Where do you usually drive your car?

[Jonathan]

I get asked pretty often whether I enjoy driving my car. I honestly do enjoy driving it (most of the time), yet I rarely do end up driving it. It got me thinking as to why, and one thing that came to mind isn't about whether I enjoy the driving part, it's more about whether I enjoy the stopping part. Parking it somewhere that is.

I wondered what others thought. So I made a poll that asks you "where do you usually drive your car?" Not looking to draw any specific conclusions or judge anyone for 'why' they choose what they choose, just simply curious what most owners do with their cars. I tried to phrase the poll answer options in terms of severity, going from driving the car never or hardly at all, all the way up to driving it all the time.

I know it indicates how you 'drive' the car and not just where you will park it, but my guess is that how we choose to drive the car is at least in part dictated by where we will be comfortable parking it.

Note: not meant to be a poll on what kind of insurance you have on your car, as we can all get insurance to let us do any of these options, i.e. limited classic car type insurance versus regular daily driver type insurance. Just answer as to what you have now and not what you might or could have.

Note: same too for non-runner cars if that is what you have. Go ahead and answer the poll if you'd like, but answer as to how you and your car currently are and not what you plan to do with it once it is running.

(I'll try and set this poll up to let you select more than one option, so pick all that apply if that's what makes sense to you.)

[Delorean3610]

When I was a little kid my mom made me understand that you shouldn't touch things that aren't yours unless the owner offers to let you. Working in a music shop with $2000+ guitars and instruments has proven to me that not everyone was taught that, I don't trust people.

And the delorean itself is ingrained in many peoples minds as a movie prop, so to them it's okay to climb on it and take pictures.

[DMCVegas]

I easily solved that problem of worrying about where I part my car when I first got the car: I made it into a daily driver so that I'd be forced to take it out and overcome the fears of it getting dinged.

When I used to drive, aside from the regular daily commutes, I'd love to just go driving anywhere out into the desert, or up through the mountains. Though attention in the city was really nice as well.

[iflights]

I'm worried to be the next Delorean photo on social media with a kid laying across the hood!

[DMCVegas]

"Not putting miles on your Ferrari is like not having sex with your girlfriend so she'll be more desirable to her next boyfriend."

In truth it actually applies to any car.

Life is literally too short to live the entire experience in fear. Go out and drive your cars.

[David_NYS]

And the delorean itself is ingrained in many peoples minds as a movie prop, so to them it's okay to climb on it and take pictures.

+1 I used to be okay with leaving it parked unatteneded, until I had someone climb on the hood while is was in it. :chairshot: I lost my mind on the guy.

[Drive Stainless]

For me, it's an A to A car unless I can be watching it. I've seen too many careless folks (even local shops) by now and spent too much with the paintless dent repair guy to risk more damage.

[JRNY13]

I've owned mine for 3 years and only once have I parked it and walked away from it, and that was in an empty parking garage. If people molest it when I'm standing right next to it, what will happen when I'm not there?

[Ryan S.]

"Not putting miles on your Ferrari is like not having sex with your girlfriend so she'll be more desirable to her next boyfriend."

In truth it actually applies to any car.

Life is literally too short to live the entire experience in fear. Go out and drive your cars.

+1. Having sex everyday. I mean, driving my Delorean everyday. It became my daily driver after my Lotus got destroyed by an elderly driver. Same thing can happen to my DeLorean from A to A. I am enjoying it while I can.
Parking garage where I park my car is next to a busy tourist area. Often, parking attendant ladies tell me that my car is the most popular car in the lot. Am I worried? A little but it's only a car and I have an insurance. Mostly worried about car breaking down.

However, if I had a $300K Ferrari..... I have to think about this.

[Riley88]

I drive it fine, and was for awhile my daily driver. I just parked far away in parking lots. If i was going out to eat id park where I could see the car 100% of the time

[Jonathan]

I've got a little of that "imagine what they'd do if I wasn't there?" problem too. Been disappointed too many times by people to have that level of trust still. Door dings from some careless guy would be one thing, but the intentional idiot is my big concern.

