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Thanks a lot, Honda, for protecting my battery with this impossible-to-remove terminal cover. I finally pried the damn thing off, which was kind of hard on the plastic cover. But I think it came with the battery, which is clearly toast, so who cares? Now that it's off I can see the hard plastic clips that you are supposed to depress simultaneously on both sides of the battery cover to release it, but now it's kind of too late, right?
Once that was out of the way, I just clamped the little charger on the terminals and all of the dashboard lights came on and the door beeper started complaining that there was a key in the ignition. One turn of the key and the car came alive. Amazingly, considering how dead the battery had seemed, it had not lost the clock settings. I let it run for 20 minutes, but I don't know if it will take a lasting charge. Either way, it should start once. And after that, if necessary, I can restart it easily with the little jump starter.
Can anybody recommend a drive-in battery store?
Projects for the day
Dec. 20th, 2020 11:52 amI try to keep my expectations low and usually have only one goal for the day. I considered, "Wash my hair" as today's goal, but there were too many other exciting possibilities so I'm saving that for tomorrow. The sun is shining (!) so I feel like I can handle more than one thing, but enough is enough. The hair can wait.
- Try again to start the car. It's a little warmer now, but I expect that battery is still dead. After a frustrating multi-level search I concluded that my car-starter rig had gone off to The Land of Lost Passports, so I just went to Amazon and ordered a new one. It's enough different from the old one that I won't feel bad if the original turns up. The new one does not include an air compressor, so it is much more compact and actually pretty cool looking. It has a built-in flashlight and 3 charger ports for charging other electronic devices during road trips. I charged it up overnight, and am preparing to try it out.
- Walk over to Garfield and 40th to see the infamous "Christmas tree growing through the porch roof" that all the neighbors are buzzing about.
- Watch TV. This turns into a more challenging project every day as I keep impetuously signing up for more services. This one is the most complicated and expensive of them all. Roku finally rolled out its app for HBO Max. HBO no longer offers a free trial (not even a week) but a couple of my Amex cards are offering 50% rebates for the first 3 months, so this seems like the time. I mostly want to watch season 3 of Westworld, but there are enough other items of interest on HBO to keep me busy for at least 3 months. However, I am still trying to get my $.99 worth out of Britbox before the month ends, so I must not slack off on my nightly TV habit.
The tragedy of preparedness (inept)
Dec. 15th, 2020 01:45 pm My car battery is dead. Dead as the proverbial doornail. I dimly remember that I knew the thing was getting weak but had decided to wait until fall to replace it because it started the car perfectly well during the summer. Then fall came and I pretty much stopped driving and forgot about it. Now it is 14 degrees and the battery is so dead that the electronic fob won't even unlock the doors.
But that's okay, because I have a fabulous emergency road kit with a battery jump starter in it! If it's really truly deceased (and this is a 6-year-old original equipment battery, so it probably is) I should still be able to charge it up enough to drive it to a battery store and get a new one, like I did with Dave's old Volvo.
Anyway, I could do that if I could find the car starter kit. :-(
But that's okay, because I have a fabulous emergency road kit with a battery jump starter in it! If it's really truly deceased (and this is a 6-year-old original equipment battery, so it probably is) I should still be able to charge it up enough to drive it to a battery store and get a new one, like I did with Dave's old Volvo.
Anyway, I could do that if I could find the car starter kit. :-(
Vacuumed the vehicles - took ALL DAY
Jun. 5th, 2019 06:13 pmCleaning out the cars for spring is an astonishing amount of physical work!
I think I had this same revelation last year. And probably every spring. It just surprises me each time that a simple little job using a handy machine involves so much physical labor. Not sure exactly why. I do seem to run up and down the stairs way more times than I should just to get the car vacuum and all the attachments together, and the big extension cord never really works right until the 3rd time I plug it into the outside outlet. And then there's putting all the seats up and down, pulling out the rubber mats and hosing them down, carting the vacuum back and forth around the vehicles in a maximally inefficient fashion, bending and pulling and lifting and crawling around. But finally, all the Christmas tree twigs are vacuumed out of the van, the sandy salty winter debris is off all the floors, and the seats are all soft and clean.
