Scamwagon

Now that I have had my Chevy Volt for a week, I had to take care of some high priority items in order to make it driveable.  The first one, of course, was to black out the rims and gold Chevy emblems. I used a product called Custom Wrap by Dupli-Color. It's the equivalent of a better-known product called Plasti-Dip.  You spray it on, and it peels or wipes off when you want it to (assuming you did it right).   Wheels  Started with some serious cleaning of the wheels.  I used Simple Green mixed with water, a sponge, and a lot of elbow grease. I chose to remove the wheels for application, but that is not expressly necessary.  In my case I didn't want to worry about over-spray onto the car or rotors, and felt I could do a better job of getting all the nooks and crannies.  I didn't mask anything at all; I just made sure to do lots of (4-5) coats on everything (including the tires) so it would peel nicely off. ...

Well I did it.  Bit the bullet and, after thinking about lots of different possibilities, decided to go with what I know: 2013 VW Golf TDI with tech package.  It took me a while to find one, but as I learned from my last car, if you don't get what you want the first time, you'll spend the rest of your ownership trying to add it (and in many cases you still won't get it). Here are some of the many features: Heated seats (my previous car didn't have this and I regretted it for 12 years.) Xenon headlights with "follow" action LED DRLs 17" rims Dual power seats Nav, SDcard slot Bluetooth smartphone integration Sunroof DSG transmission (basically a standard transmission that is robotically automated) It's going to take me a year or two just to get a handle on what is in this car.  I apparently have the RNS315 radio, which is different from the RNS516, but is apparently now standard on the tech package, I'm guessing because it's...

Woohoo!  I got something done on my car.  Had to go in yesterday and tighten up the connection between the counterweight and transmission gear selector (it came loose, probably was not torqued well enough when I replaced the transmission).  I decided, while I have the battery out, might as well take off the bumper and replace the headlights and grill.  This job ended up being a lot easier than I thought, because I had left the wiring there for my old custom fog lights.  Headlights are halogen projector type with OEM-style marker lights AND LED angel eyes.  I wired the angel eyes to a switch under my dash so I can turn them on/off, depending on how fancy I want to be. I can't wait to be able to see where I am going at night.  My old headlight lenses were so scratched up that the beam was diffused.

Now that my car has rolled 200K, and I've decided the budget doesn't allow me to by my dream Golf anytime in the near future, I've been thinking about doing some other fairly serious rehab.  Over the last 11 years, there have been a lot of things that broke, rusted, burnt out, collected, or what-have-you in and on the car, and I think it's time to address a lot of it.  Since I drive this car so much, it has a chance to really improve my life.  The older I get, the more I realize investing time and money into things you use the most is time/money well spent. So starting today, here's the partial list of rehab items as they came spewing forth.  I will be adding to this list as I think of things. Exterior Headlight lenses Kamei mesh front grill Rear spoiler Rust repair - Fenders, hood, trunk, above windshield Interior Clean out glove box (remove tapes) Fix rear defroster Tint windows Steering wheel Design custom console around...

Well just when I thought I'd finally gotten past this auto maintenance nightmare... What was only supposed to be an exciting couple of weeks in incoming baby-world (my wife is due next weekend), I have spent basically dealing with my cars.  I'll try to summarize the story as simply as possible.

Last night things moved ahead considerably.  I was very happy to see that the replacement seal arrived priority mail (from idparts.com - they've never done me wrong) on Monday, after I ordered it on Friday night.  I also went out and found a seal puller (similar to the one pictured) at Sears, of all places.  None of the regular auto parts stores carry this thing for some reason. The elusive seal puller I finally obtained.

Well, I was going to update this the other night, but sometimes there's only enough time to work on the car.  So a few things have happened since my last post: for one thing, I got the old gears off.   

Well today I got the transmission cover off.  There were two gears in here (5th gear and the selector gear) that were totally rounded (all teeth were sheared off).

Well after a horrible stay at La Guardia airport for almost 12 hours, I am home and thinking about my car problems.  Tried to get into it after work today, which usually goes something like this:

It had to have been within 10 minutes of my staring at the odometer, marveling at the nearly 199,000 miles I had wracked up on my VW Golf and thinking how trouble-free the car had lately been, when my cruise control disengaged, and the car started to do the all-too-familiar "death coast".  Without thinking or trying anything else, I immediately turned on my four-way flashers and started moving into the breakdown lane -scoping the distance to the next rest area.

In the final days before the snowstorm, I managed get my act together and squeeze in the acquisition of half a cord of wood.  

If you are the owner of a small, fuel efficient vehicle, here's something you may not have thought about. If you are involved in an accident that ends up totaling your car, you may not get enough insurance money to replace it. Here's why: When the insurance company "totals" your car (decides it's cheaper to replace it than repair it), they will cut a check for the Blue Book value of the car. But, as the demand for these cars continues to rapidly increase, so does the "street" value (the amount the car is selling for today, on Ebay, for example). Since the Blue Book value of these cars is assessed using a fairly bureaucratic process , this value hasn't been calculated recently enough, and is therefore under the actual cost involved in acquiring an exact replacement. Cost is only the beginning. The headaches of purchasing a fuel efficient vehicle are many- if you are in the market for a new car, you'll probably end up on a waiting list . When...

