[HN Gopher] A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
___________________________________________________________________
A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
Author : visviva
Score : 143 points
Date : 2025-10-08 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hagerty.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hagerty.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Some previous discussions:
|
| 2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767092
|
| 2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30878489
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767092 - July 2023 (303
| comments)
|
| _A few things to know before stealing my 914_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30878489 - April 2022 (417
| comments)
| haunter wrote:
| https://archive.li/yl7z2
| fallinditch wrote:
| This story reminds me that I have a recurring nightmare: I am
| driving a car and the brakes hardly work at all, so I am in
| constant fear that something will go terribly wrong. This
| nightmare was born from a real experience with my first vehicle,
| a VW micro bus that had horribly squishy brakes.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Many years ago, I was driving down the highway on my way to
| work and, when I pressed the breaks to slow down, the pedal
| just... went straight to the floor. I had to use the emergency
| break to slow down, get off the highway, and pull over. Luckily
| that still worked (I've owned many a car where that was the
| first thing to go).
|
| So, it turns out the breaks rotted off and fell off the car on
| the way to work. I had had it inspected the previous day... and
| they didn't mention anything was wrong. I did not go back to
| that inspection place again.
| fallinditch wrote:
| Wow you were lucky. There was a driver in the UK whose
| accelerator got stuck, then his brakes burnt out and he was
| on a notoriously busy road traveling at 135mph - he survived!
| See https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/this-
| britain/help-i-...
| wat10000 wrote:
| This is what happened to quite a few people with the Toyota
| unintended acceleration issue. There was speculation that
| it was caused by bugs in the engine control unit.
| Officially the cause was found to be floor mats coming
| loose and holding the accelerator down. (I bought a new
| Toyota shortly after this and the dealer was very careful
| to show me how the floor mats worked and how to make sure
| they were properly attached.)
|
| The brakes of a car in good working order should be able to
| overcome the engine and stop the car even if the engine is
| stuck at full power. But you have to do it decisively. Push
| the brake pedal to the floor and keep it there until you've
| stopped. What often happens is people are (very naturally)
| confused and not sure what to do, they'll brake but not
| hard enough, stop braking when it doesn't seem to work, try
| again, etc. This can heat up the brakes to the point where
| they're no longer effective enough to stop the car, and
| then you're really in for it.
| toast0 wrote:
| Seems like he wasn't able to get it out of gear, and then
| didn't want to turn off the engine because he'd lose power
| steering. Losing power steering isn't ideal, but seems like
| it'd be better than traveling at 135 mph, power steering is
| most important at low speeds, and I'd think better to have
| a bit of trouble with the steering as you get it stopped
| than to end up crashing it.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Not only did this happen to me (caused by a hole in a brake
| line), it occurred the week after I happened to take the time
| to fix the emergency brake that hadn't worked in years. But
| yet I have no luck at the casino!
| technothrasher wrote:
| When I was first dating my wife, I think it was our second
| date, she was driving a ratty old 82 SAAB 900 that her dad
| had handed down to her. While she was coming to a stop at a
| light, the brakes failed on her and she panicked. I reached
| over and pulled the emergency brake (luckily on the
| transmission tunnel and not by the driver's door in that
| car), and we stopped in time to just barely kiss the rear
| bumper of the car in front of us. The driver looked in his
| rear view mirror with a "WTF?" expression and I sheepishly
| mouthed "sorry". She made me drive the car back to her house
| on the emergency brake, as she was too scared. I then
| diagnosed it as the master cylinder, went to the auto parts
| store that afternoon and bought a new one, installed it and
| bled the brakes, and got her back on the road. She says now
| that was when she decided I might be worth marrying, but that
| she foolishly didn't realize that I came as a package deal
| with an unending string of "old ugly smelly sports cars".
| CitrusFruits wrote:
| I have that exact same nightmare! The harder I press on the
| brake, the less it does, as if the brake power is following a
| logarithmic curve. Although I don't really know why I have that
| dream, no specific experience comes to mind.
