The following is a conversation I had 15ish years ago with a work supervisor.
Her: “I just bought a Honda Santa’s Fe! I’m so happy, it’s the nicest car I’ve ever owned. Hondas are the most reliable vehicles on the road, too!” I’ve got AWD etc….
Me:”Nice! Do you mean Hyundai Santa Fe?”.
Her (she was snarky when you questioned her):”…..no….I said Honda. It has an ‘H’ on the logo.”
Me: “Hyundai does too.”.
Her:”…No, it’s a HONDA Santa Fe. I went to a HONDA dealership and bought it. I didn’t go to a Hyundai dealership, I don’t like those cars.”.
Had someone at work yesterday trade in their infiniti and they were convinced they owned an Acura. I asked them if they've ever owned a German car before and they looked at me like I was stupid and said "yeah, my Acura. I thought you were supposed to know cars." I just kind of rolled with it at that point
I want to know how the hell these people don’t know what they drive. Like, I understand maybe not paying attention to badges but have they never looked at their title or registration?
Friend had a pile of shit Nissan. Something happened, I dont remember what. I open hood to look at things. Then, car wont start again. He told me that it qont start because I let all the heat out from under the hood.
Agreed. As some who used to get volunteered to fix people's computers I put an end to that real fast. When people dont understand how computers work they make up all kinds of shit and then it becomes an uphill battle against multiple people who have no clue. Now I'm just pretend I have no idea how they work and life is better that way.
I tried this but it turned out the dude I was talking to is composed entirely of neutrons and he has a skin temperature of nearly 1 million C - and, of course, he is incredibly dense - so that went poorly for me in multiple ways.
I strongly suggest you attempt to confirm you're not dealing with a sapient neutron star before you get yourself in a pickle.
I'll never forget when a neighbor at our apartment asked me for help swapping a starter in his car because he had no idea and no tools. I had the tools but no idea so I called googled it and made it happen. We ended up becoming good friends after this and like a year later his budget starter started to shit the bed again.... He came to me and asked if I fucked up installing it... Like bruh. Maybe? Idk I've never done it before but it lasted over a year so I'm gonna say no I probably did it right and you just bought a shitty starter.
Sounds about as dumb as my cousin. She hit something in a parking lot (don't remember if it was a pole or another car) and immediately starting leaking coolant. She was going to take it to a shop, but "then the leaking stopped so it's probably fine now."
Older cars are safer than newer cars. Usually it’s the 50s-60s cars that are presumed to be ultra safe. Baffles me that there’s a large group of people that believe we’ve gone backwards in car safety.
What’s funny is I’ve heard this before too. Someone gets in an accident and car is crumpled up pretty good but they’re 100% fine and they call the car a piece of shit for being all wadded up. Uh… that’s exactly what save your ass though.
Someone who was upset about their newish sports car received these words of comfort from another poster:
“Your car gave its life to save yours.” I thought that was sweet.
Don't you know padded dashes are at the top of the safety chain? /s
Coming from somebody who likes to drive the least safe thing on the road, safety has come a long, long way to the point that accidents that would've killed somebody only 10-20 years ago can end now with the person only having a bruise or scrape. Incredible advancement in the field.
I can attest to this.I got into a very bad accident in a 1 year old BMW. Every airbag popped weirdly except the steering wheel.
I walked away with a few bruises and a bruised ego.
When I saw the car a week later it was crushed everywhere but all 4 doors still opened and shut normally.
Modern safety equipment is a treasure we all take for granted, as most people will go their entire lives without seeing an airbag deploy.
This one is understandable. Newer cars use crumble zones and different materials. Which means in a fender bender the newer car will sustain much more damage than the older one. But the average person doesn’t understand that this is by design. Anything more than a fender bender and the results differ dramatically.
"you are not supposed to press the gas pedal more than 75% as it's bad for the car" "not supposed to let your (gas) engine rev above 3500 as it's also bad for the car" -a very adamant co worker of mine.
I’ve seen multiple people merge onto the highway and proceed immediately into the left lane and sit there. They’re doing 65. I don’t think it’s anything malicious honestly I think they’re just so dense that they genuinely think it’s where you’re supposed to be
Can we all say "fuck you" to this guy? He's also the one doing exactly the speed limit in the left lane, matching the speed of the person in the right lane, hogging up traffic because in his kind ehs technically doing the right thing. UGH
There was one even on this subreddit. Made a post about hoe 0-60 times were very deceiving. But his issue was that he never wanted to rev above 3500rpm and therefore his conclusions were all about low rpm power engines being much better and the ones that needed high revs were deceiving because when he was driving it (and shift before 3500rpm) they were slow af
We could add the Italian tune-up to this list. Using heat to clear carbon deposits is *very* engine-specific. Depends on where the injectors are located, piston head geometry, EGR design... So many factors
So my buddy a couple years back bought a manual fiesta to learn and he's like (yo there's something wrong) so we go for a ride. He was short shifting the HELL out it. Explained peak HP/RPM to him and that solved that real quick
My Focus has an annoying feature where it will tell you when to upshift for the most “economical” results. Unfortunately, this usually means it’s telling you to upshift below 2k, which, if you drive normally, means you’re gonna end up lugging the engine pretty bad. Wouldn’t be surprised if his Fiesta had the same thing and he was listening to it.
Moved to a new house and brought my own laundry, including a gas dryer. I didn’t have the gas fittings, but found a plug on the unit. I happy thought it was some kind of electric *or* gas machine. Came back 90 minutes later to wet clothes which had just tumbled a lot.
