HHR Report

I rented a Chevy HHR for a trip to Saratoga this week. The Audi was in the shop for some diagnostic work which necessitated the rental. The choice was between the HHR and an Impala, which was slightly more lame than the HHR. So I took the latter.



















Overall, it was a good example of why companies like GM got themselves in trouble. Without doing any research, I am thinking that the HHR basically uses the Cobalt platform and drivetrain, so you're starting off with a fairly crappy base. To that, it adds a retro body that is supposed to reflect some sort of '40's Chevy truck, maybe an early Suburban. Of course, it is like 1/4 scale. The look is okay, but it means you have gun-slit windows when you shrink it down. With the side windows tinted, the inside looking out is very Sherman-tank-like (disclaimer: I have never ridden in or driven a Sherman tank) but I actually liked the feeling of the base of the windshield being closer to you than many modern cars, with their dashtops that can hold a large pizza box. Almost an original 'Beetle' feeling to it with the closeness and verticality of the windscreen.

Dynamically, the HHR sucks. Granted, I had a base rental fleet version with 14" wheels and tires, but I can't imagine a top-line version with larger tires would challenge the Corvette in a gymkhana. The ride is okay except for the clunks in the suspension. The gas pedal has about 3 inches of dead travel before the engine deigns to weigh in and move the car (slowly) forward. Hard to tell how many gears the transmission has (and between Drive and Low is a strange setting called 'I') but suffice it to say it is somewhere between a 2-speed Powerglide and a decent 5-speed automatic. I'm guessing 4. There was also a strange sound when you first start the car, almost like a waterfall, or one of those African 'stones in the sealed wooden tube' instrument things. Very cool in nature or in a percussion instrument; not so much in your car. The steering wheel also had a very strange rim, with a cross-section that felt triangular and wasn't very comfortable to grip.

I guess the HHR's raison d'etre (besides being supposedly cool to look at) is carrying capability. But I had to fold down one of the rear seats to put my golf clubs in the back, as the car isn't wide enough to put them sideways or deep enough to even carry them diagonally in the back. The floor is very high as well, effectively starting at mid-thigh level (and I'm short). There is a very shallow tray under the cargo floor (about 4 inches deep) and the spare tire is under that.

There were actually some things I did like.... For a base car, it was decently equipped with automatic headlights and cruise control. The single CD stereo was pretty decent sounding, had an auxiliary input (mini-jack line, not USB) and there were power seats and lumbar control. Also, the computer was pretty good, with lots of the usual info (instant and average mpg, average speed and - a really nice touch - air pressure which indicated the actual reading for every tire, versus an idiot light with no indication of which tire is low, like in our 2007 Honda Odyssey minivan). And for a small car with a high beltline and low roof, the seating position was nice and upright.

Maybe it would be a little more peppy with a manual transmission (Save the Manuals!), but I doubt that a stick would transform the car into something that a person who wants more than Point A to Point B transportation would be willing to buy. Certainly not me.

Tools Explained

1.DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

2.WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light . Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh shit!' or worse.

3.SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

4.PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

5.BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

6.HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

7.VISE-GRIPS:Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense
welding heat to the palm of your hand.

8.OXY/ACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside
the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

9.TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

10.HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK:Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes , trapping the jack handle
firmly under the bumper. Always pays to have a second one to get out of trouble with.

11.BAND SAW:A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the
trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

12.TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

13.PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

14.STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER : A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering
your palms.

15.PRY BAR : A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

16.HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

17.HAMMER : Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

18.UTILITY KNIFE:Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents
such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only
while in use.

Hope you found this informative!

Cheap New Car?

Just came thought a period where I thought we might have to get a car to replace AJ's... It would not start unless jumped, and even then, when jumped, would not start if shut off and left for a few minutes.... I thought it might be the alternator, but turned out is was a bad battery. Had it replaced and it seems like it's okay now, which is good. He needs it to get back and forth to work.

So the tentative plan was to either 1) get a cheap lease on something for AJ, like around $100 a month, for 3 years or so, and then turn the car over to him when the lease expired or 2) give AJ my car and get something for me. I was leaning towards #1, simply because I wasn't sure how reliable my car would be and I didn't think I wanted to downgrade my car into something I could get for #1 above...

But the process got me thinking about some of the great cars available that you could presumably get for around $20k and certainly for under $25k - Ford Fiesta and Focus, Mazda2, Mazda3, various Hyundai/Kias, a pretty basic MINI, Jetta, Honda Fit, etc.... They are all good cars, with plenty of features, and in the case of the Fords and Mazda2, cool cars. Of these cars, I would have considered a MINI, Focus or Jetta if I had had to go with option 2 above. They are all neat cars and newly designed or redesigned, and can be had for about $25k very nicely equipped (top of the line, in the case of the Focus). Oh, and all are available with a manual transmission....

