with
the vehicle don't even get used before heading to the junkyard about
85% of the time, according to TireRack. To Tesla, it didn't make sense
to include a spare tire for only 15% of the time."

I can believe that. My 2001 Subaru Forester has a full size spare
tire buried under the rear deck. As far as I can tell, the tire is
the original that came with the car. After 160,000 miles, I've never
used the spare. However, I cheated. I've had maybe 8 nail punctures.
I typically plug the tire by the side of the road with a cheap repair
kit:
<https://www.amazon.com/TAITEC-Puncture-Repair-PRO-1034A-Tubeless/dp/B06XZDK7V5/>
I didn't even need to remove the tire from the car. Done correctly,
the plugs don't leak or fall apart.

Hint: The rubber cement likes to evaporate from the squeeze tube,
even if the tube hasn't been used. Same problem as bicycle patch
rubber cement.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 9:12:15 PM UTC-5, jeff.li...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 18:28:44 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
> wrote:
> >It's not just the charging issue either. My neighbor just got back from
> >a trip up to Seattle to drop his daughter off. They drove their Honda
> >CR-V. They had one flat tire on the way. He put on the spare, drove to a
> >tire shop where they fixed the flat. On their Tesla there is no spare
> >tire. You have to call and someone will come out with a tire and wheel
> >or they will tow your car. It's possible to do long road trips in a
> >Tesla, but it isn't the best idea, at least out west where the distances
> >can often be very long between charging stations.
> "Complete Compact Spare Tire kit - Fits 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3 -
> Modern Spare"
> <https://www.amazon.com/2017-2018-Tesla-Model-Complete-Spare/dp/B07KS3VLWT>

$60 difference in the spare kit if it includes or does not include a carrying case. Why would you need a carry case for a spare tire? Usually spare tires live in a hole inside your car and stay there forever until needed. You don't carry the spare tire around ever. But, just in case you owned two Tesla cars and only had one spare tire kit. And wanted to make sure the spare tire was in the Tesla you were driving that day. Why would you need a carrying case to move the spare tire from one Tesla to the other in your garage? You just carry the tire from one car to the other and put it in its hole in the trunk. Seems like they are trying to steal $60 from some fools.

[AMuzi]

We do not charge to install new chain (purchased here).

It takes a minute. That's faster than explaining how to do
it and then listening to tomorrow's whining from guys who
didn't listen to the instruction or otherwise ruined the chain.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 19:23:45 -0700 (PDT), "russell...@yahoo.com"
<ritzann...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 9:12:15 PM UTC-5, jeff.li...@gmail.com wrote:
>> "Complete Compact Spare Tire kit - Fits 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3 -
>> Modern Spare"
>> <https://www.amazon.com/2017-2018-Tesla-Model-Complete-Spare/dp/B07KS3VLWT>

>$60 difference in the spare kit if it includes or does not include a carrying case. Why would you need a carry case for a spare tire? Usually spare tires live in a hole inside your car and stay there forever until needed. You don't carry the spare tire around ever. But, just in case you owned two Tesla cars and only had one spare tire kit. And wanted to make sure the spare tire was in the Tesla you were driving that day. Why would you need a carrying case to move the spare tire from one Tesla to the other in your garage? You just carry the tire from one car to the other and put it in its hole in the trunk. Seems like they are trying to steal $60 from some fools.

Of the 3 kits offered, I intentionally selected the kit with the bag
because I thought it would be useful. Think about how it could be
used during a tire change in the middle of nowhere.

You Tesla picks up some shrapnel on the highway. You pull over to the
side of the road. It's been raining and there's mud on everything.
The Tesla telematics gizmo calls the mothership and informs you the
due to supply chain shortages, the factory has no spare tires
available. You're on your own.

First, you remove the spare tire and it's bag from the trunk. You use
the scissors jack to elevate the car and remove the flat tire using
the supplied wrench and liberal doses of profanity. Everything is
covered with mud except the bag and the spare tire inside. You
install the spare tire on the car, torque the lug nuts to 129 lbs-ft
(175Nm), lower the car to the ground, and remove the scissors jack.

Well done except for what do you do with the flat tire that's covered
with mud? Washing it clean is not going to happen in the middle of
nowhere. Throwing the flat tire into the car will get the carpet,
upholstery and everything in the car, filthy.

The obvious solution is to put the dirty flat tire into the bag. The
outside of the bag has led a sheltered life in the back of the Tesla
and it therefore clean. Never mind the mud on the inside of the bag.
That can be hosed or washed out later. Problem solved.

Another possible use is as a carrier for the flat tire. If you cannot
replace the flat tire with the spare, you get to walk to the nearest
town and get it patched. Strictly speaking, you only need the bag for
this, not the full kit. A flat tire doesn't roll, so you get to carry
it. Stuff it into the bag, and carry it. Without the bag and the
carrying handle, carrying just the tire would have rather awkward.

Is the bag worth $50? Probably not, at least not until you need it.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

$60 difference. Not $50. But I hear you about the problem of putting a muddy tire into your clean car. Not sure why you would not put it into the storage area in the trunk where you took the spare out of. But if you want to put it into the backseat, OK with me. I have a money saving idea for you. I'll only charge you $1 for a heavy duty Hefty Contractor trash bag. Its heavy duty plastic and will easily hold the flat muddy tire. You can store the bag in the same hole the spare is stored.

As for walking to the gas station with the flat tire to get it repaired, and then carrying it back to the car and putting it on the car, well......... I imagine if you were going to carry the flat tire, you would be more likely to just walk there without the flat tire and ask the attendant to call the tow truck company or the local tire repair company and have them pick you up at the gas station on the way to the car.

I'm still not convinced you need a carrying bag and handle for the spare tire.

[Frank Krygowski]

Yesterday, on a busy local four-lane road, a punk in a tricked out compact car was tailgating me
really closely and obnoxiously, including revving up to within about a foot of my rear bumper then
backing off to repeat. It was totally senseless, because if he magically got past me, he'd have been
in the same situation with the car just in front of me.

I got irritated enough to slow down by about 5 mph - my SOP for tailgaters. That aligned him with a gap
the next lane, so he whipped over there to try to pass me.

As he accelerated, I floored my electric econo-car. It out-accelerated his little hot rod. I then moved into
my turn lane. He roared past to begin tailgating someone else.

The eCar really is quick. It makes merging onto a freeway actively fun.

- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 10:12:15 PM UTC-4, jeff.li...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> I can believe that. My 2001 Subaru Forester has a full size spare
> tire buried under the rear deck. As far as I can tell, the tire is
> the original that came with the car. After 160,000 miles, I've never
> used the spare. However, I cheated. I've had maybe 8 nail punctures.
> I typically plug the tire by the side of the road with a cheap repair
> kit:
> <https://www.amazon.com/TAITEC-Puncture-Repair-PRO-1034A-Tubeless/dp/B06XZDK7V5/>
> I didn't even need to remove the tire from the car. Done correctly,
> the plugs don't leak or fall apart.
>
> Hint: The rubber cement likes to evaporate from the squeeze tube,
> even if the tube hasn't been used. Same problem as bicycle patch
> rubber cement.

Our new Kia came with no spare tire. Instead, it's got a can or spray-in sealer plus an electric
tire pump. There is space for a compact spare, should I choose to buy one, but I like having
that space available for other purposes. It makes it easier to fit our folding bikes inside.

I wondered briefly about buying a spare tire, but then remembered that we owned our
previous car for at least seven years and never had a flat tire. My only use of that spare was
to hold one wheel off the ground when I rotated tires.

- Frank Krygowski

[John B.]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 20:41:00 -0700 (PDT), "russell...@yahoo.com"

The real solution is.... buy a pickup.

Plenty of room for a spare wheel & tire, carry 4 or 5 bicycles. Haul a
bunch of relatives. Great for doing the week's shopping - no
scratching the head to get the case of milk and the 2 dozen eggs in
without breaking a single shell.

AND! Cheaper too (:-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Lou Holtman]

On Friday, September 2, 2022 at 1:37:23 AM UTC+2, jeff.li...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 13:23:26 -0700 (PDT), Lou Holtman

>

> >Compared to todays standards of EV’s the Nissan Leaf is a ‘slow’ EV. A ICE has no change at a stoplight sprint.
> >Lou

> I didn't select a 4 year old video because of the vehicles the author
> was comparing. I selected the video because of the authors clear
> explanation of the difference in acceleration between electric and
> gasoline vehicles. If the video compared more modern vehicles, the
> graphs on the whiteboard and the explanations would have been mostly
> unchanged.

Agreed, but the differences would be bigger. All that performance stuff aside, an EV is incredible responsive to the 'gas' pedal (max torque from zero rpm). This is beneficial also for a mellow driver. See Frank's post. Beside range/charging infrastructure and cost (at the moment) an EV is superior to a ICE.

Lou

[Roger Merriman]

Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:58:07 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich
> <cycl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Now i have a Ford Taurus X and use it very lightly. (...) And people
>> never expect what looks like an SUV to accelerate like a Tesla.
>
> Not even close. Zero to 60mph on a 1/4 mile track:
>
> Taurus X (various years):
> <https://zero60times.com/0-60-times/ford/taurus-x/>
> 6.2 seconds.
>
> Tesla Model S:
> <https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-acceleration-0-60-mph-video/>
> 2.28 seconds.
> <https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/>
> 1.98 seconds.
>
> Your Taurus will also be shifting through the gears as it accelerates,
> while the Tesla doesn't need to shift.
>

To be fair to Tom that’s still quick off the mark, EV particularly Tesla
are another level of 0-60!

> One of the big advantages of electrics is that they deliver lots of
> torque at low RPM's, such as off the starting line. Gasoline burners
> need to rev the engine up to high RPM's before they can deliver any
> torque.
>
> "Horsepower vs Torque - Gasoline vs Electric Cars"
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuTpPr3Uv0> (9:08)
> Note the torque horsepower curves.
>

And stuff like Pikes peak Hill climb EV are fairly dominant.

I believe that stuff like Nurburgring that production EV for various
reasons are not quite there, though getting closer.

Roger Merriman

[Roger Merriman]

That has to do with Tesla habit of reinventing the wheel see door handles
that fail for minor examples.

I think Americans EV probably have the worse time vs Europe in terms of can
I drive my car to X.

Even the uk has a charger at all motorway services, they might be installed
by the bins at the furthest edge mind you…

I have friends etc wit EV the problems are generally chargers not working
which does happen as it’s still new technology to a degree.

And it’s I assume more complex kit than fuel pump.

Roger Merriman

[sms]

Good points. It's not the parts that are necessarily the issue, though
it appears that he has bought some counterfeit parts which could be an
issue, it's that they are installed incorrectly.

[sms]

On 9/1/2022 7:12 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 18:28:44 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It's not just the charging issue either. My neighbor just got back from
>> a trip up to Seattle to drop his daughter off. They drove their Honda
>> CR-V. They had one flat tire on the way. He put on the spare, drove to a
>> tire shop where they fixed the flat. On their Tesla there is no spare
>> tire. You have to call and someone will come out with a tire and wheel
>> or they will tow your car. It's possible to do long road trips in a
>> Tesla, but it isn't the best idea, at least out west where the distances
>> can often be very long between charging stations.
>
> "Complete Compact Spare Tire kit - Fits 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3 -
> Modern Spare"
> <https://www.amazon.com/2017-2018-Tesla-Model-Complete-Spare/dp/B07KS3VLWT>

You mean <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KS3VLWT>.

> "Here's Why Teslas Don't Come With A Spare Tire"
> <https://www.hotcars.com/heres-why-teslas-dont-come-with-a-spare-tire/>
> - Drivers Use Spare Tires Less Today.
> - The Standard Repair Rate For Fixing Tesla's Tires.
> - There's A Spare Tire Kit Available But It's Costly.
> - Tesla Offers Free Road Service >

> "When a vehicle's life cycle concludes, the spare tire and tools with
> the vehicle don't even get used before heading to the junkyard about
> 85% of the time, according to TireRack. To Tesla, it didn't make sense
> to include a spare tire for only 15% of the time."

What a ridiculous rationalization. 15% is not that low. Tesla did it to
save money and improve distance between charges.

> I can believe that. My 2001 Subaru Forester has a full size spare
> tire buried under the rear deck. As far as I can tell, the tire is
> the original that came with the car. After 160,000 miles, I've never
> used the spare. However, I cheated. I've had maybe 8 nail punctures.
> I typically plug the tire by the side of the road with a cheap repair
> kit:
> <https://www.amazon.com/TAITEC-Puncture-Repair-PRO-1034A-Tubeless/dp/B06XZDK7V5/>

You mean <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XZDK7V5/>.

> I didn't even need to remove the tire from the car. Done correctly,
> the plugs don't leak or fall apart.
>
> Hint: The rubber cement likes to evaporate from the squeeze tube,
> even if the tube hasn't been used. Same problem as bicycle patch
> rubber cement.

