Friday, June 14, 2013

Feds Probing Floormats In Ford Fusion Mercury Milan


Doesnt matter what the brand, a poorly installed or wrong-sized floormat can trap accelerator pedals.

NHTSA says its recieved three complaints that Fords "All Weather" floormat can trap the gas pedal when laid on top of the standard floor mat.

Read the full consumer advisory here.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Ford Fusion Hybrid Wins Break Even Contest


Heres the deal with hybrids. You pay a few thousand dollars more than you would for the gasoline-only equivalent of that car and you get a few miles per gallon more. How long before those gas savings pay for the extra cost of the hybrid version?

That depends on the car. The Ford Fusion Hybrid is the best bet, according to The San Francisco Chronicle...with the next best taking more than twice as long to put you in the black. But thats the nearly identical 
(and not significantly higher priced) Mercury Milan Hybrid. 

Huh?  Full story here.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

New Car Review Nissan Leaf


2011 Nissan Leaf electric car
The 2011 Nissan Leaf. Park one next to a Juke and contemplate automotive styling.

 Nissan Leaf. No gas, and as the decals on the sides say (yep, our tester had them), "Zero Emission".

2011 Nissan Leaf electric car interior
The interior of the 2011 Nissan Leaf: Futuristic, but functional.

Its a very nice, modern car. Not terribly gimmicky, yet with enough dashes of obvious tech here and there to remind you of your cutting-edge status. It drives well, is surprisingly quick, very quiet (no gasoline motor noise, for one), and is roomier inside than the outside suggests (the Nissan Tardis?)

$33,720 puts one in your driveway (our tester, with optional splash guards, ECO Design Package..thats the decals on the doors, Hologram 3D door entry plates and center console applique...Protection Package, floor mats and cargo area mat, cargo net and safety kit, came to $35,430 with destination charges...but subtract the $7,500 tax credit and youre at $27,930).

Better yet, let that money put it in your garage, where hopefully youll have the optional ($2,200) 240 volt charging station installed. The advantage...the ability to fully recharge a very-nearly-drained Leaf in just 7 hours. Use the charger that stashes in the trunk and hooks up to your household 120V current and itll take 14.

2011 Nissan Leaf electric car range meter
Like optimism? Youll love the 2011 Nissan Leafs range meter.

Nissans early PR for the Leaf suggested a 100 mile range was attainable. The EPA, however, doesnt agree, and has issued a 73 mile estimated range on a full charge. Even that, though, can be optimistic. How youre driving, whether youre using the air conditioning, and things beyond your control such as traffic patterns, can all affect your range.

When the Leaf was dropped off for our test, it showed what the picture shows above...83 miles. But a 15-mile roundtrip from my office to run an errand brought that down to 57. No problem. Id made arrangements with the building supervisor for a parking space next to a 120V outlet in the company garage. Id get six hours worth of charge (not quite enough to get it to full, but giving me a comfortable cushion for the 25 mile drive home that evening).

Except.

The Leaf kept tripping the circuit breaker. Turned out to be the outlets fault, not the car, but it meant no charge, and a drive home in rush hour with no more juice than was in the car.

57 minus 25 is 32. But the Leaf showed only a 19 mile range by the time I pulled into my driveway that evening....and it was estimating a 14-hour full recharge on household current. More trouble. Id just finished a double shift. It was 7PM. I needed to leave for work at 4AM. Thats only 9 hours of charging time.  I left the next morning showing 55 miles on the range meter, with a 25 mile drive (same as last night, just the other direction). Good news...it wasnt rush hour. Bad news...it wasnt rush hour. What that means is that while there wasnt much unpredictable about 4AM traffic, it also meant running 65 miles per hour on the freeway, which eats the charge quicker than say, 40 or 45.

The range meter showed 22 when I got to work. Thankfully, the building supervisor had sent an email. A good outlet had been located and blocked off for the Leaf. The bad news? The Leaf again needed 14 hours on 120V household current, and I was only going to be at work for 8.

