Gran Turismo 5 : why it sucks

Gran Turismo 5 has been out for a while now for the PS3. I picked it up on launch day but then sold it on Amazon's used list only two weeks later. Why?
A number of reasons. I've been a big fan of Gran Turismo on the Playstation since I first played GT2. It was an awesome racing game at the time. Unfortunately, successive versions have simply added more eye candy and nothing else. GT5 is almost stunning to look at - if you can overlook the hideous jagged shadows and the pop-up (where things just blink into existence as you're driving). Certain screenshots and replays could easily be mistaken for real photos or videos. The problem is that the developers spent 6 years working on how the game looks, without altering the mechanic of how the game plays. Polyphony Digital have spent tens of thousands of hours concentrating on every last detail of the interior and exterior of 200 of the available 1000 cars, which makes for amazing static photos, but at the expense of fixing the two biggest problems with the whole GT franchise.
First - the AI. The computer-controlled drivers are dumber than a box of rocks. They drive on rails, following the identical line around the track line a train. If you're in their way, they simply crash into you. They have no concept that you even exist and when coupled with the second big problem - lack of crash damage - it makes the game essentially no fun. They're not penalised for touching the cones on the test tracks, and they never spin out when you touch them. However, when they drive into you, you spin, flip, crash and lose control.
So yes - the second big issue is crash damage, or lack of it. Polyphony made a great deal of noise about their all-new crash damage model but in reality, it's pointless and useless. In career mode, it comes on in stages, and you don't really get their "full" crash damage until your driver level reaches 40 (although you can get at it straight away in Arcade mode). At this point, it's still a total joke - you can't ever damage a car to the point where it becomes undriveable. The radiator never overheats, the steering never pulls to one side or the other, the windscreen never gets smashed, you can't rip off wheels or blow tyres. In essence, you can ram your car into the wall at 160mph, bounce off and then go on to win the race. This has always been a problem with the Gran Turismo games and it's not improved in GT5. The apologists will tell you that a real driving simulator is about driving, not crashing, which is absolutely true. But if you get too close to the car in front, or lose the back end in a turn, then the simulation ought to penalise you for it in the form of realistic mechanical and visible damage to the vehicle. Without this, there's no incentive to learn to master the game's different cars and tracks.
The screenshot accompanying this blog entry shows just how appalling the problem is. This is the result of slamming an Audi R8 into a wall at 160mph with the "full" damage enabled. Needless to say, I bounced off and drove on to win the race.
Multiple updates have not addressed these two core issues and I think Polyphony really don't understand how to fix either problem. After all, it's been this way since Gran Turismo 2, and THAT is the problem for me. The game looks stunning for the most part, but it simply isn't any fun to play. Need For Speed:Shift, or Forza 3, or GRiD or DiRT - all undoubtedly more arcade racers than simulation, but all infinitely more FUN to play.

W

The ultimate car accessory. Merry Christmas.

Short post this week. The picture says it all. In the meantime, have a great Christmas break :-)

Tips for filling up.

I received an email from a reader recently with some tips for filling up. I've covered this elsewhere on the site, but it's always nice to pull these sorts of things together into a single, quick-reference point. So this week's blog is all about just that:

Tips for filling up.

First and foremost, if there is a delivery truck filling the underground storage tanks when you stop to buy petrol, DO NOT fill up! The pumping action will be stirring up all the crud at the bottom of the storage tanks and if you fill up now, despite the pump filters, some of that crud will end up in your tank. Come back in a couple of hours when the residue will have had time to settle again, or go to a different station.

Less is More.
Take advantage of early morning cold by filling up your tank early in the day, while the ground temperature is still cold. The temperature of gasoline, diesel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role in getting the most for your money. Petrol stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps (though loading and storage facilities do, ensuring them greater accuracy). Because the storage tanks are underground, the colder the ground the more dense the petrol. When it gets warmer it expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening your gallon is not exactly a gallon. Petrol pumps don't measure actual volume or density, they assume volume derived from flow-rate. The flow rate doesn't change with temperature but the density of the petrol does. So if the pump is calibrated to deliver an assumed gallon in 10 seconds based on full flow, if the petrol is colder, it will be more dense and you'll get marginally more in that 10 seconds than if you fill up in the afternoon.

Petrol evaporates more quickly than you might think.
When you're filling up, if you have time on your hands, fill up at about 1/3 of full power. This minimises the backflow of evaporating vapour created whilst you're filling up. The vapour has a chance to re-condense in your tank rather than being wasted into the outside air (or if you're in America, sucked back into the underground tank via the vapour recovery collar on the pump).

Fill up when your gas tank is half empty.
The first reason is similar to the top tip - crud in the bottom of the tank. If you let your tank get nearly empty, your fuel pump will start pulling the crud in the bottom of your tank and you run more risk of blocking a fuel filter. The other reason though is that the more gas you have in your tank, the less air there is above it to be filled with vapour that will escape as soon as you take the petrol cap off.

Now how much of a difference will these sorts of things make in the real world? One a single tank, not much. Over the course of a year, you might actually notice a difference. Over the lifetime of your vehicle, probably a measurable difference.

Insurance recommendation

If you follow this blog you'll know that a couple of months ago my wife was involved in an accident when an unlicensed, underage driver ran a red light (Toyota saved my wife's life). Obviously the car ended up being written off and we bought a replacement. The true test of any insurance company is when you come to make a claim. I now have a recommendation for you all. Progressive Insurance. Why? Well their local claim rep dealt with us really quickly and efficiently. The claim was settled in 6 days and the amount they offered us for the car that was written off was nothing like a lowball. I'd calculated what I thought the car should be worth. To get the figure I came to, I averaged together the high and low used car prices listed on Kelley Blue Book (KBB), NADA and Edmunds - the three biggest car price guides over here in the USA). I put in the same mileage, colour and option details for each site and ended up with a figure I felt was reasonable. The Progressive agent called us up once the car had been written off and offered us an amount that was exactly 69 cents less than the figure I came up with.
The final test for me was their 'accident forgiveness'. We've been with them for long enough that we're allowed one large claim without it affecting our premium. That's what is advertised anyway, and I was expecting our premium to go up "because of other factors". ie. because of the claim, but explained away elsewhere. Today I received our renewal notice and bugger me - our premium has come down because of falling insurance rates and the economy.
Claim dealt with quickly - check. Didn't lowball us on the payout - check. Rates didn't go up - check. Oh and you can pay your premium with Paypal now too. That's a winner for me.

Top Gear USA Part 2.

Ok I'll admit it - I gave it a second shake of the stick last night. Hard to believe but I think the pilot episode might actually have been the best one. The three wooden presenters became even more wooden last night, and watching "Rutledge" trying to deliver his lines from the Aston whilst driving in the desert was embarrassing. I don't know what his day-job is but he's clearly never been on TV before. And his lack of understanding of how speedometers are marked was legendarily bad.
My friend's 5-year-old daughter could deliver scripted lines more convincingly than he could and just about anyone who knows about cars knows that the max speed on a speedometer is always, always, ALWAYS faster than the car can actually go.
Foust became even more flamboyant (read: gay) and the third bloke - Adam something-or-other became even less funny and even more forgettable.
Worst of all however, I've discovered something truly horrible:
Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman (TG:UK producer) review all the footage for TG:USA. A BBC Brit with a biting sense of humor helms the production and a large part of the crew are experienced from working on episodes of the original Top Gear.
I'm utterly speechless.
If the above is really the case, how can Top Gear USA be so appallingly bad? Surely if Clarkson and Wilman really are reviewing the footage, they'd never have approved a single frame of this diarrhea they're peddling on History Channel. It's classic American remake drivel. It needs to be canceled and quick before it destroys the Top Gear name forever.

Fool me once. Shame on you.
Fool me twice. Shame on me.
There won't be a third viewing of Top Gear USA for me.

