The Hot Hatch Aesthetic

I had had my beloved Pepper for a little over three years now.  I bought her coming off of a hard breakup with a '98 Altima (Birdy, may you rest in peace), and for a while beforehand I had been just using Zyvelles instead of getting my own car (may she rest in peace as well).  I knew from these experiences that I needed horsepower and I needed a stickshift.  I dug the hot hatch aesthetic.  I did a lot of research, I bought Pepper (who was then at 110,000 miles and eight years old), and three years later I still couldn't have been happier.  After one major accident in which I ran over a fallen log in the road, a fender bender with a pickup (wow, I didn't even write a blog post on that--probably because it was embarrassing), and several expensive but fairly routine repairs later (clutch replacement around 117k, the whole front clip and assorted other things after the log run-in, new front struts several months later but probably linked to the log accident, cleaning the mass air flow sensor to get rid of a check engine light, as well as synthetic oil changes and brakes and tires), I was still in love.

Then one morning I cranked her up and heard a very strange but consistent ticking periodically.  I worried that she wasn't safe to drive.  I did a little Internet research and thought maybe it had something to do with the intake manifold, which forums said was common but wasn't major.  Deciding that the car was driveable, I continued with my day.  Later I had Jamie listen to the noise, and as we sat, I realized the ticking occurred at the exact same time the air compressor would normally run.  Jamie and I agreed--because, you know, we're experts right?--it was likely an AC thing.

The next day, I took her in to my mechanic, who came out pretty quickly with bad news.  According to him, I needed to replace the compressor, and according to his darling service writer (who I just love to pieces), that would cost me around $1100.  When my mechanic offered to just remove that belt so I couldn't hear the annoying ticking noise, I agreed.  I told him I was probably going to just get another car, and he said, "I don't know if I want you to do that, because then I won't see you as often!"  I got in Pepper to leave the mechanic, and when I pushed that pedal in and turned the key I have to admit I felt a little differently about her.  I went home, looked at the Kelley Blue Book for my eleven-year-old car with 180,000 miles on it, and it was something like $3000 optimistically for a private party sale.  I love this car, but I am not going to spend a third of my car's value on a repair.  And thus the search began.

For a brief minute, I thought about a coupe, but I can't stand how cramped Jamie's is and how you have to move mountains and suck in your stomach to get in to the backseat.  I used to fancy myself a two-seater roadster kind of girl, but I am starting to learn that's just not who I am.  I want to tear it up if I want to, but I also want to cart long lengths of wood or sheep (please, not the sheep!) if I want to.  I knew I wanted a stickshift hatch under 100,000 miles, and I had my budget constraints decided.  Subarus were pretty neat but didn't fall in my price range.  The Toyota Matrix was a contender, because of the Toyota reliability, great gas mileage, and not-ugly newest generation.  And of course there was the Mazda3.  I decided I probably wanted a Mazda 3 again, just newer, and with all the same stuff--stickshift, hatch, sunroof, etc.  My plan B would be a Toyota Matrix if one of them came up and looked particularly polished.  And in the meanwhile, I had to figure out how to sell Pepper.

To do that, Jamie and I went to CarMax, where a very sweet girl (I'll call her that since she was younger than me) showed us several...oh I'm sorry, six, nationwide...options of Mazda3s that corresponded to my very stringent demands.  The closest one was midway down in Florida, but I could ship it for $450.  What Matrixes do you have available?  Several--all automatics.  Because no gearheads buy Matrixes.  After test-driving a second-gen Mazda3 automatic just to make sure I still enjoyed the steering and that the engine pulled along nicely, the same sweet girl told me that CarMax had appraised my car for $1500.  They also thought the AC was okay, which should give you an idea about how intensive their mechanical inspections are.  This vehicle was literally missing a belt that was necessary for the AC to function.  I didn't say anything, because I had a feeling I wasn't going to accept that kind of offer anyway.  I gave her a big smile and told her (at that point I thought I was being truthful) that I would be checking in with her again.  Jamie and I complained to each other about the offer on the way home, but I realized that given the cosmetic damage on the rear passenger door, all the mechanical issues, and the high-mileage, that I should have expected that offer from a dealership.

