Car thoughts

[davidn]

I swear to you, I was behind a car with the number plate "CANHAZCHZ" on the way back from work today. But I suppose "TWAT" would be too short for a vehicle registration.

I also finally worked out how to use the cruise control on the car - to cut a long story short, I had been pressing the wrong button every time I'd tried it before. Once you've got it on, you really feel it - it's weirdly like being tugged along on an invisible rope for the first few minutes, and it's nice not to have to worry about accidentally drifting either over or under the speed limit. I'm aware that everyone else has probably had this as standard for the last ten years already, but the last vehicle I drove was a Ford Fiesta from about 1995, and this still hasn't got any less like driving a spaceship by comparison - even having a working headlight alarm frankly feels like a whole new world.

It occurs to me that I've never done anything to the car at all apart from filling it up with petrol occasionally - the last one regularly needed its evaporating brake fluid reservoir topped up or lights replaced. But our current vehicle always tells you exactly how much longer it is before it wants serviced or an oil change, and you can hardly open the bonnet up without getting the dealership to do it for you if you want to keep your warranty - it's not so much driving as moving a computer about, and if that analogy holds true, this one's definitely a Mac.

Comments

[sporty-fox.livejournal.com]

You can do ANYTHING you want to under the bonnet (or anywhere else on the car) as long as the parts and fluids you use meet the criteria and requirements of the manufacturer- the dealer CANNOT void or cancel your warranty for you doing anything under there. In order to do so under the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Act they MUST PROVIDE ALL PARTS AND SERVICES FOR FREE during the life of the warranty.

If you need brake fluid (which, FYI does not evaporate in anything less than years- you had a dangerous leak somewhere that should have been found and fixed) you can use any fluid you want as long as it meets the manufactures rating of DOT3, DOT4, DOT5, etc.

Same with oil- you can use what ever you want as long as it meets the required GL SAE spec. Oil filter, the same. EVERYTHING under the hood that is not covered directly by the warranty can be fixed by you or any mechanic using quality parts and they cannot claim otherwise or deny you warranty service.

In order to not cover a repair the dealer and manufacturer must PROVE that the use of a item or repair was the sole and full cause of the failure. They cannot claim your brand of oil caused your engine to fail. for example, unless they can 100% prove the engine suffered ONLY and SIMPLY an oil caused failure. If you toss a rod yet the rest of the bearings are fine, that was not oil related. Same if a headgasket blows- they cannot claim the use of non dealer antifreeze was the cause if the engine does not show signs of severe corrosion.

[davidn]

This is a post by someone who knows his stuff :)

The brake fluid issue always seemed more worrying to me than it seemed to my parents, who actually owned the car I used that year - not even their mechanic thought it was worth fixing, and just said to top it off a bit every 200 miles(!) I think I must have left a trail of brake fluid all the way from my parents' house to university and back...

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Since you bring up cruise control, I feel the need to ask a question: What model of vehicle do you drive?

I mostly ask due to a recall issue I got nailed with on my Ford Explorer a few years back concerning the cruise control (apparently it could cause the vehicle to catch fire). I never bothered with it, since I don't live in an area where cruise control is practical...then I turned on my turn signal one day and saw a whiff of smoke come out from the emergency light button. (Apparently the recall was issued to fix the multi-function switch that all the controls I just mentioned, plus a few others, are a part of.)

I believe my exact words at that moment were unsuitable for pleasant company.

[davidn]

It's a Honda Fit (or more verbosely, a Honda Fit+Sport+Navi, as seen here) - I haven't heard of any problems with the 2011 variety yet, although I know that earlier models had to be recalled because by some feat of logic, the window switch could catch fire when in contact with too much water. The more electronics there are, the more likely it is that something will go wrong...

Incidentally, if you read through the rest of that tag, you might want to just disregard anything rude that I might have implied about Ford Explorer drivers!

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

Yesterday on the way to work I was behind a car with a Battlestar Galactica decal on their rear window that said GOT CYLON?

Their license plate was "CYLON XD" and it was the first time I've seen an emoticon used on a license plate.

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

While my car seems to know just how long it is until the oil needs to be changed, it still doesn't tell the dealership to stop calling as they decide that "3 months is the standard", despite the fact they know everything else about my car, including the fact that my car has an oil change monitor and I don't drive from out-of-town for work like so many people do these days.

I took the car in recently to get said oilchange done, but as it was getting close to its four-year anniversary, I looked into the things that I neglected to do while the car was out-and-about. As such, I had a fairly nasty bill at the end of it all, and sometimes it makes me somewhat regret buying a new car when I heard that a co-worker bought their first car for less than my total bill that day, and hasn't had to put nearly as much money into keeping it running.

However, on the flip side, I took the car in just under the 60,000km warranty, so at least some of the stuff that needed to be done was covered.

In an actually-related-to-your-post comment, I love the cruise control when I'm taking long trips. it lefts me stretch my legs a little bit, since holding them in that one particular position for an hour is definitely strenuous. But yes, that sudden lurch is a little disconcerting.

[davidn]

The car is still yet to become the huge money sink that everyone warned me it would be, and I'm very glad of that :) I haven't yet had to take it in for servicing - I'm to do that when the oil life indicator reached 15%, and it's going to take a while for it to reach that because my commute is only a couple of miles long (also the reason why I'm spending less than half as much as I had calculated on America's incredibly cheap petrol per month). Though I know from some very knowledgeable and outspoken people (above) that it's still a good idea to do it earlier than normal that first time...