Velo Vol 

Remind me to tell my Harley Davidson story.

LesterOfPuppets

Have you ever played a million dollar trumpet?

big john

When I drove tow truck we had some VW shops as accounts. Some days I towed 10 VWs.
I rebuilt VW engines in my garage for a time. A lot of my friends owned the things.
I also owned 2 Bugs, a 1956 and a 1964.
I have a lot of VW stories.

Velo Vol 

. . . two+ hours later, no sign of rain.
Nope.

I'm no cello expert, but I'm guessing you don't get much bang for the buck north of six figures.

LesterOfPuppets

In non-HD motorcycling news, Huckabee just had Jeff Lane on and he brought a 1985 GSX-R 750 with him.

indyfabz

Up and at ‘em!

phrantic09

Better looking, not younger

phrantic09

Wanted to ride this morning but way overslept. My daughter has a track meet at 9 about 40 minutes away, so now it looks like I’ll be heading out when it’s hot. Better pre-hydrate.

BTinNYC 

It was screaming hot and murky. I got Zwift for snow and rain, but yesterday I realized it's nice for the worst summer days too.

datlas 

Working on it. Wordle done (4, splendid?), French Press made, and cat fed. Heading out for an easy “recovery” ride soon, hoping to beat the heat. Yesterdays ride was long and hard and hot, so I had the dreaded cramps towards the end and for several hours post-ride. They say damaging the muscles leads to repair/stronger muscles. I hope so.

Bah Humbug

I only had the one a 2007.5 MK5 GTI. So that... yeah. In addition to the three major failures over 3.5 years of ownership, there was a rattle that bugged the crap out of me. It didn't happen all the time, but sometimes when closing the driver's side door, there would be a very annoying metallic rattle. One day (when having a bad day with the ex) I decided to go figure it out. Alone in the car, the rattle would happen every time I closed the driver's side door. It was coming from the passenger's side, but when sitting on that side to be closer and closing that door, no noise. Eventually I sat in the driver's seat, leaned over, and close the door. The rattle was right under me.

After a little more experimentation, I discovered that the passenger seatbelt receptacle had a slightly loose part, and when the seat was empty the receptacle would bounce just enough from a closing door to rattle, but if someone was sitting there the motion would be attenuated enough to be silent. A tiny sliver of paper towel shoved in stopped the rattle forever.

I do understand why people like VWs; I'd be fine with another GTI (from a driving perspective) anywhere I wanted a low-ground-clearance toy, but the chance of failure is just too high for anything I'd count on daily.

Bah Humbug

Lot of that going around... woke up at 5:45 (very late for me) and am dragging hard.

Also, nightmares didn't help.

indyfabz

Nice tailwind today. Finally. Watering up at Wawa. Getting ready to cross the Great Egg Inlet.

rjones28 

Could be an upgrade.

Mojo31

It’s hard for me to understand how VOA can make some of the most reliable cars on the road (eg, 911) and yet some very unreliable cars.

rjones28 

The 2017 Golf Mk7 SportWagen just passed 100,000 miles. Regular maintenance items only, until the Central New York winter roads broke a spring this year.

rjones28 

It says a lot about vehicle reliability that we now consider a slightly loose interior fitting "unreliable". BITD, unreliable cars left you stranded on the side of the road.

Mojo31

I was referring more to his 3 major failures in 3.5 years.

But, yes, our ideas of reliability have changed a lot.

aliasfox

My 2007 MkV GTI had a bad high pressure fuel pump and a bad cruise control stalk, both replaced under warranty. Other than that, the AC didn’t drain properly (would occasionally smell), and the air vent on top of the dash rattled (something a 10 cent rubber gasket could have solved…). I overlooked those things because it could seat four friends, had pretty decent shove off the line, and handled pretty darn well, all for about 30mpg. Actually, my biggest complaint was that the trunk was about 2” too short to fit my Bianchi without removing the seatpost. I was already taking off the wheels, but I didn’t want to move the seat and have to get it just right again…

Velo Vol 

The only "upgrade" I'm interested is repaving, and this isn't that.

They cleared out a bigger area by the main road (not pictured), but that's not the office park proper.

Velo Vol 

Still waiting.

genejockey 

I owned a 1986 GTI and a 1991 Passat. Both of them had fuel pump failures. The pump in the tank would fail, and then that would take out the one that fed the injectors. The Passat also had a design flaw in the HVAC controls, which would take out that whole panel, and it was a unit. I think we replaced it twice. I don't think I'll buy another VW.

I wondered whether I was nuts to buy an American car, but the Dodge has run like a top for 8 years. ONE issue in all that time - a flap in the ventilation broke/got stuck so that no warm air could get in. That was fixed under warranty. Apart from that, it's all been scheduled maintenance.

Velo Vol 

Yep. And some people here, probably.

big john

I know some 911s are subject to high mileage but in general a Porsche is going to live a very different life than a VW.

Bah Humbug

Yeah so that MkV...

1) 14 months - ABS pump died
2) 30 months - intake manifold flap motor died
3) 42 months - CD changer died in the parking lot of the Nissan dealer where I was trading it in

I know some of them come out well, but I had more issues with that car in 3,5 years from new than all my Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans, combined, which weren't new. It had the four year warranty and there was no way I was owning it out of that.

Now, I should have sprung for the then-brand-new 4Runner 5th instead of half-asking it with the much-worse Xterra, but such is life. Lesson learned, and now I have the GX, which is the car I've owned longest with least desire to exchange.