The last couple days have just zinged past, it seems.
Opeth at the Drink Cowboys, tomorrow, then off to Stratford again on Wednesday for a proper test drive of that 1992 Ebony Pearl SVX. The two in Kitchener/Waterloo have been ruled out completely. Besides, I don’t really want to go back to K/W again anyway; I’ve been there a few times now, and it just strikes me as kind of a hole. Anyway, hopefully I can make some kind of deal on the Subie in Stratford. If not, I guess there will be another one, at some point, or something else.
Besides all this foolish car stuff, I have been really wanting to get some kind of social life going again. I miss playing RPGs, and even just hanging out. The folks at work are alright, I guess, but I spend enough time around them as it is. I don’t know what or whom I should be looking for though. Meghan recently ran into an old friend of hers while out shopping, so maybe we will expand our circle of friends that way.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 11:30 AM EST
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Well, spent the better part of the day driving out to Kitchener/Waterloo and Stratford to look at cars.
The first one I looked at, the 1992 Claret, was buried under a small snowbank, with the driver’s door left open. Not that this was much of a loss; the thing had seen better days. Interior trim pieces missing, or scattered about the back seat, dings, big dents, and a bit of rust applied liberally. In short, it was a beater. No thanks.
Number two, the 1994 Laguna Blue, was proudly displayed at the front of the dealer lot, but it too had some issues. It had been some tuner punk’s idea of a project car, I think. It had faded decals liberally applied, stating such things as, “World Rally Team,” and giant letters spelling out the manufacturer’s name. Then, the interior. It was a half-assed, half-finished repaint of the plastic wood grain trim with a silver detailing paint, which was chipping off and blotchy. There were also several switches wired up, one for the door locks, but the others, I could see no obvious labels for. That kind of frightens me (NOS, anyone?! Yikes.). Then I inspected (as best I could with the car on the ground) underneath it, only to discover that the rear half of the exhaust, including the muffler, had been removed in favour of straight pipes with only two small resonators. Sheesh.
On top of that, and the dealer wasn’t there. Some guy next door said they were gone to auction and didn’t know when they’d be back. So I took that opportunity to call the dude about the Nissan 240SX, but it had been sold already. Poop. Off to Stratford.
Stratford Subaru had the ‘92 in Ebony Pearl, and overall, it was the best one. At least as far as I could tell; it was rather snowbound. We dug out enough to gain entry, but we couldn’t get it started either. It had the lowest mileage (160,000km or so), and the paint was mostly in great shape, with no dings or dents whatsoever, but it had a bad case of rust in a few places, so before any offers are made, I’ll have to see how much it will cost to get it fixed up. Also, it had an aftermarket stereo with annoying subs eating up all the trunk space, so those would have to go.
They also had a brand new 2006 WRX sedan in World Rally Blue sitting on the lot. I took a brief look at it; they were asking 36k$. The website lists them at less (about 33k$) so there is room to deal, but I guess I’ll have to wait on that one.
Also stopped at EBgames in Stratford and picked up Sigma Star Saga. Sounds kinda neat, and it was cheap, so I figured, “what the heck…”
Stratford is a nice little quiet town. I’d live there. For a little while, anyway.
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 7:50 PM EST
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I have a day off tomorrow. I’m using part of it to go hunting for a car to replace the Stratus. Yes, another entry about cars.
I’ve mostly abandoned the BMW thing. Not because I don’t like them, but more because I don’t want to spend a ton on one at the moment. There are some SVX for sale in the area, so I’m going to go check them out; one in Stratford (Ebony Pearl, 160k, 1992), one in Kitchener (Black & Claret, 260k, 1992), and one in Waterloo (Laguna Blue, 170k, 1994). There’s also a really mint-looking 1993 Nissan 240SX that I’d like to take a look at if we have the time. It’s really cheap, so I don’t have high hopes, but you never know.
Other than that, not much else is new. Two of my favourite co-workers quit this week, so that kinda sucks (for me, not for them). I’m sure they deserve better than Jiffy Lube has to offer. Also, in case I forgot to mention it, Opeth will be playing London in exactly one week from today. Man, that’s going to rock.
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 10:29 PM EST
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I worked my first shift as an emissions inspector on Saturday, and it was a pretty cool job. It’s pretty easy, and something I view as being important for the environment, plus, I get to drive some pretty cool cars.
For whatever reason, we get way more impressive hardware in the emissions bay than we do for oil changes. I guess because everyone needs an e-test sooner or later, and because their usual trusted dealership or independent mechanic may not offer the service. Whatever the case, I don’t care; I get to drive them, and that’s what matters.
