Auto stop start

I recently rented a car that had one of those auto stop-start systems on it for fuel efficiency. The idea is that when you're stopped, the engine turns off and then as you get ready to move off, the engine starts again. The car I was driving was a manual so the system keyed off the clutch pedal. When I was stopped, if the car was in neutral and I took my foot off the clutch, the engine stopped. The first time this happened I panicked and put my foot on the clutch and turned the key to re-start the engine as I assumed it had stalled. Of course as soon as I pushed the clutch down, the engine started itself so by the time I turned the key, I got that awful "you're killing your engine" noise you get when the starter tries to engage with a running engine. That noise made me take my foot off the clutch again so then the engine stopped again. It took me one complete green cycle of the traffic lights, parked with the hazard lights on, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. In the end I found the "off" button to turn the stupid function off completely but in this particular car it reset to "on" every time the car was parked. If you're a regular reader you'll know I despise in-car gadgets like this and auto stop-start has shot right into the top three of my most hated functions now, right next to auto lights and auto wipers. It's a pointless system that wastes more petrol than it saves (according to Auto Express and Motor Trend at least), and certainly induces far more stress on the engine's starter than it needs to. The additional complexity in wiring, sensors and ECU coding seems illogical and unnecessary too and it strikes me that on cars fitted with this system, we can probably guess with 100% accuracy what the first thing will be to fail. Either the stop start function, or the starter motor itself. Fortunately this particular car was a VW Golf and because of the ready availability of products like the VAGCOM (which I already own for my Tiguan) it would be child's play to turn this function off for good.

Going way back

Ever heard of the internet time machine? It's a project that archives websites pretty much forever. Long before I had the carbibles domain name, the earliest versions of this site were hosted at Geocities. I've used the internet time machine on a couple of occasions to defend my copyright - people who claim they wrote articles that were mine - and I can always pre-date them using this service. For example one of the earliest versions of the engine oil bible is here : internet time machine
Before the site was on geocities, I had it piggybacked off the server of a company I used to work for and those pages go back to 1994. I'm still trying to dig out a copy of those. I always find it interesting to go back that far in time and see how the site has evolved, how opinions have changed and how the various articles have matured and been refined by more up to date information and input from people with more knowledge than me. But one thing is clear - there will always be motorheads and car nuts, bikers of all sorts, greasemonkeys and people for whom their vehicle is simply a way of getting from A to B. I try to make my site enjoyable for everyone - hope you still like it.

Do your 12v electrical work properly.

If you've ever dabbled in 12v electrics in your car, you've probably come across one of the enemies of electrical systems - the spiteful little piece of metal and plastic known as the scotchlock connector.

These things are marketed as the saviour of wiring for people who like to do their own modifications. The idea is simple. If you want to splice two wires together, and one of them is an existing wire (like a +12v line, you can use one of these connectors. One side snaps over the existing wire, and the new wire goes into the other side. When you crimp the metal piece it pierces the insulation on both wires and makes an electrical connection. Clip the plastic snap closed and you're done, right? Well - for now. But later on, that connection will fail in all manner of creative ways and you'll be left with nothing but trouble which, for the most part, will be very hard to track down. Scotchlock connectors need to burn in hell.
If you're going to do your own electrical work in your car, do it properly. Use bullet connectors or crimp connectors if you're cutting and splicing wiring. They're just as easy to use as scotchlocks but they're a thousand times more reliable. You need to invest in a crimp tool - looks like a pair of pliers with notches in the jaws - because pliers won't crimp the electrical connection properly. But the end result is secure wiring that won't vibrate or pull apart and won't create electrical problems further down the line. Everything from engines that won't start, to flickering lights, to fried engine management computers to non-working instruments. I've seen all these things caused by sketchy wiring from people trying to scotchlock a new radio into their car.

The attraction of Scotchlock connectors is that you don't need to cut the vehicle's original wiring to splice lines together to make a Y-connection. In reality you are cutting the wiring though, because of the metal blade inside the connector. So given that, just cut the wiring and do it properly. Take one end of the cut wiring and the new wire, and crimp them together into one end of the bullet connector, and take the other end of the cut wiring and crimp it into the other connector. Simple - that's a Y-connection. Clip the two connectors together and you're done. For connections that don't need to be taken apart again, you can use an even simpler crimp connector and just stuff two wires in one end and one in the other.

It goes without saying that any work you do on the electrical system is best done with the battery disconnected. Although if you're the type that uses scotchlock connectors, chances are you never figured out to disconnect the battery in the first place.