Top Gear USA

Well. Top Gear US sucks in a way I thought was previously impossible. Three blocks of wood who can't read a script and aren't funny. They have zero chemistry together, and all they're doing is copying TG UK almost segment for segment, stunt for stunt. They did a Viper vs. a Cobra helicopter tonight which was a direct copy of when Clarkson went up against an Apache in a Lotus Exige. Only on Top Gear USA it was neither funny nor exciting.
They previewed a segment showing one of them in a car sealed up, filled with water, being driven on their track which is obviously a copy of Top Gear UK's episode where they were trying to prove that British Leyland cars weren't crap. Presumably from the same show, last night they showed a clip of one of the presenters hopping out of a car with a lousy handbrake on a hill - a direct copy of Hammond doing it. I think they even choreographed the way he got out of the car to try to be identical.
Their main driver, Tanner Foust, is all kinds of gay - the only thing missing from the show was his boyfriend. The fat bearded presenter is just objectionable in every way possible. (who the heck calls their kid "Rutledge"?) And I think they chose the third guy (Adam Ferrara) because his last name sounds like 'Ferrari'. I've no idea who he is but he made the other two look talented. None of the three of them have any excitement in their presentation. The scripting was so bad that at one point, Faust jumped ahead making a complete hash of the joke they were trying to tell.
Even the interview for star in a reasonably priced car was appallingly artificial and wooden - I think even Buzz Aldrin was reading from a script. And badly.
Top Gear USA sucks so badly I can't even find a metaphor for it. Clarkson needs to grab one of his guns and come over here and put this show out of its misery.
Kill it. Kill it with fire.

Why I dislike auto lights

In keeping with the light-oriented blog post last month, whilst following a GM something-or-other this morning (one of their line of staggeringly crappy SUVs), I was reminded why I dislike automatic headlights. You know - the ones that turn themselves on and off. It was a particularly crisp morning with stark morning sun and deep shadows. Every time we all stopped at traffic lights that were in the shade, the GM's lights came on. As we moved off into the sun, they went off. As we got stuck in slow traffic and went into shade, they came on again. Sun, off. Shade on. All the way to work.
It was daylight all the way - no need to have any lights on at all, yet in their infinite stupidity, GM's engineers decided that merely driving into the shade was reason enough to turn on this particular vehicle's lights.
Genius.

God is not your co-pilot

As an atheist, I have a really big problem with religious groups who have the opinion that their chosen deity will protect them no matter what. Worse, they believe that when it's "their time", then that's just the way it is. This is especially true when driving, and living in Utah as I do right now - it's a really big problem. Actually, it's compounded by the criminally easy driving test, but the local religion here I'm sure has a lot to do with the appalling standard of driving. People drive around in a daze, believing with all their being that their God will protect them from harm. "God Is My Co-Pilot" is a bumper sticker you see a lot around here and I don't think they're joking. That is what makes them a danger to every other road user, because in a car it translates to "I can drive however I like and it doesn't matter". Drifting through red lights whilst texting. Stopping at green lights. Turning left from the right turn lane. They do this under some misplaced sense of self security and if they die as a result of their criminally lax driving, they just assume it was their destiny. The rest of us? We don't count - even as an atheist, if I die because some Mor(m)on sideswipes me in a truck whilst he's texting, in his opinion, his God determined it was my time to tie.
Blindly following these sorts of lifestyles puts everyone else in danger and there's no way to redress the balance.
So if you see a religious bumper sticker, steer well clear of the vehicle because their chosen deity might have decided your time is up.

ScanCafe - the cost of no hassle.

I have a wicked flatbed scanner. The thing is amazing. It scans everything. However, when it comes to scanning old film negatives, as you can imagine, it's incredibly time-consuming. A colleague of mine put me on to a company called ScanCafe - one of an increasing number of companies who will do the donkey-work for you. There's a few others, but ScanCafe is massively undercutting them all right now, with discounted rates and Christmas sales. They're a full 15c per negative cheaper than their nearest competition, and that includes shipping and tracking. You send your stuff to an amalgamation centre in California, and from there, palettes are UPS'd to their scanning facility in India. Get this - everything is hand-scanned, and they're still cheaper than the US competition. I think the difference is that the guys in India are probably pleased to be providing a service whereas their US counterparts probably see it as one step up from flipping burgers. ScanCafe ask you to estimate the number of negatives up front, and charge you 50% when you order. When your scanning is complete, they publish albums in your account online so you can accept / reject each image. In the end you only pay for the ones you keep as long as it's 80% of the order or more. In my case, if I take every scan, the total cost to me is $257. Sounds a lot, right? Lets see you sit at home and hand scan 1000 negatives (the size of my first order). For me, $257 is the cost of no hassle.
I'll let you know how it goes, but right now, there's a sturdy box UPS-ing its way to their amalgamation centre with my first batch of negatives in it.
Their site : ScanCafe. If you sign up and order before November 8th, there's also a 20% discount coupon : LAST4XMAS.

Why do people still use Jiffy Lube?

You might as well ask the same question in England: why do people still use Kwik-Fit? I ask because of all the people I know who've used Jiffy Lube here in the US, and Kwik-Fit in England, only one has anything good to say about them. The rest are horror stories ranging from the mildly funny to the litigious. For example one of my wife's friends recently went to a Jiffy Lube for one of their "signature" oil changes. The next day, her SUV was parked in our drive and I commented that it was leaking oil. The colour drained from her boyfriend's face as she said "Oh - I took it to Jiffy Lube yesterday". After some not especially complicated diagnosis, it turned out they never bothered to tighten the oil filter when they put it back on, so it had been spewing oil all over the inside of her engine compartment.
This is certainly not the first time I've heard of, or directly experienced this level of service from these places. Apart from anything else there's the up-sell scam they all run. You know the one - where everything was fine when you took the car in, but after the oil change it now miraculously needs new wiper blades or CV boots. When we lived in England, I even experienced one of these places that cut a friend's brake lines so that he couldn't leave the shop without paying to have them all re-done. The litigation on that one found them wholly responsible because they were caught doing it on their own surveillance cameras.
Countless news programs have exposed these places for everything from scamming customers by charging for work and not doing it, to deliberate sabotage, to just making stuff up. Their staff are generally clueless too. A colleague of mine suffered from a catalytic converter theft a couple of years ago. He trailered his truck to the nearest one-stop-shop and their first question was "are you sure it had a catalytic converter in the first place?" followed by "are you sure it was on there when you drove home last night?". (in case you're not mechanically inclined, every car has had a cat for decades, and most modern cars simply won't drive with a chunk of the exhaust missing because of the lack of back-pressure. Oh and the noise would have given it away, obviously).
I just can't fathom why anyone still uses these places.

A competition for you

This week's blog post is a short one with a quick promotion - not something I do very often. Anyway, one of my site sponsors is having a competition and if you're in the UK there's some decent prizes to be had including holidays, 20 grand in cash and a new Mini. Click through and take a look. Normal blogging service will be resumed next week :-)

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

When BMW bought Mini, I was unsure what to expect. When the first new Mini came out - I was pleased. It was a nice take on the original car - a modern re-interpretation of Issigonis' original design. The mid-life revision wasn't bad either. Then came the Clubman and things started to go downhill. A suicide door that opens into traffic if you live in England - the home of the Mini. A left-right split rear door with a centre pillar so big it makes the rearview mirror unusable. Why did BMW feel they needed this model. Things took another turn for the worse with the announcement of the Mini SUV, based on the Clubman but pumped up to American proportions with a suspension and body lift and 4WD. Now they've just gone too far with the spy photos of the minivan version turning up online. What the hell are BMW thinking? The Mini isn't a line of cars. It's a car, singular. It certainly never needed a 4WD off-road version and the butt-ugly minivan they're proposing is a joke.
Source (Auto Motor und Sport).

That bang you just heard was GM imploding.

I can't say I'm surprised by this but it turns out GM have been lying to everyone about the Chevy Volt. Turns out that the petrol engine actually can (and does) drive the wheels. In other words, it's nothing more special than a hybrid vehicle. This is exactly the opposite to what GM have been telling the world right up to this morning. The most recent re-iteration of this point came in June, when GM spokesman Rob Peterson told AutoblogGreen that there was "no mechanism in the Volt to drive the wheels even if the engineers wanted to". (source).