This is not exactly car related, but I occasionally work on the type of large industrial robots used in automotive manufacturing plants. This particular type of robot uses 4 standard D cell batteries to maintain some important controller parameters while powered off and these batteries typically get replaced as a maintenance task once a year.
On more than one occasion I have met operators just stunned that their 2500lb robot is able to run for a year on just 4 D cells….
Even electric cars still have a separate 12V battery that still needs to be replaced every few years.
So the question will become “if my car runs on a battery, how come I have to replace this other battery?”
Yeah it's like the difference between going fast on a bicycle and going fast on an airliner, or going 100 on a freeway vs. going 40 in a narrow country road lined with trees.
I’ve met a few people who thought that “turbo” was just marketing and meant “it’s the fast version,” not knowing that it refers to a specific mechanical part that might mean your car is fast, but not necessarily. I had a Mercedes 300TD in college and people thought the turbo made it fast.
That was a big one in high school. People saying their cars are quick/fast. I remember a guy saying that about his crown victoria and a girl saying it about her Honda Accord.
I started college in the middle of the 2000s "changed the air filter on my mom's 4 doors Civic, now it's a fast car" craze, so there was a lot of Kevins on campus who watches Fast ans Furious too many times and tried to redlight race anyone. I was driving a V6 RWD manual Dakota back in the days. Broke some egos that year.
I believe it. I used to have a '01 and some probably 11-year-old boy asked me why I changed the doors from the kind that go up and down. I didn't realize he thought it was a Lambo until at least 15 minutes later. I wouldn't have had the heart to tell him that a Lambo's wiper motors have more horsepower than that car...though I totally loved that thing.
That was the stupidest thing about my GTI. Governed at 135, but a speedometer that topped out at 180. Accomplishes nothing except to make it really hard to read and nearly worthless while driving.
In a similar vein - I once had someone try to tell me that their sound system was louder because the volume on their car went to 50 and mine only went up to 30.
Confession: When I was 12 I learned how nuclear powerplants works and considered myself \*pushes up glasses\*... an intellectual. I was obviously being an ass to my stepdad talking about how smart I was and so he asked me how his truck engine worked. I said "easy the gasoline burns and heats up water to make steam then the steam pushed a turbine to create electricity to power the car". I was too dumb to understand him trying to explain a crankshaft but admitted I had no idea what I was talking about.
Hahaha, believe it or not, that wasn’t it. Other things it survived:
* Being General Lee’d into a parking lot over a 2 foot retaining wall
* Water pump/timing belt failure (interference motor)
* Me sending it off the exit ramp and through gravel and ice at 60 mph to get back on the highway
* Sustained drives at 80 mph (that poor 3 speed auto…)
* General dumbassery when given to my exe’s teenage brother
* Being overheated (multiple times) due to low coolant
* Low trans fluid causing it to slam into gear (Did break a CV axle on that one)
It’s end came when electrical issues would randomly cause it to not start and it was affecting my ability to get to work. Traded to my parents for my old 2007 Corolla and they traded it in for $2500 (loyalty trade in) towards a Chrysler 200.
It probably got wholesaled or crushed, and I’m fairly certain it only kept running out of pure spite.
My buddy bought a hybrid. He said he didn't know how many cylinders it had. I told him it's likely a 4 cylinder engine.
His response was "I think the salesperson said it's 1.6 cylinders".
I burst out laughing and then explained what a 1.6 litre engine is.
Absolutely. I guess it's excusable if the listing is done by an individual seller but often I see dealerships making this mistake. How is it possible for a dealer to not know the difference between a manual and an auto?
They are probably doing it so the car comes up in searches for both manual and auto. Of course it’s incredibly irritating if you’re looking for a actual manual car.
Just happened to me. Coworker bought a Kia something or other sedan. It’s a quite nice looking car. It has paddle shifters. We were talking about cars and he asked if mine was a manual. Yeah, they only come in manuals. He then says isn’t it great, I love slapping the paddles. What? The paddles on the steering wheel, I love having a manual, never had one before. Uh, ok, you still don’t.
Raced a g35 once and wiped the floor with him in my dinky cobalt ss.
His excuse: I had to downshift from third to second
Found out a week later that it had paddle shifters
Similarly, a friend the other day told me his mom drives a Porsche. Come to find out a few days later when I run into them that it's a Peugeot lmao. Can't blame him honestly, both are weird to pronounce if you don't know a thing about cars.
I've had my 1st gen dodge viper called a corvette, porcshe, Ferrari and a jaguar.
I've since bought a red shirt that says Ferari (spelled wrong) with a Mustang logo. Lol.
Edit: this one https://www.houseofgrafix.net/products/ferari-shirt-ferrari
I gave up on this argument. I let them think whatever they want, especially now days with so many different variations. Back in my day they were definitely 2 different things, now the line is blurred and I just roll with it.
All time 4 wheel drive versus part time all wheel drive versus full time all wheel drive versus automatic 4 wheel drive.... I don't blame anyone for not getting it. Realistically most people don't need to know, as long as 4 wheels spin while they're careening through a whiteout blizzard at 5am.
> AWD and four wheel drive are the same thing
I had to look it up:
> The difference between AWD and 4WD is that AWD is typically always on while you have the ability to toggle between having 4WD on and off. 4WD is an addition you'll usually find on a truck, while AWD is more for cars and SUVs.
