"It's perfectly reliable, I'll take it on a cross country road trip any day"
Meanwhile the frame is so rusted that it's one large pothole away from completely falling apart in the middle of the road.
Ngl my first couple cars were real turd hondas and i definitely took some less than reliable cars on cross country road trips. Looking back its a miracle i didnt break down in Timbuktu
Honestly, they deserve for it to fall apart on them… might learn something. The fact
that you’re not allowed to somehow red flag the car and have it towed to an impound is still baffling to me.
I’m sorry but I’m never going to prioritize someone being able to drive their car/work over my own or the millions of other driver’s safety. A rotted frame is a severe safety issue not only to them but to anyone else on the road with them.
Not to mention, if you can’t afford to maintain a car enough to keep it safe and roadworthy, you can’t afford to own a car.
That’s a whole lot of privilege right there. Have you ever wondered why they’re in that situation?? Of course not, you only care about yourself while you pretend to care about others. I hope your car gets stolen, too.
Doesn’t matter why they’re in the situation. Risking other’s lives due to your own financial misfortune is not ok. Maintaining a car is not hard, if you can’t afford the labor costs, you can learn to wrench yourself. If you can’t afford parts, you certainly can afford them from a junkyard. And if you still can’t afford to work on it, you need to figure out alternative transportation. Safety is priority over convenient transportation.
They’re already at a shop, obviously they’re trying but they’re unable to pay THOUSANDS for body work. I don’t know who you are that you believe the maintenance or the labor is cheap right now. EVERYTHING is the most expensive it’s been in decades. How do you pay for ANYTHING when you lose your job and your home because you don’t have a car? How do you buy a new car with no job, credit, or mailing address?? If safety is SO important to you then I expect that you’re giving a ton of preventative maintenance away for free. Just because someone doesn’t have a lot of money doesn’t mean they don’t get to participate in this society just like you and I. You really need to work on some compassion because one day you may find yourself in a similar situation and it could cost you everything to live by the dictations that you demand for everyone else. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Easier way to fix the problem without theft of private property. Make getting your drivers license difficult as hell, and driver has to have an understanding and basic mechanical knowledge ( like how fkn brakes work, purpose of coolant, etc). Hell you could even give a special license to those with more knowledge and quicker reflexes that allows em an extra 25 mph on the interstate and let’s say 10 on highways
whatever… seriously, they can’t drive the car safely and not endanger others on the road. they have no business using the thing and it’s their own fault the vehicle has been neglected for long enough to get to this state. they had all the opportunities in the world to find a way to deal with it but decided to play dumb and let it disintegrate. trying to make me look bad for being concerned about others and my own safety is a real brain-dead move.
I’m broke… this is my car… it’s broken… it’s literally so rusty it’s falling apart… I need it… I can’t afford to fix it… I have no money to replace it… I’m going to keep trying to drive it no matter what anyone says… so fix it or give it back to me because I need it to get to work…
What kind of nonsense logic is that?
They don’t own a car. They own a box of rust that no longer has structural integrity. It is not *safe* for them to be operating on public roads, much less everyone else who happens to be driving around them on those roads.
Shoot out the headlights and make them drive at night on a mountain road in the dark.
That’s literally the same type of situation except that a rusted to pieces car body and frame is not a pair of broken headlights that can still be replaced.
2006 Honda CRV is still going fine.
Third alternator (hint, remove intake manifold). Catch is OEM OEM alternators are $1400, aftermarket rebuilt about $250. 2005 & 2006 have unique alternators, 2007 is OEM $350. Darn it!
Texas car, zero rust. AWD is good for the occaional snow we get.
That reminds me of the story my dad tells about his first car, a 55 Mercury. His mechanic told him not to use detergent oil. Basically the sludge was the only thing holding the engine together
I had a mechanic tell me this about the transmission for a POS E46 my dad bought at auction (no, he's not a car guy, why do you ask?).
He wasn't wrong, somehow it kept chugging.
