Fifty150

It's just business. Nobody cares if they can make a buck. The owner of my local dealership drives a Corvette. And why not? He can afford it, and it's a nice car. A lot of companies that make aftermarket performance parts will ask for customers to volunteer their vehicles for testing. In most cases, the customer gets nothing in fiscal compensation. And at the end of testing, their vehicle is typically returned to stock, unless the manufacturer allows the customer to buy the product. Perhaps in a few rare cases, the customer is allowed to keep the product free of charge as compensation. But that would all depend on the item. If you were the guinea pig for performance parts, which may make your car better, you also take the chance of the performance part failing and doing damage to your car. And typically, at the end of the testing, they cannot by law allow you to keep the item, because it is not street legal yet. Once the manufacturer is done testing with your vehicle, they still have to obtain government approval to make and sell the item.....sometimes it's safety, other times it involves clean air regulations....but no, you cannot keep that exhaust system, super charger, underdrive pulley, intake, turbo, et cetera. Good luck with the marketing. I don't know how well you'll do with direct to end user sales, since a lot of people don't even want to change their own oil or paint their own house. Very few people will want to do that kind of an install on their own. You may have better luck with custom upfitters, showing it at car shows like SEMA, and looking for a nationwide distributor to do the selling for you, so that you can focus on producing the product.

That being said, and with all things being equal, there are more hot Asian girls in Asia.

Now let's get back to the good stuff. The part where we debate US to metric measurements, and conversions. Funny thing is that most Americans don't know that the American Gallon is different from the Imperial Gallon, so when we talk about gas prices per gallon, it could mean two entirely different units of measure. And of course, people in the US don't even know what the metric system is....... I measure anatomy with metric. Gives a bigger number to help boost my ego. 15 CM is better than 6".

The best part has to be the cold beer in that fridge.

Doc, I had a crab soup recently which wasn't even crab soup. Chicken consomme, garnished with cilantro. What made it crab soup was that it was served with steamed white asparagus, a saucer with salmon roe, and a whole garlic roasted, dungeness crab. You are suppose to crack the crab, and add the asparagus, salmon roe, crab butter, and crab meat to the soup yourself. You don't want to know what the restaurant charged for that. 5150

Glad to hear it's held up for about a week.

Doc, I guess it's life in The Big City, as they say. Larger metropolitan areas like NY, LA, SF, et cetera......people have a different idea of what is in their budget for disposable income, and are much more open to spending more on entertainment. The demand is here for luxury items. Part of your roe shortage could be due to a higher demand elsewhere. If only X amount of roe is produced and in existence, then it goes to the highest bidder. I was just talking to a friend of mine in the produce industry. He told me about how he is making a killing importing South American produce from Chile, Peru, Argentina, et cetera......and selling the produce in Japan & China where the super rich will pay a huge retail markup for imported, and sometimes smuggled, luxury items. Even a pack of American cigarettes, authentic by an American Tax Stamp, in the shirt pocket of a visiting American, can be sold for up to $20 US Dollars. Imagine how much of our soft shell crab is exported to Japan. In Asia, US chicken & eggs are coveted.....why? Bird Flu. Do you think the King of Thailand will take a chance on eating domestic fowl that may or may not be contaminated?

This sounds like a MythBusters episode.

In The US, we like everything bigger.

That is madness. 9600. Then 19200. Then 28800. Then 38400. I'm losing count. I'm losing my mind. I need a beer! Might as well let a shop with coupons change it, and put a little sticker on the windshield. That's like going on a date, and taking a girl to a restaurant that you clipped a coupon for.

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You've met my ugly girlfriend?

That fold flat seat is one of my favorite features. I love driving around with the front seat and second row folded. Anyone who wants a ride has to climb all the way back into the 3rd row.

