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The Car Mod Thread...
- Thread starter MatthewLTL
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I just went for a spin to test the fuel milage of my completed EFI swap now that all the parts are installed and it's fairly well tuned at all cruising speeds. I filled up before and after at the same pump and both times filled it until fuel just about splashed out of the filler neck. I got 14.7mpg.
Now, that's doesn't sound all that great, but with the carb I rarely ever got over 10mpg. It was rated for 11/12 from the factory. I rarely ever drove faster than 60mpg with the carb, but on my test loop I maintained 65-80 most of the way depending on the road. So 14.7 is a significant improvement!
Now, that's doesn't sound all that great, but with the carb I rarely ever got over 10mpg. It was rated for 11/12 from the factory. I rarely ever drove faster than 60mpg with the carb, but on my test loop I maintained 65-80 most of the way depending on the road. So 14.7 is a significant improvement!
a 2003 Chevy Blazer with under 90K miles on it (belonged to a friend of mine), was worth 7K, bags went off so their insurance company totaled it. rule of thumb is this: if the car is drivable, insurance will fix it (most cases) but if the bags deploy the insurance will total it regardless if its drivable or not.
A friend of my dad's borrowed his '01 Lincoln Continental back in the spring to drive to Nashville for a weekend.
The friend was in a grocery store parking lot and had a car pull into the side of him. The only real damage was to the two door skins on the passenger side, and it wasn't that bad at that(the friend wasn't even in the car and was not hurt). The doors worked(albeit with some difficulty) but it was 100% drivable-enough so that the guy drove it back from Nashville after the accident.
The car had a book value of around $4K at the time. The insurance deemed it totaled. Truth be told, although my dad really liked the car(the reason he held onto it for so long) and had been meticulous about maintaining it, he was in some ways relieved as he'd wanted to sell it.
Auto Owner's(who does my insurance) considered a vehicle totaled if the repairs cost 75% of the current value. Even if the damage is primarily cosmetic, a good rule of thumb with newer cars is $1000-2000 per body panel depending on the extent of the damage. Even a rear bumper will run $500-700 by itself(that's painted/paint matched and installed). Thus, it doesn't take long to run up a big tab, and for older lower value cars pretty much any fender bender is enough to total one.
That could not be further from the truth. Insurance companies total it if the damage is around 70% (exact percentage depends on the insurance company and state laws) of the car's estimated value, no matter where the damage is, or the drivability of the car.
My mom had an older car and was rear ended pretty hard. Air bags did not deploy being a rear end collision, and the car was perfectly drivable and she drove it for a week after the accident, but once the body shop estimates came in, it $4,000 in parts and labor to fix it and the car was worth $5,000, so it was totaled. And the car drove fine.
It's as simple as that. Insurance companies will never spend more than they have to on a claim and have no qualms about totaling a perfectly drivable car if the damage is close to or exceeds the value.
The book value of your Daewoo scrap heap is around $2,000. It would only take $1,400 in damage to total it. Body repair prices adds up quickly, so that means that if your car was damaged bad enough in an accident to deploy the airbags if they worked, you'd have more than $1,400 in damage on your car and a totaled jalopy. The only thing you have to gain by disabling the airbags is traumatic brain injury.
Even though I haven't even bought my MG yet, I already have it insured with an agreed value...and that agreed value is more than I'm paying for the car.
Are you decided on that MG in particular, just haven't brought it home? My Suburban if totaled would only get about $1200 in insurance pay out, despite the fact that I have over $2500 in it. That is why it has an agreed value policy instead.
I have 100% decided on one particular MG. The hold up is me working around my work schedule and finding someone to take me up/go with me so that I can pay for it and drive it home(the car is in Southern Indiana, ~30 miles from Louisville, and I don't want to drive it back on the interstate).
I'd planned on going last Wednesday-which is why I went ahead and added it to my insurance-but it was raining and thus I didn't go. I'm out of town through the middle of next week, but may go next Wednesday afternoon/evening. Admittedly, though, with the evenings getting earlier I'm hesitant about having it out on open roads with it too dark.