Motor Trend got to test drive a Volt for the first time and observed that the petrol engine did indeed drive the wheels. Mechanically, it's not separated from the driveline as GM had indicated. Quite the opposite; it's connected to one of the motor-generators which is in-line with the drivetrain.

What about that amazing 230mpg claim then? Well obviously that also turned out to be a lie. Real-world figures for the Volt are coming in around 25-30mpg city and a max of 37.5 highway (Popular Mechanics). 37.5 is not 230. It is however worse than a Prius, and worse than a non-hybrid Ford Focus.

This is potentially suicidal for GM. They lied about the Volt's motive power source (which presumably means they also lied about the "common" platform it's built on where everything is hidden in the floorpan). They lied about the gas-mileage, and the final vehicle is nothing more than a hybrid - one that is already outclassed by dozens of other non-hybrid vehicles. Why would anyone buy a Volt now?

Get up fifteen minutes earlier

For as much as I drive, you'd think it would be difficult for me to be surprised by anything I see on the roads any more.
Not true.
I'm used to seeing women driving with the rear view mirror skewed at an odd angle - it means they're putting make-up on. Don't think that's a sexist or chauvinist comment - it's the absolute truth. We've all seen it happen. I see it regularly on my commute. A few weeks ago there was a new experience for me though. I'd followed a woman for a couple of miles, watching her primp and preen using the rear view mirror to fuss with her hair and finish putting on her mascara, and when she'd done, she straightened it up. A good sign, you'd think, but then her driving deteriorated even more and I was curious to see why. She clearly wasn't on a cellphone - the normal culprit - and she wasn't wrangling kids in the back, so I drove alongside to have a look. It turned out that she was eating cereal, out of a bowl, with a spoon. ie. she was using both hands to eat breakfast, whilst driving at 50mph in heavy traffic with her knees.

Here's the deal, people. Get up earlier. Anyone who does stuff like this and uses the excuse "I don't have enough time" is an idiot. Of course you have the time. Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier, get up, do your make up and have breakfast at home, then drive to work. If you can't figure something that simple out, you shouldn't be driving.

Hack your car ... through your TPMS sensors

A short blog post this week. Merely a link to an interesting article relating how some researchers have proven that you can hack a car's ECU via its tyre pressure monitoring sensors. As these are wireless, snooping their ID gives a hacker a way into the ECU, allowing manipulations from the benign activating of your windscreen wipers, to the dangerous disabling of your brakes.
Hack your car via the TPMS (ars technica).

Why do cyclists think road rules don't apply to them?

I grew up in the Netherlands, so I spent the formative years of my life cycling everywhere. I still have a bicycle and still use it. Apparently I'm the only one who understands that road rules apply to cyclists too, because in this day and age, they do seem for the most part to be a menace. Frankly it's surprising more of them aren't hood ornaments because they certainly make every attempt to get into an accident.

Every morning on my pleasingly short commute, I come across people cycling three-wide, blocking the road. They refuse to cycle in-line in the cycle lane, and get really pissed off when people honk or shout at them. But then they go on to filter to the front of the line at traffic lights (which I have no problem with) before then cycling through the red light (which I very much have a problem with). Every day I get some bozo breezing through a stop sign that I've stopped at, then getting bent out of shape when the drive who had priority nearly runs them down. Every day I see these two-wheeled idiots hopping up and down kerbs menacing pedestrians one second, then blocking the road the next.

I'm sorry people but if you're going to cycle like complete assholes, then expect to be treated like complete assholes.

American roundabouts

Roundabouts are a wonderful invention. Traffic generally flows on and off without too much hassle. You wait for a gap in traffic, the hop on, and hop off at your required exit.
Here in America, they've taken that notion and ruined it by turning roundabouts into 4-way stops - sort of like traffic lights on roundabouts in England but without the lights. So rather than flowing traffic, like they're supposed to, they stop traffic. Worse, if the roundabout is big enough, rather than giving way to traffic already on the roundabout like everywhere else in the world, you have to give way to traffic entering the roundabout.

It does rather explain the following comment I saw once:
Watching Americans trying to negotiate a roundabout in England is an entertaining and embarrassing representation of the human ignorance about an intersection that does not require you to stop but does require you to yield. It seems to cause some sort of severe psychological disorder since it is neither green nor red, but requires them to steer and calculate approaching distances at the same time.

EPA Proposing new window information labels

The EPA are busy redesigning the familiar window labels that American buyers are used to seeing in car windows. They're trying to come to terms with how best to represent newer hybrids and all-electric vehicles. The simplest proposal has a slight label redesign, but essentially remains much like the labels available today. The larger redesign involves adding a prominent colour-coded grade to the vehicle, ranging from A to D, to give you a one-shot indicator as to how good or bad the vehicle is in terms of fuel economy. The US auto manufacturers aren't too keen on this last idea - probably because a lot of the vehicles would end up in the "D" category, but there's a way to go yet. If you want to get involved, the EPA have a website where you can see the new sticker designs and comment on them if you like:
New EPA fuel economy labels

A Toyota saved my wife's life.

Given all the bad press Toyota have had recently, I thought a positive note would help out. My wife drove a Yaris - a reasonable sized car in Europe but considered to be "too small" in the US. And by "too small" people equate that to "not safe". Fact: they're perfectly safe. Unfortunately my wife found that out the hard way. An early 90's Ford Explorer ran into her in an intersection last week. You know the ones - chunky, boxy, with I-beams for bumpers. My wife was able to get out and walk away because the Toyota did its job and protected her. We found out this morning that it was a total loss. So next time you have concerns about "small" cars in crashes with SUVs, look at this photo and remind yourself that the only injuries to my wife were seatbelt and airbag burns.

Get rid of Daytime Running Lights

Daytime running lights - DRLs. One of my pet peeves. Why? Well I ride a motorcycle and motorcycles are, whichever way you look at it, more vulnerable on the roads and less likely to be seen by idiot car drivers. The solution was to ride with our lights on to make ourselves more visible to everyone else - to draw attention to ourselves. Sadly, in recent years, car manufacturers the world over have started wiring headlights on cars to be always-on, calling them "Daytime Running Lights". Now, motorcyclists are lost in a sea of car headlights. And why? Because misguided politicians quoting non-existant safety reports have convinced the world that we all need our headlights on all time time.
Eeesh.
Well at least on some cars you can prevent this - see my post from a while back ("Hack Your Car") where I disabled the DRLs on my VW. Frankly I think we should all be able to prevent this and apparently I'm not the only one. An increasingly vocal group calling themselves Drivers Against Daytime Running Lights (DaDRL) are also getting alarmingly agitated about this same issue. DaDRL is a worldwide voluntary group of experienced motorists including Scientists, Engineers, Mathematicians, Lawyers and Ophthalmological experts who are supported by the leading Pedestrian, Cyclist and Motorcyclist organisations committed to improving road safety by reducing glare and distraction.
If you're interested, their various sites are listed below. Take the time to read over some of the studies that have been actually carried out as opposed to manufactured by politicians. It makes interesting reading. Then turn your bloody headlights off in the daytime!

DaDRL UK

DaDRL USA (LightsOut)

DaDRL Bulgaria

DaDRL Poland

DaDRL Lithuania

Unintended acceleration update.

The longer the NHTSA investigation into Toyota's unintended acceleration woes goes on, the more it turns out to be what we suspected all along - there's not a problem with the cars. There's a problem with the drivers. So far the NHTS has investigated over 3,000 reports of unintended acceleration in Toyotas using various techniques including EDRs - Electronic Data Recorders - the automotive 'black box' that definitively tells you what was going on before a crash. Out of the 3000 or so cases investigated so far, all but two of them have turned out to be 'pedal misapplication'. Read: the driver mashed the accelerator, not the brake. This is eerily similar to the case built against Audi between 1978 and 1986 which eventually turned out to be the exact same thing - idiot drivers.

