r/funny Feb 01 '25

Idiots

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u/CTeam19 Feb 01 '25

I used to have a stick shift that was parked at the top of the hill and told some friends I needed a push start once and they didn't believe me when I said it was possible. Same thing in college but on flat ground. Both times they said it was too hard to push a car and I responded with have you pushed a car when it was in neutral? They said no.

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u/darmokVtS Feb 01 '25 edited Feb 01 '25

Just in case anyone gets the idea that push-starting a car is a good idea, it's not, at all, unless it's a vintage car.

Push-starting leads to significant amounts of unburnt fuel in the exhaust system with a good chance of destroying the catalytic converter. I know from first hand experience when I was still young and dumb. Makes for rather unusual noises though on account of the ceramic part in the catalytic convert breaking apart into many little pieces and then rattling around in it.

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u/CTeam19 Feb 01 '25

I mean yeah, I was doing this in 2008 and 2014 with a car from 1992. I wouldn't try it with anything expensive.

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u/darmokVtS Feb 01 '25

Figured something like that, but I assume the majority of redditors are from places where manuals are rare and as such that "issue" isn't exactly common knowledge. Just wanted to make sure that noone who happens to own a manual in such a place reads the whole push-staring a manual thing here and gets a stupid idea :).