I looked at Craigslist for a few days, but the car I was looking for didn't seem to exist within a 300-mile radius.  I found a couple of promising cars in Virginia and near Atlanta, but I hated to drive between three and six hours just to see if a car was tolerable to me.  Pictures don't tell you if the engine sound changes when you push the clutch in, or if the engine doesn't idle quietly, or if the interior is stained and disgusting, or if the salesperson seems shady.  I put in a recipe on ITTT (If This Then That, look it up if you don't know about it) to send me any new Mazda3s that came up on Craigslist in Charlotte, Columbia, or Raleigh, but the first two of them came three days apart and were automatics.  Jamie told me matter-of-factly that I was looking for a unicorn.  Then I discovered Autotrader, which had many more cars come up, but of course all of them were still far away.  Many were in Maryland, and I wondered about snowy winters and rust from all the salt.  Prior to my CarMax excitement, I test drove a Toyota Matrix I found, just to see, and the clutch was completely shot (so much so that I couldn't feel a biting point at all).  This particular Matrix (I don't want to be damning of all of them since I haven't driven all of them) was so underwhelming that I had gotten back in my own car (seven years older, mind you) and marveled at the ease of the gearbox, the nimble steering, and the quiet purr of the engine.

I toyed with the idea of paying a third of Pepper's value for a compressor.  I told myself that I technically had a few months with Pepper until hot weather came, along with our time of reckoning.  I stored the discouraging CarMax offer, valid for one week, in my glove box.  CarMax will buy my vehicle for $1500!  Guess I better hurry up and take advantage of that great offer within this seven-day period!  If there's anything that gets under my skin, it's time pressure.  Every time I opened my glove box to get a pen, I saw that piece of paper.  I began having unreasonable thoughts.  If I was Ayrton Senna, someone would just give me an NSX and I'd be fine.

Then after about a week, after that CarMax offer was no longer valid, ITTT sent me an ad about a 2013 Mazda3i touring six-speed hatch with 22,000 miles.  It was ridiculously underpriced (within my budget), and the only thing wrong was that it didn't have a sunroof.  This person was about a half hour away.  What?  Was this a scam?  I had already halfway decided the name of my next Mazda3.  I wondered if, when I bought a car, that name would still feel right.

I scheduled the test drive that night (about two hours after the ad was posted) for early the next morning.  The seller assured me that although the car had been in two accidents, it was really okay.  I asked why he was selling it at this price and getting a new car, and he said that he was selling it for $1000 more than they would give him on trade-in, and he wanted the new generation due to more room in the footwell.  I was a little skeptical, but I fell in love with the car and ran to the bank to get financing, as my seller said he had a 12:00 PM with another lady who was interested.  I gave him a deposit for him to hold the car for me until 5:00 PM the next day since I had to wait on financing.  I also wanted to get my mechanic to check it out given the history of accidents.  The gentleman reasonably shared that since the vehicle was still under bumper-to-bumper warranty, he had no reason not to have gotten everything fixed.  I acknowledged this but wanted someone I really trusted to have a look regardless.

The next day, he met me in the morning at my mechanic, where I was told the car was basically perfect with no damage to the unibody and all airbags functioning correctly.  I courteously provided a copy of the inspection notes as well as the Carfax I had paid for to my seller, who had been kind enough to drive up and meet me instead of forcing me to make two round trips to his house.  He was an interesting and friendly guy, definitely a car guy, and we chatted about our first cars as we waited in the mechanic's lobby.  He was very antsy and wanted to get his new car immediately (not that I blame him), so there was a great feeling of pressure as I waited and waited and waited for the bank to call me, which I had thought would happen within the next couple of hours before lunchtime.  The seller called me at 3:45 PM-ish, asking if I had heard back and whether I thought I would get financing.  I gently reminded him of our signed agreement and my deposit, valid to hold the car until 5:00 PM.  Finally, I kid you not, I get the call from the bank at 4:52 PM.  The woman from the bank was very friendly and made small talk with me as I frantically texted the seller, "I have financing!"  We met up the next day and closed everything up.