Draining Just Fine

Well, I cleared out the sunroof drain on the Audi today - it was quite a pain, as I had to remove the felt wheel well lining to access the bottom of the drain. But cleaned it out with a wire coat hanger, and enlarged the opening a bit, and it flows nicely now.

But the blob is growing.... It now looks like a centipede.....

Audi Aches

The instrument cluster information display (Driver Info Display, or DID) on my 2004 Audi A4 has a 'pixel blob'. This is a relatively common occurrence on older Audis, but with under 100k miles on my car (okay, by 400 miles or so, but still...) I would not have thought that I would have this issue now. Basically, some of the pixel remain lit at all times, and start to encroach upon the info in the DID (the DID shows, from top to bottom, radio information on the top 2 lines (and autocheck info when starting the car or low fuel when that occurs), the outside temp in the middle, and on the bottom, the computer readout, like instantaneous MPG. Here is what the blob looked like a couple of days ago....










































At that point, it kind of looked like the profile of a girl with a ponytail, who was looking to the left.... Now it looks like a Rorschach blob. The fix is to have the unit rebuilt/replaced, which is about $200 (not including the removal of the instrument cluster). This will have to get in line behind the following -

1) The glovebox door hinges have broken for the third time. The first 2 were replaced under warranty. Not this time.

2) I still need to clean out one of the rear drains on the sunroof. The dealer blew some air through them, but the rear one on the driver's side still backs up into the seatbelt reel well on that side. Short-term fix is to park the car in the driveway facing downhill when it rains, so any water drains through the front drains...

3) The driver's side window is inconsistent and is not making a terrible grinding sound when used. I try not to use it.

4) The sunroof will randomly close itself. hasn't done this in a while. I just hope it doesn't start randomly OPENING itself.

5) There appears to be a slight oil seepage from the front, that's only evident when I park the car downhill in the driveway (see #2 above).

6) The fuse for the cigar lighter blows whenever I unplug the portable GPS unit.

I just had 2 separate coolant leaks fixed - one was on the rear passenger's side, the coolant flange that is where the heater take-off is, the other the electronic thermostat sensor which is on the drive's side, under the intake manifold.

Ah, the joys of owning a well-engineered German car....

Dan

Real World Review - 2010 Buick LaCrosse

I rented a 2010 LaCrosse for a 2-day trip from Dayton to Orono, ME, on a visit to the University of Maine with my son Rob. It was a basic version, the CX, with cloth seats, no sunroof, standard wheels, etc. It was also kind of a blah color, a light gold with same color interior. We put about 1,000 miles on it in the 2 days, 95% of it highway miles, and also had about 2 hours of severe stop-and-go traffic on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut (my 'most hated' state).

The LaCrosse rides extremely well on the highway, as you'd expect from a large American car. It is extremely quiet, with no wind noise at all, even though it has large side mirrors. On freshly-paved surfaces, the only sound you hear (besides the decent audio system) is some tire noise. The engine does moan a bit when pressed, not an unpleasant sound, but not something to cherish, either.... Minimal sound comes from the dual exhaust.

Outward vision is a bit problematic, especially to the front angles - the combination of large side mirrors, which seem to be mounted high up on the body, and think A-pillars cause a lot of craning of the neck when initialy turning into parking spot or during low-speed maneuvering. And vision to the rear is terrible, a result of a short (vertically) rear window and high trunk lid. A car 12 feet behind you appears to be driving into your trunk! The front corners of the car are difficult to see as well.

The key fob is a cool switchblade, just like my Audi. But the remote buttons seem very sensitive. After stopping at a rest area on the Mass Turnpike, we came out to find the trunk popped open. And after stopping for lunch on Saturday in Newport, ME, someone came into the restaurant to ask who owned the LaCrosse, as the car alarm was wailing! Turns out I had the fob in my back pocket both times, so I am assuming that sitting on it caused the trunk to open and the panic alarm to go off. On the flip side, the range of the fob seems to be very good!

