I don't get it - would you would think you can hose out a consumer car like this, with the fabric seats and all that plastic trim? I've hosed out Land Rovers, but they're clearly an off-road vehicle designed for wading.
Hosing out a car under normal circumstances is insane. I recently worked on a Dodge 12V diesel 1994 truck. Removed all interior carpet and WIPED out all the nastiness and vacuumed up the bits etc. Got it down to the metal and really nice and clean. Then layered up on Dynamat in prep for installing a high-end sound system and got a great result.
Unless you've destroyed the vehicle anyway by dipping it in sea-water, don't hose out your car.
A really great check to do if you're buying used is to look under the driver's seat for rust. It indicates flooding. In the case of pickups, it means they either submerged it or used it as a mudder. Red flag. Walk away.
> A really great check to do if you're buying used is to look under the driver's seat for rust. It indicates flooding. In the case of pickups, it means they either submerged it or used it as a mudder. Red flag. Walk away.
which is probably what the parent post was addressing with how do you check this?
A bit of rust isn't anything to be scared of so long as you know it's there.
https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Toyota_Hilux#Indestructible_...
I love it though, it's really fun to drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk&list=PL81Jb1_MsN...
Part 3 with the 23-storey drop from a collapsing tower block is worth a watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Yy5P6FUes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBN3IuVCxl8
That said, it's generally good advice. You just chose one of the most overbuilt, reliable vehicles of all time - not great for generalizing to other cars.
Same way you measure any other high end consumer good: price
Top end gear is HEAVY.
I decided I’d at least try hosing everything down. PC, NAS, TV, headphones, you name it, it got hosed, and then left in the sun to dry. Mud and silt had filled most of it, and I’d little hope any of it would survive.
Turns out, bar two hard drives, everything survived. The TV had water trapped in the screen for a few months, but it dried without any residue or mark, and was perfectly usable while the thin film of water between the screen layers evaporated.
But the car was a write off. There was no going back from an engine full of silt, and 100% cooked electrics.
I'm pretty sure it was an issue of Wired in the early 2000s where I read about this futuristic new SUV from Honda with, among other clever details, "a floor you could hose down." It became an unofficial selling point for the Element, and I would imagine most people exposed to the meme never knew the vehicle was not in fact designed for such a use until they saw this blog post.
Among our friends, somehow the "hose down" talking point was common knowledge. This was maybe 16 years back, so I do not recall how we came to this idea.
They ended up buying a stickshift VW bug. Which they abused in many weird ways.
Destroyed a couple Honda Fits since the bug.
I know a few classes of car destroyers. Some of them get into serious crashes. Some of them are more persistently mildly abusive or inattentive and do a lot of cosmetic and cleanliness damage. One person I know does ultra marathoning and uses his car like a locker room, so it smells like a great multitude of new bacterial species. Another one does zero maintenance and runs things until they don't go, ignoring all the warning messages.
This extends to road conditions. Getting stuck on medians, taking a corner in the rain too fast. Not noticing a tree while parking. Not noticing brakes making horrible screaming sounds. Not noticing after weeks of screaming sounds that the car starts diving for the left lane.
My thinking is here that if your friend has ADHD, that naturally imposes a "don't want to develop focus on details because not interesting" <-> "unaware of details in everyday life because no developed subconscious awareness of them" problem.
Track and rally racing could neatly solve both sides of this status quo by merging them a la "oh no must learn to focus on details so as not to flip car and die". The idea would be to create a situation that is interesting enough to supercede the "I will treat this situation like a TV remote I have no idea how to use and push all the buttons on it until it works" instinct, by tuning the mental stimulus on the situation to correct for the inattentiveness threshold. A bit like putting music on to concentrate, just... faster. It's crazy enough it might work, *if* the caveats and risks can be managed.
Apparently race drivers have the lowest reflexes of any sport. That sounds both like a good skill to have if you're inattentive, and kind of mutually incompatible with inattentiveness in the first place (like if you're a race driver it would basically just kick the inattentiveness out the window to some extent).
