Things that annoy me

[txdon]

and for the prius/diesel debate - The prius owner who pays $6K more for a car to save $2k in gas over the life of the car. :laughing: Every life cycle cost analysis I've done shows I won't save enough on gas to pay the extra the car cost.

Ultrarunner, We did not buy our Texas Prius to "go green", we bought it to save gas and my wife preferred it to the less powerful and smaller Corolla. I'm with you, buying a Prius does not make you green, buying a bicycle does.

Buckeye, My figures show we are $ ahead already at just 130,000 miles after five years. Re-figure using that millage. I don't know how you got your figures, but I believe they are right for regular driving at 15K miles a year and only figuring three years. If you check with the service department at Toyota you will find the batteries are lasting the life of the car - 400,000 miles so far on the Prius Taxi in College Station TX and lots of other have 250,000+. We have had no repairs.

Our next car will probably be AWD because our roads are getting worse. Luckily it's only gotten really muddy a few times in this very long drought. I'll check with you to make sure whatever model we buy it will not be annoying.

 

[cqaigy2]

Here is one for ya. Some of us were getting 75mph hwy, and 68 mph city in 1979 with VW diesel Rabbits. Feds said they could not be sold in the USA any more at that time. So, now we have them back and they don't get but 40 mpg. How much emission was coming out the tailpipe, when ALL was being burned to get the milage? Now, 40 is considered "good" for an electric car. Wish I still had my rabbit that got 70, and my HOT 'Stang that got over 31 mph. It can be done, but isn't really allowed.

And of course your comparing those "magic" mpg figures of yesteryear to those that are created today, but im with you on some of those vehicles like the diesel rabbit got great mileage and would today if you could buy one. Oh and your HOT Stang couldn't have been all that hot as compared to my Ford Torino with the 351 cleveland that i bought from a stater that told the dealer he wanted a car that had the get up and go like his cruiser that only got 21 real mph when i wasn't in the carburetor. oh and how's that for a run on sentence.:laughing:

 

[farmgirl19]

I had a friend that had a Torino! We had fun street dragging, back then!

 

[SPIKER]

I had a 72 Fast Back Torino w shaker and 351C that sucker was nice running but 14MPG in town, lots of hard starting lead footing it. Found out racing one of my buddies why MPG was so poor. Under hard load acceleration the license plate pretty much folded down because of raw gas pouring out the non sealed gas cap! lol On highway maybe 18MPG... My 74 Cougar well built 400M port matched eldbrock top end & cam, never put it into the strip but New 87 Mustang with HO 5.0 Manual could pull to the fender on my XR7 up thru 120MPH then I walked out to 140+ beyond them topping out... My XR7 got all of 18MPG around town and maybe 20hwy if I stayed out of it some. It had highway gears still pretty good off the line for 4000lb tank.

My 87 Escort EXP however was slow off line but got 44MPG all day combination driving on Synthetic Oil & Accell Split fire plugs HO blaster coil W hand built cold air intake.

I drove a VW Rabbit for a bit it was easy 50MPG around town in 80's I think it was like a 79 or something... My 79 Honda Prelude pretty quick and got 40MPG on highway & 79 Civic (both 5 speeds) did better. M y current DD is 99 Escort ZX2 auto that only gets 30~32MPG :/ The thing being I guess now dumping more fuel in means less bad Oxides out so better for atmosphere I'm told

Mark

 

[CliffordK]

As far as Prius Savings????

I tried a simple Calc.

4*(100000/30) - 4*(100000/45)

$4 Gas
100,000 Miles
30 vs 45 MPG.

And it comes up with a savings of $4,444

If, of course, you compare it to a vehicle that gets 20 MPG, the savings jumps to $11,111, which is a pretty penny.

Plus, it is less fuel purchased from overseas, and less cashing going to people who hate us.

 

[SPIKER]

As far as Prius Savings????

I tried a simple Calc.

4*(100000/30) - 4*(100000/45)

$4 Gas
100,000 Miles
30 vs 45 MPG.

And it comes up with a savings of $4,444

If, of course, you compare it to a vehicle that gets 20 MPG, the savings jumps to $11,111, which is a pretty penny.

Plus, it is less fuel purchased from overseas, and less cashing going to people who hate us.

If you compare the Prius to a NEW Dart or Civic manual they get almost same MPG (i.e. both get 40~45 MPG.) So the extra $ spend for the hybrid is only good if you have the plug in and use only battery power local and can charge it constantly.

Mark

 

[Sparks45]

split infinitives
dangling participles

 

[bcp]

Common English usage misconceptions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Misconception: Infinitives must not be split. "There is no such rule" against splitting an infinitive, according to The Oxford Guide to Plain English, and it's "never been wrong to 'split' an infinitive". In some cases it might be preferable to split an infinitive. Phillip Howard states that this is "another great Shibboleth of English syntax", and the "grammatical 'rule' that most people retain from their schooldays is the one about not splitting infinitives". According to the University of Chicago Writing Program, "Professional linguists have been snickering at it for decades, yet children are still taught this false 'rule.' "

In his grammar book A Plea for the Queen's English (1864), Henry Alford claimed that "to" was part of the infinitive and that the parts were inseparable. This was in line with a 19th-century movement among grammarians to transfer Latin rules to the English language (in Latin, infinitives are single words, e.g., "amare, cantare, audire").

 

[farmgirl19]

If you compare the Prius to a NEW Dart or Civic manual they get almost same MPG (i.e. both get 40~45 MPG.) So the extra $ spend for the hybrid is only good if you have the plug in and use only battery power local and can charge it constantly.

Mark

But then one also has to consider electricity use for charging, if you want a really accurate calculation of cost of operation.

(And thanks for the trip down memory lane, and the fun of hot rodding on the roads! I miss those days. Cheap fuel, hot cars, and good friends.)

 

[Bison]

Ordering something online and having it shipped UPS only to have UPS drop it off at the US post office so that I have to take time from work and drive to town to pick up said package that should have been delivered to me:mur:

Ordering something by phone and getting to hear they don't ship to a mailbox,even if the mailbox is in a post office!