You think your Fiat is a pain in the behind?

[spidernut]

Next time you feel like complaining about repairing your Fiat, try supervising a large group of people. I'll take a broken car over broken people any day. 53 weeks more and I'm calling it quits for good.

[narfire]

Sounds great. Now you can supervise a large group of Fiats.....
Keep your health so you can enjoy the time after 53 weeks eh....

[RRoller123]

"I feel your pain"..... My largest factory had 125. All shapes sizes, races, creeds, colors, temperaments and sediments. There were times when I wondered why I did it, but there were times when it was a great joy too.

[scusi]

One year into retirement and I highly recommend it. My Fiat was my retirement gift to myself and I have used and enjoyed it on about every nice day since. Can't say that my job was a pain in the rear. But, after 40 years of fire/ems service. I don't miss the stress.

[Ramzi]

Ya'll retirees move to Texas. We can probably find a 124 related activity for you.

Although as I recall the last time I said something like that was about 20 years ago when a very young Mr Vandor was graduating from college. Now hes my partner... thats what I get for shooting my mouth off.

R

[garion]

Try wrangling the entire internet in to shape. I work on something called DNS, which is how "www.fiatspider.com" gets converted into IP addresses... If you think of it as a phonebook, translating names into numbers, you wouldn't be far off..

The fun comes in when there's a mistake made... Many years ago, I made such a mistake, and my code started deleting all of the names for a small island nation, that also happens to have nuclear weapons. Yeah. I nearly, singlehandedly took the UK off the internet. Nothing like a bit of unintentional cyber-terrorism against a nuclear power to liven your morning. Talk about a brown pants moment.

Now I work for a different place doing DNS, where I just deal with content distribution for Microsoft, Sony, and a slew of large porn sites. Much easier.

[DUCeditor]

I find this thread somewhat funny.

My Spider has always been sort'a a pain. But worth it. Simple as that: Worth it.

I, too, am now retired. This after a 40+ year career creating special imaging processes for use in science and medicine. Things that I always seemed to understand intuitively, while to me Fiats were like people. Nothing "intuitive" about working with them at all. Illogical. But none-the-less wonderful. Charming. Thrilling. Full of surprises. Glorious.

Some people love wrenching. I don't. I like to turn the key, put her in reverse, and simply exit the garage in search of sun and curvy roads.

Then why don't I just buy a Miata? Ah... there's that Fiat charm. Just gotta have that charm!

-Don

[johndemar]

I feel for ya John. Although I only supervise and work closely with 6 employees, it's amazing the amount of pettiness I have to deal with. Most days are good, but when they're bad I tell myself just another year or two.

[phaetn]

Hang in there, John!

I'm a high school teacher at what is essentially a gifted school, teaching epistemology (a branch of philosophy dealing with knowledge systems) and English Lit.

I have to corale, cajole, encourage, discipline, and evaluate 180 sixteen and seventeen year olds every year. They are already easily working at a second year university level, but, like any group of people, vary wildly: Super-keeners to weepers, grossly confident to anxiety-ridden, charming to devious.

They're a great group and I wouldn't change my job for the world (though that's a big price!). I'm well compensated with excellent benefits; during the year is hectic and exhausting (days getting up at 5am to mark mountains of papers, then sometimes coaching after school) but summers off with my kids are a blessing. Others I know say they could never do it. I love it!

The in-class stuff is easy -- my students are a captive audience and eager to learn. It's the non-usual events that are tricky. Assemblies and stuff where the whole school (pop. 1200) is full of hormonal teenagers that all need to be in the same place at the same time and what they're really concerned about is socializing.

Within ten days is graduation. Sorting 180 graduands in about half and hour into alphabetical order while they're all dressed up and with gowns on, excited about their big day, and overheating in non-air conditioned hallways will be a treat. Actually, in Fiat talk, that's not unlike what happened to me yesterday: My horn stopped working during parade laps in a big Italian Festival on the hottest day of the year so far, and I knew that that meant my fan also wouldn't cycle on. Egads! Everything had been working fine earlier! I had to figure out the right fuse in the row, jostled the holder, was rewarded by a bit of a shock and the sound of the fan coming on. Thankfully I didn't have to pull over worrying as the temp needle climbed to oblivion. Crisis averted and nobody in the audience was any wiser -- it's totally like teaching!!

Fiats are really straight-forward compared to people. The former are just mechanical and take some trouble-shooting. Human beings are way more complex. To quote the profane Billy Connolly:

We want this! And that! We demand a share in that, and most of that, some of this, and f**king all of that! Less of that, and more of this, and f**king plenty of this! And another thing, we want it now! I want it yesterday, I want f**king more tomorrow, and the demands will all be changed then so f**king stay awake!’

Cheers,
phaetn

[Fiatlanta]

The older I get, the more I like my dog and my car and the less I like people.

[Jimb]

Is there anyone else out there who doesn't think their Fiat is a pain?

I've had mine now for close to 9 years, and other than removing the tranny and have it professionally rebuilt, and while I was at it I did a few preventative maintenance items such as water pump, seals etc, but otherwise it just keeps running beautifully day in and day out. Although granted it is just a summer weather toy.

Very few issues.

Jim

[brackie1]

The older I get, the more I like my dog and my car and the less I like people.

I'm with you.

[Jimb]

[quote="Jimb"]Is there anyone else out there who doesn't think their Fiat is a pain?

I've had mine now for close to 9 years, and other than removing the tranny and have it professionally rebuilt, and while I was at it I did a few preventative maintenance items such as water pump, seals etc, but otherwise it just keeps running beautifully day in and day out. Although granted it is just a summer weather toy.

Very few issues.


I guess not...

Jim

[joelittel]

Is there anyone else out there who doesn't think their Fiat is a pain?

Jim

I have only had one moment where I considered the car a pain. Most of my headaches have come from the restro-mods I've done, which in return has kept me from complaining too much. Meaning that if I've caused the problem I've always felt obligated to fix the problem, or see the mod through.

But there was one weekend a few years back when I couldn't figure out what was going on with it, we couldn't trust it to be driven and it started to feel more like a very large pile of receipts than a car. I can honestly say I considered it a pain that day, and even considered selling it.

Sometimes, for me, spending a weekend doing anything other than working on the car presents the solution I'm looking for. During that time, if I just can't seem to shake the urge to get back out there and try to "fix" the problem I turn to the group of strangers who make up this forum with a new post in the form of a question.

Luckily for me this technique has never failed. It often takes time, and requires additional research, but the forum as always gotten my car back on the road.

I have a fairly modified '80 that I would not call a pain at all. In fact, my wife and I playfully argue over who gets the car when our weekend plans don't match.

However, I should qualify my statements by saying that I enjoy the routine maintenance that comes with owning and driving a modified vintage car and I do not consider checking the car every Saturday morning a pain.

[maxdog]

Not me !
Until recently I spent my spare time with old British cars , from Morris Minors through MGB 's A fleet of Rovers ,1948 P3 to P6B v8 , XKE jaguar [ What a Heart Breaker } lastly a Jensen Interceptor - pure automotive porn . All of them at some time REAL,expensive, pains in the arse .
I sold the Jensen , the man kept throwing money at me and I was a one man contributor to Global warming .The fuel consumption was astronomical , as was the sheer fun of it
.I bought a 1979 Spyder for my toy box, what a revelation : Sensible engineering , well thought out electrics[ goodbye Joe Prince of Darkness Lucas ] decent quality construction , great spares availability , and an excellent forum for newbies .
So far no real problems .
Hubris awaits ? What's that??Time to Carpe Diem !!
Maxdog