I am still in la-la land while I am driving this thing.  I was a little worried about the six-speed before I test drove it, because when I valeted, I would get these grumpy old Acura sedans with the push-down reverse and they were flipping impossible.  But with this car, every gear just chinks right into place perfectly, and I'm learning the six-speed gearing pretty quickly.  It has five fewer horsepower but is peppy and lovable.  It's pristine.  I feel safe in it.  I haven't landed on a name quite yet, though.  I usually have a three-day rule where I have to wait at least three days to finalize a name for significant things.

Today (the next day after buying the new car), I found (by which I mean a friend found) a buyer for Pepper.  She told me he was a mechanic who fixes up cars to sell them.  After I handed him the keys, he gave her an unforgiving test drive, complete with peeling out of the parking lot with squealing tires.  He came back with a smile he tried to hide and shared that it had been a while since he drove a stickshift.  He stated he was interested in buying her, and I agreed with his negotiated price ($300 higher than CarMax).  I shared very passionately about how much I love this car and begged him to treat her nicely and do right by her while he had her.  He asked what her name was, and of course I told him it was Pepper.  Then he said, "Well, I'm thinking I might keep Pepper for myself."  When he explained he would use her to commute, I told him immediately that she gets 28 MPG mixed city driving, 32 MPG on trips.  Then we shook hands.

Today, I washed that car for the last time.  Tomorrow I'll find time to Armorall and vacuum the interior.  I can't believe how good this car has been to me, and I hope that mechanic will be able to keep her alive and well for a good while yet.  I have no regrets about selling her, but I did tell Jamie on the way home that I can see myself at 65 years old, trying to find an old '04 Mazda3 for nostalgia's sake.

A Chapter Ends, Part 1: The Departure

My husband and our beloved car.

On July 23^rd, Jamie and I got in a “pretty bad” accident.  Neither of us were hurt, nor was the other driver, but Zyvelles took the full beating for us and, long story short, ended up getting totaled.  We were t-boned on the driver side right in front of the tire.  Of course, after the accident, we thought she would be fixable and everything would be great, so when we made our way over to the repair center she was towed to, only to hear the mechanic say, “Well, you see how everything under the hood is kind of skewed left?  It's supposed to be straight.  You can tell that some of the unibody is warped.  If it's bent, we can straighten it.  If it's kinked, that's not something we can fix without replacing it, and the insurance company would probably total the car.”  I cried on the way home, a lot, and then I cried some more.  We had always thought Zyvelles would last forever.  Our plan was that, in a few years, when we were good and ready, we would get another car we wanted, and we would sell her, and she would continue to be a car and drive folks around and have a little car life.  She had 120,000 miles on the clock and would likely have lasted another 150,000.  Cosmetically she looked good, she ran well, she was perfect.

But then the accident happened.  They totaled her, and the repair center accidentally marked that we had picked up everything and shipped her out.  So instead of collecting all the stuff and saying goodbye to her in a nice, dignified, repair center parking lot, we drove all the way to China Grove where the junkyard was.  We had to put on reflective vests and stand around watching as they drove her to us on a forklift, bouncing carelessly around, and she already had wax markings on the windows and dirt and grime all over her seats.  I tried to open the passenger door to sit in my customary spot one last time, couldn't open it due to the damage from the accident, and cussed a lot.  I had to sign a clipboard held by the junkyard guy, who stood there staring at us as we got all the stuff out of the car, and I cried as I was signing.  It was really really awful.

The view from the front.