Are you guys doing this at home? Or using a shop with a machine? I haven't played with my tranny yet In the old cars that I own, my pickup & my Honda, I used a "homebrew" technique. Drain pan from drain plug. Fill from dipstick tube or fill port. Disconnect cooling line and allow fluid to run into a bucket.. Turn on engine and run a few quarts out, turn off engine, add a few quarts to top off Repeat process until clean fluid flows through the cooling line, which lets me know that all dirty fluid has been pumped out. Reconnect cooling line. Check dipstick. Fill to proper level. Now I'm waiting for the heated automotive fluid debate to start on this forum. Every car forum has guys who love to argue conventional vs synthetic, brand vs brand, and even guys who will argue in favor of using something other than OEM oil weight. 0W20 vs factory fill of 5W20. RedLine vs Royal Purple vs Mobil1 vs Wal*Mart. Then we will have to cut open oil filters, and do oil analysis to compare shear metals. And don't forget to weigh in on oil change intervals. Do you wait for the light? Do you do it every 3 months? How about 5,000 miles?

In the days of yore and yesteryear, private fire companies were allowed to exist. Why? Out of necessity. Essentially, fire fighting was privatized. If you didn't pay your bill, they would stand by and watch your house burn down. On that note, police services were also privatized. To this day, in The City and County of San Francisco, we still have private police, who wear police department uniforms, carry police radios, drive police cars, and carry guns. But they only protect those who subscribe to their service. So if your store is getting robbed, and you are not a subscriber, don't expect that cop to do anything for you. We do have a municipal police force, who are responsible for protecting everybody. But the private police is allowed to exist, and carry on with the business of providing security for the privileged. So anybody who is wealthy enough to carry an extra $150,000+ per officer a year on payroll, can have a cop in uniform standing in front of his store. Banks subscribe. Construction companies have to have it. Nightclubs always pay for cops in a cruiser to sit in front of their club. Large retail stores and grocery chains will have a uniformed cop right at their front door. Not so unique. Even on the East Coast, you see "special police" officers in places like District of Columbia. Railroads are private, and you see railroad cops like Southern Pacific Police & Amtrak Police. During the industrial revolution, when we had large scale production, there were "factory police". Look around, and you'll see that ambulance crews are private. Large cities like NY, LA, & SF all have fire departments with ambulances and paramedics. In SF, medics used to be part of something called Department of Public Health. Maybe we should take a step back in time. Allow volunteer fire companies to incorporate, and charge a fee. Maybe if it isn't a subscription fee, where someone has to pay in order to receive service; there could be a service fee. Every time you fight a fire, send a bill, and make the homeowners insurance policy pay the bill. It makes sense to me. I had to pay The City $5,000 for an ambulance ride.....not out of my pocket, since insurance paid for most of it after I paid the deductible. But you guys should be allowed to set a fee schedule to offset cost. I guess it's only in large metropolitan areas where the citizenry accepts that their property is taxed for protective services. We're also taxed for education dollars, but that's another story. Or not. Every homeowner pays a property tax to fund the local school district, even the ones who do not have kids in school. Think you're not paying? You are. You pay rent, your landlord pays the tax with your rent.

Safelite wanted $225 to fill a rock chip. They suggested that I pay out of pocket, and file a claim for reimbursement from my insurance company. I found a local shop that did the job for about what you paid to have your chip filled. I've always heard that the shop materials were not the same as what you buy over the counter. Those $25 kits for windshield repair are simply not as good, in comparison to whatever they use in the glass shop. I don't know. Just what I have heard. What I do know, is that you end up making a big mess with those kits if you do not know what you're doing. One of my friends wound up with that compound all over the place, and no way to clean it off.

It makes you wonder. When you go to an auto parts store, you see on every wall, tons of product that is sold at a lower price when compared to OEM. Why would anyone want less than OEM quality parts? I can't imagine downgrading my brakes.......let me save $4, and installed brakes that don't stop as well. My dad always taught me to upgrade, and never downgrade. If you can get something that worked better, you do it. It's worth every extra penny to have better brakes. Do you save a few dollars on dating, and have the ugly girlfriend?