Exterior and interior styling is very nicely done, IMHO. This car would look great in a dark exterior color, as it has enough chrome accenting to really set off those darker colors - a dark blue with tan leather interior would be really sharp. The character line that dips down in the rear doors - kind of Austin-Healey-like - is very distinctive and the whole car is kind of canted forward, making it look like it's moving even at rest. The interior has cool blue lighting in several spots - along the upper edge of the dashboard, along the lower sides of the console, inside the door handle wells and around various points of the center stack. Very nice and subtle. The controls have a nice tactile feel to them, and the blinkers - which blink 3 times when you partially depress the stalk, again, just like my Audi - have a very subtle but solid sound to them as they flash. The trip computer is a little clunky to operate - a combination of 3 separate stalk-mounted switches have to be operated to move through the menus - but the visibility of the display is excellent - right between the 2 big chrome-trimmed dials. The cool blue lighting circulates around the speedometer and tach. And the needles of all 4 gauges (speedo, tach, temp and fuel) swing around their dials when you start the carm before settling back to 'normal' when you start the car, a neat touch.

Unfortunately, I found the seats a little uncomfortable. They were a little soft and narrow - I had to take my wallet out of my back pocket after a while, as my right leg would start to feel like it was losing circulation. Perhaps the leather seats are a little better and more firm.

One strange item - according to my navigation system, the speedometer was actually 1 - 2 mph LOWER than actual speed. I've never seen that before - most cars are optimistic with their speedos by 1 - 2 mph.

Mileage was good for a large car - we averaged just under 26 mpg for the trip, with the cruise set at 73 mph (except for the 2 hours in stop and go traffic mentioned above).

Here are my pictures -

Car Choices

The lease on our 2007 Honda Odyssey van expires on December 1 (Thank God!). We are currently 500 miles over our total allotment of 36,000 miles, so we will be close to 39,000 miles by the time the lease expires, in all probability. This sucks. We've been trying to figure out what we're going to do. We can buy the car for something around $16,000; we can turn it in (after paying for the excess mileage, probably around $300); or we could probably trade it in on another Honda and not have to pay the mileage. The problem with the third option is that Honda doesn't really have anything I am interested in right now. We don't think we want another van. Kathleen doesn't really like the Pilot - I do, but I don't think I want another vehicle that size. And the Accord is ugh-ly and a another sedan isn't really going to cut it. Honda does have a crossover coming out in a week or so - the Crosstour - that I will look at. Could be interested in that.

Other cars we are going to look at -

o Chevy Traverse - meh, but going to look at it.
o Mazda CX-9 - bro and sis-in-law just bought one, very nice...
o VW Jetta SprtWagen TDI - I would love to get one of these - 41 mpg, DSG. But
probably too small, about the same as my A4.
o Ford Edge, Flex - I really like the Flex, and the Edge is nice too although I think
I'd like the extra space of the Flex.
o Toyota Venza - pretty neat but expensive when you add a few options.

So we'll probably start test driving these vehicles in the next couple of months. THAT part will be fun!

Some Fun Stuff

Too much serious stuff in the automotive business these days, and too many problems with my own cars (I'll post about that later). So here are some fun things to check out, automotively-speaking.....

- A fun movie done by Chrysler for the 1939 World's Fair. It's supposed to be
3D, that's why stuff keeps going at the cameras, I guess.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlurdOFTvH8

- This woman really loves her 'chariot'!

http://growingbolder.com/media/technology/vehicles/romancing-the-road-259598.html

- An oldie but goodie -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3GU0a7KqTg

Replacing Gas Tax with Mileage Tax

The discussion of replacing a gasoline tax with a tax on miles driven (mileage tax) is becoming more heated (even though President Obama says the Federal government isn't interested in doing it). Attached is the text of an e-mail I have sent to all of my state and federal elected representatives.

I've been reading more and more discussion about this topic - a replacement of the gasoline tax with a tax based on the number of miles driven. I am against this idea for several reasons -

1) Privacy - yet again, Big Brother will be tracking my every move. The fact of the matter is, that once the government can start to monitor how many miles I am driving, it's a small step to now gauge my speed, where I am driving to and from and transmitting this information to a central database that already contains too much information about me. I don't care to be monitored in this way. It's a slippery slope, and we are already on it with EZPass. This would push us further down that slope.

2) Cost of equipment - if all new cars will be required to have a GPS device, a counting mechanism and some sort of transmitter, who will bear the cost of the added technology? The consumer, of course. I could see this adding several hundred dollars to the price of a new car.

3) Retrofitting older vehicles - again, who pays for the cost, if this were to be required? Also, older vehicles don't necessarily have the means to handle additional devices requiring electrical power - so that could lead to additional upgrades of the vehicles systems. Meaning additional cost. And any sort of government subsidy of these items would end up costing me in the end.

I also own 2 classic cars, from the '60's and '70's. They have relatively rudimentary electrical systems, so retrofitting any sort of GPS device would be almost impossible at any sort of reasonable cost. I also value the authenticity of these cars, so any sort of modern tracking system would destroy that authenticity and impact the value of the car.

