Text 4639, 375 rader
Skriven 2012-11-01 10:47:21 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
   Kommentar till text 4638 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: We told you so, didn't we?
==================================
 On 30 Oct 12 15:11, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB>>> The streets you refer to above do exist in Germany, but mostly in
 RB>>> really small towns. If you're interested, look up the "Ploeck"
 RB>>> (with an Umlaut "o") in Heidelberg sometime - it's supposed to be
 RB>>> the narrowest street in Germany. No parking and you really have to
 RB>>> be careful - and have a narrow car - to get through it.

 RW>> By the same token, look up Lombard St...here's a good photo example
 RW>> of
 RW>> it:

 RW>> http://tinyurl.com/8awx2vq

 RB> Hell on wheels - but the Ploeck is still narrower, with 2-3 story
 RB> buildings on both sides. I drove it just once, then avoided it like
 RB> the plague. I'd probably do the same on Lombard Street.

Lombard St is an attraction for the area in which it is located. There's
really no need to use that street for anything else.

 RW>>>> When I see car chases on Euro streets, it reminds me of driving on
 RW>>>> Lombard street in San Francisco...narrow, winding and at certains
 RW>>>> places, one lane only.

 RB>>> Never seen anything like that (either one lane or winding) except
 RB>>> on streets under construction. Oh, yes, and the "Ploeck" (but it's
 RB>>> straight, not winding).

 RB> Luckily, nothing like Lombard Street here.

http://youtu.be/lUF-N8BsBmU

The above video is MY kind of driving pleasure...

 RB>>>>> The Mazda was originally classed as a mid-range car.

 RW>>>> Somebody was pulling the wool over your eyes?! 8^)

 RB>>> Matter of attitude. When you're used to a VW Beetle, anything is
 RB>>> larger ;-)

 RW>> I saw an example of why not to have one of those in a busy town like
 RW>> San Diego, c1967. It was hit by an American boat-sized car on the
 RW>> freeway and was opened up like a sardine can...no one in the VW
 RW>> survived.

 RB> The size differences are smaller here, but if you get hit by a truck,
 RB> no car is going to come through unscathed. The main thing is not to
 RB> get hit ;-)

Knowing the structure of the vehicle of your choice makes an awfully big
difference. The Beetle is a body bolted to a flat pan with suspension
parts bolted to it. When I said the VW looked like it got hit by a can
opener, I meant that the body was lifted off of the pan, which in turn
exposed the passengers to a fatal encounter with the other vehicle. Had
that VW been a vehicle with a more substantial structure, such as a body
bolted to a ladder frame, there wouldn't have been any fatalities. Or if
there was any fatalities, it wouldn't have been the entire group of
passengers, as was the case with the VW.

 RW>>>> Todays cars are designed to run on 10% and then there are the cars
 RW>>>> that run on 85% alcohol, 15% gasoline. That's the cheapest grade
 RW>>>> of fuel around, but its not for everyone.

 RB>>> We don't have the latter here, but otherwise you're right.

 RW>> Where do they grow corn in Europe in the quantities that it is grown
 RW>> here?

 RB> Why grow when you can import?

It's cheaper to grow it than to pay the price of someone else growing it
and then paying to have it imported. Plus, growing it creates competition
between growers, thus lowering the market price of corn even further...

 RB> But recently, ethanol has become rather "out" here in Germany because
 RB> it's often made from food crops and the big spreads in the papers
 RB> about increasing food prices in the Third World have made using food
 RB> crops to produce fuel for us "rich guys" pretty unpopular.

Meanwhile, the US exports corn at lower prices than anywhere else it's
grown for 3rd world countries. China, being one of the biggest importers,
although they have the potential to be one of the biggest exporters if
they wanted to be. Argentina, 2nd to the US, has a growing season opposite
of ours, which they use to their advantage to pick up their market share
when ours has been harvested and sold, giving them an idea of how much to
grow in any given season.

 RB> That's in Germany - I don't know what the attitude is in the States.

There's plenty of corn to go around. We export over 70 million metric
tons of the stuff every year, and use quite a bit of the crop for food and
fuel here...