| thr0w wrote:
| Yeah I have the squishy/very soft/not really working brake
| nightmare.
| fallinditch wrote:
| Perhaps symbolizes a feeling of being out of control in some
| aspect of one's life? By all accounts quite common:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/DreamInterpretation/comments/nnndju.
| ..
| Stratoscope wrote:
| My first girlfriend, Kate, bought an old VW Bug for $200 from
| someone on Page Mill Road up the hill from Palo Alto.
|
| I drove her up there in my Toyota Corolla that I later rolled
| over on Summit Road. I didn't realize I was upside down until I
| heard a scraping sound from the roof and saw the top of the
| windshield crinkling.
|
| Apparently that was a thing with the 1970s era Corollas.
| Several years later a buddy's girlfriend who I had a secret
| crush on rolled her Toyota too.
|
| With the car upside down, someone drove up, we gave it a mighty
| push and rolled it back on its feet! Then someone else stopped
| by and held a joint out his car window and said, "You look like
| you could use a toke."
|
| Back to the Bug. I followed Kate down the hill into town and
| noticed she wasn't slowing down much around the turns. Then we
| got to Junipero Serra Blvd and she didn't stop at the red
| light. A pickup trick sideswiped the Bug and that got it to
| stop.
|
| The only real damage to the Bug was a front fender, so we
| bought a new one at a junkyard and bolted it on.
|
| Besides the brakes, the engine wasn't running so great either.
| We bought a carburetor rebuild kit and got it running much
| smoother.
|
| Emboldened by those successes, I decided to rebuild the engine
| too. I was a member of the Briarpatch auto repair collective,
| where you could rent a spot in the shop and use their tools to
| do your own work, or pay their mechanic to do it.
|
| I got the engine torn apart, with nuts and bolts and parts
| strewn across the shop floor.
|
| Then I realized I was in way over my head and had no idea where
| everything was supposed to go. I asked the mechanic if he could
| take over. He looked at the mess, shook his head, and said
| "I'll do it, but this is the worst way to get a job."
|
| We named our cars in those days. The Bug was named Gus, and
| later I got an MGB-GT that I named Maggie. And after that, a
| Fiat 124 Spyder which already had a cool name.
|
| Spyder developed a different brake problem. I think there were
| air bubbles in the brake lines that expanded as they warmed up.
| Then the brakes would slowly and gradually clamp down. You'd be
| driving on level ground and find yourself having to press down
| more on the gas, as if you were driving uphill. And then the
| the car would come to a complete stop.
|
| Instead of getting the brake lines flushed and fixed, I did the
| sensible thing: Each wheel had a brake bleeder valve, and I
| started carrying a combination wrench that fit those valves.
| When the car stopped, I loosened one of the bleeder valves and
| brake fluid spurt out onto the ground. This relieved the
| pressure in the brake lines and I continued on my way.
|
| Kate and I also had a thing for the Porsche 914. We knew it was
| a joint venture between Volkswagen and Porsche, so we scrambled
| up those two names. When we saw one on the highway, we'd call
| out "There's a Vorp!"
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Whatever happened to Kate?
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Same here.. I'm usually driving some conglomerate of my first 3
| cars (all VWs) - MK1 Jetta GLI, MK2 Golf GTi 16v or VR6 Corrado
| (or sometimes a Scirocco which is related to the Corrado). And
| gear shifts are like 30-50cm long, and then the brakes start to
| fade..
|
| I stopped having that dream nearly as often when I bought my
| '05 Subaru Legacy GT wagon.
|
| What's even stranger is that my current Kia Stinger (a fun
| car!) becomes an exotic Maserati or Aston Martin or Jaguar in
| my dreams..
| bluGill wrote:
| The only time my brakes went out on my I happened to be towing
| a 10,000lbs trailer. I was able to use the trailer brakes only
| for 10 miles of stop and go traffic (rural freeway under
| construction, the backup started just past the previous exit,
| and of course the brakes were working until then). I never want
| that to happen again.
| gdevenyi wrote:
| Fun fact, the VW microbus has the same engine as this Porsche.
