The car won't start

And there I was, with a really sore throat, which made me cough like crazy (and that hurts even worse), when I heard somebody knocking just minutes after Ivette left for work.

It was Ivette.

"The car won't start."

Had this been in the middle of winter, I wouldn't had panicked (it's a no-brainer). But a drained battery in the middle of summer? It opens all sorts of possibilities.

Of course, Ivette being a woman, her immediate reaction was to call roadside assistance. That wouldn't work yet, so I told her I would take a look at the Jeep.

The sonofabitch was dead! The car's power locks would not even work, the only light inside the car came from the odometer, which is obviously powered by a small battery.

Fine, I thought, I'll pop the hood. The battery terminals were covered by neat mounds of acid foam. It looks as if the battery simply blew up from the heat, it was not the kind of acid residue I would have expected.

Fine, I thought, let's get a can of soda. With the terminals now clean, I tried again. Still dead.

Part of me prayed that it was only a dead battery, and not a fried alternator or worse. I called the local service shop to see if they had the battery in stock.

$100, and they would return $15 once we handed back the old battery. Oh, and they did not deliver, there was no way to get the battery unless I went to pick it up. I only have one car, so this is definitely a problem.

Ivette called a coworker, and 20 minutes later I had the new battery. Oh, and it was now over 90 degrees.

Overweight + sore throat + coughing + black car + 90 degrees < > fun

One would think that this is the end of the bad luck, but for some reason, some piece of shit with a sense of humor decided to specify metric bolts that were so close to their English equivalent that it took me almost half an hour to be convinced that I had the right socket.

On top of that, there is a plastic wedge, kept in place with one of the magic metric bolts, that is used to keep the battery clamped down. That bolt was exactly two inches deeper than the extension that I had at hand, so for half an hour (or so it felt like) the wrench was making three clicks per attempt. I was not using my own tools, so I had not noticed that the kit had a universal joint, which was not needed but did add another two inches to the total reach of the socket wrench. I was finally in the game.

It took me over an hour to remove the old battery, and I don't think it took five minutes to get the new battery installed. By then I was already resigned to the idea that the car wouldn't start and I would still need to call roadside assistance.

The sonofabitch started on the spot. It was the stupid battery after all. By then I was so drained that I could barely carry the dead battery to put it in the trunk so we can exchange it later.

By the way, the car is 5 years old, and that was obviously its first battery, so I am amazed that nobody tried to sell my wife a new battery the last three times she had the oil changed. You can always count on them to try to up-sell, so it shocks me that none of them noticed that the battery was on its last legs.

A long trip

I spent a few years as one of the thousands of drivers that risk their lives on a daily basis in the Washington, DC beltway. In my case, it also included the Dulles Toll Road, which means an extra dosage of danger. These are very wide, multilane roads, where almost everyone seems to be driving no less than 20 MPH over the speed limit. Risk driving slower than the pack and it feels like they are trying to run you out of the road.

If the weather cooperated, it was not bad. I had a 1993 Mazda Miata LE, basically a street legal club racer. As long as I stayed the hell away from semis and taller vehicles, most of the other cars seemed to see me fine. If they did not see me, I had air horns in the car, which made it sound like, well, a semi.

I also cheated. I was on flex time, so I would start work at the house, until around 9:00 AM. If I took the old Georgetown Pike, I could avoid the Dulles Toll Road completely, while still having a blast. By that time the Pike is clean, and the Miata loved that road. This left me just a few miles of beltway, then off as soon as I crossed the American Legion bridge for more back roads into Bethesda, MD.

In the afternoon I left at 3:00 PM unless we wanted to golf at River Road in Potomac, MD. If I could leave Bethesda at 3:00 PM it meant avoiding the traffic flow issues when River Road hits the Beltway. I could go home and work a few more hours, having spent less than two hours in the day actually driving.

Had I tried to drive at the normal hours, it would have meant up to an extra hour a day just driving.

When I switched jobs, my new office was across the street from a metro rail station. A month later I had given away my Miata to a charity, since I did not feel like paying insurance on a car that was being driven less than 50 miles per month (down from 300).

In this current job I telecommute 100%, I only go to one of our offices a few times per year. Yesterday I had to go to a different office, 50 miles away. 50 miles back when I was in Germany, or during my first few years in Virginia would have not made me blink. That was then. Now? It might as well be 300 miles.

I decided to try to use a GPS receiver, a TomTom One 130. It was the first time that I ever used GPS in a vehicle.