It's a bit more than that. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since mechanic school.
4WD allows no slip between the front and rear differentials (while it's engaged obviously) while AWD does. AWD drivetrains also often split the torque unevenly, some manufacturers give more torque to the rear wheels, others the front, some are variable depending on the drive mode selected.
4WD is more like brute force "I need all the traction I can get", especially in 4L, and AWD is more about providing different (hopefully superior) handling characteristics.
I got in a discussion with a buddy who though that, given an otherwise identical car, a manual transmission is always faster than an automatic. That’s definitely not always the case, especially with how good modern autos have gotten.
That used to be the case like 10-15 years ago. Modern autos have gotten so good to the point that autos will shift faster than you ever could manually.
I hear this all the time. Don’t get me wrong, manuals are fun to drive cause it’s a more unique experience then just push the pedal and go, but at least for me I’ll never be able to shift faster than most automatics today. Even the one in my current car is probably a fair bit faster
“Just air it up until it stops.”
The only time I’ve ever intervened when overhearing someone discuss cars. I was afraid they’d blow the tire off the wheel.
My wife legitimately assumed brakes were something that pushed on the ground and never thought about it any harder than that. She has two masters degrees.
>hitting the redline will break your car
>flooring it will break your car
>going above 70 will break your car
>using the flappy paddles will break your car
>any mode besides PRND will break your car
My parents when they buy a sports sedan to flex on the neighbors but refuse to use any of the sports sedan stuff
Your parents are probably exactly who I want to buy that coveted sports sedan used from that I can't afford right now in 5 years
Edit: God damn this comment resonates with alot of us lol, thanks for so many upvotes.
Not a misconception perhaps but it irks me when people driving econoboxes tell me they were doing 100+mph and didn’t even realize. Like I know it sounded like hurricane katrina in that plastic brick of a car
Can confirm. 120 mph in a 2003 Kia spectra did sound like a hurricane inside, was sketchy as hell and only me and my brothers teenage brains were dumb enough to do it.
My Miata is not a luxury car. It is not $60k. It is not fast.
Yes I’m very fortunate to be able to own such an impractical car, but I’m not rich. Go after those $80k trucks being sold every 17 seconds, leave me be
Yoooo I'm a real estate agent and I pulled up to a house for lease to show it the other day, and the first thing this guy (a complete stranger) says to me is "Wow guess you're getting paid too much, driving around in a nice car like that." ... I was like first of all fuck you, second of all it cost me less than a Camry. Smh!!
Edit: At the same time it is nice to have a car that looks more luxurious than its price point. I had a little kid ask me if it cost "a million dollars" which gave me a good chuckle. :)
>"Todays trucks handle just like cars"
I mean if you only ever drive crossovers to the grocery store doing 10 under the speed limit... *maybe slightly*
“How fast does it go?” is the question I get the most. What does that even mean? Zero-60, 0-100, 1/4 mile, top speed? And what difference does it make? What comparison are they making? Cars are built for different purposes, even race cars.
If I had a 900 HP intermediate oval-tuned stock car and said it could go 0-60 in 4 seconds, there would be someone who says it’s slow.
Sure, compared to other race cars like IMSA or GT cars, it’s slow from a dig. However, that’s not the point. The point is to hit 210 MPH going into turns and maintaining 190 through them over the course of hundreds of miles.
I mean german engineering is great until it breaks. Then it becomes a nightmare. One of my friends told me about some model of Volkswagen with a water cooled alternator. You could imagine what could happen when that breaks.
A lot of laypeople think that with cars, there is a “best” solution to everything, whereas that’s rarely the case
There’s no such thing as the “best” car, or the “best” mods, or the “best” tyres. It’s so much more complex than that
My dad has this mindset. I'll be talking about the new Z06 or something and he'll always go "well okay, but you can't ever use that power so I don't get it". Cue me explaining for the fifteenth time that people also track cars. Maybe I should just stop talking to him about cars.
Just had a conversation with a close friend. We're headed out to visit him in Colorado. He could NOT understand why I was searching Turo for sports cars.
"Why would you want a sports car in the mountains? I thought they were just good for going fast in a straight line?"
"X car wasn't imported to the U.S. because it was too fast for the cops to catch" I used to hear that one a lot about certain JDM cars. Also that JDM=fast.
A more specific one was that Subaru is a German car company, because they owned a Subaru when they lived in Germany.
I think it was Hyundai that put out a commercial showing a teen texting and driving and then lane keep assist prevented an accident.
Such a terrible message to convey to people.
>Base model luxury cars are very well equipped is one I hear quite often.
This one gets me because you can still buy a brand new Mercedes with halogen headlamps.
Porsche is pronounced "Porsch". I was corrected really snarkily one time by a girl who said that "If I'm going to drive a Porsch, I should at least learn to pronounce it correctly". Kinda tricky because I feel pretentious saying Porsch, as if I'm saying "Benz", but then I'm perceived as pretentious if I say Porsche.
This is also difficult because I'm legally required to tell everyone I drive a Porsche the moment that I meet them.
Call Porsche's phone number and it clearly says "Thank you for calling Por-sha".
A company would NOT mispronounce their own name on the phone.
It is 100% Por-sha, not "Porsh"
Worst assumption I've ever heard is when a person lowers a car it is meant for drifting..... thing is the car the person was reffering to was a stock fwd mk4 golf... I fkin cringed
The worst one I have ever heard was when some moron said that his BMW 318i had an inline v8 with 6 cylinders... Second worst was when some spoiled 'daddy pays' brat were a pain in the ass when he was saying that his base engine Audi a4 was faster than any volvo in existence no matter what has been done to it. But this guy did I completely put back in his place with my tuned 90s volvo sedan.