For what fire fighters are called upon to do, every fire fighter should be paid. And paid well. And provided with every state of the art piece of equipment needed. Fire fighters. Cops. Military. Medics. These people are our front line. They are the deciding factor in us being able to live in society. You simply can't have an unsupported volunteer force. For me, it would not be acceptable when my home burns down, and my family perishes in flames, because it would cost an extra $60 a year ($5 a month) on my property tax to have a paid fire department. Imagine if we had an all volunteer military. The Canadians would invade from the north, and we would be a Canadian territory. What if the volunteer ambulance crew had no training or equipment, and the best way to get you to a hospital was by 2 bicycles towing a wheelbarrow? Free OJ!

If cost is a concern, then you really need to do the math. What is the actual cost per mile? If you're saving any money, how much, and how long will it take to recuperate the initial investment into the conversion. I'm partial to the idea of less pollution. But it all comes with a cost. What is the environmental footprint of production and distribution of E85? Nobody with an electric car ever thinks about the pollution caused by producing all of those batteries, and how their electricity is produced. If an electric car or hybrid has the equivalent of 12 or more batteries, which eventually all become replaced after XXX years or miles of service, does that balance it out? Where does electricity come from? How is it made and delivered to your house?

This might sound stupid, but have you tried making friends with the crew at a local coffee shop? There's a cafe right across from the water. Whenever we go, we leave our keys with the girl behind the counter. The owner is cool with that. We get our beer & sandwiches from them. We support them, they support us.

Boomerweps, if you wanted to, you could remove your entire air box and intake assembly. Use an aftermarket intake air tube and a cone filter at the end. Drill out a spot and fabricate a mount of some sort for your intake air sensor. Or remove only the air box, keep the factory tube with the sensor attached, and cap it off with a cone filter. Instant cold air intake.

Your emergency management team does not have mobile showers? The fire department guys won't allow you to rinse off with the water in the fire engine? Just what I've seen around here. If anyone needs to wash anything off, or rinse off, like if you're covered in soot from a burning building, we just use a fire engine which is already hooked up to a hydrant, or carrying water. I guess in the urban environment, we worry more about things like pollutants, airborne pathogens, bodily fluids, and haz-mat chemicals. Yeah, the water is cold. But it's better than being covered in tear gas, pepper spray, or asbestos. Nobody in The City worries about being skunked. But I know some correctional guys who have had urine, vomit, blood, and feces thrown on them.

Probably just bikinis that they wouldn't need when they get back home to Siberia.

When I bought this car, I knew that I was not getting V8 power. But it does just fine for me on the hills in The Streets of San Francisco.

I think that you're onto something. My perspective is that you can make authentic crab soup. You do need to price it accordingly, and the customers in that price range will fall in line. I live in The City. We see it all the time. Who would pay $125 for a dry aged, slow roasted, prime rib cooked in a pan of salt? Full house, 7 days a week, make your reservations 6 weeks in advance, no walk-in seating. We have a local restaurant on the corner that does not have a menu, serves only garlic roasted crab, and the price varies depending upon pricing and availability. They call it "market rate", by the pound. So when carb is $15 per pound at the local grocery store, where I get coupons on the back of the receipt: the restaurant wants $45 per pound. A 3 pound crab is $135. What? triple the retail price? Crazy mark-up, right? Until you realize that a $20 bottle of wine at the local wine shop, is $60 on a restaurant wine list. A lot of restaurants try to keep food cost to about 20%. So a $20 entree has about $4 worth of chicken, pasta, & veggies. Think about that. That is a 5X markup. In the right market, with a good location, you could be the king of very expensive crab soup. Maybe a 2 crab soup. Crab soup loaded with a entire soft shell crab, topped with an entire female crab, with the crab butter and roe in the shell. Serve it with a salad made from locally sourced fresh vegetables, fresh baked bread, and home made butter. We make fresh butter all the time. I get a quart of whole cream from the local dairy, put it in my Cuisinart food processor, and I get a chunk of fresh butter and fresh buttermilk after about 15 minutes. Thicken your soup and add a richness to the flavor with that fresh buttermilk, or use it to bake biscuits. What would you need to do? Put about $20 worth of crab into each bowl, and charge $100? You can make your $10,000 a day with 100 bowls of soup.