Non-political things that make you say...WTF?!?! (Welcome To Florida!) **NOT CV RELATED** NO TALKY!

My WTF for the week had me laughing, because it was too ridiculous to be mad.
I am rebuilding the AC on my father's car. Everything but the evaporator is new.
Go to Advance to pick up the hoses, and I notice that the bag for the suction/discharge set is open. I look at it again and see the o-rings are loose in the bag.
So, I pull the hose out to look at it. That is when I see the scrapes and wear from mounting hardware. I look at the manifold block and see the edge looks like someone took a hammer to it. Appears that someone installed it, found that it wasn't their issue. Then removed and returned it, and Advance tried to sell it to me as new.
They ordered me another one, which arrived new on a sealed bag. However, the line to the accumulator didn't fit. I called and talked to them and they said the part number shows that it requires a specific (non-OE style) accumulator and won't work with the brand new one I just installed and can't return.
Fine, order the correct accumulator. It arrives this morning and I go to pick it up. For some reason, I took the other new accumulator with me. I set it on the counter as the parts guy went and grabbed my order. He brings out the box and the first thing I see is greasy hand prints. He opened the box and pulled the accumulator out. Not only is the hose mount the same as OE, but the accumulator IS a factory 2003 OE accumulator.
Someone purchased it, and returned their old one. So, 2 orders and both items received were used in packaging that made it obvious something was not correct.
That shows that they don't EVER look at returned items. I had them reorder an accumulator. Actually, 2 accumulators from 2 different locations so I have a little better chance of getting the correct NEW part.
What's worse, I have ordered 13 things either in stores or online in the last two weeks and 5 have been wrong/used/or missing pieces. If there is one in a million things that could be wrong with an order, I have a very good chance of being the one that gets it.

 

I need to take you with me when I buy lottery tickets so you can get all the losing tickets first.

 

If there were 10 available and I got all 10, they would forget to put the winning one in there...

 

You made me look. There is controversy as to the number of states of matter.

Natural states[edit]

• Solid: A solid holds a definite shape and volume without a container. The particles are held very close to each other.
  • Amorphous solid: A solid in which there is no far-range order of the positions of the atoms.
  • Crystalline solid: A solid in which atoms, molecules, or ions are packed in regular order.
  • Plastic crystal: A molecular solid with long-range positional order but with constituent molecules retaining rotational freedom.
  • Quasi-crystal: A solid in which the positions of the atoms have long-range order, but this is not in a repeating pattern.
• Liquid: A mostly non-compressible fluid. Able to conform to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure.
  • Liquid crystal: Properties intermediate between liquids and crystals. Generally, able to flow like a liquid but exhibiting long-range order.
  • Non-Newtonian fluid: a fluid that does not follow Newton's law of viscosity.
• Gas: A compressible fluid. Not only will a gas conform to the shape of its container but it will also expand to fill the container.
• Plasma: Free charged particles, usually in equal numbers, such as ions and electrons. Unlike gases, plasma may self-generate magnetic fields and electric currents, and respond strongly and collectively to electromagnetic forces. Plasma is very uncommon on Earth (except for the ionosphere), although it is the most common state of matter in the universe.[1]

Modern states[edit]

• Supercritical fluid: At sufficiently high temperatures and pressures, the distinction between liquid and gas disappears.
• Degenerate matter: matter under very high pressure, supported by the Pauli exclusion principle.
  • Electron-degenerate matter: found inside white dwarf stars. Electrons remain bound to atoms but are able to transfer to adjacent atoms.
  • Neutron-degenerate matter: found in neutron stars. Vast gravitational pressure compresses atoms so strongly that the electrons are forced to combine with protons via inverse beta-decay, resulting in a super dense conglomeration of neutrons. (Normally free neutrons outside an atomic nucleus will decay with a half-life of just under 15 minutes, but in a neutron star, as in the nucleus of an atom, other effects stabilize the neutrons.)
  • Strange matter: A type of quark matter that may exist inside some neutron stars close to the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit (approximately 2–3 solar masses). May be stable at lower energy states once formed.
  • Quantum spin Hall state: a theoretical phase that may pave the way for the development of electronic devices that dissipate less energy and generate less heat. This is a derivation of the quantum Hall state of matter.
• Bose–Einstein condensate: a phase in which a large number of bosons all inhabit the same quantum state, in effect becoming one single wave/particle. This is a low-energy phase that can only be formed in laboratory conditions and very cold temperatures. It must be close to zero Kelvin, or absolute zero. Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein predicted the existence of such a state in the 1920s, but it was not observed until 1995 by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman.
• Fermionic condensate: Similar to the Bose-Einstein condensate but composed of fermions, also known as Fermi-Dirac condensate. The Pauli exclusion principle prevents fermions from entering the same quantum state, but a pair of fermions can behave like a boson, and multiple such pairs can then enter the same quantum state without restriction.
• Superconductivity: is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic fields occurring in certain materials when cooled below a characteristic critical temperature. Superconductivity is the ground state of many elemental metals.
• Superfluid: A phase achieved by a few cryogenic liquids at extreme temperature at which they become able to flow without friction. A superfluid can flow up the side of an open container and down the outside. Placing a superfluid in a spinning container will result in quantized vortices.
• Supersolid: similar to a superfluid, a supersolid can move without friction but retains a rigid shape.
• Quantum spin liquid: A disordered state in a system of interacting quantum spins which preserves its disorder to very low temperatures, unlike other disordered states.
• Heavy fermion materials: Heavy fermion materials or strongly correlated Fermi systems form a new state of matter that defines by quantum phase transitions, and exhibits a universal scaling behavior of its thermodynamic, transport and relaxation properties. Quantum spin liquid, quasicrystals, 2D Fermi liquids, heavy-fermion metals and heavy-fermion superconductors can belong to the new state of matter.
• String-net liquid: Atoms in this state have apparently unstable arrangements, like a liquid, but are still consistent in the overall pattern, like a solid.
• Dropleton: An artificial quasiparticle, constituting a collection of electrons and holes inside a semiconductor. The dropleton is the first known quasiparticle that behaves like a liquid.
• Time crystals: A state of matter where an object can have movement even at its lowest energy state.
• Rydberg polaron: A state of matter that can only exist at ultra-low temperatures and consists of atoms inside of atoms.

