TDI and Life Updates

"Mercedes Streeter" (smart) 01/30/2020 at 17:53 • Filed to: TDI, life, Road Trip

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A lot is going on in life and at least for now, most of it is good!

TDI

I know my car’s problem is a boost leak. You can hear the hiss under acceleration. I long thought that the hiss was normal. It’s not. Codes for underboost and I’m waiting for a weekend day warm enough to start locating where the hiss is coming from. I’ll just follow the spray of oil from one of the tubes!

To celebrate 4,000 daily driven miles since I got it, I decided to get rid of the steelies and worn out tires that were on them.

Before

After

The wheels are 17s off a Dieselgate car. So the guy told me, damaged wheels get replaced during the refurbishment process and end up on the secondhand market. All four wheels have a little curb rash on them but I don’t really care.

The tires that are on the steelies? The fronts were new, but the rears...oh god.

The car is 90% quieter, handles much better, and seems to accelerate better, too! But most importantly, it’s safe. I definitely need to refresh some front end components (these were absolutely on the front considering how new the tires that were on the front were) and get it an alignment.

This thing will be the perfect road mile eating monster after I fix the boost leak.

Plans for this car? Eh...well it’s definitely no longer a Gambler car (the logo is Plasti-Dip). It’ll get a tow hitch and do all the towing stuff I’d normally do with the smart. I’m also going to continue improving it. Get the Chinese market headunit with bluetooth, some LEDs, some RGB, and freshen those headlights.

The higher detailed stuff about my Passat’s journey will be over at Out Motorsports

Speaking of the smart, it’s fine! The backyard mechanic that changed my belts didn’t plug back in the alternator...

Road Trips

I’ve spent a couple weekends of this month helping friends bring home some cool diesel powered rides. First was this E-350 high roof van with a tuned 7.3 Powerstroke and a custom interior. The previous owner used it as a stunt bike hauler. We spent a day going out to Des Moines, Iowa for it!

The other was this awesome F-350 ambulance in northern Michigan. It’s powered by a 7.3 IDI, has surprisingly little rust, and all of the electrics work! This was a wild two day trip that included driving this through a full blown snowstorm.

Plans With Miss Beetle

I goofed up with the TDI. It was supposed to be my Gambler car and it’s not. More stable changes inbound.. Gone will be 3 two wheelers. Thus far that’s one of the two free scooters, plus the Vespa project (shop-teacher has first dibs). I already sold off the trailer as well.

Something I desperately wanted out of a partner is someone who is willing to do a Gambler 500 with me. I’m envious of the happy Gambler couples out there. It broke my heart to leave my partner at home because it wasn’t for them. This desire would only grow because I basically plan to do 1-2 Gamblers a month and the Gamblinball Run (a Gambler style Cannonball) this year, so a lot of weekends away from home.

My new girlfriend actually seems somewhat excited at the idea of doing Gamblers with me. For now she can’t do rallies outside of Illinois but the fact that she even wants to join me on them is monumental . It hit me how we could make it even better: Combine our favourite things into one! I asked her for her dream cars and received stuff like the Prius, a couple electrics, and the Beetle...mmmm, she even likes the stupid cars that I like!

We decided we’ll have our own rally car. The target vehicle is a manual TDI Beetle. We’ll paint it up like an EVA from Neon Genesis Evangelion, ready it for offroading, and she’ll also learn how to drive in it. She’s never driven a car before and she’s all kinds of excited for this plan. It’ll be my car, but she’ll learn how to drive with it and be my copilot. :)

This car isn’t going to be brutally injured like the Festiva. There’s no way I can hit up 1-2 Gamblers a month and drive across the country if my rally car’s being beaten up.

(If you have negative comments about my hobbies you should probably keep them to yourself, thanks. Not your problem, nor your place.)

Foreclosure

*Sigh* During the trip home from Michigan I learned something interesting. This whole time my mom has been trying to keep the property. She’s not living in the property so it’s not like she loses anything by letting it go. She’s 17 months behind on payments and trying to keep the house.

I suddenly understand the lender’s frustration. She won’t give up the house and she won’t make payments. The lender keeps trying to force her hand by intentionally making her hilariously upside down on the loan (something bizarrely allowed by the awful contract). And yet, she insisted on keeping it. The lender has been moving forward with a plan for foreclose then come after me with a deficiency judgement.

Sorry, I’m changing the game.

I found out the lender doesn’t actually want to foreclose and doesn’t actually want a deficiency judgement. They just want the property or money. They aren’t getting the latter so they want the former. Illinois Mortgage law does in fact allow me to just sign over the deed to the mortgage company and that’s what they want.

It...it really grinds my gears that all of this stress has been entirely unnecessary. I’ve been operating under the assumption the entire time that my mom wants to rid us of obligations to the house, but here she was trying to keep a house she can’t pay for. And mind you, the only reason she’s 17 months behind is because my brother isn’t paying. Oh, and she asked me to cosign a mortgage on the house she’s living in right now. Is this real life? Right, so not a single person in this family is an adult. Got it.

I made it clear to everyone that I’ve lost my cool. If they want me in their life they ought to stop being ridiculous. Once this foreclosure is over there’s nothing stopping me from packing up and disappearing, never to be seen again.

I’m now one step closer to ridding some toxicity from my life.

Surprises

A lot of my dreams are soon to come true! An unnamed Jalopnik journalist will be spending some days with me in a couple weeks. The fruits of which will be a lot of awesomeness. This has been a plan two years in the making and up until now it just kept being delayed and delayed. But it’s happening, it’s finally happening!