I made a startling discovery: our passports have been sitting in the van glove compartment all winter long. Considering how frequently malefactors rummage through our glove compartments it's a miracle someone didn't steal them and start an international crime cartel using our stolen identities. If nothing else, I'm glad I found them now instead of waiting until next week when we were packing for the trip to Niagara Falls to discover that they were lost.
I think I had this same revelation last year. And probably every spring. It just surprises me each time that a simple little job using a handy machine involves so much physical labor. Not sure exactly why. I do seem to run up and down the stairs way more times than I should just to get the car vacuum and all the attachments together, and the big extension cord never really works right until the 3rd time I plug it into the outside outlet. And then there's putting all the seats up and down, pulling out the rubber mats and hosing them down, carting the vacuum back and forth around the vehicles in a maximally inefficient fashion, bending and pulling and lifting and crawling around. But finally, all the Christmas tree twigs are vacuumed out of the van, the sandy salty winter debris is off all the floors, and the seats are all soft and clean.
I made a startling discovery: our passports have been sitting in the van glove compartment all winter long. Considering how frequently malefactors rummage through our glove compartments it's a miracle someone didn't steal them and start an international crime cartel using our stolen identities. If nothing else, I'm glad I found them now instead of waiting until next week when we were packing for the trip to Niagara Falls to discover that they were lost.
Followup - the Honda did not start
Feb. 1st, 2019 02:15 pmBut that's okay - it gave me a chance to use that nifty pocket-sized jump starter that I bought last year. It worked great: just clamped it to the battery, pushed the on button and turned the key and vrrrooomm. Now that it's above zero, the car starts on its own, but I guess it's time for a new battery. It is more than 5 years old.
I used the jump starter again today on a friend's car. It ultimately worked, but did not go quite as smoothly. The jump starter successfully turned the engine over, but it wouldn't catch and wouldn't catch and wouldn't catch. After multiple attempts, the status lights on the little jumper were starting to show distress. But before it ran out of juice, the car FINALLY started. Not sure what the problem was. The engine did smell a little gassy by the time it started, so maybe it IS possible to flood a modern fuel-injection engine. Or maybe some other issue entirely - dirty fuel injectors or weak spark plugs? Anyway, it started and I hope it kept running long enough for her to make it to her favorite garage.
ETA: Oh yeah, I guess you can flood a fuel-injected engine.
I used the jump starter again today on a friend's car. It ultimately worked, but did not go quite as smoothly. The jump starter successfully turned the engine over, but it wouldn't catch and wouldn't catch and wouldn't catch. After multiple attempts, the status lights on the little jumper were starting to show distress. But before it ran out of juice, the car FINALLY started. Not sure what the problem was. The engine did smell a little gassy by the time it started, so maybe it IS possible to flood a modern fuel-injection engine. Or maybe some other issue entirely - dirty fuel injectors or weak spark plugs? Anyway, it started and I hope it kept running long enough for her to make it to her favorite garage.
ETA: Oh yeah, I guess you can flood a fuel-injected engine.
The current version of the MN DPS website is predictably kind of a mess. If you persist, it is possible to renew your tabs online starting with the URL they tell you to go to, but in retrospect I wish I'd just looked for a stamp and mailed it in. *sheesh*
- To start with, do not be so foolish as to start the process using a Chrome browser. It will fail on the very last step (at least if you are paying by credit card). Just use Internet Explorer and save yourself the aggravation.
- It is amazingly hard to get to the right location on the website if you start with the URL they give you in the DVS Renewal form. If you do it right you'll have to click 3 or 4 times and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page at least once.
- If you do it wrong, you will somehow get shunted to an evil, deceptive, ought-to-be-illegal 3rd party "service" called stateregistration.org that wants to "help" you fill out the online form and charge you $20 to do it. I still don't know how I got there. Unfortunately, I gave them my name, address, phone and cc info before I noticed that the amount was way more than the amount on my bill and I wasn't on dvs.dps.mn.gov anymore. Since I didn't submit, I hope they didn't get any of that info.
