so i've been doing a lot of driving recently and noticed a few things on the cars around me:
* BMW appears to attach their mufflers with soggy palm fronds, because i bet half of the bimmers i see have their mufflers flapping all over the place like some sort of bizarre mating display. a late model 3 series passed me the other day with its muffler completely loose at the rear, being supported only by the pipe from the front. most aren't that bad, but are rattling around with a play of about 2-3 inches. 5-series are probably the main offender here. bimmer drivers: don't you hear your muffler banging around back there? doesn't that concern you? aren't you a little upset that your expensive car has a problem normally associated with 50 year old rust buckets?
* the exhast piping on late model toyota camrys is positioned about 4 miles from the bottom of the car. drive behind one and you can see enough daylight between the pipe and the car to fit anna nicole smith. i asked a toyota representative about this and he said it was a safety feature. you see, if a mack truck is about to T-bone you, he doesn't actually hit the car, he just runs over your exhast pipe and passes safely below your floorpan. ok, i made that last part up. but seriously, although it's clearly better attached than a BMW, it LOOKS like it's hanging loose because it's so far down.
* i'm not sure about the newest gen, but on Honda CRV's you can SEE the rear axle spinning around under the car when you drive behind it. it's just open to the air. if you ran over a cat, it would get caught in it and spew cat guts for miles. and it doesn't exactly instill confidence in the vehicle's off-road "capabilities," especially since it appears to be made out of 20 gauge wire. toyota covers up the RAV4's 20 gauge axle so that when you're doing some hardcore offroading (driving through puddles and climbing camry exhast pipes), you don't pull a Hummer H2 and snap your axle. good for them!
* BMW appears to attach their mufflers with soggy palm fronds, because i bet half of the bimmers i see have their mufflers flapping all over the place like some sort of bizarre mating display. a late model 3 series passed me the other day with its muffler completely loose at the rear, being supported only by the pipe from the front. most aren't that bad, but are rattling around with a play of about 2-3 inches. 5-series are probably the main offender here. bimmer drivers: don't you hear your muffler banging around back there? doesn't that concern you? aren't you a little upset that your expensive car has a problem normally associated with 50 year old rust buckets?
* the exhast piping on late model toyota camrys is positioned about 4 miles from the bottom of the car. drive behind one and you can see enough daylight between the pipe and the car to fit anna nicole smith. i asked a toyota representative about this and he said it was a safety feature. you see, if a mack truck is about to T-bone you, he doesn't actually hit the car, he just runs over your exhast pipe and passes safely below your floorpan. ok, i made that last part up. but seriously, although it's clearly better attached than a BMW, it LOOKS like it's hanging loose because it's so far down.
* i'm not sure about the newest gen, but on Honda CRV's you can SEE the rear axle spinning around under the car when you drive behind it. it's just open to the air. if you ran over a cat, it would get caught in it and spew cat guts for miles. and it doesn't exactly instill confidence in the vehicle's off-road "capabilities," especially since it appears to be made out of 20 gauge wire. toyota covers up the RAV4's 20 gauge axle so that when you're doing some hardcore offroading (driving through puddles and climbing camry exhast pipes), you don't pull a Hummer H2 and snap your axle. good for them!