What’s the Best Cross-Country Beater?

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Is this even a debatable question? Jalopnik asks, and then answers its own question of what’s the best, cheap car to ride across the country this summer:

Though we’ll always answer Volvo 240 wagon when it comes to reliability, a working wagon with A/C is getting somewhat harder to find.

This makes me feel a little better about all the money I dumped into my AC last year. My brick is now a rare find.

But ultimately Jalopnik decides the brick just doesn’t make the grade and instead choose the Subaru Forester. Be sure to add your answers.

The Maintenance Never Ends

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I brought the Brick in for an oil change last week and got the inevitable list of problems that always happens when the car gets put on a lift at a garage. I knew I needed new wheel bearings and tires, but didn’t count on needing new brakes.

I changed the pads about 20k miles ago with some nice PBR Deluxe Organic pads. At the time I decided against changing the rotors. Now I need to go in and change the pads again because the rotors are worn out and need to be replaced.

The garage quoted $695 for pads, rotors and front wheel bearings. This included $180 for labor. I’m looking at parts costing about $250. Since I’ve done the pads before I know what to expect. Hopefully it’ll be easier this time because I cleaned the rust off. I’ll be sure to document.

The Meaning of the Family Truckster

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Car Lust does a great analysis of the failures of the US auto industry by spotlighting the Family Truckster, the monster wagon driven by Chevy Chase in 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation. The author deconstructs the satire in 3 simple points:

  • American cars of the era were badly overstyled
  • American cars of the era were poorly engineered and put-together
  • American cars of the era were inferior to their simpler predecessors

He contends that the demise of Clark Griswold is directly related to the purchase of the Truckster. The car is intrinsically evil and he goes so far as to compare it to the precious ring from Lord of the Rings:

Griswold is almost unrecognizable from his pre-movie state–he had descended into a plane of irrationality, immorality, and rationalizing reminiscent of, say, a serious drug user. Again, the One Ring’s slow, deleterious effects on its bearers can serve as an example. While the Truckster’s effects appear to be similar to the Ring’s, the Truckster actually appears to be much more powerful. The Ring took years to twist its bearers, but the Truckster ruined Griswold’s life within a week and left an elderly woman and a dog dead in its wake.

Rather than dropping the wagon into Mt. Doom, however, we now have a loving reproduction that pulls 14.9 second quarter mile times.

Roughing it in her BMW

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220-usedThe NY Times, in another attempt to elicit sympathy for the poor people who drive used cars, profiles Ryan Moore of Los Angeles. She’s hunkering down in this tough economy by holding onto her current vehicle and riding out the recession.

The car she’s stuck with? A 2004 BMX X3 with 25,000 miles on it.

A few months ago, Ms. Moore worried that the cost of maintaining her 2004 BMW X3 would rise because the warranty had expired. She looked at trading it in and buying a new Infiniti EX35. But the money she was offered for the X3 was well below what she had hoped. So she held on to her BMW, which has 25,000 miles on it.

“Basically, my story is just one of excess versus caution,” Ms. Moore said. “I don’t need a new car. I’ve decided to wait out the storm, not get into any debt and hope I still have a job in a month.”

Am I to understand that the build quality of this Bavarian crossover is so poor that you wouldn’t want to own one out of warranty? That a woman who is currently employed and could afford a $30,000 car 4 years ago is now roughing it by keeping her car? I’m mystified that people think driving anything other than a new car is a form of sacrifice.

Parking In Hoboken

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streetcleaner

I got another parking ticket from the city of Hoboken this week. It’s a bi-monthly occurance for me, as I forget the street cleaning rules every so often and wind up covering a dirty patch of asphalt on an otherwise sparkling road.

Street parking is a huge issue in Hoboken, NJ, as it is in many cities around the world. When people live in homes that are stacked atop each other there just isn’t enough square feet of street to accommodate their steel and rubber vehicles. Garages spots here go for almost $300… if you can find them. Waiting lists are years long and if you get into the notorious Robotic Parking garage you may never get your car back or it may be signifigantly damaged.

From the NY Times:

The motive is unclear. The weapon is a mystery. But what is certain is that what is being called the country’s first fully automated parking garage has already claimed two victims, most recently on Oct. 16, when the $12 million garage sent a Jeep Wrangler plummeting four stories to its demise… In February 2004, a Cadillac DeVille fell and crashed in the same garage here at 916 Garden Street.

Some people in the city take liberties with the no parking zones near intersections, but this makes the crosswalks incredibly dangerous, as you have to walk into the road and can barely see oncoming traffic. Pushing your kids across the street in a stroller becomes next to impossible when a hulking SUV blocks your vision. The Hoboken Parking Authority was recently called out on NPRs “This American Life” for inconsistent parking enforcement. Host Ira Glass interviews “Kathy”, a vigilante parking enforcer who confronts a city employee who parks in a crosswalk. I wonder if it was the employee who wrote my ticket.

Driving Distracted

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As often happens when I’m driving with the kids, one of them started getting carsick. When someone in the back seat is gagging and spraying all over my luxurious vinyl interior it’s pretty tough to concentrate on driving. I pulled over to the side of the road.

Claire was fine, but it got me thinking about something I’d read in the book “Traffic” and on the author Tom Vanderbilt’s blog, How We Drive. He writes about the dangers of driving while talking on the cell phone and I had a hard time understanding the difference between talking on the phone and talking to a passenger. Dialing the phone could also be compared to fiddling with the radio or GPS. Why do cell phones pose a distinct hazard that those other activities don’t?

An article in the Washington Post cites research:

A 1997 study in the New England Journal of Medicine and a
report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in 2005 found
drivers who use cell phones while driving were four times more likely
to be in a crash.

Hands-free devices may also cause a hazard, Froetscher added. A
study by researchers at the University of Utah found no difference in
driver concentration between using hand-held or hands-free devices. In
fact, talking to a passenger while driving is much safer than talking
on a cell phone, the Utah researchers noted.

I assume the reason is a matter of context. The passenger riding shotgun is experiencing traffic along with you. This means they see and hear what you hear, and adjust their conversation accordingly. They may even notice and point out things you haven’t. If it’s your mom, she may even slam hard on the passenger brake, signaling her dissatisfaction with your hoonage.

The National Safety Council backs this up:

“When you’re on a call, even if both hands are on the wheel, your head is in the call, and not on your driving,”
Froetscher said. “Unlike the passenger sitting next to you, the person on the other end of the call is oblivious to
your driving conditions. The passenger provides another pair of eyes on the road.”

My puking kids don’t have that ability, however. I’ll have to continue to resort to pulling over and grabbing a towel and spare pants from the trunk.