Stupid things non petrolheads say... Vol 2

[PanzerCommander]

Long gone are the days when you had to produce your V5 and prove you owned an AMG to even get an AMG badge. I guess it was inevitable that the marketing department were going to win that one.

[Pixelpeep7r]

Still in shock over my (Female, and blonde) work colleague commenting that another co-worker must be 'minted' because he drives a 10 year old Audi TT

[Blown2CV]

i've said it before, i find it incredibly offensive when people (particularly strangers) have the gall to ask about money in the context of a car. It's not a petrolhead or non-petrolhead thing, it's a jealousy thing. They say things like:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

i mean there are a million variants, they come up all the time on here, and it really boils my piss.

There's an assumption of my situation, salary, maybe that i am doing something underhand or illegal just because they don't understand it. I find it really rude! People out there just fking stop it!

By all means say "oh I love your car!" or "is it fast", or whatever... I am very happy to chat endlessly about the ca... but money... I can only barely grit my teeth and divert the question... give me a couple of years until I am properly into grumpy old man mode and they might well get told to fk off as a rule.

[walm]

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Are they staring directly at the 2CV and all its magnificence when they say these things?
It could be sarcasm!











I know, you don't drive a 2CV.
Honestly, in your shoes I would be happy!
Aren't they just trying to pay you a compliment for having a nice looking car?

[Vitorio]

The Beaver King said:

he is reasonably clued up. He can't get his head around why my C350e hybrid is a lot quicker than his 'C-Class AMG'...

That statement seems rather contradictory, not being able to distinguish engine performance from a trim pack wouldnt count as "reasonably clued up" in my book

[Blown2CV]

walm said:

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Are they staring directly at the 2CV and all its magnificence when they say these things?
It could be sarcasm!

I know, you don't drive a 2CV.
Honestly, in your shoes I would be happy!
Aren't they just trying to pay you a compliment for having a nice looking car?

not all of these are from personal experience, and no I wouldn't feel flattered if someone looked at me with a curled lip and told me I must have robbed a bank. That basically says "you don't deserve what you have". To be honest most of the above are lifted from other peoples' experiences in this thread. No-one needs to be actually wealthy to be on the end of this stuff. As we've seen time and again here, there are stories of non-petrolhead strangers seem to dip into wanting to talk money even when a car only cost £2k. It just needs to somehow look expensive to the onlooker. However what I have experienced in my life more generally is on occasion people wanting to ask me what i earn, just completely unsolicited. I find it really uncomfortable and nosy, and I would never, ever dream of asking anyone else.

[MartG]

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Usually from people who have 3 foreign holidays a year and/or piss their money away on other things

[Gad-Westy]

Blown2CV said:

walm said:

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Are they staring directly at the 2CV and all its magnificence when they say these things?
It could be sarcasm!

I know, you don't drive a 2CV.
Honestly, in your shoes I would be happy!
Aren't they just trying to pay you a compliment for having a nice looking car?

not all of these are from personal experience, and no I wouldn't feel flattered if someone looked at me with a curled lip and told me I must have robbed a bank. That basically says "you don't deserve what you have". To be honest most of the above are lifted from other peoples' experiences in this thread. No-one needs to be actually wealthy to be on the end of this stuff. As we've seen time and again here, there are stories of non-petrolhead strangers seem to dip into wanting to talk money even when a car only cost £2k. It just needs to somehow look expensive to the onlooker. However what I have experienced in my life more generally is on occasion people wanting to ask me what i earn, just completely unsolicited. I find it really uncomfortable and nosy, and I would never, ever dream of asking anyone else.

I received this treatment on a PH meet would you believe. I was in an S1 Elise which may have looked showy next to some cars in attendance but was by no means the most valuable by a long shot. Seem to remember a comment along the lines of "spot the rich one". I know it was probably meant in jest but so irritating.

[walm]

Blown2CV said:

However what I have experienced in my life more generally is on occasion people wanting to ask me what i earn, just completely unsolicited. I find it really uncomfortable and nosy, and I would never, ever dream of asking anyone else.

I admit that people probably WANT to ask what you earn (plenty of threads on here doing just that, for example) but honestly, has anyone really come up and flat out asked?

Isn't it more like... "wow, how much do you have to earn to afford that??"
They don't actually want you to say...
"Well it's £60k gross but I contribute around 10% to a pension which my employer matches so my take-home is more like £3k a month, not including the rental income from my BTL, and interest from my savings account. How about you?"

