Hummer Owner Gets Angry Message

Washington Post ^ | July 18, 2007 | Allison Klein

[3AngelaD]

Vandals Batter D.C. Man's SUV, Slash Its Tires and Scratch In an Eco Note

On a narrow, leafy street in Northwest Washington, where Prius hybrid cars and Volvos are the norm, one man bought a flashy gray Hummer that was too massive to fit in his garage. So he parked the seven-foot-tall behemoth on the street in front of his house and smiled politely when his eco-friendly neighbors looked on in disapproval at his "dream car."

It lasted five days on the street before two masked men took a bat to every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratched into the body: "FOR THE ENVIRON."

"The thought of somebody vandalizing it never crossed my mind," said Gareth Groves...

Now, as Groves ponders what to do with the remains of his $38,000 SUV, he has been the target of a number of people who have driven by the crime scene in his upscale neighborhood and glared at him in smug satisfaction...

Neighbor Lucille Liem, 37, who owns a Prius hybrid, said that a common sentiment in the neighborhood is that large vehicles are impractical and a strain on the Earth -- and Hummers in particular are a symbol of consumer excess... Liem added quickly that she does not condone violence...

Investigators said they are searching for the vandals but don't have many leads. Witnesses saw two men about six feet tall with bandanas or masks over their faces smash up the car about 3:30 a.m. Monday and then run off...

He bought the used 2005 vehicle a month ago from a dentist in Fairfax County..."I'm worried about what I do now," he said. "If I get it fixed, do I put it back in the same spot three weeks from now?"

[PEACE ENFORCER]

Well this would be true IF there was an EGR valve as this is a H.O. 350 “Boat Motor”, and the 3” exhaust travels directly from the headers to the tailpipe, breaths extremely nicely.......:)

[Lx]

I take it you don’t have to pass smog. Even an HO motor should get better mileage than that. What’s your final drive 4.56 or higher (or is that lower)?

[PEACE ENFORCER]

4.11 with 750 4 speed.

[GATOR NAVY]

The "hate crime" comment was a kinda retarded, but looking at the two paragraphs on that woman's comments, there may be hope for her. It appears she's realizing she's associating by belief with thugs, and she doesn't like it.

Another neighbor, Lani Fremaux, 58, said she bought a T-shirt months ago with a picture of a Hummer and above it the word "Bummer." She wore the shirt proudly but said she is so upset with recent events on her street that she might retire it.

"They've got everything at their disposal in this city to make a statement in a legal way," Fremaux said of the bat-wielding men who struck out at the Hummer. "I consider this a hate crime."

[xsmommy]

cute : ) i always feel the luuuv on the lawyer bashing threads, luckily, you grow a thick hide in law school ; )

[MarkL]

"I'm worried about what I do now," he said. "If I get it fixed, do I put it back in the same spot three weeks from now?"

Yes, you do... And then wait up with a shotgun to see who comes by. Let them begin their vandalism, then shoot them with rock salt. Illegal? Yes, but satisfying.

Mark

[MarkL]

If you’re not gonna use the SUV for the reason God created it, buy a damn station wagon.

You can thank the government and the CAFE standards for getting rid of "real" station wagons, and the rise of the mini-van and SUV.

Mark

[Xenalyte]

Another touchy one. Y’all are so cute today.

Question: since nowhere on this thread have I advocated taking people’s SUVs away from them, when did I lose my right to express an opinion?

[EdnaMode]

Wow, this sounds right out of Michelle Malkin’s “Unhinged.”

[festus]

Muslims moved in would be my guess.

[familyop]

He’s in a city. Night cameras and motion detectors with video streaming to remote servers would be cheap and easy to set up. As for hostility and vandalism on the rise, that’s what the divorce industry and fatherlessness brought us.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

Thank you so much, we are certainly blessed beyond what we could possibly deserve!

How have things been w/ you? Are you still a state up from me? We’re contemplating a relocaiton to KY around the 1st of the year

[Tamar1973]

I don’t condone the vandalism, but I would be pissed if my neighbor purchased a vehicle that could not fit in their garage.