It was awesome. The device was able to predict my arrival within one minute, and I did not get lost until the last 40 yards of the trip because I did not believe that it was telling me to make the right turn that I needed (I was wrong of course). The only problem is that it took me through the beltway and I95, so it was basically white knuckles all the way.

For the return trip I forced it to ignore I95, the beltway and the three biggest roads close by. The end result? A slower route that was 10 miles short. For the first 15 minutes or so it sent me through back roads with really beautiful scenery. I was a bit concerned that it was driving me in circles, but it was obvious that I was making progress. It sent me through back roads almost all the way to Rockville, MD. From Rockville it told me to hit I-270 (AKA "The Parking Lot") which was empty at that time of the evening, then a few miles of beltway into Virginia.

This is an area that I know well, so I could have driven over I-270 and keep going straight until I hit the Potomac, which would have let me skip all of the beltway on the Maryland side until just before the American Legion bridge.

After I crossed the bridge I skipped the planned route, it wanted me to hit route 7, but I knew that the Georgetown Pike would be empty. The GPS receiver did not struggle recalculating, but it did keep trying to give me ways to re-join route 7.

Not too bad a trip, and even with the detour I again arrived within one minute of the original predicted ETA. After this I don't think I can drive a long distance without GPS. Even if I know where I am going to, it is just too nice to have an accurate ETA prediction based on your position and speed.

Ferrari Building a Smaller, Lighter, Quicker Enzo | Autopia from Wired.com

The go-fast gurus at Ferrari are working on a successor to the jaw-dropping Enzo that could be the lightest, quickest two-seater ever to roll out of Maranello.

We told you months ago the Scuderia's next supercar would be based on the Millechili concept that embraces the "less is more" ethos. Ferrari sees lighter cars as the best way to reach its goal of increasing fuel economy 40 percent and reducing emissions 25 percent without compromising its reputation for performance. The Millechili is a guidepost to that greener future.

[From Ferrari Building a Smaller, Lighter, Quicker Enzo | Autopia from Wired.com]

The factory has been making some noise on this car for a while, but this is the first time that I see mentioned that the car is scheduled for production. If they can pull it off, it shows an interesting shift in their design philosophy.

This car is expected to be lighter than a Miata. I owned three different Miatas (Miatae?) over a five year period. I drove them hard and often, to the point I would intentionally pick longer commute routes because they would give me a more rewarding drive. The best of the three cars was the 1993 Limited Edition, a 1.8L car with about 132HP and a horribly stiff suspension. The result was a street legal go-kart. And a sore back and neck.

If that Ferrari comes anywhere close to the Miata weight class, with 660HP, it's going to be a monster. Even if it is lighter than the Lotus, its power-to-weight ratio is going to be incredible. Lotus is the benchmark for this kind of design: very light car, with just enough power to hit a particular power-to-weight ratio. Or like Peter Egan from Road & Track used to say, frames that would bend like a banana (he was referring to the Lotus Seven).

One thing that I haven't figured out yet if they will place restrictions on who gets to order these cars. In the past Ferrari has insisted on only allowing orders for their special cars from individuals that will not flip the cars immediately for a quick profit. Or anyone but Eddie Griffith.

GM to close 4 factories, may drop Hummer - Autos- msnbc.com

WILMINGTON, Del. - General Motors is closing four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico as surging fuel prices hasten a dramatic shift to smaller vehicles.

CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday before the automaker's annual meeting in Delaware the plants to be closed are in Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wis.; and Toluca, Mexico. He also said the iconic Hummer brand may be discontinued.

[From GM to close 4 factories, may drop Hummer - Autos- msnbc.com]

Natural selection at its worst.

Are we repeating the late 70's? After that fiasco we should have learned that size doesn't matter, but the running costs do. When the big SuV shift started a decade ago, we had plenty of time to push for efficient engines powerful enough to push the damn things. Instead we said screw it, the market can bear it.

The problem is somebody forgot to look ahead more than a few years. You can't expect to pour millions into a bunch of factories, retool them for SuVs and trucks and not worry about how long it will take to recover their cost. Did anyone bother to study the market the way the Japanese and the Germans do?

After getting their asses kicked by small vehicle makers, the least they could do was pay attention to how they work. Take a look at the Japanese car makers, how many carry full-size SuVs? What is the proportion of SuVs to smaller vehicles? What's the average fuel consumption of theirs versus ours?

Notice that the argument here is not the usability of the SuV. We need the damn things, same as we need full-size trucks. The problem is that the US car industry as a whole was reckless on its long term view of the market.

The end result is that now it is going to be harder for the people that really need these SuVs to get what they need at a proper price. It also means loss of jobs in two american factories (screw Canada and Mexico).

