She called me because she couldn’t get her car started after work. We had to get it towed out of the underground parking which is quite a pain in the ass apparently.

I spent a couple hours troubleshooting the issue (smoky exhaust, barely started, ran like shit) and I burned out the starter in the process and had to put a new one in. Starters in these little 3.7L engines are pretty pathetic.

At some point in all this she mentioned she had filled up before driving to work, so I figured out how to jumper the fuel pump and pumped out this piss-colored junk. Feels oily like diesel, doesn’t burn explosively like you’d expect with straight gas.

Fresh fuel and some Seafoam snake oil to maybe clean injectors. Since I didn’t drop the tank to clean it perfectly, she’s going to put small amounts in for a few fills and burn it off completely between fills because the solution to pollution is dilution.

Her receipt showed she uses the gas pump, not the diesel, so I’m wondering how many people got to deal with this bullshit since I’m guessing the station got an entire compartment contaminated. Haven’t bothered to talk to the company, since I did the work myself and they certainly aren’t going to reimburse me for my time.

Ah well, it’s an excuse to do a pile of other maintenance I’d planned anyway and had parts for.

Wife is happy she isn’t buying a new car. Happy wife, happy life.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    141·
    1 day ago

    I’m happy until I hear “There’s no replacement for displacement”. Because the objective truth is that there is; It’s called quality.

    • sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip
      1·
      9 hours ago

      Exactly. Engine displacement is just one number, and there have been major paradigm shifts in designs to squeeze way better performance and efficiency out of those engines across a wide range of RPMs: switching from carburetors to fuel injection, developing variable valve timing, better transmissions/traction control systems for actually get that torque and power on the ground.

      Plus, like, the rise of EVs, or even performance hybrids, has shown that you can have ultra high performance without any displacement at all.

      Looking back at the muscle cars of the 1970’s, where the idea came from, it’s crazy how huge those engines were, compared to 0-60 and quarter mile times that just weren’t that impressive by the 90’s, much less today. The 1970 Chevelle SS 454 had a 7.4L engine at 450 hp, but only got a 5.4s 0-62 and a 13.8s quarter mile. In 1995, the Toyota Supra put up similar performance with a 3.0L, 280 HP engine (although back then the Japanese manufacturers had some kind of gentleman’s agreement not to exceed 280hp in a way that tended to understate their overall performance). Today, Tesla literally manufactures a family friendly 3-row SUV that blows those numbers away. Scrolling through a list of cars that have sub-10 second quarter mile times off the factory floor, most of them have at least hybrid drivetrains where electric motors boost the overall torque and power.

      Relying on displacement these days is just giving up.