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Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

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Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#51

Post by jstanley »

joshmarinacci wrote: post #25
hinkley wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned a lot of things from my father. Unfortunately a lot of them were what not to do. Don’t buy cheap tools that you’ll have to replace three times in the lifespan of one that costs 50% more. And don’t buy GM. Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How? And the…

Why in the world did GM make a car with the name Citation? Are there any good connotations of that word?

Simple, it's so that every time someone reads "citation needed" on Wikipedia, it triggers the buy impulse.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#52

Post by yosser »

So this guy never ever restarted his car after a short interval except for when he bought vanilla ice cream? Additionally, he never varied the time intervals in the shop when he was buying aforementioned ice cream?

Is it is an understatement to suggest this is a highly unlikely circumstance?

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#53

Post by moffkalast »

doodpants wrote: post #28

> Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. Vanilla is the most popular flavor? That makes me skeptical of the whole story. ;-)

Given that it's become a synonym for 'conventional', I'm not sure why you'd be sceptical. It's the least common denominator flavour.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#54

Post by mondobe »

Aurornis wrote: post #10
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #4

The president of Pontiac got involved? An engineer spent multiple days on the problem? X doubt

It’s an engineering allegory, not a literal historic account. You’re supposed to learn from the engineer who diligently takes notes until they discover the obscure correlation that clues them in to the real problem. The true problem is not always what we assume it to be, but you can’t dismiss the existence of a problem because it seems unlikely. The included details of the narrative are deliberately fanciful to make…

It's a law in my family that no matter how many containers of ice cream we buy - or how large - they will always get eaten in the next 24 hours. So we end up doing the same thing (though not every day).

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#55

Post by legitster »

huehehue wrote: post #12

Oh man, I'm currently fighting a problem with a mid-70s coupe that's driving me equally batty. Randomly during longer trips, the car will just die for no discernible reason. It's the Car of Theseus at this point with how much I've replaced, but the issue persists, and the nature of these intermittent problems makes debugging a nightmare. More puzzling still that the car starts up fine after a short nap.

Assuming there are not a lot of electronics on a 70s car, this sounds like a fuel issue.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#56

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

huehehue wrote: post #12

Oh man, I'm currently fighting a problem with a mid-70s coupe that's driving me equally batty. Randomly during longer trips, the car will just die for no discernible reason. It's the Car of Theseus at this point with how much I've replaced, but the issue persists, and the nature of these intermittent problems makes debugging a nightmare. More puzzling still that the car starts up fine after a short nap.

I had a Toyota pickup that would die randomly, sometimes at highway speeds. Although in those cases, the engine would restart after a second so it felt like you hit a brick wall then kept going. A friend suggested a bad fuel pump. OK, replace the pump and filter (it was cheap and an easy R/R) but no change in behavior.

After a while, I correlated the problem to very high humidity: usually happened during heavy fog or rain. So, it's probably an ignition problem, right? Replace spark plugs. Nope. Distributor cap/rotor. Nope. High performance plug wires. Nope.

Drove me nuts for about two years. Then one day I'm in my garage looking for something and I move my timing light out of the way. Hmmm, didn't think about that...

After two years, problem turned out to be timing slightly out of spec. Fixed in five minutes!

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#57

Post by LanceH »

kybernetikos wrote: post #44
LanceH wrote: post #36

My wife's car right now is low on windshield wiper fluid. It warns us at a particular spot while we are driving. Not a particular distance from home, a specific geolocation. First thoughts were that it was the amount of time as she went to something and came back. But it does the on screen and audible warning at that location every time, no matter what was driven before that, whether it was 5 minutes, 5 miles, an hou…

Could be an incline is making the fluid level low at the sensor point at that location. Does it have an unusual incline in any axis?

Absolutely flat. There is a mild bend there, but nothing compared to corners and the traffic circle. For that matter, we can get out and drive all afternoon and it said nothing until that spot.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#59

Post by 5555624 »

doodpants wrote: post #28

> Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. Vanilla is the most popular flavor? That makes me skeptical of the whole story. ;-)

Vanilla consistently ranks as the most favorite ice cream flavor. A search for "most popular ice cream in the world" has as the top result: "According to statistics, vanilla ice cream is the most popular ice cream in the world. From the USA across to China, its appeal is universal."

An example of the top 21 flavors (in America): https://www.krqe.com/news-resources/ranking/the-21-most-popu...

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#60

Post by rawling »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #30
rawling wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we've come full circle, since I presume OP found this article linked from the comments on that one.

I'd actually read the story years and years ago, thus the poorly-remembered details. Total coincidence that it was posted here today. Unless someone here read one article and was inspired to post the other :)

Oh yeah, I didn't mean you!
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