4) Infrastructure to run this thing - more government bureaucrats? And I keep thinking about the initial application of EZPass here in the Northeast - there were many many problems when this system was implemented, and even today, there are problems with phantom tickets and bad transponders.

5) This is completely counter to the move to get people to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles! An increased gas tax would certainly incent people to continue to look at vehicles that get better economy; this sort of tax doesn't drive that behavior at all. We already have too many large SUV's with only a driver on our NJ roads, although the recent spike in gas prices has certainly started a trend the other way. Eliminating the gas tax could reverse that trend.

6) This sort of tax really penalizes those who MUST drive for a living. My wife is a home health-casr nurse. As such, she drives 200+ miles each week, caring for patients that cannot leave their homes to visit a doctor or healthcare facility. This Miles-Driven Tax would impact our income and further inhibit our ability to pay for college and save for retirement, to say nothing of our day-to-day needs.

This issue is one that rates very highly with me, and I would definitely look at your stand on this issue as an indicator of whether I will vote for you come re-election time.

GM To Kill Off Pontiac?

I saw on the NBC Nightly News that GM might be killing off Pontiac....wow.... That really struck me. They had a nice retrospective on the cars. My Dad owned three Pontiacs - a 1969 Pontiac Executive station wagon - maroon with a black interior and the third seat that faced the back. I learned to drive in this car, and the first day after I passed my driver's test (after taking it a second time!) I hit the back of a school bus and put a little ding in the front bumper.

The second one we had was a really ballsy car - a 1972 Grand Prix SJ! 400 cubic inch V8, dual exhausts, Rallye Wheels and the long hood - short deck styling. That was a fun car. Only car I ever ran out of gas. It was a lot of fun to drive - loud, ballsy and really sharp looking. I got it up to 110 mph once - but that was really scary as I think the front tires only touched the ground once every 10 feet or so!

Lastly, a 1977 Safari station wagon. Light green with 'wood' sides and a tan interior. I remember going with my Dad to pick this car up at the dealer, then taking it somewhere to get the CB radio - cool! - installed. We immediately departed for a trip to Disneyworld in it! This was one of the newly downsized GM full-sized cars.

These three cars covered about 15 years of my life. A shame that Pontiac has to be the one to go, instead of, say, Buick. OTOH, the Aztek was also a Pontiac, as was the Fiero...

Some Interesting Cars

Snapped a few pictures of interesting cars I spotted in my travels this summer....

Freehold Raceway Mall - I guess if you have a Bentley, you can park however the heck you want....









































On the Northway just south of Saratoga Springs, NY - Nice Aston Martin!









































Spotted this Lamborghini Countach being towed on I-95 in Connecticut, near New London -









































This smart car was in the library parking lot -










































AJ and I took some pics of this Challenger on the Cape - very nice car but pretty big -
















































































This cool Impreza was seen in Lake George, NY -

New York Auto Show - Part 3

A couple of final car comments -

1) The new Cadillac CTS is a great-looking car! They really improved it, and the new Coupe concept is really sharp - they should make it! The lines of the Coupe are so much better in person than in photos....













2) The new Jaguar XF - it's smaller than it looks in person, smaller than the XJ sedans. The styling is pretty nice - I'm not totally sure about the front end, seems a little blocky, but the rear with the sweeping roofline is really sharp and reminiscent of the XK coupe. I'm not crazy about the 'shifter' which is actually a round dial that rises out of the console when you start the car. You turn it to select Drive, Reverse, Park, etc. There are paddles behind the steering wheel to shift manually.


























3) Subaru WRX STI - very cool, pumped-up version of the Impreza WRX 5-door. I like hatchbacks anyways, and the new STI is very butch-looking. The interior is dramatically improved over the previous version, and the whole car looks less 'ricey' than the previous version.







































4) Mitsubishi Evolution 10 - we were very disappointed that they didn't have a car that was open. They had 2 there - the 5-speed manual and the MR with the manumatic. Hard to get a feel for the car without being able to sit in it or open the hood or trunk. A shame. But the cars looked nice. They had a Lancer GTS that was open and had a very nice interior. I still liked the STI better, I think.













So that's my overview of the show! As I noted, it was kind of an overload day but fun overall. Looking forward to next year's show already!

To view all of my pics from the show, go to -

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c30/ddibiase/New%20York%20Auto%20Show%202008/?start=0

New York Auto Show - Part 2

Ok, now on to some specific cars that I wanted to see.

