Commissioned Grandad?
The spelling of grandad bugs me more than this whole meme. Granddad… Grandad. Eh, both are weird, how about grandpa, grandfather? The other thing I’ll say is… maybe it was flattering, how do we know?
A Discount Tire Swindle
About three years ago my wheels needed an alignment on my BMW. I let it go for a little bit, which, knowing me was likely months. Anyway, I finally took it in. One tire was toast and had completely worn out the toe. I didn’t notice it was that bad because is was on the inside edge. I took pics of them, verified they were factory OE tires and went to order some, they were about $350 EA Installed!!!
I was more than a little startled. I then find out my car does not include a spare tire, it does not include a tire repair kit or air compressor. No, my car relies on run-flat tires.
I was searching the web for any type of deal and came across two used run-flats and snatched them up. When they arrived I took them to Discount Tire and had them swap them out. I asked to keep the good tire since it was almost perfect with plenty of tread. When I picked up my car, they said they threw the tire in the trunk and I went about my merry way.
Fast forward to today, I’m dealing with some bad road noise. The noise that you get from a wheel loose. However, the wheels weren’t loose. I suspected the brake rotor since the noise was almost exclusive to low speed and changed with braking (also pretty noticeable brake shake). Anyway, I raised the car to verify my suspicion and just generally check everything.
The brake rotors were definitely warped, so problem solved. Brake pads were pretty low too, so I figured I needed to order both new rotors and shoes for the front. So how were the tires? Pretty good, but again, the toe was a little worn on one tire. I thought, huh, let me compare it against the tire I’ve been holding onto in my garage for three years.
I retrieve the tire and start comparing, but I kind of scratch my head because the tread doesn’t look the same. I just stared trying to figure out what was going on. I finally looked at the side wall and the tire brand said Arroyo, not Bridgestone. All this time, I had never inspected the tire after they gave it back to me. Since they are pretty low-profile, it’s not easy to read the markings so I completely missed it.
I’d never heard of Arroyo. The Arroyo new is an $80 tire while the Bridgestone is $285. Used, maybe $40 for the Arroyo and $175 for the Bridgestone. You do the math.
Maybe it was an honest mistake, two cars with similar tires next to each other? Maybe? But I think it’s incredibly unlikely. More interesting question is tech or manager. Oh well, what do you do?
By the way, I’ve got an Arroyo tire for sale. Great deal, $40! Like New!
Back to School!
Back to school in Arizona for Tommy!
Potato Chips
I think serving size in this context only refers to the act of serving yourself, as in if you serve yourself you automatically get 10 chips. I’ve just always assumed the bag was the meal!
Sprinklers
We added two zones and a new controller to our sprinkler set up. These new zones will water all the trees in the back yard and provide water to the six planters. The existing sprinkler lines are not as deep as they “should” be nor did the control wire run through a conduit. instead of digging everything up, I just continued the remodel of these zones using the same depth and wiring. It’s worked fine through the years so… it should still be fine.
Sonny Braun 2022 Art City Amateur
I tried to record the Tommy’s complete rounds both days, but the camera died both days towards the end. Plus, I missed shots here and there for unknown reasons.
Day 1
Day 2 and Results
I Think This Repainted PS3 Looks Better
The trashed ps3 that I bought months ago got a new coat of paint and a new outlook on life as a console. A brief summary of what happened. I saw a very blurry pic of a blue ps3 locally listed for pretty cheap. I thought it would be neat to own a blue ps3 and went to check it out. The house was totally dark and it was difficult to see the console, but they showed it worked. I gave them the money and left. After stepping outside, It was immediately apparent the console wasn’t blue from the factory and was very beat-up. The paint was chipping, it was painted haphazardly, gunk was in the corners instead of paint, scratches were all over, the ps3 logo looked destroyed. But I blamed myself for not being more thorough and just left.
Fast forward a couple months. My son had a bumper he needed to repaint and I suggested we paint the ps3 to match his car. He was a little worried about using paint on the ps3 and running out, but I convinced him it would be fine.
I took apart the ps3 and put the parts into bags, then went about prepping the shell. I sanded off the paint in the larger areas and used various chemicals to try to remove it from some of the more difficult areas. I then taped it up and he sprayed undercoat. He quickly realized that the ps3 was a great piece to practice on before his car parts.
The undercoat was pretty lumpy and I sanded it down ok, but it wasn’t perfectly smooth. Then the base color coat was sprayed. Which I realized is far thinner than I ever imagined. Then some coats of clear coat went on. It ended up pretty orange peely and I sanded the clear coat and tried polishing. This is all new to me and I ended up kind of burning the clear coat, or at least it was very close to burning. The corners went through the clear and color in a couple places, but it’s a ps3, so… not that big a deal.
I think if I were to redo it, I’d hit it again with undercoat before color and get it totally, completely smooth. I stopped sanding because in many places I sanded through the undercoat. Plus, hitting it again with the undercoat would have totally covered all scratches and problems the previous owner had created. We all agree that the color coat alone probably looked the best on the ps3, It looked awesome mat metallic blue and textured, but there’s no way that would last being so delicate. Plus the color coat was too thick and ended up “spitting”. We fixed that problem before painting the car parts, but the ps3 retains that issue. All in all it looks far better than it did before.
Anyway, to the pictures!
Before/after
Before
After