I've never used the spare on my 4Runner in 21 years. But on my wife's
Prius she's had two flats in the past year, one was a blowout. Her car
did not come with a spare tire/wheel either, it's the plug-in hybrid
version and the batteries take up the space where a spare would normally
go. I bought a spare tire/wheel on eBay back in 2014. The Prius comes
with a 12V inflator with some kind of sealant but obviously that's not
going to do much when there's a blowout, nor will the tire plugs (which
I've been carrying for years and never used).

[sms]

On 9/1/2022 7:23 PM, russell...@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

> $60 difference in the spare kit if it includes or does not include a carrying case. Why would you need a carry case for a spare tire? Usually spare tires live in a hole inside your car and stay there forever until needed. You don't carry the spare tire around ever. But, just in case you owned two Tesla cars and only had one spare tire kit. And wanted to make sure the spare tire was in the Tesla you were driving that day. Why would you need a carrying case to move the spare tire from one Tesla to the other in your garage? You just carry the tire from one car to the other and put it in its hole in the trunk. Seems like they are trying to steal $60 from some fools.

The reason is that on vehicles that don't come with a spare, there is
usually no hole for the spare tire. My wife has a Prius Plug-In. There
is no place for a spare. It did not come with a jack or a lug wrench. I
bought a spare tire kit on eBay, IIRC for about $150, that came with the
wheel/tire, a jack, and a lug wrench. I also bought a cover for it. It
stays in the rear cargo area, taking up space. A carrying case would
have been a better option but I didn't see one for it at the time, 8
years ago.

I'm not a big fan of this car, the acceleration is terrible, 0-60 is
11.7 seconds, and the road noise makes it not a good choice for long
road trips. It also no longer qualifies for single-occupancy use of the
carpool lane. But it's what SWMBO wanted for commuting. It's been very
reliable, no real repairs in 8 years other than one connector dislodged
from a sensor ($175 diagnosis fee, no charge to plug the connector back
in). We went in to buy a non-plug-in model but the Plug-In had
incentives that made it less expensive. Next car for her will be
electric, but it's because we have two ICE vehicles for long trips.

[sms]

On 9/1/2022 10:24 PM, John B. wrote:

<snip>

> Plenty of room for a spare wheel & tire, carry 4 or 5 bicycles. Haul a
> bunch of relatives. Great for doing the week's shopping - no
> scratching the head to get the case of milk and the 2 dozen eggs in
> without breaking a single shell.
>
> AND! Cheaper too (:-)

In my area, you really want a vehicle with a trunk. It's because of the
problem of smash & grab.

Here's a map of San Francisco car break-ins:
<https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/sf-car-breakins/>

Annoyingly, vehicle manufacturers have removed trunk locks that could be
set so the trunk could not be opened from inside the car so now if
someone breaks into the car they can open the trunk with the release
lever. I disconnected the release lever on my vehicle, you can open the
trunk with the remote or with the switch under the trunk lid, but not
from the inside.

A few years ago I met with our sheriff and they did a massive crackdown
on car break-ins---for one day. They caught some criminals but some got
away because they won't risk a high-speed chase for a car break-in.

For some reason, it is exceedingly difficult to convince people not to
leave valuables visible in their vehicle. Even when there are signs in
parking lots warning people about this, it often doesn't work. Sometimes
they'll say "there's nothing valuable in this backpack" and you have to
politely explain that the criminal doesn't know that and a broken window
will cost you a two to three hundred dollars and several hours of time.

[sms]

Great for short to moderate trips, not so great for long road trips.

A lot of people say "I'm waiting for the charging infrastructure to get
better."

But the reality is that ranges are now sufficiently long that few people
want to use paid chargers, they charge at home, at night, when KWH rates
are lower. The paid chargers cost 2-3x what it costs to charge at home.
On long road trips you're willing to pay, but the bulk of driving is
local. I see older Nissan Leafs plugged into paid chargers, because
their range is very short, but a Tesla owner with a 200-300 mile range
is unlikely to use one. Early Tesla buyers got lifetime free charging,
so they often use the Tesla Superchargers.

Even with only a 120V/15A charger you can get enough charge overnight
for the average commute, and if you have a 240V/30A outlet (usually for
an electric clothes dryer) you can fully charge overnight. A 240V/50A
outlet is not common in homes but an electrician can install one and
charge time goes down to about six hours for a full charge.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 9/2/2022 10:51 AM, sms wrote:
>
>
> In my area, you really want a vehicle with a trunk. It's because of the
> problem of smash & grab.

You need to move out of that hellhole! ;-)


--
- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On 9/2/2022 1:24 AM, John B. wrote:
>
>
> The real solution is.... buy a pickup.
>
> Plenty of room for a spare wheel & tire, carry 4 or 5 bicycles. Haul a
> bunch of relatives. Great for doing the week's shopping - no
> scratching the head to get the case of milk and the 2 dozen eggs in
> without breaking a single shell.
>
> AND! Cheaper too (:-)

Long, long, LONG ago we owned a VW Microbus. A fun vehicle in some ways,
but objectively, a terrible vehicle overall.

Anyway, we used it to haul bicycles plus camping gear on vacations. I
wanted to maximize interior room, so (as was the fashion) I removed the
spare from its spot in the rear interior and mounted the spare on the
nose of the bus.

After a few years, I realized I was using that vehicle's volume capacity
only a few times a year, but was saddled with its bulk and its poor gas
mileage year round. I bought a tiny station wagon and built a utility
trailer that could carry camping gear and bikes, or furniture when
moving, or landscape rocks, or mulch, or whatever. That was one of my
better decisions.

I've installed a trailer hitch on every car since. The new car's trailer
hitch and wiring went in last week.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Roger Merriman]

I like the Volvo estates for a number of reasons but the fact it will
swallow a road bike under cover, plus as it’s not atypical ie not a
Volkswagen transporter or pick up truck it’s less likely to be suspected
that I have stuff under cover.


Roger Merriman

[Lou Holtman]

We can charge with 11 kW at home (3*230V*16A). A 65-70 kWh battery capacity seem to be the sweet spot for a lot of cars now. That gives you a range of 300-350 km. You can fully charge in 6-7 hrs at home. That is overnight if needed. For longer trips you car has to be able to fast charge. What I see is that most of them now can fast charge from 10% to 80% in about 30 minutes which adds about 200-250 km range. With a good charging infrastructure, what we have here, for whom is that really a problem on longer trips? Not for me.

Lou

[Tom Kunich]

The weak spot will always be the batteries. At the moment they do not have the long term reliability that ICE with 100 times the moving parts have. Also the torque falls off dramatically at speeds over 60. That happens to be the spot where you might want to accelerate to pass someone. It is very difficult to tell us electric car batteries will ever get the long term reliability since there are simply too many people blathering on about them that don't know anything.

