Lucky 3?

So far in the past two weeks the car,
1: Froze
2: I locked the keys in the car.
3: Got a flat tire.

The tire was today. I put air in the tire last night and the little pin that holds the air in apparently never went back in, causing it to lose it all over night. I threw on the spare on the -2˚ morning and drove the flat down the street and left it with a shop, who found the problem and didn't charge me. But that left me with a fixed tire off the car and it was now 3 in the afternoon and -9˚. Since I certainly did not want to experience my hands being frozen off after they had just warmed up again (6 hours later) I decided to get my over due oil change in and have them put the tire back on! Over all, it was a good deal.

So I think those are the main three inexpensive-yet-stupid things that can go wrong with a car and the fix for all three was $0. Lets hope three is the lucky number!

Car unfrozen

Many you know that this last cold spell froze my car to death but I can now report that it has been unfrozen and feels all better now. It sputtered to life tonight after I put some all purpose cleaner in the gas tank yesterday to try and get what ever was frozen unfrozen in the fuel line or filter. It was not a happy sound though, I think it was running on one cylinder for a little bit! But now its back to normal after I filled it up with premium gas and drove it around on the highway for a while.

Poor car, being outside in winter is hard on it. The only other time it has failed to start in the cold was at Megan's parents last winter when it was outside on a similar cold night. I am very happy to have it back!

EVO vs STI

I have not written about this in a long time, but since Subaru "killed my car with the new Impreza, the opposition has delivered. Mitsubishi showed off its new 2008 Lancer Evolution today and yeah, that's a winner. Compared to the bulby large nosed goo from Subaru (below) this thing looks like what it is supposed to: a street rally car. So, put me down for the 2008 Lancer!

In the meanwhile the Volvo is humming along intimidating all in its path! And I got a complement for my old school Apple sticker in the back window the other day. It was on there when I bought the car and I thought I would get more comments from random apple heads. I guess Mac Addicts arn't what they used to be.

EDIT: Added question. How come any one who ever rides a BMW motorcycle always wears massive amounts of safety gear while people who ride low Yamaha rockets will ride with a helmet on and no shirt? Always wondered.

Ok, back to non-gear head blogging. Carry on.

New Exaust!

Phew! The old exhaust is out of the volvo and the new one is in. Everything from the catalitic converter back including all the hanging hardware. Here is a photo of me with the old and the new side by side. It was very tiring work and I was very lucky to have my Dad working with me for most of the afternoon. The old one was just rust everywhere - we had to cut away the bolts with a grinder and saw apart the rest of it into chunks with a sawzall. Then lift, assemble, and attach the new one.

The car is quieter and it is very nice to get rid of that annoying rattle! The biggest improvement is in performance. Volvos are not known for being fast, but try sticking a cork in the exhaust and see how slow it can get! Now that it has got its flow back, getting onto the freeway is not a painful laborious task. Hopefully it will now be set for winter.

Exhausted

Heh, a pun. No really the volvo needs a new exhaust very badly. It sounds a bit like a cement truck with a loose rock rattling around inside. That is the death rattle of the catalytic converter as the ceramic honey comb inside it that converts Hydrocarbons and NOx to H2O and CO2 (see left) disintegrated about two weeks ago. This has the dual negative effect of being a pollution monster and it plugs up the exhaust going out. So the engine has to work harder and it uses more gas. That in turn produces more pollution. Its a vicious cycle.

On the plus side, I really needed a new system when I bought the car, and that was 17 months and 13k miles ago. And I don't have to worry about being careful removing anything because it is all being replaced. Does any one have a grinder wheel?

Alternator charging the electriks

Yesterday I went to work on the Volvo and successfully replaced the alternator and belt. My Voltage reads correct from all points now, so the battery is charging, and all the electrics are running better than ever. It is still back in the garage but it should be back to regular driving this week. It was nice to drive it a little bit yesterday, everything about it is so familiar.

Being down to one car has been very easy for Megan and I. Once her internship is over in August, the saturn is going for sure. And then start thinking about getting a newer car than the volvo. The 740 is great but 270,000+ miles is getting a little top heavy! I also think I can sell it for what I paid for it over a year (and 12,000 miles ago) which was $750. Not a bad deal.

For the new(er) car, I really want something that drives well. Not that necessarily goes really fast, just something that makes me feel like I am driving and know where all four wheels are sticking. I really like driving, in the sense that I enjoy being in control of the car beyond using it as a means of passive transit. Not speeding (I am terrified of getting pulled over) but an emphasis on control, stability and acceleration. Oh and AC would be nice.

