Routine Order

Extreme Cars is a fascinating website with interesting information scattered all over. The site has details of all cars from Ariels to Paganis. I did not know previously that the Italians have been at designing cars since way back in the 1400s when an Italian designed a wind-propelled car. I also learnt the distinction between sports car, muscle cars and super cars. A muscle car is a mid-sized car with large, powerful V8 engines and special trim designed to maximize torque. The golden ago of these cars in the US was the period from 1962-1973. They are not sports cars, since sports cars are usually smaller, two-seater automobiles with a higher than usual weight-to-power ratio.
No list of extreme cars will be complete without the behemoth Hummer, which traces its lineage to the HumVees used by the the US Military worldwide.


I didn’t know they were made in South Africa as well! The new Hummer H3 is cheaper than the rest, and a little bit smaller. The H3 has an amazing 37.5 degree approach angle and cover almost all terrains with the greatest of ease. It is ironic that in the US, most H3s are bought by families with school children - for its space and safety features, or, as I suspect, for the image of being safer in a Hummer. They are a lot cheaper at around $29,995 for a new base H3, and this has helped a lot with customer adoption, too.

Hummers aside, I spent a cool half hour at x3mcars.com going through the list of mythical, almost unreal, vehicles.

Like I said earlier, a plan is in the making for a trip to Europe. I am planning to visit France while I am at it. In addition to the site I mentioned in the earlier post, I found a good listing of France car hire options at francethisway.com. In addition to that, francethisway.com also has listings for Gites. What’s a Gite, you ask? Here’s an appetizer:


Simple put, a gite is a house that you can rent for an extended period. Some call them vacation property. Some of the gites in France look really inviting. I wish I could stay there for a month, instead of the week or two that I plan on spending in France. Make that a week or two of driving. I wonder why we don’t have the equivalent of Gites here in the US. If they’re here, they’re really hard to find. Remember that movie with Drew Barrymore and that girl from the Titanic where they swap homes for the holiday season? I forget the name, and I really have to finish writing this soon. Something like that in real life would be awesome.

You read that right, you can tune and balance a car - not just the wheels. Yesterday, at the Midas garage, I overheard a mechanic telling a guy with a mirage that maybe he needs to get his engine balance. I thought, “yeah, right, get more money out of unsuspecting folks.” I might have been wrong. There is a whole website dedicated to car tuning, and there’s some info there about engine balancing. Turns out that a properly balanced engine reduces vibrations, and thereby improve “feel” and performance. The balancing act consists of getting the weight of pistons and connecting rods to match.


In addition to the vibration, I also have an issue with my idle speed. If I set it as low as I’d like, the engine sometimes dies on me. Maybe I need to get in touch with some carburetor tuners. It would be nice to know someone who does this for a hobby - the price of repairs is getting high as it is, and I really can’t fork out the dough for “tuning” and “enhancement”. Lately, though I have found mechanics who provide their services out of vans on Craigslist. One such just fixed my CV joint the other day, at half the price I would have had to pay a “shop”.

Idling: Myths Versus Reality
Contrary to popular belief, idling isn’t an effective way to warm up your vehicle, even in cold weather. The best way to warm it up is to drive it.

The article also says that you can save a lot of fuel by turning it off if you are going to be idling for more than 10 seconds. 10 seconds is the time below which restarting your car will consume more fuel that letting it idle.

I have always known, in the depths of my brain that idling a car immediately after starting it in the morning does nothing to help prolong the life of the engine. With modern electronic computer-controlled engines, you would think the engineers thought of the cold starting problem - and they have!

The truth about where your donated clothes end up is an alarming read from abcnews.com. According to the story, less than 10% of the clothes received as donations are sold to local thrift stores. The rest are sold to textile recyclers. So make that 100% of the clothes that are received as donations being sold to either thrift stores or retailers.

It does not end there, however. The “recyclers” often don’t recycle the clothes. They sell them by the pound to exporters who export them to third-world countries, where the clothes fetch upward of 500% profit when sold to the poor folks. That is right, some guy in Bourkina Faso could be wearing your odl GAP jeans.

I have always find the premise of charity at Salvation Army’s auctions to be rather preposterous. If you have been one of their furniture auctions you will get to see very few poor people (truly deserving of charity) getting their hands on any of the items. Mostly there will be the well-dressed male or female buyer who reminds you of furniture sellers, or worse, yourself. So, in the name of charity those-that-don’t-really-need-it get a bargain, while those that do are left wondering where the hell to get essential stuff at the price they can afford.

This reaffirms the decision I took to not drop off old clothes at “charity” drop-offs. I usually put them up at the freecycle mailing list. Now freecycle is a unique service - there should be a mailing list for the city you live in. The idea is that you list the stuff you want to give away for free, and other freecyclers will come and pick it up from your house. I once gave away 5 mattresses left behind by old roommates, and beleive me, it went to a family of 7 who desperately needed it. The glow in their eyes was worth more than any amount I would have got at Salvation Army, or the Goodwill store.

Another option for those interested in giving for charity are local area charities associated with religious institutions where you deal with a person, and where you can make sure your donated items are redistributed for free locally. If you look hard you will find a variety of options. And, needless to say, don’t ever donate your car - I suspect Car Donations are the biggest scam since Frozen Waffles… more on that in a later post.