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I kind of got mugged the other night. It was in a store parking lot. I was sitting there, minding my own business, when a little old lady with a handicap tag hanging from her mirror accosted me and forced me to pay $60.

That is, in effect, what happened. What happened, in fact, was that she drove her car into mine and caused about $60 worth of damage to my car. End result is the same though, albeit with less personal danger and more work after the fact.

Here’s the story: I was pulling into the Meijer parking lot and the entering traffic (me) does not have a stop sign, whereas the cross traffic (little old lady, or LOL for short) does. She is going to turn left to leave the parking lot, and starts to do so in front of me. I’m going slow, as I’m anticipating the cross traffic not realizing I don’t have a stop sign, so I’m able to stop before getting to the lady. Note that I wanted to turn right, so I wouldn’t have crossed her path anyway.

So why did I stop instead of turning right? Because she was taking up more than her lane and I didn’t think I had enough room to get through until she left.

But while I’m stopped, waiting for her to complete her turn, she keeps getting closer. I have my foot firmly on the brake, wondering why the gap between us is closing. Then there is a scraping, crunching sound, and I’m wondering why she isn’t stopping, because I can’t go anywhere. Finally she stops and so do the sounds.

Now I notice there’s a truck behind me, so she pulls up to the far curb, and I go around the curb and park in the closest spot. I get out, notice that my bumper is crunched up but the lights seem to still work, then I walk over to her car. She tries to open the door but her sheet metal is deformed just enough that she can’t budge it.

If you want more details of the story you can ask me later, but the end of the story is that since it happened on private property we are free to exchange information and go our separate ways. Since all I got out of it was a dented bumper and a cracked headlight housing, I was glad for that. I ordered the $60 replacement housing and will try to undent the plastic bumper somewhat, but I’m sure the long-term effect will be a slightly uglier vehicle.

Her car, on the other hand, scraped the paint off three separate body panels (front quarter panel, driver door, rear door) and deformed them enough to effect the door hinge operation. Her three seconds of inattention cost her thousands of dollars of damage.

And I must take this time to reflect on my previous accident, less than a year ago. This was on a snowy road. I was on the main road and did not have a stop sign, and the lady (middle-aged lady, or MAL for short) on the side road and who did have a stop sign had trouble stopping and slid into the intersection, right in front of my vehicle. She tried to accelerate and I tried to stop, but it was too close and I ended up bumping her. That bump caused her to go into the ditch, which caused her airbags to go off. All I got out of it was a cracked bumper and cracked headlight housing, so I was glad for that.

Her car, on the other hand, had the airbags go off and required a tow out of the ditch, with police oversight. Her three seconds of late braking cost her thousands of dollars of damage.

On one hand, I hope not to be in anymore car crashes. One the other hand, if I am in a crash I hope it keeps up the trend of not costing me any more than some tens of dollars and a half hour to replace a headlight housing.

Alpha has his permit for driving. Our state requires a gradual phase-in of driving permissions, not quite as much freedom as we used to have but it seems to be safer. Imagine your son is about to start driver’s ed. He has been wanting to drive for a while and is pretty excited to start. Here is an example letter that might be good to set his expectations.

I think it’s a fine process. But a lot of parents just do whatever the government requires. What if there were something that could cause as much emotional and spiritual damage as a car can cause physical damage?

Let’s replace “driving” with “using the internet” and see what happens.

Or you could replace “internet” with “Facegram” or “Instachat” or whatever. My point is that kids need instruction and oversight when they start poking around the internet. Sure, it is easy to use. But that doesn’t mean it is safe.

There are programs you can install that will block bad websites and limit what users can access. I’d say that’s a good thing for younger kids, but it should not replace a parent’s supervision. One reason being that those programs are not perfect. And the other reason being that it doesn’t prepare the child for the real world. Going back to the driving analogy, it would be like limiting the car to first gear. Sure the kid might stay safer, but he also wouldn’t have the right experience to drive wherever he may need to drive once he’s out of the house. So for older kids (middle school on up), I suggest having very few restrictions, but make sure they know that you check on what they are doing. And even middle schoolers know to delete a browser history, so be sure you have a program that logs the sites regardless.

The point is to let him have to make choices. And know that he will have to account for those choices. Such as why he chose to click on that ad (“Son, never click on any ads”) or why Google image search is not always a good idea. That’s what raising kids is all about – make sure they know what good habits and choices are so they are prepared for life.

Usually for a short time after I’ve just repaired or maintained something on our vehicle, I am amazed at the fact that so many cars are working. When you consider all the parts that have to work on their own, plus cooperate with each other, plus not wear out – it’s a wonder.

