Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

I need to have a component in my car replaced. It's not safety-related, and the car runs fine without it. But it needs to be done at some point, one of those nuisance things. And I can't safely do it myself.

I call the Subaru dealer in El Paso. And you'll love this: they want ME TO BUY THE PART ONLINE AND BRING IT TO THEM!

It's not an expensive part, $130-150. They emailed me the part number, and I've found three sites that claim they'll sell me the genuine Subaru OEM part.

This just rubs me wrong. Plus, you know they'd be adding 75-100% markup on the part, they're missing out on some pure profit! I'm quite capable of taking my car up to Albuquerque or Tucson or Phoenix for service if I must.

If I were asking them to install something, I could see me buying it. I could also see them asking me to provide a deposit or pay for a part in advance.

But THIS? This is really weird. I've talked to a couple of friends, and they're completely baffled.

I'm going to call a couple of other dealers and ask them for a quote for the same service and see what they say, not telling them what the El Paso dealer said. And then I'm going to call Subaru Corporate and see what THEY say! I'm not far from crossing the El Paso dealer off my list entirely for any sort of business: I'm really mad at them for never helping me with any sort of service when I needed a $2500 safety-critical part replaced.

It did take nine months and a bit of planning.

The car is a heavily modified Nissan Ariya, and they drove from the 1823 Magnetic North Pole to the South Pole in about nine months. North America was fairly easy for charging, South America was a bit dicey but they worked an agreement with an electric charging company to establish chargers in their corridor that the company will maintain for the people in the area and for future rally racers. When they didn't have chargers, they had a wind turbine and solar panels to power up their battery. When all else failed, they had a petrol generator and a support truck.

In 2017, the couple completed the Mongol Challenge in a modified Nissan Leaf, driving 10,000 miles in 56 days in a vehicle that does 90 miles in one charge!

Pretty intrepid people there! And they certainly like a driving holiday!

https://www.engadget.com/an-electric-car-completed-the-worlds-first-ever-drive-from-the-north-to-the-south-pole-073155506.html

Porsche has an engine that produces 700 horsepower. I'm sure the car is completely affordable (if you're a billionaire). They're now 3D laser-printing the PISTONS, and it's added another 30 HP to the car!

The process reduces the weight of the pistons, it also allows them to add an engineering trick to the piston head that was not otherwise possible through conventional manufacturing processes. I think the process that they're using is laser scintering, where a laser burns into a special metal powder like magnesium. The powder melts, forming a solid, and it progressively builds up the shape needed.

Pretty awesome!

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/34775/porsche-found-a-way-to-3d-print-lightweight-pistons-that-add-even-more-horsepower

* * * * *

Another GermanA Swedish company, Koenigsegg, is producing an engine that makes 600 HP, and the interesting bit is that IT DOES NOT HAVE A CAMSHAFT! There are two "shafts" in an engine, the one on the bottom has all the piston rods connected to it (my brain is not providing its name), the front of it connects to a toothed wheel that has a chain or belt to it - the timing belt - that travels to the top of the engine (this is a great oversimplification) and connects to the camshaft. The camshaft turns in time with how the pistons move up and down and controls the timing of how the valves inside the cylinders open and close and let fuel and air in and out of the cylinders. This controls compression, exhaust, etc.

It's a cool process, a very carefully timed ballet. Back 40 years ago, or people who work on 40 year old cars, you'd pull out a timing light and make adjustments to your distributor cap to make sure everything remains properly timed/synchronized. With electronic fuel injection, computers took that over for you.

This goes a step further and eliminates the camshaft! Hydraulic actuators take over the function of the camshaft, giving complete computer control over the ignition process. The advantage of this is greater subtle control, including the ability to completely turn off cylinders when the car is cruising at highway speed!

Cars have had the ability to turn off cylinders at highway cruise for decades, this is not a new feature, just a new implementation. But those early implementations just turned off the spark and maybe the fuel flow, you still had valves opening and closing and wearing. In this case, the valve is just parked, though that piston is still going to move up and down. Since pistons are lubricated from underneath (mostly), that's not a big deal.

But the subtleties of the computer-controlled valve timing, as described in the article, claim to be quite interesting. It'll be interesting to see what this produces over time.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a31451281/koenigsegg-gemera-engine-specs-analysis/

ETA: thanks for the correction on Koenigsegg, schnee!