Obviously this is a vErY bAd iDeA on its face, and would only be wise after some analysis of mental dysfunction and if this person was prepared to listen to everything the trained driver in the passenger seat was instructing them to do (in terms of pacing and learning and not simply just going "yay!" *floor accelerator*).
> if this person was prepared to listen to everything the trained driver in the passenger seat was instructing them to do
Not really his personality. Definitely a "figure it out yourself" type, and puts boundaries around the help and advice he asks for. Fiercely independent is I guess what you'd call it, definitely because of how he grew up (which I gather his family housed him, and fed him, but he mostly took care of himself emotionally).
Definitely one of the more interesting people I know. Incredibly brilliant and talented at certain things, and wayyyyyyyy behind the curve in other areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus
Zooming out into the abstract, it's interesting to observe the hazy relationship between ADHD and autism: https://web.archive.org/web/20220313151543/https://twitter.c... - this is IMO an (interesting) example of structural multitasking/executive function issues and not just generalized hand-wave obsession.
>> if this person was prepared to listen to everything the trained driver in the passenger seat was instructing them to do
> Not really his personality. Definitely a "figure it out yourself" type, and puts boundaries around the help and advice he asks for.
I have to admit I'm actually the same as this, due to a combination of learning difficulties and compounded negative experiences associated with getting things wrong. I still typically view tasks or opportunities in a very guarded way and tend to put a lot of conditions on things in an attempt to pin down the "win" state.
Hmm, the trained driver could instead demonstrate several possible ways the car could be flipped, in a (very relatively) controlled and safe way.
> Fiercely independent is I guess what you'd call it, definitely because of how he grew up (which I gather his family housed him, and fed him, but he mostly took care of himself emotionally).
I was wondering about the emotional availability thing, very good point. It's so annoying how learning difficulties can be compounded so exponentially by receiving the wrong input :(
--
In a total coincidence I just discovered https://old.reddit.com/r/StoriesAboutKevin earlier today - when I first stumbled on the Kevin concept some time ago (from the specific comment I linked) I had the fairly "haha so dumb" stereotype response, but reading so many stories in one place a deeper theme emerges around developmental balance and equilibrium. Half of these people are not hopeless lost causes but adequately-functioning people with a couple of mental health issues that just happen to cluster too closely around the "??!?!" end of the cognitive dissonance spectrum in ways that on first impression look like things a person should "just" have sorted out, and which are entirely the person's fault (with no consideration of circumstances etc) if they don't. It's a tad depressing this is a very nonscalable perspective I guess. I'd probably be a mid-range candidate for that subreddit myself ._.
But let me say: I would be surprised if he is. You probably have a mental image of how he speaks, and how he relates with people and it is probably wrong.
He is a very charming person, as well as incredibly good at reading people. In his native language (Japanese) he can charm the pants off of anyone. I liken it to anecdotes of how Bill Clinton can win over even bitter political opponents once they meet in person. I have never seen anything like it. He is still pretty charming in his other languages.
He can talk with a total stranger for just a few minutes and come away with something incredibly insightful about their character that I had never understood even knowing those people myself for years. His PhD is in Business Psychology.
But despite all this he is also kind of an obsessive loner driven by interests. As I say, he is one of the most interesting people I know.
> I am not clear if you are suggesting my friend is on the autism spectrum or not.
I actually have no particular leaning in either direction because I know I don't have enough data. Unfortunately this directly translated to me leaving the bit about autism hanging somewhat. I'm... not really sure how to "cross the T" in this instance actually.
> But let me say: I would be surprised if he is. You probably have a mental image of how he speaks, and how he relates with people and it is probably wrong.
Noted, and very interesting. (I incidentally have a giant void because I have no data.)
I think I vaguely understand what you mean - autistic people (particularly high-functioning types) tend to have a... very hard to describe oddity about their high-level presentation and carriage in general, the way they look at the world, their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, etc. Kind of a cross between executive dysphoria and the ("and now we close the tab :D") unsettlement I associate with trypophobia (fear of holes in things) - it's like a random bunch of things are either missing or developmentally short-circuited in a way that's both hard to pinpoint but can be just... off.
