This past week I experienced my first accident. Technically it wasn’t my accident because I wasn’t there, but it was my car. My first car incident occurred when my mother was pregnant with me. A couple years ago I backed into a family friend’s Camry from the 80’s, but they decided to retire it - problem solved. I label this past week’s incident as my first accident because I made the accident of lending my friend my car. Worst of all, I live in Los Angeles, so traffic is unforgiving. Essentially nothing is coming out of my pocket, as my friend has agreed to pay out of hers, but that’s not to say this experience has been easy by any means.
Over the phone, my friend told me she was part of a chain reaction that ended up with her hitting a BMW X5 . I assumed she had been smashed from the rear as well. She warned that the damages were bad and apologized profusely. When I ended up seeing my 1995 Toyota Camry (nicknamed Blue Pearl), I sighed in relief. The rear of the vehicle was fine. My friend was the last car in the chain. The front of the car wasn’t terribly bad. My hood was bent, the grill was shifted backwards, and my left headlights had been pushed back and broken. My imagination had prepared me for the worst and I had experienced about half of that. Not as bad as I thought, but bad is bad.
What should I do? I’d never been in this situation before. Call my insurance? Call her insurance? Call a friend for advice? I’ll refer to my friend as Sally for convenience. I ended up doing all three. Did my insurance cover the damages? Yes, sir. Did her insurance cover the damages? No, sir. Screwed. So I called my mentor for advice. He said if the repairs were minor enough I could just pay out of pocket to avoid unnecessary insurance involvement.
But what shop or dealership was I supposed to go to? I Googled all the nearby Toyota dealerships, only to find that each one had extremely poor reviews. The only positive reviews were from folks who needed oil changes. Anything more and service was questionable. No, thank you. I’ll take a private auto shop. I emailed all of my email contacts and called all of my auto enthusiast friends in the area for advice. I ended up picking a place in Rosemead, CA. My good friend praised the shop’s good quality work and friendly boss. He added that they did work for car shows, which somewhat soothed my worries.
Where was my friend during all of this? Probably doing some work of her own. No help whatsoever. I was on my own, thank you very much.
Another friend of mine (Teresa) and I drove 45 minutes through ridiculous Los Angeles traffic to get to the body shop. I made a huge mistake by not thoroughly checking the front of my car before we took off. Sally told me she opened the hood twice and assured me it could open and close with ease. The problem was, it opened too easily. The latching system was misaligned and I had no idea. I really should have checked. About 10 minutes into our journey, my hood flew up and blocked my view, except for a few portions on my extreme left and right sides. Hazard lights on. Step on the brakes. Pull over into residential area. Luckily, Teresa drove a truck with a bunch of rope that I could use to fasten my hood shut. I crawled under my car and made it work. The frame of my car had been bent and I feared the worst for Sally’s wallet. She was under the false impression the hood could be bent back into place and the situation would be fixed. She estimated a sub-$200 fix. Yeah, right. Onward the journey continued.
I get to the shop, which I’ll refer to as Al’s Auto, and quickly found the nearest employee to ask for help. Unfortunately, the owner, Al, was out for the day and wouldn’t be back for another couple days. I didn’t want to drive my car back home 45 minutes only to have to drive it back again later in the week. In addition, I didn’t want my friend to have to escort me again. So I ended up leaving my car at the shop for an estimate and taking off with Teresa to conquer the I-10.
After 3 days of continuous calls to the shop, Al was finally in for a day and gave me an estimate over the phone. The plan was to replace the grill, headlight, and hood and reshape the front of the car’s frame. An $800 repair, which was a lot less than my paranoid self had estimated. If you hadn’t realized already, I’m not even a beginner when it comes to car repairs.
The car is currently in the shop, and Al reassured I’d get my car by July 4th, which is when my relatives might visit. This ordeal is far from over and I can only hope the rest of this experience runs smoothly. Sally still has to work out the repairs for the X5 and I don’t want to have get involved in that. I’m quite certain repairs for the BMW will be a multiple of my Camry’s repair costs. While my pockets may be protected, I’ve lost a lot of work hours trying to figure out this whole situation. Wish me luck.
