The "What Do you drive?" thread....

[MadMan]

I used to drive my 93 LeBaron in the winter. Drove it down Lake Shore Drive every day to college. Parked on residential streets because parking permits were expensive. The only thing crappy about driving a convertible in the winter is when you have one without heat. Well, for some reason, many 90s Chryslers have piss poor heat. Most of the time, it wouldn't blow warm air until I got off of Lake Shore Drive, and of course by that time, I was about one minute from school. I eventually rectified the heat situation by installing an auxiliary water pump from a Mercedes inline with the heater hose. I tell you, that works wonders. It's still not great, but getting even a bit of heat after maybe 5-10 minutes of driving is a hell of a lot better than not having even a whisper of warm air for 40 minutes in below freezing temps.

Still, it was my car and I knew it well, and I'm a very competent driver. One time, in probably about 2 or 3 feet of snow, I plowed straight into a parallel parking spot, and this guy was standing outside of his house and he was yelling at me about how crazy I was (I'll take this time to remind you of my user name), and that I'd never be able to get out of that snow. I told him to come back at 3pm and watch me. He didn't, but I had no trouble getting out.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by MadMan

I used to drive my 93 LeBaron in the winter. Drove it down Lake Shore Drive every day to college. Parked on residential streets because parking permits were expensive. The only thing crappy about driving a convertible in the winter is when you have one without heat. Well, for some reason, many 90s Chryslers have piss poor heat. Most of the time, it wouldn't blow warm air until I got off of Lake Shore Drive, and of course by that time, I was about one minute from school. I eventually rectified the heat situation by installing an auxiliary water pump from a Mercedes inline with the heater hose. I tell you, that works wonders. It's still not great, but getting even a bit of heat after maybe 5-10 minutes of driving is a hell of a lot better than not having even a whisper of warm air for 40 minutes in below freezing temps.

Still, it was my car and I knew it well, and I'm a very competent driver. One time, in probably about 2 or 3 feet of snow, I plowed straight into a parallel parking spot, and this guy was standing outside of his house and he was yelling at me about how crazy I was (I'll take this time to remind you of my user name), and that I'd never be able to get out of that snow. I told him to come back at 3pm and watch me. He didn't, but I had no trouble getting out.

My old envoy had shit heat the first winter I got it. The engine wasn't really getting up to temp in winter either so I replaced the thermostat (I lucked upon a freak 50s weekend in winter) I learned the one oriley stocked was just as open in closed state as the one I pulled out. After confirming the one they gave me wasn't an anomaly I grabbed one from IIRC advanced and that one was actually closed in it's closed state (instead of ever so slightly restrictive like the one the thing came with).