Still - facts be damned, people are still trying to solve a problem that is entirely human operator error. The latest is an interesting pedal redesign from Masuyuki Naruse a Japanese inventor. Essentially, there is only one pedal in his design - the brake. To accelerate, you slide your foot sideways against a lever instead. It's an interesting idea - if you want to brake, you push on the pedal. To accelerate, you pivot your foot sideways. The only issue I see with this is the phantom brake light problem. If the weight of your foot is on the pedal all the time, even pivoted to the side, then your brake lights will always be on. I'm sure there's some adjustment could be made to the sensitivity of the brake light switch, but I'm not sure the single pedal idea is a good one, because once you introduce human stupidity into the equation, someone will find a way to defeat it and still manage to accelerate when they 'thought' they were braking.
Picture credit : NYT.

The right tool for the right job

You know the saying about having the right tool for the right job? It's true. This weekend whilst investigating an issue under the hood of a car, I dropped a small plastic clip. It bounced off the intake manifold and rolled down between the manifold and cylinder head to come to rest between a couple of coolant pipes. Nice one. The hole it fell down wasn't big enough to get a couple of fingers in, let alone a hand. One quick trip to insert-your-favourite-car-parts-store-here and for $6 I had a retriever, also known as a pick-up tool. Or in tech-speak, a doodad for getting stuff out of tight places. It's a spring-loaded claw on the end of a flexible tube. I had someone hold a torch (flashlight if you're American) and carefully poked said tool down into the gap and was able to retrieve the plastic clip.
If I'd have gone poking around with a screwdriver, it would have ended up falling on to a timing belt or something, inevitably ending up further out of reach. The right tool did the job properly and quickly.

The joys of bluetooth

My VW has a built-in handsfree cellphone kit. The mic is built into the headliner, and everything is integrated with the dash, steering wheel controls and radio. It's wonderful. I can leave my phone on bluetooth now, and when I get into the car, the car becomes the handset.
Now I hate people who use cellphones in cars - weaving, slowing down, leaning towards the centre of the car like some they all have some weird disfigurement. Until I had this car, I would never make or take a call when driving. I was derided and made fun of on occasion for pulling into a parking lot to take a call. But now I have an interesting option. Because I don't need to fuss with the phone, I can make a call using the steering wheel controls. Better yet, if someone phones me, I have the option to ignore the call and send it to voicemail.
I'm not sure this is any safer than actually using the phone physically - I find myself distracted a bit when using the handsfree - more so than just talking to someone in the car with me. But it's nice to have the option.
It seems I might be softening in my stance on useless crap in modern cars. This is the first piece of gadgetry I've found a use for.

Hack your car

In the good old days, modifying your car was a physical affair. Messing with needle jets. Bolting on goodies. Tweaking stuff here and there. Whilst a lot of this is still true, more and more you'll find people modifying their cars with a cable and a laptop. Essentially, it's now possible to hack your car. Anything from minor functional changes to full-on engine remaps are all possible, but for the DIY-er, it's generally best to stick to the less risky end of things. I'll give you an example. My new VW Tiguan came with a lot of nanny features - things that were put there to appease the lawyers but have no real purpose. With the right piece of kit, I've been able to modify my car to suit my tastes. In this case I've used a Ross-Tech MicroCan. It's a package with a piece of software for my laptop, and a USB cable with an OBD2 connector on the other end. Using their software, I've been able to turn off the seatbelt warning chime, turn off the daytime running lights, make it so that I can have high beams and fog lights on together, alter the behaviour of the trunk release (so it now opens, instead of just unlocking) and a bevvy of other minor tweaks and mods. The interesting thing with VW in particular is that a lot of options for their European models are available, but simply disabled in the onboard system for the US. Using the software, I've been able to re-enable those features.
The other nice thing about this particular piece of kit is that it allows me to see DTC and error codes - the things that turn on check engine lights - and clear them if I want. I can even reprogram my own TPMS monitors when switching from summer to winter wheels and back.
It's the brave new world of car modifying - try it - you'll like it.

Build your own engine

GM have come up with a winner. If you're in the market for a 2011 Corvette Z06 or ZR1, they're now offering a unique owner experience; you can help assemble your vehicle's own engine yourself. They call it their Build Your Own Engine program, and it'll set you back a lofty $5,800 for the priveledge. Interesting, because - isn't that their job? I mean when you pay for a new vehicle, you're paying for all of it. Surely if you're getting to do some of their work for them, they ought to discount the price of the car?
The program is possible because the engines for those two models are hand-assembled rather than put together by robots. This means you can get down and dirty with their technicians and get hands on with the engine that will power your own car. You even get a special nameplate.

There is an aspect of this story that hasn't been discussed yet though. Two actually. First - the warranty. If anything goes wrong with the engine, will GM cover it or will they simply say "well you built it - not our problem"?

And second - resale value. Would you buy a Corvette with an engine built by the previous owner? Didn't think so.

Via insideline.com

When buying a new car, use all the tools available to you

It sounds obvious but so many people will still go to a car dealer and pay what the dealer asks for their new vehicle. It doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of tools around nowadays to help you strike a deal. In America for example, we have the Consumer Reports new car report. (Consumer Reports is like Which? in England). For $14 you can buy a pricing report that breaks down the actual cost of the car to the dealer. Why is this important? Well once you're armed with that information, 9 times out of 10 you can drive the dealer way down on price. I recently bought a new VW Tiguan (nice car by the way) and using a pricing report I was able to get $2100 off the sticker price. How? The pricing report will show you what the dealer actually paid to get the vehicle on his lot. Not the "invoice" price they'll readily show you - that doesn't include incentives and the manufacturer holdback. (When a dealer shows you an invoice and tells you he's making no money by offering you invoice price, he's lying.) The report also shows you the cost to the dealer of any options as well as the cost to you - again so you can see if the markup is correct or not.

My new VW for example was on the lot with a sticker price of $31,125. The pricing report showed me that the dealer would get a $594 holdback from VW corporate. That's money they make irrespective of the price you pay for the car. Every dealer and sales network has this and again, if they tell you they don't, they're lying.
That, combined with a couple of other nuggets of information (like a local $1000 sales incentive - again - money they get just for selling the car) meant I was able to argue the price down to $29,000. IF my dealer paid the normal going rate to VW to get the car on his lot, he only made $568 profit on that vehicle. I got a good deal, the dealer made a profit and was also paid $1,594 from VW in incentives.

A lot of people don't like haggling on prices, especially for something like a car, but you just need to be strong-willed. If they won't come to a price you can accept, walk out. I walked out twice - it took three days to get the price down for me, with a lot of negotiation taking part on email and over the phone. That's another tip - if you can do the deal by email, it's a far better way of working because they can't pressure you and you're not subject to sitting in a showroom full of new car smell.

Of course, if you're armed beforehand with a pricing report and the dealer starts blatantly lying to you, you always have the option of going elsewhere. Gone are the days when the consumer could be treated as a cash cow - dealers need to understand that and treat the buyers with more courtesy and a more grown-up attitude. A lot of them do, but there's still those out there who won't budge from the sticker price and they need to be given a wide berth.

£46bn in tax every year

It's an amazing number, but between road tax, the tax on fuel and the various sales taxes levied on new cars, British drivers pay a total of £46bn every year (source The AA). Divided by the population of the country, it means every man, woman and child pays an average £750 in motoring-related taxes. That's an unfair number because of course not every person in England drives. So if you take the estimated number of drivers (20m) instead of the total population (61.5m), it means every driver pays about £2300 per year in motoring-related taxes. That doesn't include the new 'showroom' tax that was introduced in April this year which adds up to another £515 to the cost of a new car purely in taxes.
For those of us in America, to put that into perspective, it's the equivalent of each of us paying US$3400 in motoring taxes every year.