My car needed an oil change yesterday, and now my transmission is in peril.

It's not like my car has special requirements aside from needing fairly standard synthetic oil, for the most part oil changes are fairly straightforward. And Subaru makes them quite easy on newer models: the oil filter is mounted on the top front of the engine! Once the oil is drained, you can remove the filter with a bare minimum of mess and fuss. It's a very sweet design.

We've been getting our oil changed at a tire shop that also does basic fluids. It's a regional chain that, for the most part, has been reasonable. I've had three problems with them in the past: they sold me a set of tires that were actually high-speed rated and inappropriate for someone who needed snow conditions (different location), they recommended a set of snow tires that when I looked at online recommendations were horrible in the snow (ended up buying fantastic snow tires from a place that gets LOTS of snow, Ruidoso) and they damaged the drain plug on my wife's car by a tech using the wrong wrench, and they replaced that eventually.

No, this time the "technician" messed up and removed the wrong drain plus, removing an unknown amount of fluid from my transmission. He put it back immediately upon seeing that he'd removed the wrong plug, but an unknown amount of liquid had escaped.

Here's the thing: engines have increasingly become sealed units, and the transmission and differential even more so. On my car, there's not even a dip stick to check the level. Get it serviced per specified intervals, and you should be fine. The car has to be connected to a computer for the car computer to tell how much fluid has to be added. The oil change place does not have such a device as they do not have a permanent mechanic.

I know what having no fluid in a transmission does to it. I'd had my '05 all-wheel drive Toyota Matrix for just a few months when I hit a rock going down the mountain to the darkroom to develop some film one day. I immediately put it in to neutral and coasted off the road in to a pullout, but the tranny was already dead. When the shop sales guy told me what happened, the only place that fluid could have come from was the tranny and the differential, both of which are bad to lose fluid from. We got the car on to a lift and he showed me the drain plug, it wasn't immediately obvious which sump it drained. We consulted the owner's manual and it doesn't show which sump it was, but it emphasized that these aren't to be serviced casually.

I call the El Paso Subaru dealership and arrange for me to email a service guy a photo of where the fluid came from. He identifies it as the tranny and says to not drive it, obviously, so the plan is to flatbed tow it to El Paso to the dealership and they'll set things right.

Surprisingly I actually wasn't too pissed off when this happened and I'm pretty level-headed and collected in a crisis. Shit like this is bound to happen occasionally. But I know from experience and 45 days without my Toyota Matrix that a car without transmission fluid means a car without a transmission, so the car was now undrivable until this was resolved. So flatbed my car to the Subaru dealership in El Paso, get me a rental car for two days as my wife was working Tuesday night (so I thought: turned out she was off) and everything should be fine.

But I started getting increasingly pissed off at the sales guy at the tire shop. I told him I'd have to have a rental and that we'd have to arrange a flat bed tow. And the guy just stood there. Didn't offer any assistance. Didn't offer to call higher up the food chain. Finally offered to call Enterprise Rentals, a block away. He calls them and arranges for a car that I'll walk over to pick up. There's still the tow to arrange. I ask him about tow companies, he has no suggestions. And now I'm getting really pissed. He's been totally passive, I've had to initiate everything to get my car taken care of, and I'm about to lose my cool and start shouting, something that I really don't want to do in public.

Finally with his lack of help I tell him that I'm going to walk to get the rental and I'll figure out the tow afterwards. It's now 6pm, I've been there since about a quarter to 3. I walk to Enterprise, there's someone at the counter so I step in to a side office to call my wife and tell her what's going on. She hasn't left for the observatory yet because, as it turns out, she's not working! She can come and get me, so we don't need a rental car. One less hassle. Cancel rental car and go back to dealership.

Mister Passive has spent an action token: he's called his region manager! I get to talk to the region manager and he says that they have the correct computer equipment and other tools to service my car in El Paso, and that this morning they will send up a certified mechanic and will set my car straight. So theoretically, my car should be put straight this afternoon.

But there will be a lingering problem: I don't know how much fluid was lost. I don't know if they'll tell me when I pick it up how much fluid was put back in. They had better! If it was just an ounce or two, if the "technician" was quick enough screwing the plug back in, it shouldn't be a big deal, it shouldn't be a problem. But if it lost a lot of fluid, there may be issues because....