 RW>> Besides that, E85 makes for lousy fuel mileage because it takes more
 RW>> of it to make the same power...course, anybody who uses alcohol
 RW>> based fuel doesn't need a lot of power anyway.

 RB> Why? Not sure what you mean here.

BTU speaking, gasoline produces more BTU power than alcohol, thus it takes
more alcohol to make the same power as that provided by gasoline. This
means that a fuel injector must stay open longer and inject more fuel into
a combustion chamber to make the same power as gasoline. In the old days
it was a simple procedure to change from gasoline to alcohol by opening up
the main jets in a carburator with a drill. Been there, done that, my
first engine to get that treatment was my 1952 Triumph motorcycle in 1959.

BTW, I love the smell of burnt alcohol from engine exhaust...

 RB>>> The Agila (built 2005) was OK for 10% ethanol, and the Hyundai
 RB>>> (2012) is too. But we (Germans) still don't like buying hard liquor
 RB>>> instead of gasoline (but being taxed to death as if everything were
 RB>>> gasoline). As a result, the sales of such mixtures remains
 RB>>> depressed.

 RW>> Yeah, but getting ripped off at $4.50/gal for the real thing, you
 RW>> get ripped off for the same fuel, less the alcohol.

 RB> $4.50/gal would be around EUR 0.92/L and dirt cheap here. We
 RB> presently pay around EUR 1.70/L for super (as mentioned, you can't
 RB> buy regular anymore). Around EUR 1.00 of that is tax.

 RB>>> ...diesel fuel is not taxed as highly as gasoline here.

 RW>> It sure as hell is here. It usually runs 20 to 30 cents a gallon
 RW>> more here than 87 octane regular.

 RB> Surprising. I wonder why? Can't be the tax, not in the States.

Depends on the state. Texas and the feds tax diesel at 44.4 cents/gal,
while in California, the state and feds tax combo is 77.1 cemts/gal. New
York is just as high at 74.7 cents, with Pennsylvania 63.5 cents. It's
understandable that Hawaii be high because of the import distance, and so
they rank right up there with CA and NY. Texas is among 17 states whose
taxes combined with the fed tax are the lowest in the nation and no, not
all of them are oil states like Texas and Louisiana. Arizona, New Jersey,
Delaware and Vermont dont produce or refine any oil.

When we'd travel to Illinois to visit my relatives, I'd try to fill up in
Missouri or Iowa before entering the state, as Illinois' fuel taxes are 20
cents higher per gal.

BTW, not to rub it in, but I filled up on Sunday at $2.96/gal right here
in town. That's about 20-25 cents below average in surrounding cities.

 RB>>> The reason being that the government taxes diesel trucks extremely
 RB>>> highly anyway (road tax higher than the neighboring countries), and
 RB>>> didn't want to kill off the German transportation industry
 RB>>> completely (or drive it to places like Belgium, where the taxes are
 RB>>> lower). But just to make sure private persons with diesel cars
 RB>>> don't profit too much, the goverment also increased the road tax
 RB>>> (which you have to pay every year if you own a car) for diesel
 RB>>> cars.

 RW>> LOL! That's why the feds and states charge seperate taxes on fuel
 RW>> here. Depending on the state, taxes are different everywhere you go.

 RB> Must be a horrible problem when you move from state to state. The
 RB> taxes here are all federal, and stay the same regardless of where you
 RB> are in Germany.

Actually that's not a horrible thing, as it gives you a choice as to where
you buy fuel and whether or not you want to live in a state like
California who has priced themselves out of prosperity. People are leaving
CA in droves because of the taxes in general.

 RB>>> [Sigh] All of this ideology and "big-brotherhood". You figure it
 RB>>> out - I have to live with it.

 RW>> We have it too. How the feds figure that they can increase your
 RW>> Medicare premiums at 6% to 8% and your cost of living allowance at
 RW>> less than 2% (1.7% next year) is a mystery to me...

 RB> So they do that kind of stuff in the States, too... ;-/

Yeup...