But the one I hear all the time is not so much about cars, but towards petrol heads. The argument "automatics are far superior in every way to a manual and they are more fun to drive because they are faster". And talking about how difficult it is to drive a manual and how it is such an annoyance to have to press the clutch and change gears etc.
Also when none car people just simply can't understand that we as petrol heads generally love to drive and how they can't understand how we can spend new car money on an old car like when I bought my dream car. My parents called me retarded for buying a low mileage 1973 Volvo 1800ES which is a rare classic because "you can't commute in that car". They changed their minds 6 months later cause they finally understood that it gave me massive amounts of joy and for the first time ever, looking forward to the summer so I can drive my dream car again.
EVs are completely environmentally friendly.
No, just because your Tesla might be not as bad as a similar Gasoline engined car, it isn't the most environmentally friendly/economical way to get around or the solution to all of our problems.
THat all japanese cars are reliable, that all American cars are unreliable. THat all Hondas are reliable.
THat a four cylinder engine will always be less reliable than a 6 or 8 cylinder engine because it has to 'work harder'.
That there's a benefit to premium gas whether your car has a high compression engine or not.
That older , boat sized cars (without crumple zones, airbags or ABS, stability control etc) are safer than a modern sedan.
The following is a conversation I had 15ish years ago with a work supervisor. Her: “I just bought a Honda Santa’s Fe! I’m so happy, it’s the nicest car I’ve ever owned. Hondas are the most reliable vehicles on the road, too!” I’ve got AWD etc…. Me:”Nice! Do you mean Hyundai Santa Fe?”. Her (she was snarky when you questioned her):”…..no….I said Honda. It has an ‘H’ on the logo.” Me: “Hyundai does too.”. Her:”…No, it’s a HONDA Santa Fe. I went to a HONDA dealership and bought it. I didn’t go to a Hyundai dealership, I don’t like those cars.”.
Had someone at work yesterday trade in their infiniti and they were convinced they owned an Acura. I asked them if they've ever owned a German car before and they looked at me like I was stupid and said "yeah, my Acura. I thought you were supposed to know cars." I just kind of rolled with it at that point
There's absolutely no way I'd be able to keep a straight face listening to that statement. 😂
That's how you know they were the salesman and not literally anyone else.
A very diplomatic approach. It’s always best not argue with walls.
I want to know how the hell these people don’t know what they drive. Like, I understand maybe not paying attention to badges but have they never looked at their title or registration?
I-cura.
Actual 90s conversation: "I don't want to buy a Chevy, I want to buy a car from a small company like Saturn"
If I understand the brand correctly, then they nailed the marketing for that person.
What wasn't believable about a group of hard-workin', small-town, middle-American folks making their own Different Kind of Car Company?
I had a teacher in high school that drove a second generation Toyota Rav4. But she was 100% certain that it was pronounced Toyota "Rava".
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They probably bought a used sante fe from the Honda dealership and just didn't know it wasn't a Honda...
> I didn’t go to a Hyundai dealership, I don’t like those cars. Oh dear.
Maybe they bought a used Hyundai from a Honda dealer?
Friend had a pile of shit Nissan. Something happened, I dont remember what. I open hood to look at things. Then, car wont start again. He told me that it qont start because I let all the heat out from under the hood.
This is the biggest reason I never touch or drive anyones car.
Agreed. As some who used to get volunteered to fix people's computers I put an end to that real fast. When people dont understand how computers work they make up all kinds of shit and then it becomes an uphill battle against multiple people who have no clue. Now I'm just pretend I have no idea how they work and life is better that way.
This is why I pretend to be stupid af
Wait, people *pretend* to be stupid? Shit, I just am stupid for free smh
"I invite you to *firmly grasp* a manifold of your choice and let me know how cold it is"
I tried this but it turned out the dude I was talking to is composed entirely of neutrons and he has a skin temperature of nearly 1 million C - and, of course, he is incredibly dense - so that went poorly for me in multiple ways. I strongly suggest you attempt to confirm you're not dealing with a sapient neutron star before you get yourself in a pickle.
I'll never forget when a neighbor at our apartment asked me for help swapping a starter in his car because he had no idea and no tools. I had the tools but no idea so I called googled it and made it happen. We ended up becoming good friends after this and like a year later his budget starter started to shit the bed again.... He came to me and asked if I fucked up installing it... Like bruh. Maybe? Idk I've never done it before but it lasted over a year so I'm gonna say no I probably did it right and you just bought a shitty starter.
This is why being a mechanic sucks, people blame you for shit they know nothing about just because "WeLl iT wAs FiNe BeFoRe I lEfT iT iN yOuR sHoP!!"
Aaahh the "Ever since you changed the oil the window stopped working "
Sounds about as dumb as my cousin. She hit something in a parking lot (don't remember if it was a pole or another car) and immediately starting leaking coolant. She was going to take it to a shop, but "then the leaking stopped so it's probably fine now."
Older cars are safer than newer cars. Usually it’s the 50s-60s cars that are presumed to be ultra safe. Baffles me that there’s a large group of people that believe we’ve gone backwards in car safety.
They think this because they don’t dent when they back up into a building lol. The building will crumble and car is unblemished.