California wants you to have your own James Bond numberplate

I don't know if you caught this story last week - it did the rounds on some of the tech blogs. California is looking at an idea to issue electronic numberplates that can be changed to show adverts when your car isn't moving. (As if we weren't inundated with adverts on every flat surface already). I'm not sure they've thought this through very well though, because within milliseconds of this technology becoming available, someone will rootkit it and then you'll be able to change your numberplate at will through the resulting hack. Think of the benefits of being able to James-Bond your numberplate! No more speeding tickets from speed cameras. No more fines issued by numberplate recognition cameras. Being able to message the guy behind you that he's a twat. The possibilities are endless.
I'm sure the authorities think they'll be able to come up with a perfectly hack-proof method of creating these electronic numberplates, but then I'm equally sure that nobody involved in this decision process will have been to the DefCon or BlackHat hacker conferences.

Original story from CNN

The Mormon Roadblock

Here in Utah, there's another peculiar local affliction that affects drivers, and we've come to refer to it as the Mormon Roadblock. It's very simple - basically given any number of lanes, you will eventually find yourself stuck behind a mobile roadblock because they just don't like overtaking around here. For example on a 4-lane motorway there will be one driver in each lane, all doing the same speed, each one just slightly over a car length behind the car to their right forming a staggered pattern across all 4 lanes. Nobody will accelerate and overtake, and being today's typical inattentive drivers, none of them will - you know - be considerate and fall back to create a gap. So you're stuck, often for miles on end, following a mobile roadblock because there's no way past.
It's not just motorways - this happens on two-lane roads as well (as in two lanes in each direction). Two drivers, one staggered slightly behind the other, doing the exact same speed.
The longest I've ever been stuck in this situation was last year on a two-lane section of motorway down near Vegas where an old duffer in a Cadillac wouldn't overtake a milk tanker, but instead sat in his blind spot for - wait for it - 25 miles. Eventually the tanker needed to overtake something in the inside lane and just pulled out, forcing the old duffer to react and it cleared the road so the hundreds of cars tailed back behind him could get past.
Once again people - driving mantra. Pay attention - traffic is like a flowing river. When you block it like this, it destroys the flow of traffic.

Also: Don't forget I'm running a competition to win a CarCheckup diagnostic/tracking unit. (Review)

Follow me :-)

A quick break to the normal blog posts. I updated the blog template this week and it seems to have abandoned some of my followers (Silas...?). If you could un-follow and re-follow, all will be well.
Normal service will be resumed with a new motoring blog post on monday :-D

The one-eyed monster

Why are so many motorists so lazy that when a headlight bulb goes out, they don't bother to change it, but instead drive with the one remaining headlight on full beam? At night it's like a one-eyed monster staring you down. It's so bright that it's dangerous to oncoming vehicles and a bloody pain in the arse in the mirrors of others. Are they really that lazy that they can't spend 5 minutes changing a bulb?
I think this is symptomatic of a larger problem nowadays - that people just don't have any pride in their possessions any more, cars being a prime example. So often I see relatively new cars with cracked windscreens, dented and rusted bodywork, broken lights and all manner of other cosmetic issues. If the owners can't be bothered to fix stuff like that, it makes sense why you see so many people driving around with one flat tyre, or tyres with no tread. Cosmetic things are easy to fix, mechanical things take a little more thought and I think people are just too lazy nowadays to do this routine maintenance. A classic example is the person who routinely buys a small bottle of oil "because my engine leaks". Just get the leak fixed! The excuse is always "but that costs money". Really? And all that oil you're buying is free? These drivers spend more money on temporary remedies than it would cost to just get off their lazy backsides and have the problem fixed in the first place.

For this little money, why bother with the warranty?

The horn on my Honda died recently. The car was still very much under warranty - it was only 11 months old at the time. But being a car nut, I took the front bumper off myself (done it before to install foglights) and took the horn out to check it. Yep - dead. The relay worked, I was getting 12v on the power line, but the horn was done for. So I went down to my dealer and ordered a new one - $15. Then the question - 'is this a warranty replacement?'
Well - yes - I suppose so. But it's only $15 and I can do the work myself. Nevertheless, we had to go through the service department to find whether or not I could have the part for free - covered under my factory warranty.
I'm in two minds about this. It seems to be more time and money than it's worth to get Honda to warranty-replace a $15 horn, especially when I can do the work myself. But on the flip side, I'm impressed that they were willing to even talk about warranty replacements given that I'd taken the old one out in the first place.
In the end, I refused and just paid for it myself. I didn't see the point in making Honda spend labour and administration costs to document and replace something so cheap.
I can understand how a lot of people would simply say "But it's nearly new! Let them do the work." But I'm not like that. For the hassle of taking the car in, getting them to diagnose the problem, order the spare, then get the car in again to fit it - that's an hour each time, plus travel to the dealer and back, shipping, labour and administration charges for them. ie. the better part of 4 hours of my time wasted, and probably $300 in labour and associated costs to replace a $15 part.
No - I'll save warranty work for when it's needed - big ticket items.

You're doing it wrong

Not a big post this week, but an amusing picture instead. I saw this a couple of weeks ago. Not quite sure what's going on here but it's a different use for a bike rack....

So I think I can park.

If you've read my site or my blog for any length of time, you'll know I detest people who can't be bothered to either park properly, or learn how to park properly. Just so you know I'm impartial, the VW on the right is mine - very nearly in the parking space. My only excuse? New car - takes a while to get used to.
Now the blue Honda on the left? That guy just drove right in, got out and walked away.

Why Toyota doesn't have an accelerator problem.

There was a very interesting article published in Popular Mechanics May 2010 issue about Toyota's ongoing accelerator and unintended acceleration problems. To boil it down to its essence, Toyota are not the only company that have this problem - they're just the only ones the press are reporting on. In the last year, the NHTSA has registered unintended acceleration complaints with multiple models in all the following manufacturers ranges: General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Honda, Chrysler, Nissan, BMW, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Mazda, Land Rover, Suzuki and Volvo. All of these brands have issued recalls to address the issues.
The article goes into some depth to explain how, for the most part, electrical "gremlins" are all but impossible in throttle-by-wire systems. With multiple redundant systems, failsafes and the basic laws of physics at play, it's 99.99% certain that the problem in all these cases is simple driver error.
The problem of course is that the media, Congress and personal injury lawyers are all now involved like sharks circling a bleeding swimmer. Once public outrage gets involved, science tends to be thrown to the side. There's a calm-headed logical explanation for all these problems and with the exception of a physically sticky accelerator pivot (a mechanical issue) or a floor mat that traps the pedal physically (another mechanical issue), there simply is no problem here. I suspect that Congress and the lawyers will ignore the facts though.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of Popular mechanics, I scanned their article and it's linked here for you to read for yourself. Obviously this is (c) Popular mechanics and is reproduced with Fair Use in mind.
Toyota's accelerator pedal woes

Teaching them young

In the neighbourhood where one of my friends lives, one little girl is well on her way to becoming a statistic. She can't be more than 10 or 11 years old, but her parents have bought her a pink, electric Vespa-style scooter. Fair enough - those things are fun to play on, but this little girl rides her electric scooter on the street. More specifically, all over the street, mostly on the wrong side. She pays no attention to the other traffic and has apparently not developed a sense of self-preservation yet. Her parents clearly don't care about her though - they're never anywhere to be seen. This year things became even worse. Now they've bought her a cellphone, and yes - you've guessed it - now she rides the scooter one-handed, with My Little Cellphone clamped to her ear. So now she weaves in and out of the gutter and all over the wrong side of the road presenting a much larger target to turn into a hood ornament. Now I just want to report her parents to child services for dereliction of duty.

When your mpg really sucks

Since installing the ScanGauge in my daily driver, it's confirmed the fact that cars are at their worst for gas mileage when the engine is cold. My commute isn't even a commute - it's a 10 minute drive. During the week, when the engine never really gets warm, the mpg is abominable on my commute. At lunchtime when we drive out to get something to eat and the engine gets a chance to warm up, it gets much better. At the weekends, when the car is in use all the time, it's great.
So why is this, you ask? Well a number of reasons. When it's cold, it takes more energy just to turn the engine (cold, thick oil for example) plus the engine management system is forcing a richer mixture while the engine warms up. Once everything is up to temperature, the mixture leans off and the oil is warm, then the engine returns much better fuel economy.
My own gas mileage has improved by about 1mpg since installing the ScanGauge. Having a constant readout in front of me makes me consider my driving technique more frequently. That's not a bad thing.