 RB> I've seen calculations that the wages and pensions here have lost
 RB> something like 12% in buying power (adjusted for inflation) since
 RB> around 2002, and I can certainly believe it.

 RB>>>>> ;-) Our new Hyundai i20 will, too. And unfortunately requires
 RB>>>>> premium, but is at least fairly fuel efficient.

 RW>>>> Will it produce 305hp at the drive wheels and still get 26mpg? The
 RW>>>> Camaro can.

 RB>>> Jeez, Roy, who NEEDS 305 HP???

 RW>> Who needs 30mpg? If everyone drove a pos sub-compact and was
 RW>> satisfied with it, there wouldn't be any spice in your life.

 RB> ;-) My personal attitude is that a car is there to get from point A
 RB> to point B with a reasonable amoung of comfort. But I once knew a guy
 RB> who bought a Ferrari just for the fun of it. It takes all kinds.

Cars are both a means of getting from one place to another and a place in
themselves, making them both conveyance and cocoon. We sing along to the
radio in them (I don't because I listen to Talk Radio on the road). Our
first passionate encounters take place in them. And when all other resting
places fail us, we sleep in them. Automobiles are as much about private
inviolate space as they are about transportation. 8^)

 RW>> Such a car is only good for transportation from point A to point B,
 RW>> but there's no fun in getting there...which is why they make
 RW>> Porches' and other high performance cars.

 RB> I know. Tastes vary.

When I was a 21yo young man with a pregnant wife, my dad and uncles all
told me that I'd have to get rid of my high performance cars and get into
one of those 'transportation only' kind of cars. I wasn't having any of
that BS and stuck it out with my high performance V8 powered 55 Chevy at
the time. The only time I've deviated from that is when I bought a diesel
powered 79 Olds and a 82 Cadillac with a motor that made less HP than my
55 chevy did (175) from the factory.

 RW>> When I was a worker, the most enjoyable part of my day was driving a
 RW>> high powered car to and from work.

 RB> No traffic, no speed limits?

No 'stop and go' traffic. The CHP thought that the speed limits would be
enforced by the traffic.

 RB> I have trouble understanding that statement. Sitting in a traffic jam
 RB> is no fun whether you're in a Beetle or a Ferrari.

Even worse in a Ferrari, I would imagine. That car is made to DRIVE, not
sit around waiting for the bugs to crawl out from under the seats of the
lessor cars.

 RB>  But it might be more frustrating in a Ferrari.

Or in any high performance driving machine. Including motorcycles that
have the advantage of splitting lanes, untii somebody opens a door in
their path.

 RB>>>>> ;-( My problem at the moment is that the heat exchanger of the
 RB>>>>> heater in the passenger compartment appears to have a small leak
 RB>>>>> and on cold mornings tends to put condensate on the _inside_ of
 RB>>>>> the windshield.

 RW>>>> I had that problem with my 95 Camaro...it was a 1.5 hour R&R, done
 RW>>>> in my driveway...the heater core cost less than $50, shipped to my
 RW>>>> door, as I recall.

 RB> You can do such work, I can't.

I wasn't so sure about that, until I consulted the service manual. Until
then, I was ready to have it done by a shop, but after looking at the
procedure, it was a cake-walk for me.

 RB> And in this case, you not only have to locate and buy the core of a
 RB> 20-year-old Mazda (which is not easy because of the age), but must
 RB> also remove the entire dashboard/instrument panel to get access to
 RB> the thing to replace it. It's not an easy job from what I've read in
 RB> the Internet.

A heater core for your car can be had on the intnernet for $43...shipping
might cost your more than that, but they are readily available.

http://tinyurl.com/c8794hk

 RB> But it's also not a problem you generally encounter. I've never had
 RB> anything similar in my 55 years or so of driving.

Heater cores fail because of poor maintenance practices. I've read here
that you change your coolant every year, which is a waste of money IMO,
but then in doing so, you will probably not have any problems with a
heater core. Sediment is the main culprit that provides an opportunity for
corrosion to occure in heater cores.