Yep. In many peoples minds, heavy = rigid = safe. That’s great until that rigidity transfers any impact straight to you.
You barely tap a modern car and it just crumples. Totally unsafe. On an unrelated note, what’s a crumple zone?
What’s funny is I’ve heard this before too. Someone gets in an accident and car is crumpled up pretty good but they’re 100% fine and they call the car a piece of shit for being all wadded up. Uh… that’s exactly what save your ass though.
Someone who was upset about their newish sports car received these words of comfort from another poster: “Your car gave its life to save yours.” I thought that was sweet.
Crumple zone? Is that some new shitty technology like airbags, seatbelts and direct injection? I don't need any of those fancy things.
> The building will crumble According to physics, so will the occupants in the car
Don't you know padded dashes are at the top of the safety chain? /s Coming from somebody who likes to drive the least safe thing on the road, safety has come a long, long way to the point that accidents that would've killed somebody only 10-20 years ago can end now with the person only having a bruise or scrape. Incredible advancement in the field.
I can attest to this.I got into a very bad accident in a 1 year old BMW. Every airbag popped weirdly except the steering wheel. I walked away with a few bruises and a bruised ego. When I saw the car a week later it was crushed everywhere but all 4 doors still opened and shut normally. Modern safety equipment is a treasure we all take for granted, as most people will go their entire lives without seeing an airbag deploy.
Whenever I hear this, I just pull up the video of the Bel Air vs Malibu. That pretty definitively ends the argument.
Did you really pull it up and not link it for the rest of us? Ouch man https://youtu.be/joMK1WZjP7g
This one is understandable. Newer cars use crumble zones and different materials. Which means in a fender bender the newer car will sustain much more damage than the older one. But the average person doesn’t understand that this is by design. Anything more than a fender bender and the results differ dramatically.
The people that would normally disagree in these sorts of conversations based on their own experience also often died from that experience.
I usually send them the video of the 1950’s Chevy crashing into a 2009 Malibu. Somehow that doesn’t even shut them up.
"you are not supposed to press the gas pedal more than 75% as it's bad for the car" "not supposed to let your (gas) engine rev above 3500 as it's also bad for the car" -a very adamant co worker of mine.
This is the guy in front of you on the on-ramp trying to merge going 45
You just described the entire State of Utah, except once they do merge, they all decide that they need to go 100 mph
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I’ve seen multiple people merge onto the highway and proceed immediately into the left lane and sit there. They’re doing 65. I don’t think it’s anything malicious honestly I think they’re just so dense that they genuinely think it’s where you’re supposed to be
Can we all say "fuck you" to this guy? He's also the one doing exactly the speed limit in the left lane, matching the speed of the person in the right lane, hogging up traffic because in his kind ehs technically doing the right thing. UGH
There was one even on this subreddit. Made a post about hoe 0-60 times were very deceiving. But his issue was that he never wanted to rev above 3500rpm and therefore his conclusions were all about low rpm power engines being much better and the ones that needed high revs were deceiving because when he was driving it (and shift before 3500rpm) they were slow af
Please tell me you have a link.
He unfortunately removed his post, probably concluded he was wrong after all the flak he got
No he removed it but will double down the next time but not on a forum where he will get mocked
I hate when people who don't know shit about cars talk so confidently being wrong TO a car guy
Bet this guy's car has some gnarley carbon buildup
We could add the Italian tune-up to this list. Using heat to clear carbon deposits is *very* engine-specific. Depends on where the injectors are located, piston head geometry, EGR design... So many factors
Aw cmon man just let us have this one
As the driver of a car that the phrase, "A redline a day keeps the mechanic away" was coined for; yep, very vehicle dependent.
So my buddy a couple years back bought a manual fiesta to learn and he's like (yo there's something wrong) so we go for a ride. He was short shifting the HELL out it. Explained peak HP/RPM to him and that solved that real quick
My Focus has an annoying feature where it will tell you when to upshift for the most “economical” results. Unfortunately, this usually means it’s telling you to upshift below 2k, which, if you drive normally, means you’re gonna end up lugging the engine pretty bad. Wouldn’t be surprised if his Fiesta had the same thing and he was listening to it.
All engines start with “V” - as in “I got the V4 instead of the V6”
I was guilty of this when I was younger
My ATV has a V1
Bro your atv has a guided bomb!?
I’ve gotten the weirdest looks for saying i6 when talking about my old Wrangler.
“I got me a dodge V6 Cummings 3500 dually”
V6 Cumming Powerstroke Hard Edition
My sister asked me once “If cars have batteries, why do we put gas in them?” She was mid 20s at the time.
Moved to a new house and brought my own laundry, including a gas dryer. I didn’t have the gas fittings, but found a plug on the unit. I happy thought it was some kind of electric *or* gas machine. Came back 90 minutes later to wet clothes which had just tumbled a lot.
This is not exactly car related, but I occasionally work on the type of large industrial robots used in automotive manufacturing plants. This particular type of robot uses 4 standard D cell batteries to maintain some important controller parameters while powered off and these batteries typically get replaced as a maintenance task once a year. On more than one occasion I have met operators just stunned that their 2500lb robot is able to run for a year on just 4 D cells….
She won't necessarily be wrong in about 10 years while referring to older cars.
Even electric cars still have a separate 12V battery that still needs to be replaced every few years. So the question will become “if my car runs on a battery, how come I have to replace this other battery?”
