Rant Thread

[ScaleLifeNewbie]

We take care of an two HOAs, one with about 300 homes and another with 44. We mow them weekly and do bushes and other landscaping monthly. The smaller of the two has a lot of older folks in the neighborhood (although I wouldn’t call it a senior citizen neighborhood) and most of them are really nice and are appreciative. Except for this lady. A couple months ago we mowed and forgot to blow off her porch one week. She spoke with the president who then told us. We apologized and said we’d make sure it got blown it off. Come next week she had a sign in her porch to not go on it, but we still got a little bit of grass on her porch. To make a king story sort of short, she kept complaining that we got grass on her porch while not letting us go on it. DOh! So now every time I mow I take a picture of her sign on her porch to prove it was there when we mowed.


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[fyrstormer]

A disturbing number of people go nuts when they get old. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be one of them.

 

[Greatscott]

We take care of an two HOAs, one with about 300 homes and another with 44. We mow them weekly and do bushes and other landscaping monthly. The smaller of the two has a lot of older folks in the neighborhood (although I wouldn’t call it a senior citizen neighborhood) and most of them are really nice and are appreciative. Except for this lady. A couple months ago we mowed and forgot to blow off her porch one week. She spoke with the president who then told us. We apologized and said we’d make sure it got blown it off. Come next week she had a sign in her porch to not go on it, but we still got a little bit of grass on her porch. To make a king story sort of short, she kept complaining that we got grass on her porch while not letting us go on it. DOh! So now every time I mow I take a picture of her sign on her porch to prove it was there when we mowed.


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Proof positive that sometimes you can win for losing...

A disturbing number of people go nuts when they get old. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be one of them.

Yeah, I am currently working on my future dementia by watching a lot porn...


My rant...
I am in the middle of something at work when a coworker/supervisor asks if I can help with a lift (the main building I work in has three bridge cranes, one 10k, and two 280k cranes). I ask how long, he says it will just be for rigging, and just a few minutes. Sure, happy to help. Three hours later, we are still working on this frigging thing, nothing is going together right, and the engineers who designed this POS are asking what is taking so long. Silver lining... I was getting time and a half.

 

[fyrstormer]

I am in the middle of something at work when a coworker/supervisor asks if I can help with a lift (the main building I work in has three bridge cranes, one 10k, and two 280k cranes). I ask how long, he says it will just be for rigging, and just a few minutes. Sure, happy to help. Three hours later, we are still working on this frigging thing, nothing is going together right, and the engineers who designed this POS are asking what is taking so long. Silver lining... I was getting time and a half.

Your company needs to stop hiring engineers who've never actually constructed anything.

 

[Sniper4370]

Your company needs to stop hiring engineers who've never actually constructed anything.

:???: ummm... what? Who?

 

[DRED805]

:???: ummm... what? Who?

I think he just means in general. And I agree. I'm a carpenter for a commercial construction company, and it's ridiculous some of the stuff they come up with that's just not feasible in real life.

 

[Fricker08]

The vanquish Phoenix has 46.5% overdrive and admitted to it, but is doing nothing about it.. starting to sound redundant but oh well.


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[fyrstormer]

I think he just means in general. And I agree. I'm a carpenter for a commercial construction company, and it's ridiculous some of the stuff they come up with that's just not feasible in real life.

It's difficult for me to relate to, because in my specific engineering field you can't get a degree without building the things you design. But apparently it's a common problem, or else there are a lot more engineers than I realized who build the things they design in college and then never get their hands dirty again. I, for one, became an engineer because I like tinkering and I wanted the skills to do it right the first time, and I also wanted to get paid more.

 

[fyrstormer]

The vanquish Phoenix has 46.5% overdrive and admitted to it, but is doing nothing about it.. starting to sound redundant but oh well.

That is waaaay too much overdrive. It sounds like they're trying to compensate for not having a dig function and/or not having separate motors for the front and rear wheels, and decided to take the cheap way out.

That much overdrive could be reasonable if the truck had an unlockable center diff filled with thick silicone grease, so it wouldn't scrub the tires continuously. You could lock the center diff only when you really need massive overdrive. But as with other ways to solve the traction problem, adding an unlockable center diff would cost more than just having permanent massive overdrive and pretending that's a good-enough solution, so it's obvious why they cheaped-out.

 

[smc-93]

That is waaaay too much overdrive. It sounds like they're trying to compensate for not having a dig function and/or not having separate motors for the front and rear wheels, and decided to take the cheap way out.

That much overdrive could be reasonable if the truck had an unlockable center diff filled with thick silicone grease, so it wouldn't scrub the tires continuously. You could lock the center diff only when you really need massive overdrive. But as with other ways to solve the traction problem, adding an unlockable center diff would cost more than just having permanent massive overdrive and pretending that's a good-enough solution, so it's obvious why they cheaped-out.

From what I've seen (generally speaking) VP stuff is good quality but it's SO expensive for stuff that doesn't standout in the market.

Personally, I'd be more interested in a Phoenix, even at it's current price point, if they had a selectable 2/4x4 drive train. Or some other "gimmick" feature to set them apart from everyone else.

Everybody was chasing the portal train despite the only trucks that they make sense on are custom builds, the TRX4/6 Mercedes and the UMG10/6X6 (that never got them). Dig only makes sense on a custom build.

Rant over. Sincerely,
Guy who's more interested in scale realism than top performance.

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[twade984]

Personally, I'd be more interested in a Phoenix, even at it's current price point, if they had a selectable 2/4x4 drive train.

Technically it does, with the selectable o/d function you can set a neutral point with a 3 position switch and have rear drive only. In fact, you could set it with a 2 position switch if you only use either the high or low od position.

Likewise, you can utilize the neutral position of the rear dig unit and have FWD only.