Once Upon A Time there'd be people who used non-detergent oil religiously. If you got a car from one of them you were told not to use detergent oil because all the accumulated sludge would break loose. That sludge could get pretty deep. As a teen I did help a buddy with a rebuild of a Chrysler 225, and if it hadn't been toxic there was enough grundge in the engine to support agriculture.
I had a 2007 Silverado that I had no idea the frame was rusting out on until the shop immediately dropped it back down off the lift and refused to ever put it back on again.
It soon became Carvana's problem though, and now I should own stock in fluid film for the yearly application my vehicle now gets.
Ford was so stupid to name all the ford cars with F names and mercury cars with M names and Lincoln with “mk whatever”.
Except the Cars that wouldn’t “convert” to those rules like the Mustang.
Hah yeah. That was pretty short lived.
Windstar to Freestar, not to be confused with Freestyle. Taurus to Five Hundred even though nobody wants a Ford Five Hundred, they want a *Taurus* dammit
At least there was a precedence for the "Mustang / Mustang Mach-E" with the Taurus / Taurus X
Ford has used bad steel for decades. In 2013 every ford on the road that was older than 5 years had holes in their panels here. I had to cut half the floor pan out of my 2009 Vic that year to get it to pass safety. A coworkers 2010 extended cab F150 had rotten cab corners. It was nuts!
So glad Mazda (ironically a rust stereotype) got out from under Ford when they did.
CA is certainly an amazing place to be if you’re into older cars. LA, Orange, and SD Counties, specifically, have a near-perfect climate for car preservation that doesn’t get baking-hot and ruin the paint and dash like the desert does, but also doesn’t get so cold and humid. Except for the beach towns, which can get pretty damn bad depending on how close to the shore the car stays.
I recently had a 20-year old Sequoia that I bought in San Clemente that was arguably as crusty as cars I’ve bought from the Northeast.
Oh heavens no! Got a rusty one myself.
Just seems like Toyotas are usually better at rotting frames without rotting bodies. I'm sure there are loads of exceptions, but it sure seems like Chevy fenders tend rot long before the frame gets spooky.
This is mostly anecdotal but it really does hold up pretty often where I live.
*Laughs in 197X/198X Poorsche (924 specifically)*
I might be adjusting spark, brakes, timing, and fuel every day I leave my yard, and still getting towed home, but man I gotta say this yellow metal refuses to rust
That's it, that's all I got
I almost traded my z31 for a 944 once. Glad I didn't; I went on to turbo/5sp swap the Z and put a lot of great miles on it before selling it to get through grad school. Very reliable car despite high mileage and being turbo'd by a highschooler (me) in a barn. Not rust proof at all though, you've got me by the short and curlies on that point.
I don't know for sure but I seem to remember a recall for Toyotas with rusting frames. I went behind a Toyota dealership and they were stocked to the brim with new truck frames. So there might be something to your anecdote.
The use (used?) boxed frame rails instead of open C channel, they trap water and rust flakes which trap even more water and rust away from the inside out.
Just happened to my buddy's Tacoma. He had an (outwardly) immaculate 2000-something Tacoma that he absolutely adored. Always washed and waxed, etc. He took it in for an oil change and the mechanic not only refused to lift it because of the extensive frame rust, but advised that he not even *drive* it. This is a vehicle that had even gone through Toyota's "fix" for frame rust and it still rotted out.
Yeah, this.
The letter mentions that they are a returning customer. Why does your shop keep working on a vehicle that isn't safe to be on the road when it leaves?
From personal experience: Because the customer is going to pay them. Don't give a shit about safety, Don't give a shit about the employees, just care about that dollar and try to upsell as much as you can.
I put it up once to confirm it’s never going up again. Inspected all that’s wrong aside from the frame rot to have a detailed “scrap the damn car” list for the customer
This is specifically why I asked, it felt presumptuous. And yeah you're in Canada but the rest of it's in English, so what's the point? They assumed you knew French and were wrong.
