You guys know what a self-deprecating person is, I take it. One who readily makes fun of one's self, puts one's self down, has a modicum of self esteem but not an enormous amount?
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I've been accused in the past of "name dropping" by saying I own a Porsche. So what. Hundreds of thousands if not millions do. Only reason I mention that is, have you ever looked behind the scenes at how one is made? By the assembly line workers who are dressed in crisp, pressed, clean uniforms, with different colors signifying what station on the line they are responsible for? Have you ever taken the wheel off a Porsche or seen one removed and looked at the beauty of the suspension components? I only have experience with recent vintage models.
And yes, I know they produced engines that needed to be replaced, etc. I get it. Nothing is perfect.
My son a few months back borrowed my then brand new '19 Raptor to go winter camping/hiking in Nova Scotia. Put 2k miles on it. Great. Glad he's a kid I can trust to lend vehicles, etc. to.
When he gets home to his house in NJ, he accidentally mounts a curb, hits a concrete bollard and damages one running board.
Dealer price for board: $1600. Holy crap.
I find a pair on Ebay for $399 with brackets and they arrived the other day in perfect shape. I get underneath the truck, see four bolts that go up into the board and easily remove them.
Then I need to remove the front bracket as it was bent. That's where the fun and games begin and the poor quality of certain parts come to the fore.
The brackets have 4 holes in them. Well, there's only 3 bolts poking out from the side of the chassis.
I remove two of the nuts easily. The third nut is spinning and spinning.
Turns out, there's a reason when you order the boards from the dealer, or via Ebay, they don't come with the bolts. They are welded in place, with round heads, and barely any room to grab that rounded head should you need to.
Ah, but they are welded. Why would you need to? Because in the case of this bolt, the weld was no more and it was spinning. It took close to 20 minutes to hold the round head with a very small vice grip to finally get the bolt off.
Initially I had to hold the bolt on the threaded end to move the nut. That damaged the threads.
Long story short, why wouldn't they at least put bolts with heads on them in case of this? Without cutting the bolt off, you cannot get it out to replace it and there is no room to replace it.
I get it, first world problems. But now I have a loose bolt that I cannot rethread the nut on as it's impossible to hold the round portion tight enough to do so.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I've been accused in the past of "name dropping" by saying I own a Porsche. So what. Hundreds of thousands if not millions do. Only reason I mention that is, have you ever looked behind the scenes at how one is made? By the assembly line workers who are dressed in crisp, pressed, clean uniforms, with different colors signifying what station on the line they are responsible for? Have you ever taken the wheel off a Porsche or seen one removed and looked at the beauty of the suspension components? I only have experience with recent vintage models.
And yes, I know they produced engines that needed to be replaced, etc. I get it. Nothing is perfect.
My son a few months back borrowed my then brand new '19 Raptor to go winter camping/hiking in Nova Scotia. Put 2k miles on it. Great. Glad he's a kid I can trust to lend vehicles, etc. to.
When he gets home to his house in NJ, he accidentally mounts a curb, hits a concrete bollard and damages one running board.
Dealer price for board: $1600. Holy crap.
I find a pair on Ebay for $399 with brackets and they arrived the other day in perfect shape. I get underneath the truck, see four bolts that go up into the board and easily remove them.
Then I need to remove the front bracket as it was bent. That's where the fun and games begin and the poor quality of certain parts come to the fore.
The brackets have 4 holes in them. Well, there's only 3 bolts poking out from the side of the chassis.
I remove two of the nuts easily. The third nut is spinning and spinning.
Turns out, there's a reason when you order the boards from the dealer, or via Ebay, they don't come with the bolts. They are welded in place, with round heads, and barely any room to grab that rounded head should you need to.
Ah, but they are welded. Why would you need to? Because in the case of this bolt, the weld was no more and it was spinning. It took close to 20 minutes to hold the round head with a very small vice grip to finally get the bolt off.
Initially I had to hold the bolt on the threaded end to move the nut. That damaged the threads.
Long story short, why wouldn't they at least put bolts with heads on them in case of this? Without cutting the bolt off, you cannot get it out to replace it and there is no room to replace it.
I get it, first world problems. But now I have a loose bolt that I cannot rethread the nut on as it's impossible to hold the round portion tight enough to do so.
