Car Stuff, Mostly

[img src="00311--dsc06262smallbrighttwo--20030729-2359.jpg" width=400 height=348 align=left clear=all]
That’s the little bugger that woke me up at some obscene hour this morning.  It’s the tiny piezo speaker from the UPS that powers my computers when the electricity goes out.  Unfortunately, when that happens, it makes an obnoxious beeping noise to tell you that the electricity is out.  So around 1:30am, that’s what happened.

Not anymore.  I desoldered that punk from the circuit board inside the UPS.  So next time the power goes out for 4 or 6 or 8 hours (which will be any day now, I’ve no doubt), the UPS can die a nice, silent death.

Soon I’m just gonna build one of these guys for all my energy needs.  Two megawatts of free and tasty solar power.  Projects like that are so exciting.  There is so much free energy hitting the earth every second from the sun, it’s ridiculous, and bunches more free energy just blowing around in the wind.  I’m not anything like an environmentalist, it’s just that all this other energy is free, all around us, and it’s frustrating to know that the technology isn’t yet there to utilize it to its full potential.

So today my car was in the shop for regularly scheduled maintenance.  The 60,000 mile one, to be exact, except I forgot about it before and Golfy now has 69,000 miles on him.  So I suppose it’s my fault that my brake rotors needed replacing, though I can’t say I’m entirely convinced that before those 9000 miles, only the pads were wearing.  In any case, it cost me $700 for parts and labor for all 4 wheels.  Which is a little steep, since it’s a Porsche/Audi/VW dealer and not just a regular old body shop, but I asked around and most people were saying that $500-$600 is normal for new brakes on all 4 wheels.  And everyone seems to agree that it’s amazing that I got 69,000 miles out of a single set of pads/rotors.  (And my office mate suggested that I ask if they can grind the rotors down, instead of replacing them, but the VW repair guy told me that on most new cars, they make the pads very thin -- "just over spec," so that once they’re worn, they’re too thin to grind down because there just isn’t enough material left, and they also start to warp because they heat up more when they’re that thin.  He said they actually don’t even have a machine to do that anymore.)

Let me just say that VW design engineers are amazing, but VW repair guys are as incompetent as most auto repair guys seem to be.  The last time I took my car in for maintenance, they broke my stereo, and this time, as my mom was driving it home from the dealer (my mom took it in, so I didn’t have to take a day off of work), the "check engine" light came on!  Ridiculous.

So I drove my mom’s Chevy Impala today.  It’s a pretty nice car.  With a sunroof.  But I can’t stand driving a car without tight steering and without ~sports suspension.  The Impala drives a lot like the Lincoln Town Car we used to have -- it drives like a "luxury car."  It feels like you’re floating when you drive it.  It’s like the interface between the gas pedal and the engine, and the interface between the wheels and the chassis, are made of Jello.  You know there’s some sort of interface there, but you can’t quite figure it out; it’s not anything like real-time nor direct.  You feel completely isolated from the road, and have very little sense of control.

Oh, and it’s an automatic.  It was all I could do to stay awake while driving it.  It’s just so boring.  Fortunately, if you actually press the gas pedal hard, the car goes into a brief convulsion as the engine downshifts, and you get jolted around in your seat as you nearly swerve off the road... so that kept me mostly awake.

Posted by Anthony on 10 replies

Comments:

01. Jul 30, 2003 at 5:20am by andy:

i take it because your car is leased you can’t work on it yourself?  rotors and pads replaced on your own is less than or around a hundred bucks unless you have 4 wheel disc.  just put tape over the piezo, still audible but not as obnoxious =)  (well pointless to suggest that now i guess)

02. Jul 30, 2003 at 11:01am by Anthony:

Actually, there is no restriction that prohibits my working on it myself.  But I don’t have the knowledge/experience to be able to replace brakes and rotors, much less the time or desire to.  And my brakes are disc brakes... I checked the AAP website, and rotors are $40-$60 each (unless you get the bottom-of-the-line ones for $30), and pads are just a little less than that.  So you’re still talking $300-$400 in parts, in addition to the $170 it costs me to take a day off of work to do it (or the "free time" it would cost me, such time being ~nonexistent, and therefore ~infinitely more valuable)... and that’s assuming I know how to actually perform the operation, which I don’t.

Oh, and I tried the tape-over-the-piezo-hole thing before.  It was obnoxious with the tape.  Those tiny things are just too powerful for their own good.  Terrible.

03. Jul 30, 2003 at 11:45am by Anthony:

And man, 5:20am... what is your problem... go to bed!

Or actually.... maybe I should just get YOU to do my brakes : )

04. Jul 30, 2003 at 11:25pm by *amanda*:

If you had an American car........

05. Jul 31, 2003 at 1:11am by Anthony:

........then I wouldn’t have a Volkswagen, and that is not acceptable.

06. Jul 31, 2003 at 2:12am by *amanda*:

The engineer in me (particularly the *Michigan*-educated engineer) rebels at the very thought!

07. Jul 31, 2003 at 10:11am by Anthony:

A 4-year-old VW retains close to 3/4 of its original value, whereas the majority of 4-year-old American-made cars retain less than 1/2 -- often, much less than 1/2.  Sadly, the automotive engineering that comes out of Michigan just isn’t very good.

Granted, that could be because many/most Americans want "cheap" and don’t care so much about "good."  But whatever the reason, American cars just don’t stack up very well against foreign cars in the quality department.

08. Jul 31, 2003 at 9:01pm by andy:

granted for my crappy toyota i don’t buy expensive parts but, it was $60 for pads and rotors, and i’d imagine rear rotors and pads can go much longer due to less usage, maybe i’m wrong.  never had a 4 wheel disc car.

also you of all people, who puts a computer in your car with an lcd display and programs it yourself, have no excuse for not figuring out how to change pads and rotors.  it’s NOT that hard...

09. Jul 31, 2003 at 11:18pm by Anthony:

Well yeah, if you buy cheap parts, of course they’re not as expensive.... but yeah, as I said, the discs on the AAP site were a lot more than that.  And at the dealer they’re using OEM parts, so a little more still.  I did get 70,000 miles out of mine, and I highly doubt that you’d get that out of pads and rotors that are $15 each or whatever.

But regardless of price, I have no desire to learn how to change brake pads, nor to spend the time doing it.  Because first of all, designing and coding a computer to play mp3s in your car is geeky and high-tech and exciting... changing brakes -- or any car part, for that matter -- is, well, not.  And second, my brother is a gear-head, he has his own engine lift for goodness’ sakes, and he had a lot of trouble changing the brakes on his car.  If it was hard for him, I’m sure it won’t be easy for me, and I don’t want to do it to begin with.

I understand that for some people, stuff like that is fun or whatever, but for me it’s not.

And not to mention the fact that if I make a mistake programming my car mp3 player, it won’t seriously endanger my life or the lives of any passengers / other drivers on the road.

10. Aug 2, 2003 at 12:08am by *amanda*:

>Sadly, the automotive engineering that comes out of Michigan just isn’t very
>good.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but defend it.  And I think you’re being way too harsh.  My parents always buy Chryslers, and they buy them new, with cash, and drive them until they die.  And that’s a long time unless one of their children totals the car. :-)  But even if you were right, that Michigan engineering isn’t good, I hope that my classmates will change all that. <bows>

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