1) BMW 1-Series - they had a red couple and a gold convertible, both 135i's. I like this car a lot! They also had a 2002 tii, and I can see the similarity - the 1-Series is an updated 2002 for sure, the same upright greenhouse, wide-open front end and flat tail. Too bad they couldn't do round taillights! I sat in the coupe - which had a 6-speed - for a few minutes and really liked it. It's a great size and great-looking, albeit a little heavy and probably a little too expensive.





















































2) Audi R8 - I have to admit to be a little disappointed - they had an R8 in white, which wasn't the most attractive look for the car. Hard to believe that they could not get a silver or black one. It's a beautiful car for sure, but the white doesn't really set the lines off that well. The also had an S5 in white, with a dark red interior, also a gorgeous car that really should have been in another color.






















































3) Dodge Challenger - a beautiful car - they had 3 production-appearing examples there - a couple of R/T Hemi's and a V6 base model. All were very nice, even the base version. I'd like to see a new one next to a classic Challener, just to compare the lines. But the new one is definitely retro but in a very nice way....














4) Chevy Camaro - by comparison, this was a concept car, not a production-ready version. It's also great-looking, but I am assuming that they will have to change some of the details (like raising the roof a bit) for production, so I'll withhold a judgement until then.














5) Nissan GT-R - an amazingly technologically advanced car, but pretty ugly, to be perfectly honest! It has a lot of strange curves and squared-off shapes on it, and that weird kink in the C-pillar is quite off-putting. The interior is very blocky, full of rectangular shapes. But it has a lot of 'presence' for sure, with huge wheels and tires and lots of scoops, ducts and strakes. Can't wait to hear one on the street!














6) smart fortwo - I love this car! We actually saw one on Canal Street on Thursday, the day before we went to the show. Yes, it is small, but has loads of room for 2 people inside. If I lived in an urban area and needed a car, this is what I would get. It makes a MINI look quite large. Too bad it only comes with the automanual trans.







































Part 3 to come.....


















-

New York Auto Show - Part 1

I attended the NYIAC on Friday, Match 29 - first time in a long time that I've been to an Auto Show, and the first time to NY in decades, literally! I had forgotten how much fun it was, and also how it's a sensory overload. You really need to have a plan of attack. Ours was kind of random, following a circuitous path through the displays, which meant by the time we got to some manufacturers, like Jaguar and Volvo, where there were cars that I really wanted to see, I felt I was kind of burned out..... So, for example, I sat in the new Jaguar XF sedan, but probably couldn't appreciate it as much as I wanted to. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

Overall impressions:

1) The domestic manufacturers have a long way to go to catch up to the imports. I have to say that the domestics tend to have flashier displays - more turntables, flashing lights, models - while the imports tend to have just the cars and fewer frills. The 'door thunk-factor' of the imports is still way higher than the domestics (I was particularly disappointed with the Pontiac G8 door sound) overall, and the interiors of even the lower-priced imports are still higher-quality than more expensive domestics.

2) Chrysler products are pretty crappy. The interiors of the brand-new models like the Dodge Journey and the new minivans are really lousy - hard, cheap plastics abound and the doors are very tinny-sounding. Seats aren't any good, either. The Journey especially was disappointing, as it has a nice overall design that is ruined by cheapness in execution. I liked the forward-canted shifter and center stack, but they felt cheap. The switchgear is also low-rent.

3) Honda styling has gotten really bizarre. The Ridgeline, Pilot front-end and entire Accord are very strange-looking, and even the Civic's interior - especially the bi-level dashboard - is terrible. And now it's spreading to Acura, which had some of the nicest-looking Japanese cars previously. The 'shield' grilles are really ugly, and they have a new car that is a thinly-disguised Accord (that is make (hard to believe it) even uglier by the addition of a really bad shield grille)... I thought it said 'RL' on the trunklid but I must have been wrong, as the 2009 RL is a slightly revamped version of the current RL, not an Accord.

4) The new Challenger and Camaro are REALLY sharp. The Camaro was the concept car, but the had 3 Challengers there - 2 Hemis and a V6 version as well. It's a great looking car, even in V6 trim.

5) There were quite a few concept cars there, and I get if you lined them all up with no labeling, no one - perhaps not even the designers - could tell which one was from what company. They are all so similar, with wide-opening doors with no B pillar, bizarre captains chairs that rotate, DVD screens all over the place and floating center consoles that go all the way to the rear of the car. Oh, and ultra-practical 26-inch wheels and tires. Very disappointing, although I did like the Lincoln one.

I'll post some pictures later. But here is me in the Vette....