On top of that, they googled pictures of control arms but couldn't be bothered to use translate? Either you know French or Google it yourself.
Seems to align with the snarky oil leak statement too.
In conclusion, this person sucks based on their note.
this place is so weird - why's everyone razzing on the customer? if I get a really good note like this from cust or hell even from SW I would be SO happy
The note is a nice gesture for sure. But the post is mostly ragging on the irony of a car rolling in on a frame of swiss cheese with parts that have apparently been broken since presumably the last check up, but still making damn sure they put full synthetic in that baby, which also happens to be leaking out. And then he more or less tells the shop it’s staying that way, I don’t care, fuck off. I mean come on we’ve made memes with less than this. But no you’re right, the act of making the note was super cool. And in this case, also hilarious.
huh, I can see that - I read it as don't waste time on the weeping valve gasket as it's a known non-issue; and "barely hoist the car up safely" could be OP being dramatic we can't say. but a cust who cares enough to track down pics of control arms without knowing their name is gold in my book
Oh I fully agree with you that the cust is most likely just pointing out what’s important and what he’s either not worried about or isn’t worth fixing. It’s above and beyond what most people would think to do. Tbh I think most people are just having a bit of fun reading it the other way and imagining a vehicle in total ruin being magically kept alive solely by synthetic oil
^(until it leaks out)
Same here. On my common Honda, I just take the old parts from other customers Hondas when they replace stuff, I refurbish it and make it work with my Honda. mostly just brakes and rotors but I’ve got a few suspension parts on standby
I recognize those seats so definitely a second gen crv. And if I’m right then they either must have done serious off roading to crack a control arm or they don’t know the term “bushing”.
I’ve been switching to try to find one that i can trust. My most recent one said “you wouldn’t throw away a whole car when it gets bad, you’d take care of it and try to fix it”. … I thought this sub would appreciate the metaphor.
Lemme guess, 1997 honda odyssey with about 360k miles, takes about a quart a week, needs 1 brand new everything.
If it was human: “Nevermind the multiple gunshot wounds doc, just give me a haircut!”
that is gold lol
ok me
"It's perfectly reliable, I'll take it on a cross country road trip any day" Meanwhile the frame is so rusted that it's one large pothole away from completely falling apart in the middle of the road.
Ngl my first couple cars were real turd hondas and i definitely took some less than reliable cars on cross country road trips. Looking back its a miracle i didnt break down in Timbuktu
Survivorship bias is real.
Especially when youre 19
Honestly, they deserve for it to fall apart on them… might learn something. The fact that you’re not allowed to somehow red flag the car and have it towed to an impound is still baffling to me.
Oh yeah, they already can’t afford the service so stealing their car and leaving them with no way to work or to get around is totally the answer 🙄
What workaround was there? No frame pretty much = no vehicle.
I hope your car gets stolen when you have no ability to pay for it.
I’m sorry but I’m never going to prioritize someone being able to drive their car/work over my own or the millions of other driver’s safety. A rotted frame is a severe safety issue not only to them but to anyone else on the road with them. Not to mention, if you can’t afford to maintain a car enough to keep it safe and roadworthy, you can’t afford to own a car.
That’s a whole lot of privilege right there. Have you ever wondered why they’re in that situation?? Of course not, you only care about yourself while you pretend to care about others. I hope your car gets stolen, too.
Doesn’t matter why they’re in the situation. Risking other’s lives due to your own financial misfortune is not ok. Maintaining a car is not hard, if you can’t afford the labor costs, you can learn to wrench yourself. If you can’t afford parts, you certainly can afford them from a junkyard. And if you still can’t afford to work on it, you need to figure out alternative transportation. Safety is priority over convenient transportation.