2011 Nissan Leaf electric car front view
The panel around the Nissan logo on the 2011 Leaf? Thats the flap that opens for the charger.


This could have gone on forever, but Nissan scheduled a short loan. They dropped it with me at noon on Thursday, and picked it up the following Monday morning. So I finally got a full charge between 1PM and 3AM Friday afternoon/Saturday morning, but I wasnt commuting on Saturday and Sunday. I drove it for errands through the weekend on that one charge. And after giving it a full charge Sunday afternoon until 4AM Monday, I drove it to work and Nissan came and picked it up.


So what did we learn? A few things:

1. The Leaf is a much better electric car than the General Motors EV-1 of the 1990s, a car whose range meter could go from 80 miles to 45 in just three miles. It is far more comfortable, carries more people and their possessions and is simply more practical.

2. If you drive more than 10 miles one way to work in a day, spend the $2200 for the 240V charger for your house. Youll have a full charge when you leave each morning and reserve power for lunch runs and unforseen emergencies.

3. If you drive more than 25 miles one way to work in a day, seriously consider doing whatever it takes to get a second 240V charger installed where you work. Again, a full charge in the morning, a full charge to get home on and reserve power for the stuff that comes up. If you cant make a 240V work charger happen, think twice about the Leaf.

4. If you ever have days where you drive more than 75 or 80 miles, or if your life or job are simply unpredictable in terms of how much and where you might have to drive at any given time, theres probably a better option for you.

Still, purely electric vehicles have a place in the future of the automobile, and theres no doubt Nissan will improve and refine the Leaf as battery technology improves. Its a good car, a commendable effort, and for some drivers, a solid choice.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Automotive muffler ram action with their own hands

The main objective is working at many companies for the production of direct-flow systems is the maximum utilization of the potential flow of exhaust gases that come out of the engine. It would seem a simple task but it does not. Should pay attention to the fact that the exhaust system of exhaust gases is designed to solve several problems. The main problem - it's exhaust system for a board the vehicle. Secondary task - is to ensure optimal filling the air-fuel mixture cylinders of your car. Today, in our age of advanced technology, the phase of registration in the engines of overlaps with the phase of intake when both valves are open. During the exhaust valve to create a negative pressure, through which the exhaust gases will quickly leave the cylinder, thus giving place to the other portions of the air-fuel mixture. When the valve closes the issue, then the manifold pressure drops, and it is the pipe starts its propagation speed of sound. To achieve this, using the inertia of the expiration and non-uniformity of the exhaust gas motor. If an obstruction in the path of this wave, there will be a reflection of its distinguished and calculating the ratio between the distance to the reflection and the motor speed, the wave will appear at the exhaust valve at a time when it opens again. There are many mufflers. Also there is a labyrinth, and through-flow mufflers. Principle of the labyrinth silencer is that it has a separate entrance pipe and a separate output, and a few cells gases move arbitrarily. In the silencer of the ramjet is a perforated pipe both input and output, and it is not interrupted. Gain more power at certain speeds is the main advantage of ram muffler. How do make a forward flow in the domestic environment? It has taken only two pipes, one of which is equal to the diameter tailpipe and the other with a diameter of 20 cm and a length of 1 meter and an old car muffler. Regular old muffler should be removed and dismantled. You must extract all the innards, cutting out the walls. After this, the available pipes must be welded structure: a metal plate weld pipes on each other. Cut a hole in the connection point muffler and pipe. The finished design to put the old muffler and weld on both sides. After that, the whole construction turns heat-insulating plate (suit, injure), and then stainless steel with 5 cm overlap at the ends and 5cm in length. Sheet steel can be purchased at any building market. Sidewall forward flow wrap, roll joints, and welded to the holder ears. Upgraded to install a silencer in place. Performing all these operations do not require huge investments, there is a will! In conclusion I would like to add. The catalytic converter is known to all. This piece is installed in the exhaust system and a cleaner gas. But in the process of the purification catalyst lowers the capacity of the exhaust system and reduces to 10 horsepower output of your engine. Consequently, if the catalyst to remove from the system, it will also significantly improve the dynamics of acceleration and fuel consumption will decrease by about 1 liter per 100 km.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Cell Phone Charger Hazard