Can't you hear that rattle?

If you're a frequent driver, you'll likely be intimately familiar with how your car sounds on a daily basis. So much so that when a new squeak or rattle becomes audible, you'll notice it and it will annoy you. Most of these noises are fairly innocent - panels rattling or something not fitting quite right because of an extreme temperature change or pothole. My wife always finds it amusing when we're driving along and I'll turn the radio down and say "can you hear that?".
The worst case I ever saw of this was a few years ago. A friend of mine had this problem where his car developed the noise of an aircraft cabin call bell every 30 seconds or so, but only when he was above 70mph. It wasn't as loud as the 'bing' you hear when flying, but it was definitely there. It drove both of us to distraction but apparently me more than him. He ended up selling the car because he could never locate the source of the noise.

Unique GPS or iPhone app?

I was asked a question recently that gave me pause for thought. "Should I buy a designed-for-the car GPS unit, or a GPS app (like the TomTom app) for an iPhone?"
I came to the conclusion that it depends on a number of factors, not least of which whether or not you own an iPhone to start with. Suppose you do - it makes sense not to splash the cash on another GPS device when you already own one. The TomTom app for iPhone is perfectly capable, albeit a little small on the screen. The real issue I suppose would come from those who insist on talking on their phones whilst driving, because no matter which way you look at it, having your phone be your turn-by-turn GPS is mutually exclusive to talking on it. Personally I don't think that's a bad thing. Also, it's one less device to carry around with you.
But what about the tried and true, built-for-the-purpose hardware? Well it's exactly that - built for the purpose. The GPS reception is undeniably more robust and the multichannel receivers are far better than those found in most phones. The screens are typically bigger and more responsive and they normally have removable flash cards for map upgrades. iPhones don't - you're stuck with the onboard memory which limits your choice of maps when it comes down to it.
So which should you buy? Honestly - if you have an iPhone, get the app and be done with it. It's $60. There's just no point in buying a proper GPS for an extra $70. However if you're one of the millions of us who aren't in the Apple camp yet, then a GPS is your best bet because it will work better, and be cheaper than shelling out for a phone, data plan and GPS app.

Fake speed camera slows motorists down.

I don't know if you caught this story recently - fake speed camera slows motorists down. Essentially, retired police officer Bill Angus built a bird box that looks like a generic yellow speed camera, and mounted it on a post in his front garden that looks like a generic speed camera post.
Speed cameras are the scourge of modern motoring, especially in England where they serve no purpose other than to take money off unsuspecting road users. There are plenty of studies that prove they don't work (I even have an entire write-up on this topic on my page speeding facts vs. fiction). For this guy to make his bird box deliberately look like a speed camera is nothing short of a despicable act of hatred towards road users. I'm sure he's very proud of the fact that his deception is slowing motorists down on his street, but he's apparently not very smart. Now he's got national and internet attention, any driver worth his salt will know about this fake box, and simply ignore it. Worse - being in England - the chances of his 'speed camera' being hooped (ringed with an old tyre full of petrol and being set on fire) have gone up tremendously. Now I'm not in PETA or the WWF or any nature-loving organisation for that matter, but even I would frown on destroying the nesting box for a family of birds. The problem is that Mr. Angus is inviting just that by his actions. Mr Angus needs to get some facts about the lack of relationship between speeding and accidents before taking the law into his own hands. He's a retired police officer - he should know better.

The price of motoring in England

If you're reading this in England, then you're all too aware of the price of petrol. But for my readers in other parts of the world, consider yourselves lucky. Remember in 2008 when the price of oil was at an all-time high ($147/barrel), and petrol cost us about $4/gallon in America? At that time, the price of petrol in England was £1.19 per litre - the highest it had ever been. Skip forwards to today when the price of oil is nearly half what it was in 2008 (now $80/barrel), and the price of petrol is now £1.20 per litre. Or to take the maths out of it for you, $6.77/gallon (converted to US gallons). Over 70% of that is tax. The chancellor just added another 3p / litre in tax phased in over the next 10 months, and if you consider the fluctuating cost of oil, by the summer the price of petrol in England is likely to be around £1.30 / litre, or about $7.35 / gallon (if the currency exchange rate stays the same). If you live in London you're doubly screwed because the daily tax to get into the city is £8 (about $12) and if you have actually park, that can easily be another £40 (about $60) a day.
Worst case scenario then - filling up your car could cost £60 a week ($90) and if you work in London, you'll pay £240 (about $360) a week in taxes and parking.
Think about that when we're filling up for $3.50 a gallon and spending 25¢ every 30 minutes in a parking meter.

Banning smoking in cars?

The powers-that-be in the UK are trying to ban smoking in cars now. This is on top of banning eating and drinking whilst driving (which they enforce - ask me how I know) and cellphone use and texting whilst driving (which they don't enforce). It's the epitome of the nanny state; it's deemed unacceptable to have a snack or take a drink while you're driving, but at the same time its perfectly OK to have an onboard computer so complicated that you need a degree to work it (systems as distracting and complicated as BMW's iDrive or Ford's Sync). It seems even heating and A/C controls are no longer straightforward. The rental car I had recently had indistinct digital controls where tactile knobs and dials used to suffice, and an onboard menu-driven setup system more complex than any cellphone I've ever used. Just to tune the radio required navigating through a complex multi-level computer interface that made Microsoft Windows look user-friendly.
You can't ban eating, drinking and smoking in cars in the name of safety whilst ignoring the increasing drive towards super complex user interfaces.

Hertz in the UK - useless.

I don't know why but Hertz's car rental operations in the UK are useless compared to those in America. Without fail, every time I turn up at an airport in the UK, Hertz's first response is "we don't have a car for you". Actually, this time it was a little different - the guy initially told me they didn't have any automatics, which was a complete lie because after 45 minutes of waiting, there was an automatic available for me. Apparently there'd been some issue with the windscreen on the car they had assigned for me, and it had been take out of their fleet. So rather than - you know - sorting out the issue before I arrived, they waited until I was standing at the counter before doing anything about it. The worst part of it was that this was reserved using their Gold counter service. God knows where I'd be if I'd been trying to rent using the normal counter.
The three guys I spoke to were less than useless and in fact the only one who was any help was the courtesy bus driver.
It's the same at Manchester, the same at Gatwick and the same at Heathrow - either their employees are so unwilling to do anything that they're all useless, or the entire Hertz work ethic in the UK is to be as objectionable as possible.
When I travel for pleasure rather than business, I use Avis now - I think it's time to see if I can get my corporate agreement changed to them too because they have always been the complete opposite - they've always had a car, in the class I want, at the spec level I reserved, and have always fallen over themselves to be helpful.

Runaway Prius owner being investigated.

Remember the "runaway" Prius a couple of weeks ago? Turns out the driver, James Sikes, is being investigated now, and has lawyered up. John Gomez, an attorney for Sikes said the failure to repeat the incident is insignificant and not surprising. "They have never been able to replicate an incident of sudden acceleration. Mr. Sikes never had a problem in the three years he owned this vehicle," he said Sunday.
Apparently Sikes has hired the world's dumbest lawyer. By his own admission, the car has had no problem in three years, and now suddenly whilst everyone is kicking Toyota, his Prius has a problem? Sure.
Sikes was faking it and he's been caught. He likely never had a problem with the car but wanted either media attention, or more likely the money he thought he was going to get out of suing Toyota. Obviously he didn't see what happened to the parents of 'balloon boy' ....