I mean if they were really pushy you might be able to deflect the conversation into the surprising affordability of Golf Rs given ZIRP and ongoing capacity utilisation problems for the volume OEMs which is leading to unrealistic and unsustainable automotive SAARs which will eventually blow up leading to massive holes in their balance sheet owing to the residuals of their finance arms, which somewhat account for the incredibly low earnings multiples for the automakers (I mean Ford on 6x and GM on 5x!!).
That would probably shut them up.

[HappyMidget]

Gad-Westy said:

I received this treatment on a PH meet would you believe. I was in an S1 Elise which may have looked showy next to some cars in attendance but was by no means the most valuable by a long shot. Seem to remember a comment along the lines of "spot the rich one". I know it was probably meant in jest but so irritating.

The two that annoy me are:

"How much was that?" and
"How much fuel does it use?"

It's a fking Vauxhall, so not a massive amount, and I don't give a fk how much fuel it uses.

[Blown2CV]

Gad-Westy said:

Blown2CV said:

walm said:

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Are they staring directly at the 2CV and all its magnificence when they say these things?
It could be sarcasm!

I know, you don't drive a 2CV.
Honestly, in your shoes I would be happy!
Aren't they just trying to pay you a compliment for having a nice looking car?

not all of these are from personal experience, and no I wouldn't feel flattered if someone looked at me with a curled lip and told me I must have robbed a bank. That basically says "you don't deserve what you have". To be honest most of the above are lifted from other peoples' experiences in this thread. No-one needs to be actually wealthy to be on the end of this stuff. As we've seen time and again here, there are stories of non-petrolhead strangers seem to dip into wanting to talk money even when a car only cost £2k. It just needs to somehow look expensive to the onlooker. However what I have experienced in my life more generally is on occasion people wanting to ask me what i earn, just completely unsolicited. I find it really uncomfortable and nosy, and I would never, ever dream of asking anyone else.

I received this treatment on a PH meet would you believe. I was in an S1 Elise which may have looked showy next to some cars in attendance but was by no means the most valuable by a long shot. Seem to remember a comment along the lines of "spot the rich one". I know it was probably meant in jest but so irritating.

many a true word (from their perspective at least) said in jest , as they say!

[Gad-Westy]

HappyMidget said:

Gad-Westy said:

I received this treatment on a PH meet would you believe. I was in an S1 Elise which may have looked showy next to some cars in attendance but was by no means the most valuable by a long shot. Seem to remember a comment along the lines of "spot the rich one". I know it was probably meant in jest but so irritating.

The two that annoy me are:

"How much was that?" and
"How much fuel does it use?"

It's a fking Vauxhall, so not a massive amount, and I don't give a fk how much fuel it uses.

Or the mystifying, "wow, how much does that cost to fill up?". The amount of fuel a tank can hold, being the soul metric on which to judge one's financial clout!

Edited by Gad-Westy on Tuesday 17th May 11:23

[ChemicalChaos]

I get this a lot too.

Spend 9k on a nearly new Polo or Mini, as several people my age that I know have done, and all is fine.
Spend 9k on an old Range Rover, and you must be absolutely loaded/spoiled.....

[IanCress]

Gad-Westy said:

Or the mystifying, "wow, how much does that cost to fill up?". The amount of fuel a tank can hold, being the soul metric on which to judge one's financial clout!

Or the sole metric on how much a car costs to run. Car A costs £70 to fill up and has a 1000 mile range. Car B costs £35 to fill but only does 300 miles.

Car B is seen as cheap to run because it costs much less to full the tank.

[over_the_hill]

MartG said:

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Usually from people who have 3 foreign holidays a year and/or piss their money away on other things

Nail head hit.

Have to upgrade phone every three months
Out on the lash every Thursday/Friday/Saturday
£5 a day on lunch - (I'm too busy to make my own sandwiches and it's such a grind)
Half of the contents in the house on finance because nothing can be more than three years old just to keep up with Jones'
...

[Gad-Westy]

IanCress said:

Gad-Westy said:

Or the mystifying, "wow, how much does that cost to fill up?". The amount of fuel a tank can hold, being the soul metric on which to judge one's financial clout!

Or the sole metric on how much a car costs to run. Car A costs £70 to fill up and has a 1000 mile range. Car B costs £35 to fill but only does 300 miles.

Car B is seen as cheap to run because it costs much less to full the tank.

Yeah was sort of what I was getting at. Bears no relation to anything at all other than how often the owner might have to fill up. Hear this sort of thing a lot from the other angle which is a statement along the lines of "my new car is really good on fuel", I can do 500 miles between fill ups but could only do 350 in my last car. Missing some crucial information there!

