Category Archives: Cars

Car Stuff Should Involve People Who Know Cars

This blog hasn’t been abandoned. I just haven’t had much to bitch about lately.

I’ve generally been in a great mood as my wife and I are waiting on a new car to show up.

Of course, on that topic, the government has just introduced a new plan to give rebates on what they deem to be energy efficient vehicles and a levy on those that are very much not.

This is all well and good in theory, but they’ve done such a piss poor implementation that it just saddens me to read about it.

I’ve been happy with Stephen Harper’s Conservative government all this time and didn’t really expect this sort of bonehead move out of them.

As it stands, they’ve taken pretty much everything on the road (except pickup trucks, which are exempt because  apparently businesses need them, and they’ve divided them all up into two groups. Cars, and trucks.

Then they gave some target mileage figures that they had to meet in order to pay levies or get rebates.

I’d just love to find the person who decided that all vehicles fit conveniently into those two categories and just smack them upside the head.

As if to prove just how stupid it is, they’ve even put the same car into BOTH categories!

If you buy a Dodge Caliber, then it’s just a car with mediocre fuel mileage.

If, however, DCX puts a Jeep badge on your Caliber, then you’ve just bought a Jeep Compass and it’s a truck with great fuel mileage and you get a grand back from the government.

It’s plain stupid.

It's not my fault.

After driving for nearly 4 hours to get home on Thursday because so many people were getting stuck and were unable to drive in the snow, I came across the best excuse on an online forum.

First he posted this, admitting his stupidity, though with no apology for the countless people he was holding up with his selfishness and inconsideration:

Just tonight as you all know I thankfully braved the storm and managed to inch myself up the massive Yonge St. south hill just after York Mills. So as I finally came home, I realized that the tread pattern was next to nothing, and by nothing, I mean like a few mm’s higher than the bottom of a coin sitting inside the tread. Yes it’s VERY stupid of me, but I know that already

What really irks me though is that he followed it up with this:

I’m sorry I did that, but blame the city more than I, because the city should’ve cleaned up the white crap before drivers set foot in their car..

Now I know we live in a world where everyone tries to blame everything they do on someone else, but this just seemed flat-out ridiculous to me. I imagine that’s the same sort of person who will drive into a parked car and then blame the owner for parking his car there.

It baffles me how people can be so openly inconsiderate. People really need to beat some sense into their kids and teach them a few things about personal responsibility.

The Gas Station of the Future

This is cool. It’s the gas station of the future, in your own garage.

Solar Powered Hydrogen Station (Link no longer available).

I’m sure it’s still quite some time away, but imagine a future where you’re no longer dependent on others for your daily energy needs.

I don’t know enough about hydrogen use as a fuel to know how far reaching this will be, but it’s nice to dream about a future where your weekly and monthly expenses don’t fluctuate at the whims of the gas companies.

I wonder what sort of fuel cell installation you’d need to power your entire house…

I like God.

I like God, and I think he likes me too.

Last night on my way home from work, I ran out of gas on the highway. I thought I had enough to make it home. It turned out that I was wrong.

What followed, however, made for some great entertainment. I had just come out of the express lanes when the juice ran out and the engine turned off. I tried to get it restarted, hoping maybe there was enough left sloshing around to get some pressure back in the system, but it didn’t happen so I went to neutral and proceeded to safely get us out of harm’s way.

I moved over 3 lanes to the far left and proceeded to coast all the way to the end of the offramp… and through a right turn (on a red light… shame on me for not coming to a complete stop), and then up a slight hill, down a bit of a grade, into a gas station and up to a pump. I barely had to touch the brake to stop at the pump.

Bear in mind that all this happened right at the height of rush hour. So many things fell perfectly into place to make this happen it was unbelievable.

If there weren’t two other people in the car with me to witness it, I wouldn’t even bother telling the story.

Thanks again, God!