I'd like to be able to enjoy the car by just driving it, and parking it, and just treating it like 'a car.' That doesn't seem to work for me though for some reason.

The only way to try and get over that would likely be to just start going places and parking it and then see what happens. It sure does seem hard to enjoy whatever it is you're doing while you're there though, when your thoughts are on the car the whole time.

[Drive Stainless]

I've got a little of that "imagine what they'd do if I wasn't there?" problem too. Been disappointed too many times by people to have that level of trust still. Door dings from some careless guy would be one thing, but the intentional idiot is my big concern.

I'd like to be able to enjoy the car by just driving it, and parking it, and just treating it like 'a car.' That doesn't seem to work for me though for some reason.

The only way to try and get over that would likely be to just start going places and parking it and then see what happens. It sure does seem hard to enjoy whatever it is you're doing while you're there though, when your thoughts are on the car the whole time.

This video is analogous to driving a DeLorean every day:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcLU4LGTPk8

[JRNY13]

The body work on a Ferrari isn't SS and is probably easier (maybe not cheaper) to fix than that of a D. I'd be less cautious with a Ferrari.

[DMCVegas]

This video is analogous to driving a DeLorean every day:

Not really. There is a whole lot that doesn't apply to us in that video, as well as it's outright incorrect like with that tire repair thing.

I mean, I absolutely get the fears about leaving the car unattended, or parked in a strange neighborhood. But it's no different than with any other car.

I mean I've seen people leaning on my car (different ones too), and truthfully, I just stopped caring. I mean, I'll go ahead and call attention to it, because it's just damn rude. It's not that I just don't care anymore, I sort of do on some things, but mostly I just learned to let go.

The only time that I've ever caught someone screwing around with my car, I can say it was an honest mistake. The local Mazda dealership in Vegas was debuting the new RX-8 right before it went on sale, and sent out invites to certain people. I got one, and went. Parking for the event was actually on the dealership's lot, over on the used car side. So after the event I walked back to my car, and there are these two couples standing around it, and the guys are staring inside of the car and talking about it. One then tries to open the door, and comments that it's locked. I asked if I could help them with something. Apparently that tone made them think that I was a salesman, so they asked me if I had the keys to the car. I replied yes, and they got all excited! Then asked how much the car was? So I had to let them down and tell them that it was my car.

They were all mortified, and very embarrassed. Me? I couldn't stop laughing. They explained that it was parked on the used car lot, and thought it was for sale. And because it didn't have a window sticker, they thought it was a fresh trade-in. They couldn't stop apologizing, because they too were car guys and would never mess with someone else's car on purpose. But hey, if I was too afraid to take my car out in public, I wouldn't have stories like that one.

I'm sure that whether all of you realize it or not, you all probably have people constantly fiddling with your cars when you're away from them, no matter what you drive nor where you park. People looking for unlocked doors to ransack for change and whatever else they can find, looking in on your cars to possibly smash and grab valuables, etc. Even when I was a bachelor in my own apartment, I had neighbors whose cars were not only broken into, but outright stolen just a few feet from mine. I found that people just don't mess with DeLoreans. Unless you're dumb enough to leave a laptop out in plain view, sure, they're gonna smash and grab, but that's not exclusive to any particular type of car.

And when it comes to parking? Hell, I find that most people will actually go out of their way to get as far away from a DeLorean as possible. They're more scared of getting dented by our Gullwing doors, they we are of getting dinged by theirs.

If you want to have a car that you can treat like any regular car, it's easy: Just start treating it like a regular car.

[Drive Stainless]

I found that people just don't mess with DeLoreans.

Your experiences are very different from my experiences.

How many times have you shown your car or parked it in public to arrive at this conclusion?

Josh Schattenkirk, could you comment on whether people mess with DeLoreans? :poke:

[Alan]

"Not putting miles on your Ferrari is like not having sex with your girlfriend so she'll be more desirable to her next boyfriend."

I have to say that I'm surprised by how many answers there are with owners letting their cars out of their sight in public.

I'm encouraged by this. I treat mine that way.

