This reminds me of the case of the 500 mile email:
Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
81–90 of 517 posts
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#82The president of Pontiac got involved? An engineer spent multiple days on the problem? X doubt
Ford has been known to send corp engineers to dealerships to help diagnose and resolve recurring issues in specific vehicles (has happened to a coworker of mine, and the engineer did end up fixing the issue!) -- I wouldn't entirely doubt.
My mother has a Jeep Patriot with a water leak where it kept getting into the ceiling lights, drip on the interior, or on the driver even.
After 3 or 4 trips across the county to the dealership she threatened to invoke the Lemon Law on the new vehicle and wouldn’t you know it, Jeep sent out an engineer to Beaufort, SC and he spent a week on this vehicle. Was fixed and never had a leak again.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#83So 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?
You don't think it's likely that the regular 5 minute stops were the first warning sign and most common time he restarted his car after a short interval? Especially vapor lock on a hot day when one is likely to buy ice cream? Maybe he would've noticed it in more places if it got worse. And since he was going for ice cream, he was unlikely to dawdle around waiting for the product to melt?
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there anything notable about the terrain at that point? A sharp turn, bumpy road, etc.
Long slow bend on completely flat road, 40mph. No braking or acceleration for a quarter mile each direction. The road is like that for miles with some lights, traffic circles, etc... Only warnings in one spot. I really didn't believe my wife, or thought maybe it was happening a few times when she made a regular trip like getting drive thru coffee and coming right back. But then we ran a bunch of errands all afternoon…
Is it a Subaru? Mine is currently doing that when I go through a long turn in a highway interchange. I'm sure I need to add fluid but it's on the edge where it only shows up when the force of gravity is pulling the remaining fluid a certain way.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#85This is a secondhand anecdote, but it’s pretty funny. Back in the days of server rooms, a friend’s server for his company would reboot every day around 5pm. They checked everything they possibly could with the OS, they would be logged in and running checks on it and it would spontaneously go offline for about 5 minutes and reboot every day. Finally they decided to go stand in the presence of the server around the tim…
Man I've heard this story so many times, this guy must have a million friends in a hundred countries he's told this story to. :-)
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#86> 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. ;-)
Have you ever given ice cream to young children? I was a picky eater as a kid, yet I still can't fathom why so many kids prefer vanilla over other flavors.
It's reasonably complex while not typically being overwhelming in my experience
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#87not related to cars but how improbable news can be true :
Martha Mitchell effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#88I miss Car Talk with "Click and Clack the Tappit Brothers". Not sure if this was on the show, but seems like it could have been. Definitely check it out if you enjoyed this anecdote.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#89[deleted]
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#90This reminds me of a GM minivan that my youngest brother-in-law drove, back in the '80's. He'd gotten it from his father, who was a career GM automotive engineer - and complained that, occasionally & randomly, it would not start. It seemed like the minivan's whole electrical system was dead... Brother-in-law was known to be "not so good" with cars - so his automotive engineer father didn't take the complaints serious…
Plenty of cars that intermittently won't turn on in this thread, but I once had a car that intermittently wouldn't turn off... or at least the headlights wouldn't. I assume a relay somewhere was overheating and that was making it stay closed, but I never debugged it, and nor could my cousin who was an auto mechanic. We never tried too hard, though: I would just take the fuse out if it happened and put it back the next morning.