Electric cars have a lot of positives but range and easy access to charging stations are not some of them. Also, the electric motors I have seen seem to have rather poor bearings suggesting that bearing life might crop up.

[Lou Holtman]

You are also an EV expert? Torque is proportional to the current through an electric motor IIRC. Really, bearings a weak point of electric motors? You got te be kidding. Here the German AAA (ADAC) tested a Tesla with 1.6 million km on the clock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-2u2ZusY4s Turn on English subtitles it is in German.

Lou

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2022 10:17:01 -0000 (UTC), Roger Merriman
<ro...@sarlet.com> wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:58:07 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich
>> <cycl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Now i have a Ford Taurus X and use it very lightly. (...) And people
>>> never expect what looks like an SUV to accelerate like a Tesla.
>>
>> Not even close. Zero to 60mph on a 1/4 mile track:
>>
>> Taurus X (various years):
>> <https://zero60times.com/0-60-times/ford/taurus-x/>
>> 6.2 seconds.
>>
>> Tesla Model S:
>> <https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-acceleration-0-60-mph-video/>
>> 2.28 seconds.
>> <https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/>
>> 1.98 seconds.
>>
>> Your Taurus will also be shifting through the gears as it accelerates,
>> while the Tesla doesn't need to shift.

>To be fair to Tom that’s still quick off the mark, EV particularly Tesla
>are another level of 0-60!

Well, my 2001 Subaru Forester S allegedly does 0-60 in 7.3 seconds
<https://zero60times.com/0-60-times/subaru/forester/2001/>
with a 2.5L 4 cyl engine, while Tom's 6.2 second 2009 Ford Taurus X
has a 3.5L V6 engine.
<https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/taurus-x/specs>
Both times seem consistent with their respective engine sizes.
However, I wouldn't consider either vehicle to be "quick off the mark"
and certainly not accelerate like a Tesla, as Tom claimed.

Incidentally, back in the 1980's, there were a few local mechanics
doing EV conversions. Basically, replace the gasoline engine with an
electric motor and batteries. One of the steps in the procedure was
to install shear pins in the drive train because the high starting
torque of the electric motor would destroy U-joints and/or the spider
gear in the differential. Torque is a good thing, until it breaks
something.

>> One of the big advantages of electrics is that they deliver lots of
>> torque at low RPM's, such as off the starting line. Gasoline burners
>> need to rev the engine up to high RPM's before they can deliver any
>> torque.
>>
>> "Horsepower vs Torque - Gasoline vs Electric Cars"
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuTpPr3Uv0> (9:08)
>> Note the torque horsepower curves.

>And stuff like Pikes peak Hill climb EV are fairly dominant.
>
>I believe that stuff like Nurburgring that production EV for various
>reasons are not quite there, though getting closer.
>
>Roger Merriman

[Roger Merriman]

Tesla have been making EV for a good decade now they do seem to be lasting,
is there a drop off yes, though would seem the thing folks notice is some
cars get slower charging, the range isn’t much different would seem. They
clearly had lower ranges than modern Tesla’s anyway 200ish rather than
400ish

The Nissan Leaf as well though that’s more how not to manage batteries!

>
> Electric cars have a lot of positives but range and easy access to
> charging stations are not some of them. Also, the electric motors I have
> seen seem to have rather poor bearings suggesting that bearing life might crop up.

Doesn’t seem to be happening, as with anything particularly folks like
Tesla who where a startup and habit of reinventing the wheel, are a few
things that have needing fixing, early ones did used to get noisy drive
which got replaced, stuff like the door handles and so on.

But largely the cars are lasting thus far up to a decade or so as that’s
when EV started again.

Roger Merriman

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2022 07:30:44 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>

wrote:

>On 9/1/2022 7:12 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 18:28:44 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It's not just the charging issue either. My neighbor just got back from
>>> a trip up to Seattle to drop his daughter off. They drove their Honda
>>> CR-V. They had one flat tire on the way. He put on the spare, drove to a
>>> tire shop where they fixed the flat. On their Tesla there is no spare
>>> tire. You have to call and someone will come out with a tire and wheel
>>> or they will tow your car. It's possible to do long road trips in a
>>> Tesla, but it isn't the best idea, at least out west where the distances
>>> can often be very long between charging stations.
>>
>> "Complete Compact Spare Tire kit - Fits 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3 -
>> Modern Spare"
>> <https://www.amazon.com/2017-2018-Tesla-Model-Complete-Spare/dp/B07KS3VLWT>
>
>You mean <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KS3VLWT>.

Sigh. You could have suggests a URL shortner, which would produce a
much shorter line. It's not like we are in danger of running out of
white space.

>> "When a vehicle's life cycle concludes, the spare tire and tools with
>> the vehicle don't even get used before heading to the junkyard about
>> 85% of the time, according to TireRack. To Tesla, it didn't make sense
>> to include a spare tire for only 15% of the time."
>
>What a ridiculous rationalization. 15% is not that low. Tesla did it to
>save money and improve distance between charges.

Maybe. I suspected that Tesla may have added something special to the
tires to reduce the frequency of flats.

"What's inside a Tesla Tire?"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2h2RzkWY3c> (8:42)
They attach what looks like a layer of acoustic foam to the inside of
the tread, possibly to reduce noise. According to the verbal
instruction provided by the video author, a tire shop is expected to
scrape off the foam, somehow attach a patch with glue, and re-glue the
foam back in place. I don't think that's going to work without a flat
surface on the inside of the tread.

>I've never used the spare on my 4Runner in 21 years. But on my wife's
>Prius she's had two flats in the past year, one was a blowout. Her car
>did not come with a spare tire/wheel either, it's the plug-in hybrid
>version and the batteries take up the space where a spare would normally
>go. I bought a spare tire/wheel on eBay back in 2014. The Prius comes
>with a 12V inflator with some kind of sealant but obviously that's not
>going to do much when there's a blowout, nor will the tire plugs (which
>I've been carrying for years and never used).

I've had no luck with the tire plugs.

According to the local tire shop (now part of the Monro tire chain):
<https://www.lloydstire.com>
Since the change in ownership, they no longer do repairs and patches.

[Tom Kunich]

There was a specific reason Tesla designed their own motors and one of them was the bearing weakness in most electric motors. So don't use exceptions to prove your point. As for power and torque: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yXk9Ra6loU But my real reason for not liking EV's is that they are presented as having less CO2 emissions. This they most assuredly do not. Between the mining of the rare earths the distance production of electricity using fossil fuels and the long line transmission that greatly reduces the power from the original generation they are probably worse than ICE's which make their own power on the spot.

