Yeah, that's YOU I'm talking to, you in the yellow Toyota blocking a full effin' lane of CA-17 on the uphill from Saratoga. Yeah, it's a hundred effin' degrees and the highway is almost that steep, but shit, my 20 year old motorcycle has half the cooling system per CC that your Toyota has, and it's just fine. Now me, I'm baking because you're too fucking stupid to take your goddamned car to a mechanic and have your radiator cap checked and your fucking radiator boiled over and you came to a stop right in the middle of a fucking lane, blocking half the goddamned highway and putting slippery goddamned radiator grease all over the road, but my goddamned motorcycle is just fine. Because, you see, I'm not STUPID like you are. I know that effin' radiator caps don't last for effin' ever, and I check it every time I change the oil to make sure it's still sealing and still has the right spring tension.
Now, obviously you're too fuckin' stupid to do shit like that, so I got a suggestion for you: TAKE YOUR GODDAMNED CAR TO A DAMNED MECHANIC, you asshole MORON! And no, f'ing goddamned JIFFIE LOOB is *NOT* a goddammned mechanic, those are just a bunch of just-outta-high-school knob turners who don't know shit and who wouldn't be working at Jiffie Loob if they did. Look in your Yellow Pages under "Auto Repair", for cryin' out loud. I betcha that you'll see just OODLES of REAL fuckin' mechanics there, y'here?
And YOU, in that brown piece of shit Honda blocking the other fucking lane 5 miles further up the road: So you thought you were fuckin' being *SMART* by letting the con man at the auto body shop tell ya, "Look, I'll just pull the dent out of the radiator and we'll charge the insurance company full price for a new radiator and nobody will ever know but you won't have to pay the deductible!"? Now look how smart you are. Your stupid turd-colored car is just sitting there spilling green slime all over the fuckin' highway as steam rolls out from under the hood, and you're blocking half the fuckin' highway because, look. You bang a radiator real hard in an accident like you had when you ran into that old lady's rear bumper because you was fuckin' doin' your makeup while talkin' on the cell phone, and it makes those little tubes detach from the fins and it don't work worth a shit anymore. That insurance adjuster didn't specify a new radiator because he wanted to pay for one. He specified a new radiator because you fuckin' NEEDED one, you cheep-ass fuckin' MORON! And I'm just BAKING here because look, I'm riding a motorcycle and I don't HAVE fuckin' air conditioning to turn off like the sign sez I'm supposed to. But do you care? NOOOO! You saved a fuckin $200 deductible, TWO HUNDRED FUCKIN' DOLLARS, boy, aren't you fuckin' smart? You ask me, they shouldn't bother towing your stupid ass off the highway. Just shove your stupid brown turd colored car off the fuckin' cliff, and let the rest of us get going, shithead!
Oh no. A half mile further, and here's *ANOTHER* goddamned car with its radiator boiling over blocking half the fuckin' road. Damned classic Jaguar. Goddamned Limies, bad enough that the Lucas electrics were produced by the Prince of Darkness, but apparently they never figured that hills would ever get higher than a few hundred feet or temperatures ever higher than the mid 80's. Okay, so it's a hundred fuckin' degrees and you're climbing a 4,000 foot hill. What does the sign say to do, you stupid fuckin' moron? Yeah, that's right, it says *TURN OFF YOUR AIR CONDITIONING!*. What? You say you'd get hot? What the fuck do you think *I* am, sitting here waiting for cars to pick their way past your fucking stupid ass on my completely un-air-conditioned motorcycle, sweating in my riding leathers? And hey, I got the same fuckin' advice for you that I had for the moron in the Toyota: GET A FUCKIN' MECHANIC, you MORON! Yeah, your stupid piece of English shit car has half the radiator it really needs. So fuckin' what? A good mechanic knows how to handle that. Take my old motorcycle. It, too, has half the radiator it really needs. But you know what? I haven't gotten above 3/4ths on my temperature gauge. Because it's got the right juice in the radiator to handle this temperature and this grade -- 80% distilled water 20% antifreeze/antiboil (water carries heat, antifreeze doesn't, only use for antifreeze in hot weather is to keep the radiator from boiling over and you reach close to 100% antiboil protection at the 80/20 water/glycol mix), *PLUS* it has some shit called "Water Wetter" in there (basically a miscable oil) which makes that 80% water work even better. You say your mechanic never told you about shit like this? Well, did you even *TELL* your fuckin' mechanic that you were intending on going up 30% mountain grades in 100 degree heat trying to get the hell out of the Valley to a nice cool beach somewhere? How the fuck was he supposed to know that you were gonna do something so stupid on a 50/50 winter mix? Fuckin' TELEPATHY?