Casting About

I was casting about, only half-seriously, for a smaller car for my wife. She was leaving her current job, with a 20-mile daily commute, potentially for a job with an 80-mile daily commute... My Audi gets 21 mpg around town and would probably get 25 mpg in her potential new commute (mostly highway but about 10 blocks of in-city travel). The van gets 17 around town and 20 on the highway, but with the lease mileage limitation, she wouldn't have been driving that every day. With gas at just under $3 per gallon (and $3.25 for the premium the Audi requires), neither alternative was particularly compelling. So, I did some looking on-line. What I found kind of surprised me.

There aren't a lot of 'normal' sized cars out there that get high mileage any more. By 'normal' sized, I am talking about Honda Civic-sized as the minimum. Most of them seem to be in the 20 - 22 in-town/29 - 31 highway mpg ranges, which doesn't seem like much to me. I guess I was thinking with all of the advances in engine and transmission technology, lighter-weight materials and computer controls, mpg would be better. But the weights have really gone up as well. All that safety equipment - impact beams in the doors, airbags all around and in the roof and seats, ABS, stability control, brakeforce distribution, etc.

Even though it is REALLY small, I like the smart fortwo a LOT, although it's mileage is not as phenomenal as you'd think, given it's size (VERY small). Looking forward to seeing one at the New York Car Show next week. Go check it our yourself here -
http://www.smartusa.com/
And yeah, they use small letters, no caps, for the names......

The other car I like a lot is the Honda Fit - again, smaller than a 'normal' car but very utilitarian inside and kind of neat looking. Supposedly has decent performance, too. But Kathleen would probably want the automatic version, which would be boring.

Anyway, looks like it's kind of a moot point, since Kathleen has taken a job where her mileage will be reimbursed, so looks like no changes in the immediate future. Too bad, I really like the BMW 1-Series!

Fun Car Websites

Here are some of my favorites, bookmarked over the years....

Animated Engines -

http://www.keveney.com/Engines.html

I could sit and watch the oscillating steam engine all day.

Automotive Forums -

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/index.php

Forums for almost every car built! Many are very active. Great resource if you're looking to buy a particular car, to get some insight on what owners think and have problems with.

Garage Journal -

http://www.garagejournal.com/

If you're into working on cars, you're probably also always looking for info on how to better organize your garage. Or just want to see dream garages!

IMDB -

http://www.imcdb.org/index.php

Every car in every movie ever made! I love this site.

The Truth About Cars -

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/

This site reminds me of what Car and Driver magazine used to be - great car reviews, written irreverently.

Qashqai Car Games -

http://www.qashqaicargames.com/

Spoof site to publicize a Nissan home-market car called the Qashqai. Pretty funny.

Car Show schedule -

http://www.carshownews.com/

Place to check on where and when car shows are scheduled.

In-Cylinder Video -

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5815350492893860613

Not really a site, but a video of what happens during the internal-cumbustion process. Thrilling stuff!

Autoextremist -

http://www.autoextremist.com/

More rants/raves about cars.

Dan

Auto Musings Part 1

I really like the new BMW 1-Series coupe. I went onto the BMW website and built one - drank blue, with a tan interior, Sport Package and a couple of options - gah, $35k?! That's almost the price point for a 3-Series! And the 1-Series is heavy, too... Too bad they could not make one with cloth seats and a little less content... maybe you could get one with cloth, a sunroof, Sport Package (which they really should call the ti Package) and maybe an upgraded sound system for like $28k. Oh, and weighing 500 pounds less.

I realized today that I can look at a new Accord and not throw up! I guess I am getting used to it. Still think they could have had a couple of people responsible for the styling, versus a committee for the front, a committee for the rear and a committee for the chunky middle, but they seem to be selling okay. So what do I know. Except that I'm not crazy about it.

I DO like the new Cadillac CTS - have seen a couple of them, and think it's great-looking. I'd like to see one in black, bet it would look very wicked with 19" chrome wheels. And the new Malibu looks sharp, as does the Pontiac G8 sedan. I think GM is making a bit of a styling comeback, which is good. Hard to believe this is the same company that spewed out the Aztek and previous-generation Malibu!

Origins of my MGB Passion

A recent conversation with my 12-year-old son (who in the last year, has discovered that cars, mainly Corvettes, Mustangs and various exotics, exist) got me thinking about the origins of my love for MGB's in particular, and British cars in general. I can faintly recall being driven around in the back (sitting sideways - would we do this nowadays?!) of an MGB Tourer - medium blue in color - owned by a friend's father. This was around the late 1960's or early 1970's, so I would have been anywhere from 8 to 11 years old. I have long ago lost touch with the friend but the memory remains....