Anti motorcycle bias runs deep

A reader sent me a link to the video below last week and it just made my blood boil. The essence of this ad is that the reason the rider died is because he was going 8kmh above the speed limit. Watch the video and tell me how, in any way shape or form, the blame for this "reconstruction" cannot be placed squarely on the car driver? This accident wasn't caused by speed - speed wasn't even a factor.
In the distance they mention (30m), doing the physics of time and distance shows that even an 8kmh drop in the speed (down to the posted limit) wouldn't have prevented this accident. The motorcyclist would have arrived at the car 0.2 seconds later if he'd been doing 60kmh and at the speed the car was moving, it would have been the difference between hitting the centre of the door and the side of the door. Not hitting the centre of the door and missing the car entirely.
(For the curious, 68kmh is 18.8m/s and 60kmh is 16.6m/s. Over 30m, the time difference is 0.2 seconds)
This was caused by an idiot car driver who pulled out without looking yet no mention is made of that in the ad. Instead they choose to peddle the same tired old scratched record about "speed kills". That message is so passe and has been disproved so many times I'm surprised anyone can still say it with a straight face. When this sort of rampant bias is displayed by the police towards motorcyclists, it's not hard to understand why motorcyclists hate the police in return. I think it's shameful that the Victoria police force should put this ad out, and judging by the comments on the youtube video, I'm not the only one.
Here's what the ad should have said : "let's change one thing - let's make the driver of the car look before pulling out." Or alternatively "let's change one thing - let's send the driver to jail for manslaughter". This sort of crap makes my blood boil.

Jeep Compass Euro NCAP ratings - 2 stars

Euro NCAP recently published their crash test results for the 2012 Jeep Compass - scoring a lowly 23% overall and an overall crash safety score of just 2 stars. This raises and interesting point: in this day and age when vehicles regularly get 4 and 5 star ratings (it's almost routine), it would seem a manufacturer would have to go out of their way to build a vehicle this poor. Chrysler must have known it would perform badly from early on in the design process. The design software used to do stress analysis on CAD designs would have shown up the failure before a single robot had touched a piece of sheet metal. Yet it would seem they carried on and manufactured the Compass anyway, which speaks volumes about how much contempt Chrysler has for its customers. Bear in mind they're one of the manufacturers who went cap-in-hand to the Bush regime looking for a bailout. In Chrysler's case it was $12.5bn (yes, with a "B") - a deal that ultimately cost the taxpayers $1.3bn in lost costs. You'd think given their patchy history, Chrysler would be a little more careful with their products but it seems they have learned nothing. Not only is the Compass just plain ugly (and trust me, having owned two Honda Elements, I'm well qualified to talk about ugly vehicles), but now it turns out it's less than stellar in a crash. The real question now is how much will it sell? Jeep die-hards will likely overlook the Euro NCAP ratings and buy one anyway, but people who do their research and put stock and trust in the ratings of agencies like Euro NCAP, the IIHS or the NHTSA will steer well clear of it.
Another interesting point to note : the IIHS haven't rated the 2012 Compass and the NHTSA have only rated it for rollover, not crash safety. The last time either organisation tested it for crash performance was 2007 where it scored 4 and 5 stars. How is it possible that the scores in the US are so high and those in Europe are so low? Is it because of design changes between 2007 and 2012 (it's been made worse) or is it because of differences in the testing processes? Jeep Compass Euro NCAP 2 star crash rating

EPA Approves E15 petrol for the USA

Back in February 2011, the US House overwhelmingly voted to block the sale of E15 fuel in America. For the uninitiated, E15 is a version of petrol that is blended with ethanol - in this case 15% ethanol. The argument for E15 fuel is that it will help reduce the US's dependence on foreign oil. However it comes with a downside - it's corrosive and will only work in some vehicles sold after 2007 - earlier models will have problems with the seals and fuel lines. (The EPA claim the restriction is for vehicles sold after 2001). In addition, it reduces the overall efficiency of internal combustion engines. Because E15 has less energy per volume than E10 (what we're forced to use right now) and just plain old petrol, that translates to lower gas mileage. Lower gas mileage results in more fill-ups which means more money for the big oil companies. Many car manufacturers have gone so far as to say that if you do use E15, you'll void your factory warranty on fuel-line components and the engine itself.
If you prefer not to use the current E10 blend (and who would blame you), you can find a list of gas stations near you (if you live in the US) that still sell unpolluted petrol. I know in my current VW, when I run it on unblended premium, I get an average 2.5mpg more than with E10 and the engine runs a lot smoother. Find the list here, but be warned it gets smaller by the day: Pure gas. You can read the EPA press release on E15 here: EPA approves E15 gasoline.