On top of this, I’m slowly getting my foot in the door when it comes to auto/moto press. The Chicago based members of the Out Motorsports crew have a dinner with Mazda PR next week and I’m getting involved with motorcycle press as well. I always want to do more with my writing and who knows, maybe I’ll turn it into something more than just something I do for fun! I’ve stopped trying with YouTube for now. I love writing but hate video creating, filming, and editing...so everything about videos.

My current goal is to start reviewing cars and bikes, like the CX-5 Diesel! Aside from this year’s embiggening challenge, most of my more detailed car/moto pieces will be at Out Motorsports.

2020's started off a little rocky, but it’s beginning to shape up in a better direction!

P5guy now GTIguy > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 18:30

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The Passat is looking good. Looking at the gambler  logo I definitely spotted it the other day.

feather-throttle-not-hair > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 18:34

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First, congrats on getting some traction on your automotive journalism career!

Second, oh man that ambulance! Former ambulances are pretty ridiculous when viewed from up close, I showed up at my buddy/lemons teammates house recently and there was an old ambulance sitting in his yard. He was like “Oh yeah, we got this to tow the Sunbird (one of our 3 lemons race cars) since you had to rent a van last year.”

I don’t know how serious he is about it, but I do think he’ll let me use it to tow the race car. Showing up to a 24 hours of lemons race in that thing is going to be fucking epic. It’s already the perfect color for our racing team, since it happens to be three toned in almost the same colors as our three race cars.

Race cars 1, 2 and 3 for color reference. The yellow doesn’t QUITE match but c’mon it’s Lemons.

GoodIdeaAtTheTime > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 18:35

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Sounds like everything is starting to look up!

Bring the TDI down this way one day. Will get you sorted out in a few hours. I even have the super special tool for pesky boost leaks.

Mercedes Streeter > P5guy now GTIguy 01/30/2020 at 18:54

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You’re in the Chicago-ish area? :D

P5guy now GTIguy > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 19:28

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Yep. I might've seen Tucker at some point a few years ago too. It's a small world.

Rainbow > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 19:43

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P eople made fun of me for getting the wheel version of my Soul's hubcaps, but you did the same thing so there!

Mercedes Streeter > Rainbow 01/30/2020 at 19:59

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It’s odd how close the caps are to the wheels ! Apparently they’re cheap dollar store generic hubcaps, too.

No shame in getting rid of hubcaps for alloys. :)

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 20:17

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The Passat looks like it could certainly use an alignment in the rear. That’s quite the uneven wear you got there.

A bunch of my racing friends are always kicking around the idea of getting an old ambulance as a tow vehicle. The are almost perfectly set up to begin with. Pre- wired for power, lots of cabinet space, room to set a bed up in, big diesel engine and a commercial frame. You just need to get past the idea that someone has probably died inside it. I think in my area you technically need a CDL to drive one, even once it’s decommissioned which I believe is what has stopped people from grabbing them. It would be epic to run a race car out of though.

Mercedes Streeter > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 01/30/2020 at 21:01

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I believe these tires were actually up front until just before the previous owner sold it. One or both ends of the car needs a bit of an alignment! lol

Oh yeah, this ambulance lived a previous life as a plumbing vehicle (hence the shelves) and it’ll now be converted into a tow rig and camper. :)

We got...oh...6.5-10 mpg on the return trip depending on winds.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Mercedes Streeter 01/30/2020 at 21:08

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Gotta love the effects of dragging a 5 ton box down the highway with a 7.3 liter diesel.

slipperysallylikespenguins > feather-throttle-not-hair 01/30/2020 at 23:14

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Damn, I didn’t even realize they did Lemons racing at the Ridge.

shop-teacher > Mercedes Streeter 01/31/2020 at 07:24

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I guess I owe it to a life relatively well lived, that I do not understand how foreclosure works. I really can’t wrap my mind around how in the flying shit someone can be 17 m onths behind on not their primary residence, and still have it . I’m glad you found a way to change the game though.

If I may make a suggestion, it would be wise to figure out a way to not store vehicles at your mom’s house anymore. Even if that means having to sell some. This whole situation is a powder keg that could blow up at anytime. You want to be able to cut bait and run on your terms.

I’m glad things are going well otherwise.

Mercedes Streeter > shop-teacher 01/31/2020 at 09:08

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Interestingly I’ve already been looking for a new situation for storage. I recently found cigarette burns on the paint of one of the cars and on the seat of a bike. Likewise, the owner of the property wants them to move out or buy the house soon as they’ll be moving back to India and just don’t want their hands tied up.

I found Bloomfield Storage in Wisconsin has stupid bang for the buck. They offered me a 15x30 (!!!) for $120/mo once the current tenant moves out. That’s enough space to store everything I own but the wagon. lol

What kept happening with the mortgage is that my mom would do something to delay the foreclosure action like declare chapter 13 bankruptcy or try to make deals with the lender. This would buy months of time, but in either case she wouldn’t pay or wouldn’t pay enough. Court would drop the bankruptcy for non-payment and there would be yet another month of non-payment. She’s already signed her part of the deed over, so I just have to sign and I’m free!

Yeah, you and the other Oppo parents (Cajun Ginger, ImmoralMinority, etc) definitely show how the whole life thing should be done. The two years I’ve spent in my apartment are the longest I’ve spent in any single residence for a while. That’s how often I moved while growing up. Next time I move, it'll be because I'm setting sights on another part of the nation.

shop-teacher > Mercedes Streeter 01/31/2020 at 10:51

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I’m super glad you found a way out.  The sooner you get yourself free of that family mess, the better.  You’ve come a LOOOOOOOONG way in the last few years!  Keep it up kid!

feather-throttle-not-hair > slipperysallylikespenguins 01/31/2020 at 12:25

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Yup, there have been two races a year there the last couple of years, though I think they’re going back down to just one race. It’s usually at the end of july or the beginning of august.