The US/Germany (Pfizer and BioNTech) BNT162b1 vaccine has just gotten the go ahead for phase 3 trials in the US. They are still very much using it just as much as they are using the AZD1222 vaccine from the UK (AstraZenca and University of Oxford). The mRNA-1273 vaccine from the US (Moderna, NIAID and BARDA) is…

National Institutes of Health dosed its first participant on March 16 with Moderna’s vaccine. They entered phase 2 trials at the end of May and are now in Phase 3 trials. US/Germany (Pfizer and BioNTech) is close behind and may very well be the first to be able to produce en mass. They are expecting late stage…

The crappy thing is that we don’t even have what one would consider a democratic voting system for ANY election. I’m not just talking about the outdated train-wreck that is the electoral college. Majority take all in primaries? Basically limiting our choices to two fuckwits I could give two shits about automatically?…

It looks like some cruise ships report to VOS as well. https://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/ I’m not sure how much reporting data is lost with them all docked though. Obviously it’ll affect it but is it a meaningful amount? I would think there would of been a data dip when global manufacturing was down (less goods being…

I can’t speak for sales but at my dealer we retained all the fixed ops personnel except those who opted to stay home for health reasons. All the flat rate techs received a guarantee pay of their average hours last year. The service advisors who have a base salary plus commission got their average from last year. The…

Not even the same garage bud. The one in the freeze frame from 2019 doesn’t have a man door.

You spelled CDC wrong.

The thing can only go 84mph? Man, if it wasn’t for sheltering in place traffic on I-10 he’d be impeding the flow.

I think I’ll stick with my current Bailout Barge for now. I can wait until I can pick something up from the ashes for cheaper.

Neutral:

It is exciting and has its rewards. I personally like being on the cutting edge of car tech and solving complex problems. I didn’t choose to go into this but I found it rewarding and stuck with it. 

Yea I’ve never been a fan of the sales side of things. The sales positions are a revolving door for a reason. They hardly know the product and over-promise to the customer and the dealership as a whole suffers for it. I personally wouldn’t mind the sales part being taken over by the manufactures. However a bit of my…

As a long time OEM dealership technician I have seen the slow backslide. We have transitioned into staffing more minimum workers ($13.50 here) to do what a higher wage line tech would perform. Quality has definitely declined. I don’t believe having the OEM directly employing service technicians will be a boon to…

A lot of these recommendations sound legit. I’d probably defer the injector clean and the TB clean and take care of everything else though but that’s me. Brake fluid is 3yrs/30k, coolant is 10yrs/105k as a general rule on these cars. Belts are usually good until your big “4" service. However from what I’ve seen on…

Yep, you still have to get the pivot bolt at the bottom of the alternator loose from back though. It is a real bear if you don’t have a lift or ramps or have to wrench on your car in the city. No, you cant get to the bolt from the top. Also, unless you want to spend at least a half hour trying to fish the belt from…

Well that is good at least. I’m surprised my state of WA doesn’t have restriction on sales greater than the federal.

I didn’t even think to factor in the added engine loads to due to higher pressures. Very good point. I’m curious as to what the losses are on the vehicles running R744. 

That was a good read! I think the switch to R1234yf brought minimal changes to the industry and was a big factor in why they went that route. The equipment and handling procedures are pretty much the same as R134a. The only major downfall of R1234yf that I’ve seen is that its over double the cost of R134a.

Yep, first person I thought of. I’ve been looking to move to Spokane area lately and man does that guy give me pause. Of course where I currently live I have the lovely Jamie Herrera Beutler as a rep sooooo....

Was this photo taken at The Ridge?