I have explained that they are good under special conditions. Wouldn't you rather contaminate a distance power generation spot with no intrinsic value rather than the inner cities where smog has been in the past so bad that people had health problems as bad or worse than smoking? Granted, that is a thing of the past with all of the anti-smog devices on autos, but there is NO contamination whatsoever from EV's

But it is a pretense to believe that EV's are more efficient than ICE's. Toyota is presently making a sports car that makes 120 mpg. That makes it FAR more efficient than an electric car because no pollutants are ever formed in any quantity.

If you like the idea of an EV that is your choice. I have seem them burning along side of the road and Tesla offering a very long term warranty to try and convince buyers that their vehicles are reliable. Inasmuch as the sheer number of close tolerance components in an EV vs an ICE, you could certainly make the case for long term reliability. Yet, who keeps a vehicle for their entire lifetime?

[Roger Merriman]

6/7s is still reasonably quick, Tesla have targeted the 0-60 for various
reasons.

equivalent such as Audi or Jaguar (EV) are broadly slower at the 0-60
metric

>
> Incidentally, back in the 1980's, there were a few local mechanics
> doing EV conversions. Basically, replace the gasoline engine with an
> electric motor and batteries. One of the steps in the procedure was
> to install shear pins in the drive train because the high starting
> torque of the electric motor would destroy U-joints and/or the spider
> gear in the differential. Torque is a good thing, until it breaks
> something.
>

Classic EV is very much a thing from Volkswagen Beatles to Citroen 2CV! And
many more.

>>> One of the big advantages of electrics is that they deliver lots of
>>> torque at low RPM's, such as off the starting line. Gasoline burners
>>> need to rev the engine up to high RPM's before they can deliver any
>>> torque.
>>>
>>> "Horsepower vs Torque - Gasoline vs Electric Cars"
>>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuTpPr3Uv0> (9:08)
>>> Note the torque horsepower curves.
>
>> And stuff like Pikes peak Hill climb EV are fairly dominant.
>>
>> I believe that stuff like Nurburgring that production EV for various
>> reasons are not quite there, though getting closer.
>>
>> Roger Merriman

Roger Merriman.

[John B.]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2022 13:59:13 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>

Broken universal joints and/or drive shafts is not that uncommon in
heavy trucks. Heavy load, big engine, starting on a steep hill, bingo!
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Andre Jute]

You're such a dim loser, Franki-boy. You claim to be an engineer but you can't make a VW microbus into a useful car. Here are a few VW Kombis that I fixed:

1. At my agency's German head office, we kept a microbus for meetings on the autobahn. I fixed it with a Porsche engine which I turbocharged with inter cooling and uprated brakes, wheels and tyres, and a lot of work got done in meetings at nearly 200kph on the autobahn, no wasted time. It was eventually trashed when a big truck flattened it where it was parked, and was replaced by a Grosser Mercedes (which we referred to as The Popemobile) which wasn't nearly as fast or as spacious.

2. After we wore out a couple of Jaguar MkII towing trailers, my racing equipe standardised on double cab Kombis into which we built Chrysler hemi-head V8s of which we had plenty because that's what we fitted to cars to race in the open "saloon" classes, when I wasn't racing Porsche. On any weekend we could be driving 3000 miles and twice a year 4000 miles to and from races, and those mid-engined VW kombis would reach 150mph on the good straight roads through the Karoo and with appropriate wheels and tyres had amazing roadholding. If you were a real engineer, you would have discovered that a VW Microbus is more aerodynamic than an E-Type. But, being a smugly self-satisfied moron, you saw a utility vehicle and didn't observe that it was actually a car with great potential.

3. When I had orders for six 250kph offroad hunting cars cum personnel carriers, an idea I had decades before Porsche, even before Lamborghini, my development mule was -- wait for it -- a VW Microbus, the poncey one with the little curved windows above the doors. When I finished with it and had delivered the six off-roaders, I had the faithful VW repainted and retrimmed by Hooper (they always retrimmed my Maserati right after I bought them to be less tackily Italian on the inside), to a custom design I made just for that one, and sold it for about half as much again as a new Rolls. You too could have made a buck, or a million, or two, out of VW kombis, if you had the brains.

Eat your heart out, Franki-boy.

Andre Jute
Lateral thinking isn't so difficult if you have any brains at all.
>

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

Lou, you're talking to Tommy. He is an expert on every topic under the sun. And moon too.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

Tommy, its a little tiring to correct all your errors.

http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/#:~:text=So%20even%20though%20electricity%20may,are%20high%2C%20around%20four%20percent.
"Generally, smaller power lines mean bigger relative losses. So even though electricity may travel much farther on high-voltage transmission lines – dozens or hundreds of miles – losses are low, around two percent. And though your electricity may travel a few miles or less on low-voltage distribution lines, losses are high, around four percent.

Energy lost in transmission and distribution: About 6% – 2% in transmission and 4% in distribution – or 69 trillion Btus in the U.S. in 2013"

And Tommy, when complaining about mining to get the rare earth elements to make the batteries, you should also include the mining needed to get the iron used in making the internal combustion engine too. Both need to use CO2 in their generation.

As for using fossil fuels to produce electricity. Nuclear power plants don't do this. Hydropower does not do this. Solar panels and wind farms don't do this. Just natural gas and coal plants do this.

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/2021-total-system-electric-generation
See Tommy. Only 41% of California's electricity is generated from fossil fuel sources. 33% renewables. 9% nuclear. 9% hydro.

> they are probably worse than ICE's which make their own power on the spot.
>
> I have explained that they are good under special conditions. Wouldn't you rather contaminate a distance power generation spot with no intrinsic value rather than the inner cities where smog has been in the past so bad that people had health problems as bad or worse than smoking? Granted, that is a thing of the past with all of the anti-smog devices on autos, but there is NO contamination whatsoever from EV's
>
> But it is a pretense to believe that EV's are more efficient than ICE's. Toyota is presently making a sports car that makes 120 mpg. That makes it FAR more efficient than an electric car because no pollutants are ever formed in any quantity.
>
> If you like the idea of an EV that is your choice. I have seem them burning along side of the road and Tesla offering a very long term warranty to try and convince buyers that their vehicles are reliable. Inasmuch as the sheer number of close tolerance components in an EV vs an ICE, you could certainly make the case for long term reliability. Yet, who keeps a vehicle for their entire lifetime?

