Results tagged “cars” from KPAO

I own a 1999 Honda Civic HX. By all accounts a practical car. But I did get the version with the CVT (continuously variable transmission). This makes it fairly responsive with the accelerator.

But in the 10 years I've had the car, my commute has always been 10 miles or less. In fact I biked to work most days. With my new job, it's a 30-minute drive each way. For someone who's not used to a longer commute, it got pretty old, pretty fast.

I got it into my head that I should upgrade the car. Get something fun, sporty. Maybe a convertible. Maybe a roadster. Maybe both. I test drove a bunch of cars. The Z4, Mini Cooper, Miata, SLK... It was fun. I had even convinced the wife that it wasn't a completely horrible idea.

But ultimately, I was too practical to pull the trigger. I spent $1000 fixing all of the dents and dings in my Civic. I had the car detailed in and out. Got the 120k major tune up. That made it feel a bit more respectable.

Then I started driving to work with the windows down. It's not exactly a convertible, but it's a pretty good way to get a lot of fresh air while you drive. It's also good for drying out your hair when you're running late.

And then I discovered S. It's the "Sport" gear on my transmission. It revvs the engine to higher RPMs when driving, giving more torque and responsiveness. I love it. It's like a whole new car.

Sure, it's not nearly as responsive as a real sports car. But it's a lot more fun to drive. Maybe when this car falls apart, I'll get the sport car (Lexus IS C, I'm looking at you). Until then, I'm good.

I got a letter in the mail from Dollar rent-a-car a last week. It claimed damage on a car I rented when I was in Michigan for the new year and demanded nearly $700 for damages. It was crazy, because I didn't hit anything with the car, and nothing hit me.

Looking through my paperwork from the trip, I realize that I don't have anything from the car return stating the condition of the car, just the final receipt. I just presumed that was a part of the check in process: If there's a problem with the car, they tell you right then and there. Nope. Apparently it's my responsibility to get someone to check the car out and give me that paperwork.

Luckily I rented it with a Visa card that has rental car insurance. I've kicked off the process for them to pay the claim for me. No doubt they will only pay part of it. I'm sure I'll be responsible for things like the "administration fee" and "lost use" fee.

But I suppose the silver lining is that this is a lesson learned. I will always be sure to get an employee to check out the car and give me paperwork stating there is no damage to it. And barring that, I will take a bunch of pictures of the car with the day's newspaper in it to prove it was returned with no damage. Renter beware.

To me, the horn is there for one reason only: to get the attention of someone outside your car. Whether it's another driver or a pedestrian. Tooting the horn is basically saying "Hello, I'm here. Maybe you didn't notice me. Maybe you did. But either way, we know for sure you do."

Given that, here are acceptable scenarios for using the horn:

• The light turned green and the driver in front of you hasn't noticed yet after a couple of seconds.
• A car signaling to move into your lane.
• A car moving into your lane oblivious to your existence.
  
• Coming up behind a cyclist who is riding in the center of the lane.
• A driver exiting a car parked on the side of the road as you approach.

Unacceptable scenarios include:

• that *$%&# cut me off!
• if this %*@&$ is gonna drive in the left lane, he %&*# well better go faster than that!
• My boss humiliated me today and I need to take it out on someone.
  

From my observations, horn are mostly used to express anger or irritation. I suppose it makes sense; The person feels this emotional build up, and the horn is a simply and obvious way to release it. But if you think about it, honking in anger ultimately does no good. What person, upon hearing a horn blasted at them in anger, is going to think, "Gee, I never really reflected on it before, but I believe the judgment of some utter stranger, and his klaxon is my wake-up call to change my erroneous ways."?

It's interesting how we tend to attribute malice to the people in traffic who do us wrong, and yet how often are we acting in malice in our own driving? Virtually never (I hope).

I used to be a more emotional driver. I know I'm mellowing out as I age and get more perspective (though not enough, as I'm sure my wife would tell you!). I now try approach my driving unemotionally, where the other cars on the road are merely obstacles programmed to act a certain way. I simply need to do my best to predict what the ones near me will do, and make my driving decisions accordingly to minimize a collision. Honking is merely a part of the automaton.

I grew up in Michigan, in the metro-Detroit 'burbs. My house was just over a mile away from the GM Tech Center. Many of my friends had family that worked for the auto companies, or for their suppliers. And we even owned our share of GM cars, like the Chevy Impala station wagon that saved my life when a red light runner T-boned me on the driver side at 45. His car was totaled; I drove home.

But we also had a Chevy Manza, which was such a piece of shit I remember my dad driving it with in the summer with the heater on full blast to prevent it from overheating. After that, my mom got a Honda Accord and never looked back. She's on her 4th Accord right now. And that right there summarizes the problem with the big 3 auto-makers: they just don't understand what customers want in a car. Reliable. Inexpensive to operate. Easy to use. A pleasure to drive. Attention to detail. They don't want aggressive styling, or blowout sales events, cheap financing, or the fucking paint sealant and undercoat rustproofing thrown in for free. People want a car that just works.

