Car lovers?

I'm completely confused. Even in my own personal experience, tire wear depends HEAVILY on what type of track and driving is going on. On my same car. With me driving.

Even a day spent driving Tail of the Dragon back and forth a few times can put more wear on brakes and tires than going autocrossing every other weekend for a summer.

I thought we were giving fair answers. I guess we weren't?

I'm out then. Sorry, tried to help as much as I could.

My experience with autocross is that you put more ware on the tires getting to and from the race than at the race. The one thing you have to watch out for with tall sidewall true stret tires is that they will roll over resulting in ware half way up the sidewall, and that will lead to mechanics thinking you have alignment problems. With rallyx I have always run gravel tires. My experience with those is that they can last 20-30 events easily which puts me at 2 to 3 full years around here. To be honest even that is an estimate because the only set I really wore out were well used when I got them. Many autocrossers also have dedicated competition tires too, even if they run "street tire" classes. I have anecdotally heard that serious national level competitive drivers will usually buy a new set shortly before the end of the season (when the national championship is) and run them through the next season. Since you seem to be looking for anecdote, I hope that is useful.

I ran "street tires" when I autocrossed and could usually get a set of dedicated competition street tires to last a whole season, unless I was doing more than one league or region. The tires I used were Falken Azenis, which was Falken's dedicated autocross tire, although I think it's called something different now. The wear rating on them is around 12,000 miles, but I think that's supposed to be under normal driving conditions. It's much less than that if you're doing an event every weekend for the whole summer. I never had a problem with the sidewall collapsing when I inflated them properly, but the wear across the whole tire would have the treads down to almost nothing by the end of the season.

As a hobbyist racer, I never had the urge to use R comps, so I can't say how a racing tire would wear. I believe the people who used those tires would go through a couple sets a season, and had to shave them every few events.

Evo wrote:

I ran "street tires" when I autocrossed and could usually get a set of dedicated competition street tires to last a whole season, unless I was doing more than one league or region. The tires I used were Falken Azenis, which was Falken's dedicated autocross tire, although I think it's called something different now. The wear rating on them is around 12,000 miles, but I think that's supposed to be under normal driving conditions. It's much less than that if you're doing an event every weekend for the whole summer. I never had a problem with the sidewall collapsing when I inflated them properly, but the wear across the whole tire would have the treads down to almost nothing by the end of the season.

As a hobbyist racer, I never had the urge to use R comps, so I can't say how a racing tire would wear. I believe the people who used those tires would go through a couple sets a season, and had to shave them every few events.

The sidewall coment was more about people taking a daily driver autocrossng on tires that were purchased without performence in mind. I got my mother to take her focus autocrossing on the tires that came from the dealer, and we put scuff marks half way up the sidewall with 45 or 50psi in them. My girlfriends corrolla did about the same. A performance oriented tire shouldn't have that problem, and certainly something like the Azenis that sas half way between a stret tire and a DOT competition tire shouldn't hve that issue. I just wanted to add it to the anecdote pile because it can happen with some cars and tires.

So yeah, I track my car. Hard. I run R-compound street tires. Tread wear rating of 60. Pretty much the softest tire you can run and still drive to the track legally. 710hp feeding all-wheel drive and NASCAR class brakes - Raybestos, if anyone's interested - on oversized rotors. My tires routinely get up to 190 - 200 degrees in a track session.

So pretty much worst case from a tire wear point of view.

A set of the Pirelli Trofeo R tires I use will last seven track days. That's with 2 - 3 hours of actual track time each track day. While I don't put many street miles on the tires, I'd guess they'd be good for at least 15,000. So a track day "costs" me ~2,000 street miles.

Before I changed to the Trofeos, I was using Michelin Pilot Super Sports. A very good "sports" tire. They have a tread wear rating of 300. When I switched over I'd put 5,000 miles on the tires along with 10 track days and there was still 50% of the tread left. So the track "cost" was a lot less.

One thing to note is that tire pressure is VERY important. Both for grip and wear. You should be aiming for a hot pressure that's no more than the recommended pressures (and probably 6 psi less) - you should check the pressures immediately after ending a session. Too high a pressure will mean the tire is over heating and wear will be very bad. As an example, I shoot for 36 psi hot and will start a day with pressures at 28 - 29 psi.

Thanks. That's what I was looking for.

Here;s

karmajay wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:

I go to pick up my new Candy White GTI tomorrow. It's certainly going to be a step up from my 10 year old stripped-down 2WD Ranger (manual windows for goodness sake!)

Cool! I was real interested in the 4door CW GTI before the Focus ST came out. I even liked the Detroit wheels (or at least they grew on me after looking at them so often!)

Can't wait to see some pics.

I'll try to find some time to take some decent shots. This one has the 18" Laguna wheels. The Focus ST is nice but there is something about German handling and design that draws me in. And most of the time the extra power of the ST would just be going to waste.

cheeba wrote:

IMAGE(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/xgReZr3Q4jnP75ImCeiTBA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/blogs/motoramic/131018085952-lamborghini-veneno2-roadster-620xa.jpg)

IMAGE(http://gifs.gifbin.com/042009/1239788892_jizz-in-my-pants.gif)

What is that car, cheeba?