Passing on Small Highways

This is in response to this past weekends letters in the Star Wheels Section.

Specifically, to this letter by John Mason:

On many two-lane highways the road expands to permit passing. The problem is at the end when there is a merge back to two lanes. Who should allow the other vehicle in?

In Newfoundland, we are left in no doubt. The left lane has the words YIELD painted on it.

In other areas, drivers are left in doubt. In Ontario, the dotted line continues to the shoulder.

So the choice for a driver who has moved right to allow passing is to push sideways, or slow down, or stop, or to stay in the lane, be forced onto the shoulder and eventually into the rhubarb. And this does happen.

It makes sense to me that the vehicle that has moved over to permit a faster vehicle to pass should have right of way. The passing vehicle — the vehicle that is probably over the speed limit — should be responsible to care for the vehicle overtaken. Newfoundland has it right!

John Mason, Nobel

I think John, or maybe myself, misunderstands the reason for the widening of smaller highways to allow for passing. Maybe we can hash this out here.

Markham road north of the city is a good example of this. For the most part, the road is a 2 lane highway but around many intersections with traffic lights, it opens up to 4 lanes to allow for passing. John implies that slower traffic should move to the right and allow faster traffic to pass but I believe the opposite. I believe the road opens to allow through traffic to pass slower drivers and, more importantly, those who are waiting at the intersection to make a left turn where no left-turn lane is provided.

While slower drivers simply continue in the lane they’re in, faster traffic is provided this opportunity to pass them in the temporary right hand lane. While this may contravene the practice used on expressways, I don’t believe that “left lane hogging” logic applies since the right lane is short and temporary. It can’t be expected that slower traffic would pull into it.

With this in mind, I believe it is the responsibility of those in the right lane, which is ending, to safely merge to the left. Since it’s their lane that’s ending, and not that of the drivers in the left lane, it’s up to them to find a suitable spot to merge safely. Those in the left lane are not changing lanes. Their lane continues. Those in the right are changing lanes and have a responsibility to do so properly.

They should act exactly as they would on an expressway onramp. If they make it to the point where the dotted line ends their lane, then they’ve failed to merge properly and it’s their own fault that they now have to wait for an opening in traffic to pull in safely.

People in this province seem to have no clue when it comes to proper merging. I believe that as soon as you know that your lane is ending, you should be looking for a space to merge and matching speed with the traffic you’re trying to merge into. Anyone that gets to the end of their merging lane without doing so has given up their right to courtesy from the lane they’re trying to join.

While I am happy to allow merging traffic to pull in front of me, I don’t allow it at the end of their lane. At that point, they’ve already failed as drivers and for all I care they can drive themselves into the wall if they don’t feel like stopping and waiting for an opening.

Whether it’s their lack of driving know-how or their selfish attempts to get just a few car-lengths ahead in the other lane, they’ve wasted their space to manoeuvre. Now they’re on their own to deal with the consequences.

In all my years of driving, it’s a rare occurrence that I’ve found myself in that predicament through no fault of my own and I refuse to accept that I am simply the luckiest merger alive.

Car Salespeople Are Lying To Me

When shopping for a limited production car, apparently the number of cars being made for Canada is wholly dependent on how much pressure the salesperson feels they need to apply to get you to decide you can afford something you can’t afford.

I think when I actually have money to buy a car, I’m just going to keep talking to salespeople until I find one I think might be talking straight to me. I’m getting pretty sick of being openly lied to.

On a related note, should a salesperson be offended when you know more about the car you’re talking about than they do?

“Hey… this is an option on that car over there. Do you know if it’s dealer installed or whether the car has to be ordered with it?”

“No, that’s not an option.”

“Yes it is. I know it is.”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

“Listen… I think I know more about these cars than you do… is there someone else you can check with to find out for me?”

“I’m sorry… I’m new here… ”

Then they still didn’t try to answer my question.

Isn’t it their job to know more? Shouldn’t they at least make an attempt to find the answer rather than making stuff up?