Tommy, some people only get new/different cars when the old ones cannot be fixed anymore. I know trendy folks like you who want the newest and latest and greatest fashion symbol are not like this. But many people do not replace vehicles without a very good reason. Fashion means nothing. Its all function and economics. My parents are like this. Back in 1986 my Mom bought a Toyota Corolla. Used it till it wore out. Then got another Corolla. Its still running 300,000+ miles later. Its getting pretty broken down now. No suspension. But the engine and manual transmission still runs as good as new. And there have been a few Camrys along the line too. Some folks keep vehicles until they break down and cannot be fixed for a reasonable cost or are crashed and destroyed. Some folks put no status symbol on the vehicle they drive. Function is the only thing that matters Tommy.

Tommy, I suspect your comment about "who keeps a vehicle for their entire lifetime" is tied into your churning of bicycles. Some of us, many of us, buy a quality bike and keep it forever. We do not need to churn through a new bike every six months. Pretending that is what we need to make our life better and complete. No. But you Tommy, to be happy, you got to get a new bike every few months. New car every year or two. You're twice married to the same woman? So you thought it would be good to try things without the old bag around, then changed your mind and brought her back with a Reno wedding. Are you planning on a divorce next year? Third marriage following year? Churn churn churn.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 9/2/2022 2:12 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
>
> The weak spot will always be the batteries. At the moment they do not have the long term reliability that ICE with 100 times the moving parts have.

Bullshit. Our car's main battery is warranted for 10 years or 100,000
miles. Tesla owners are reporting much, much longer life than that.
https://getoptiwatt.com/blog/how-long-will-your-tesla-battery-really-last

> Also the torque falls off dramatically at speeds over 60. That happens to be the spot where you might want to accelerate to pass someone.

Also bullshit. On the freeway at 70 mph, there have been many times I've
accelerated very quickly to get out of situations I didn't like, such as
being in the left lane next to a large truck when another truck was
trying to merge in from an on-ramp.

> Also, the electric motors I have seen seem to have rather poor bearings suggesting that bearing life might crop up.

More bullshit. You have never inspected an electric motor from an
electric car. Don't pretend you have.

Stop fantasizing, Tom.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On 9/2/2022 5:49 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
> But my real reason for not liking EV's is that they are presented as having less CO2 emissions. This they most assuredly do not. Between the mining of the rare earths the distance production of electricity using fossil fuels and the long line transmission that greatly reduces the power from the original generation they are probably worse than ICE's which make their own power on the spot.

Wow.

> But it is a pretense to believe that EV's are more efficient than ICE's. Toyota is presently making a sports car that makes 120 mpg. That makes it FAR more efficient than an electric car because no pollutants are ever formed in any quantity.

What an amazing combination of ignorance and fantasy!

Let's talk about efficiency. Under perfectly optimum conditions (i.e.
operating at constant speed at optimum rpm and at full throttle, since
that's when IC engines are most efficient) you'd be lucky to get even
30% efficiency out of a car's IC engine. 20% is much more realistic, and
even that may be an exaggeration.

In terms of gallons of gas, that means less than one quart from every
gallon you buy goes into moving your car forward.

So what does the rest of that gallon of gas do?

It produces waste heat! That's the explanation for the hot exhaust gas
pouring out your tailpipe, the heat shielding protecting your passenger
compartment from the heat of the exhaust piping and catalytic converter,
the massive radiator for cooling the engine, and the fact that much of
what's under the hood can't even be touched when you pull to a stop.
Most of your gasoline has gone into making everything too hot to touch.

For comparison: I looked at my new EV and decided there was a lot of
wasted space under the hood, above the motor and charging system. I
bought a large polyethylene storage box and mounted it there. I put my
charging cable and various tools in it. It would melt in a conventional
car, but it's perfectly fine in the EV.

There's one particular freeway downhill where I happened to note and
write down our previous Mazda's gas mileage: 49 mpg there. (That car got
about 40 mpg overall, due mostly to very little city driving.)

On that same hill, our EV shows 5.2 mi/kwh. That converts to 175
equivalent mpg. The EV is much, much more efficient.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On 9/2/2022 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
>
> Broken universal joints and/or drive shafts is not that uncommon in
> heavy trucks. Heavy load, big engine, starting on a steep hill, bingo!

I previously described my freeway adventure, when a big tractor
trailer's driveshaft broke off on a steep hill and came swinging toward
my car. I was very lucky to miss it. The guy behind me was not so lucky.


--
- Frank Krygowski

[John B.]

Public water systems in parts of Bangkok and certainly here in the
country often have rather low pressure so commonly you see large water
tanks at the side of houses that are connected to the public system
and which feed an electric pump to create sufficient pressure for a
two story house.

As a result the pump runs, basically when any faucet in the house is
opened. The electric pump at the Bangkok house ran for, probably 40
years without problems. I don't believe I would equate 40 years of use
with Tommy's "poor bearings".

But of course Tommy will argue that these are just numbers mentioned
by the "despicable 6"....

It is a strange world that Tommy lives in where those that tell the
truth are treated with disdain while those that lie are acclaimed.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 09:45:59 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>It is a strange world that Tommy lives in where those that tell the
>truth are treated with disdain while those that lie are acclaimed.

It's not that strange and is very familiar. If you believe that
pretending to be someone else is a form of lying, then those who lie
are called actors. Besides the acclaim, the really talented actors
also receive huge salaries, prizes, public adoration, and are valued
for their political opinions and connections. All that for pretending
to be someone else. I hate to point out the obvious, but a large
percentage of the population prefers to live in a fantasy world,
completely divorced from reality, and largely inhabited by
professional liars (actors).

Where the problems begin is where the actor can't separate real life
from an imaginary life. Eventually, the actor acts like those he
impersonates while his original real personality is submerged into
non-existence. Do it often enough and the actor becomes permanently
stuck in his fantasy world.

[John B.]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2022 20:33:32 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
wrote:

>On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 09:45:59 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>>It is a strange world that Tommy lives in where those that tell the
>>truth are treated with disdain while those that lie are acclaimed.
>
>It's not that strange and is very familiar. If you believe that
>pretending to be someone else is a form of lying, then those who lie
>are called actors. Besides the acclaim, the really talented actors
>also receive huge salaries, prizes, public adoration, and are valued
>for their political opinions and connections. All that for pretending
>to be someone else. I hate to point out the obvious, but a large
>percentage of the population prefers to live in a fantasy world,
>completely divorced from reality, and largely inhabited by
>professional liars (actors).
>

I'm not sure that actors are liars. At least as far as the character
that they portray on the screen or stage. In fact many, maybe most,
actors appear to act very differently when "off stage".

>Where the problems begin is where the actor can't separate real life
>from an imaginary life. Eventually, the actor acts like those he
>impersonates while his original real personality is submerged into
>non-existence. Do it often enough and the actor becomes permanently
>stuck in his fantasy world.