I think it's either a new Lambo, or a Lambo concept.

Lambo Veneno Roadster. Here's the original Veneno, of which like 4 were made (it's in the article I linked).
IMAGE(http://o.aolcdn.com/os/autos/photos/20130304_lamborghini-veneno_612m.jpg)

And now they're going to make 9 of those Roadsters, for an estimated $5.4 mil each.

Sorry, cheeba. I missed your link, due to having girly wood over that car.

That thing is uglier than the Gumpert.

cheeba wrote:

Lambo Veneno Roadster. Here's the original Veneno, of which like 4 were made (it's in the article I linked).
IMAGE(http://o.aolcdn.com/os/autos/photos/20130304_lamborghini-veneno_612m.jpg)

And now they're going to make 9 of those Roadsters, for an estimated $5.4 mil each.

I'm just going to go ahead and submit this to Roberts Space Industry's 'The Next Great Starship' design competition. No modifications should be necessary.

I'm hoping the Veneno styling trickles down to the rest of the Lambo range like the Reventon's did. I'd like to see that on the Gallardo replacement and the Aventador facelift.

I double post for Lamborghini!

It wouldn't be right if I didn't post a video of my fast lap from a track weekend. Here you go - Sonoma (aka Infineon aka Sears Point) Raceway.

Car people, I need your opinions.

Sadly I know nothing of cars and mine broke down yesterday. I ended up paying quite a bit and I'm wondering how honest my mechanic is. I took the car in because the check engine light came on and the car sounded really weird when I started it, while it was idle, and it had less power when accelerating.

The mechanic said the ignition coils, wires and spark plugs needed to be replaced and that the car needed a fuel system tuneup. Did I get talked into an unnecessary tuneup? Do the prices below seem reasonable?

IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3723/10475690845_52aa00340b_b.jpg)

Well, his parts markup is pretty high. He's charging you 35 bucks a plug. So he's overchaging the f*ck out of you on those. If he's getting them from Autozone or Advance, his price is gonna be 3 or 4 bucks per plug, or in other words less than 20 bucks for all four. So he's a massive douchebag in that regard. That's for iridium plugs, btw. As for the rest of it, here's about how it would have been written up at the shop I worked out for a while:

Plugs: $25 or so for all four
Wires: $60 for a set of plug wires
Ignition Coils: 1132: $75
1133: $80

So that's what, two hundred bucks in parts? You could literally walk into Autozone and pay those prices(tax included going by your not quite 7% tax rate) for everything he's charging you for. His labor rate doesn't seem too unreasonable; book hours for all of that is 2 or 3 hours, which is about what he's got listed(his labor rate looks to be 60 or 70 per hour). Sadly, that's the only reasonable thing about this guy.

As for the necessity of it, without having heard it run or knowing what codes he pulled, I really couldn't tell you. If you've never had a tune up done(replace plugs/wires/coils) then you're certainly due for all of that, and from the sound of things your PCM was in limp home mode(reduced power available), which is a strong indicator that one of those components replaced was bad. As for the fuel system treatment, you could have certainly skipped it(I would have at that price) and picked up a bottle of Lucas and run that through your fuel tank to get a similar result for something like 6 bucks.

TL;DR: mechanic is kind of a dick, although he has good labor rates.

Yeah those spark plugs are a Female Doggo. But then he charges you a pretty reasonable price for the wiper blades.

"Fuel system tuneup" is kind of a red flag for me. Anytime a mechanic tells me I need anything like that I'm suspicious. But it is a 2001 and if you haven't had it done before it's probably a good thing overall.

cheeba wrote:

Yeah those spark plugs are a Female Doggo. But then he charges you a pretty reasonable price for the wiper blades.

"Fuel system tuneup" is kind of a red flag for me. Anytime a mechanic tells me I need anything like that I'm suspicious. But it is a 2001 and if you haven't had it done before it's probably a good thing overall.

It's a legit thing. Over time, burning gas can cause a lot of carbon build up; typicallly this'll affect fuel injectors and the EGR valve(exhaust gas recirculation system). In both cases, running a fuel system treatment can clear this up to some extent. Lucas(which I mentioned) is a particular favorite as it's super easy to use; just dump a bottle into the gas tank. Seafoam is also good, and can be run through the vacuum system(this'll do better with the injectors as well as helping clean up the egr valve, which runs on vacuum). But on the whole, you're right in that it's not something that a really good mechanic will recommend, let alone charge $150 for.

Yeah I understand the need to keep fuel injectors clean (I have to do this on my car pretty often). But as you said that usually requires simply dumping a cheap bottle of cleaner in the gas tank.