I got this e-mail from a friend this week...forwarding the story of a 2007 Suburban owner who left his iPhone charger plugged into the power outlet (cigarette lighter for those of you over 40):

As some of you may know, we had a pretty scary incident recently. Attached are pictures of what remains of our 2007 Suburban. We are all okay but I wanted to warn everyone not to make the same mistake I did.



This fire resulted from leaving an Iphone charger/docking station plugged into the car outlet. It overheated and started a fire, while parked in our garage. PLEASE unplug anything you have in your car outlets once you turn off your car!


We were VERY fortunate that we accidentally found the fire, at 11pm, before going to bed and before it spread to the house. Feel free to pass this along to anyone you want. Better safe than sorry.







Good rule of thumb...if youre not using it, unplug it.
                                 

Monday, June 3, 2013

Fiat By Chrysler Chrysler By Fiat




The five-year plan is coming into clearer focus and it looks....confusing.

Fiats going to build a mid-size sedan in Italy. It will be sold mainly in America, replacing the Sebring. Theyll also build a new compact Chrysler for the USA over there.

Meantime, Chrysler might build not one, but two SUVs for Alfa Romeo on American soil.

Automotive News (free registration required) has the game plan.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Challenger SRT 8 Auction Watch The Hitman Cometh Leaveth Questions


Yesterday, we told you about the strange online silence of  "Hitman", the purported winner of a $29,100 eBay auction for a 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT-8.

Well, last night at 9:47PM PDT, "Hitman" surfaced on the forum, acknowledging, but not answering any of the questions:



A lot of questions and rumors definitely coming to light after this whole experience from different sources that are making claims. Many requests to post pictures and give an explanation of how it went down in the end.


Plan of posting pics and all that good stuff after I work on getting a couple of coats of wax and the right shine. Its only been a few days of driving it around and trying to do the proper break period as it has been suggested.


Been on the board every night reading everyones posts in this thread and jumping around the ChallengerTalk.com board, learning more about the SRT8 and looking at what the proud owners have done to personalize theirs. This board has a lot to offer and maybe I will learn a few things along the way as well.



The ChallengerTalk forum members who rallied around "Hitman" when it appeared Glenn E. Thomas Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep of Signal Hill, California was going to refuse to give him the car (at first claiming a glitch erased their $42,000+ reserve...which eBay said didnt and couldnt happen) also cheered at "Hitman"s posting early Sunday morning that "the dealership honored the $29.1K auction", along with this photo:



But now, as we reported, a lot of them are beginning to doubt the whole story...whether "Hitman" got the car in the auction....whether he got it for $29,100....whether he got a different car (fueled by a Jonny Lieberman piece on Autoblog which reported that the delership "did better than the right thing, selling Alex a 2010 Challenger SRT8 rather than the 250-mile car he won in the auction"---Jonny got the mileage wrong, it had 500)....whether he got any car, or whether "Hitman" is in fact the person who won that auction (eBay generates anonymous bidder IDs). 

And there are questions raised by the eBay bidding record for the auction, which shows the winning bid was $9,000 higher than the leading bid at the time...several hours before the end of the auction.

Does "Hitmans" post last night make ChallengerTalk members happy now? Not a chance. Just one response:


Sorry, I am really on the edge of calling BS here. (And I know I am an outsider, but still...)

You can take the time to post this dribble, but can not take the time to tell us what went down and what exactly you ended up buying? Also, a brand new car does not need to be waxed to shine.
Forget the pics, just tell the story.


Follow along, beginning with "Hitmans" post last night, here.

By the way, we checked...the SRT-8 in the auction is not in the dealerships online inventory as of this morning.