I do the same here except replace go to the bathroom with make a giant bowl of popcorn.

Then it is an even shittier idea. The fact is that there is a lot of water that is being used to grow food for grazers that we then eat. Still why does California even have a dairy and beef industry, when I had over the air TV I would regularly see ads stating "Happy cows come from California" here in Minnesota. So some of it is being turned into cattle feed for local use.

Don't know if you are trolling or not, but I was unfortunately brought up in a very fundamentalist church. Basically a non protesting version of the Westboro Baptist Church. Only other baptists were real Christians and Catholics were basically considered satanists, the blacks carried the mark of Cain, gays are sinners who need to be admonished and cast out, the world is ~6000 years old, a woman is to be subservient to her husband, etc.

I figure that if the christian god is real I should get into heaven anyway for time served while growing up as I didn't become a racist, sexist, homophobe, raging ass hole to everyone around me person.

Hey I think we went to college together.

Seriously this was the first thing one of my roommates in the dorms said to me. He was a weird one and believed every conspiracy theory.

Then it sort of makes sense.

Yes it would change things. I would expect them to follow our laws, but given past experiences with illegals I really would prefer people be here legally.

Sadly this may be a proper conclusion.

Well I don't think British Leyland has any legal authority any more and the owner of most of their copyrighted stuff is more than willing to sell them to the public at reasonable prices.

Well if that warning would prevent you from actually driving the vehicle for 30 seconds it might be good for a lot of people's vehicle. Let the fluids come up to pressure instead of what my wife does which is as soon as the engine catches she is on the gas.

Isn't this why you should let your engine run for a minute or 2 before turning it off. Let the turbo cool down with oil circulating through it, also this is good advice even for naturally aspirated engines as well so that they reach a more uniform temp as well. Or at least that is what I was taught dealing with forced induction tractor engines out on the farm as a child.

I hated dealing with those 80s vehicles, the early EFI systems, electronically controlled carburetors, massive wiring looms, tens of feed of vacuum lines, ignition control modules that were placed in the wrong spot and would cook and then fail. I won't buy a vehicle unless it is a late OBDI or newer, or pre smog motor as there were a lot of vehicles that were just junk in between. The build quality on those late 70s and 80s vehicles was awful as well so it isn't like you are missing out on anything.

I accept that manufactures can specify a fuel for their vehicles and expect you to run the correct stuff. I just take issue with some states that have decided to mandate a fuel that no auto maker will warranty their regular (non flex fuel) vehicles for. So far Minnesota has been pushing off it's 20% mandate but the current date is august of this year and I haven't heard of any activity to push it out again.

My impression of anything from the VW/Audi group is that VW is German for failed engineer. I haven't dealt with a MB but have with BMWs (love the inline 6) and those have a pretty clean layout under the hood. My only real issue with layout is that on the E46 ones is the need to remove the cabin air filter box to get to things at the back of the engine.

Why did your parents go to a dealer for body work, especially since it wasn't a MB one, instead of a regular body shop? It sounds like the dealer they took it to just really didn't care since they weren't a customer so why prioritize that work.

Same here. My .last experience with the dealer was when one of the window regulators broke (E46 BMW so it is a common problem). It looked like it was going to rain so I inquired what it would cost for them to install it and got some absurd number like $800 most of which was 2.5 hours of labor. I flat out told them it doesn't take 2.5 hours and said that I would pay for 1 hour of labor. They insisted that this was way too low and that they could get it done in 2 hours. So I left with a new regulator, plastic clip and nut and went home. At the time my 5 year old wanted to help and learn how to fix the car so I let him do most of it and he managed to do it in a little more than a hour.