That thought first came into my mind after I replaced some part of the front suspension and got the car all put back together, then I realized I forgot to reinstall something I had to take off to get to the part I was replacing. It made me think how far I would have gotten until the vehicle did something to make me remember about that part. And it made me wonder what else I could have forgotten to reinstall. Or perhaps did install but not correctly.

Then I pass or get passed by some junker that’s in obviously much worse shape than my vehicle and I wonder how it’s driving along fairly well considering all that should be wrong with it. And I give them a wider berth than usual.

One of the things I never thought I’d pay for (or have an opinion about) is aftermarket lug nuts. But after the OEM lug nuts went bad, I didn’t have much of a choice. Now I’m sporting black lug nuts on silver wheels, because the only way to get chrome/silver lug nuts in the right size was to go with the capped style that caused the problem in the first place. Right now I have two sockets with lug nuts or caps stuck in them. The OEM style was open lug nuts with a cap over it to enclose it. Enclosed is good, but capped is bad because the cap eventually separates and deforms. The cap gets stuck inside your lug wrench, leaving you with no lug wrench and then a lug nuts that is too small for the lug wrench provided with the vehicle.

But I replaced them all with new lug nuts, so as soon as I force the jammed stuff out of my sockets, I can close that chapter of vehicle maintenance.

My nemesis at the moment is tires. Two of the vehicles are due for new tires, and the total is looking like it’s more than I paid for my last vehicle. But since one of the vehicles is supposed to be my main driver, I should just go ahead and get decent tires for it.

Side note: if you can’t get your pressure bleeder for the brake system to get above 5 psi, then you haven’t fixed all the leaks yet.

I decided to have winter/snow tires for the minivan this year. They’re like insurance – you probably won’t need them, but if you do need them you must already have them installed.

To make life easier, I wanted dedicated rims for the tires. I have no problem keeping a spare set of tires in the barn when they are not being used, and I didn’t want to pay twice a year to have winter tires swapped and unswapped off the one set of rims for the vehicle. I’d rather pay a little extra up front for another set of rims and then it’s all set.

Then I started looking at purchasing rims.

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I’m trying to figure out what’s a better situation for having a nail in a tire: hot weather or cold weather.

I have a slow leak in a tire and the leak rate seems to change with temperature.

One could argue that a hot tire is better because the softer rubber can better seal around the nail. One could also argue that a cold tire is better because the cold rubber will contract around the nail, providing a tighter seal.

I don’t know if there’s a nail in my tire, I just got thinking about the situation and haven’t decided yet. I’ll let you know if I ever resolve it.

In our Chrysler minivan (5th generation, model years 2008-2017), I had one of the rear brake calipers seize about a year ago. It turned out to be the lower slide pin that wouldn’t move.

In that design, the slide pin and boot are part of the fixed bracket, not the actual caliper. I couldn’t figure out a quick and easy way to fix it. Can’t replace a slide pin if it won’t slide.

At least they thought ahead and put a hex head on the end of the slide pin. So the pin wouldn’t slide back and forth, but I could put a wrench on it and wiggle it a little bit.

The rubber boot surrounds the slide pin and protects it from water/dust/dirt/salt/etc. In this case, it also prevented me from lubricating the pin so that it would move again. So I went against standard practice and cut a small slit in the boot. I then was able to stick the straw from the can of WD-40 inside the boot and put some WD-40 in there.

I then used the wrench to work the WD-40 throughout the slide pin and I could eventually move the pin fully again.

That was supposed to be a temporary measure. Mainly because I had the caliper off in order to replace the brake pads, and I couldn’t get the caliper back on with the pin stuck. Cutting a hole in the protective boot is not a good long-term measure. Lubricating the slide pin with WD-40 instead of brake grease is not a good long-term measure.

But that was several months ago and I actually forgot about it, probably because it has been working well.

Then this last weekend I noticed that particular brake that I fixed last year was noticeably cooler than the brake on the other side. I figured that meant it wasn’t working anymore, so I investigated. It turns out that it was working fine, it was the other side was running hot because its caliper was seized, causing the brake to drag all the time. Of course, it was the lower pin of the rear caliper, so it seems that’s a trouble spot for that caliper design.

At least I knew what to do this time – nick a spot in the boot, put some WD-40 in there, and work the pin loose with a wrench. It went rather well. We will see how long this side keeps working – the other side is still going strong.

A popular online debate is “what is the difference between torque and horsepower?”

I am here to answer that question. But I’m going to tie it to sports. And I’m just going to summarize it. So if you like discussing power in engineering units and if you appreciate football and if you like short blog posts, this is for you.

Simply put: horsepower wins games, torque wins championships.

That is all.