| wildzzz wrote:
| A teenager slammed a beat up Chrysler 200 into the back of my
| rental car. Once he managed to get the door open, he said
| something along the lines of "yeah the brakes don't work so
| well". Of course this was in Florida so there was never any
| expectation for his car to ever have working brakes. Luckily I
| paid for the LDW on the rental so it was not my problem.
| kerblang wrote:
| My driving nightmares, in order:
|
| - I am utterly fucking shitfaced drunk and having great
| difficulty with reality in general
|
| - I am completely blind, albeit sober
|
| - I am driving from the back seat, for some reason (trying, at
| least)
|
| - I am going uphill, but the hill keeps getting steeper, until
| finally I am completely vertical, and to my surprise, traffic
| is passing me
|
| - Don't ask me how I know, but I have entered a no-oxygen zone
| and have to get out of there before I pass out
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Had a 84' Chrysler LeBaron. Brakes went out on the way home
| from work. Managed to get it to the closet auto body shop. They
| had it for three days, charged me $1,200 for a new master
| cylinder and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know I needed. I
| paid $500 for the car and tried to tell them to do the absolute
| minimum to get it going. Apparently that _was_ the minimum.
|
| Drove it home, brakes worked like a dream. Got up next morning,
| third stop light, brake goes all the way to the floor, I'm
| drifting into the intersection. I panic, look both ways and gun
| it through safely. Drove that thing with brakes barely working
| back to the shop. Calmly told them whatever they did? Didn't
| work.
|
| Same thing. Another $800 bill, this time the brakes worked for
| a few more days, then it happened again. I took it to another
| shop. The mechanic asked what they told me they did and what
| they charged me for. I showed them both invoices. He pulled me
| aside with my car still on the lift and whispered to me, "Look
| man, they didn't do anything. They just filled the brake fluid
| up. When it all leaked back out is why your brakes kept going
| out. Imma fix this for a super discounted rate, but you need to
| get a lawyer, you got lucky not getting into an accident or
| killed."
|
| I sued the shop, got all my money back and then some. About six
| months after they settled my suit, I got a call from the local
| paper asking why I sued them because they were doing a story on
| the shop scamming hundreds of people out of tens of thousands
| of dollars.
| nlawalker wrote:
| It's like developer onboarding, but documented.
| stavros wrote:
| What an absolutely fantastic comment, bravo.
| wingspar wrote:
| " Since there is not a clutch safety switch on the starting
| circuit, make sure to press the clutch down before you try to
| crank the engine."
|
| Growing up, a friends dad would use this as a 'feature' on his
| Datsun to move the car out of traffic when it wouldn't restart.
|
| Put it in first, release the clutch, crank the starter, and move
| the car out of the way.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Isn't this why you cannot push start cars anymore?
| cafard wrote:
| No. The clutch must be in when you start to roll the car--the
| car won't budge otherwise. You get it rolling, turn the
| ignition to on, then let out the clutch.
|
| I suppose that a 1980s Corolla was the last car I drift-
| started, though.
| toast0 wrote:
| You should still be able to push start a newer manual
| transmission car. Put in the clutch, put the key to run, put
| it in 1st (or so), get it up to speed, let the clutch out,
| and now the engine is turning, which should turn the
| alternator/generator which should now be able to run the
| engine. If your electrical system is really bad, maybe the
| alternator can't get the voltage high enough to run
| everything; if your car is very modern maybe the engine
| control computer won't start up and control the engine before
| the engine stalls out because of lack of fuel and spark (or
| the fuel pump doesn't develop enough pressure in time); or
| maybe the computer just won't do it.
|
| In a traditional automatic with a hydraulic torque converter
| between the engine and the gearing, you've got a problem:
| most transmissions use hydraulic pressure to actuate the gear
| selection, and hydraulic pressure is typically developed by
| turning of the input shaft. Some older automatics had a
| secondary pump to develop hydraulic pressure from turning of
| the output shaft. In those cars, you could select first gear,
| turn the ignition to run, and if you got it moving fast
| enough, it would develop pressure, actuate first gear, and
| then the transmission could turn the engine and off you were.
