PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

And don't get me started on junk faxes! My parents still have fax machine, but for more than a decade we've kept it unplugged unless we're actually using it. My parents have had a fax machine since at least the early 1990s, but these junk faxes started in like 2002-2003, when we were living in Fairfax County, Virginia. The junk faxes were at their worst in 2003-2005, and a lot of them were bogus ads for discounted Caribbean cruises and shit.

I knew immediately that one such "free/discounted vacation" fax was a scam because it claimed to include a rental convertible/sports car in the package. Representing this rental car was a picture of a 1995-1998 Ford Mustang convertible. Once again, I'd like to say that this about 2003-2004, close to five years after the refreshed Mustangs had come out. I'm sure some rent-a-wreck places still had older model Mustangs available, but none of the major rental companies who would do business with a cruise line would rent anything that old! Unfortunately, I guarantee you that some poor bastards fell for it. However, they weren't fooling me!

 

@LocoLocal

Side story: In October 2015, I went to a car show in Norristown, which is the county seat of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Norristown is close to the city and not the greatest area. While driving down a very ghetto street, I passed a fly-by-night rental operation. It operated out of a dilapidated building and one of their cars was a rather worn out-looking gray 2006-2007 Nissan Sentra. The rental company proudly boasted, through signs, of not requiring a credit card to rent from them, and the Sentra was plastered with signs saying things like "RENT ME!" and "No credit card required!"

I'd recently been involved in a minor wreck with my Tacoma in August, and I'd tried to rent a pickup truck with my dad's credit card after they said they didn't take debit cards. I would not get my own credit card for about another six months. Just the previous May, when my truck was finally in the shop getting fixed after I got rear-ended by a texting driver, her insurance company paid for a rental car. Problem was, they would only pay for a subcompact like a Chevy Spark. I don't do subcompacts, so I requested an upgrade and asked if I could just pay the difference. Enterprise agreed and took my dad's credit card. Since that accident (the March 2015 rear-ending) hadn't been my fault, my dad paid for the rental car upcharge. The extra insurance coverage combined with the upcharge for getting a Toyota RAV4 instead of a subcompact was like $40. They made a copy of my driver's license as proof that I was legally allowed to drive, but didn't compare it to the name on my dad's credit card, so I assumed they'd take my dad's credit card the second time around too. They gave me all this BS that went far beyond it has to be your name on the credit card. They claimed that the credit card holder had to be the primary driver, which I know is bullshit. As long as the credit card holder has authorized the transaction and the credit card isn't declined, and the person driving the car (even if they aren't the owner of the credit card) has a valid license, the rental company shouldn't give two shits as long as they are getting paid!



Needless to say, I didn't get the new Silverado I'd set money aside in checking account to rent and borrowed my mom's Murano while my Taco was in the shop...

 

One time, one of my parents forgot to unplug the fax machine after using it, and we got a fax from some random doctor's office (which was in the same state but not that close to us if I remembered correctly). This was not some scam advertisement, but rather it seemed to be a legit fax to a legit patient (some woman) about the results of a medical test of some sort. The fax contained all sorts of personal info too, and this idiot doctor had obviously been off by one number or something...

 

Please read my story about this 2014 I article I read recently, and tell me if you think the vehicle could just be jumpstarted and fired right up...

The body found in the backseat is irrelevant in my hypothetical scenario...

My question is this...

You have a vehicle, 10-12 years old, that was driven regularly for the first 5-6 years of its life but then abruptly parked for whatever reason. The vehicle sits for about 5 years, without being started even once. It has a couple gallons of gas in the tank, more than likely stale and degraded. All of the fluids are at least five years old as well...

What would happen if somebody just jumpstarted the vehicle or replaced the battery, didn't change any of the fluids or drain the gas tank, and simply started the vehicle in its untouched-for-half-a-decade condition? In my opinion, I'm 99% it would initially run fine at first, but could it be safely driven a short distance (like from wherever it sat for years to a mechanic)? Could one simply top off the gas tank and drive it as-is to a repair shop? Would running the engine with 5-year old gas, oil, and coolant cause irreversible damage?

What about the transmission fluid? I've also heard that letting a vehicle with an automatic transmission sit for a long time with the gear selector in park can cause problems. My friend found this out the hard way with his dad's 1972 Chevelle SS after they kept it in a storage unit for over a year. The car fired right up after being jumpstarted, but as of right now the car won't even move because the transmission won't shift out of Park.

How about the brakes? I've heard of brake lines deteriorating and/or losing pressure...

And the tires? Sure they were holding air, but that doesn't mean they weren't dryrotted...

Basically, could a post-1999 vehicle (in this case a 2003 Jeep Liberty 3.7L that was parked in 2008-2009 after being driven regularly since new, and sat unused without even being started until 2014) be driven with the original fluids without totally destroying the engine?