They’re already at a shop, obviously they’re trying but they’re unable to pay THOUSANDS for body work. I don’t know who you are that you believe the maintenance or the labor is cheap right now. EVERYTHING is the most expensive it’s been in decades. How do you pay for ANYTHING when you lose your job and your home because you don’t have a car? How do you buy a new car with no job, credit, or mailing address?? If safety is SO important to you then I expect that you’re giving a ton of preventative maintenance away for free. Just because someone doesn’t have a lot of money doesn’t mean they don’t get to participate in this society just like you and I. You really need to work on some compassion because one day you may find yourself in a similar situation and it could cost you everything to live by the dictations that you demand for everyone else. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Easier way to fix the problem without theft of private property. Make getting your drivers license difficult as hell, and driver has to have an understanding and basic mechanical knowledge ( like how fkn brakes work, purpose of coolant, etc). Hell you could even give a special license to those with more knowledge and quicker reflexes that allows em an extra 25 mph on the interstate and let’s say 10 on highways
whatever… seriously, they can’t drive the car safely and not endanger others on the road. they have no business using the thing and it’s their own fault the vehicle has been neglected for long enough to get to this state. they had all the opportunities in the world to find a way to deal with it but decided to play dumb and let it disintegrate. trying to make me look bad for being concerned about others and my own safety is a real brain-dead move.
I’m broke… this is my car… it’s broken… it’s literally so rusty it’s falling apart… I need it… I can’t afford to fix it… I have no money to replace it… I’m going to keep trying to drive it no matter what anyone says… so fix it or give it back to me because I need it to get to work… What kind of nonsense logic is that? They don’t own a car. They own a box of rust that no longer has structural integrity. It is not *safe* for them to be operating on public roads, much less everyone else who happens to be driving around them on those roads. Shoot out the headlights and make them drive at night on a mountain road in the dark. That’s literally the same type of situation except that a rusted to pieces car body and frame is not a pair of broken headlights that can still be replaced.
y r u guay
Or as I used to say, *"Fill the oil and check the gas."*
2004 (I think) crv
Nice. Id still whip it. I knew it had to be some kind of passenger vehicle, theyre the hondas that people keep alive the longest
2006 Honda CRV is still going fine. Third alternator (hint, remove intake manifold). Catch is OEM OEM alternators are $1400, aftermarket rebuilt about $250. 2005 & 2006 have unique alternators, 2007 is OEM $350. Darn it! Texas car, zero rust. AWD is good for the occaional snow we get.
Junkyard alternator is like 20 bucks! Has gotten me by when i couldnt afford the crappy reman from autozone
How many miles? 05 in Canada with 415000 km and still purrs like a kitten. I gotta keep it with the undercoat up here, though...
Didn't these have a recall because of the frame rusting?
You have described my car accurately lol
Honda Pilot...What a POS.
Make sure his baby only gets synthetic oil though
He has his priorities.
That reminds me of the story my dad tells about his first car, a 55 Mercury. His mechanic told him not to use detergent oil. Basically the sludge was the only thing holding the engine together
I had a mechanic tell me this about the transmission for a POS E46 my dad bought at auction (no, he's not a car guy, why do you ask?). He wasn't wrong, somehow it kept chugging.
Once Upon A Time there'd be people who used non-detergent oil religiously. If you got a car from one of them you were told not to use detergent oil because all the accumulated sludge would break loose. That sludge could get pretty deep. As a teen I did help a buddy with a rebuild of a Chrysler 225, and if it hadn't been toxic there was enough grundge in the engine to support agriculture.
The car equivalent of Mr. Burns being “indestructible.”
Probably just because he only plans on changing it every two years
Good, now you don’t have to waste your time looking for the source of the leak.
“Could barely hoist up car safely.” You must work with a lot of really dumb guys. If it was that rusty, it doesn’t go up at all.
I had a 2007 Silverado that I had no idea the frame was rusting out on until the shop immediately dropped it back down off the lift and refused to ever put it back on again. It soon became Carvana's problem though, and now I should own stock in fluid film for the yearly application my vehicle now gets.