[P5BNij]

Gad-Westy said:

Blown2CV said:

walm said:

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Are they staring directly at the 2CV and all its magnificence when they say these things?
It could be sarcasm!

I know, you don't drive a 2CV.
Honestly, in your shoes I would be happy!
Aren't they just trying to pay you a compliment for having a nice looking car?

not all of these are from personal experience, and no I wouldn't feel flattered if someone looked at me with a curled lip and told me I must have robbed a bank. That basically says "you don't deserve what you have". To be honest most of the above are lifted from other peoples' experiences in this thread. No-one needs to be actually wealthy to be on the end of this stuff. As we've seen time and again here, there are stories of non-petrolhead strangers seem to dip into wanting to talk money even when a car only cost £2k. It just needs to somehow look expensive to the onlooker. However what I have experienced in my life more generally is on occasion people wanting to ask me what i earn, just completely unsolicited. I find it really uncomfortable and nosy, and I would never, ever dream of asking anyone else.

I received this treatment on a PH meet would you believe. I was in an S1 Elise which may have looked showy next to some cars in attendance but was by no means the most valuable by a long shot. Seem to remember a comment along the lines of "spot the rich one". I know it was probably meant in jest but so irritating.

Strange isn't it? There seems to be some sort of default position which some car enthusiasts take where they can't stand seeing someone else 'poking their head above the parapet' so to speak, appearing to have more disposable income than them. I've experienced it several times while cleaning my cars or working on them on the drive, nothing that expensive really, forty year old usable classics which produce comments like ''more money than sense'', ''someone must be doing alright'' or ''it's alright for some...''! A mate of mine has had worse at work, he's recently retired but used to commute into work in his Maserati GT, after a few weeks went by word filtered down that management were not happy seeing his 'flash motor' parked alongside their leased Mercs and Audis and he was 'instructed' not to park it on company property anymore. Needless to say he just carried on regardless, but it caused no end of pointless agro until he took redundancy last month.

[Gad-Westy]

P5BNij said:

Gad-Westy said:

Blown2CV said:

walm said:

Blown2CV said:

"you're so lucky"
"you must have had a pay rise"
"how much did it cost?"
"how did you manage to afford that?"
"you must be a drug dealer"
"i wish i earnt as much as you"

Are they staring directly at the 2CV and all its magnificence when they say these things?
It could be sarcasm!

I know, you don't drive a 2CV.
Honestly, in your shoes I would be happy!
Aren't they just trying to pay you a compliment for having a nice looking car?

not all of these are from personal experience, and no I wouldn't feel flattered if someone looked at me with a curled lip and told me I must have robbed a bank. That basically says "you don't deserve what you have". To be honest most of the above are lifted from other peoples' experiences in this thread. No-one needs to be actually wealthy to be on the end of this stuff. As we've seen time and again here, there are stories of non-petrolhead strangers seem to dip into wanting to talk money even when a car only cost £2k. It just needs to somehow look expensive to the onlooker. However what I have experienced in my life more generally is on occasion people wanting to ask me what i earn, just completely unsolicited. I find it really uncomfortable and nosy, and I would never, ever dream of asking anyone else.

I received this treatment on a PH meet would you believe. I was in an S1 Elise which may have looked showy next to some cars in attendance but was by no means the most valuable by a long shot. Seem to remember a comment along the lines of "spot the rich one". I know it was probably meant in jest but so irritating.

Strange isn't it? There seems to be some sort of default position which some car enthusiasts take where they can't stand seeing someone else 'poking their head above the parapet' so to speak, appearing to have more disposable income than them. I've experienced it several times while cleaning my cars or working on them on the drive, nothing that expensive really, forty year old usable classics which produce comments like ''more money than sense'', ''someone must be doing alright'' or ''it's alright for some...''! A mate of mine has had worse at work, he's recently retired but used to commute into work in his Maserati GT, after a few weeks went by word filtered down that management were not happy seeing his 'flash motor' parked alongside their leased Mercs and Audis and he was 'instructed' not to park it on company property anymore. Needless to say he just carried on regardless, but it caused no end of pointless agro until he took redundancy last month.

Unbelievable!

[Munter]

P5BNij said:

''someone must be doing alright''

That's a compliment isn't it?
The equivalent of "well done that's a lovely car".

Can't help thinking some posters are a bit paranoid around people commenting on their car. Not everything is a criticism people.

[P5BNij]

Munter said:

P5BNij said:

''someone must be doing alright''

That's a compliment isn't it?
The equivalent of "well done that's a lovely car".

Can't help thinking some posters are a bit paranoid around people commenting on their car. Not everything is a criticism people.

Not when it's said in a sneering voice, no!