I'll continue to do so until something happens. I hope after something does, and I'm guessing at some point it will, that I'll still feel the same way.

I like the quote above. I also think the car should be treated like a car... used as transportation... not just for "touring."

To each their own. YMMV.

[SS Spoiler]

Get a hold of some car alarm stickers, put them on your window
and no one will mess with it. I've had no problems in 26 years...

[Jonathan]

My thoughts on the poll answers and comments are really all over the map.

I can see the logic, and agree with it, for just about every view point. From the "never leave it out of your sight" theme to the "it's just a car, go drive it for heaven's sake" idea.

The comments that I think really capture it for me are the Your Mileage May Vary or the To Each His Own ones.

And here's why...

That guy that you see losing it at the coffee shop counter person or the driver that's in front of him while waiting at a red light, it's always about that guy's day, the stuff he's having to deal with and very rarely is actually about the person he's venting on. The thing with that is that most day to day stuff gets pretty challenging to deal with when you aren't having a good go at it in some of those other areas in life. It manifests itself in line at the coffee shop, but it's really just the other stuff wearing him down and making it very difficult to let those daily nuisances not affect him like "water off a duck's back."

I think it is the same with our cars.

The reason there is such a wide variety of takes on how to enjoy the car, or not enjoy the car, is that there is an infinite combination of things that contribute to your own experience. The condition of your car, the condition of you, finances, health, family, life. You get the picture.

I too take it as encouraging that seemingly many guys do enjoy driving the cars without worrying about what happens to it when they aren't around. I would be willing to bet they've found a way to feel good about things not involving the DeLorean and once they figured that out, DeLorean stuff didn't seem like such a big deal.

Not sure about that, of course, but I am pretty sure that, just as with everything else in life, one size does not fit all in how to enjoy your DeLorean.

[Alan]

My thoughts on the poll answers and comments are really all over the map.

I can see the logic, and agree with it, for just about every view point. From the "never leave it out of your sight" theme to the "it's just a car, go drive it for heaven's sake" idea.

The comments that I think really capture it for me are the Your Mileage May Vary or the To Each His Own ones.

And here's why...

That guy that you see losing it at the coffee shop counter person or the driver that's in front of him while waiting at a red light, it's always about that guy's day, the stuff he's having to deal with and very rarely is actually about the person he's venting on. The thing with that is that most day to day stuff gets pretty challenging to deal with when you aren't having a good go at it in some of those other areas in life. It manifests itself in line at the coffee shop, but it's really just the other stuff wearing him down and making it very difficult to let those daily nuisances not affect him like "water off a duck's back."

I think it is the same with our cars.

The reason there is such a wide variety of takes on how to enjoy the car, or not enjoy the car, is that there is an infinite combination of things that contribute to your own experience. The condition of your car, the condition of you, finances, health, family, life. You get the picture.

I too take it as encouraging that seemingly many guys do enjoy driving the cars without worrying about what happens to it when they aren't around. I would be willing to bet they've found a way to feel good about things not involving the DeLorean and once they figured that out, DeLorean stuff didn't seem like such a big deal.

Not sure about that, of course, but I am pretty sure that, just as with everything else in life, one size does not fit all in how to enjoy your DeLorean.

+1

[mr_maxime]

Honestly I'm more worried about birds pooping on my car than I am leaving it unattended. I usually don't leave in it places I'm not familiar with though. Like it was mentioned before it is a car. people are way less careful around my accord than my Delorean. My car is also far from cosmetically pristine.

I do tend to avoid driving high traffic areas because I'm not great at driving manual and cities cause of the traffic and lack of power steering. I would also never leave it unattended in downtown Atlanta at night.

[Ryan King]

I drive my car up and down the state, all over town etc. But with that in mind, I do typically like to park it where I can see it. Or I try to park in spots that don't have cars on either side of the car. I am currently at school and I drove my DeLorean today, its in the furthest parking lot, in a corner stall.

[16949]

I usually keep it tucked away (work) or where I can see it or other people can see it. People generally just comment to each other and move along, until I go to leave and then I will have 5 or 10 people come out of the woodwork when they see the owner of it. I let them sit in it and take pics.