Prius's are designed to prevent stuck accelerator problems, and neither their pedal design nor floormat are involved in the Toyota recalls. Both Toyota and the NHTSA spent two days taking that Prius to pieces and there's no evidence of any problem either now or at any point in the past. A Toyota official who was at the inspection last week even explained that one of the drive motors would "completely seize" when the Prius's brake failsafe system kicked in, and there was no evidence to support that happened.
For a Prius to accelerate out of control, at least two systems would have to fail simultaneously; the sensor signal that tracks the brake and gas pedal positions when the driver presses on them and the hybrid control computers. Statistically speaking, that's all but impossible.
Sikes, it turns out, is no stranger to money questions and passing celebrity. According to a Fox news investigation, in 2001, he filed a police report with the Merced County Sheriff's Department for $58,000 in stolen property, including jewelry, a prosumer mini-DV camera and gear, and $24,000 in cash. In 2006 he was on television, winning $55,000 on "The Big Spin." Two years ago, he filed for bankruptcy in San Diego. Documents show he was more than $700,000 in debt and owed Toyota $19000 for his Prius. For someone so savvy, his 911 call raises even more questions. The 911 operator repeatedly told Sikes to put his Prius into neutral during the more than 20 minute call, but he didn't act on her requests, and didn't try it. He said he was afraid it might slip into reverse. Ummm. No. Sorry. You'd need to have the IQ of pocket lint to believe any modern car could "slip into reverse" at 90mph. And even if it could (which it can't) it would certainly stop the car....

I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg - you just know that in a country where the number one method of getting rich quick is a lawsuit, that many of these reported stuck accelerator problems are simply people jumping on the bandwagon hoping for a quick payday.

Lost your car when you parked?

I don't mean to sound mean, but I had no idea there was even a market for this. Eddie Kim created a dead simple Android app for locating your car. Not when it's stolen mind you - simply for when you forgot where you parked. When you park, you tell the app to remember the current GPS location, then it can guide you back there later on.
I'm baffled by this though. Surely if people can't remember where they parked, then how are they going to remember to tell the app where they parked in the first place? I can drop my car in an airport long-term parking lot (you know the type - miles of asphalt with tens of thousands of cars in it) and walk straight back to it a month later. It's not difficult.
Fair play to Mr Kim for making money off his app - that's a great success story - but equally it's a terrible indictment of the human condition that there's even a need for this app. I suppose it goes hand-in-hand with the general malaise that surrounds driving nowadays. People treat driving as right instead of a privilege so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that they forget where they parked their cars.

Android Car Locator app.

Traffic light etiquette

There's a curious affliction that affects some drivers - they slow down when they see a green traffic light. More often than not this means you end up missing the green light because by the time you get there, it's gone red. I know some might argue that they're slowing down in case the light goes red, but that's not really a valid argument. That's like saying that it's OK to start driving through a red light in case it's about to go green. The same people also seem to have a problem when the lights do go red though - they begin to slow down way too early. I had this happen to me a couple of weeks ago. We must have been a good 100m from the lights doing all of 20mph (a dawdler) and they changed to red. Instantly, the brake lights on the car in front came on. Ok I expect people to slow down and stop when they see a red light, but not when they're two blocks away from it traveling at a snail's pace. I wondered if he might have read my blog some months ago where I talked about traffic flowing - about being able to modulate your speed on the approach to a junction but then I remembered that I did not write "jam on the brakes as hard as possible the instant the lights go red".
I think part of the problem is that around here (Utah), a great many people actually drive with their left foot on the brake pedal all the time. It's led to a 'cry wolf' driving situation where a lot of drivers just don't respond to brake lights any more because in a lot of cases they don't mean anything. I've followed people down residential streets and along motorways with their brake lights going on and off at random intervals whilst they weren't slowing down. It's because the brake light switch responds to the slightest pressure on the pedal - the weight of the driver's foot is enough to do it, even though it's not enough to apply the brakes. Now I know from talking to a few drivers who do this that they are under the impression that it makes them a safer driver. Far from it - in fact it makes them one of the most dangerous drivers on the road. They're uncoordinated because they're using two feet, and they create a situation where the traffic behind them is left unable to determine what it is they're trying to do. The brake lights are on but he's accelerating? Once again - learn to drive, and drive predictably. It makes the roads a far safer and less stressful place for the rest of us.

Making a bad junction worse

In a conversation with a friend of mine in the UK this week, I was reminded of an issue which plagues the road system over there - traffic lights on roundabouts. Roundabouts (traffic circles to the Americans) are a very clever intersection design that prevents traffic clogs by allowing the traffic to keep flowing (remember my series of driving mantra - traffic is like a flowing river?). Except that in too many cases now, local councils have littered roundabouts with traffic lights. This negates the whole purpose of the roundabout in the first place, and actually makes the whole junction far worse than it would be just to have traffic lights. Why? Because traffic backs up on the roundabout - stopped by the lights - which blocks the entire junction for those trying to get on or off. Worse - when the lights controlling the flow of traffic on to the roundabout are synchronised with those controlling the flow of traffic off, all it does is result in a constantly moving blockage. Nobody ever gets the chance to get on at the non-light-controlled entries because the roundabout is permanently blocked. This in turn results in huge tailbacks and traffic jams on all the roads leading up to the junction. I remember one on my daily commute when I used to live in England. It was in Bracknell at the end of the A329(M). It was a bloody nightmare because it was always blocked. Even on the motorbike it was hard to thread my way through the traffic. Councils need to learn that they need either traffic lights, or a roundabout, not both.

Stop/start engines

One of the current trends in hybrids and fuel efficient cars are stop/start engines. These are engines that stop automatically when you idle for more than a few seconds, then restart when you step on the accelerator. VW pioneered this in the 1990s with one of their Golf models - I can't remember the name - Ecomotion maybe? The problem at the time was the additional stress on the engine and starter motor resulted in much less longevity for those components. Starters failed after 15,000 miles, engines had excessive wear and various other issues cropped up, all related to the constant stopping and starting of the engine. I'm left wondering if it's really worth it. Are the newer generation stop/start systems that much better? What about all the additional complexity that is required? For example when you stop the engine, you can't stop everything else - heated windows, radios, electric components - windscreen wipers and headlights etc. So you need a hugely uprated electrical system and battery (or batteries). Then there's the heater / air conditioner which run off the coolant fluid or a/c compressor respectively. To compensate for stop/start, you'd need electric a/c and electric heating too. Can all the added weight and complexity really be good for the consumer? Is it reliable?
In Hybrids, it's not an issue - they've been designed from the start to have all these systems running on electric-only if the engine is off. But on non hybrid vehicles it does seem like a lot of complexity for not very much return.

I liked it so much I bought the company.

Well not quite, but nearly. A while back I reviewed the ScanGauge II in-car computer. It hooks up to the OBD-II port on any post-1996 car and gives you all manner of readouts that your car might not otherwise be able to display. (See the Scangauge II review for more info.)
It's taken a while but I finally caved and bought one of these for myself. The original unit was given away in a competition, but I always regretted that. That being said, I make a point of never keeping any of the demo units I get for review. So a couple of weeks ago I parted with my own cold hard cash and bought my own ScanGauge II. It's been doing hard duty in my Honda Element ever since. I'm really glad I bought it. I've got mine reading out water temperature, instantaneous BHP, average MPG and instantaneous MPG. The MPG readouts are particularly interesting. In the same way that Prius owners unwittingly enter into competitions with themselves to get better gas mileage, I've done the same with the Element. The difference is, of course, the info is available to me now where it wasn't before. I'm proud to say I've added 1mpg to my average because of the ScanGauge II readout. Doesn't sound like much but in my boxy Element, that's a 5% improvement.
If you're a car nerd, or just like geeky, techy things, pop over to the review and decide for yourself if it's worth buying one. I would. And did.