Lesson Learned,
ededsu
Howdy Webriders! Dr. VW here. I just popped in to talk about a little epiphany I had over the weekend. For the first time in several months, I had a chance to spend some quality time with my ride, other than the usual commuting back and forth over Southern California. I spent a few solid hours meticulously cleaning and waxing the outside of my 1971 VW Squareback, and as I sat there, buffing until my arms got sore, I realized something. This was not “work” to me. It was almost therapeutic, sitting out on my driveway with my beat up garage radio blaring and slowly but surely polishing my car to perfection. It occurred to me that if I had asked anyone else to do this to their car, I would have been met with a groan and/or a confused “why?”. This got me thinking about a great many other eccentricities that people generally associate with gearheads; or the insane. Hit the jump to laugh along with “you know you’re a gear head if…”
As of June 4, the Honda Civic is America’s best-selling vehicle. With news of Libya potentially reducing oil production combined with OPEC predicting prices above $150/barrel by the end of the year, crude oil prices topped a whopping $140 this week. Until this year, pick up trucks dominated American sales for the previous 17 years. $1.14 could afford you a gallon of gas in 1991. Nowadays, $1.14 worth of gas wouldn’t even get you out of the station. The Ford F-150, which has been the reigning sales champion for over a decade, lost sales this year and fell behind the Toyota Camry , Toyota Corolla , and Honda Accord . While the F-150 tops out below 20 miles per gallon (highway), each aforementioned compact vehicle provides its drivers with over 30 miles per gallon on the highway.
Of course you do! But that’s not what we’re here today to talk about. Today, I will be talking about all the different kinds of fuel (or at least the kinds that wikipedia can tell me about), and what they all have going for (or for that matter against) them. This little faceoff will include good old gasoline, biofuel, hydrogen and the geeky glasses-wearing kid in the corner - electric. The criteria will include efficiency and the cool factor.
So let’s start out, shall we?
New information about the upcoming Dodge Viper ACR has been released recently in Autoweek. This new package will feature new “sidewinder” wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires, new adjustable coilover racing dampers from KW Suspensions, two piece slotted rotors from Stoptech, a new front stabilizer bar, an adjustable carbon fiber wing, and a two tone paint job. There is another option available for even more hardcore drivers that deletes dampening material from the hood, sound insulation from the interior, the carpet, and the entire audio system. Supposedly this option will delete another 80 pounds. Dodge claims that this version of the Viper will have over 1000 pounds of downforce at 150 MPH.
The Viper ACR was recently pitted against the regular viper, a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, a Porsche 911 Carerra S, and a Porsche 911 GT3 in a track event with the “Evil Twins” theme. The Viper ACR mopped the floor with the rest of the cars and it’s runner up was the “Vanilla” Viper. It is nice to see Dodge coming out with an even faster version of the SRT10 which already has a reputation for being an extremely fast track car in the right hands.
Another version of the Viper that is not known quite as well is the Dodge Viper Competition Coupe which is priced at $140,000. It is a non-street legal Viper with a fully stripped and caged interior, a racing fuel cell, a single racing seat, Brembo brakes, and huge racing slicks. This car beats the ACR by far in the weight savings department, as the competition coupe is approximately 380 pounds lighter than the street going Viper. Unfortunately the average person with $140,000 cannot even purchase one of these Competition Coupes - the process is a lengthy journey that involves convincing Dodge that you are an experianced race car driver that will bring podium finishes.