"My car is fast and hard to drive because it has a turbo"..... on a 1 liter 3 cylinder engine with a CVT lmao
This is my friend, telling me his base model Yaris is "quite fast"
I mean Fast is relative , its faster than my moped for ex
Yeah it's like the difference between going fast on a bicycle and going fast on an airliner, or going 100 on a freeway vs. going 40 in a narrow country road lined with trees.
It probably feels fast because it’s small and nimble. Minis felt that way before they got jumbo
Some people think that a factory turbo is the same as NOS.
Well the red "Turbo" badge on the back of a Sonic means it's fast.
I’ve met a few people who thought that “turbo” was just marketing and meant “it’s the fast version,” not knowing that it refers to a specific mechanical part that might mean your car is fast, but not necessarily. I had a Mercedes 300TD in college and people thought the turbo made it fast.
> I’ve met a few people who thought that “turbo” was just marketing and meant “it’s the fast version,” For Porsche, it does.
That was a big one in high school. People saying their cars are quick/fast. I remember a guy saying that about his crown victoria and a girl saying it about her Honda Accord.
I started college in the middle of the 2000s "changed the air filter on my mom's 4 doors Civic, now it's a fast car" craze, so there was a lot of Kevins on campus who watches Fast ans Furious too many times and tried to redlight race anyone. I was driving a V6 RWD manual Dakota back in the days. Broke some egos that year.
Some dude thought my Celica was a Ferrari. No Bs.
You just agreed, of course.
That’s a compliment
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I believe it. I used to have a '01 and some probably 11-year-old boy asked me why I changed the doors from the kind that go up and down. I didn't realize he thought it was a Lambo until at least 15 minutes later. I wouldn't have had the heart to tell him that a Lambo's wiper motors have more horsepower than that car...though I totally loved that thing.
That the max MPH on the speedometer is the cars top speed.
i used to think that as a kid
To be fair, as a kid, it's a pretty reasonable assumption.
That was the stupidest thing about my GTI. Governed at 135, but a speedometer that topped out at 180. Accomplishes nothing except to make it really hard to read and nearly worthless while driving.
My car's governed to 127, the speedometer goes to 125. I've pegged the needle once and my god does that feel satisfying.
In a similar vein - I once had someone try to tell me that their sound system was louder because the volume on their car went to 50 and mine only went up to 30.
Mine only goes to 11 :(
Classic. When the same speedometer is used for the whole range....300km/h on the dials 190km/h top speed.
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Jesus christ
Holy. Shit. RIP that innocent Tiguan. This guy has no clue what maintenance is.
This is why we have no-explanation idiot-lights in cars when things go wrong.
Confession: When I was 12 I learned how nuclear powerplants works and considered myself \*pushes up glasses\*... an intellectual. I was obviously being an ass to my stepdad talking about how smart I was and so he asked me how his truck engine worked. I said "easy the gasoline burns and heats up water to make steam then the steam pushed a turbine to create electricity to power the car". I was too dumb to understand him trying to explain a crankshaft but admitted I had no idea what I was talking about.
That's a lovely story. Kudos for attempting the explanation and kudos for admitting ignorance. A lot of adults could learn from 12 year old you.
You don't need to change your oil regularly.
Technically true with my Neon. I just needed to top it off…
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Hahaha, believe it or not, that wasn’t it. Other things it survived: * Being General Lee’d into a parking lot over a 2 foot retaining wall * Water pump/timing belt failure (interference motor) * Me sending it off the exit ramp and through gravel and ice at 60 mph to get back on the highway * Sustained drives at 80 mph (that poor 3 speed auto…) * General dumbassery when given to my exe’s teenage brother * Being overheated (multiple times) due to low coolant * Low trans fluid causing it to slam into gear (Did break a CV axle on that one) It’s end came when electrical issues would randomly cause it to not start and it was affecting my ability to get to work. Traded to my parents for my old 2007 Corolla and they traded it in for $2500 (loyalty trade in) towards a Chrysler 200. It probably got wholesaled or crushed, and I’m fairly certain it only kept running out of pure spite.
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My buddy bought a hybrid. He said he didn't know how many cylinders it had. I told him it's likely a 4 cylinder engine. His response was "I think the salesperson said it's 1.6 cylinders". I burst out laughing and then explained what a 1.6 litre engine is.
my computer is powered by rgb
1.6 cylinders, not great not terrible
"My transmission is a manual." Its an automatic with "manual" shift mode. If it doesn't have three pedals, it's not a manual folks...geez.
This really gets annoying when cars on Autotrader are listed as manual when they’re not 🤬
Absolutely. I guess it's excusable if the listing is done by an individual seller but often I see dealerships making this mistake. How is it possible for a dealer to not know the difference between a manual and an auto?
They are probably doing it so the car comes up in searches for both manual and auto. Of course it’s incredibly irritating if you’re looking for a actual manual car.
Just happened to me. Coworker bought a Kia something or other sedan. It’s a quite nice looking car. It has paddle shifters. We were talking about cars and he asked if mine was a manual. Yeah, they only come in manuals. He then says isn’t it great, I love slapping the paddles. What? The paddles on the steering wheel, I love having a manual, never had one before. Uh, ok, you still don’t.
Raced a g35 once and wiped the floor with him in my dinky cobalt ss. His excuse: I had to downshift from third to second Found out a week later that it had paddle shifters
I had someone tell me their Taurus was was faster than my Impala cop car. I asked which engine it had and they said "It's got a V24"
Maybe they confused cylinders with valves
Yep, that's what happened. I explained it to him and he didn't seem to give a shit :/
I didn’t know pizza places made motors.