GM has always answered the call for more horsepower by trying to find ways to shoehorn bigger engines in their large cars and trucks. For some reason, this wasteful practice has made Americans happy, as long as the fuel prices were low. However, now that its pickup and SUV sales have been obscured by a new demand for fuel efficient cars, GM finally has decided that it might be a good idea to give Americans a 120-140 horsepower vehicle, that still gets over 40 mpg! Why wasn't this vehicle developed when gas was $2.00 something a gallon, and had every indication that there was no end in sight? Heck, why hasn't this vehicle existed for years as an American car choice? Because the technology didn't exist? Wrong. Consumers of foreign manufactured autos have enjoyed lightweight, fuel efficient, and fast sport compact cars for years. How do they do it? Turbochargers: They have been in use for over 80 years . By forcing air into the engine, power output can be significantly r...

Foreign auto manufacturers such as Nissan and Mitsubishi have responded to high oil prices by making small, 100% electric cars, slated for release in Japan (and even the U.S., in Nissan's case) by 2010. Mitsubishi Announces Electric Car for 2010 Nissan Announces Electric Car for 2010 GM has responded to high oil prices by closing 4 plants, laying off 30,000 workers , and leaving dealerships all over the nation to try to sell the Chevy Volt hybrid, with a $40,000 price tag . Reportedly, the Th!nk City EV, now owned by a Norwegian company, will be coming back to the U.S in 2009 . The car was originally developed by Ford, and dumped as part of its 2002 total abandonment of the electric car venture .

The other night, a friend asked me what I would do to make a car that got 100-something miles per gallon. This is a perfect example of how that question can be answered in a number of ways. This Prius has been outfitted with new technology LiFePO4 batteries, and has been recorded achieving 125+ mpg. http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/683/ Having better batteries means it can use more stored power before having to run the engine. While this is an improvement in city driving, on the highway commute this vehicle will be right back to 40mpg. Even the best batteries will be exhausted fairly quickly and the engine will end up running for the remainder of the trip. Claims that the Prius achieves 499 MPG could be made just as easily and accurately if they measured the mileage on 1 mile test drive on a totally flat road, with no engine start or braking occurring. As far as I know, there is still no standard course for measuring these claims, and most of the time, no one understands the sc...

Have you ever wondered exactly how America gets its reputation for driving oversized vehicles without any regard for the environment or fuel costs? Because people like Bob Lutz are behind the wheel of the largest American motor company: GM. We all know that GM is company that's as "American as apple pie." Here's a timeline of events for you. 2004: Bob Lutz thinks that Hybrid cars make no sense. Quote: "Hybrids are an interesting curiosity and we will do some," he said. "But do they make sense at $1.50 a gallon? No, they do not." Understanding interaction between national and global economy: FAIL Effectiveness at developing strategies that look more than 1-2 years out : FAIL 2005-2007: GM continues to bring products to market that it thinks will be good for America. This includes pukemobiles such as: The Chevy Suburban 2WD Z71 GMC Envoy Denali/Envoy XL Denali. The Chevy TrailBlazer EXT *and don't forget* The Hummer H3 They are shoved in the ...

As usual, some new, cool car technology is being developed which the U.S. will likely be (at best) the last to take advantage of. This time it's a diesel hybrid by VW. The diesel hybrid is not a new concept, but this will be one of the first production cars to incorporate it. The fact is, diesel cars are awesome in so many ways. They are powerful, efficient, clean, and can be run on 100% renewable fuel with ZERO modification. Many other countries have embraced diesel vehicles. So why do they have such a hard time in the U.S.? They are perceived by most to be "loud and smelly," to quote the Wired article. I will add that from my observations, people think they are dirty and underpowered. Now let's do some myth busting, shall we? Myth: Diesels cars are Loud Fact: Diesel trucks are loud. Old diesel anythings were often loud. My diesel is loud (since I riced out my exhaust system). But "Diesels" are not loud, at least not significantly louder than ...

Often I'm asked why I'm a proponent of vegetable oil as a fuel, rather than a fuel that doesn't emit CO2, such as Hydrogen. Carbon neutrality is more important than to zero CO2 emissions at the tail pipe. Hydrogen is no more a fuel than are the batteries of an electric car- you put energy (electricity) in to make it, and it's then just a carrier of that energy for a vehicle. If the Hydrogen was produced using electricity from a nuclear power plant or coal plant, you still contributed new CO2 to the atmosphere. Using plant mass as a fuel, however, is carbon neutral. When plants grow they convert CO2 to oxygen- the same amount that will be turned back into CO2 when it is used by cars. Thus, you could accurately say that a veggie car is, in some cases, less of a CO2 contributor than a Hydrogen car. The promise Hydrogen offers is that of a better fueling infrastructure: one that will centralize energy conversion (and thus any CO2 production) to one location and source. ...

I don't watch much TV, but there was a time when my roomies and I used to enjoy catching the weekly recap of the World Rally Championship , on SpeedTV (formerly Speedvision). For those of you who are unfamiliar, auto rally racing competitions are THE most hardcore, adrenalized motor sport, for both the participant and the viewer, on the planet. Sport compact cars with unbelievable power-to-weight ratios are dropped into the most grueling road conditions (snow, mud, you name it) and run the stages as fast as possible, with in-car cameras. The competition is on real, treacherous roads (no tracks!) ...And these cars turn left AND right, NASCAR fans. The cars go so fast that they have a dedicated course note reader so the driver is prepared for the turns. See this video to get an idea of what it's like. The road conditions change rapidly and the team has to decide quickly and finally what tires to use, etc. The cars run one at a time so they don't have to worry about h...