Struttin some more

 Just a quick one today, remember a couple months ago when I had to replace the struts on my Jetta? Well for the last month or so the 2005 VW Golf has had a funny rattle when going over bumps. At first I thought it was the exhaust, the heat shield around the muffler had failed. I wrapped that with wire but it didn't help. I spent a bunch of time under the car wiggling things and found nothing until I finally took a wheel off.

That, friends, is half a coil off the passenger side spring. It was just laying in the spring perch. When going over bumps it would rattle. It's loss doesn't seem to affect the car at all so I'm leaving it out. If I have to I'll replace the struts but for now it doesn't seem like it matters. I'm glad, it's a bear of a job...

The advantage in slowing down.

It seems like lockdown has increased the average speed everybody thinks they should drive? In the past I could commute at 70-75mph, passing some cars and getting passed by others. Now its more like 80-85mph. Fortunately I've only been in the office twice in the last two months.

The other day I had to head in and decided I'd slow right down and see what I could get for fuel economy out of my 2015 VW Jetta TDI. I kept my speed to no more 65mph maximum and spent the longest part of the drive at not more than 60mph. I didn't want to go any slower because I would have to drop out of 6th gear although I will probably experiment with that at some point. I felt comfortable doing this because there were so few cars on the road. I wouldn't do this in heavier traffic, just because I want to try for high mileage doesn't mean everybody does.

My commute is pretty much 60 miles each way and includes about 600 feet of elevation change with it dropping on the way in and rising on the return. This shot shows mean just before I got off the highway. I figured that the low speed surface street run to the office would cost me. In the end it was only maybe a tenth of a point, not so bad. I actually didn't think of trying of this record run until I was a few miles into the drive so I could probably do a little better.

This is the return and we can see the effect of the elevation change, still thats a solid 57mpg round trip and I suspect if I took my top speed down from 65 to 60 and ran the previously 60mph sections at 55 we could probably break, or come close to breaking, the 60mpg barrier.

Remember that this is all in a reasonably sized car that has pretty good power, with a comfortable ride. The Gen6 Jetta is not a tiny economy car...

New car day +2

After yesterday's running around today should be easy, get the car inspected. Well, the plans of men...

Its raining today and I noticed the driver's wiper wasn't doing a great job, that'll fail inspection so I grabbed new ones, figured I might as well replace both.

Thats the end of the wiper, its a weird slide in sleeve thing. The wipers have to be in "wipe" position to lift the arms too, weird...

Much fiddling with adaptors

Until finally...

Okay, off to the inspection station:

Rats!

This actually isn't so bad, a black R is not safety related and you can drive the car, in this case its because some emissions sensors are reading "not ready". This is probably because the dealer I bought the car from had to have a DPF regen performed at the dealer. DPF = Diesel Particulate Filter, and a regen is when it burns off the built up particulate. If the car had been mostly city driven on short trips the filter could fill up early and not get to burn off which is why it needed a dealer regen. I drive mostly on the highway which is ideal and shouldn't have an issue, also VW has been forced to issue a long warranty on the DPF and finally the aftermarket has "DPF Delete" options for "off road use only".
So anyway the plan is to put a couple hundred miles on the car and try again in a couple weeks.

Finally I tried to set the clock and clear the "Oil/Inspect" notice in the dash. Both require pressing the odo reset button which I tried and didn't seem to work. So being an optimist I pulled the dash cluster.

 Its super hard to see but the problem is right where my finger is, the contacts for the button are on the green board under that white lump and theres a white bump of powdery corrosion. I squirted a little De-Oxit in there and worked a piece of paper towel in to remove the corrosion.

Reinstalled, tested and the clock is correctly set. You might also notice in this picture I've forgotten to reinstall the two screws that hold the cluster in place. I didn't remember until I started writing this blog entry, I had to pull the trim again and reinstall.

Even with having to redo the trim the whole process took less than an hour. Yes I could have made then dealer fix it but its a half hour drive to the dealer, time to get it fixed and half an hour home, in the end its just as fixed and I know more about the car and I took a moment to De-Oxit the other side while I was there.

Last thing, I picked up some nylon washers for the license plate screws. I'd bought some stainless steel screws but they're just a little too long. I could have cut them but I was a little worried about corrosion on the cut edge, the stainless screws you get at the hardware store aren't the finest stainless in then world...

New Car!

When last we left our hero his ride was a 1998 Volkswagen Jetta. Purchased in 2013 its been a wonderful car, I only paid $1500 and have driven it many a mile but, trust me on this one, its done...
The bad: alternator, passenger's rear door, central locking, air conditioning, daytime running lamps, lots of rust, the rocker panels fairly flap in the breeze.

Actually now that I look at the list, other than the rust most of that isn't so bad. The alternator is the straw that broke the camels back, I replaced it a couple years ago but found it difficult to source a proper 120amp unit. The less powerful 90a units were easy to get but the 120a was $450 new but not to be found in a rebuilt. In the end I got a used one out of a junkyard. It didn't look like much but it was cheap and got me through, I think two years. When that failed I couldn't see paying for another, even a $100 90a, replacement for what is probably a $100 car.

So the search was on, I've been kind of half heartedly looking all summer, I knew this time was coming but I really like that car and was hoping somehow, magically, it would get a reprieve. In the end it was not to be and I knew I needed to find a replacement when a 2015 Jetta TDI showed up on Craigslist.