I keep telling myself that it could have been so much worse.  If Jamie had gotten a little farther forward and been struck that hard in the driver door, he could have been really badly injured.  He would have had to postpone taking the bar exam, and I would have been absolutely beside myself.  So it is a mercy that it was just the car that was hurt.  Every repair person we talked to said something like, "It looks like it took a pretty bad hit.  Were you guys okay?"  When I thought hard about this, I cried some more, and I hugged Jamie and told him I would give up a thousand Corollas to keep him safe.

So before I go into the story of getting the Civic, I'd like to write a goodbye letter to Zyvelles.

_____

Dear Zyvelles,

I was really hoping this goodbye letter would happen in two or three years and end on a positive note.  Something like, “But I know those people will take good care of you, and you will take good care of them, as you have for us these many years.”  But I can't end this letter that way.

When I first met you, it was the first night Jamie and I went out to a date.  I think our first official date was I <3 Manhattan Pizza, but we walked there.  I met you when we drove to Bali Hai.  I didn't really have any expectations about what kind of car Jamie would drive.  But when he pushed the unlock button, and the little burgundy Corolla flashed its lights, I knew immediately that he was at least a reasonable individual.  My parents always drove Corollas, so while I was a little disappointed that you were a boring car, I was comforted that you were a very reliable, safe, and again, REASONABLE car.

Jamie and I ended up marrying, and one funny part of all this is that I was actually proposed to in you.  That made you so much more special to me.  We took a lot of road trips in you.  Jamie and I went to New Orleans, and Florida a couple times, and DC, where I remember getting back in you to go home was the best thing for my feet in what felt like a very a long time.  I remember late nights driving with Jamie, with us both joke-yelling Foo Fighters songs, and the early mornings of road trips where we would blink against the risen sun, still smelling the wrappers of the Bojangles biscuit I had used to motivate Jamie out of bed so early.  I remember when Birdy died, how I stole you from Jamie, and how we went from Durham to Atlanta to Durham again, weekly, for a few months until I graduated.  I remember driving to Chicago in you with my roommate, and how patient you were with the Chicago traffic—a gently purring machine compared to my anger and occasional banging on the steering wheel.  I remember crashing you when a woman opened her car door in front of me on a residential street.  I remember the sense of loss and failure, and the novelty of negotiating insurance claims.  I remember when we stayed in the mountains with my brother and sister, and how we scraped your undercarriage over a small hill turning into the cabin rentals. I remember sitting, worried, as Jamie punched the gas to get you up those hills in that cabin area.  You did wonderfully!

We have so many wonderful memories of you.  I think what makes this such a difficult loss is that you had what was going to be an illustrious future.  You would have been with us a few more years, then transferred to someone young and reasonable, who was in need of a friend like you.  I have certainly enjoyed the past six years with you.  I know Jamie has enjoyed the past nine.

The salesman at Carolina Quality Preowned joked that Copart was “where cars go to die.”  I hope then, my dear, that you can donate your engine, and your transmission, and all your relatively low-mileage parts so that you can continue to live on at least a little bit.  I appreciate you taking the hit for us, without complaint, as usual.

Lots of love,

Allison

An Ode to the First Generation Ford Taurus, One Specimen in Particular

I was thinking about Birdy the other day (RIP) and how she had died a pathetic and cruel death, but one from which it is possible to be resurrected.  My mother's old Ford Taurus wagon, however, was not so lucky.  Without getting bogged down in details, we were in a head-on collision in that car when a fellow in an old Ford pickup went into our lane to go around a car stalled in his lane.  I actually can't find any pictures of that accident—we had some at one point—but suffice to say our car was fairly well crunched up afterward.  She was towed away to a junkyard.  My mom and my two friends and I suffered some injuries but were able to remove ourselves from the car.  I feel like I never really got closure with that car.  Never got to say goodbye.  So please indulge me while I talk a little bit about her in remembrance.

We got the car second-hand from family.  Mom decided to name her Thelmalouise (might've been two words: Thelma Louise) partly in honor of the mother of the person we got it from.  This was a burgundy wagon, and it had been used for hauling things around on a farm (things meaning sheep on more than a few occasions).  It looked a little something like this:

But the paint wasn't nearly this nice.

