Well, mom took the Prius in second time in as many weeks. It had been giving warning lights every blue moon, but it finally got bad couple weeks ago and refused to move. It was towed to Toyota, and looking at the service invoice all they did was hook it up to diagnostics, cleared codes, looked up for any service advisories, and sent it on its merry way almost a week later. Less than a week later pile of warning lights came on and I took it for test drive and it was running only on electric. Mom made appointment and took it into Toyota earlier this week. Came back and this time they said the main battery was bad, some leaky cell(s) and corroded wiring. Replaced under warranty, thank goodness as those batteries set you back around $4000. The bad thing with all this technology is its pretty darn hard for the home mechanic to do anything with them, and they’re (hybrid esp) are pretty sensitive. If sensors detect too much out of whack, it shuts it all down. Gone are the days of driving a belching, smoking, running on half cylinders car, which I suppose isn’t a bad thing. Anyway, lets see if this finally fixed things on the Prius. Continue reading ‘Cars & Technology’
Author Archive for taro
Page 76 of 88
The scammers never rest. Got a postcard in mail emblazoned with large alarmist words in red band, FINAL NOTICE, Factory Warranty Expiration. Yeah right! Exqueeze me, all my vehicles are at least 20 years old! Quick search on internet reveals numerous hits on these people being sleazbag scammers. Thing is, they’re making money, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing this. And honestly I can see some people being taken in with this. Anyway, be warned.
Notice that usually the one slinging insults is the one that it applies the most to? Working the gate at today’s SCCA, have to make sure anyone entering is covered under waiver. Some lokal dude attempts to cruise by on his X-Mart abomination bicycle and I stop him. Says he just wants to ride through to the other gate. Tell him the gate is closed and we are having a car race, which should be obvious to anyone with even half a fried brain. As he leaves he utters a rather uninspired insult. And as he rides by farther away on the outside of the fence he yells it again. Numb futs to you too!Â
(0)Damn it! Just when I thought it was all good with the FX, I stopped by the Koko Head jumps on way home from SCCA to check out the old school BMXers. To tired to contemplate going home and jumping on bike, I hop in car to start it to go home. Nothing. Sheeze! I try a couple more times, pause for a while to silently curse, then try again and it goes. Nuts, looks like I’m going to have to bypass most of the stock wiring, put in my own, and a big red start button. I can be all trendy like those fancy shmancy S2000’s and Lexus’. If I do that, then it’ll eliminate all other sources of problems and it’ll come down to the starter.
Monday morning and throughout the day has been drizzling in the mountains, with rainclouds rolling in late in the day. The Saint Louis evening DH has been called off and instead the decision is made to hit the Koko Head dirt jumps. Rolling into the parking lot at a quarter to six, it’s still full sun and the lot has quite a few cars, but the track is deserted. All hikers doing the Koko Head tram trail. I had hoped the spotty past rains might have dampened the track a little, no such luck. It was bone dry except for one spot on the backside step-up where someone had watered the jump. Continue reading ‘Progression Regression’
Amazing how much a difference competent and personable service can make. Kauai airport bar, the veteran bar tender(ess) friendly, efficient, personable. After downing my Guiness in half hour, I didn’t blink at leaving $10 for the standard glass size. Then at Ala Moana Vim & Vigor looking for ginger stuff for potential seasickness, the salesgirl there was also friendly, personable, knowledgable that it makes you want to buy something from the store. I suppose it helps that she was something of a hottie too, but it wouldn’t work if she were hot but unhelpful. Ended up buying a pack of ginger chews and a box of a MRE like paneer cheese and peas thingy. Sounded good, would prob go good with the humanitarian ration lentils!
(0)Holy cow, took autopartswarehouse.com 40 plus days to send me an RMA for part I received. Initial order was quick & prices good. Dunno if their emails got lost in the net ether, but this took forever I almost forgot about it.
(0)Another nice weekend. Sunday afternoon Dave, Jeff, Sarah, and I meet at Waimanalo for the Ditch Trail. There’d been some spotty rains through the week, but nothing too heavy. There’s a Jeep Wangler and Ford Explorer with Speedgoat.com sticker, looks like there’s some riders in the trails. We gear up and grind up the Government road. Trail is nice. Also some fresh horse dumplings. Following the route we’ve been using lately, we pass Maunawili Ditch and head up to the loop. It’s feels nice to hit the loop when fresh. Dave rides past the mango drop-in to explore and perhaps find the source of last rides archeology finds. As the rest of us wait at the mango tree, a bunch of guys come down the Government Road. Probably the guys in the Jeep and Ford, look like maybe military guys so it fits the image. Dave’s been gone a while, Jeff comes down and drops into Mango. Aparently Dave dropped in higher up, so we take the mango drop-in and hit the loop trail.
Just recently opened up is this place Discount Electronics up at the top of Wailae, in the row of shops between Bank of Hawaii and Toys and Joys, where that shoe place used to be. Their strategy is to find and resell closeouts, overstocks, etc. on electronics items. Seems a lot of their initial stock is from the recently closed CompUSA. I just picked up a Seagate 500G SATA drive, reasonable price. Competetive to NewEgg if you factor in shipping. I should have checked them out for the 80G that I needed for work, that one was cheaper than what I ordered online for. One wall has a decent selection of large flatscreens, Sharp, Sony, Philips. In same area small selection of some home theater components, JVC combo DVD & VHS that supposed to play Divxs too, a Sony DVD. They had some laptops, bags, some unlocked cell phones, various LCD monitors, keyboard & mouse combos. The selection may not be big, but from what I saw prices are reasonable. That is the nature of the business, guy I talked too said they plan to keep stock coming in weekly, hopefully they can as I think that is a key to a business like that, to keep stock fresh. Staff was pretty pleasant and helpfull. I understand much of the staff is from CompUsa also, but with the small setting there’s a much better atmosphere. I’ll be checking them out again in the future.
Got the bolt holes slotted by Roy the machinist after work today. Half an hour and they were done perfectly. Head home, insert the Koni cartridges, pull the old struts, swap springs. Instal new strut assemblies and even take time to wash the wheels.
It takes a little jockying to get the lower bolts in, but nothing more than usual. It all goes together nicely, oh what a relief! The clearance under the strut is pretty close, but it works! Install wheels, torque everything up, took two hours for this final install. Go for test drive, feels good. Bouncing is much more controlled. I turn up the damping adjusters some more and definitely matches the spring rates better. Looking carefully, having the upper hole drilled does lift the suspension up a bit. The back rides a little higher now. Hopefully this doesn’t mess up the caster too much. We shall see how this all drives, nice to have this finally done!