The coolest thing I got to sample this shift was a BMW 330Ci with the M-Sport package. Up until now, I didn’t really understand what the big deal about a Bimmer was. I’ve sat in them before, and I’ve sat in (and occasionally driven) other very expensive cars, but this one was different. I get it now. Many automotive journalists are constantly going on and on and on about how awesome BMWs are, especially how the storied 3-series cars represent automotive perfection; the ultimate balance between handling and comfortable ride, silky smooth and powerful inline-6 engine, slick-shifting manual gearbox (snick-snick!) and smooth clutch, understated but elegant styling. In short, all the reasons why they live up to their corporate motto of “the ultimate driving machine.”
I kinda want one now, but in addition to being perhaps the ultimate driving machine, they are also possibly the ultimate prestige machine. People buy them for the image a lot of the time. How does one reconcile that with the desire to drive a great sporty car when one is basically a communist?
I looked into it, and I’m not sure I could. I found a great deal on a 1997 5-series on autotrader.ca, and it doesn’t look to disgustingly opulent from the photographs, but that would remain to be seen; I have to experience it to find out. The example in question is a 540i; a midsize sedan with a 4.4-litre DOHC 32-valve V8 (good for 282hp @ 5,700 rpm & 310 lb-ft torque @ 3,900 rpm), 6-speed manual gearbox, and leather interior, to name a few things on the list of impressive options. Yeah, we’ll see, indeed.
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 5:34 PM EST
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I mastered a new skill today, and work paid for it, so to speak. Eric (one of my co-workers) took me out in his car to practice driving with a manual transmission. It went pretty well, but I should qualify my use of the word ‘mastered’ to describe it.
Previously, my dad, and another friend of mine had attempted to teach me the ways of driving stick, with varying results. When my dad showed me, all I could do it seems, was stall out. When my friend Trevor took me out in his dad’s Jeep, in an effort to not look like a sissy, all I could do were burnouts, or wheelspin launches. Another time after that, I went out again with my dad, kicking the tires on an old beater Mustang GT, and again I either stalled out, or spun the tires. Tricky thing about the ’stang was the gobs and gobs of torque to deal with. This past summer, I’d also been driving a forklift with a manual gearbox, but that hardly compares to a car, so I didn’t really improve my technique much.
The problem was mental; I didn’t really understand how the clutch was supposed to work. I had it in my head that any slippage on the clutch was a Bad Thing™ and so I would avoid it at all costs by releasing it quickly. That only works if you’re trying to go really fast. The best way I can think of to describe my misconception would be to say that I treated the clutch very digitally; it’s either engaged or not, with nothing in between. That was my problem all along. A clutch, as I’ve learned, is a very analogue mechanism; there are many varying degrees of clutch engagement, appropriate for different situations. Some slippage is okay, won’t hurt it, and is even expected.
Eric was a pretty good teacher, and his 1993 Mazda MX-6 a pretty good car to learn on. I got the hang of slow starts, parking lot manoeuvring, reversing (a big mental block, previously), and hill-holding. I already had the mechanics of shifting gears down, no problem; it was easy in the Jeep, and during the Mustang incident, I even tried a nearly wide-open-throttle acceleration through all 5 gears. Today, however, it was quite snowy and even with snow tires on, it didn’t take much to spin the tires on the MX-6, so I took it easy (Eric did not; he loves to show off, I think).
After this, I’m pretty confident that switching my SVX over to a stick is the right thing to do. I know I can handle it, I know I enjoy driving that way, and they’re generally a lot more durable than automatics, and that being a weak point of the SVX, it only makes sense. Now, I just need to decide between a 5-speed from a WRX, or 6-speed from a WRX STi. Both gearboxes have pros and cons which I could easily spend a long time writing about, but in the interest of brevity, I won’t… yet.
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 5:32 PM EST
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Through work, I recently had the opportunity to become a certified emissions inspector for the Drive Clean program run by the Ontario government. Being environmentally conscious, I naturally jumped at the chance.
We had a half-day training program for using the equipment, which consists of two parts: a computer system which is hooked up to the government’s database and receives the data from all the sensors that we hook up to the vehicle (RPM reading, the vehicle’s VIN, the vehicle’s weight, the exhaust probe, etc), and a chassis Dynamometer, which we use to apply a simulated 25% load to the vehicle as we drive it up to about 40km/h.
The second part was a full-day crash course on all the rules and regulations (mostly red tape) of testing vehicles. Lots of useful info there. I was particularly interested in learning what the rules are for testing modified vehicles, which was covered. Anyway, the short version is, I passed the exam, and am now a certified emissions inspector. I took a quick snapshot of my credentials, below:
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Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 6:30 PM EST
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