It had two identical sparkly Pluto cartoon stickers on the fake wood in the middle of the dash, and sometimes I would look at them and wonder why they were there.  It had a sunroof (the GL was classy stuff), but the caveat was that the sunroof didn't function and in fact leaked.  So whenever it rained, the headliner (the fabric covering the roof interior) would get soaked through, and the backseat began to grow algae, giving the gray fabric seat a nice green tinge.  Mom drove me and my friend and my boyfriend at the time home regularly, and my boyfriend would always put his sweater down in the seat for me to sit on.  Our carpool group affectionately called the car Swampbuggy.  The power windows and door locks functioned, if I recall, which for me was a real treat and a big change from my dad's Corolla with the cranky handles for the windows.

The paint on the hood and roof was oxidizing horrifically (but not to rust quite yet), and the passenger door squealed like a pig every time it was opened.  But my mom did like how the steering was responsive (a claim I retrospectively find questionable).  And I will say that to my memory, the car never had any breakdowns.  (I remember walking with Mom a couple blocks home from school when the clutch gave out in the Dodge Omni she'd had before Thelmalouise.  That one left her hanging several times.)  This Taurus carried me to and from school for a long time, and it made itself quite a reputation among my carpool friends.  And then, when it had to, the car protected the four of us as best it could in a head-on collision where the combined speed was probably about 70 MPH.  Bent and broken and shattered and dirty from the ditch, she was carried away to a junkyard, where she probably couldn't offer any useful parts to anyone.

I honestly miss that car.

You used to see them on the road.  The light blue and darker blue and burgundy and icky beige late '80's and early '90's Taurus sedans and wagons.  I realized recently though that they've pretty much dropped off—I don't see but one every few months it seems.  I won't beat around the bush; they're ugly and awful.  But I do unreasonably wish there were more of them around.

To the first generation Taurus—it wasn't so bad.

And the sedan had seventeen cubic feet of cargo space!

_____

Photo 1:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/1st_Ford_Taurus_wagon_--_04-11-2012_front.JPG

Photo 2:  http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/FjDbPf5zmt8/hqdefault.jpg

Motorcycles Are Everywhere

So I was thinking about the "Motorcycles Are Everywhere" campaign that's been going on on South Carolina highways.  I think motorcycle awareness is a great goal, and I think it's true that a lot of times people don't look before they change lanes or merge and that that causes terrible accidents.  However, I have to admit, I get this weird feeling from "Motorcycles Are Everywhere."  It makes me feel like they're lurking.  Whether that's harmless lurking...

Oh, I'm just a little motorcycle, minding my own business.

...or like scary Batman motorcycle lurking.

The kind of lurking where it's waiting for you in your sunroom in broad daylight when you come back from having tea with a good friend.

Also are they really everywhere?

I mean, I guess this one is sleeping in a body of water.  So that's unexpected.

It's not like I'm gonna find one in my car.

Wait I don't get it

Would I find one if I went camping far far away?

Hmm.

What if I only ever walk around on ropes in the sky?  Would I encounter one there?

Which one of us would turn around?

I am almost inspired to write Seuss-style poetry:  A motorcycle on a rope?  A motorcycle with the Pope?

You will notice that the Pope is not dressed for motorcycle safety.

A motorcycle in a box?

THAT DOESN'T COUNT, ALLISON

A motorcycle on the rocks?

That motorcycle enthusiast looks so unhappy!

Motorcycles on the docks?

I hope he has shocks...  Also that guy looks like he's 70.

Since this is becoming a touch self-indulgent (a motorcycle, up on blocks?)--

--I'll just go ahead and say it:

MOTORCYCLES ARE EVERYWHERE.

