Post whatever is on your mind!!

[Ray721]

How can people have such a hard time in the snow with their FWD suvs. All the main roads were dry yesterday so I took the Mustang to my parents house. I was able to make it up their completely snow covered driveway on summer tires lmao. It took a little speed but I made it lmao!

Later in the evening I had to park on the road so my moms car could park in the driveway. Their road was also snow covered with a couple inches of snow. Was able to park and get going no problems. I was shocked. Thought for sure I was gonna need a push to get going

[Laffs]

How can people have such a hard time in the snow with their FWD suvs. All the main roads were dry yesterday so I took the Mustang to my parents house. I was able to make it up their completely snow covered driveway on summer tires lmao. It took a little speed but I made it lmao!

Later in the evening I had to park on the road so my moms car could park in the driveway. Their road was also snow covered with a couple inches of snow. Was able to park and get going no problems. I was shocked. Thought for sure I was gonna need a push to get going

Day or two old stuff that's been compacted by use/rain is a whole different ball game than active system with ruts, powder, etc.

[IanGTCS]

Been noticing that the exhaust on my winter car has been getting louder the past couple of months. Fired it up yesterday and went to scrape the weekends worth of snow off it and noticed it was getting really loud. Took a look today and noticed gasses coming out from the flex bit between the cat and the resonator, tapped it with a screwdriver and bits fell out. Now the debate - do I do anything to fix it? Think I might spend some of my next few days off taking off the interior around the rear strut towers and see if they are still solid. Apparently a pretty common rot area for the car and if they are iffy I'll leave it for the winter.

Side note, anyone have any experience with 2011-2014 sonatas?

[IanGTCS]

Poked around the strut towers today. Sound deadening liner material was soaked, didn't want to take the whole inside apart so felt around from the outside and found the hole as seen below. The yellowish stuff is the sound liner, the bolts to the right are the loop that the folding seat attaches to. Figure that I'll run the car for the rest of the winter and start looking come spring for something much newer. Hold is about the size of a fist.

Impreza strut tower.jpeg

[5.4MarkVIII]

Rest of the car okay?
Spot like that if easily excessable with the seats out are supprsingly cheaper to fix. Cuz there is really no time consuming body or paint work involved. Weld a patch seal the seems, undercoat and drive on.

[IanGTCS]

^14 hamilton winters. I was planning on stripping the interior this spring anyways to pressure wash the carpet. Had the trunk pieces out - Subaru puts a layer of heavy styrofoam with storage between the spare tire/floor and trunk bottom, I guess for sound deadening too - some of the seams around the sides look rough, one with a small hole.

Rest of the car is ok for the most part. Rust around the rear wheel wells and starting below the passenger mirror of all places. Replaced the front bumper and hood with a different colour last year after I hit a truck (100% my fault) and the upper rad support is a little bent. Lower rad support and bumper mounts were starting to get rusty.

Now if it was just me driving it I wouldn't be too worried, I drove a car for two winters that had major holes replaced with fiberglass boat repair kit stuff. But I also have a 1 year old that I drive around in it. My wife's Forester is the primary family car, but I do use mine on a regular basis. That is what gives me a little bit of pause in keeping on driving it. Maybe I'll strip out the interior of that side tomorrow and see how bad it really looks and go from there.

[Ponyryd]

Yikes! Looks like a Ford Escape inner wheelwell, lol. That is a main structure point for the suspension, so be very careful poking around in that area that the strut doesn’t come flying at you.....seen it happen on Escapes before.

[IanGTCS]

^Except it is a good bit older than an escape in the same shape. I'll try and find some time to get the interior out today or tomorrow and see how it looks from the inside. On the other hand maybe I'll just leave it and tell myself its fine until the tower busts apart.

[RedSN]

Holes in the exhaust system and holes in the floor? Sounds like a bad combination to me.

[Laffs]

Yayyyyy threw my back out again.