My concern is people dinging it when I'm not there. I was by a window at a restaurant. I saw 2 people leave together. The guy pointed to my Delorean and said something to the woman about it. She then unlocked the driver seat of her car, next to my Delorean. She opened her door ALL THE WAY it would go, and left it open like that, while she got in, messed with her phone, etc etc for like 3 minutes. Luckily her door was not longer than the distance, because I don't think she gives dings one thought in her world. So even though her companion had pointed out the rarity of my car to her, she gave zero thoughts to not dinging my car.

So I worry more about self absorbed people than about fans. Although I did have to put please-don't-touch stickers on it when neighbors wouldn't stop touching it in my driveway.

[mr_maxime]

I've had people ding my accord while I was in the car. What does a door ding even do to the stainless? I cant see it being worse than chipping paint.

[Alan]

I've had people ding my accord while I was in the car. What does a door ding even do to the stainless? I cant see it being worse than chipping paint.

From a long my term damage perspective, less than a chip through paint, but still a visible ding we don't want.

[mr_maxime]

I've never had any that visibly dented the metal on my painted cars so that's why I was curious.

[Alan]

1121's stainless is in very good, but not perfect shape. I'd like to avoid more dings.

[Drive Stainless]

Paintless dent repair costs $200/dent for someone with a decade or more of experience here. You can usually get a better rate if you have several dents.

Not all dents can be removed, and on an area like the doors with large flat areas, it can be difficult to remove dents completely once the metal is stretched. DMCMW replaced *both* of my doors because of damage to the stainless that could not be repaired 100%. After paying that bill, I am careful where I park.

[mr_maxime]

were those door dings or something bigger? i'm more wary of parking in the street since i think itd be easier to get hit

[Drive Stainless]

MN owner's car left unattended:

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160404/a52af110a04265fbf891ca55c1b2000a.jpg

[Drive Stainless]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160404/9a2b37fc8d925b1285952711824da9f8.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160404/ebd06ec91b0b31d3e4323ab1ae6b6269.jpg

[Alan]

MN owner's car left unattended:

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160404/a52af110a04265fbf891ca55c1b2000a.jpg

Yep. Mine. Very disappointing.

abbyballorado's pulled the photo, but not before it had been captured. Her Instagram account has been taken private. She's becoming quite infamous on Facebook where DeLorean owners have a lot to say.

I'll be consulting law enforcement today.

Worst part for me, believe it or not... she's a married professional with a husband and relatively new child. I'm saddened that someone like her doesn't have more respect or sense.

[Drive Stainless]

Sorry about that Alan. I hope that there was no damage or that she pays for whatever she caused.

[DMCVegas]

Yep. Mine. Very disappointing.

abbyballorado's pulled the photo, but not before it had been captured. Her Instagram account has been taken private. She's becoming quite infamous on Facebook where DeLorean owners have a lot to say.

I'll be consulting law enforcement today.

Worst part for me, believe it or not... she's a married professional with a husband and relatively new child. I'm saddened that someone like her doesn't have more respect or sense.

Yeah, but dingus, Abby Ehler Hagen that is, left her Facebook account public:

https://www.facebook.com/abigail.ehler

But she and her girlfriend who took the photo, Mary Bloomingdale who also shit a huge brick and took all of her accounts private too, forgot about their LinkedIn accounts!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abby-hagen-355aa34b?authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=SFWm&locale=en_US&trk=tyah&trkInfo=clickedVertical%3Amynetwork%2CclickedEntit yId%3A178874417%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH%2Cidx%3A1-1-1%2CtarId%3A1459775956496%2Ctas%3AAbby%20hagen

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marybloomingdale?authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=NHcW&locale=en_US&srchid=2819421721459775906531&srchindex=1&srchtotal=4&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A2819421721459775906531%2CVS RPtargetId%3A43439244%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary%2CVSRPn m%3Atrue%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH

But her husband, Kristofer Hagen, has left all of his accounts public. Including photos of their families, pictures with EXIF data showing GPS coordinates, etc. They live in Minneapolis at this time, but come from Colorado and Iowa.