The car was driven.

Some oil change places have a pit where there's a basement that a tech can work underneath your car without your car needing a lift. This place does not have one. So the car had been on a lift to be serviced, and when Mister Passive took me out to discuss the problem, it was not on the lift, it was then driven back on to the lift so we could see underneath. So it was driven twice, albeit very short distances, with a diminished fluid level in the transmission. I told the guy before I left that they need to push my car off the lift and not drive it as they would be open another hour last night as they'd need the lift as their second lift was broken.

So there is the possibility that my transmission is screwed up and may have to be replaced. I really should have stood my ground and have had it taken by flatbed to the dealership in El Paso.

One thing is certain: they're not getting any of my business again. We do over $200 worth of business in oil changes with them a year, which won't make much of a dent in their revenues, but I'm sure wherever we end up that they'll appreciate it.


And I just talked to the tech from El Paso. He added a quart of fluid, which means a lot was lost. Which means potential trouble, which means I get to call the dealership in El Paso again.

There's a reason why they don't have the equipment for filling the tranny here in Alamogordo and they had to bring a mechanic up from El Paso: they can't hire and retain a qualified mechanic up here. Shallow and poor quality labor pool. I think that extends to their oil change pool.

In October we replaced my 2005 Toyota Matrix AWD (a Corolla Hatchback in some non-US markets) with a 2015 Subaru Crosstrek. I absolutely love this car! A couple of weeks ago I dropped $1,000 for a full set of snow tires, of course it hasn't snowed since then. Anyway, I bought it in Tucson, AZ which meant that the title initially had to be done in AZ and I had to contact the lender, which is in Texas, to get Arizona to send the title to New Mexico, which for some reason took over a month and a half. Yesterday I FINALLY got the call from MVD that they had received the title from Arizona MVD, it was about 3:15 and they close at 4:00, so I waited until today to go in. I had all the papers that I needed. We do the VIN check, the woman is banging away on the computer, pulls open a drawer and produces a license plate:

NRD 512

I all but swooned! Nerd and a power of 2! (2 to the 9th) Absolutely awesome license plate! I can't imagine a better, random, license plate!

Then her computer froze. Every computer in the office froze: the network was completely down, same thing happened yesterday. She said I'd have to come back, but since the VIN inspection was done, it wouldn't take too long when I got back. I asked her if I'd get the same license plate.

She said no.

*sigh*

So I go to lunch (Carl's Jr. has fish tacos again!) Go back to the MVD office, they call my number and I go to the designated window and the woman, after I explain everything, says I have to wait until the woman with whom I'd worked previously was done with her customer.

Eventually she's free, we resume the paperwork, and she pulls out my new license plate.

NRD 512!

Simple things please simple minds. I'm very happy, and I'm mounting it on my car today.

Suckus maximus. Two weeks ago today my wife and I drove 400 miles to Tucson to buy a 2015 Subaru Crosstrek. We had been planning on getting me a new car within the next few months, and that Monday I got an email from Subaru saying that they were having a 0.99% for 48 month special deal on Subaru-certified used vehicles. I had planned to get a Crosstrek and done a lot of online research and drove one in El Paso when I took my wife's Subaru Outback down for a new timing belt.

The one that I bought was a dealership car used by the service department as a loaner and had 6,000 miles on it. We had a couple of extras put on like body molding (I HATE getting my doors dinged!) as it was already well-equipped. It has a system called EyeSight which is two cameras mounted next to the rear view mirror that watches vehicles in front of you and can brake the Subaru if the distance starts closing rapidly. It also watches for lane deviation and has an adaptive cruise control. The cruise is great: you program the speed that you want to cruise at and the distance you want between you and the vehicle in front of you (three steps) and it will maintain the speed and distance as best it can. And it does an excellent job. The Interstate 10 corridor between Tucson and Phoenix is annoying because it is always busy, lots of big rig trucks, and variable speeds. But the EyeSight was SO nice! I dialed it in at 75, and though the traffic wouldn't let me cruise at that speed, it kept a very safe distance between me and the vehicle in front. And if I changed to an empty lane, the speed would come up. It made for a VERY pleasant drive.

