I am referring to the evil and/or inconsiderate clowns who came up with the idea of the "doughnut tire", a/k/a "space-saver spare".
If you have ever had to use one, you know what I am referring to. In the old days, when you got a flat, you had a full-sized spare tire. You would put it on the car, go on your merry way, and then get the flat fixed when it was convenient. Now you have a mini-tire that is speed-limited, distance-limited and the doughnut only serves to get you to the nearest tire shop.
I hope the shit-eaters who came up with that idea have a flat tire ever other week and each time, they are forced to drive 100 miles on an interstate highway at 50mph in traffic that is going 80+mph. At night. In fog.
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Oh, the real beauty that takes the cake was the donut GM came out with that you not only had to wrestle out and install, the motherfucker didn't have any air in it!
They had a goddam can of air you had to screw on to the valve stem and pump the sonofabich up!!
I continue to believe there is a special level of hell for automotive engineers,BELOW Dick Cheney's.
To be fair, donuts are generally flat anyhow when you take'em out of the trunk, because nobody, and I mean nobody, ever checks the air pressure of their spare tire. Even the service guys at the dealership generally forget to do that when you take it in for the 5,000 mile reaming err service. BustedNucks may remember to check it, but that assumes you're smart enough to take your car to a real mechanic for its service rather than to Jeffy Lube ("Where's the oil filler on your car? Doh!").
I rescued a guy who was stranded on a dirt road in Death Valley last week. He'd shredded one of those damnable street-oriented "all terrain tires" on his Ford Exploder, I mean *shredded* it on those sharp rocks, and put the spare on. The spare was flat as a friggin' pancake, and of course he did not have an air pump. And of course I did, since I was airing down to handle some really rough terrain and of course needed to be able to air back up at the end of it. He whined "I paid $400 for these tires and they won't hold up to rocks!". Duh. You need to get BF Goodrich AT/KO's if you want all-terrain tires that are really, like, all-terrain (as in 5-ply tread and 3-ply sidewalls, these things are *tough*). My BFG's laugh at rocks. But I paid a damn sight more than $400 for the things.
Anyhow, I aired him back up and went on my way after verifying that his Exploder wouldn't explode, but the point, the point... not only are those damned donuts pathetic, but they're also usually *flat*, because 60PSI or whatever godaweful pressure they're supposed to be pumped up to leaks out faster than even regular spare tires. So carry an air pump with you if you have one of the damned things. You'll need it. Unless you have a GM car that had the can of air with the donut, in which case they got you covered.
-- Badtux the Automotive Penguin
When I've gotten a vehicle that has one of those abortions, one of the first things I do is get a real wheel and tire, and throw that POS away.
Busted, I don't have a GM car.
BadTux, my donut was pumped up. I dragged the thing out of the trunk about two weeks ago and aired it up. I have a compressor in my car (bought so I could air up the tires on my plane).
BobG, the flat wouldn't fit in the well, so I sort of gather that a real spare wouldn't. But to be fair, I did just toss the damn thing in lossely, as it was late and I had things to be and places to do.
EB,
I was just pointing out it could have been worse.
;~)
Busted,
I rented a Chevy Something-or-Other about a dozen years ago after I crashed my beloved `85 Accord. This GM POS had a rotary headlight switch on the dash just under the turn signal; the clearances were so close that if you weren't careful, you'd shut off the headlights on a left turn and turn them on for a right turn. The ABS worked as though a giant was stomping and releasing the brakes (shuddered like a motherfucker). When you put the transmission into park, that tin fucker would automatically unlock all of the doors. As for fit and finish, the wind noise was only a little less than an open-cockpit biplane.
And this was a newish car with maybe 4K on the clock.
About 15 years before that, I needed a new car and I could only afford a subcompact. I looked at a Chevette; after the test drive, the salesman asked if I was ready to deal. I asked him how much he'd pay me to take the thing off his hands. (I bought a Mazda GLC; the "G" stood for "kind of crappy, but better than anything made by GM" in Japanese, I guess.)
I'm told that GM and Frod have improved, but the Jap cars are still far better. (As for Chrysler, they'd still have to pay me to take one.)
As a former resident of Shreveport, Louisiana, I can tell you why all the Chevy pickup trucks built there have the fit and finish of something put together by drunk rednecks (or hung-over rednecks). That's because they *are* put together by drunk/hung over rednecks, and some of them are my relatives (heh!).
I had a Chevy Chevette back in the '80s. I paid $800 for it with 60,000 miles on the clock. Tells ya how much they were valued, eh? It probably had 120,000 miles on it when I traded it in, and have to say that it wasn't that bad a car, albeit a PITA to work on. It was reasonably roomy (the 4 door model), fast enough (manual transmission), got decent gas mileage, served the purpose for five years until I could afford something better. Of course it leaked oil around the oil pan. Of course I never fixed it because you had to lift the whole friggin' engine to get enough clearance to take the oil pan off to put a gasket on the blasted thing, it was easier just to add oil now and then. Of course the oil pressure sending unit blew out (once), the fuel pump blew out (once), the alternator blew out (twice), the carburetor automatic choke stuck open (once), the fan clutch went AWOL (once), the windshield leaked water onto the floorboard because the channel underneath it rusted out, uhmm... can I retract my first statement? :-).
- Badtux the Car Penguin
All I remember about that Chevette was that it was the first (and last) car I ever drove that you needed to use a calendar in order to measure its time to accelerate from 0 to 60mph. And there were interior panels missing in the back of the vehicle that the dealership was using to woo potential fraud victims, er, customers.
The Lieutenant Commander I later threatened to shoot drove one, but that is another story.
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