In any case, as I said it's insured and I have a deposit down on it. In the mean time, I just content myself with looking at this a couple of times a day
What are you guys talking about? His deductible is worth more than the car. Quite frankly, knowing Matt's tedency to disregard the law and perceived driving abilities he is likely not insured in the first place.
Back in the late 1990's my neighbors bought a new Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer Edition (what a car!). After owning it for less than a month it was T-boned and the frame was broken. The car was surprisingly not totaled and insurance paid for the frame to be replaced.
It has nothing to do with driveability, as others stated. If I rear ended you and punctured my radiator, my car is undriveable. It would certainly not be totaled. If you t-boned me and my tire, wheel, and hub/brake assembly broke, my car certainly would not be totaled. If drove between two cars and scraped both sides of my car, ruining all the quarter panels, my car would be drives me but I imagined totaled based on the cost of the repairs. In all these cases my car is still driveable.
Insurance comes down to one thing- money. Not practicality. Airbags are extremely expensive- thousands of dollars to replace given the part, labor, and oftentimes require installing a new dashboard. For the airbags to deploy, it usually assumes a speed consistent with considerable damage to the car.
The thing is, you're putting the value of the car over the value of your life. Although airbags have an can inadvertently hurt/killed people (usually unbelted children who should not be in the front), the odds of it saving your life far exceed the odds of hurting you.
And if your car is totaled, your insurance pays you its value (often somewhat inflated from what I've seen).
And not only do that, airbags do not mean an automatic total like he believes. My car is a year old and it's value is still likely in the mid 20,000s. If I had an accident with just enough damage to deploy the airbags, in all likelihood, my car would still be repaired because airbags are expensive but they're not the entire car's value.
Yes, in the Daewoo's case, blown airbags would mean automatic total. But it's a 15 year old Daewoo - if a bird took a **** on the hood, it would leave enough of a dent to total the car.
Yes, in the Daewoo's case, blown airbags would mean automatic total. But it's a 15 year old Daewoo - if a bird took a **** on the hood, it would leave enough of a dent to total the car.
She is a true beauty! Glad you finally found one you liked. Do all of the lights work so you could in theory drive it home? What do you do about plates in your state to drive it home?
I actually still have to figure out the plate issue, since the guy legally is supposed to take the Indiana plates off of it when he sells it.
I'm hoping I can get temporary tags from Kentucky before I get it. If-for whatever reason-I can't get tags without owning the car, I'll just have to chance driving it home with the title, bill of sale, insurance, etc and show it if I get pulled over. That's the only thing I know short of trailering it home, which I really don't want to do and still leaves me "stuck" in terms of getting it down to the clerks office for a tag.
Getting it titled in Kentucky will take a few hours at least, since I have to first go to the Sheriff for an inspection then stand in line at the county clerk's office, hope that I have all my paperwork in order, find out I missed something, and repeat ad nauseum until I get all they want.
It took my dad 3 trips the first time he bought a car from out of state.
BTW, as far as the lights-the rear side markers are currently disconnected and I don't want to drive it at night without those. It should be simple to reconnect them as the wiring is there(I checked) and I think they tie into the same circuit as the tail lights. At the same time, however, the markers might be disconnected for a reason(the "prince of darkness" rearing his head) so I might have an electric gremlin to track down. The blinkers and brakelights work, so it's legal for daylight driving, and the headlights and tail lights do work.
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Since this isn't your daily driver, is it possible to get a "Historic" plate in Kentucky and tag it without an inspection.
Historic tags are a possibility, but the inspection for roadworthiness is still required-at least per my reading.
In all honesty, I'm considering just tagging it with a standard tag. All an historic tag really saves is the $25/year tag renewal fee(not the annual property taxes) and I'd almost prefer to pay the extra $25 and not have to deal with the restrictions of the historic tags.