Since we'd driven 400 miles to Tucson to get the car and it didn't make sense to not go another 100 to Phoenix and see my parents, so we had half a day Saturday, took them to a friend's restaurant for Sunday brunch (Craft 64 pizza/brew in Scottsdale – highly recommended) and headed home Monday morning. The car was wonderful. Once we were out of Tucson headed back to New Mexico and the traffic opened up and it was great. Good mileage, and the gas tank is 16 gallons versus 13 for the Toyota Matrix that it replaced, so I can get approximately 500 miles on a tank! It'll be so nice having to fill my tank every other week rather than twice a week as I drive 40-50 miles a day to/from work.

It's been wonderful. I don't use the adaptive cruise control going to work as it's 16 miles down a mountain, losing 4,500' in the descent, and I don't want to risk the brakes, so I use the normal cruise control mode. It mainly uses the throttle to control the speed and does a good job in descents, much better than my Matrix. The Toyota couldn't hold a set speed going down a mountain, so I'm very happy with that feature.

The EyeSight system isn't 100%. Severe weather conditions can cause it to turn off (with appropriate dash board alerts) as can road conditions, both of which have happened in the last week. There's no connection between the EyeSight and the steering, just the throttle and brake. So in a really heavy rain storm it'll turn off, as it did Monday. In a REALLY dark night or in a curvy road stretch with lots of trees it'll sometimes turn off. It does see color but it doesn't see in to the infrared, so it's limited to the range of the headlights.

So the car doesn't take decision-making from the driver, it just stands by in case something happens that the driver doesn't notice it. When anti-lock brakes and airbags came out, accidents temporarily went up – they don't prevent accidents, they improve your safety. They aren't a substitute for good driving. Interestingly, I find myself driving slower in the Crosstrek, not that I was a super-fast driver normally. The only complaint that I have is that the trunk space is a bit smaller than the Toyota's even though the overall dimensions are about the same. And the car is perfectly balanced – the engine is a horizontally-opposed Boxter engine, a signature of Subaru and Porsche. It gives you more horsepower with lower weight, which is really nice when heading up the mountain. And I LOVE the larger gas tank, though the smaller trunk will be annoying. Oh, and ground clearance! The Toyota had about 5”, the Subaru 8”! That's going to be so nice in the snow! We know we're going to have a wet winter, but we don't know if it'll be cold enough for snow or if it'll just be lots of rain. So we'll see if I need to get snow tires or not.



So that's pretty awesome. Now comes the suck.


Thursday night I was scheduled to drive up to Ruidoso for a sleep study, it's about an hour from Alamogordo where I work. I have been avoiding this for a long time because I do not want a CPAP machine. My lung doctor ordered an overnight oximetry study and it revealed in the wee small hours of the morning that I had an oxygenation problem with my levels dropping below 87% for an extended period of time. So I acquiesced to having the stupid study done. And that was Thursday night.

So Thursday night it was done. And it turned out surprisingly well. The way it works is they size you for a mask and explain how the CPAP machine works, they hook all sorts of electrodes to you, and you go to sleep. If you have X number of breathing problem events in Y time frame, they'll wake you and hook you up to the CPAP machine for the rest of the night and tune the pressures. The full data is analyzed by specialists and they decide what you need.

I had no serious events! I never hit the level that was specified for using a CPAP! The technician said that I had no oxygenation problems and that in his opinion I might have mild apnea, so we'll see what happens.

There's two routes to going home from Ruidoso to Cloudcroft, you can go down to Alamogordo then back up to Cloudcroft, or you can cut through the reservation and have a much more direct path. The disadvantage of the latter is that you're driving through an area with lots of cattle, elk, horses, etc. On the road. I passed huge elk, ponies, etc. And unbelievable numbers of cow patties on the highway.

About 6:45 I was on the highway less than a mile from my house and I hit a baby deer.

It couldn't have timed it worse. I had a truck coming at me in the opposite lane on my left, and I had mountain on my right, and a baby deer in front of me. It was no higher than the top of my hood, which isn't very high. And it was the exact condition where the EyeSight system can't do diddly to help you. Swerving left would put me in a near head-on collision, swerving right would run me up the side of the mountain and possibly roll the vehicle. So I hit the deer.

It exploded. It actually exploded. I kid you not, there were pieces of deer flying through the air.

It makes me sick to my stomach just to type this.