Now at first glance many people unfamiliar with this car will wonder what kind of monstrosity it is. Furthermore they may also question the presence of God in this universe that such a thing could roll off of an assembly line. No it is not an alien spacecraft. It is a 1969 Dodge Daytona and it is the feature of Muscle Car of the week. Greetings all, Big_Blocker here to give you all a look at one of the most unique cars ever to come out of Detroit, the Dodge Daytona. Hit the jump to read the whole story. Read the rest of this entry »
A new host of pictures have arrived for the Ferrari California that are NOT rendered. These new pictures of the Italian supercar show its roof being lowered, engine shots, and some interior shots. The roof is a retractable hardtop that rests in the trunk area after the trunk lid/tonneau cover tilts towards the back of the vehicle. Shots of the engine show off the standard Ferrari matte red valve cover with the prancing horse logo prominently displayed at the front. Interior photos show off the gorgeous tan leather that covers every surface of the California’s interior. We can catch a glimpse of the Manettino dial that is standard on all Ferraris - The California’s dial shows three settings: Comfort, Sport, and CST (striked out).
The Ferrari California is a grand touring convertible sports car that is targeted for MY 2009 and later. It first debuted at the 2008 Paris Motor show and is destined to be the first Ferrari to feature a front mounted V8 engine as well as a dual clutch transmission. The car will be powered by a 4.3 Liter V8 engine that has an estimated output of 453 BHP. This mdoel will be available with carbon ceramic brakes as a standard option.
The “California” name is a throwback to the 1957 Ferrari 250 GT Spyder LWB which was brought to the public’s attention from it’s appearence in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where it served as the hero car.
Click here for a full gallery of the Ferrari California
John McCain is angry. John McCain wants to be commander in chief. And he’s going to do whatever it takes to win the election, including feeding us a bunch of BS to do so. BS worth $300 million, no less.
McCain recently reversed his stance on offshore oil drilling - a pretty pointless stance as sucking up oil from California’s coast wouldn’t actually enter the consumer pipeline, no pun intended, until at least 5 years from now; this obviously wouldn’t help the current gas price crisis - and took a lot of heat for it. So he’s been pointing out how Brazil has net zero imports of crude in to the country, espousing the merits of E85 and flex fuel vehicles. Mr. McCain fails to mention that Brazilian E85 is based on sugar cane, NOT corn as it is based here in the States. Cane E85 is more efficient from field to gas tank, but I’m guessing that he’s espousing the corn lobby and midwest corn farmers. It is an election year, obviously.
But the really upsetting thing about his recent statements on energy policy is his claim that he will award a $300 million prize for "the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars." So let me get this straight. Taxpayers are going to pay the tab for this prize to automobile manufacturers to improve the efficiency of their vehicles? Recent criticism from Washington and Detroit have accused the Japanese government of subsidizing the development of hybrid technology for the Japanese manufacturer of the Prius , the Camry Hybrid and so on. Sounds like more BS to me.
I was recently invited to the Nissan press event in Los Angeles to test drive the all new 2009 Maxima. I’ll have a review of the vehicle soon - hint: I liked the car - but in the meantime, read the pricing information released to us today.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (June 24, 2008) - Nissan North America, Inc. announced pricing on the all-new, flagship 2009 Nissan Maxima, which goes on sale today at Nissan dealers nationwide. The seventh generation Maxima returns to its heritage as “The 4-Door Sports CarÔ ,” combining thrilling performance with premium sedan comfort, quality and amenities. It features all-new sports styling, a driver-oriented interior and an enhanced 290-horsepower 3.5-liter DOHC V6 engine – offering 35 more horsepower than the previous generation Maxima and better fuel economy (EPA estimated 19 mpg City/26 mpg Highway versus 19/25 mpg for the 2008 Maxima).
GM released the pricing for the newest incarnation of the Corvette, the 2009 Corvette ZR1. Yes this car is a beast with 6.2 liter LS9 sporting 638 horsepower and 604 foot pounds of torque but I think this car is way too expensive for what it is. At 103,000 for the base model the ZR1 does not perform enough (in my opinion) to justify an extra 30,000 over the price of a Z06. The tuner in my head is thinking just buy a Z06 and supercharge it but then the argument could be made if your spending this much on a car just go the extra mile. Take the 103,000 MSRP and tack on another 20-30,000 and that should be about what it should cost after the dealer has added to the price.
Hit the jump for the entire press release
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