TDI pricing is a funny thing, the older cars command somewhat of a premium, this car has a mere 51,000 miles and while its a base model I really don't need any of the fancy accoutrements. The seller also had a 2014 with twice as many miles for the same money, that car has a sunroof, leather interior, fancy sound system, remote start and so on. I figured the newer, lower mileage car was the better deal. We bargained around a little and the deal was struck.

The engine is VW's 2.0l "common rail" which supposedly sports 150hp, although I don't know if thats before or after the "repair". You see this is one of the "cheater diesels" from a couple years back which VW has detuned so it doesn't cheat on emissions anymore. Actually now that I check, Malone Tuning says its 140hp which I find more believable.

Anyhow the car really scoots and the 6spd manual transmission is fun to row through the gears. The instant read mileage thing says I was getting 46mpg on the run from the dealer to our house, the '98 has been getting 50-55mpg for the last few months and I feel like once I run it some more this car will probably nudge 50.

I do have thoughts on a couple upgrades, it'll want snow tires for the winter which I'll probably put on dedicated wheels. I'm also thinking in the spring we'll do a tune on it, either stage 1 or 2, I haven't decided yet. I'll talk to my TDI before I choose. In theory, while providing more power a tune also makes the engine more efficient which will lead to better fuel economy provided you can keep from squandering it by driving super fast...

Is this car as fun as the '98? Sort of, that car had personality and I'd worked on it a lot so I really knew it inside and out. This one is slightly bland and I know its not going to need much hands on which is actually why I bought it, my work schedule has been crazy busy so I wanted something I could just fuel up and go. Maybe someday I'll have space and time for a project car but that time isn't now...

ICCC Convention 2018

You might remember that in 2017 Angie and I hosted the ICCC Convention. This year we traveled to Huntsville, Alabama to the 2018 convention.

It was half price to fly into Nashville instead of Huntsville, about a $500 difference. Since we would have rented a car anyway all we had to do was pay gas, its about a 2 hour drive so why not. We actually decided to add a couple days to the trip and spend some time in Nashville. I'd last been in Nashville on a work trip in 2001 and really liked it.

Our first stop was "Biscuit Love" restaurant but sadly I didn't get any pictures. If you're in Nashville I'd suggest you check it out.

Second stop was the Johnny Cash museum, and I'm so glad we went, this place is amazing. I thought I knew a thing or two about Johnny Cash although most of his activity predates me. The museum isn't very big but is just packed with great stuff. We spent about 2 hours there and could easily have stayed another hour.

Our chariot was this sweet Dodge Challenger, it rode nice and did okay on gas considering we thrashed it pretty hard.

Did you know that Antique Archeology (The Pickers from the History Channel) had a store in Nashville? Angie's mom is a big fan so we stopped in. There were no antiques we were really into but we did buy some swag.

I'm embarrassed that I didn't get a picture of the hotel, we stayed at The Kimpton Aertson which is right by Vanderbilt University. Great hotel, best hotel coffee I've ever had by far. Best part is it was free on points earned from corporate travel...

We spent the afternoon on a Segway tour through a terrible rainstorm. I thought I had video of the rain but can't find it. The rain was amazing, it pounded down for about 15 minutes, then stopped like somebody had flipped a switch, by dinner the roads were dry. We did have to detour slightly around some big puddles that would have drowned our Segways.

This was our second Segway tour, the first was in Chicago in 2016, don't hesitate to try them out, yes you'll look like an idiot but everybody does and if thats the worst thing that happens to you thats pretty okay...

Dinner was at Martins BBQ which is definitely one of the 5 best BBQ places I've ever been to. This area of the country is known for its "spicy mayo" sauce which is odd but not bad. We arrived pretty late and got the list of what we could have. I like that, it means what you can have is what they still have, which means they're not cooking extra batches during the day which means what you get is quality. It was too, so good...

Huntsville was great, the convention was great, I forgot to take pictures. The convention was held in an Embassy Suites which worked out really nicely. I now understand better the draw of a hotel convention. I was disappointed we didn't get to camp but at one point we were in the indoor pool when I really big storm moved through. I was glad I was sitting in the pool watching it rather than huddled in my tent...

Huntsville is the "Rocket City" and home to the US Space & Rocket center so of course we had to check that out. Pictured above is the return craft from (IIRC) Apollo 16. Its an amazing place and I strongly recommend taking a whole day, I think we were there for 4 hours and could have spent another 4 easily. We didn't find the Apollo room until late and sadly had to rush it.

The light-up was really nice, the hotel is on a canal which made for a great venue. I wish we had brought something to light but it was hard with the flight...

Since we flew I hadn't planned to buy much, then Angie won this sweet cooler as a door price at the banquet. I'd gotten roped into helping draw door prize numbers. Somehow I always get roped into something. ;)

Anyway since I would be shipping the cooler back anyway I took the opportunity to buy a glass shade from Craig Seabrook. I paid extra for the nickel band which I think really dresses up the shade. I put it on a CQ I've had for years which has a place in our living room.

Finally on our way home we took another half day in Nashville. We "visited" the Grand Ole Oprey but only went in as far as the gift shop. Neither of us is particularly into country music. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express near the airport, if you have the opportunity don't hesitate to skip that place, if we'd paid for it I'd be upset. On the positive side we had a nice dinner at Flyte.