The body shop that I normally doesn't do estimates on Friday, so I have an appointment to get that done Monday. The hood, left front fender, grill, left headlight – all damaged. I'm not sure if the bumper is, they'll find out. Bumpers are dense foam core, similar to styrofoam, designed for a low-speed collision. It's then covered in the rubbery/plasticky skin. The body shop will figure that out.

I hadn't had the car for two full weeks and I had my first collision in 21 years.

*sigh*

The airbags did not deploy because I was braking heavily and took the speed below that threshhold. I wasn't physically injured, and the car will be fixed. But it's going to bother me for a long time.

The Slashdot summary: "Eric Peters makes the case that hybrids have been over-hyped. His argument is that in order to sell people on hybrid cars, automakers have emphasized the energy efficiency of hybrids in ideal conditions and failed to tell people that in most ordinary driving conditions they will not come close to meeting the numbers given. He refers to a recent case where an individual has chosen to forego membership in a class action law suit and has instead chosen to go to small claims court. He suggests that there is a significant chance that she will win there and that this will open up all of the manufacturers of hybrid vehicles to similar lawsuits. The article was on a rather partisan website, so I am curious what factors he has chosen to overemphasize to make his case. (Or what factors he has chosen to ignore to the same end.) I know that Slashdot has a large contingent of hybrid and EV supporters who are well educated on the subject (as well as a large contingent of those who are not so well educated)."

The key to this is the small claims court (SCC) angle. This particular state limits damages to $10,000 in SCC, but SCC also has a much lower burden of proof and the judge can be a more active participant rather than just the arbiter role that they perform in superior court. The issue is that Honda states that the car is capable of 50 MPG and that the owner is not getting more than 30. So the issue is manufacturer/EPA estimated mileage, which is tricky on a hybrid. The standard assumes level driving and extremely conservative acceleration and speed, speeds that would get you killed on an interstate.

Here's the thing that should scare the beejeezus out of car manufacturers: if this case succeeds, they could end up fighting dozens, if not hundreds, of such cases in SCC rather than monster large class action cases where the attorneys get all the money and the participants get a check for $15. Plus you can represent yourself in SCC, making the cost to enter very low.

Interesting times.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/06/honda-civic-lesson

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/01/07/1730240/another-stab-at-sorting-hybrid-hype-from-reality

1 gram, stimulated by a laser, could theoretically produce as much energy as 7,500 gallons of gasoline. 8 grams could power your car for it's entire life. An engine could come in at 500 lbs containing a laser and a steam/turbine loop.


This sounds pretty awesome. Even if they only used it in power plants, it would be a tremendous savings. It sounds like it can be spooled up from zero to lots of heat in a very short period of time, they're talking about direct output for a car: no batteries. And they think they'll have prototypes on the road in 2 years!


http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/


http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/8-grams-of-thorium-could-replace-gasoline-in-cars-20110812/


http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/08/12/172229/8-Grams-of-Thorium-Could-Replace-Gasoline-In-Cars

In the 60's, Chrysler made a car with a turbine engine. A jet turbine. 60,000 RPM. 5,000 hours life compared to 3,000 for a piston engine. 1,800 degrees F.

And it destroyed almost all of them after an amazingly successful pilot program that ran over a million miles in 50 prototypes.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575462133272933798.html

http://jalopnik.com/5662006/the-rise-and-fall-of-americas-jet+powered-car

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/10/17/1213207/The-Rise-and-Fall-of-Americas-Jet-Powered-Car

Pretty cool, I'd love to see one. Apparently Leno has one of the four that wasn't destroyed, I have no idea if the other three still exist. The Jalopnik article has three videos of the car driving. I'd love to know what the interior noise and heat levels were like, air conditioning in cars wasn't too common in those days.

Aside from "CHECK THE FLUID LEVELS, YOU MORON!", I remembered something this morning. Yesterday I was venting (in humourous fashion, natch) to this guy and I commented that it sucks that you frequently don't get any warning when your battery is about to go Tango Uniform. If you're skilled and don't mind altering the lines of the interior of your car, you can always install an ammeter and keep an eye on how much currant the battery is drawing, but I noticed something else. I always use the remote entry key fob to unlock my doors, and I remembered the last couple of days that I had to hit it two or three times to get the doors to open. I assumed that I probably needed to replace the battery in the transmitter, but now it's 100% when I go to get in my car.

Something I'll have to try and remember in this tiny little thing that I call my brain.