So for now, any one want to buy a slightly damaged, oft broken into, slow plastic car with no shocks? only 141,000 miles..


P.S. Link for LOL cats reference in the title and the picture.

Car update

So the volvo is having juice problems and I think I have found the issue. This thing is called a voltage regulator and it keeps the voltage at 14.4v that makes the car happy. I pulled out mine from off the alternator and those two little spring loaded silver teeth are warn down to hardly anything resulting in the alternator giving up only 2.5v because it thinks something is wrong. They guy I bought the car from has lots of parts and he is going to sell me an entirely new (used) alternator for $30. I can then decide to just pop out the regulator and replace mine or re-do the entire thing. Then I should be good to go again.

Cary fridays

A few things came across the wire that are car related so I will post them at once.

First I was able to do some minor car repair on the Volvo this week when a headlight burned out. I am starting to remember why its fun to do car work in the summer, its warm! No fingerless gloves, no runny nose, no touching cold cold metal. Now its just back to unscrewing stuff!

The second bit comes from AutoblogGreen in the same vein as the air car I posted a while back. This has sort of the same idea of using alternative technology to store energy, it's a hydraulic truck. Developed for UPS, it is great at storing energy on short trips because hydraulic pressure can capture up to 70% of the breaking energy compared to a weak 30% with batteries. The down side is it can't hold nearly as much as a battery, thus the city usage only. Its also huge, so truck use only for now. They claim 39-74% fuel gains depending on how they run it. What if the UPS truck got better gas milage than your car?

Lastly, from Autoblog, another hilarious car mod gone wrong. Lets just say the idea of a spoiler is to technically act as a reverse wing, forcing the rear of the car down onto the road to obtain better traction at speed. This poor sap not only made his car look dumb by adding a silly post-production mod wing, he added it backwards thus slowing his car down a ton (think parachute), and lifting the back end off the road. I wish I could have seen it.

EDIT: From the AutoBlog comments section, "...the driver's hair was also cut really short in back, but he had really long bangs in the front..." heehee..

Sunday

Well today was kind of a funny day that I am not quite sure how to blog about. Beautiful weather on a Sunday before election day was enough to distract me to death. I took a little drive with the sunroof open back into my favorite area and discovered what my car is like on a little bit of gravel + turning + a little speed.

Here is a riddle. Why is it, that sometimes the best way to turn right to spin the wheel left?

That monumental RWD back end breaks loose and I correct into the skid and boom I am drifting around the corner. Weeee! That was fun. Next stop: winter!

So for your youtube enjoyment, I found this sureal add/music video/promo thingie that Volvo made in the late 80s. Gata love the music and the sound effects too. The cars featured are 740s just a year or two before mine. They must be using turbos though - which sadly I do not have. So enjoy the nice non-winter weather and the video too:

Thermostat

So the Volvo never really warmed up well. Reading around I learned that this could mean your thermostat had failed. I replaced mine today - it had broken in half! I am interested to see how my MPG goes up after this. My milage has dropped about 20% as the weather has gotten colder, this should fix that.

Cars

So just a small complaint about cars. They break. All the time. At the moment, Megan and I swapped cars because her's has been plagued with problems all summer. New spark plugs, new wires, new temp sensor and new alternator, and three (!) coolant flushes. It runs great for about two weeks and then some seemingly unrelated part goes. I have so far been able to do everything my self, saving $100s by now and learning a lot.

That brings us to now and Megan's saturn sitting in my driveway afflicted with the inability to start. I asked the online saturn community and they blessed me with a quick answer (I wont bore you with the details ) and I agreed with them and went biking away for a $100 part. It will be here tomorrow morning. Lets hope that fixes it! If not, I think its time for the pros to help out. I am optimistic though.

My Volvo needs a new thermostat as well. This picture is of my second modification (the first being the ceiling) that improves the car rather than just fixing it. That silver bit is a new pipe sucking cold air into the engine, replacing a broken contraption that was designed to heat up the engine faster but really was just restricting air flow. Cold air has more O2 and thus burns better resulting in better performance and gas milage. But it is also colder, and reviled that fact that my cooling system thinks that it is overheating all the time (by way of the broken thermostat) and is cooling it down way to much. Not good for winter! Brrr