| Some references suggest pushing in neutral and selecting
| first when ready to start. References say you need to get up
| to about 15-25 mph for that; my VW Vanagon which shares the
| same engine type as the 914 (and is therefore a rear-engine
| sports car) can start the engine from a much slower roll; the
| speedometer rests at 10 mph, so who knows how fast I'm going,
| but probably walking speed.
| mikestew wrote:
| If you can't push-start a car, it's because it has electronic
| fuel injection. If the battery is stone dead, there's no
| juice to run the FI and fuel pump, it will never start. It
| would work on stone cold carbureted cars because there'd be
| enough fuel left in the float bowls to bootstrap the whole
| operation.
| hinkley wrote:
| Some old cars had mechanically powered fuel pumps so if the
| engine is moving the pump is going. Mine just had a little
| shaft buried behind the mounting bracket.
|
| Probably safer not to introduce electricity to gasoline...
| olyjohn wrote:
| I was really surprised when I couldn't push start my 1992
| Miata. I had the thing rolling down a hill at like 15mph in
| first for at least 2 blocks, engine was spinning, but just
| refused to fire. Jump pack fired it right up. I know the
| battery was dead after I left the light on, but I figured for
| sure the alternator would make enough juice to fire up the
| injectors and ignition...
| maples37 wrote:
| Some alternators ironically require electricity to make
| electricity. They don't have permanent magnets inside, but
| instead use electromagnets. So from a stone cold battery,
| if there's not enough power to get those electromagnets
| functional, you don't have a way of converting that
| rotational energy into electricity.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternator#By_excitation
|
| I do wonder how much current that requires, though. In a
| pinch, could a duct-taped string of AAs be enough to get
| you going?
| eszed wrote:
| Use second gear. I have a '96NA, and first gear can't
| perform a roll-start, but it catches just fine in second. I
| have no idea why that is, but I remember I was just about
| of hill when I discovered it.
| maples37 wrote:
| As of 2013, manual cars (at least Mazdas) can still be roll-
| started, as long as the engine computer has enough power to
| function.
|
| My CX-5 even has a wireless-pushbutton start, not a physical-
| key-in-the-ignition start, but I've still been able to roll-
| start it when the battery is too dead to crank the starter
| motor but still has enough juice for the electronics (lowest
| I've seen is ~8v if I recall correctly, but don't quote me on
| that).
|
| The process is pretty much the same: put the car's ignition
| into the "ON" position (in my case, press the pushbutton
| twice without touching the pedals -- once to ACC mode, then
| once to move from ACC to ON), then it's the same as normal:
| clutch-in, shift to your preferred gear, get rolling, and pop
| the clutch. Engine computer sees "oh, looks like the engine's
| spinning, let's add gas and spark" and you're good to go.
|
| Anecdotally, I've seen the described behavior of the engine
| computer ("detects spinning and adds gas/spark, even if the
| initial motion wasn't from the starter motor") on automatic
| transmission vehicles, too. On a 2008 Chevrolet, I found that
| if you revved the engine up a bit (for inertia), turned the
| key to OFF, then quickly turned the key back to ON (without
| turning all the way to START), the engine computer will catch
| it and keep it running.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I've done that, with an old Volkswagen. It wouldn't start, but
| I was able to use the starter to move it maybe 30 feet uphill
| in order to reach a position where I could coast-start it for a
| couple blocks. Got it running.
|
| But I came really close to getting in trouble with a 1948 Chevy
| pickup. I backed it into my grandfather's garage, and then
| found out that it was a bit too far forward to be able to close
| the door. So I turned the ignition on, put it in reverse, and
| touched the starter.
|
| Unfortunately, the engine caught with that brief touch of the
| starter, leaving me frantically stabbing for the clutch before
| I pushed through the back of the garage...
|
| Fortunately, it idled _very_ slowly, and I had (of course)
| given it no gas.