I’d rather they say “I don’t know, but I’ll go find out for you” than just making up crap. Idiots.

Finally… here’s my car-buying advice for today: Don’t go shopping for a car when you don’t plan to buy one for half a year or so. It just gets you all worked up over nothing. 🙂

Features for Rich People

My wife and I will be buying a car in the next year.

I want adaptive cruise control.

It’s a cool feature and I should be able to have it. How often have you followed someone on a long trip where they set their cruise but you have to keep adjusting yours because you can never get it exactly the same.

This feature resolves that. The person in front sets their cruise and everyone else just uses radar to maintain a set distance from the car in front of them.

The problem is that only rich people can have this. The Wiki page on the topic lists a bunch of cars that have it and I can’t afford any of them.

Stupid rich folk feature!

I’ll bet a year after I buy something, every new car coming to market is going to have this.

Y’all can refer back to this when the 08 models hit the showrooms and laugh at me.

Incidentally… maybe it’s time to buy a wagon. No adaptive cruise control… but I probably won’t miss it in that thing.

A Faster Car is a Safer Car

I couldn’t help posting this up. I’ve been saying this for years and everyone scoffs at the idea.

At least I’m not the only one.

Here is a link to the whole article. It talks about how it’s impossible to drive a performance car to it’s full potential on the streets here within the confines of our laws.

Here is the gem though:

There’s an important thing to understand about fast cars, though. A faster car is a safer car. All of the things that make a car fast — a powerful engine, big tires, suspension that hugs the road — also mean it’s able to get out of sticky situations faster.

When passing on a two-lane road, you’re not exposed to oncoming traffic as long, because you’re able to accelerate faster. More grip makes it easier to swerve around situations that slower cars might not have the time or space to avoid.

Most important of all, most fast cars (and there are unfortunately a few exceptions) also have much deeper reserves of braking performance than slower cars, meaning you can more likely stop short of an accident instead of becoming one. Mercedes-Benz’s SL55 not only has huge eight-piston front calipers and vented discs, but also senses when it’s raining and gently applies the brakes every once in a while to keep them dry and ready for action.

Now if only I could find the link I once had to statistics showing that cars with more than 200 hp get in less accidents than those with less.

Car shopping: Don't compare prices on the Internet.

It’s downright criminal how much cheaper cars are in the States than they are here in Canada.

Do we all like compact cars because we take pride in our environmental responsibility… or are we just overtaxed and overcharged to the point where we just can’t afford the nicer cars that the average American can put in their driveway?

If I were an American, I could get a Subaru Impreza WRX STI with all the options I want for $34,480.

If I convert that generously to Canadian dollars, it would be $38,617.

Now if I go price the same car on the Canadian Subaru site, it comes to $51,038. WTF? Why am I paying an extra $12k just because I live on this side of the border?

This holds true for pretty much every car on the market.

So basically, I’m getting a car worth thousands of dollars less than what I’m paying. Thanks big car corporations for bending me over and sticking it to me. I appreciate it. Really.

I thought the Corolla was a car.

I was shown the error of my Corolla-driving ways. In trying to adjust the seat properly, I was treating it like a car. As it turns out, I should have been treating it like a tiny RAV4, or an electric-scooter, or some sort of motorized lawnchair or something.

I've discovered that I can comfortably drive the thing if I sit in the seat like not as though it were a car, with my legs out in front of me, but rather like a truck, with my knees bent like I'm sitting in an arm chair or something. Not so much pushing the pedals, as stepping on them.

I guess this is what normal people like. Go figure.

It doesn't change the fact that the radio dial is still too far away and the arm rest is still completely useless, but at least now I can concede that the car can be comfortably driven, no matter how uninspiring it is.

Of course… it IS a Corolla so driving it shouldn't be expected to be enjoyable. It should just be expected to keep going for a million miles before it breaks down.