Very high energy states[edit]

• Quark–gluon plasma: A phase in which quarks become free and able to move independently (rather than being perpetually bound into particles, or bound to each other in a quantum lock where exerting force adds energy and eventually solidifies into another quark) in an ocean of gluons (subatomic particles that transmit the strong force that binds quarks together). May be briefly attainable in particle accelerators, or possibly inside neutron stars.
  • For up to 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang, the energy density of the universe was so high that the four forces of nature – strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational – are thought to have been unified into one single force. The state of matter in this time is unknown. As the universe expanded, the temperature and density dropped and the gravitational force separated, which is a process called symmetry breaking.
  • For up to 10−12 seconds after the Big Bang, most scientists think that the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces were unified. The state of matter in this time is unknown.

 

Take me too. None of the 3 numbers I pick ever come up. Increase your odds.

 

A/C is like the worst thing to try and repair on a vehicle, I'd almost rather be rebuilding the engine. Replacing everything is the only way to go. Probably why there are so many beat up returned parts as someone goes through replacing each part trying to figure out which part is broke. Way to turn a shitty project into an even shittier project, Advance!

I ordered a pair of nice shoes through Amazon once and received someone's old, beatup Cole Haans in the box. They didn't even try to make them look new.

 

Have you tried picking a different three?

 

It's because of DIYers who think they know what they are doing instead of bringing it to someone like us who are ASE certified, they then mess things up and eventually replace everything or bring it to us anyways where we are happy to charge them double because they messed it up the first time. Gotta like those guys!

And then you get Advance Auto Parts managers who make $11/hr and don't give a $hit about their job because it's a job, not a career choice, and never inspect parts that are returned. We see this all the time in the business. I keep telling my kid he needs to go to NAPA and quit working there. LOL

 

Napa in my town is worse and after getting incorrect parts at +20% over the Napa in the next town up, I'm done with that place too. Guy there thinks he knows everything. Even told me the ujoint strap for my car did not exist. Went to the auto parts/gun/u-haul store and he grabbed it off the shelf and handed it to me.
I'm done with advance after tomorrow.
2 accumulators came in, one was the wrong one (nice & new), the other was the right one (another returned part).
Hopefully the parts arriving tomorrow are better quality and fit than Advance and I can get em on early enough to drop it off at the shop to get charged.

 

I get a lot of my stuff from a local old school radiator shop. That guy can get anything and they've been doing it for years. They also know what brands work and which fit the best. The youngest guy there is about my age. 48ish.

 

I have the type of luck that I'd play the same numbers for a decade, then the one day I'd forget to play, those numbers would come up.

 

Playing the lottery is like dating. Lots of hopes and promises. Not really worth the time, money, and effort. And the chances of you finding a winner are slim.

 

Sounds like you could use a cold beer and an O’Reilly’s. Good luck.

 

Some good sturdy wood blocks can lift that rear just fine!

 

I remember a friend of the family used woodblocks for the lift in an old Scout he used for cutting and collecting firewood. The blocks were made out of one of the trees he cut down. It worked okay for slow crawling around the woods but was a bit harsh of a ride if you went too fast.

 

https://youtu.be/NJj1sXW9-SA

 

Two of my local viper club members have Calvo cars. Just sick. One of them has three Lambos too. Two are twin turbo from UGR, a 900hp Gallardo, a 1500hp Gallardo, and a supercharged Huracan. It's like a rolling circus on the highway when we go out. A guy with a new Ferrari 599 came out with us once and got dragged up and down the highway in every roll race. Funny how guys with $400k+ ferraris don't like losing to a dodge .

 

They come out to our cars and coffee. Very efficient at turning gas into noise.