The awesome thing about all of this is that more and more employers are performing background checks that include social media results to really get a proper insight into the people whom they are considering hiring on. Abby here is a prime example being in Marketing where she needs to have an appearance of integrity and trustworthiness (which just got blown to hell), because companies are worried about their brands need to protect themselves from people who are liabilities.

Now that I have since posted a URL for Facebook, as well as her accomplice's and her husband's names, professional links, and the city they live in for confirmation, that has cross-linked metadata for all three of them. So if a prospective employer is considering hiring them and performs a background check which includes their social media activities, for either one of them, it will lead back to the incident of posing on Alan's car. Not to mention all the pictures of her drinking, and what appears to be her birthday spanking...

And for bonus points on metadata...
@AbigailEhler
@TipperBear
@mbloomin

[Alan]

Yeah, but dingus, Abby Ehler Hagen that is, left her Facebook account public:

I didn't intend to go public with all her real, personal information. I'd found most of that. I hadn't thought of LinkedIn. However, as has come up on a Facebook thread... I'm not in control. It's out there. People in the community will respond as they will. I feel no regret or remorse.

She wanted fame and "likes." I think she's getting something else.

[DMCVegas]

I didn't intend to go public with all her real, personal information. I'd found most of that. I hadn't thought of LinkedIn. However, as has come up on a Facebook thread... I'm not in control. It's out there. People in the community will respond as they will. I feel no regret or remorse.

She wanted fame and "likes." I think she's getting something else.

People do stupid stuff all of the time. I use Photobucket for instance to host pictures that I want to share online, usually for DMCTalk threads. Photobucket also has a "recent uploads" section that contains all the recently uploaded pictures that people have taken with their cell phones. Usually automatically if you simply install the app and give it full access to things on your phone. The things that I have seen... People taking photographs of their credit cards, driver's licenses, social security cards, vehicle titles, paychecks, sexual acts, drug use, you name it. Dumbasses put this shit online and don't think that anyone will find them. The thing too is archive.org. It is the Internet's personal archive. Any website that has ever been, included the hosted content, is on that website. Doesn't matter if you took down the risqué photo or that offensive tweet. The "Way Back Machine" over in the Archive has got a permanent copy of your folly for mankind to see from now until the end of time.

Now I didn't post what I consider personal information. I didn't publish home addresses, or Personal Private Information (PPI), nor even her child's name. But I can tell you that I absolutely have had a boss one time that commented that I liked DeLoreans, and knew about it because he did a background check on my email address before he hired me. So it does happen, and will more and more often as we move forward.

[Drive Stainless]

Any website that has ever been, included the hosted content, is on that website. Doesn't matter if you took down the risqué photo or that offensive tweet. The "Way Back Machine" over in the Archive has got a permanent copy of your folly for mankind to see from now until the end of time.


Not true.






https://www.facebook.com/drivestainless

Hrm.

Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived.

[Rich_NYS]

Whenever someone's DeLorean gets violated, it would be great if we could find their car....and get a bunch of us together to climb on, lay all over it, and take pics.

In front of their house.

While they're home.

And call them a douche if they disapprove.

[sdg3205]

Whenever someone's DeLorean gets violated, it would be great if we could find their car....and get a bunch of us together to climb on, lay all over it, and take pics.

In front of their house.

While they're home.

And call them a douche if they disapprove.

It would be nice, yes, but we shouldn't be involved in the race to the bottom with them. We'd also loose our leverage.

I'm always amazed when the offenders act like we, the owners, are the assholes for objecting to their disrespectful actions. It makes me angry in a big way. There is nothing that can be done legally, but public shaming is in present day a viable and satisfying way to find some justice. I say shame away. I'd do the same. The police don't care.

[DMCVegas]

Not true.

Apparently there are exceptions, and so I stand corrected on that matter. However, just as we have seen here, even if there are no alternative archival entries, there is still the chance that others have captured the material before it has been removed.



