Foto, notizie, video curiosi di Auto - [NB. NO violenza, NO tragedie, ecc...]

[TONI]

giuro che avrei scommesso qualsiasi cosa che avrebbero ceduto le assi : incredibile

[Nicola_P]

[Guest EC2277]

giuro che avrei scommesso qualsiasi cosa che avrebbero ceduto le assi : incredibile

Stai tranquillo che hanno ceduto. Magari non quel giorno, magari non con quel traghetto, magari non sotto quel veicolo, ma hanno ceduto ed il conducente non era contento.

Non si sfugge alla fisica e nemmeno all'idiozia.

[Wilhem275]

Lo riporto qua perché mi ha fatto schiattare

Non so quale delle due vorrei ma questo video è fantastico (i lingotti nel cofano della Maybach sono il top assoluto )

Da vedere tutto, soprattutto il crescendo nei titoli di coda

[KALEL]

[AleMcGir]

[ISO-8707]

I Raced My Hummer On An Actual Race Track

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A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from a racing instructor named Ron, asking if I wanted to get some track time in my Nissan Skyline GT-R. So I pondered Ron’s question for several minutes, and I really thought about it, and then a light bulb went off in my head. And this is how I ended up on a race track with a 7,000-pound military vehicle designed to support a machine gun turret.

You’d know all about my Hummer track day if you followed me on Twitter, because I’ve beenexcitedly posting pictures all week that show my Hummer with a bunch of race-prepped track cars. But here, today, I’m going to actually tell you what it was like to drive my Hummer on the race track. I’ve also created a video documenting the experience, which I highly suggest you watch, because the entire thing felt like showing up to a rallycross in a dump truck.

So here’s what happened. First, I should say that I was expecting a relaxed event, given the rather casual nature of Ron’s e-mails. (At one point, he said: “I love doing stupid things with vehicles.”) But then I showed up, and I realized this event was far from casual. Although this was merely a National Auto Sport Association (NASA) practice day, there were guys with heavily modified, track-only Porsches. Guys with Corvettes that looked like LeMans race cars. Guys with trailers that cost more than a Princeton degree. One guy was using a BMW X5M as his tow vehicle. It was around this time I started to realize that I was going to die, and my place of death was going to be New Jersey Motorsports Park.

But Ron calmed my nerves by informing me that I wouldn’t be going out on the track with any of those guys. Instead, he said, I’d be going out at lunchtime. This made me happy, because it meant that a) I wouldn’t be taking away track time from anyone, and I wouldn’t be killed.

Unfortunately, my fears returned when I started talking to a few of the other drivers. One instructor, Jordan, gave me a brief overview of what I could expect from the course, before noting that I had picked a great track for my Hummer adventure. “Why’s that?” I asked.“Because,” he replied, “there’s a lot of runoff.”

So there wasn’t much faith in the Hummer when we set off a few minutes later with Jordan in my passenger seat as an instructor (“I’m going to wear my fire suit”) and Ron following behind in his Subaru BRZ with a GoPro mounted to the hood. Several other drivers also decided to tag along on the track, because – let’s be honest here – you don’t turn down hot laps with a Hummer in favor of a track day sandwich and a bag of Fritos.

So how was the Hummer on the track? I think I can sum it up for you in one word: Slow. Actually, just “slow” doesn’t quite do it. Glacially slow. Pathetically slow. Insanely slow. So slow that I think we could’ve easily been passed by a 9-year-old boy with a Razor scooter and a racing helmet.

It turned out that the Hummer was going so slowly that everyone’s fears about my safety were largely unfounded. Jordan, my girlfriend, my friends – they were all worried something bad might happen. But the Hummer could hardly muster up enough speed to get into “something bad” territory. Instead, our situation would’ve been more accurately described as “residential speed limit” territory. After I maxed out at 65 miles per hour on the track’s longest straightaway, Jordan amusingly informed me that his BMW M3 race car hits 140 in the same spot.

But don’t think for a second that I wasn’t going all-out. You’re going to watch the video and you’re going to think that I slowed down, or I was easing up to protect the Hummer, or I lowered my speed so I wouldn’t die in a giant fireball shaped like a file cabinet. But this is not the case. I was absolutely, 100 percent, balls to the wall, foot on the floor, from the moment we got out on the track. It wasn’t me that was keeping speeds down. It was the fact that the Hummer has the same horsepower as a Jetta, but weighs as much as a bowling alley.