Some autistic people seem to be able to technically absolutely nail communication, and in the grand scheme of improbable things I might go "......?" about whether this person has autism to some extent, but practically speaking I see where you're coming from since autism is an incredibly fragmenting disorder and communication is basically the pinnacle of psychological and emotional expression and dexterity (for want of a better way to put it), and requires a rock-solid foundation of cohesion in order to, well, not wind up as the above ^.
So, one less thing to have to worry about I guess.
> He is a very charming person, as well as incredibly good at reading people. In his native language (Japanese) he can charm the pants off of anyone. I liken it to anecdotes of how Bill Clinton can win over even bitter political opponents once they meet in person. I have never seen anything like it. He is still pretty charming in his other languages.
I've always wanted to learn how to do that - try as I might to focus on harmony and cohesion I tend to get tangled up in semantics about behavioral minutiae and trip over my shadow (as it trips over itself). I don't have great attention span in this area ._.
> He can talk with a total stranger for just a few minutes and come away with something incredibly insightful about their character that I had never understood even knowing those people myself for years. His PhD is in Business Psychology.
Coooool.
> But despite all this he is also kind of an obsessive loner driven by interests. As I say, he is one of the most interesting people I know.
Hrm. I just remembered something I forgot about reading on here a while back... it's in The Bookmarks, somewhere, hopefully I can re-find it again one day lol. It was about a person who became a master at picking pockets in entertainment settings, who'd had an experience with some sort of coordinational disorder - perhaps something like polio, or a neurological issue - that was able to be rectified around 4-7, but required he basically re-learn how to walk and coordinate his limbs. Reflecting on the article at the time I wondered if having to concentrate on relearning proprioception, coordination and dexterity at pretty much the peak mental learning/integration period left him with a much higher-fidelity conscious mental map of how those normally-subconscious processes work internally, and paved the way to naturally hone a 10x level of proficiency and fluency in how humans move, where their focus and attention is, etc.
Generalizing this idea, on the one hand the mental early-development integration process is kind of an incredible feat of empathetic normalization and search for balance and equilibrium, on the other hand its function and operation is not at all immune to influence by constitutional and environmental context. Extrapolating off of the bits about emotional availability mentioned upthread, I wonder if there's any correlation between early impactful/formative experiences and the present-day balance of equilibrium and cohesion (psychology, charm and perception) on one side of the coin, and guarded and wary learning/possibly executive focus/trust on the other.
It's perhaps plausible to imagine a self-healing/rebalancing process that identified a need to take charge and internalized that from a certain perspective (eg, an early deep impression that being hyper-aware of, understanding and winning other people would drastically improve survival instincts) and maximized for that. Now I'm wondering (from a systems analysis perspective) whether the hyperfocus/loner perspective was a sort of flip-side of that emotional commitment (eg due to what might be described as paperclip maximization), or simply the byproduct of ADHD.
Huh. I'm not really sure where to go with this now :) on the one hand building accurate understandings of how the human mind develops and works is something I greatly appreciate the opportunity to pursue, on the other hand my empathy isn't used to the "screwdriver acquired" and "now the personality is in several pieces on the table" bit! That part's awkward.
I will start before the Bug:
Daewoo Nubira: Drove it until the brakes fell off. Among other oopsies.
VW Bug: Among about $5k in damage from various bad decisions, eventually somehow got T-Boned on his way to traffic safety school. (Too many speeding tickets) He literally rolled up to traffic safety school in a wrecked car.
Fit: I have asked a few times about the Honda fits. First time went like, "Hey is that the same Fit as before?" "No, shutup."
No longer driving a Fit. Not sure what he has.
It has been a colorful friendship.
I'd be stunned if they haven't injured someone yet.
I just don't get how "bad driver" is a haw-haw thing instead of a "what the hell wrong with you" thing.
Objectively speaking (in the interests of constructive assistance) I wonder if this person may be somewhere around "low but definitely non-zero" on the Kevin Spectrum (ad-hoc definition taken from https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/219w2o//cgbhkwp/). If relevant, my next thought is whether some degree of cognitive issues may run in the family.