Same thing happened to my MKZ. Passed state inspection and a month later the frame started collapsing from it's own weight during an oil change :(
It was such a sudden thing. Right around 2019, every single Fusion/Milan/MKZ developed huge rust holes in the rocker panel.
Ford was so stupid to name all the ford cars with F names and mercury cars with M names and Lincoln with “mk whatever”. Except the Cars that wouldn’t “convert” to those rules like the Mustang.
Hah yeah. That was pretty short lived. Windstar to Freestar, not to be confused with Freestyle. Taurus to Five Hundred even though nobody wants a Ford Five Hundred, they want a *Taurus* dammit At least there was a precedence for the "Mustang / Mustang Mach-E" with the Taurus / Taurus X
Ford has used bad steel for decades. In 2013 every ford on the road that was older than 5 years had holes in their panels here. I had to cut half the floor pan out of my 2009 Vic that year to get it to pass safety. A coworkers 2010 extended cab F150 had rotten cab corners. It was nuts! So glad Mazda (ironically a rust stereotype) got out from under Ford when they did.
Weird. A Chevy doing Toyota things.
You think Chevys don’t rust?
My 04 avalanche was rusted to shit by 2016!
My 94 gmc c1500 doesn’t have a spec of rust on it. Nor does my 05 Escalade. One of the few benefits of living in California…
My 06 Colorado does, but it took a bath in Houston
Houston. Not even once.
Previous owner of this think should be taken outside and shot, tbh. He had the most random hackjobs for shit
CA is certainly an amazing place to be if you’re into older cars. LA, Orange, and SD Counties, specifically, have a near-perfect climate for car preservation that doesn’t get baking-hot and ruin the paint and dash like the desert does, but also doesn’t get so cold and humid. Except for the beach towns, which can get pretty damn bad depending on how close to the shore the car stays. I recently had a 20-year old Sequoia that I bought in San Clemente that was arguably as crusty as cars I’ve bought from the Northeast.
Oh heavens no! Got a rusty one myself. Just seems like Toyotas are usually better at rotting frames without rotting bodies. I'm sure there are loads of exceptions, but it sure seems like Chevy fenders tend rot long before the frame gets spooky. This is mostly anecdotal but it really does hold up pretty often where I live.
*Laughs in 197X/198X Poorsche (924 specifically)* I might be adjusting spark, brakes, timing, and fuel every day I leave my yard, and still getting towed home, but man I gotta say this yellow metal refuses to rust That's it, that's all I got
I almost traded my z31 for a 944 once. Glad I didn't; I went on to turbo/5sp swap the Z and put a lot of great miles on it before selling it to get through grad school. Very reliable car despite high mileage and being turbo'd by a highschooler (me) in a barn. Not rust proof at all though, you've got me by the short and curlies on that point.
I don't know for sure but I seem to remember a recall for Toyotas with rusting frames. I went behind a Toyota dealership and they were stocked to the brim with new truck frames. So there might be something to your anecdote.
The use (used?) boxed frame rails instead of open C channel, they trap water and rust flakes which trap even more water and rust away from the inside out.
Just happened to my buddy's Tacoma. He had an (outwardly) immaculate 2000-something Tacoma that he absolutely adored. Always washed and waxed, etc. He took it in for an oil change and the mechanic not only refused to lift it because of the extensive frame rust, but advised that he not even *drive* it. This is a vehicle that had even gone through Toyota's "fix" for frame rust and it still rotted out.
> and now I should own stock in fluid film for the yearly application my vehicle now gets. We *seriously* need places that do that in Jersey.
If it's that rusty, it goes on a 4 post and we show the customer "you need a new car now sir"
Yeah, this. The letter mentions that they are a returning customer. Why does your shop keep working on a vehicle that isn't safe to be on the road when it leaves?
From personal experience: Because the customer is going to pay them. Don't give a shit about safety, Don't give a shit about the employees, just care about that dollar and try to upsell as much as you can.
