Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

NickD said:

Why the hell did GM make it so that setting the OBD-II monitors on the 2007-2013 Impalas takes so berkeleying long? Seriously, I put 90 miles on the car yesterday and it didn't set any of the three that weren't already set. On my Yaris, you could set all 8 in under 20 miles.

Maybe the absurdly complicated Toyota evap system is conducive to fast testing?

I dimly recall that evap monitors on some GMs require driving in 3rd gear for extended stretches because the engine speed must be over X and the vehicle speed must be over Y.

I mean, I know you probably know all this...

Not really. We typically don't set the monitors on cars. We fix the CEL and then just tell the customer to go drive the car for 100-250 miles and come back. But now I own one, which had had a dead battery and has until Sunday to pass inspection on the temporary inspect the DMV gives you, soooo.....

I'm trying to avoid trying to set EVAP, since I can get away with one not set and on a 12 year old Impala it likely has an EVAP leak of some sort. But I still have to set Catalyst and Heated 02. And I almost think that ambient temp has to be below a certain temp to get Heated 02 to set. Which, after an entire spring of 40-50 degree weather, we are now firmly locked in at 85 degrees.

Oh, we usually try to get as many monitors as possible to pass if we have to clear the computer.  Especially if the vehicle is a failed emissions.

I know quite a few monitors require starting from dead cold (CLT and IAT within a certain number of degrees).  Driving miles is not as important as number of trips.

This is one place where Ford has their E36 M3 together.  If you clear the codes while the engine is running, it will try to run as many monitors as possible during that key cycle instead of waiting for a cold start.  At least, they used to do it that way.

Some computers, however, will not run ANY monitors if a scan tool is plugged in.  That was a fun lesson.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

EVAP, Heated 02, and Catalyst are the three I have to set. I know that below about 25% fuel or above approximately 80% fuel levels will lock out EVAP, which is a common trick around here. 

Too bad that NY patched out the bug that the new inspection machine had when it first rolled out where it never looked at monitor status. We'd have a customer come in with a CEL, fix it, clear the codes, then go to get their 10-day extension, and the machine would pass it with 0 monitors set. It did that for about 2 months until NY rolled out a software update that fixed it.

tuna55 said:

My nicely sized family owned private company employer was just sold to a private equity firm

Next the new investors will sell the property and lease it back to the business.    It's a strategy I heard about recently but apparently has been done for a while.   It's one of the things that went into the Red Lobster bankruptcy.  

In reply to tuna55 :

Ugh. Been there. I'm sorry. Payout???? 

jharry3 said:

tuna55 said:

My nicely sized family owned private company employer was just sold to a private equity firm

Next the new investors will sell the property and lease it back to the business.    It's a strategy I heard about recently but apparently has been done for a while.   It's one of the things that went into the Red Lobster bankruptcy.  

Hopefully Tuna's company will not start offering All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp.

I need a drink, a seriously large cigar and about twenty hours to do nothing but decompress and play with my motorcycles. I swear I am still picking up the pieces from my vacation I took in April of stuff that slipped through the cracks. 

Also we got to see this really cool presentation from a company today about how they have automated an small section of our workload. Everybody loves the idea but they do not see the ~25-50 million it took to do it and the 6 years of getting it stable, that is with no corp overhead and project meetings and other stuff that slows things down because tey are so agile. I am sure they think we can just whip this up since now they have proof it can be done and I will be seen as a negative person for pointing it out. 

Not all PE is bad. Of course, usually when it's good it's good because it is rehabbing a name that had previously been destroyed by another PE Firm, but still. Some of them benefit everyone (assuming you consider the consumers of the product/service as beneficiaries of the transaction). 

Really getting tired of the random road rage around here.

You got in the right lane, then got stuck behind a dump truck, and when I get in the left lane and go around you I get flicked off?  Berk you, buddy.  I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest your underwear.

One of the Chrome click bait articles was someone complaining that her new Wrangler couldn't go faster than 70mph uphill.

Why would anyone want to drive a Wrangler that fast?

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

One of the Chrome click bait articles was someone complaining that her new Wrangler couldn't go faster than 70mph uphill.

 

Why would anyone want to drive a Wrangler that fast?

Working on a family member's CJ5 now, that thing is scary at 45 mph. 

volvoclearinghouse said:

jharry3 said:

tuna55 said:

My nicely sized family owned private company employer was just sold to a private equity firm

Next the new investors will sell the property and lease it back to the business.    It's a strategy I heard about recently but apparently has been done for a while.   It's one of the things that went into the Red Lobster bankruptcy.  