I've noticed that one of the significant impacts of the developmental delays and perpetual catchup associated with my high-functioning autism has been a deeply-ingrained awareness of not just feeling "behind the curve" like I'm perpetually scrambling to keep up, but having hard evidence left right and center that I really am not simply Getting Gud.
If this person grew up in either a hostile environment that cultivated a belief that it was impossible to ever do anything right, or simply a situation devoid of leadership to the extent he was left going round in circles due to lack of (for want of a better way to say it) developmental autocue, I could totally see some really terrible social anxiety, self-loathing, social detachment, and compounded awkwardness and depression developing from that.
Getting traffic-jammed at the entry to a speedway that always seems too fast to merge onto, or stuck in front of a street curb with duckling legs that never grow to the point of scaling, can have an impact over the long term - The Show Must Go On, and staying relevant isn't really a question in the fight for survival, so the only really viable option is to hack it and pretend that everything mostly works.
Extrapolating this status quo and envisaging the worst-case-scenario end state, I'd imagine it would be like waking up one day and realizing the biggest themes in my life were a) the giant delta between how much I pretend to have sorted out and what I can really keep up with, b) how much I'm pretty much blindly depending on some circumstantial alignment to happen soon to provide some opportunity to catch up and maybe get some confidence, c) the terrifyingly disproportionate amount of calling life's bluff I'm doing on a regular basis and d) how much I have have to cram this stuff into the nearest can and sit on the lid in order to cope.
If the situation I was in resembled the above, attempting to discuss it (particularly considering (d)) would probably produce a reactive and shouty mess. It would be very difficult. But it could prove life-saving.
Nice little cars, I was looking at maybe purchasing one but unfortunately their "fame" got to them so that the latest generation/variant is a little over-priced compared to other models from the same class, or so it seems to me.
"The Element's rubber floors can be hosed down, ...."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=0BvVSP2ugU4C&lpg=PA47&dq=ho...
The floors as I recall were tough, rough, bumpy plastic very thick. It was obvious the intention of the vehicle with a flat rear floor in the rear of the vehicle was meant to be used to carry things not just people.
My buddy bought one and he would hose his out all the time.
"It's got kind of a wash-and-wear interior. You can kind of completely hose out the interior if you wanted to."
With that preface, I have recommended an Element to multiple acquaintances on account of (seemingly) being able to hose out the inside!
Whatever the root of this perceived 'capability', the dissemination of it was remarkably effective. If you asked me why I thought this, I would say that my recollection was that the official marketing campaign highlighted it as a feature.
I only wish I had spent more time driving it more interesting places, instead of to work in that wretched city.
Since then, I've moved to an island on the west coast. Roads are where the terrain allows, and nothing is straight or on a grid. Perfect!
MIATA
Is
Always
The
Answer
However, some car companies put control modules in the passenger footwell (like engine control modules, sometimes ABS or airbag controllers), so it's worth looking at a parts diagram or googling around first.
This is not an issue in some areas and dry climates as a rule but in the UK it sucks owning one.
I don’t own one now. I drive a little French go cart then I use my legs for off road. They last longer, don’t go rusty and run on dried fruit and sandwiches.
Part of me really wants to try it out once, though.
https://www.thrillist.com/cars/9-things-you-didn-t-know-abou...
Isn’t it the other way around? Aluminium has a lower reduction potential than iron, so the aluminium should be the first to go. Even lower than zinc, which uses the same mechanism in sacrificial anodes and galvanisation.
I once had the idea of attaching “sacrificing cathodes” made of iron to aluminium beverage cans to make them go away faster when discarded in the environment, but that just causes more problems than it solves, so it’s better stick with container deposit schemes.
Worked on a farm one time where one of the work trucks was literally a Ford F350 King Ranch edition. Super powerful vehicle, but the wood trim and leather seats were no help when you had just been on your hands and knees in mud and diesel fuel...
Creature comforts are great for family/touring cars, but they are a liability in extreme terrain.
