Howdy Webriders! Dr. VW here. I just popped in to talk about a little epiphany I had over the weekend. For the first time in several months, I had a chance to spend some quality time with my ride, other than the usual commuting back and forth over Southern California. I spent a few solid hours meticulously cleaning and waxing the outside of my 1971 VW Squareback, and as I sat there, buffing until my arms got sore, I realized something. This was not “work” to me. It was almost therapeutic, sitting out on my driveway with my beat up garage radio blaring and slowly but surely polishing my car to perfection. It occurred to me that if I had asked anyone else to do this to their car, I would have been met with a groan and/or a confused “why?”. This got me thinking about a great many other eccentricities that people generally associate with gearheads; or the insane. Hit the jump to laugh along with “you know you’re a gear head if…”

…you have an unnatural peeve about doors being shut “just right”. I can’t tell you how many times people will get into my car, and assume because it’s old the doors must be slammed like the hatch of a tank. Or that they’re made of glass and should be closed so softly the bloody latch doesn’t engage. I mean it’s not that hard, you get in, and you close the door. You don’t have to quickly flick it closed as if touching the handle will give you ebola virus, nor do you have to slam them so hard the whole rig rocks like a boat in a hurricane. Then, when you call them out on either closing the door right or not slamming it, they give you this blank look of… who cares? WELL I DO. If that door flies open at high speed cause you’re too braindead to close it right, then not only do I have a potential wrongful death suit but I also have a dinged/scratched door. On the flipside, if you slam it hard enough, my latches are gonna be paperweights, which means a PITA for me. One I’d rather avoid frankly.

…you wonder if “that noise” is your imagination, or a rod about to be thrown through the roof of your case. I don’t know about you guys, but on long trips I almost ALWAYS have some kind of odd noise that starts up and just barely tiptoes around the fringes of the limits of my hearing. As I try to discern what it is, panic mixed with annoyed anger sets in. What the HELL is that noise? I can BARELY hear it and yet I KNOW it’s there. Don’t bother asking your passenger, because they invariably reply with “I don’t hear anything”- thanks. Eventually I’ll decide that it’s either my imagination or something as harmless as the road changing materials underwheel; but that doesn’t stop me from sitting there with a look of constipation on my face as I struggle to figure out what the hell that noise is. This whole scenario also, consequently, repeats with things like- “is my engine surging a little?”- “is that a miss I hear at idle?”- and other nitpicky crap that no one but an experienced tuner bothers to care about.

…you have an unnatural hatred of bird crap, tree sap, and big juicy insects. I freakin hate all that crap. Every time I go out to a parking lot, I choose the one spot away from trees, bushes, tall lightposts, etc. to avoid these things and yet, every time without fail, I find a massive spot of bird dookie or dollop of sap sitting on my hood or roof, eating away at my paint. I hate nature. Pave it all in concrete I say.

finally….

…your worst fear is door dings. There I said it. Throw me a seized engine. Throw me a spun axle or a broken accelerator cable. Hell I’ll even repair the clutch and flywheel in the parking lot. But godforbid you put a door ding in my car, and I’ll be at a total loss of what to do. You cant just magically pull them out, not without a lot of careful finessing. Not only are they annoying as all hell to get rid of, leaving them there is even worse. Every time I look, I SEE them, even if no one else does. And as long as I know they’re there, like little unpoppable pimples on a super models face, I’ll be annoyed. And that is also why I support legislation that removes the fingers of door dingers as punishment. Learn to open the damn doors carefully! Not that hard.

Hopefully you all got a laugh out of that… be sure to hit up the forums for the usual pet peeve discussions, and check out the newest gallery in the media forum! This is Dr. VW- out.