- Try this URL to get directly to the renew tabs page
- If you want to pay with a credit card you do have to go to a 3rd party page powered by US Bank, but the service fee is only 2.4%, not $20+
I got an alert to that effect on my phone this morning, not from my car manufacturer but from CNN. Any other Honda owners see that?
The associated CNN article paints a grim picture:
"Federal safety regulators warned owners of more than 300,000 Hondas and Acuras to immediately stop driving their cars until their Takata airbags are replaced. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said new tests show the airbags have a 50% chance of exploding when deployed in an accident -- compared to a 1% chance for other airbags."
Wow, that sounds bad! I went to the Honda page on the topic and discovered that sure enough, my 2013 Fit is in on the recall list. This seemed odd to me because I have been hearing about the exploding airbags for years, but when I looked up the vehicles involved it was always a small selection of cars a decade older than mine. I poked around online until I found this very detailed writeup of the history of the hapless Takata airbag. To make a long story slightly shorter, it looks like there have been anecdotal reports of this defect since about 2004, but the first official recall wasn't issued until 2013 (Toyota). Bit by bit, the recall kept expanding and expanding, and now includes most of the Japanese car companies and ALL of the US ones! So don't assume you are immune if you drive a Buick.
But how widespread is this, really? Do I actually have to stop driving my 3 year old car while I wait for what is probably going to be weeks or months to get an appointment to get this corrected? I say no. All of the reports of airbags actually exploding occurred in cars built before 2005, and most of those are in "high-humidity" climates like Florida.
That 50% defect rate quoted in the CNN article (and all the other news outlets I checked) is alarmist and misleading, phrased to sound like it applies to all Honda owners. It turns out that what the NHTSA press release said was this:
New test data on a particular subset of defective Takata air bag inflators in certain model-year 2001-2003 Honda and Acura vehicles show a far higher risk of ruptures during air bag deployment, prompting an urgent call from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to ensure that unrepaired vehicles in this population are found and fixed before they cause further injuries or fatalities... With as high as a 50 percent chance of a dangerous air bag inflator rupture in a crash, these vehicles are unsafe and need to be repaired immediately,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Folks should not drive these vehicles unless they are going straight to a dealer to have them repaired immediately, free of charge....Ruptures are far more likely in inflators in vehicles that have spent significant periods of time in areas of high absolute humidity—particularly Florida, Texas, other parts of the Gulf Coast, and Southern California. Testing of the inflators from these vehicles show rupture rates as high as 50 percent in a laboratory setting.
So if you have a Honda or Acura built between 2001 and 2003 and driven primarily in the gulf states, get that thing to a dealer ASAP.
And I guess I'll try to figure out how to get on the schedule to get this fixed. I hope there's a way to schedule it online, because I sure don't want to try to get through to a Honda service phone number the day after this news broke.
The associated CNN article paints a grim picture:
"Federal safety regulators warned owners of more than 300,000 Hondas and Acuras to immediately stop driving their cars until their Takata airbags are replaced. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said new tests show the airbags have a 50% chance of exploding when deployed in an accident -- compared to a 1% chance for other airbags."
Wow, that sounds bad! I went to the Honda page on the topic and discovered that sure enough, my 2013 Fit is in on the recall list. This seemed odd to me because I have been hearing about the exploding airbags for years, but when I looked up the vehicles involved it was always a small selection of cars a decade older than mine. I poked around online until I found this very detailed writeup of the history of the hapless Takata airbag. To make a long story slightly shorter, it looks like there have been anecdotal reports of this defect since about 2004, but the first official recall wasn't issued until 2013 (Toyota). Bit by bit, the recall kept expanding and expanding, and now includes most of the Japanese car companies and ALL of the US ones! So don't assume you are immune if you drive a Buick.
But how widespread is this, really? Do I actually have to stop driving my 3 year old car while I wait for what is probably going to be weeks or months to get an appointment to get this corrected? I say no. All of the reports of airbags actually exploding occurred in cars built before 2005, and most of those are in "high-humidity" climates like Florida.