Of course, the Hummer track experience was about more than just speed. Here’s another thing I learned about driving a Hummer on a race track: it’s absolutely terrifying. You’ve got all these cars buzzing around you, but you have no idea where any of them are, because a) your mirrors are buzzing just as much as the cars, and you’re driving a vehicle the size of a rural school district. So you kind of fling it into corners randomly and guess where other vehicles are located based on their sound, which is not unlike how I expect a blind person would drive a Hummer around a race track.

And then there’s braking. Before we got started, I assumed the Hummer would have so much brake fade that it would only manage about two laps before the wheels began shooting flames the size of a giant redwood. But here’s the thing: when you’re only doing about 40, you don’t really jam on the brakes. You just kind of tap them, and place the Hummer in the proper line, and hope to God you aren’t about to flatten a Miata. By the last lap, Jordan had stopped telling me to brake for most of the turns.

Interestingly, however, I do have one piece of praise for the Hummer: cornering. Even though the Hummer has enough suspension travel to climb over a wood-paneled PT Cruiser, the damn thing managed to stay surprisingly flat in the corners. And I don’t mean “oh, the body roll was so mild that I only vomited twice afterwards.” I mean the thing stayed dead freakin’ flat, to the great surprise of me and Jordan. Later, I realized this is probably because we never got up enough speed to cause body roll.

Unfortunately, my excellent Hummer track day experience ended after only about five laps. Here’s what happened: initially, Jordan told me he could feel things getting hot on his side of the Hummer. At first, I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or infer that he was getting tired of driving around a race track in a vehicle the size of a school bus. But just a few minutes later, coolant started bubbling up over the hood, indicating that, indeed, the Hummer had enough. And so, like so many highly tuned, hugely expensive, track-prepped race cars before me, I steered over into pit lane. “You don’t have to put on your turn signal,” Jordan said.

When we opened the hood, we discovered there was no leak, no loose hose, no giant problem with the engine. Instead, the issue was simple: the Hummer had gotten hot after five laps at full throttle, and the coolant’s expansion tank had spit up a little coolant. I breathed a sigh of relief: the Hummer wasn’t broken. It was merely saying: Stop doing this, you giant asshole.

So we did stop. We let the NASA guys get back to their track day, and we drove home to Philadelphia on the wide open highway at full throttle; pedal to the floor; maximum Hummer velocity. Along the way, we were passed by several semi trucks.

Thank you to Ron S., Jordan L., and the entire NASA Northeast region crew and participants for letting me on the track for the five most enjoyable “hot laps” of my entire life

I Raced My Hummer On An Actual Race Track

[pennellotref]

Even More Outrageous Stories Of The Worst Car Dealer Customers Ever

Even More Outrageous Stories Of The Worst Car Dealer Customers Ever

Tom McParland

When you work at dealership you encounter all kinds of people and sorts of wacky situations. The hours may be long, and getting that commission is no walk in the park, but at least you get some great tales to tell.

IOU...two more cylinders

From Clay:

My dad was in the car business so when I reached adulthood I went into the car business as well. After several years of wholesaling cars and trucks I decided to try a sales job in a dealership. We had a salesman who was a bit of a snake to say the least and during his short time he pulled several stunts. Perhaps the low of the low was a Buick Regal he sold to an elderly lady who had several must haves for her new, used car. It had to have all the features and a V8 engine. Of all the requirements she was most adamant about the V8. The snake salesman found her the perfect car except it was a V6. Hearing her list of must haves when she first entered the dealership I was shocked to see her drive off in the V6 Regal we had for sale. When I asked the salesman about it he just chalked it up to “great salesmanship.” However, a few weeks later she showed up in her new car asking for that same salesmen. When I told her he was out for the rest of the day she wanted an explanation for the delay in the upgrade of her engine. When I inquired further she produced a WE OWE form, which was for items that were not installed at the time of delivery. On the form was the entry “2 additional cylinders for engine.” He had promised the customer two additional cylinders were going to be added to her engine but that they were on back-order.

Needless to say when he showed up the next day for work he was quickly shown the door and the elderly customer was put in a new car that met all of her requirements. Ultimately, a good deal for the customer but a loser for the dealer. Of course ridding ourselves of that salesmen was worth the $3000 loss, especially since it wasn’t coming out of my pocket.

Came in for an oil change, got his weed stolen...

From Jon:

So I work at a dealership as a tech. A guy brings his truck in for service and wants to wait while we change his oil. We tag the vehicle and park it in our lot. A few minutes later the customer go back out to his truck and notices something is missing. He then starts yelling and blaming our lot porter of stealing his weed that was left in the truck. The service manager gets wind of the yelling and pulls they guy in his office so he won’t bother anyone else. The man continues that his bag of weed is missing from his truck and he wants it back or money for it. My boss pauses, then confirms what the guy is saying. “Someone stole your weed and you want it back” correct? “Yup!” The guy says. “I want you to search everyone in this dealership to get it back” my boss picks up the phone and says while dialing “I tell you what drug dogs are much faster at finding this than I am. Let’s get the police down here, I guarantee they can find where it is”. The guy jumps up tells him not to call the cops and then runs out of the building, into his truck and takes off. We had a good laugh about it. He came back the next week and didn’t say a word. I guess he still needed that oil change.