And YOU, random blog reader: This heat ain't nothin to fuck around with. If you're not a mechanic yourself and you haven't taken your car to a mechanic lately to have him check your coolant mix, radiator cap, radiator hoses, and everything else that's a normal service item to make sure everything's working right when the weather gets hot, *DO IT*. The last fuckin' thing your kids need is for your stupid cheap ass self to strand them in the middle of fuckin' nowhere in 100 degree weather without any fuckin' water to drink on some mountain grade where there's no real shoulder to pull off so you're all just kinda dangling on the edge of a fuckin' cliff because it's too goddamned hot to stay in the car and cars are blowing by honking their horns and shit at you and the tow company says it'll be at least four hours before they can come get your car because every tow truck in the whole fuckin' region is tied up hauling fucking morons back home where said morons thought takin' their car to Jiffy Loob every few thousand miles was "maintaining" it... is that what you want for yourself? No? Then TAKE CARE OF YOUR GODDAMNED CAR, for cryin out loud. And no, I don't mean take it to fuckin' JIFFY LOOB for some fuckin moron even dumber than you to open the hood and look in it and say, "Doh, there's an engine under here awrite!". Shit, you could do that much yourself and get the same goddamned result. Take your piece of shit car to a MECHANIC. Someone who actually KNOWS somethin' about cars. Got it?
This public service message courtesy of a VERY hot and steamed penguin, literally -- YOU sit in 100 degree heat in riding leathers going absolutely nowhere because a buncha cheap morons are too fuckin' stupid to take their cars to a mechanic, and see how YOU like it...
-- Badtux the Automotive Penguin
Note to self. Fill several water jugs and place in car. Don't want to be stranded with no water.
ReplyDeleteNote to self. Take car to Jiffy Lube and have them check car hoses. (They're cheaper than a real mechanic - heh).
Note to self. Don't go to the same state that Badtux rides his motorcycle in.
Hear ya, man. Linkage.
ReplyDeleteWhat were you doing out in that heat any way? I'm about 50 miles away fom you (Concord CA) and we "sheltered in place" most of the day.
ReplyDeleteMy little RX-7 has a very weak AC so I'm not given to running it.
But thanks for the firm reminder to get to the mechanic...oil change and tune-up are overdue.
As soon as the heat wave breaks I'll be riding the bicycle to work.
TCG, I was going to the nice, COOOOL beach to get away from this f'ing HEAT! You bump over CA-17 to the other side of the mountains, and it's 30 degrees cooler. AHHHH!!!! That's also why I wasn't lane splitting past all the cars, I had my luggage on with all my beach shit in it, which makes my bike too wide to fit between the lanes.
ReplyDeleteOWL, ask him what the hydrometer reading is on the coolant. If he looks at you like you're speaking Martian, leave.
Note that hoses are only one part of the system. You need clean coolant in the system (I use pure distilled water and antifreeze in mine, using tap water over the years will clog the radiator with mineral deposits), your thermostat needs to be working properly, your radiator needs to be working properly, your radiator cap needs to be working properly, that little hose between the reservoir and the radiator shouldn't be leaking and neither should the reservoir, and then if you have a belt-driven water pump like a lot of cars, that belt needs to be in good condition, if it's slipping the water won't pump right. And there's probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting because I'm just the son of a mechanic, not a mechanic myself, and I don't do this shit every effin' day like a real mechanic does.
A real mechanic btw doesn't have to be expensive. He won't be in a pretty part of town, but hey, do you want pretty, or do you want your car to work right? Sheesh!
-BT
*wail*
ReplyDeleteAll I want is for my car to work right!
I have a 97 buick, loaded, and the thing has that chip in it. The check engine light goes on and off, it stalls at the most inoportune times (automatic, power everything). I brought it in and had the chip read, but it said nothing useful.
They said that I could leave the car there, and they would drive it around with their handheld computer networked to the car, until it stalled. Good Gosh! I can't be without my car!
I kept a diary of when it stalled, with every detail that I could think of to maybe figure out what was causing it. Nothing. No statistical trend. Hubby says it sounds like a loose connection. I'm stymied.
at the gas station the other day I heard the unmistakable sound of a rod knock. a LOUD one. this clown in a beat-to-shit Honda minivan-turned-gypsy cab pulls in with a cloud of blue oil smoke belching out the back and a bigger cloud of steam blasting out of the radiator. I think the stupid fuck just kept driving after the radiator blew til the rod bearing spun and burned out. then he stops by a pump where it dies a loud stinky death and tries to start it up again. look, pal, putting gas in it ain't gonna help. drag that shitpile to the crusher and start over. idiot.
ReplyDeleteGet some breathable protective riding gear that will let you stay cooler.
ReplyDeleteBTW, great rant! Overheat a fuckin' penguin and watch the feathers fly!
ReplyDeleteSo, you think that someone with a machine somewhat more complicated that the kite that Lindburgh flew should have to look under the shiny front part? That is Un-post-WWII-Geatest Generation-American. If you can't build it, field strip it and fix it, don't use it.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought.
Old scooter tramp saying: if you can't fix it, don't travel on it. It doesn't hold true these days since bikes got kinda reliable albeit much more complicated.
ReplyDeleteWhat the average person knows about cars is "gas goes in, wheels go 'round".
Hey douchebag, why didn't you just ride between the line of cars like every other moron motorcycle rider in California?
ReplyDeleteHey moron. Can you read? I had my luggage full of beach stuff mounted on my bike and it made my bike too wide to fit between the cars. What, being a moron makes you too stupid to comprehend such simple things? Alrighty, then!
ReplyDelete-- BT