In Maryland, historic plates are abused because of the insane cost of regular plates, VEIP inspections, and a safety inspection every time the vehicle changes hands.
hence why I said (Most cases). If you have a ecobox like a Prius or a Camry unless you deploy the bags in the 1st year of buying it brand new, it will be totaled if the bags go off, this will obviously NOT be the case on a BMW or a car that costs 30k+(which if you have side impact airbags and front airbags they will be 2/3 the value of any car anyway. Also what I gain from not having the airbags going off is sparing my body from all the life-long damage the air bags will give it.
if a car is 100% driveable and the bags go off, but the cost to replace those bags exceed the ACV of the car, it's totaled.
1. you are either being a ass with that statement, OR being sarcastic. My car is worth more than the collision or comrehension deductibles. Car's not in my name, insurance is not in my name, I'm just a driver in the policy, but its got Full coverage (with $0 deductible glass) nonetheless. Policy's only about $40 a month too.
2. How do you replace a frame?
1. You have a BMW, not a ecobox car, there is no comparsion.
2. Actually I am putting my life over the value of the car. I would rather walk away from a totaled car without airbag deployment, with having short-term injuries, than I would walking away from a airbag deployment, with life-long injuries that will never go away.
3. My insurance brings up Kelley Blue Book on the computer, and pays me the value minus the deductible.
I have parking lot dings and i dent in the trunk lid where a tree branch fell on it, not totaled at all.... smartass
Indiana is only a one-plate state, bunns.
Historic plates (or called Collector Plates in MN) may have restrictions, in MN its 1000 MPY but many use them as DD or drive them semi-regularly with Collector plates. its a 1-tim $100 fee for the collector status and $4.50 for 1 plate or $6 for 2. no anual registration and the state never checks the 1000 MPY restriction
What is a VEIP inspection? and how much is regular registration?
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You take the old frame off and put a new one on. Obviously there's more to it than that, but up until a few years ago Explorers were body on frame and not unibody.
Not sure what that has to do with anything of what I wrote. Btw, I'm usually in Indiana about once a week and see IN cars daily.
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wouldn't be be like take the body off and put it on a new carcass?
you said "It's the owner's responsibility to take the Indiana Plates off". Indiana only has one plate, not 2 so it should of been "it's the owner's responsibility to take the Indiana plate off" the way you said it makes Indiana a 2 plate state by context.
Oh @bunnspecial , he got you!
1. I have a 2009 535xi with over 100k miles. My car is worth somewhere on he lower end of 15-20k, if I'm lucky. I could substitute a 2009 Honda Civic and it would be the same story. Keep in my the repair costs of a BMW are profoundly higher than an econobox and they're far more complicated. So it's all relative.
If I break a headlight assembly- it's not just a headlight. It's an swiveling HID light that turns with the steering wheel. So although my car may cost 2x as much, the headlight costs 5x as much as a Honda. Even something generic bumper is probably 2-3x more expensive. Labor 1.5x-2x I would guess too if at a dealer.
2. A life long injury like death? Look at the statistics. Here is a study from the British Medical Journal- one of the top medical journals in the world- one of the top 5. This is is their 2002 opinion on airbags. It's an interesting read, but they favor airbags nonetheless: http://m.emj.bmj.com/content/19/6/490.full Note they also expect future airbag technology, which we now have, will further improve the findings they already have found.
If airbags are more dangerous than accidents, wouldn't it make sense they'd not be in cars? Why not put a retractable bayonet in the steering wheel instead?
3. Yes, That's how everyone's insurance works.
1. What is the difference between AN ass (if you want be nit picky) and being sarcastic? One cannot be a sarcastic ass
1.5. Collision or comprehensive? (You're the one that wanted to play the nit picky game). I hope you pay no more than $250 for your deductible. Can you ever get body parts for your car? It seems like a waste to have collision on your car btw.
2. The same way you replace anything on a car. You take off the old one and put on a new one. It just so happens to be probably the worst repair on a car you can do, because the entire body of the car and all the mechanics must come off. Much like if you had to replace the foundation of a house.
I'm surprised he even has insurance in the first place...
I thought he was too good for that.