Night mode doesn’t work...

From Leesha:

My favorite story out of any of them though, would be the customer who called in complaining that his new vehicle wouldn’t run in night mode. Confused, I re-stated what he had said, assuming I misheard. He insisted again, “When I put it in day mode, there is no problem, I drive forward immediately, but in night mode I can’t get it to move at all. It just sits there. It still turns on the same, and I can hear the engine get louder and louder when I push on the pedal, but it doesn’t move.”

That is when I clicked in. “Sir, are you referring to when you shift and the stick is next to the “N” symbol? That’s when you have the problem?” He immediately confirmed, “Yes! Like I said before, in night mode this piece of shit doesn’t work. I can never drive at night!” I couldn’t find the words to politely tell this gentlemen that D and N meant Drive and Neutral, not Day and Night. I had to have the assistant manager take over for me because I couldn’t hold back from laughing. Now I realize that it is actually a terrifying story, because that guy is actually somewhere out in the world driving.

This guy has seen some shit...

From Bsanders:

1) In 1989 I worked at a very large dealership with 100+ employees. Conversion vans were still very popular back then and we had several to choose from in inventory. one day a top salesman was having his birthday that week. Many of us chipped in some cash to buy him a hooker to give him a BJ in the back of a van for a birthday gift. It was a Tuesday & fairly slow around 7pm, he was on the back lot getting his gift we had bought for him. Two other salesmen thought it would be funny to surprise him & interrupt him in the middle of everything. They sprang open the side doors & totally killed the moment. The next day the story made it’s way to the owner of the dealership, and he proceeded to call all 3 men up to his office. He went through the story to make sure all the facts were as the story was told. When they all agreed that is was he then told the two salesmen that interrupted the birthday BJ to pack their shit and leave because they were both fired on the spot. He told them “you can’t fuck with another man’s nut, your both gone!”

2) In 1992 I was working at a BHPH (buy here, pay here) dealership as the collection/finance manager. It was January in the Midwest & probably close to 5 degrees outside. The repo company we were using had repo’d 3 vehicles overnight & taken them to the holding lot which was located in the far back of our property. By law we have to hold a vehicle for 10 days & give a customer a chance to redeem before we can start getting the vehicle ready for auction. # day 3 days after this specific car was repo’d the local police showed up asking if we had repo’d a gold Camaro from “John Smith”. I told them we had, they wanted to know if anyone had inspected the vehicle since the repo date. I said we hadn’t as the 10 days had not passed yet. they needed to inspect the vehicle for evidence related to a possible crime. I gave them the keys (we kept an extra set for every car we sold) and showed the where the car was. About 30 minutes later the came walking back up to their patrol cars with 2 evidence bags. The had the car towed to their CSI for further evidence collection. We got the car back about 3 weeks later & the detective in charge told my the evidence collected the 1st day from our repo lot was the ex-girlfriends severed head the suspect put in the trunk of his car.

3) In the summer of 1994 I was still the collection/finance manager at the same BHPH dealership in the Midwest. One Saturday morning the repo man came in with his invoices from the prior night for 5 vehicles he picked up. I notices the side of his repo truck had about 8 bullet holes I hadn’t noticed before. I said “Man Charlie, you must of had a crazy repo with one of these accounts!” His response, “No, me and my old lady just got into it last night & she tried to kill me!”

So that explains the dead battery...

From David:

I was working in an Audi service department. One of the other advisers had a customer bring in her daughter’s car, complaining that it would kill the battery every couple of days. They had only noticed it after the daughter went to school. So he writes it up, and gets it into the shop. I was in the shop a little later talking to one of the other techs when from the other end of the shop I hear “Are you kidding me?” pretty loud from the lead techs bay, as he stands up with a dildo in his , thankfully gloved hand. Turns out the daughter had had it wired into the seat motor wiring, which stays live all the time instead of shutting off with the key. The best parts were when the technician marched up front and dropped it on the advisers desk, and when the mother had to come in and sheepishly pay for the repair. I’m still not quite sure how the adviser kept a straight face as he handed the ziploc bag with the dildo in it back to the customer.

Sadly, that isn’t the only dildo story, but it’s by far the best one.

[Martin Venator]

da Gennyes Csecsem?

[AleMcGir]