Hopefully Tuna's company will not start offering All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp.

The Unlimited Shrimp is the only reason I go to Red Lobster too though

Know what I hate? Canoes after 12AM.

It's the May squeeze again.  Every night, most mornings, is a home-life scheduling disaster.  Hauling ass home from work to be late for kid's sports.  Plays, musicals, events, etc.  Eating dinner at 4pm or 9:30pm.  Doing dishes and cleaning up the house until 10pm.  Our summer calender is booked every. single. weekend. until school starts back.  When someone asks me to attend an event on the weekend I tense up because I already know my wife has us booked up solid 8 weeks in advance. 

I can't wait for this weekend.  The calender is free for the entire weekend and I can't wait to have some actual free time.

jharry3 said:

tuna55 said:

My nicely sized family owned private company employer was just sold to a private equity firm

Next the new investors will sell the property and lease it back to the business.    It's a strategy I heard about recently but apparently has been done for a while.   It's one of the things that went into the Red Lobster bankruptcy.  

Owner and CEO is fourth generation family. His kid doesn't want it, otherwise that would have happened. Current owner is in his 70s, it seems pretty bleak.

This may be slightly more than minor, time will tell. Most people with T1D stockpile supplies whenever they can, well insulin has to be in a refrigerator for long term storage. I have a stock pile, I have wifi enabled sensors that alarm if the temp leaves the set range. Someone left the freezer door cracked and the fridge temp went up to 48 degrees for 18 hours, the freezer was there too. So all of the food in both was junk but more importantly there is an insulin shortage and all of my insulin was over the 46 deg upper thresh hold for storage. Manufacturer says that starts the timer (30 days), so I may have a stash of useless fluid and I am struggling to buy more. I feel sick to my stomach, I can't figure out why the sensors never alarmed, I don't know how the freezer got left open and I just want to scream or cry or something.

volvoclearinghouse said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

One of the Chrome click bait articles was someone complaining that her new Wrangler couldn't go faster than 70mph uphill.

 

Why would anyone want to drive a Wrangler that fast?

Working on a family member's CJ5 now, that thing is scary at 45 mph. 

I worked on a Wrangler for a friend a few times, and most of you remember the famous red XJ from my dearly departed friend. Every time I was on a test drive I'd think the same thing, "Why would anyone ever drive this pile in traffic?".

Oh good, the baclofen is only working for an hour or so at a time. Gonna be a long summer with these berkeleying hiccups if this stuff stops working. 

In reply to tuna55 :

You have a few things to do. Update your resume is the obvious one. The less obvious is to look at the private equity firm's track record. It will take only a few minutes to figure out how they operate. The Worst case is it will confirm your worst fears and make your decisions easier.  The Best case will show that they are building a business portfolio of some kind, complimentary businesses, across industries, etc... 

One of my co-workers has extreme political beliefs that go way beyond anything that I'm willing to endorse. This morning I overheard him speaking with  another co-worker who is somewhere down the same highway , just not so far: "75 percent of Americans want to hang him....."

Now that's scary.  I don't think that 75 percent of Americans would endorse hanging the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot. 

Our country has got it's problems to be sure, but treating the opposition as the devil ain't helping things. 

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to tuna55 :

You have a few things to do. Update your resume is the obvious one. The less obvious is to look at the private equity firm's track record. It will take only a few minutes to figure out how they operate. The Worst case is it will confirm your worst fears and make your decisions easier.  The Best case will show that they are building a business portfolio of some kind, complimentary businesses, across industries, etc... 

I intend to do just that after this week is over. It's a very busy and stressful week with our listing agency in town to witness tests (UL). Essentially google [company name] "layoffs" when looking through their portfolio of divested or longer term companies. It's called Tailwind. I don't know much about them, and none of their companies immediately ring any bells.

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

The fun part is both sides have these goobers. Worse yet, the media feeds them. 
 

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

Our country has got it's problems to be sure, but treating the opposition as the devil ain't helping things. 

That has pissed me off for all of my adult life.

And what really pisses me off is that players on both of the majority teams do it, and then scream and cry when the other side does it to them.

Tolerating hypocrisy is not one of my strengths.

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

The fun part is both sides have these goobers. Worse yet, the media feeds them. 
 

 

Yep. I'm not making a veiled reference to a certain group, because there are multiple ones, and they all think that they are the virtuous ones.

You are building a box to sell flooring out of. A couple of big rooms, a couple of offices, and a couple of bathrooms. 

Do you really need 997 pages of specs for that? It's going to take me longer to find the pages I need than it will take to quote the doors.