My point is - I'd absolutely buy another highly specced, full of tech vehicle for offroading. Disco 3s were meant to be "catastrophic" in terms of electrical problems but I didn't really have many issues with mine. The only catastrophic thing about it is the insane fuel consumption(my long term average is 15L/100km, which actually at the current fuel prices is financially ruinous)
360 degree camera for maneuvering in tight spaces
110V outlet for charging tools
Sunroof you can stick your head out of to get a higher vantage point
Most of my tooling was petroleum, and I had no back problems. I will be the first to admit that maneuvers in tight spaces was definitely a learn by fire trial.
- Cab heating (keep warm when cold)
- engine block heater (start vehicle below -25C)
- windscreen wipers (clear snow/dust from windows)
- demister/deicer (quickly clear fog/ice from windows)
- air suspension seats (stop spine popping out of butt)
- Cab air-conditioning (keep cool when hot)
- cab air filtration (reduce chance of nasty lung conditions / death)
- power-steering (be able to turn without arms falling off)
- wet-braking (nice to have breaks when you need them)
- a handbrake that works (safely keep vehicle running while unmanned)
- multiple lockable diffs (you WILL get stuck in mud without these)
- multiple range gearing (go super slow without stalling and also go fast enough on highway)
- quick-reverse (switch from forwards to backwards quickly)
- reversing/positioning cameras (so you dont hit stuff you dont want to hit, and do hit stuff you want to hit)
- bluetooth entertainment system (podcasts, audiobooks)
- soundproofing (soooo loud otherwise)
- winch (get unstuck without waiting for help)
- CTIS (save about 20 mins a day solely adjusting tyre pressure from field/road)
I guess you could add safety equipment to that as well. Rollcage, multi-point harness, etc. Theres also the obvious stuff that you just need to do the job - tow hitches, 3-pt mounts, PTOs, etc.
I don't understand this attitude. Stripped bare also means you have less shit that can go right. Don't just do a cost analysis, do a cost/benefit analysis.
Better cab ergonomics leads to less driver fatigue, which leads to less accidents and therefore less downtime. Sometimes it actually pays off to have a higher maintenance workload, especially since most of it is planned downtime, or features that don't have fixed urgently. And sometimes this idea of radical simplicity only shifts maintenance workload from one component to another. One example that gets a lot of pushback in US trucking is steering trailer axles. They are indeed more "shit that can go wrong", but not having them and constantly dragging your tires means you're going to have to spend more time changing and re-treading your tires. Look at the whole system, not just one feature in isolation.
This is exactly why I have reached the conclusion that I have. The extras are not a considerable enough benefit in situations that I find myself in. Doing industrial work doesn't lead to the benefit of the extras.
It may be that those of us see this don't overvalue optional extras that have significantly less practical value than the marketing suggests.
In a truck used purely for recreation the stakes are pretty low. Being mildly uncomfortable to and from your fishing trip isn't realistically going to cost you anything financially, and your unpleasant memories of the drive will soon fade in favor of the pleasant memories of the fishing. And even if you are hauling colossal boat on a big multi-axle trailer, the tires are probably going to go bad from age long before you need to replace them due to wear.
But if you're maintaining a big fleet of work vehicles, the stakes are suddenly a lot higher, because everything you do is going to affect your bottom line. Poor cab ergonomics will affect people's entire workdays and workweeks, and will cost you in higher employee turnover, and higher delay, rework and accident rates. And fuel, tires and other wear items are also going to be huge items on your operating budget, so it would be foolish not to try to see what extras you can find to mitigate them.
Apparently not.
Page 32:
> WASHABLE INTERIOR Not only is the carpet weather resistant, but it can be removed to reveal drain plugs that, when opened, allow the floor to be easily hosed out. Standard.
https://mydigimag.rrd.com/publication/?co=US&pid=497&pc=J-JL...
After we finally got him winched out of the hole, all the water immediately drained out.
Don't get me started on the Cybertruck though, it really does look like a pole barn.
https://www.elementownersclub.com/threads/forbes-article-per...
in general i'd assuming hosing out a car is an awful idea, but if for some reason i had a dirty honda element, i'd probably hose it out.
I clean my van with a 5gal bucket of water and a mop.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