I put a thread focusing on the actual case in the Off-Topic Discussion thread. You can find it HERE. This thread focuses entirely on the condition of the woman's Jeep and what would happen to a modern (newer than 1987-1995 with modern stuff like fuel injection and OBDII)

I recently read an article from 2014, about a Michigan woman who disappeared in late 2008-early 2009. Due to her automatic mortgage and bill payments, and the fact that she kept to herself and was known to leave for months at a time, nobody suspected anything was wrong. In 2013-2014, her bank account dried up, and the mortgage payments on her home stopped. After a couple of months, the bank foreclosed on the house. In early 2014, two repairmen were sent to the house to repair a large hole in the roof over the garage.

In the garage, they found the missing woman's 2003 Jeep Liberty Renegade, which was in okay condition but appeared to have been sitting for years. To see if they could find any clues as to the homeowner's whereabouts, these men opened the door to the Jeep and found the woman's mummified body in the backseat of the Jeep!

As I said before, I made another thread focusing on the details of the woman and this case.

So, the vehicle was a 2003 Jeep Liberty Renegade, which is actually one of the nicer versions of that vehicle in my opinion. The Jeep was 5-6 years old at the time the owner died, so one could assume it had about 50,000-60,000 miles on the clock. The deceased owner spent a lot of time traveling for work, both in-country and abroad, and she apparently got a ticket for driving with a suspended license less than a year before her death. Based on these facts, it's safe to say that the Jeep probably had lower than average miles for a 2003 vehicle in late 2008-early 2009.

There are only one or two pictures of the Jeep on the internet, showing the wrecker winching it out of the garage, and there are no interior shots. The Jeep was described by someone as smelling like death, but that nothing seemed amiss until they looked in the backseat. I'm guessing the interior wasn't terribly gross. In the exterior shots, the Jeep is covered in a fine layer of dirt from sitting for so long, but it is otherwise in good condition. The tires are not flat and seem to be holding air, the front tires were in good enough condition for the wrecker to pull it out of the garage.

I'm guessing the battery had probably died completely just from sitting so long, even if the dome light or another accessory hadn't been left on. One of the possible scenarios that the police detectives looked into was suicide, by carbon monoxide. However, when the Jeep and its gruesome contents were discovered, the key was in the ignition but turned to the off position. Further investigation revealed that the Jeep had two gallons of gas in its tank. If the woman had gassed herself to death, the Jeep would have continued running until it ran out of gas. I remember reading something, in one of the many articles about this case, stating that they had actually gotten the Jeep started, or at least turned on.

Regardless of whether or not they removed the gas tank and drained it, or if they actually started the engine, they would have had to turn the key to "ON" to get a fuel gauge reading. This would have required them to either charge the battery or put in a new one. It is never stated whether they actually started the engine.

 

A Detroit-area woman seemingly disappeared in late 2008-early 2009, when in actuality she'd been dead, in the backseat of her Jeep, in the garage of her home. She was not discovered until March 2014!

Please read THIS, too.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/2015/02/28/mystery-mummified-body-year-later/24188637/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...car-had-been-there-for-six-years-9178773.html

https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-afterlife-of-pia-farrenkopf

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/13/mummified-woman-foreclosed-home/6361977/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/13/mummified-woman-foreclosed-home/6361977/

 

I posted another thread about what condition a vehicle might be in after sitting for 5 years, minus the body in the backseat...

 

Having the vehicle run long enough for suicide is possible without the key on or running out of gas. Full tank and a remote starter.
As for the smell, it would depend on the decomp of the body. If the body was "mummified" completely, the smell would range from noticeable to persistent probably with little actual damage to the interior.
If the body decomposed, the moisture from fluids and tissue would get into pretty much anything and everything causing more damage and spreading the smell around more and the smell would be more noticeable inside. Lack of smell outside of the vehicle would say the vehicle was fairly well sealed.

 

Good point! But the key was in the ignition and they never found any remote starter. The first time I saw an aftermarket remote starter was in 1997 or so, on a neighbor's 1994 Ford Ranger, so I know they've been around a while. I don't think an '03 Liberty would have come with one from the factory...

 

https://www.oddee.com/item_98735.aspx

Similar stories

 

People die in building all the times. Natural causes, murder, suicide...

What I'm wondering is it's a good idea to fix up a vehicle after a person has died in it, especially if that person was unnoticed in the vehicle for years.

Back in the late 1970s or early 1980s, my Uncle Jeff (who is mentioned numerous times in various threads on TW) bought an AMC Rebel Machine at a rock-bottom price. Even for 35+ years ago, the car was really cheap. The car ran and drove, there was nothing wrong with it, and it had never been wrecked. My uncle eventually did find out why he'd gotten the AMC so cheap...

The seller's son had committed suicide in the car, by running a garden hose from the tailpipe through the window. He just sat in the driver's seat and let the carbon monoxide do its job. The guy's body was found fairly quickly after he died, so there wasn't time for the decomposition to set in, and thus the interior was totally ruined. The father of the deceased just wanted to be rid of the car because it brought back a sad memory, so he sold it to the first cash buyer at a rock-bottom price...

My uncle drove the AMC for a bit, and then sold it and ended up making a profit, though of course he didn't mention the car's grim past...