In the late 1970's, as I was attending college in Boston, I decided that I would hitchhike from Boston to my parents home in southern New York State. I obviously did not tell my parents how I was getting home from school...! Going home, I was lucky enough to get a ride in a truck almost the entire way. Heading back to school, I was not so lucky. I got a ride from Route 684 to the middle of Hartford (and I DO mean the middle - I was literally dropped at the side of Route 84 just past where Route 91 intersects, a horrible spot with no room for a car to pull over!) and had to wait quite a while until an ancient, creaking Chevy wagon pulled over in the middle of the right-hand lane to pick me up. He was going to the Massachusetts border and had plenty of cold beer - both in his system and in the cooler beside me. He dropped me off at the last exit in Connecticut... where I proceeded to wait several hours for a ride... I started thinking that a sleeping bag would probably be a good thing to have, when a Butterscotch MGB pulled over and offered me a ride to Boston.... Top down, of course! This ride I remember like it was yesterday, 25 years or so later... My father had owned a string of large American convertibles, and owned one at the time, so the 'wind-in-the-hair' feeling was not new - but the lowness, the communication with the road, the agility - these were all new to me. And of course, the sound of the exhaust was incredible!

It wasn't until almost 10 years later, when my wife and I were living in Albany, New York, that I got seriously interesting in buying an MG. We had attended shows over the years, both in the Boston area and Albany, and started looking through the want ads. This was 1988, before the Internet, and I had no idea what to look for. I still have all of my notes on the various cars we looked for. I saw an ad in the paper for a 1976 MGB that 'needed a little work to complete' (we've ALL seen those before, eh?!). It was an overcast day when we went to look at the car. It had recently had bodywork done to it so the Brooklands Green paint was interspersed with many spots of gray primer. All of the exterior body trim was off the car. The Monza-type exhaust had a hole (or several) in the muffler. The car had radial tires mounted on the front and bias-ply snow tires mounted on the rear. (There goes the 'never driven in snow claim!) And the top was up - amplifying every little creak and groan. The good news was the engine had recently been rebuilt. We took the car for a test drive - and after we switched so my wife could drive, I was trying to think of how to get out of this when she turned to me and said 'I think we should buy it!'... So we did!

Making a long story longer, we had the bodywork finished, had it painted and drove it for a year and a half, whereby I proceeded to get hit from behind and pushed into a pick-up truck. Four years (and three homes later) we again had the bodywork repaired and have driven it ever since. It's been incredibly reliable and requires little maintenance. I drive it less than 1,000 miles a year but always try to do at least one 100+ mile trip a year. The rust worm is starting to do some damage, so it looks like more bodywork may be in the future... But that will have to wait, as in August of 2000, I purchased a 1965 MGB Tourer project car that is slowly being taken apart prior to restoration! I plan to return it to original factory condition. That will probably be a whole other story......

How Not to Sell a Used Car

About a year ago, I began up a 4-month odyssey – buying a first car for my then-17 year old son. We started with some parameters – he wanted a sedan with an automatic transmission and room for his guitar in the trunk. My wife and I wanted a safe, mid-sized car with airbags, ABS and other safety features. So, we were on the same page as my son and I thought the car-buying process would be a piece of cake. It was. It was the car-FINDING process that was a bear!

So I will set forth a few guidelines for those of you that are considering selling your car, based on my recent experiences. Many of these sound like common sense – but believe me, common sense seems to be lacking in many people who have the ‘best car in the world’ to sell!

1) Actually clean the car! An exterior wash is great,

and also maybe shampoo the carpets and seats,

or at least wipe up any stains that could remind a

potential buyer of a fluid from the human body.

2) Clean the trash out of the car. For example, if

you have to move piles of coffee-stained papers

(that end up being the receipts for work done on the

car) from the front seat so that one can actually sit in

it, then you probably should have invested in a box of

Hefty industrial-size bags. Oh, and don’t leave the garbage

bag on the back seat where the empty Doritios bags and

Coke cans ferment. Which brings us to the next guideline….

3) Remove any really bag smelling interior deodorizers. I mean,

the little pine tree hanging from the rearview mirror is okay,

but anything pink or yellow really should not be used in a car

interior. Especially a GUY’S car interior.

4) Be available for people to actually look at your car! Nothing like

making an appointment to look at a car only to ge an e-mail an

hour before (if you even see it) canceling the appointment but

advising that you can view the car ‘anytime before 9:00 am

Monday or after 5:00 pm Thursday’….. The corollary to this is…..

5) When you advertise the car as being in East Buttcheek, it should

actually BE in East Butt cheek and not in Middle Botswana, which is

20 miles away from East Buttcheek!

6) If, for some reason, you re-advertise the car a few days after the

initial ad, the purchase price should generally be consistent or lower.