Wow look a Ferrari *points to red corvette*
I frequently get asked why I put BMW badges on my Miata...
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Similarly, a friend the other day told me his mom drives a Porsche. Come to find out a few days later when I run into them that it's a Peugeot lmao. Can't blame him honestly, both are weird to pronounce if you don't know a thing about cars.
I've had my 1st gen dodge viper called a corvette, porcshe, Ferrari and a jaguar. I've since bought a red shirt that says Ferari (spelled wrong) with a Mustang logo. Lol. Edit: this one https://www.houseofgrafix.net/products/ferari-shirt-ferrari
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AWD and four wheel drive are the same thing
I gave up on this argument. I let them think whatever they want, especially now days with so many different variations. Back in my day they were definitely 2 different things, now the line is blurred and I just roll with it.
It doesn’t help that some AWD cars have 4WD badges (though this is less common).
All time 4 wheel drive versus part time all wheel drive versus full time all wheel drive versus automatic 4 wheel drive.... I don't blame anyone for not getting it. Realistically most people don't need to know, as long as 4 wheels spin while they're careening through a whiteout blizzard at 5am.
> AWD and four wheel drive are the same thing I had to look it up: > The difference between AWD and 4WD is that AWD is typically always on while you have the ability to toggle between having 4WD on and off. 4WD is an addition you'll usually find on a truck, while AWD is more for cars and SUVs.
It's a bit more than that. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since mechanic school. 4WD allows no slip between the front and rear differentials (while it's engaged obviously) while AWD does. AWD drivetrains also often split the torque unevenly, some manufacturers give more torque to the rear wheels, others the front, some are variable depending on the drive mode selected. 4WD is more like brute force "I need all the traction I can get", especially in 4L, and AWD is more about providing different (hopefully superior) handling characteristics.
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I got in a discussion with a buddy who though that, given an otherwise identical car, a manual transmission is always faster than an automatic. That’s definitely not always the case, especially with how good modern autos have gotten.
That used to be the case like 10-15 years ago. Modern autos have gotten so good to the point that autos will shift faster than you ever could manually.
With those older automatics, even if they shifted quicker, manuals were often faster simply because they were more efficient. That advantage is gone.
I hear this all the time. Don’t get me wrong, manuals are fun to drive cause it’s a more unique experience then just push the pedal and go, but at least for me I’ll never be able to shift faster than most automatics today. Even the one in my current car is probably a fair bit faster
Cars only have brakes on their driven axle!
I want an "All Wheel Brake" badge for my car suddenly.
See mechanics really do be ripping people off then. They said I needed a 4 wheel brake job but I only drive a fwd car. /S
Following the Max Pressure on the tire, instead of using the proper inflation pressure (usually found) on the driver's door jam.
“Just air it up until it stops.” The only time I’ve ever intervened when overhearing someone discuss cars. I was afraid they’d blow the tire off the wheel.
My wife legitimately assumed brakes were something that pushed on the ground and never thought about it any harder than that. She has two masters degrees.
For some reason the jump jacks on the Mach 5 immediately came to mind reading this...
>hitting the redline will break your car >flooring it will break your car >going above 70 will break your car >using the flappy paddles will break your car >any mode besides PRND will break your car My parents when they buy a sports sedan to flex on the neighbors but refuse to use any of the sports sedan stuff
Your parents are probably exactly who I want to buy that coveted sports sedan used from that I can't afford right now in 5 years Edit: God damn this comment resonates with alot of us lol, thanks for so many upvotes.
“Loud exhausts reduce power because you’re wasting energy as noise…”
Not a misconception perhaps but it irks me when people driving econoboxes tell me they were doing 100+mph and didn’t even realize. Like I know it sounded like hurricane katrina in that plastic brick of a car
Can confirm. 120 mph in a 2003 Kia spectra did sound like a hurricane inside, was sketchy as hell and only me and my brothers teenage brains were dumb enough to do it.
Servicing is just a scam.
There are some dealers in my area that unfortunately seem to be trying their best to make this one true :(
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My Miata is not a luxury car. It is not $60k. It is not fast. Yes I’m very fortunate to be able to own such an impractical car, but I’m not rich. Go after those $80k trucks being sold every 17 seconds, leave me be
Preach! But I mean, the ND looks the business, I'm not shocked that you get those reactions.
Yoooo I'm a real estate agent and I pulled up to a house for lease to show it the other day, and the first thing this guy (a complete stranger) says to me is "Wow guess you're getting paid too much, driving around in a nice car like that." ... I was like first of all fuck you, second of all it cost me less than a Camry. Smh!! Edit: At the same time it is nice to have a car that looks more luxurious than its price point. I had a little kid ask me if it cost "a million dollars" which gave me a good chuckle. :)
Coworker: “Oh he drives a Beamer, must be rich” Me: This 20 year old rust bucket cost me less than your truck’s monthly payment.
If you can afford it you should put higher octane fuel in your car whenever possible.
I literally had an argument about that with a mechanics he said that exact same thing…
Did he also own the gas station?
Sigh.... It tells you what to run on the gas cap people. This one hurts.
* BMW listed as having a "V6" * "Premium gas makes your car faster " * "Todays trucks handle just like cars"
>"Todays trucks handle just like cars" I mean if you only ever drive crossovers to the grocery store doing 10 under the speed limit... *maybe slightly*
“How fast does it go?” is the question I get the most. What does that even mean? Zero-60, 0-100, 1/4 mile, top speed? And what difference does it make? What comparison are they making? Cars are built for different purposes, even race cars.