Do you really think that Marlon Brando was the head of a Mafia crime
family? Or that Gregory Peck was a Gunfighter, or that Sir Alec
Guinness was a master spy?

--
Cheers,

John B.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 11:30:45 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On Fri, 02 Sep 2022 20:33:32 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 09:45:59 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>>It is a strange world that Tommy lives in where those that tell the
>>>truth are treated with disdain while those that lie are acclaimed.
>>
>>It's not that strange and is very familiar. If you believe that
>>pretending to be someone else is a form of lying, then those who lie
>>are called actors. Besides the acclaim, the really talented actors
>>also receive huge salaries, prizes, public adoration, and are valued
>>for their political opinions and connections. All that for pretending
>>to be someone else. I hate to point out the obvious, but a large
>>percentage of the population prefers to live in a fantasy world,
>>completely divorced from reality, and largely inhabited by
>>professional liars (actors).

>I'm not sure that actors are liars. At least as far as the character
>that they portray on the screen or stage. In fact many, maybe most,
>actors appear to act very differently when "off stage".

That's why I prefaced it as "If you believe that...". Some believe
and some done. I don't think I can change either belief. How about a
compromise? Actors are temporary liars?

>>Where the problems begin is where the actor can't separate real life
>>from an imaginary life. Eventually, the actor acts like those he
>>impersonates while his original real personality is submerged into
>>non-existence. Do it often enough and the actor becomes permanently
>>stuck in his fantasy world.

>Do you really think that Marlon Brando was the head of a Mafia crime
>family? Or that Gregory Peck was a Gunfighter, or that Sir Alec
>Guinness was a master spy?

I don't think that, but then I'm not an actor. However, if I were an
actor, and really wanted to get into the character of the person I'm
expected to portray on the big screen, small tube, or computer screen,
then I most certainly would do everything I could to convince myself
that I'm that person. How could someone provide a believable
impersonation if they didn't believe that they were really that person
(at least temporarily)? Anything less than believing would appear to
be fake.

<https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/05/fake-honesty/>
Advice to an actor:
"I’ve found that the most important thing for an actor is honesty, and
when you learn how to fake that, you’re in."

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

Frank, I assume Tommy is talking about the electric motors on the tools he buys at Harbor Freight. Made in China. Tommy seems to have a fascination with bike parts from China. He likely has loads of experience with electric motors from China too.

[John B.]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2022 21:41:36 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>

wrote:

>On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 11:30:45 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 02 Sep 2022 20:33:32 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 09:45:59 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>>It is a strange world that Tommy lives in where those that tell the
>>>>truth are treated with disdain while those that lie are acclaimed.
>>>
>>>It's not that strange and is very familiar. If you believe that
>>>pretending to be someone else is a form of lying, then those who lie
>>>are called actors. Besides the acclaim, the really talented actors
>>>also receive huge salaries, prizes, public adoration, and are valued
>>>for their political opinions and connections. All that for pretending
>>>to be someone else. I hate to point out the obvious, but a large
>>>percentage of the population prefers to live in a fantasy world,
>>>completely divorced from reality, and largely inhabited by
>>>professional liars (actors).
>
>>I'm not sure that actors are liars. At least as far as the character
>>that they portray on the screen or stage. In fact many, maybe most,
>>actors appear to act very differently when "off stage".
>
>That's why I prefaced it as "If you believe that...". Some believe
>and some done. I don't think I can change either belief. How about a
>compromise? Actors are temporary liars?

Well, the Marrian-Webster Dictionary has it that the noun "lie" can
mean "to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lie

So, the question would be does the actor intend to "deceive"? Or
merely to "entertain"?

An Opera Singer is seldom lauded for how well she played the part but
rather for how well she sang... for example.

But admittedly I suggest that most people do lie, to a certain extent,
a great deal of the time. When introduced to some ancient old woman
who looks "like death warmed over", for example, you may he thinking
"Good Lord, what an ugly old Bag", but you probably don't say what you
are thinking.

>>>Where the problems begin is where the actor can't separate real life
>>>from an imaginary life. Eventually, the actor acts like those he
>>>impersonates while his original real personality is submerged into
>>>non-existence. Do it often enough and the actor becomes permanently
>>>stuck in his fantasy world.
>
>>Do you really think that Marlon Brando was the head of a Mafia crime
>>family? Or that Gregory Peck was a Gunfighter, or that Sir Alec
>>Guinness was a master spy?
>
>I don't think that, but then I'm not an actor. However, if I were an
>actor, and really wanted to get into the character of the person I'm
>expected to portray on the big screen, small tube, or computer screen,
>then I most certainly would do everything I could to convince myself
>that I'm that person. How could someone provide a believable
>impersonation if they didn't believe that they were really that person
>(at least temporarily)? Anything less than believing would appear to
>be fake.

I think that you are incorrect here. An actor is "portraying" an
individual, or type of individual. He is trying to make you perceive,
that in this instance, the character he is portraying is just what you
think he ought to be. Note that... what you think...

For instance Marlon Brando in "On the waterfront" portrays a small
time want to be boxer and makes you feel that you knew such a person.
And then in the God Father, makes you believe that he is a Mafia Don.

Now. while I've never know a Mafia Don I have known at least one
"small time" Boxer and in real life he didn't act anything like Terry
Malloy and I knew a real "Hero", medals galore, and mentioned in the
Air Force News Paper for his heroics. He'd been my pilot when I was a
crew chief and when I met him years later in Vietnam and mentioned
the article in the AirForce Times he almost blushed and said, "Well...
somebody had to do it."

Had either been characters in a movie nobody would have believed that
they really were the individual that they were portraying.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Lou Holtman]

On Friday, September 2, 2022 at 11:49:30 PM UTC+2, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Friday, September 2, 2022 at 12:48:55 PM UTC-7, Lou Holtman wrote:

> There was a specific reason Tesla designed their own motors and one of them was the bearing weakness in most electric motors. So don't use exceptions to prove your point. As for power and torque: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yXk9Ra6loU But my real reason for not liking EV's is that they are presented as having less CO2 emissions. This they most assuredly do not. Between the mining of the rare earths the distance production of electricity using fossil fuels and the long line transmission that greatly reduces the power from the original generation they are probably worse than ICE's which make their own power on the spot.

So a smooth running electro motor is harder on bearings than an ICE pounding on the crankshaft? Yet another subject that I have to ignore you postings.