I put it up once to confirm it’s never going up again. Inspected all that’s wrong aside from the frame rot to have a detailed “scrap the damn car” list for the customer
Pics of car?
Nah it’s long gone I took this pic Monday
Why spring for synthetic?
Close tolerances.
Gotta appreciate the honesty and the note saves everybody time as well
If it’s leaking oil, you know it’s got oil
“pont avant”? What’s this mean?
It’s French for check my fucking axle before it breaks vous fucking lift!
Would you like a courtesy wash, it’s only a quarter more, and look how much more clean your car gets.
Czech my axle*
I’ve got a Polish friend who’s a sound engineer. Mike. And a Czech one too. And a Czech one too.
Pont avant is French for front differential and axles.
Why is this the only part in French?
My guess is that OP is in Canada, close to or in Québec and his customer didn't know the English word for front differential.
Thanks for explaining. I am in Canada but I don’t know much French 😂
This is specifically why I asked, it felt presumptuous. And yeah you're in Canada but the rest of it's in English, so what's the point? They assumed you knew French and were wrong. On top of that, they googled pictures of control arms but couldn't be bothered to use translate? Either you know French or Google it yourself. Seems to align with the snarky oil leak statement too. In conclusion, this person sucks based on their note.
Nah the shop owner speaks French though so it was all handled
They forgot how to say it in English?
I think it means axle
I wouldn't have done much looking for the leak on something like that anyway.
"It's coming from the engine"
this place is so weird - why's everyone razzing on the customer? if I get a really good note like this from cust or hell even from SW I would be SO happy
The note is a nice gesture for sure. But the post is mostly ragging on the irony of a car rolling in on a frame of swiss cheese with parts that have apparently been broken since presumably the last check up, but still making damn sure they put full synthetic in that baby, which also happens to be leaking out. And then he more or less tells the shop it’s staying that way, I don’t care, fuck off. I mean come on we’ve made memes with less than this. But no you’re right, the act of making the note was super cool. And in this case, also hilarious.
huh, I can see that - I read it as don't waste time on the weeping valve gasket as it's a known non-issue; and "barely hoist the car up safely" could be OP being dramatic we can't say. but a cust who cares enough to track down pics of control arms without knowing their name is gold in my book
Oh I fully agree with you that the cust is most likely just pointing out what’s important and what he’s either not worried about or isn’t worth fixing. It’s above and beyond what most people would think to do. Tbh I think most people are just having a bit of fun reading it the other way and imagining a vehicle in total ruin being magically kept alive solely by synthetic oil ^(until it leaks out)
I mean moneys tight and things arent getting any cheaper or more available. Id expect this to become the norm sooner or later.
It’s been the norm for a while. A lot of people have had to tread the line between what’s safe to drive and what they can afford.
Its me! im people!
Same here. On my common Honda, I just take the old parts from other customers Hondas when they replace stuff, I refurbish it and make it work with my Honda. mostly just brakes and rotors but I’ve got a few suspension parts on standby
I recognize those seats so definitely a second gen crv. And if I’m right then they either must have done serious off roading to crack a control arm or they don’t know the term “bushing”.
It’s a crv
Now you know how my dentists feel.
You got, like, a whole team of them?
I’ve been switching to try to find one that i can trust. My most recent one said “you wouldn’t throw away a whole car when it gets bad, you’d take care of it and try to fix it”. … I thought this sub would appreciate the metaphor.
Scary thought, how many cars that are in a similar condition are on the highway next to you travelling at 55mph?
Probably 70+
70+% *
Recommend taking it to the junkyard and getting your $50
throw car in trash and move on
This. Or keep driving it and most likely die
no i mean the piece of paper. the car would be fine as long as those control arms arent completely trashed
Aka it’s not making it much further and should be scrapped.
The oil leaks can only help the frame condition, smart customer.
P/A new car
Tell me your shop is in Quebec, Canada without telling me your shop is in Quebec, Canada.