Something to think about.... I have about 8 years of dealership experience, 90% of the dealers use product called B&G fuel induction cleaner... the service costs about 150 dollars, it consists of 3 cans, fuel injector cleaner (which we install into the fuel rail and run the car strictly on it) then induction cleaner, which gets run thru a sprayer that goes right infront of the throttle body, this spray does Amazing work... I had doubts about it at first but it really works, I have seen manifolds completely black before the service look brand new after words inside... and the last can works like Lucas where you just dump it in your tank....

just my 2 cents It could have been that... he also could have been a dumb dumb and bought plugs from a dealer at customer cost.... and then marked them up...

edit: I also have serious doubts on any injector cleaner that you just dump in your tank.... GM has their own special cleaner that they use which you run injectors on directly with car pump shut off, its similar to BG but WAY more concentrated as you use 25 oz per half a gallon of gas its also WAY more expensive.

Yup, what others said. You can go directly to Advanced Auto's website and look the parts up yourself. $5 plugs, $80 1132 coil.

Fastmav347 wrote:

Something to think about.... I have about 8 years of dealership experience, 90% of the dealers use product called B&G fuel induction cleaner... the service costs about 150 dollars, it consists of 3 cans, fuel injector cleaner (which we install into the fuel rail and run the car strictly on it) then induction cleaner, which gets run thru a sprayer that goes right infront of the throttle body, this spray does Amazing work... I had doubts about it at first but it really works, I have seen manifolds completely black before the service look brand new after words inside... and the last can works like Lucas where you just dump it in your tank....

just my 2 cents It could have been that... he also could have been a dumb dumb and bought plugs from a dealer at customer cost.... and then marked them up...

edit: I also have serious doubts on any injector cleaner that you just dump in your tank.... GM has their own special cleaner that they use which you run injectors on directly with car pump shut off, its similar to BG but WAY more concentrated as you use 25 oz per half a gallon of gas its also WAY more expensive.

I'm familiar with products similar to B&G; they're fantastic, but $150 for those types of products are insane. The kits usually run $40 or so, and book labor to do the work is like 45 minutes. Charging out the nose doesn't equate to it costing out the nose; it's pure markup, both in parts(dealer markup on this is insane; I've never seen a dealer mark up any parts less than double cost.) and labor.

As for the price on plugs, even NGK Double Plat spark plugs aren't going to cost 35 bucks a shot. Walkout price from a parts house is $14 bucks or so, and again, even for a smaller shop, a dealer based parts shop is going to cut a discount, usually somewhere inbetween customer list price and wholesale price. Seen it done a number of times. That said, Tires Plus is in the same vein as Firestone or Goodyear; they're not buying anything from a dealer unless a parts house(like Advance/Autozone/O'Reilly's) can't get it, and even with the lower volume of parts they're buying, they're still getting a hell of a deal on them.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Yup, what others said. You can go directly to Advanced Auto's website and look the parts up yourself. $5 plugs, $80 1132 coil.

I actually prefer Autozone or Pep boys to Advance, but I'm super biased in the case of the former(my wife is a manager at the Zone) and I grew up shopping the latter(the one my old man and I shopped at growing up had crate engines in stock!).

AnimeJ wrote:

I actually prefer Autozone or Pep boys to Advance, but I'm super biased in the case of the former(my wife is a manager at the Zone) and I grew up shopping the latter(the one my old man and I shopped at growing up had crate engines in stock!).

Advance is more get your parts and actually needed stuff around here, while the couple 'zones I've been in felt like cosmetic tuner shops. I actually usually end up at Napa, partly because they're like half a mile from my house and easier to get to, and also because I've heard good things about their filters.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:

I actually prefer Autozone or Pep boys to Advance, but I'm super biased in the case of the former(my wife is a manager at the Zone) and I grew up shopping the latter(the one my old man and I shopped at growing up had crate engines in stock!).

Advance is more get your parts and actually needed stuff around here, while the couple 'zones I've been in felt like cosmetic tuner shops. I actually usually end up at Napa, partly because they're like half a mile from my house and easier to get to, and also because I've heard good things about their filters.

Napa around here went out of business; their parts are all over priced and they were pulling some pretty shady sh*t with cheating ASE certs for employees.

As for Advance, the local one isn't much better; I think the entire staff of the one here has been turned over *twice* in the last year or two, on top of them losing their entire commercial account base to the Autozone my wife used to work at(she was transferred to the hub store). So even if you take her employee discount out of the equation, the Autozones here are just head and shoulders above everyone else.

I prefer advance or oreilley over pep zones...

It's so odd that it's so different here. Sure would be nice if a franchise could be the same everywhere you go. You know, like the reason why franchises exist.

Also, stock has been hit and miss between random bits at both Advance and Napa. Once, Advance was out of BR8ES spark plugs (2 stroke plugs for my and many other jetskis - and other small motors apparently) and Napa had them. Another time Advance had the T70 torx bit (Transaxle drain plug on the impreza) that nowhere else had, and Napa said they couldn't even order it for me.