NOT higher. And it should not continue to increase every time you

advertise the car!

Postscript: The car lasted all of 3 months before my son wrecked it during a Nor’easter….. Fortunately, he was fine. But we had to go buy another used car……

British Car Sounds

Note: This article was originally published in the May/June 2006 edition of the MGB Driver, the magazine of the North American MGB Register. djd

This afternoon, I picked out a nice spot along a fence on Rifle Ford Rd watching the cars leaving the British Car Day at Smokey Glen Farm in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The day was perfect - low 70’s for temperature, puffy clouds overhead, little humidity. The spot I chose was about 6 feet above the road level, at the top of a small rise, about 1/4 mile from where the cars exiting the show turn onto the road. Most of the cars seemed to shift into 4^th gear just where I was, so I had the opportunity to hear the cars winding out in second and third as the came up the incline. Wow! The sounds combined with the smell of Castrol were intoxicating....

I’ve recently been trying to get to shows early or stay late, to see the cars on the move.... This is really the point of them, right?? There were a number of trailers in the parking lot, and some of the cars that came up the hill turned left into the parking lot, to be loaded on their trailers, I suppose. But there were plenty of expensive-looking E-Types burbling their way up the hill and past the entrance to the ‘trailer park’...

The sounds - while there are slight variances due to exhaust systems, you can definitely pick out the unique characteristics of each car. It’s kind of like buying a house - you must look past the decorations and furniture to figure out the house’s essential character. It’s the same with our British Cars - once you get past differences in carbueration, engine tuning and exhaust, an MGB always has the underlying refined burble to it (although at times they can sound flatulent, like the GM V6 or the ‘fart cans’ the kids put on their sport-compacts these days). And even though they all sound a little different, I bet I can pick out the ‘British’ sound if I were blindfolded and listening to a stream of cars roll by…. There is something unique aboout the British sports car sound. My neighbor has an Alfa Romeo Spider, and it doesn’t sound British in the least.

As a contrast, several examples of expensive modern cars also rolled by - the Porsche 911 sounded very whirry, all fan noise and rattle, while the newer Jaguars kind of whished by - although the XJ sedans still had that undercurrent of low burble - just buried under all of the ancillaries, I suspect..... The Corvettes rumbled by, but again, compared to the V8 in the Daimler SP250 ‘Dart’ - no comparison. Again, I suspect ancillaries and too much muffling in the Corvette! The new MINI immediately following two ‘old’ Mini’s was an interesting juxtaposition of sounds - what a difference! Whereas the ‘old’ Minis emitted a high-pitched rasp, the new MINI made absolutely no sound - nothing made it stand out at all. Very disappointing. They got a freer-flowing exhaust on the very extensive option list??

Just as there is a difference in ‘reputation’ between the MG and the Triumph, there is a marked difference in sound. As you’re probably aware, the MGB is considered ‘refined’ whereas the Triumph is considered ‘racy’ - the connotation seems to be that the MGB is slower but well built and roomier, while the Triumph is faster but lighter and leaves parts in its wake! (I don’t truly know or care, I love ‘em both). From a sound perspective, the MGB tends to have a lower, more refined rumble, to my ear, while the Triumph engine note is one of slightly more excitement and ‘rasping’, a ‘hurry up, let’s get going’ type of demeanor - Tally-ho! The MGB seems to be saying, ‘whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here’. More of a stiff-upper-lip....

I always liked British 6-cylinder engines, typified by the Big Healey and the TR-6. They have a sound all their own – stately, refined, yet with that throaty rumble that indicates they are just loafing along but they’ll be there when you need ‘em…. The BMW 6-cylinder in my cousin’s 535i makes a similar sound but seems more in control – more efficient, cool, not quite as fun-loving, perhaps. And no gear whine in the Bimmer, either…..

Here is my little summary of the cars I heard –

Triumph TR6 - throaty ripping - Look out, here I come!

MGB - refined burble

Daimler SP250 ‘Dart’ - serious V8 burble but not American-V8-sounding

Austin Healey - 6-cylinder – throaty, low-pitched rumble

Jaguar - twin-cam 6 cylinder - low, expensive-sounding burble - a little louder when installed in an E-Type but still noticeable in late-model sedans

Aston Martin DB5 - smooth, refined rumble

MG T - rorty - whatever that means – but it describes the sound perfectly!

Mini (old) - high-pitched rasp

MINI (new) - hushed....

Triumph GT6 - smooth rasping

Sunbeam Tiger - American V8 rumble

Triumph TR3 - excited ripping

Any British car, parked – drip, drip, drip….