From what a transit bus fleet mechanic tells me, the longevity of this engine will depend on the quality of the overhaul job. A crappy overhaul means it might need another sooner than you’d want; say give or take 200,000 miles. A good overhaul? Chances are the engine will last longer than the next owner owns the thing. Read more
Mercedes Streeter
smart
Staff Writer at Jalopnik and learning pilot. Smart Fortwo (x4), Honda Beat, Suzuki Every, NovaBus RTS, VW Touareg V10, VW Phaeton, Passat TDI, Audi TT, Buell Lightning, Triumph Tiger, Genuine Stella..
With a wheelbase like that I bet it maneuvers around a city quite well!
Diesel here in rural-ish Illinois varies between 30 cents more expensive than regular and 30 cents cheaper. Right now it’s on the more expensive end. Read more
It looked awful, but it still did its job until the car found another way to kill itself. Heat and a sledge (albeit with the knuckle still on the car) was a step before our friend decided the only way out was with force.
Our reference for “good” is based on our experiences with trying to buy a used car from a dealership. Read more
I think she’s going to do just that, mostly out of principle at this point. lol We’re both happy it’s a “free” warranty and not one of those expensive ones that my parents keep paying for that offers the same level of non-service.
Oh, she loves junkers, too! :) Read more
Amusingly, SilverRock has also proven to be better than the factory warranties I had on two of my Smarts. Read more
Both the small shop and Pep Boys said that they don’t deal with hybrids. Read more
I’m concerned with the cost of flight training as well. The Air Force isn’t the pilot mill it used to be. I’m currently paying about $165/hr for training and even that gets really expensive That said, I’m on the side of getting lead out of planes. Read more
There were two cheaper ones that I could find. One had about 170k miles for $2k less and the other had under 100k miles, but a salvage title and a scary CarFax.
That may be worth a future thing if I can corral enough flight crews together. Perhaps nothing has really changed, just now everyone has a camera in their pocket and the government finally cares about it. Hmmm...
Deal! Shame it’s not in America. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a true death machine.
According to the FAA there are exponentially more unruly passengers now than the previous record, which was all the way back in 2003.
I think you did pretty well there! Even before these weird times I’ve seen them go for a lot more than that.
The skoolie was sold for my RTS. By that time, we had fixed skoolie’s electrical problems, fixed a blown brake line, and started removing seats. The school bus was fun, but there was no way I was missing out on a RTS. Read more
You’re actually not wrong! Lots of city and school buses come with “city gears” that limit top speeds. I’ve seen buses with top speeds as low as 45 mph. That makes sense, because the buses aren’t expected to ever leave a city. Read more
Good recommendation! Honestly, this would probably be one of his easier rescues. There are videos of him reviving buses that have been sitting for so many years that they’ve sunken into the ground. Buses that you’d think would never be on the road ever again. Read more
The only super niche case that I can think of is when you’re trying to quietly enter/leave a drive-in movie theater. But those are few nowadays and even GM’s early aughts default-on version could be temporarily turned off just for something like that.
Alright, I think I have to send him this thing now just for that video. :)