Whenever someone's DeLorean gets violated, it would be great if we could find their car....and get a bunch of us together to climb on, lay all over it, and take pics.

In front of their house.

While they're home.

And call them a douche if they disapprove.

Out of sheer happenstance, there is an article over on Jalopnik that sort of deals with this very thing:

http://jalopnik.com/models-who-danced-in-miata-get-track-drive-video-after-1768247824

Long story short, two women decided to jump into a Miata that had left it's convertible top down, and took a photo while standing in the seats with a caption: "Let this be a lesson to all Mazda Miata owners - if you are dumb enough to buy this hideous car, we are dumb enough to jump through the top and dance on your seats. ‪#‎zoomzoom" Apparently it was a neighbor's car, and the owner's wife tracked them down and publicly shamed them. She also included allegations of damage to the car, which have been disputed by the two women in the photo, but who knows. And other photos of these two sitting on the hoods of other people's cars and further disparaging the marque and potentially damaging other stranger's cars didn't help either.

Of course this is the Internet, and so there was of course some serious backlash from anonymous people. So there were the typical threats of violence, and it allegedly even escalated to threats of rape. Let me just say right now, that's just plain fucked up and wrong. But by the same token, while we can say, "What did you think was going to happen when you post dumb things onto the Internet?", I get that people like this are insulated in their own little social bubbles to where they don't see the vulnerabilities by virtue of the fact that they're not yet exposed to someone who would willingly exploit them. Along those lines, I think it's better that people the the warnings sooner rather than later by at least learning from the mistakes of others.

I think that the important thing though is that people need to learn that they should not mess around with other people's cars and/or other property. Granted for many, including these two in the story, and the two that screwed with Alan's car, it's a seemingly impossible lesson to learn given that if you don't appreciate and respect your own property, it's impossible for you to extend respect to other's possessions when you don't even have it for your's in the first place. But hopefully this does create a sort of Chilling Effect to discourage idiots in the future as stories like these make the rounds. Kind of like how since we now have Caller ID and the veil of anonymity has been erased, no one falls victim to prank phone calls any more.

[DMCVegas]

I'm always amazed when the offenders act like we, the owners, are the assholes for objecting to their disrespectful actions. It makes me angry in a big way. There is nothing that can be done legally, but public shaming is in present day a viable and satisfying way to find some justice. I say shame away. I'd do the same. The police don't care.

I personally don't have an Instagram account, but perhaps someone who does could post a link to this thread in this conversation here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDw6zqlGSJt/

Perhaps that could facilitate the desired effect of public shaming by sending out a wake-up call. Because when people start looking up her corporate bio with her employer (http://www.homeandgardenshow.com/information/contact-us), potential customers would be very interested in her seriously unprofessional attitude of how she not only casually destroys other people's property, but also happens to call people "douches" whenever she is in disagreement with them.

Very professional indeed.

[Jonathan]

I didn't intend to go public with all her real, personal information. I'd found most of that. I hadn't thought of LinkedIn. However, as has come up on a Facebook thread... I'm not in control. It's out there. People in the community will respond as they will. I feel no regret or remorse.

She wanted fame and "likes." I think she's getting something else.

Made me think of the interrogation scene from the Usual Suspects. The part where they say to Dean Keaton's character, "from now on, you're in the getting fucked by us business."

(around 3:29)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLcWMGCLHa0

I wouldn't feel any remorse for some sack of shit lying on my car either.

[NJP548]

I personally don't have an Instagram account, but perhaps someone who does could post a link to this thread in this conversation here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDw6zqlGSJt/

Perhaps that could facilitate the desired effect of public shaming by sending out a wake-up call. Because when people start looking up her corporate bio with her employer (http://www.homeandgardenshow.com/information/contact-us), potential customers would be very interested in her seriously unprofessional attitude of how she not only casually destroys other people's property, but also happens to call people "douches" whenever she is in disagreement with them.

Very professional indeed.

Robert,

I posted the link to this forum thread on that Instagram link. She could possibly be labeled as a 'liability' to her work since she deals with sales and her employer website has a large list of sponsors and partners listed.

-Nick