Posts Tagged ‘cars’

OK, this isn't my usual sort of post and I'm not trying to be Billy Mays here, but I bought something and tried it and it worked, and that's rare for me when cars are involved. Generally anything more intricate than adjusting the stereo volume bewilders me.

But my brother-in-law, who worked tirelessly — and a wee bit obsessively — to turn my newly bought cheap used car into something worth several times what I paid for it mentioned something I might consider trying on my old and yellowed headlight covers. And since he's spent hours fixing, tightening, or replacing most of the innards of my car for me, I figured I should take some initiative and do something that was supposed to take about 10 minutes. Because that's the kind of self-sacrificing guy I am.

Of course, me being me it took me about 25 minutes, but I didn't actually set fire to anything so I consider it a win.

Crystal View's Headlight Restorer actually freaking works. For about $20 (average retail price around my area) you get some sandpaper, some polishing cloths, some packets of polish and some packets of sealer and in about 5-10 minutes per headlight you get non-yellow, clear headlights. To the right is my car, before and then about a half hour after.

That's it. Not selling it, don't get commissions, and you'll get nothing extra If You Call Now. But if you've heard of this (or similar) stuff and was wondering if it worked, just wanted to let you know it does. Easily.

Friday was an interesting day. And I use the word "interesting" with loaded meaning (couldn't find the right smilie to indicate that, so here we are).

High point: finding out with an hour to spare that I would get to do a phone interview with Joss Whedon. All I really remember was that I was focusing on not sounding like a doofus, my painful discovery that it's a big, big mistake to pound down a large Sprite to calm your nerves when you're afraid to leave the phone long enough to pee, and that when he did call and we talked I sounded like a doofus.

With luck it'll appear online Tuesday and in the paper later in the week. Only really new thing in it that I haven't seen anywhere else: the Dr. Horrible episodes will appear on drhorrible.com pretty close to 12:01 am on their launch dates. Didn't get if it was PST, I'm hoping to hear back about that. My favorite quote was when I was asking about his knack for attracting obsessive fans:

"That’s what I am, that’s what I grew up as. The things I love, I love very hard."

Low point: immediately thereafter, when my car blew a head gasket on the way home and my brother-in-law and I spent four fun-filled hours next to Beville Road trying Bars Head Gasket Fix in the desperate hope that mine had blown in just the right way for this to work and save me many hundreds or thousands of dollars that I don't, strictly speaking, have.

Results: I have an interview which I have now transcribed and will tomorrow edit, modulate, and possibly remaster until I sound like David Attenborough, am now working on my article. Car is running well if not smoothly, the oil has been changed, and we'll see how that goes.

All in all, best thing about the weekend? Watching the little videos Teres took of the concert with our camera, where her fangirl shrieks can plainly be heard over the din. She's been blushing nonstop, I'm working on making one of them my Windows startup noise.

I’ve always been amused at the notion of trading in your car. People actually do that, I’m told, cleaning and painting and fixing up their existing vehicle to get a little money toward the new car they’re eyeing, even though the dealer most likely gauged the worth of their wreck as soon as they pulled into the lot and mentally adjusted his invoices to match before ever strapping on his smile.

Trading in a car, for me, would be an exercise in futility, and I hate exercise. I shed them instead, casting them aside only after I’ve wrung every last ounce of usefulness out of them. Something like a hermit crab whose previous home started smoking and stalling at stoplights.

I’ve rarely stuck with a specific type of vehicle; when you buy based on an immediate need and whatever’s in your pocket by looking over the ads while sitting in your half-ton, still-pinging paperweight, the choice of make, model, or color rarely enters into your figuring. A wheel on at least three corners and some way to make it go and stop more or less on demand would be the high bar, with anything else an optional extra.

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How can you tell if a car was designed for women drivers? The seat covers are machine-washable but you can't open the hood! Ha!

Oh, wait, they're serious.

Next month Volvo will debut their new concept car (industry term meaning "car we'll never actually make but isn't it cool?") designed for and by women, a small and neglected demographic of car buyers that barely makes up half of the world's population. So what do women drivers want?

Easy to clean interiors, intelligently-designed folding rear seats, a race-car-style fuel tank that doesn't use a gas cap, parking-space sensors that tell you if you can fit into a given spot, and plenty of smart and sensible safety features. What'll those wacky chicks think of next?

What got my attention was the lack of a hood, something I'd never before considered to be an optional extra. Apparently women don't want to be bothered with maintenance of any sort so the car keeps track of its own servicing and actually places a wireless call to a local service station when necessary. I'm sure the car monitors weekend sales and compares oil change coupons before it calls, too.

This, to me, is blatantly sexist. I'm just as technically hopeless as any woman, and more than most.

I can operate a car key, inflate tires, and buy gas. I can even add windshield wiper fluid if someone helps me with the funnel. My patented car repair technique requires a stereo that's louder than whatever engine component is about to burst or fall off.

Fortunately I have a brother-in-law who's good with cars and is the finest, smartest, most handsome person I know. This lets me keep my unshakeable, nearly religious belief that once a car is running it should run forever without further attention from me, a belief that began with my first car: a 1982 Chevette that ran for years without any input whatsoever.

My friend Dan experienced this one day after I stopped to buy oil because the little dashboard light wouldn't go off, even when I turned real fast. I checked the oil manually, just to humor him. "See?" I said. "Empty. I'll go–"

"You didn't do that right," said Dan, automotive expert. He checked it himself and we both listened to the sucking sound of my engine frantically trying to draw moisture out of the steel dipstick. There followed a communications breakdown familiar to mechanics the world over.

"Chris, there's no oil in your car."

"I know, that's why I have to buy–"

"Chris!" he said, slowly and carefully, the way you talk someone off a ledge. "There's no oil, in your car!"

"I know," I explained just as slowly. "That's why I–"

"Cars don't go without oil! They don't! They freeze up and die! Or explode!" The fact that my car continued to operate anyway clearly offended Dan, like a NASA scientist who'd just discovered all the stars were just painted on. Meanwhile I put a quart in to make the light go off. Silly Dan. Next he'd tell me cars needed water or something.

He paid attention for the next few months, watching my car thrive without fluids of any kind, and then he borrowed it and drove around the block over and over just to make sure it was capable of running out of gas. It finally sputtered after the needle was buried an inch below the "E," but I'm convinced the car only stopped to make Dan feel better.

Since then no other car has met my expectations, until now. So I think the new Volvo should be marketed to all incompetent drivers, not just women.

Just make sure that when it needs servicing, I can set it to call my brother-in-law.

Like many of you, I drive to work every morning, enjoying the majestic mess of I-4 and the pleasant, welcoming snarl of Daytona Beach's colorful construction areas.

Sure I enjoy it. Don't you? Heavy traffic means lots of cars and bored drivers, and that means nonstop entertainment that's better than any concert and wilder than the MTV Music Awards. And it's free! All you need is a steady driving hand and good eyesight.

Ahead of me this morning was an SUV featuring a live performance of Pink's 'Get The Party Started' by three teenage girls in the back seat. Just before the rest stop I was passed by a carload of business-suited pseudo-rappers. Behind me on Nova Road I could see a middle-aged man singing lustily along with Tina Turner (easily identified by the head-snapping motions). And the only thing separating a wildly gyrating soccer mom I saw yesterday morning and the Billboard Top 50 was actual talent.

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