> I have explained that they are good under special conditions. Wouldn't you rather contaminate a distance power generation spot with no intrinsic value rather than the inner cities where smog has been in the past so bad that people had health problems as bad or worse than smoking? Granted, that is a thing of the past with all of the anti-smog devices on autos, but there is NO contamination whatsoever from EV's
>
> But it is a pretense to believe that EV's are more efficient than ICE's. Toyota is presently making a sports car that makes 120 mpg. That makes it FAR more efficient than an electric car because no pollutants are ever formed in any quantity.
>
> If you like the idea of an EV that is your choice. I have seem them burning along side of the road and Tesla offering a very long term warranty to try and convince buyers that their vehicles are reliable. Inasmuch as the sheer number of close tolerance components in an EV vs an ICE, you could certainly make the case for long term reliability. Yet, who keeps a vehicle for their entire lifetime?

Look under the hood of an EV and then under the hood of a modern ICE.

Lou

[Lou Holtman]

On Friday, September 2, 2022 at 11:49:30 PM UTC+2, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Friday, September 2, 2022 at 12:48:55 PM UTC-7, Lou Holtman wrote:

> There was a specific reason Tesla designed their own motors and one of them was the bearing weakness in most electric motors. So don't use exceptions to prove your point.

Exceptions? Every respectable EV car manufacturer designes and manufactures their own motors in a highly automated way. Here Audi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWBEPEspbWI
Here BMW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaQMTcckSg
Same goes for VW, Mercedes etc. etc. Tesla is not an exception not even close.

Lou

[John B.]

Re Tommy's 120 MPG Toyota. Yup, Toyota is making the Toyota Prius
which in some models is said to get 120 miles per gallon of gasoline.

The only problem is that it isn't exactly a internal combustion
vehicle but is referred to, by Toyota as a "Plug-in Hybrid" and has
both internal combustion and electric motors.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 9/3/2022 12:41 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> ... if I were an

> actor, and really wanted to get into the character of the person I'm
> expected to portray on the big screen, small tube, or computer screen,
> then I most certainly would do everything I could to convince myself
> that I'm that person.

At a fairly well known historical site, I came upon an actor portraying
one of America's first presidents. He did this with no script, taking
questions from the audience and answering them brilliantly. He seemed to
know everything about that president's life, looked very much like him,
and was astonishingly convincing.

I later heard that actor got to the point where he never left the
character. He pretended to be that president even in ordinary life. It
had a disastrous effect on his marriage.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 03 Sep 2022 15:54:33 +0700, John B. <sloc...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Re Tommy's 120 MPG Toyota. Yup, Toyota is making the Toyota Prius
>which in some models is said to get 120 miles per gallon of gasoline.

For an EV, the units are MPGe or miles per gallon equivalent at 33.7
kWh to 1 gallon of gasoline:

"What is MPGe?"
<https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a31863350/mpge/>

This simplistic equivalent is easy, but not particularly useful:

"The MPG Illusion"
<http://www.mpgillusion.com/p/what-is-mpg-illusion.html>
<https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/learn-more-gasoline-label.shtml>
We should be using GPM (gallons per mile), GP100 (gallons per 100
miles), or GP10K (gallons per 10,000 miles).

>The only problem is that it isn't exactly a internal combustion
>vehicle but is referred to, by Toyota as a "Plug-in Hybrid" and has
>both internal combustion and electric motors.

Plug-in Hybrids specify the mpg (gasoline with a dead battery) and
MPGe (electric with an empty gas tank) mileage separately:

"Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles: Learn More About the Label"
<https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/learn-more-phev-label.shtml>

[Jeff Liebermann]

It's a well known problem:

"These Actors Got Way Too Deep Into Character"
<https://movieweb.com/actors-too-deep-in-roles/>
"Many of cinema’s most gifted performers embody their roles through
method acting, an approach in which the actor 'becomes' the
character."

While attending college, I ended up in a "theater arts" class. It was
mostly theater set design and construction. I met some aspiring
actors and actresses which included a few genuinely impressive people
who I expected would go far. It was common for them to be seen around
campus and in local stores wearing costume and in makeup. They would
go about their daily routine acting the part of the character they
were going to impersonate on the stage. To prevent confusion, they
often had an advertisement for the show taped to their back.

When I managed my fathers apartment building in Hollywood, the
majority of the tenants were actors and actresses. While waiting to
be discovered, they would sometimes take side jobs, such as celebrity
impersonator, which were popular for parties, events and practical
jokes. Even though I knew what was happening, it was always a shock
when I would bang on the door to collect the rent and be confronted
with a nearly perfect impersonation of a famous person.

[sms]

On 9/2/2022 2:37 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

<snip>

> I've had no luck with the tire plugs.

Huh? Earlier you wrote: "I typically plug the tire by the side of the
road with a cheap repair kit:
<https://www.amazon.com/TAITEC-Puncture-Repair-PRO-1034A-Tubeless/dp/B06XZDK7V5/>
I didn't even need to remove the tire from the car. Done correctly, the
plugs don't leak or fall apart.

[sms]

Tom is wrong of course regarding the motors, but Frank is wrong
regarding the batteries.

The issue is not whether or not the battery will fail catastrophically,
it's that the capacity gradually falls. The way the warranties work, you
don't get a free replacement battery under warranty unless there is a
drastic decrease in capacity. I was talking to someone that has the
original Nissan Leaf and they're down to about 65% of the original
capacity, and the original capacity was not that high to begin with.

While an ICE Toyota can easily last 25 years without a major repair, you
are unlikely to get 25 years out of an electric vehicle without a
battery replacement. Of course the savings in fuel cost with partially
offset the battery replacement cost.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2022 12:05:27 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
wrote:

Sorry. My apologies for the mistake. No brain sometimes.

Somehow, I thought you meant screw plugs, which don't work with thin
bicycle tires and with any tire that has an inner tube. Note that we
were discussing Tesla and automotive spare tires, not bicycle tires:
<https://www.amazon.com/NORSHIRE-Self-Tapping-Suitable-Motorcycle-Puncture/dp/B09BFZ29LD/>

The rest is correct. I do use tire plugs on automobile tires:
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/NKUF3sfMuAZKt9JM6>
Ummm... don't ask why I have so many. When I still had my office in
Santa Cruz, I was close to a freeway off ramp. My friends and
customers knew that I arrived late and worked until about midnight. It
was not unusual for one of them to drive to my office at odd hours,
with a partially inflated tire on their vehicle, asking for air (I had
an air compressor in the office) or if I could patch their tire. The
difficult part was getting them to not drive on the tire for about 90
minutes while the rubber cement dried.

[Tom Kunich]

As I said, those who can, do, and those who can't teach. And whine about how others are stupid.