 RB>>> That's a disadvantage with Mazda - spare parts come from Japan and
 RB>>> you pay the earth for them. Supposedly the Hyundai is better in
 RB>>> that respect - I certainly hope so.

 RW>> Spares for both can come from the USA for less...

 RB> If you're local. But have them shipped to Germany, what with shipping
 RB> cost, duty and VAT added, and you might as well buy them here.

If you can find them, your words...those parts are readily available here.

 RB> The stuff for the Mazda, as mentioned, presumably comes from Japan,
 RB> and the Hyundai parts come from their factories in Turkey and the
 RB> Czech Republic, which reduces shipping and in the latter case also
 RB> duty and tax.

Like in the US, those parts are either locally made or re-manufactured
from parts of cars that have been recycled. For instance it's no big deal
to take a used part and re-manufacture it by replacing worn parts that are
domestically manufactured.

 RW>>>> When all else fails, there's a liquid that you can use to seal
 RW>>>> most any leak like that. We call it 'water glass' but it has
 RW>>>> another name that I don't recall at the moment.

 RB>>> Waterglass is just fine - sodium silicate for a chemist. I don't
 RB>>> know what the guy at my favorite garage put in, but it seems to
 RB>>> work at least fairly well. Hope things stay that way.

 RW>> It's probably a mix of 'sodium silicate' and copper and aluminum
 RW>> chips...

 RB> I'd tend to doubt any metal components for the reason that they would
 RB> tend to block the radiator.

Not any more than the water glass itself. When I say copper and aluminum,
I'm not talking about big chunks of metal, but metal that is in powder
form. This helps the water glass seal a leak, but allows the coolant to
cycle as usual.

 RB> Radiators, I was told when the one on the Mazda blocked quite a
 RB> number of years ago, have smaller channels than they used to, and can
 RB> be blocked even by a small amount of corrosion.

True, but their are radiators out there with technology ideas of how they
should work. Instead of those dainty little tubes as used in your Mazda,
they have tubes that are twice as large as any original and cool much
better than original.

 RB> My mistake was that I hadn't used the car much and simply kept it in
 RB> the garage most of the time - BUT didn't have the coolant replaced
 RB> every year.

Not a requirement, as most coolants have a life span of 5 years these
days. If you buy that stuff every year, you're throwing your money away.

 RB> The coolant contains a corrosion inhibitor and that fals with time,
 RB> regardless of whether you drive the car or not. After that
 RB> experience, I have had the coolant replaced every year, just to be
 RB> safe.

You can save some money by replacing it every two years. I use the 5 year
coolant and change it out every 3 years. Of course, I use a coolant
recycling machine that pumps the old out while replacing it with new and
then add some extra corrosion inhibitors that enhances the inhibitors
already in the mix. Especially in the Camaro, which has an aluminum engine
block and heads.

 RW>> When we owned a 1979 Oldsmobile diesel, fuel actually cost less than
 RW>> regular gasoline (c1980) at 99cents/gal. I should have taken my
 RW>> dad's word for it and gotten rid of it sooner than I did, since in
 RW>> his opinion. a diesel engine is meant to do work and not suited for
 RW>> transporting humans around town. I eventually traded it for a
 RW>> gasoline powered Olds.

 RB> Mercedes diesels have an enviable reputation for long life here, and
 RB> are still often used as taxis.

So did the Checker cabs of NYC using a gasoline engine that lived forever.

 RB> And diesal cars are still the most economical to own if you drive
 RB> long distances each year, because the fuel is less highly taxed. But
 RB> my appetite for a diesel car died the day the engine on my VW Golf
 RB> diesel blew on the Autobahn.

Mine died when I changed oil in my driveway and it overran the drain pan
onto the concrete. There didn't seem to be anything that would remove the
carbon trail it left there. Plus the idea of having to change oil every
2000 miles whether you wanted to or not.

                R\%/itt


... Mark Owen: "Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?
... Fellow SEAL: "You believed that shit, I bet you voted for change too,
... SUCKER."


--- GoldED+/W32
 * Origin: Texas Lone-Star - Texan, American, USAian  (1:387/22)