Category: automotive

General Tire AltiMAX Arctic Snow Tires

Published December 11, 2011

Having some time this evening I fitted the snow tires to my car. Purchased from Tire Rack, I ended up with a set of General AltiMAX Arctic snow tires on steel rims in 195/65R15 size. This is slightly narrower and with a taller sidewall than the original tires, but conveniently one of the spec sizes on the slightly lower model of Civic, which makes pressure selection a piece of cake and left me with little doubt that they’d be a decent fit for the car.

These tires were mentioned to me by a couple friends, and they are Consumer Reports #2 snow tire pick, just behind some that cost almost 80% more. Delivered just a few days after ordering (albeit with the lug nuts coming a week later due to a order packing screwup) they were here quite quickly and ready to go.

Installation went smoothly, and with the purchase of a breaker bar, proper size sockets, and a torque wrench I had all the tools needed to make the installation go smoothly. I had a slight issue jacking up the rear of the car which necessitated some oak blocks to extend the reach of the floor jack, but once on the jack stands everything went smoothly. The old wheels came off with little effort thanks to the 18″ breaker bar, the new ones seated nicely, the lug nuts snugged up evenly, and torquing them evenly (once the car was back on the ground, of course) took just a bit of time with the wrench.

The test ride around the area went well, and while I can hear a bit more road noise that’s to be expected from the heavily siped tires. I’ve now got the car sitting outside overnight so the tires can cool to ambient temperature. Come morning I’ll fill them to specified pressure and they should be good for a while, or at least until we get down near single digit temperatures.

Now to wait for some snow and ice… It’s too bad this week has a forecast for rain and higher temps. Maybe I should have waited before putting them on. Oh well.

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Wrong Size Car Battery

Published October 23, 2011

A not-starting car this afternoon led me to purchase a new battery† on the way home from today’s bike riding. Unfortunately, when I went to install it I found that the part spec’d by O’Reilly Auto Parts to fit a 2006 Honda Civic EX, Super Start Battery #35-72 doesn’t quite fit. The photo above shows why, and after reading a bit it appears that I need a Group Size 51R battery and this 35-72 is something else. I’m not quite sure what size it is, but it’s definitely not 51R.

Unfortunately I found this at 8:51pm and Danielle and I weren’t able to make it there before they closed. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it sorted out in the morning. I’m tempted to return it and go to another (more proper) auto parts place. I would have gone somewhere else to purchase it, but at 7:30pm on a Sunday night O’Reilly was the only place open. For now, I’ve got no usable car.

† After sitting in the car listening to my iPod and charging my phone for ~30 minutes I left the car. Upon returning it wouldn’t start with typical low-battery signs. Nothing had been left on and a jump got things running, and as it’d been a bit questionable for a while (power windows are sluggish after the car is shut off, occasional not-quite-starting last winter) I feel it’s time for a new one.

UPDATE: According to the person at the O’Reilly “…they put the two-door battery in your car…”. I don’t really believe this, but the end result was me obtaining the right battery and dropping it into the car took less than five minutes. Everything is now sorted.

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1up USA Quik-Rack Fat Tire Spacer Kit

Published October 18, 2011

While waiting for my Salsa Mukluk 2 to ship I’ve been slowly picking up the various accessories I’ll need for it. This is one of them, the spacer kit to make my bike rack, a 1up USA Quik-Rack support fat tire bikes. Since I don’t yet have a need to carry the bike I haven’t installed it yet, but hopefully that’ll happen soon. I’ve got a few concerns about how well the rack will work for non-fat bikes after fitting the kit, since it might not hold the wheel as securely, but if I have to slightly augment the now-wider rack to accommodate smaller tires that won’t be a huge problem.

This kit cost US$29 shipped and while I likely could have fashioned something similar for a bit cheaper, it would have taken a fair bit of work. Purchasing this kit saved me a bit of time and allowed me to get something ready to go which is known to fit. Now I just need to get the bike…

UPDATE: The kit has been installed, and it works quite well. This photo shows the expanded rack easily holding a Salsa Mukluk 2 (Surly Rolling Darryl / Larry front wheel). The only disappointing part is that the Fat Tire Spacer Kit did not come with a wider anti-rattle band for one of the spacers. Instead the previous band must be reused, and it doesn’t fill the space nicely (photo).

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Corporate Fanboyism

Published March 5, 2011

Driving home on I-75 in Detroit yesterday I saw this vehicle (black Saturn VUE, Michigan BWB 0564), driven by a 50-ish man with grey hair, grey beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and a flannel shirt bearing some rather interesting hand-written slogans on the windows. The ones shown here are:

TRY PAYING
BILLS & TAXES
WITH FOREIGN
$
BUY AMERICAN OR GOOD BYE!

and

FOREIGN CAR
DRIVERS NEED
2-B HOMELESS
+
JOBLESS

The rear window had something about cell phones similar to the Shut Up, Hang Up, and Drive bumper stickers.