That 50% defect rate quoted in the CNN article (and all the other news outlets I checked) is alarmist and misleading, phrased to sound like it applies to all Honda owners. It turns out that what the NHTSA press release said was this:
New test data on a particular subset of defective Takata air bag inflators in certain model-year 2001-2003 Honda and Acura vehicles show a far higher risk of ruptures during air bag deployment, prompting an urgent call from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to ensure that unrepaired vehicles in this population are found and fixed before they cause further injuries or fatalities... With as high as a 50 percent chance of a dangerous air bag inflator rupture in a crash, these vehicles are unsafe and need to be repaired immediately,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Folks should not drive these vehicles unless they are going straight to a dealer to have them repaired immediately, free of charge....Ruptures are far more likely in inflators in vehicles that have spent significant periods of time in areas of high absolute humidity—particularly Florida, Texas, other parts of the Gulf Coast, and Southern California. Testing of the inflators from these vehicles show rupture rates as high as 50 percent in a laboratory setting.
So if you have a Honda or Acura built between 2001 and 2003 and driven primarily in the gulf states, get that thing to a dealer ASAP.
And I guess I'll try to figure out how to get on the schedule to get this fixed. I hope there's a way to schedule it online, because I sure don't want to try to get through to a Honda service phone number the day after this news broke.
Looking for a used van? Watch this space
Oct. 26th, 2014 04:19 pmSince I am (ostensibly) about to retire, I'd like to trade in our old van for a more reliable newer model: something I'd feel comfortable taking on long road trips. And (increasingly important with each passing year) a van where all the back seats fold into the floor. Which makes the choice really simple - it's gonna be a new or almost-new Grand Caravan SE.
Now that I know what I want, I could wait until next year or do something impulsive. If I found a buyer for the old van, I'd probably take the impulsive route. Otherwise, probably wait until next year when we weren't in the middle of a bunch of other projects and events. So this is sort of a trial balloon.
Old van is a 2000 Plymouth Voyager with a high-end trim package for the time: driver-side sliding door, center console with compass/trip computer, plushy seats. It's dented and dinged and has mis-matched pieces, but is not badly rusted. About 200,000 miles. Good mechanical condition for its age. Repair records available for the 7 years we've owned it, and maybe before that.
According to Kelley Blue Book, resale value in Fair-to-Good condition is about $1100. That sounds about right to me. If anybody is even a little bit interested, let me know.
Now that I know what I want, I could wait until next year or do something impulsive. If I found a buyer for the old van, I'd probably take the impulsive route. Otherwise, probably wait until next year when we weren't in the middle of a bunch of other projects and events. So this is sort of a trial balloon.
Old van is a 2000 Plymouth Voyager with a high-end trim package for the time: driver-side sliding door, center console with compass/trip computer, plushy seats. It's dented and dinged and has mis-matched pieces, but is not badly rusted. About 200,000 miles. Good mechanical condition for its age. Repair records available for the 7 years we've owned it, and maybe before that.
According to Kelley Blue Book, resale value in Fair-to-Good condition is about $1100. That sounds about right to me. If anybody is even a little bit interested, let me know.
Finally in the 21st century
Dec. 6th, 2013 11:10 amMy new car has all sorts of features that were formerly in the BAW (Bells And Whistles) category but are now pretty standard. I got to experience them all in the past 2 days.
1) Low tire warning. That's the little dashboard icon that looks like the type of small candle often seen on restaurant tables. It's bright yellow and kind of alarming. Although my tires had been topped off at the dealership only 723 miles ago, as soon as the temp dropped to near-zero levels the little candle lit up. Should I put more air in the tires? Presumably the air will expand again when it gets warmer. I'm sure my tires have always done this with temp changes, but I never had to know about it before.
2) Anti-skid control. This icon is a rather startling one of a swerving car. As soon as the side streets got icy I started seeing this one flashing occasionally. I'm not sure what it actually does, but I'm assuming that it's helping somehow.
3) ABR. I experienced this one this morning as I slid up to a stop sign on glare ice and the brake pedal started pulsing violently. OMG, that's disturbing. Is this the first car I've had with ABR? It must be - I can't believe I would have missed that.