A bad year for Toyota

The naysayers have been harking on recently about how the three vehicle recalls for Toyota spell the end for the Japanese manufacturer in America, and how Ford and GM will profit as a result. I doubt it. Have you seen the crap GM are producing? Ford isn't much better and their lot will only improve when the new Focus and Fiesta go on sale.
From Toyota's perspective, rather than letting lawyers and class action suits force them into it, the have (albeit late) acknowledged the problems and done the right thing. The floor mat issue was just silly. The sticky accelerator could be worrisome, but isn't especially dangerous - after all, we all have clutches and neutral positions in the gearbox. The software issue with the brakes on the Prius is more problematic but the scenario where you'd notice it is so remote you could probably own twenty Prius's and never have a hint of a problem.
The real issue here is when transportation ministers go on TV with comments like "if you own a Toyota, don't drive it". The general public seem to need little excuse to panic and reach for the lawyer they have on speed dial as it is. Making a sweeping and clearly false statement like that is known as pouring fuel on the fire. That alone could cause people to stop buying Toyotas and go for other brands. Sadly, that's how knee-jerk the public have become though. If Ford and GM benefit from this, it's not because they have a better product (they clearly don't). It would be because of panicking sheeple acting en-masse.
We need to have a level head here. Is your accelerator pedal sticky or juddery? If you've not noticed and now have to go and consciously go and check, then I guarantee you don't have a problem. Same with the brakes on the Prius - have you had a problem whilst braking on an icy washboard road surface? If you even have to think about an answer, again you're not affected.
Common sense dictates that if you own a Toyota, book it in for the recall, but continue to use it as you always have done in the mean time. If you want to see how this fits into the grand scheme of things, especially compared to the sheer volume of recalls for Ford and GM, check out a vehicle recall list (for example Ohio Lemon Law Recall List).

If you're nervous...

...what are you doing up here?
A couple of weeks ago, on the way back from skiing, we got stuck behind a flatlander who was clearly very, very nervous about mountain driving. She was barely touching 10mph in her minivan, and was driving with her hazard lights on. Even the slightest bend in the road caused the brake lights to come on. Now we have a law here that states that if you're holding up traffic on a mountain road, and there's more than three vehicles behind you, you have to pull over and let them pass. There were plenty of opportunities to pull over, but she ambled past every one of them. In the end, it resulted in people overtaking her in dangerous places, and you'd think she would have got the message when even the ski bus overtook her on a double yellow line. But no - she kept dawdling downhill, and by the time we got to the bottom, there were a good thirty vehicles behind her.
I did briefly consider that it might have been vehicle trouble that was making her drive so slowly, but as soon as we got out on to regular roads, she was off without any hesitation.
In other words she was selfish, irresponsible and unobservant. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know I have very little time for drivers like this.
Use your mirrors. Understand the rules of the road. And if you're heading into territory you're nervous about, then here's an idea: don't go!

Turn left on red?

My final blog post about the recent trip back to England : why aren't they allowed to turn left on red? The equivalent of turning right on red in America? It solves so many congestion issues at junctions and intersections and it's so obvious. Because I now live in America but go back and forth with some regularity, it's always difficult for me to not turn left on red for the first day or so when I go back. I'm so used to doing it at home and it comes so naturally, that I have to think hard to stop myself breaking the law in England. Although having said that there have been several occasions where I've done exactly that - absent-mindedly breezed through a left turn lane on a red light because nothing was coming. Fortunately I've never been spotted doing this by anyone in officialdom but I'm sure it'll happen one of these days.

Lane discipline

My recent trip back to the UK highlighted another foible of the British sensibilities when driving - terrible lane discipline. Technically, you're not allowed to overtake on the inside, but the problem is that people sit in the middle lane even when the inside lane is empty. By doing this, they reduce the carrying capacity of the motorway in that area to 30% or less as everyone queues up behind them trying to get into the outside lane to go past. It was like this up until 2001 when I left the UK and it's been like this every time I go back. At least here in America we're able to overtake on both sides without fear of recrimination. I don't know why that option has never been allowed in England - it would solve the irritation created by centre lane owner-occupiers for good.

38mph

This is a PSA for drivers in England: the speed limit is not 38mph.
I know some of you know this but my driving experience there over the Christmas break leads me to have to point this out. 8, 10 maybe 12 times over 4 days we found ourselves bumbling down a 60mph road at 38mph with no opportunity to overtake. And naturally, as we entered 30mph zones, the car in front carried on at 38mph until we reached the 60mph limit on the other side - where the 38mph dawdle continued.
Now I don't know if this is because people are simply petrified of being caught on one of the tens of thousands of speed cameras, or whether it's that people think that 38mph is just a good all-round speed to travel at.
But I'll say this: it's a good way to cause accidents, because faced with the prospect of 20 to 30 miles behind someone doing 38mph who isn't even towing a caravan, a lot of following drivers take huge risks to get past.
So read the road signs, read the road, take your eyes off the GPS, put the cellphone down and drive faster than 38mph.

The Dakar rally and Robby Gordon

I don't know how many people follow the Dakar rally in America, but it's been spectacular again this year. Set again in Chile and Argentina (because of political unrest in Africa), it's been a mad charge across all sorts of terrain from rocky river beds to soaring sand dunes. The quads, bikes, cars and trucks have all been exciting to watch, as usual. The sense of sportsmanship was alive and well with many riders and drivers stopping at the expense of their stage time to help others out. Early on for example, Luca Manca stopped and gave Marc Coma his rear wheel off his bike. Not on the same team, just because he knew Coma needed it and was angling for a win. Sadly, the very next day, Manca spiralled over the handlebars of his own bike and fractured his skull - that was the end of his rally, but that's what the Dakar is all about; extremes of hardship and victory in equal measures.
With one notable exception - again. American Robby Gordon was brimming with entitlement, assuming he deserved to win. He failed two years ago, he failed last year, and ultimately, he failed this year. He never stopped to help anyone out. He never had a good word to say about any of his competitors. And he always blamed his mechanics or his vehicle for each day's failure. The Dakar is about sportsmanship and a sense of community amongst all the competitors and the huge bivouac or caravan that supports the rally. For the third year in a row, Gordon treated the entire event with a level of contempt that makes me believe he should go home with his tail between his legs and never come back. He's an arrogant S.O.B who has no place in an international sporting event.

Schumacher returns to Formula 1

This is something most Formula 1 fans have been hoping would happen : Michael Schumacher is actually returning to F1. He's signed a one year deal with the new Mercedes factory team to race for them this year. Whilst this is good news in itself, the better side of this story is that we're finally going to get to see Lewis Hamilton race head-to-head with Schumacher - the greatest driver in F1 history. Hamilton is talented - very much so - but he's not had to face a true champion since he joined F1. Sure he's raced against Alonso and Raikkonen, but neither of those drivers really have their hearts in it. Alonso is just a crybaby - always complaining about something - and Raikkonen never really tries (which is why he's out of F1 this year).
So for one, I'm looking forwards to seeing how this pans out. It's a shame Schumacher isn't racing for Ferrari, but it will be interesting to see if he can help Mercedes - a newcomer - to get some decent victories in their first year.

Driving predictability.

We were in the UK for Christmas and it served to remind me the different styles of drivers I see all over the world. Whilst I still maintain that UK drivers are as bad as it gets, at least there's an element of predictable aggression about it. That's what you need when you're driving - predictability. Here in Utah people are so vague and out of it when they're driving that I'm amazed any of them realise they're in a car. Just when you think you've got it nailed down, you find an all-new idiot maneuver that takes you by surprise. Not so much in England any more. Even now, 9 years after leaving, I can predict what 75% of drivers will do long before they do it - as can most UK drivers. The other 25% is the "learning experience" that we all undergo every morning when we get into a car or step on to a motorbike. In Utah it's the opposite - I can barely predict what 10% of these fools will do on any given day, and that I suspect is why they're such dangerous drivers. They're properly random, and in an organised, flowing system like traffic on a road, randomness is the pebble in the stream that causes accidents.
Would I rather drive in England or Utah? Neither. I'd rather drive in Holland where the aggressiveness and predictability are both so high that everyone is almost telepathically connected to everyone else. There, when someone fits their car into the half-car-gap in front of you, it's not a surprise and it's nothing to get bent out of shape about because in a moment's time, they'll be gone again - off in another lane. The most organised chaos I've ever seen? Singapore.
The most disorganised chaos? Malta.
Be predictable, people. It really helps.