This forum is very quiet these days. Why?

[eatont9999]

I'm not doing much work on any vehicles right now because it is way too hot out. Being miserable and sweating in the hot TX sun takes all my motivation away. I should have a short window of time this fall before my son is born in December. In the mean time, I am making a list of projects and parts so I can bang out a few repairs when the weather lets up. Work has also been pretty demanding this year, so that limits my free time even further.

[JB3]

Originally Posted by eatont9999

I'm not doing much work on any vehicles right now because it is way too hot out. Being miserable and sweating in the hot TX sun takes all my motivation away. I should have a short window of time this fall before my son is born in December. In the mean time, I am making a list of projects and parts so I can bang out a few repairs when the weather lets up. Work has also been pretty demanding this year, so that limits my free time even further.

good luck, I advise you to schedule that time and nail it to the wall sooner rather than later. I did the same thing, saying I would get this and that and the other thing done by the birth of a kid, and the time melted through my fingers like a broken hour glass.

It took me 3 months to get an oil change done, let alone the 3 project cars in my yard running

[t walgamuth]

I think the low price of gasoline hurts interest in diesel a lot.

I belong to the studebaker forum too and there is declining activity there too. Over there most of the guys are older. A lot of them had fathers who worked at the factory as mine did in the late forties and early fifties.

BC was a great source of info. He could be overbearing though. He had his mod job taken from him and he eventually committed death by mod intentionally. It is a shame he is not still around.

[Skippy]

I'm on some other forums. The Kawasaki one is a lot less active than it was. The Triumph one was never that active in the first place. Every once in a while I stop by the old Crown Vic forum, and that is much less active than when I joined it ten years ago.

As for why, I can only speculate that something else has people's interest.

[HuskyMan]

BC was a great source of technical advice in regards to MB. I miss his expertise and wish that he were here. That said, it takes a lot of commitment to keep a 20+ year old diesel on the road nowadays. That doesn't mean it is impossible, it just means that it requires more wrench turning.

Another issue I'm finding is the mother ship (Mercedes Benz, USA) is starting to pull parts for these older cars off the shelves (NLA).

Twenty years ago, you could walk into a MB dealership and buy any part you needed....not so today. I always understood that MB offered ANY part for any car going back to 1927 but it seems the Gods at Stuttgart are changing their business plan.

[lorainfurniture]

You can still get the part, they quoted me 3800 for a set of front axles to fit my 300te. 5-7 weeks as they will be custom made. I said no thanks.

[Shortsguy1]

I also wish they would forgive BC and ask if he would like to participate again. I actually liked his "no-nonsense" approach, although with my thin skin, I was always anxious that I might say something dumb and receive his wrath.

In addition to the reasons presented earlier, I think that MB charging for EPC has made it harder for me to participate here. I don't have much knowledge, but was always happy to find someone's part in EPC. Now that I don't have access anymore, that affects my ability to contribute.

Also, MB perpetually raising the prices of their OE parts, combined with the quality issues of non-OE parts makes it a lot harder to DIY an old car.

I teach at a university where "hands-on" education used to be the selling point. But now the emphasis is research and high SAT scores. The students and faculty are all less interested in working with their hands. I suspect the same may be true for much of society.

[tjts1]

Probably goes hand in hand with the fact that these cars have lots a lot of their resale value after gasoline and diesel got dirt cheap.

[gatorblue92]

Originally Posted by JB3

good luck, I advise you to schedule that time and nail it to the wall sooner rather than later. I did the same thing, saying I would get this and that and the other thing done by the birth of a kid, and the time melted through my fingers like a broken hour glass.

It took me 3 months to get an oil change done, let alone the 3 project cars in my yard running

Im on month 3 of the rear suspension rebuild on my 240D. I don't have the time or honestly the desire to constantly be working on an old car anymore. I still love driving them and I think having a second old Mercedes has slowed down the repair time on the down car since I have another old benz to drive. A new and reliable DD doesn't help either.

Now that I think about it I also don't post much anymore for the same reasons. Lack of time and interest.

[Stretch]

I put the lower activity on DD to be because of the rise and fall of the "free fuel" vegi craze. A decade ago the world seemed to be be interested in old diesels because you could "run them on chip fat" - this of course turned out to be different than expected: Added to the adage "there's no such thing as a free lunch for you or your car"!

Tech help on this forum died off quite a bit a few years back but it seems like it is picking up again now.

[dude99]

Another reason that has put me off the forums are the 2 or 3 bull headed people on here that constantly hammer on their own agenda (like the EGR king, if you know who I mean). I just don't have the desire or patience to be contradicted at every turn anymore. I used to take the time to argue a counter point for the sake of the original poster.

[t walgamuth]

Originally Posted by dude99

Another reason that has put me off the forums are the 2 or 3 bull headed people on here that constantly hammer on their own agenda (like the EGR king, if you know who I mean). I just don't have the desire or patience to be contradicted at every turn anymore. I used to take the time to argue a counter point for the sake of the original poster.

We have an ignore function for those who refuse to play nicely with others.

I have a half dozen or so on mine.

I do cheat sometimes if I think they might actually have an idea.

[Chris W.]

I'm one of the ones who had an epiphany one day and realized that no matter how much work I did to the car, there was always a list of many things on my car ('95 E300D with 467K) which always needed fixing. Finally I was facing a long hot summer with no AC unless I did the evap replacement, which meant either a lot of time and effort or a lot of money, neither of which I wanted to spend on the car. While still reliable, my car was reaching the point of not being so. Two weeks later I'd sold it for scrap value (nobody really wanted it) and bought a new to me 2003 IS300. Talk about different! Have not had a minute of regret, as much as I loved my diesel.

Rgds,
Chris W.

[patbob]

if you want forum activity with other dieselheads, go over to the TDI folks. Lots of activity there . Seems every user feels the need to spark off their own thread trying to come up with reasons on why VW cheated. This forum even gets mentioned in their non-VW-diesel section from time to time.

As for the MB, with the worn front suspension parts replaced (just had to throw money at it this time), new tires ,and the cooling system problems fixed, I'm just enjoying driving the heck out of it. Took it up over the mountains to the beach yesterday.. just to know it could, and because a day at the beach when it's in the 90s at home is always a day well spent

[spock505]

It was only last year when user numbers peaked, could have been a one off for unknown reason.

Is it possible to pull of the user stats from home page?

Most users ever online was 9,350, 05-13-2015 at 03:04 PM.