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2011 North American International Auto Show

Published January 20, 2011

After leaving work today at the RenCen I hopped on the the nation’s stupidest public transport system to visit the North American International Auto Show. I was originally planning on going with some new coworkers during the day, but actual work got in the way of that so I decided to go by myself afterward.

The show was as expected, but worth the $12 admission as I got to wander around and look at interesting things, ride in a Chevy Volt on a small indoor test track in the basement, see a microscope that I would really like to have (a Vision Engineering Lynx Dynascope), and the smart fortwo seen above showing off it’s incredible strength by holding up a (52.2 lb) Magna Excitor 2x Dual Suspension not-for-off-road-use Terrain Bike.

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Non-Winning AUTO-intelliKEY Teardown

Published December 30, 2010

This is a non-winning AUTO-intelliKEY, a fake key-shaped vehicle remote sent out as a promotion by a local Kia dealer to try and get people into the store. Apparently some of these keys will actually active different locks on some vehicles, and those specific keys win prizes. This photo shows the inside of the unit, with just some metal domes where contacts would otherwise be and no other electronics. Thus this key doesn’t work and is not a winner.

The flier that this was mailed on also includes a scratch-off number and barcode, all of which offer other prizes that must be checked at the dealership. Since I’m not going to be visiting the dealer to check on the state of these numbers then I guess I’m just like the poor souls who failed to claim a $30,000 cash prizes (Lisa C.) and a new vehicle (Lorayne D.).

If you’d like to see some more photos of the AUTO-intelliKEY teardown, take a look here.

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Pontiac Has Terrible Roads

Published December 14, 2010

Pontiac is the first town in which I’ve worked where I also have to pay a city income tax. It is also the worst city I’ve had to deal with road-wise. Two days after a moderate winter snowfall there is still an inch of ice on all roads making even the most gradual uphill difficult to drive. Pulling away from a stoplight is almost always a matter of frustration involving 10-15 seconds of figuring out how to acquire traction.

Maybe I should just buy myself some snow tires. It’d make driving (all around) much nicer during winter.

(Another road photo, and a view from near my new desk on Monday.)

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Driving Skill and CR2032 Batteries in Short Supply

Published November 22, 2010

Admittedly this is a poor photo, but I didn’t want to get too close to the people working to remove this vehicle from the curb on which it was stuck. Apparently a driver with a handicapped license plate drove over the curb of the Walgreens at 21 Mile and Hayes, solidly lodging their car on a parking divider with the front (drive) wheels hanging in the air. Some people were working on removing it by jacking the rear of the vehicle up in the air to try and make the front wheels contact the ground.

I’d come across this scene while stopping in search of CR2032 batteries, as the local Target and Meijer are both sold out. I can only surmise that there is either a supply issue or there is some hot new consumer device which requires them.

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Big, Heavy Rock

Published September 26, 2010

In the grass at the end of the driveway leading to my condo is a rock. It sits on the dirt and grass along side the pavement as a negative deterrence designed to keep people from cutting the corner and driving on the lawn. Whenever this rock isn’t moved back people will cut the corner, driving on the grass and killing it.

Some time between noon and 5pm today someone didn’t pay enough attention to where they were putting their car, cut the corner, and dragged the rock to the next driveway before pushing it out of the road. Due to the intensity of the scratches on the road surface I suspect it was stuck under the car, likely somewhere along the rear end as people tend to cut the corner sharply and hit the grass with their rear right side tire.

Hopefully next time they’ll pay more attention to where they are putting their car when leaving the driveway. I’ll put it back in place later this evening when I take out the trash.

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Evaporated Filament

Published September 18, 2010

Today I replaced the headlights in my 2006 Honda Civic EX. As one had burned out I figured it was best to replace them both to ensure matching color. I hadn’t had to replace a headlight bulb yet in this car, and it turns out that to do so one must turn the front wheel and pull back some of the plastic flashing inside the wheel well. This required removing five plastic trim clips, but was otherwise quite easy. It was easier than the headlight assembly removal that I’ve had to do on both Danielle’s car and my old Pontiac Grand Am, with the biggest downside being dirty hands and having to turn the front wheels between sides.

The burnt out 9006 bulb that prompted this work can be seen above. At the bottom of the image the glass bulb housing is clouded with evaporated filament. This part of the bulb is at the top when installed, so when the bulb burnt out the gaseous metal from the gap in the filament condensed on this part of the glass, clouding it in a manner not unlike how mirrored sunglasses are made.

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