1) Low tire warning. That's the little dashboard icon that looks like the type of small candle often seen on restaurant tables. It's bright yellow and kind of alarming. Although my tires had been topped off at the dealership only 723 miles ago, as soon as the temp dropped to near-zero levels the little candle lit up. Should I put more air in the tires? Presumably the air will expand again when it gets warmer. I'm sure my tires have always done this with temp changes, but I never had to know about it before.
2) Anti-skid control. This icon is a rather startling one of a swerving car. As soon as the side streets got icy I started seeing this one flashing occasionally. I'm not sure what it actually does, but I'm assuming that it's helping somehow.
3) ABR. I experienced this one this morning as I slid up to a stop sign on glare ice and the brake pedal started pulsing violently. OMG, that's disturbing. Is this the first car I've had with ABR? It must be - I can't believe I would have missed that.
First tank of gas - what's my mpg?
Nov. 9th, 2013 11:42 amUsually I wait until I'm running on fumes to buy gas, but I was so excited to fill the tank on my new car that I headed for Holiday as soon as it hit 1/4 full. I wanted to see if the actual mpg matched the running average on the built-in trip computer. It took 8.14 gallons, which averaged out to... *drum roll* 34.3 mpg! This was even better than the trip computer estimate of about 33. Whoohoo!
This seems to be the most exciting thing that has happened to me this week. Man, I need to get a life.
This seems to be the most exciting thing that has happened to me this week. Man, I need to get a life.
So now that I have a new car, the old one is for sale. I don't seem to have a picture handy to upload, but if you're attending the Minnstf meeting at our house today you'll see it parked outside. I've had it since it was new and have all the repair records. It's kinda rusty, but runs great. According to the online blue books, this car in Fair condition (which I think more than compensates for the rust) is worth about $3,500 dollars.
That seems really high to me, honestly. I'd have said about $2,000. And I'm pretty sure it needs new front brakes, so I'll knock off a few hundred for that. Basically, I'm hoping to sell it for somewhere between $1k and $2k. I'll probably advertise it on Craig's List at $1,900. But I'll sell it for less if I can do it by word of mouth.
Well, I've got to do some pre-party cleaning, so I'll add details later. Just keep this in mind if you know anybody in the market for a rusty but reliable car.
That seems really high to me, honestly. I'd have said about $2,000. And I'm pretty sure it needs new front brakes, so I'll knock off a few hundred for that. Basically, I'm hoping to sell it for somewhere between $1k and $2k. I'll probably advertise it on Craig's List at $1,900. But I'll sell it for less if I can do it by word of mouth.
Well, I've got to do some pre-party cleaning, so I'll add details later. Just keep this in mind if you know anybody in the market for a rusty but reliable car.
This was both a well-researched, carefully planned decision and an impulse purchase. I started thinking about a new car last spring when my Mazda "Goldberry" turned 10. When I buy a new car I plan to keep it for at least 10 years (or at the very least, 100,000 miles). No matter how much I like the car when it's new, by the time year 10 rolls around I'm bored with it. I realized that with the perspective of time, I missed my previous new car (a sky-blue Geo Metro that I could hardly wait to unload on my darling daughter when it hit 100K) and started looking for another perky little 4-door hatchback. Every car company makes one of these. Chevy even sells two of them (Spark and Sonic). But after a trek to the car show where I clambered in and out of dozens of little cars, peered into the back, folded the seats up and down, etc., I realized that it would be silly to buy a knock-off of the Honda Fit when I could just buy a Fit for pretty much the same price.
All the cars I looked at were shiny and cute, but it was clear that the Fit had been engineered to a fare-thee-well by a team of Japanese hotshots determined to close the book on the entire concept once and for all. Somehow this tiny car manages to have as much cargo space as my much larger Mazda (and more than any of the other sub-compact hatchbacks). Not only do the back seats fold down into a flat surface, you don't have to rip the damn headrests off the seats to do it - they sink down into the seat back. And only the Fit has a secret drug stash under one of the seat cushions. The mpg is not quite the best in class (probably because of the ridiculous number of airbags tucked away into the frame), but the rated average is still over 30. And for the first time ever, I bought an automatic, because the automatic is so well-engineered that it gets BETTER mileage than the manual!