Even if the smell of death was totally removed from the 2003 Jeep Liberty's interior, I'm guessing that the bodily fluids seeped into the cushion rear seat and totally destroyed it. I honestly think the Jeep could rendered habitable once again if the carpet and rear seat were replaced?

 

I let a vehicle sit for 7 years. The fuel went completely bad, seizing the pump. With a new pump, fuel, fluids and battery it runs like it did when I parked it.

 

I’m no help here but that’s a neat story

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@Iamraiderpower
@LocoLocal

Even before I was officially employed at the bar where I work, I was still going above and beyond to help out.

From 2008 until the end of the summer in 2015, a woman named Charlene worked there as a bartender. I started going to this bar as a customer in August 2010, about eight months before the woman who would become one of my closest friends and later my boss started working there. Charlene was hot. She was born in 1973, but in 2012 I guessed her age as 28 and got a free drink out of it. Charlene, affectionately know by everyone as "Char," was a beautiful woman, of Hawaiian and Norwegian decent. I had a crush on her, as did most of my friends.

Here are some pictures of her that I took over the years (with her permission, of course)...

December 2011:



May 2012:


Both from October 2012:

 

So yeah, Char was 38-39 years old in these pictures. She started out as a bartender in 2008 and eventually became bar manager in addition to being a bartender. She held that position until she abruptly left in about September 2015, due to personal issues. Char was quite intelligent. She has a master's degree and her day job had something to do with home loans/mortgages. She merely moonlighted as a bartender.

Charlene initially did not think too highly of me, and while she didn't know I had Asperger's, she knew something was up. A typical trait of Asperger's is for an individual to be unaware of their surroundings. I almost immediately pissed Char off with my annoying habit of interrupting her conversations with other customers to ask for another drink. If I wasn't driving, I'd drink lager (specifically Yuengling Lager). I didn't even have my driver's license for about the first 9 months I knew the woman, so it didn't really matter. When I did eventually get my license, I only had water and soda when I was driving myself home.

Sooo, Char told my best friend John (who also has AS but is much more mature and socially aware) about me and the things I did that annoyed her. John in turn came to me and told me what Char had told him. When John told me what Char had told him, I immediately went right up to the bar and confronted her about it. John had told me exactly what Char was annoyed about, so I of course apologized for this behavior, but then I let her have it...

I wasn't rude or profane, but I basically told Char that if she had a problem with me or my behavior, that she needed to talk with me directly instead of complaining about me to my friends behind my back. It was as if we'd been reintroduced or were meeting for the very first time. Confronting Charlene immediately earned me her respect and solidified our friendship. Shortly after that, I told her I had Asperger's, and she knew exactly what it was. This made her all the more understanding of my various quirks and occasional annoying habits.

Of all the bartenders, Char was a favorite of me as well as my friends. Like I said, at least two of my guy friends had crushes on her. What sucked is that she wasn't into younger guys, and she was 16 years older than me. When we met, she was was 37 and I was 21. I'm down with the whole cougar/MILF thing, big time. I even admitted to Char that I had a crush on her, but she had a boyfriend at the time and just wasn't into younger guys...

As I said earlier, Charlene had some personal stuff going on and ended up abruptly leaving her job. She then seemingly severed ties with everybody from the bar. We are still friends on Facebook, but I have communicated with her in close to two years.

 

Going back to going above and beyond to help out, I would like to point out that I am one of those few people who hung out at the bar regularly but very rarely drank anything with alcohol in it. I just had (and still have) this thing about drinking and driving, and once I got my license and started driving myself to the weekly open mic night, the drinking stopped altogether. I once drove myself home after having three beers in like three and a half hours, but that's the worst I've ever done...

Anyway, from like 2012 to 2014, Char drove a blue 2005 Lexus RX330. During the winter when it was probably in the teens and twenties outside, Char hated getting into a cold car. I was probably the only 100% sober customer in the bar on a open mic night. On top of that, I'd spend enough time chatting with Char over the years that she just trusted me. As a result, she thought nothing of tossing me the keys to her Lexus while she was tallying up the night's earnings so I could bring it around for her.

I would go out to the parking lot, drive the Lexus around the corner, and park it curbside in the alley right outside the bar. Yes, she actually told me to leave the car running! By the time she was done closing for the night, her Lexus was nice and warm.

I really do miss Charlene!

 

Renting a car is a pain in the ass. They try to get you to buy the damage waiver which is useless as every credit card I've ever used to rent a car will pay what my insurance doesn't pay. I call the card I'm using and ask whenever I rent a car.
At least you can drive it like you stole it as long as you don't scratch it

 

I love the new hertz kiosk system. Book it online, walk up to kiosk and select my vehicle and I’m gone. Effffffff the counter and their bullshit

 

I lived in Fairfax County from 1986-2005!

 

My State Farm auto insurance covers rentals, I just have to pay the $500 deductible.

I had to go to Edison NJ for work a few years ago. I booked a car online for $34.99 + tax a day at the Newark NJ airport. With the state, local, airport security and port authority taxes, the car cost close to $94.99 a day. Employer picked that one up.