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I Bought A Firetruck

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Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#81

Post by ChuckMcM »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #68
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

I've always thought that an old firetruck would make a much better RV conversion platform than an old bus. The reasoning is that a firetruck (especially a pumper truck) has a suspension that is designed to carry much more weight than a bus so you would not be as constrained in what you could build on top of it. Jay Leno did an excellent column about how amazing fire trucks are in terms of durability. The OP said that…

My bus/RV conversion weighs about 18 tons. It has 6 ton front axle and in the rear it has an 11 ton and an additional 6 or 8 ton axle. While a fire truck has a ridiculously strong suspension, if you used that for an RV, you would get a punishing amount of vibration and shaking. I guess you could ballast it, but you'll waste a lot of fuel hauling ballast around, in addition to being dangerously underpowered in some si…

That is a great point about the suspension. The water doesn't care about bumps. A bit of searching lead me to this interesting page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_apparatus which supports your thesis. Since a bus is designed for riding comfort much of the suspension work is geared to that. That is something I really hadn't thought enough about.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#82

Post by baddox »

carlob wrote: post #74
druiid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, it is a single firetruck, not a fleet of firetrucks being driven around to pick up groceries. If he were starting a trend, then yes perhaps this would be a-bad-thing. Instead, it's one guy fulfilling a lifelong dream. The gas mileage is going to be terrible and the emissions bad, but it's one firetruck.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

The maxim is simply "if you're really interested in fire trucks, and you can afford one, then you can buy one," and there's no problem with it becoming a "universal law," because very few people will be that interested in fire trucks.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#83

Post by jonknee »

fzzzy wrote: post #49
jeffdavis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wrote about their experiences travelling the world, would you make a similar criticism? After all, they are flying, which causes a lot of extra carbon emissions. Or is the fire truck particularly bad for some reason?

This is one thing that bugs me about complaints about the carbon emissions of cars. Planes cause far more carbon emissions, and they do it way up in the atmosphere where it seems plausible that it actually does more damage. It's a giant elephant in the room.

You can take steps to reduce carbon emissions in cars (smaller car, drive more efficiently, etc), but you can't with planes other than not flying. Luckily, it's in the best interest of airlines to reduce emissions since that means less jet fuel and more profits.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#84

Post by tyskis »

shocks wrote: post #54
rcfox wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gathered from a quick look at Wikipedia, probably the biggest factor is that diesel engines are best used for high-torque, low-speed applications.

This. In Sweden 90% of the cars are diesel because they need the high-torque and low-speed in the snow, plus Sweden is big and there's only 9 million of them so most journeys are pretty long.

The 90% number is not true. Although the percentage of diesel cars has gone up dramatically, it is not that high. In 2011 only 17% of cars were diesel driven[1]. During the first two months of 2013, 63% of new cars were diesel[2].

[1] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2011A01B/FORDON_2011_v... [2] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2013M02/Trafikanalys_1...

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#85

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

carlob wrote: post #30
rcfox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be slightly offset by the fact that it has a diesel engine. Not enough to make it equivalent to car, but it's something...

I've always wondered: why aren't there more diesel cars in the US?

Early on they earned a reputation for being expensive, slow, powerless, dirty, junk; thanks mostly to GM. GM for whatever reason, didn't want to invest much in a diesel engine, so they cobbled one together from gasoline engine plans, with different heads, crank, cams, etc. The engines were terrible, and it was a well known failure. Maybe it will be forgotten with the death or dementia of the last baby-boomer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_Diesel_engine

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/vintage-speed/top-...

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#86

Post by justincormack »

byroot wrote: post #73
sliverstorm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no complicated fascination . It is simple. People like big cars because they are spacious, feel safer, provide a higher vantage point, and a host of other reasons. Your hatchback is perfectly fine around town, but it can't tow a boat, and most people don't like to have multiple cars. So, what winds up happening is people buy the most car they think they will need. It's totally overkill driving to work, and pl…

> With the possible exception of people living in old cities whose roads are just too small. It's more the rule than the exception. European car makers have a specific car category named "City cars", big enough to host 4 to 5 people but as small as possible to be easy to park etc. Driving, and worse parking, an american sized SUV in europe is very painful. This is why he don't understand. American cities are modern a…

Or the smaller ones for 2 people...

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#87

Post by scott_s »

alan_cx wrote: post #72
Swizec wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I don't understand the american fascination with impractically fhuge cars for every day commuting. Okay I get it, you want a big car for that roadtrip or vacation. Understandable, I do too. But for everyday stuff? My hatchback does perfectly fine around town ... hell, it does perfectly well on most vacations and long drives too.

Im a European, well British anyway.... Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of trave…

"A Brit is someone who thinks 100 miles in a long distance, and an American is someone who thinks 100 years is a long time."

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#88

Post by courtewing »

alan_cx wrote: post #72
Swizec wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I don't understand the american fascination with impractically fhuge cars for every day commuting. Okay I get it, you want a big car for that roadtrip or vacation. Understandable, I do too. But for everyday stuff? My hatchback does perfectly fine around town ... hell, it does perfectly well on most vacations and long drives too.

Im a European, well British anyway.... Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of trave…

To give you some sense of how "local" 60 miles can be in the US, I live a more urban life style than most people in the US (although likely less than most people on this board), but I frequently drive 60 miles simply to have dinner with friends or family. We never considered that a hike, it's just a quick trip in the car.

Our 2005 Honda CRV is approaching 120,000 miles, and both myself and my fiancée telecommute.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#90

Post by chaz »

byroot wrote: post #73
sliverstorm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no complicated fascination . It is simple. People like big cars because they are spacious, feel safer, provide a higher vantage point, and a host of other reasons. Your hatchback is perfectly fine around town, but it can't tow a boat, and most people don't like to have multiple cars. So, what winds up happening is people buy the most car they think they will need. It's totally overkill driving to work, and pl…

> With the possible exception of people living in old cities whose roads are just too small. It's more the rule than the exception. European car makers have a specific car category named "City cars", big enough to host 4 to 5 people but as small as possible to be easy to park etc. Driving, and worse parking, an american sized SUV in europe is very painful. This is why he don't understand. American cities are modern a…

Combine that with a fairly sophisticated highway system that runs everywhere around the country, a post-war boom in car and suburban home ownership, and low cost of fuel, and it becomes imbued within the culture as the norm.
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