| mtillman wrote:
| Funny you mention VW because the 914 is a VW. In fact, the
| name was originally VW-Porsche 914 from what I remember. A
| buddy's dad bought one for $4K when they came out.
| mikestew wrote:
| Designed by Porsche, built by VW. Called plain "Porsche" in
| the U. S., "VW-Porsche" everywhere else.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| The 914/4 was a four cylinder VW built by Karman, the
| 914/6 a six cylinder built by Porsche in Zuffenhausen.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I was told this was a potential last-ditch way to escape if you
| stalled while crossing railroad tracks.
|
| In hindsight, stalling while crossing railroad tracks, like
| quicksand, is a much less common danger in adulthood than I was
| lead to believe as a younger person.
| riffraff wrote:
| what's the thing with quicksand?
|
| I was born in 1980 and it seemed people would get stuck in
| quicksand on tv regularly when I was a kid, but it seems a
| kind of danger that has almost disappeared from the
| collective narrative.
|
| Why was it popular before? Why isn't it anymore? This baffles
| me.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| You still can very much die in quicksand but the problem is
| that you get like your foot stuck in a way that you just
| can't escape and then you just die out there like that. But
| the idea that you sink down and drowned is some kind of
| weird combination of a swamp and not really quicksand but
| is much more filmable.
| dmurray wrote:
| You get your foot stuck in _and then the tide comes in
| and you drown_.
|
| Most quicksand I'm aware of is in tidal flats [0] [1] and
| it really is dangerous to take a short cut over them.
| Come to think of it, most normal sand I encounter is in
| tidal flats, too.
|
| [0] https://www.98fm.com/news/north-dublin-beaches-
| quicksand-war...
|
| [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/southend-on-sea-
| deadly-...
| bityard wrote:
| I don't know why, but I expected quicksand to be an
| Australia thing. "Even the dirt tries to kill you."
| wombatpm wrote:
| I had a friend who drove a 79 Datsun. Stalling and not starting
| was a surprisingly common occurrence. He would often go out of
| his way to park on a hill to avoid problems.
| hinkley wrote:
| I read about this trick about four months before the input
| fitting on the fuel pump in my little car decided to just pop
| out of the pump. Tow truck left it about ten feet from where I
| wanted it, on soft ground so pushing was gonna take all my
| roommates. Or take a few months' of life off the starter motor.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| In my old Audi sometimes the clutch wouldn't work so that's how
| I started it. Also learned double clutching and to anticipate
| traffic lights so I didn't have to stop.
| Zhenya wrote:
| The author was my undergrad professor for Internal Combustion
| Engines class.
|
| He was equally entertaining and knowledgeable in class.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| The author was the Concept Engineer on the Miata, so it seems
| like he took all of the lessons and applied them well.
|
| DYK Miata is a recursive acronym? It stands for: Miata Is Always
| The Answer.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Neat! I had no idea about his role w/ the Miata. Found another
| charming article by him on the same site while searching:
| https://www.hagerty.com/media/driving/i-helped-make-the-firs...
| zamadatix wrote:
| In case anyone takes that literally: "Miata Is Always The
| Answer" is tongue in cheek backronym by gearheads.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've always loved that site.
|
| I have a friend that had a 914, and sent it to him. Made his day.
| geoffeg wrote:
| I used to own an MG B GT, which was always in a state of
| disrepair I have become accustomed to with older British
| vehicles. One day I drove it to a nicer restaurant where I
| learned they only allowed valet parking. I urged the attendant to
| make an exception for me, but he refused. I shrugged, got out and
| it immediately stalled. I explained a few things to him, like not
| being shy about using the choke even after it was warmed up and
| running and a quick shot of throttle before putting it in gear to
| keep it from stalling, etc. Then I stood back and watched the
| poor guy lurch it past the rows of cars to the edge of the lot.
|
| When I came back out, the attendant that had parked it was
| nowhere to be seen. I handed him the tag, he retrieved the key
| and a few minutes later off in the distance I heard him trying to
| start it. He managed to get it out of the parking spot before he
| gave up and motioned for me to walk down to him. After some
| discussion, he gave up and let me drive it out of the lot.