Then you'd hate my FIL, who has a 3 car garage that is so filled with junk that he can't fit his Hyudai Accent and Honda Civic into it.

[SuziQ]

Yep, we're still in MA. We've decided to move, too. SirKit quit the corporate world last year, and we're in the middle of remodeling our house to sell it. We're planning to move to the Gulf Coast of MS, where much of both our families live. We're going to try our hand at remodeling houses to sell. There are plenty of houses that were gutted from Katrina, and the folks just decided not to rebuild. They pulled out sheetrock, insulation, etc, but left them pretty much as they were after the storm. In many cases, they didn't have insurance coverage, or what they had didn't cover the damages, so they just don't have the money to re-build. But even those with the money to re-build have had a hard time finding contractors and tradespeople. Some of those folks left town, too, when they lost their homes. We can do all of the work ourselves, with the exception of the plumbing connections to the main sewer, or gas line connections, so we'll have an advantage with that.

So it's taking quite a long time for the area to come back; many businesses, like chain restaurtants, etc, didn't bother to re-build yet, and I don't know if they're going to do so at all. The casinos are sure doing a roaring business, though, so folks can still get good paying jobs at those places. So we'll be out of here as soon as we can get the work finished and the house sold.

Do y'all have family in KY, or did you just visit there at some point and decide to go there. It is an absolutely gorgeous state!

[66-442hot]

I, sir, can totally agree w/ you there.

My reply wasn’t meant as a rag, only to inform.

BTW, I guess the way things appear to be headed, USA, Canada, there may not be a lick of difference between the two.

[gathersnomoss]

SOCIALIST INTOLERANT PIGS. And they want to run my country? Screw ‘em.

[Lx]

Ahh, the gearings not too bad. What are the revs at 70MPH? You didn't get that ratio on a '77 did you buy a 3rd member from and older car or did you get the rear end re-geared? When you re-geared it did you recalibrate the speedo? Maybe that's why your mileage is so bad. I was looking at a Vette and apparently it is a common occurrence to have one or more of the four tangs broken on the 3rd member's housing. That right there stopped me from buying that car.

What else have you done? When I first bought mine I had visions of rebuilding both the front and rear suspensions with the fiberglass leaf springs front and back and tubular a-arms and getting a crate motor so I could keep the so called number's matching motor clean. Instead I just drove it. Fun car, full replacement value insurance for $175 since it was a classic and I drove less than 4000 miles a year. In fact, I probably drove it less than 4000 miles all the years I had it. I'd still like to get an '82 limited edition fully loaded. I like the C3's shape.

I forget the gears on mine, it was in the high 3's. I'm assuming the 750 is the CFM of the carb and not the HP since over 2hp per sq inch is better than way good unless it's blown and on the bottle.

I had a 750 double pumper (spreadbore) on mine and still didn't get that bad of mileage and I treated the gas pedal as an on/off switch. Except for the carb though, my motor was stock with the 1.94 'fuelie' heads and either 2" or 2 1/2" exhaust.

Still I could live with 7mpg if I got the performance to match. I had a '90 RX-7 that got around 15mpg and was one of the slowest cars I've ever owned. It's the only RX-7 I've owned and I've owned many that couldn't take it up to 9000RPM.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Your synopsis is almost perfect.

However, I would add to the genesis of the SUV, the popularity of small trucks in the ‘80s as well as mini-vans. They both boomed, and I’m betting by the time those kids driving the “cool” little trucks “grew up” and had to accomodate a family, they didn’t want the goony mini-van, but something more masculine.

Indeed, all vans are hard to work on. Regular trucks are easier with their standard “phallic” hoods rather than the engine/trans all crammed mostly underneath the dashboard, making things inaccessible.

[Darnright]

>“Neighbor Lucille Liem, 37, who owns a Prius Pious hybrid, <

There, fixed it.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Hey all, did you see today’s “DUmmie Funnies”?

And today’s subject is....guess what....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1868327/posts