Of course, there are good news too. I am sure that if you go on the market for a used SuV you can make a killing. I always wanted a big sonofabitch, like a Suburban or a Tahoe, but they are too expensive, and they are gas guzzlers. In another few months I should be able to walk into a used car dealership and have them beg me to take a nearly new Suburban for a killing. Of course, I'll have to be careful with the gas, and the hippies will probably key it and spit on it.

Photo Credit: Photo by edenpictures, used under the terms of a Creative Commons license.

Which Sports Car Are You? (Version 2.0) personality test

I'm a Ferrari 360 Modena!

You've got it all. Power, passion, precision, and style. You're sensuous, exotic, and temperamental. Sure, you're expensive and high-maintenance, but you're worth it.

"Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Q&A With Young Gun Behind Hummer's Eco-Friendlier HX

Yes Virginia, we are training a new generation able to design even uglier SuVs than what we got on the road right now:

[From Q&A With Young Gun Behind Hummer's Eco-Friendlier HX]

My very first reaction was that it looked too similar to the Toyota FJ Cruiser but that was just an optical illusion due to the low roof line. If the interior is anything like the H3, I already know I won't fit in it. I rode in a coworker's H3 a couple of years ago and it had very little headroom. One would think that riding in a SuV the last worry should be about having enough space.

Ban All Cars Getting Less Than 35 MPG? | Autopia from Wired.com

The former head of Royal Dutch Shell has gone way out on a limb and urged the European Union to ban all vehicles that get less than 35 mpg, saying it is the only way to significantly address global climate change and force the auto industry to build more efficient vehicles.

"We need a very tough regulation saying that you can't drive or build something less than a certain standard," the Telegraph quotes him saying. "You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin - but only if it did 50-60 mpg."

[From Ban All Cars Getting Less Than 35 MPG? | Autopia from Wired.com]

Either it is a slow news day, or there is more than the usual car related traffic in my RSS feeds.

This reminds me a lot of all the noise in this country about the Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations. Thanks to some clever math, US car makers can keep building gas guzzlers as long as their overall passenger cars sold average 27.5 MPG, with different figures for light trucks and a shitload of exceptions based on weight and usage.

He is of course smoking crack. The Europeans like their luxury cars and feel no real urge to make them stick to the same conventions as the kind of cars that us common folk will usually drive. Even if such a law is passed, it is guaranteed that it will have a clause that excepts carmakers that sell under X units per model per year. All this means is that the luxury carmakers that have slightly higher sales volumes (like Porsche) may have to break their product lines a bit more to make sure that each model sells within the acceptable cap.

Maybe it is time to force people to buy smaller displacement engines. There are too many cars sold here with big V6 engines that barely perform the same as some of the fancier normally aspirated inline-4 engines. Change the way cars are registered so the displacement of the engine, power and weight are factors. Two identical models, one with a V6, the other one with a much bigger V8, should not cost the same to register unless the V8 is advanced enough to shut down cylinders whenever the engine is coasting or idling.

Camaro Enters the 21st Century - With a Hybrid? | Autopia from Wired.com

Motown loves old-school muscle cars with big V8 engines, fat tires and rear-wheel drive. We're not sure why - maybe its all those Baby Boomers with disposable income trying to relive their youth - but Detroit keeps trying to build the perfect car for 1968.

[From Camaro Enters the 21st Century - With a Hybrid? | Autopia from Wired.com]

And you thought Eli Manning being handed the keys to a Cadillac Escalade Hybrid for making MVP in the Superbowl was nothing more than weak marketing. The way things are headed, in five years or so you will probably see more hybrid cars than single mode gas/diesels. Even Porsche is planning a hybrid power train (and worse, a four door coupe).

Ferrari, on the other hand, is trying something different. Instead of cutting fuel consumption, they are going to finally acknowledge that Lotus was right over 40 years ago.: weight matters.

Lotus figured out long ago that if you make a very strong and light body, you can afford to do with a much smaller and weaker engine. Ferrari kept pushing their 8 and 12-cylinder engines and eventually moved to lighter chassis, but now their goal is to hit a much lower weight class, which will make their monster cars 200 or so pounds lighter than a Mazda Miata MX-5.

My first and third MX-5s had less than 120 HP, my second one had less than 140 HP. This new Ferrari is expected to have 660 HP and hit 225 MPH, while producing 40% less emissions than the Ferrari Enzo.

Oh yes.

It would still be 200 or so pounds heavier than the Lotus Elise, but the Elise's base model is still only 190 HP.