| HardwareLust wrote:
| Porsche engineers definitely have a sense of humor, and like most
| Germans are big fans of schadenfreude.
| psadri wrote:
| I feel like this could be adopted for your homegrown "whatever"
| framework (eg: UI framework, Auth framework, ...)
|
| Congratulations on getting hired to this team! You probably count
| yourself lucky, but don't. We had been trying to fill this role
| for the past 5 months and every candidate would run away as soon
| as we showed them our homegrown auth framework. But don't run yet
| please, do give it a try.
|
| So, you are still here? It must be a bad job market out there.
| Looks like you found the documentation for the project. Let me
| save you the trouble, it has not be updated since 3 years ago
| (about the time John quit). No worries, there are lots of usage
| examples in the Perforce repo. Perforce is like Git but that's
| for another day.
|
| So you managed to checkout the code. Before you type "make", let
| me remind you to install this particular version of Python and
| set up your LD paths. Make sure you don't have anything else
| relying on Python because they will probably never work again.
|
| If you hit the dreaded
| "std::vector<std::__cxx11::basic_string<char> > >'} is not
| derived from 'const char*'" error, ask Joe (if he is still
| around) to show you which header file you need to tweak. That's
| not checked in because it breaks the build on a legacy server we
| still have running for one of the customers.
|
| ... someone else please take over... :-)
| hinkley wrote:
| This would be perfect if you replaced "Joe" as the bottom with
| John to illustrate that this document has been edited five
| times and not brought back to consistency. And also that only
| one articulate person ever understood it and he got scared off.
|
| > 3 years ago (about the time John quit)
|
| > ask John (if he is still around)
| psadri wrote:
| That's funny. Yeah. I wrote this on the fly. It can use
| multiple passes to add layers of self reference / depth.
| drewg123 wrote:
| _By now you've certainly noticed the smell. That is the aroma of
| Mobil 1 oil being boiled off_
|
| That sounds so familiar!
|
| My first car was a barn-find 22 year old (at the time) 1964
| Triumph TR4. It had a moderately bad oil leak, and the oil would
| land on the exhaust manifold and be blown along the transmission
| tunnel. Smoke would fill the interior around the shift lever. It
| would smoke more heavily the harder you pushed it.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| <Manipulating the gear shift lever will deliver vague suggestions
| to this rod...>
|
| Great read. Several years ago I owned and drove a '67 Olds
| Cutlass for sixteen years. (Two door, auto-trans, AC, standard
| brakes.) I purchased the car in 1990 and everything was in
| working order. When the carburetor finally warped beyond repair,
| I cobbled together some other Olds carb body parts and, since the
| automatic choke parts were bad, I rigged up a manual choke line
| through the firewall. This made the car undriveable for the other
| drivers in my family! The sequence of gas pedal pumps and knowing
| when to disengage the choke was too much to surpass. :)
| avhception wrote:
| My dad hat a 914, sold it around 2014 or something. It was in
| decidedly better condition. But I definitely know that gear lever
| rod, shifting wasn't exactly smooth. And you'd have to apply a
| little gas in between shifts, otherwise you'd starve the engine.
| But it was an absolutely beautiful car.
| hinkley wrote:
| This has come up before and was amusing.
|
| But I am surprised this is (2022) I would have taken bets that it
| was more like 2016 if not earlier and was a repost the first time
| I saw it.
| arjie wrote:
| I could have written this for my Ducati, but they nonetheless
| stole it, put it on a flatbed, tried to drill the ignition and
| fuel cap to start it and failed because _Ducatis have had
| immobilizers for decades now_. One dreams of a better class of
| thief but if they had the IQ would they be thieves of a multi-
| decade-old motorcycle? The tax that morons levy on the rest of us
| cannot be understated.
|
| Look at what these lead-lickers did
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CBgoi28hXoI
|
| Obviously, I recovered the bike and repaired it only to nearly be
| killed by an Uber driver at which point I called it a day.
| roflchoppa wrote:
| do you still ride?
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