slamboard

With fuel costs breaking new records everyday, lots of people are considering curtailing their driving. For some people, this may involve putting a car into storage for months or longer. I was considering it and I realized that there are probably a few things that I should do to the car if I want it to stay in the condition that it is in. Here are a few links with helpful information:

Mothballing your car

AAA has advice that seems to cater to people with really nice cars.

After moving in 2005, we went carless for a whole year. It can be done. I consider my 1990 Skoda to be a time saving device. It is not a necessity and it is not a part of my identity.

I have not expressed my opinion about auto racing very often. This very stupid story about the Greenest-ever International race car has pushed me over the edge. I think automotive racing should be made illegal. It is a pointless waste of fossil fuels. Trying to green-wash auto racing is just beyond the pale.

I think that fans would continue to watch the racing if they switched to pedal cars. They might have to add some drama in much the same way as professional wrestling.

I have two personality traits that are often at odds with each other. I am very curious. I am also very frugal. This means, for instance, that while I may have been dying to know how fast various objects were moving around in my life experience, I haven’t been spending hundreds of dollars on radar guns in order to find out how fast these things were moving.

I hadn’t noticed until now that they are marketing affordable radar guns. They are also easy to use and quite versatile. RadarGunSales.com has US made guns and ships them free in the US. On top of that, they have warranties. If you are doing unusual experiments with your radar gun, I would suggest you read the warranty carefully first.

Typical stuff that people like to clock include balls, pucks, boats, bikes and cars. I can imagine that some people like to find out how fast their dog can go. This is easy to find out if your dog chases cars because cars generally have a meter that measures speed (they are not very accurate).

It might be fun to gear up a radar gun to an unpopular politician and then throw pies at his face. Pies are not very aerodynamic, so I don’t think the numbers will be very impressive.

The Aptera has a certain appeal. It is an electric car that looks sleek and goes fast. It is competitively priced. I am not sure how the oil companies are going to kill it. It is interesting to note that the company thought outside the box when it came to dealing with present regulations. In the eyes of the DOT it is a motorcycle.

This truck would not be suitable for a lot of jobs. They are popular for city works departments, etc. in Europeans cities and from the photos that I have seen, they are almost ubiquitous in Asia.

I took the above picture myself while visiting Italy. I looked for these trucks on the web and I found a UK company that sells this model of truck completely outfitted for mobile coffee service. In North America, you will see a full size ‘half ton’ truck serving many of the same purposes that these little trucks serve elsewhere.

This little truck has a displacement of 50 cc.

I have never shopped for Car Loans online. I actually paid cash for the car that I am presently driving. It is a 1990 Skoda. You’ve seen the bumper stickers that say Don’t Laugh, It’s Paid For, well you can laugh at mine even though it is paid for.

If I decide to purchase a more expensive car in the future, I think I will use an online financial resource to try to get the best terms on a car loan. Completeloansource.com has lots of resources for all kinds of lenders. If you are looking for Bad Credit Loans to try and restore your credit rating, they are one place to start.

CarGuyGarage.com wants some bloggers to show their garage floors and I am happy to oblige. I can’t take credit for the most excellent decision to go with a resilient tile surface, I am renting. My dad has a much different surface in his garage, he poured the cement himself and his leveling and smoothing efforts were not of professional caliber. He is a farmer and does most of his own maintenance and repairs on his farm equipment. His garage floor has a lot of stains.

If you have a newly constructed garage with a bare cement floor, you should consider having it properly sealed so that any accidental oil spills will not permanently damage the surface.

Pirelli made this short film. Is this an advertisement or entertainment?

I do not know how or where it is being distributed, aside from YouTube. Going to great lengths to entertain people with a film that is primarily about product placement might be a growing trend. Hollywood allowed product placement in feature films to become so ubiquitous that movie goers actually find it obvious and insulting. This ten minute action movie might be viewed by people who view it as a sort of gift from the tire company.

Assessing insurance products involves more than just comparing prices. That cheap car insurance might seem like a great deal when you buy it, but what if you have a collision and come to find that your insurance company is anything but helpful? I actually had someone run into me when I was leaving my insurance company’s office, having just paid my premium in person. After I followed the proper procedure with regard to exchanging information, I walked back into the office and asked about my situation. They said it must be my fault. When you are entering a street from a driveway and crossing in front of oncoming traffic it is automatically your fault.

The details of the situation were that there were two lanes of traffic and that an oncoming car in each direction had stopped to allow me to enter the road. As I proceeded, I saw a car veer around the stopped car in the nearest lane. I stopped short and the car skimmed across my front bumper. There was negligible damage to my car, but there was severe body damage to two doors and a quarter panel on the oncoming car.

The rest of the story is comprised of a phone call that evening where the driver informed me that her estranged husband had let the insurance lapse on the car she was operating and that she would therefore prefer to drop any claims. It is illegal to drive without insurance, so she had little choice. The police had not been at the scene and no third parties had suffered property damage so we were able to drop the matter.

You have the option to go without home insurance, although it is almost always a condition of borrowing. Going without life insurance is very foolish as it is the one insurable adversity that we are 100% certain to experience eventually.

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Imagine pulling up to a gas station in a strange town and stepping out of your car to find that the display on the pumps includes a local map from Google with directions to some key points of interest. That sounds pretty cool. Lots of people are reporting on how cool it is. Some people, me included are a little lukewarm about this. Apparently to initial version will allow the owner to choose the points of interest based on their own criteria. You can expect directions to various places that want your money. You might not get directions back out of town.

Source: Information Week