Anyway, I decided I wanted a Fit, but dropped the idea when I learned my job was disappearing. Now that my financial plans have stabilized, I decided I might as well go for it. The end of the model year is the best time to buy a new car anyway, and the salespeople are hungry by the end of the month. So I stopped at Hopkins Honda on Tuesday for a test drive, hoping I would still love the Fit after I drove it. Fortunately, I did. I also liked the saleslady, and she was willing to go out of her way to find me the rare color that I wanted - Blue Raspberry - which had to be retrieved from a lot out in White Bear. Based on my earlier research, the price seemed perfectly reasonable. So, sure, why not! We closed the deal yesterday - Halloween. I think I'll call her Luna.
All the cars I looked at were shiny and cute, but it was clear that the Fit had been engineered to a fare-thee-well by a team of Japanese hotshots determined to close the book on the entire concept once and for all. Somehow this tiny car manages to have as much cargo space as my much larger Mazda (and more than any of the other sub-compact hatchbacks). Not only do the back seats fold down into a flat surface, you don't have to rip the damn headrests off the seats to do it - they sink down into the seat back. And only the Fit has a secret drug stash under one of the seat cushions. The mpg is not quite the best in class (probably because of the ridiculous number of airbags tucked away into the frame), but the rated average is still over 30. And for the first time ever, I bought an automatic, because the automatic is so well-engineered that it gets BETTER mileage than the manual!
Anyway, I decided I wanted a Fit, but dropped the idea when I learned my job was disappearing. Now that my financial plans have stabilized, I decided I might as well go for it. The end of the model year is the best time to buy a new car anyway, and the salespeople are hungry by the end of the month. So I stopped at Hopkins Honda on Tuesday for a test drive, hoping I would still love the Fit after I drove it. Fortunately, I did. I also liked the saleslady, and she was willing to go out of her way to find me the rare color that I wanted - Blue Raspberry - which had to be retrieved from a lot out in White Bear. Based on my earlier research, the price seemed perfectly reasonable. So, sure, why not! We closed the deal yesterday - Halloween. I think I'll call her Luna.
The back window of my car that is. About 8:30 last night, shortly after I started my car in the (empty) parking lot at work. Actually, imploded is probably a better description, as the large chunk of fragmented window that popped out fell inside the car. As I drove home (what else could I do?) more little pieces kept falling out with a sound like little icicles falling off the roof during a thaw. By the time I got home, more than half the window was gone. Fortunately, hatchbacks have those little luggage-compartment covers right under the back window which helpfully contained all the broken glass and the snow that sifted down all night.
But the nice thing about auto glass catastrophes, unlike pretty much anything else that can go wrong with your car, is that the people who fix this stuff have developed an unusual service model that involves.... actually providing SERVICE. You tell them where your car will be and they show up in a truck and, in the best of all possible worlds, just replace the glass on the spot. In the winter time they prefer to drive or tow your car to their own shop, fix it and bring it back. In this particular case, they didn't have the molding for my car window in stock so they just cleaned up the glass and covered the hole with plastic; we'll have to repeat the whole exercise next week when the part comes in. Whatever. Either way, I don't have to drive around town looking for the shop and then sit in a grimy waiting room for two hours.
I just wish it was this easy to get my muffler replaced.
But the nice thing about auto glass catastrophes, unlike pretty much anything else that can go wrong with your car, is that the people who fix this stuff have developed an unusual service model that involves.... actually providing SERVICE. You tell them where your car will be and they show up in a truck and, in the best of all possible worlds, just replace the glass on the spot. In the winter time they prefer to drive or tow your car to their own shop, fix it and bring it back. In this particular case, they didn't have the molding for my car window in stock so they just cleaned up the glass and covered the hole with plastic; we'll have to repeat the whole exercise next week when the part comes in. Whatever. Either way, I don't have to drive around town looking for the shop and then sit in a grimy waiting room for two hours.
I just wish it was this easy to get my muffler replaced.