 

[smc-93]

Technically it does, with the selectable o/d function you can set a neutral point with a 3 position switch and have rear drive only. In fact, you could set it with a 2 position switch if you only use either the high or low od position.

Likewise, you can utilize the neutral position of the rear dig unit and have FWD only.

That nullifies part of my b****ing then.

I didn't know the O/D was even selectable. There might be a little more value in a Phoenix than I initially thought.

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[twade984]

That nullifies part of my b****ing then.

I didn't know the O/D was even selectable. There might be a little more value in a Phoenix than I initially thought.

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Yes, selectable between 6.5% and (as we now know) 40+%.

Plenty of value in the Phoenix kit, just unfortunate that the sintered gears seem to have a problem with durability. I’m sure there will be machined gears available before long


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[smc-93]

Okay. Thanks for the information.

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[AK KRAWLER]

A failing DEF and Emission system on a newer (in my opinion) truck, that it is illegal to delete, as well as hard to get ahold of the parts and tuning support and the replacement parts are over $5k to replace. Now that is just the parts cost, let alone having them installed. All in all, it would be 20% the value of the truck to get it repaired. This diesel emission crap, on light trucks, is complete BS and solves no real issue, other that likely having a larger carbon footprint as a whole, just to cause the engine to be more inefficient and costly to maintain... I'm done, for now at least... :evil:

 

[ScaleLifeNewbie]

A failing DEF and Emission system on a newer (in my opinion) truck, that it is illegal to delete, as well as hard to get ahold of the parts and tuning support and the replacement parts are over $5k to replace. Now that is just the parts cost, let alone having them installed. All in all, it would be 20% the value of the truck to get it repaired. This diesel emission crap, on light trucks, is complete BS and solves no real issue, other that likely having a larger carbon footprint as a whole, just to cause the engine to be more inefficient and costly to maintain... I'm done, for now at least... :evil:

This is the main reason we didn’t buy a new Diesel when looking at a ‘new’ work truck for our business. We looked at probably 10-15 trucks from 1999 all the way to a 2017. The 17 was a F350 SRW Powerstroke & already had a few of the things we needed(exhaust brake, was grey, and low miles) but the all the emission shit kept us away from it. We ended up finding and buying a 2006 Ram 2500 with the 5.9 Cummins with 85k miles on it. One owner, Bone stock truck(what we wanted, don’t want a diesel that was tuned and toyed with) Only bad thing is the paint is faded, but the whole truck will have to be wrapped grey anyway so it doesn’t matter too much.

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[Greatscott]

A failing DEF and Emission system on a newer (in my opinion) truck, that it is illegal to delete, as well as hard to get ahold of the parts and tuning support and the replacement parts are over $5k to replace. Now that is just the parts cost, let alone having them installed. All in all, it would be 20% the value of the truck to get it repaired. This diesel emission crap, on light trucks, is complete BS and solves no real issue, other that likely having a larger carbon footprint as a whole, just to cause the engine to be more inefficient and costly to maintain... I'm done, for now at least... :evil:

A lot of money for the ability to run cat piss through your motor...

 

[AK KRAWLER]

This is the main reason we didn’t buy a new Diesel when looking at a ‘new’ work truck for our business. We looked at probably 10-15 trucks from 1999 all the way to a 2017. The 17 was a F350 SRW Powerstroke & already had a few of the things we needed(exhaust brake, was grey, and low miles) but the all the emission shit kept us away from it. We ended up finding and buying a 2006 Ram 2500 with the 5.9 Cummins with 85k miles on it. One owner, Bone stock truck(what we wanted, don’t want a diesel that was tuned and toyed with) Only bad thing is the paint is faded, but the whole truck will have to be wrapped grey anyway so it doesn’t matter too much.

My 1997 diesel is sitting in the driveway, waiting on some repairs. The 2013 has way more power and gets much better fuel economy, but the emission system is complete garbage. Good find on the '06.

A lot of money for the ability to run cat piss through your motor...

AGREED!!! :evil:

 

[fyrstormer]

A failing DEF and Emission system on a newer (in my opinion) truck, that it is illegal to delete, as well as hard to get ahold of the parts and tuning support and the replacement parts are over $5k to replace. Now that is just the parts cost, let alone having them installed. All in all, it would be 20% the value of the truck to get it repaired. This diesel emission crap, on light trucks, is complete BS and solves no real issue, other that likely having a larger carbon footprint as a whole, just to cause the engine to be more inefficient and costly to maintain... I'm done, for now at least... :evil:

Emissions equipment is required by Federal law to be warrantied for at least 10 years. How old is your truck?

Diesel smoke doesn't seem like it's such a big deal, but the size of the particles allows them to sneak into your bloodstream through the capillaries in your lungs, and cause problems throughout your body. It's as bad for your health as cigarette smoke -- or rather, it's as bad for other people's health as cigarette smoke. When you do things in public (such as driving on roads that other people helped pay for), you aren't allowed to only consider your own needs.

 

[fyrstormer]

From what I've seen (generally speaking) VP stuff is good quality but it's SO expensive for stuff that doesn't standout in the market.

Personally, I'd be more interested in a Phoenix, even at it's current price point, if they had a selectable 2/4x4 drive train. Or some other "gimmick" feature to set them apart from everyone else.

Everybody was chasing the portal train despite the only trucks that they make sense on are custom builds, the TRX4/6 Mercedes and the UMG10/6X6 (that never got them). Dig only makes sense on a custom build.

Rant over. Sincerely,
Guy who's more interested in scale realism than top performance.

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I'm with you. I own a TRX-6 AMG and a TRX-4 Defender, but all my other trail trucks have straight axles, not portals. I haven't missed the extra axle clearance on my SCX10.2 and my Ascender.