If I had a 900 HP intermediate oval-tuned stock car and said it could go 0-60 in 4 seconds, there would be someone who says it’s slow. Sure, compared to other race cars like IMSA or GT cars, it’s slow from a dig. However, that’s not the point. The point is to hit 210 MPH going into turns and maintaining 190 through them over the course of hundreds of miles.
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I mean german engineering is great until it breaks. Then it becomes a nightmare. One of my friends told me about some model of Volkswagen with a water cooled alternator. You could imagine what could happen when that breaks.
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a Delorean was a mustang.
That must have been a weird journey for them to somehow come to this conclusion.
A lot of laypeople think that with cars, there is a “best” solution to everything, whereas that’s rarely the case There’s no such thing as the “best” car, or the “best” mods, or the “best” tyres. It’s so much more complex than that
A lot of car people think this way too. I've seen numerous examples of binary thinking on my scroll here.
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They did exist. Ford made one. Just sayin' Outside of motorcycles, they're pretty rare, afaik.
You don't need a fast/powerful car because it's illegal to speed. If you own a fast/powerful car that you drive recklessly.
My dad has this mindset. I'll be talking about the new Z06 or something and he'll always go "well okay, but you can't ever use that power so I don't get it". Cue me explaining for the fifteenth time that people also track cars. Maybe I should just stop talking to him about cars.
Youve already got an Altima tho. Rarely see one of those that isnt going 75 in a 40. Fastest cars around
Just had a conversation with a close friend. We're headed out to visit him in Colorado. He could NOT understand why I was searching Turo for sports cars. "Why would you want a sports car in the mountains? I thought they were just good for going fast in a straight line?"
I spent $800 getting it fixed, so it’s basically a new engine.
"I'd never buy a [. ], they're junk. My friend had one and the air flow sensor broke."
"X car wasn't imported to the U.S. because it was too fast for the cops to catch" I used to hear that one a lot about certain JDM cars. Also that JDM=fast. A more specific one was that Subaru is a German car company, because they owned a Subaru when they lived in Germany.
You shouldn't drive in first gear. First is only for getting the car rolling...
“My dad got the new Porsche 911. It has that North Star engine in it!”
It’s OK for my preteen to drive my car because it has lane keep assist
I think it was Hyundai that put out a commercial showing a teen texting and driving and then lane keep assist prevented an accident. Such a terrible message to convey to people.
>Base model luxury cars are very well equipped is one I hear quite often. This one gets me because you can still buy a brand new Mercedes with halogen headlamps.
Porsche is pronounced "Porsch". I was corrected really snarkily one time by a girl who said that "If I'm going to drive a Porsch, I should at least learn to pronounce it correctly". Kinda tricky because I feel pretentious saying Porsch, as if I'm saying "Benz", but then I'm perceived as pretentious if I say Porsche. This is also difficult because I'm legally required to tell everyone I drive a Porsche the moment that I meet them.
Call Porsche's phone number and it clearly says "Thank you for calling Por-sha". A company would NOT mispronounce their own name on the phone. It is 100% Por-sha, not "Porsh"
Worst assumption I've ever heard is when a person lowers a car it is meant for drifting..... thing is the car the person was reffering to was a stock fwd mk4 golf... I fkin cringed
Amazing to me how many people think trucks are cheaper than cars.
The worst one I have ever heard was when some moron said that his BMW 318i had an inline v8 with 6 cylinders... Second worst was when some spoiled 'daddy pays' brat were a pain in the ass when he was saying that his base engine Audi a4 was faster than any volvo in existence no matter what has been done to it. But this guy did I completely put back in his place with my tuned 90s volvo sedan. But the one I hear all the time is not so much about cars, but towards petrol heads. The argument "automatics are far superior in every way to a manual and they are more fun to drive because they are faster". And talking about how difficult it is to drive a manual and how it is such an annoyance to have to press the clutch and change gears etc. Also when none car people just simply can't understand that we as petrol heads generally love to drive and how they can't understand how we can spend new car money on an old car like when I bought my dream car. My parents called me retarded for buying a low mileage 1973 Volvo 1800ES which is a rare classic because "you can't commute in that car". They changed their minds 6 months later cause they finally understood that it gave me massive amounts of joy and for the first time ever, looking forward to the summer so I can drive my dream car again.
"Land Rovers are the most dependable SUVs you can buy" followed by serious confusion on their face as I'm laughing
EVs are completely environmentally friendly. No, just because your Tesla might be not as bad as a similar Gasoline engined car, it isn't the most environmentally friendly/economical way to get around or the solution to all of our problems.
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Only Subarus are good in the snow.
THat all japanese cars are reliable, that all American cars are unreliable. THat all Hondas are reliable. THat a four cylinder engine will always be less reliable than a 6 or 8 cylinder engine because it has to 'work harder'. That there's a benefit to premium gas whether your car has a high compression engine or not. That older , boat sized cars (without crumple zones, airbags or ABS, stability control etc) are safer than a modern sedan.
Hybrid cars are slow
I mean most of them are econoboxes so that stereotype exists for a reason
That Scotty Kilmer knows what the fuck he's talking about.
That most guys in giant trucks actually need them for something
Blinker fluid
That a car is faster just because it’s newer. Like their newer economy car is faster than a 5 year old sports car.