And over the past 30 years, they've had ample opportunity to do so. They saw so well in the 70s and 80s how the small, reliable, economic cars were gradually increasing in popularity, and they did nothing to stop it. They rode the wave of SUVs, with their high profit margins, and chose not to invest in a truly diverse line of transportation. They made no serious effort for alternate fuel technology. They made this mess themselves. And now they want a bailout.

And what are they going to do with that money? They'll spend it on liquor and drugs. Metaphorically speaking, they are no different than the homeless guy on the street. Giving them money is just a band-aid over a gushing arterial wound. They will  waste it away and merely defer the inevitable demise of their companies, simply becuase management knows not now, nor never have they known, how to truly focus on creating a sustainable business that places customers at the center of everything they do.

Please, do not bail these incompetent companies out. Let them die, as the invisible hand of the free market is surely doing right now. To intervene is simply bad socialism. If you want to spend tens of billions of dollars propping up the economy, give it to the workers who lose their jobs. Retrain them. Create new public works programs to hire them into. Give them incentives to go into business for themselves. Give it to the people actually affected by this morass. But don't give it to the companies that failed year after year, decade after decade. They've already had their chance to turn things around time and time again. Now their time is over.

P.S. My standing offer to be CEO of Yahoo! also applies to GM, Ford, or Chrysler. Admittedly, I don't have an executive background, but I have the intelligence, drive, and most importantly, the focus. At this point, I think an unemotional, unencumbered outsider is just what these failing auto-makers need. Call me.

I stopped to run an errand on my way to work today and when I came back out, my battery was flat. Given that the battery is the original that came with the car, and thus it is 10 years old, it's not too surprising. But still annoying.

After getting a jump from AAA, I drove straight over to Sears. And I have to say the experience was great. There were two options: DieHard Standard and DieHard Gold. That was it. No other brands, no need to decide among a whole line of different levels and options. Just decide whether you want the basic model or the Gold.

I bought the Gold. It cost only 15% more, and I was moved by the unexpected absence of a paradox of choice. It was a bliss of dearth. Plus they had it installed in less than half an hour. I highly recommend them for your car battery needs.

I was on a road trip last weekend with my trusty old 1999 Honda Civic HX (love that continuously-variable transmission!). During the second half of the trip, my mileage maxed out at 41 mpg. It's the best I've ever gotten, probably in no small part due to the fact that the driver was not me and driving less -- shall we say -- assertively.

But it's not unusual. I often get 38 mpg on a long road trip. Even around the city I get 33-35 mpg. Pretty good. And the great thing is that I've been getting this mileage for 10 years now--for the 100,000+ miles I've put on the car. As a back-of-the-envelope guess, I average 35 mpg. That translates to about 2857 gallons of gas consumed in the past 10 years.

Now I think it's great that more people are getting hybrids, which can average 44 mpg. (It's amazing how a 2-3× increase in gas prices will motivate.) But if they were driving an average car or truck for the past 10 years -- which gets 20.2 mpg according to the EPA -- it would take them another 16½ years to equal my 35 mpg average for the same time span. By then I'll hopefully be driving a Tesla.

Both Wired and the Mercury News report that a used sub-compact car is actually more economical and better for the environment than a new hybrid. Wired says:

It takes 113 million BTUs of energy to make a Toyota Prius. Because there are about 113,000 BTUs of energy in a gallon of gasoline, the Prius has consumed the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gasoline before it reaches the showroom. Think of it as a carbon debt -- one you won't pay off until the Prius has turned over 46,000 miles or so.

The funny thing is, the demand is going up and of course the supply is fixed, which is of course driving up the price for these used cars. From the Mercury News article:

The Geo Metro — with all of three cylinders — that were written off long ago, except with die-hards and collectors, have gone from $2,725 Blue Book value in May-August 2006 to $3,050 this year. It cost $9,000 to $10,000 when it was introduced in 1989.

When was the last time a car alarm actually prevented a theft? Are there alert citizens out there who cry out, "Hark! Some scalawag is attempting to burgle yonder motor vehicle. Let us go give him his comeuppance."? I've never seen them. I've been in the vicinity of approximately 7,324 car alarms going off, and every single one of them was a false alarm. Either the owner set it off, or some passerby did.

So what is the point of these noisemakers? Do they really prevent theft? Or stated more germanely, what is the value they provide weighed against the annoyance caused the general public?

I think car alarms should be outlawed as devices solely created for disturbing the peace. Sure, you can go ahead and get one installed, but you'd better show a false alarm rate of less than 1%, otherwise you'll be fined, thrown in prison, or killed depending on how many priors.