________________

Photo 1: http://www.danheller.com/images/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Towns/Pitigliano/Bw/img4.html#img7
Photo 2:  http://hacknmod.com/hack/how-to-build-your-own-batpod-2/
Photo 3:  http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21461
Photo 4: http://www.toxel.com/tech/2009/09/25/motorcycle-sports-car-hybrid/
Photo 5: http://honda400four.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/motorcycle-camping-inspiration/
Photo 6: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2zqa5E34u1qz82u6.jpg
Photo 7: http://www.redbook.com.au/bike-news/2010/road/ducati/multistrada/ducati-motorcycles-for-the-pope-21691
Photo 8: http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/12436285/2/stock-photo-12436285-antique-old-toy-motorcycle-in-a-box-labeled-quot-travel-quot.jpg
Photo 9:  http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/gregfrazier/news/2001-05-01.shtml
Photo 10:  http://americanlivewire.com/french-journalist-crashes-motorcycle/
Photo 11:  http://www.kawiforums.com/zzr600-zx-6r-old-school/85799-well-shes-up-blocks.html

Lazy Post

So I just finished up with the semester (hooray!) and wanted to make a quick post since I was thinking about the timeless beauty of the older Accord coupes.  This is a 1994.

I really think they did something right with this car.  Not kidding.  I think it's very clean and there's not a whole lot of room for calling any bit of it stupid.  It's very light on the eyes.  Pretty without a whole lot of processing.  (And sorry it goes off the little journal-y part of the page...I wanted the bigger photo but it wouldn't fit, so I hope you'll forgive me.)

Stay tuned for more blog posts since now I have more time.  Looking forward to maybe doing a couple posts on handling driving disasters (e.g. blowouts).

Also, FYI, I was on the highway with one of those big, white cargo vans the other day, and the driver was changing lanes like it was a motorcycle.  They shot past me going maybe 90, switched lanes really narrowly between two cars, and just kept on with it.  At some points they hooked right or left hard enough that I actually saw wheels leave the ground on either side of the van.  Lesson 1: don't drive like a fool.  Lesson 2: please try to limit yourself to the vehicle you're in--if you have the heart of an F1 driver, save it for when you're at least in a sedan.  Ugh.  And even without focusing on this person's complete lack of regard for human life, I just wanna say that bringing wheels off the ground makes you look like an incompetent moron.  For heaven's sake, people.

_____

Photo 1: http://www.netcarshow.com/honda/1994-accord_coupe/1024x768/wallpaper_01.htm

How to Perform Basic Maintenance on Your Car

I know some folks who don't do it super often.  And you should.  (I don't...but you should.)  Here's what I think I know about things, but I'm really not qualified to say any of this.  Hopefully it's at the most entertaining and at the least, not going to ruin your life if you listen to it.  But don't listen to it.  Please.

Checking fluids.  This is probably the single scariest item on the checklist, and I'm starting with it so those of you who aren't serious will drop out.  Just kidding.

All you have to do is open your hood.  If you don't know how to do that, you're probably gonna need to feel around under the dash on the left while you're in the driver's seat.  Find a lever you don't recognize.  Pull it.  If it's not a storage compartment (my dad has one where the hood latch should be—what?!), you should hear a muffled JINK up toward the front of the car.  Get out of the car.  Go to the front of your car and feel around just under the hood, which should be slightly lifted.  There'll be something there you have to push up or pull down to open the hood the whole way up.  You're on your own here because it tends to vary widely among vehicles.  Once you have succeeded, push the hood up and find the little stick to prop it up with.  That's a good start.

Now that you're empowered by that victory, go and get your owner's manual.  If you don't have it, you should order it off the Internet and try all this again later.  Inside the manual, if the manufacturer likes you, there should be a diagram of your car under the hood.  You should check where the brake fluid is, the radiator is, the oil dipstick, the automatic transmission fluid, and the battery is.  Maybe bring that manual out in front of your car and point at the things as you find them.  It's nice seeing diagrams match with reality.

Just look at all those places.  Check all the fluid levels—there will be a “min” and a “max” line on all of them—and freak out if any of them are below “min.”  If they're above “max,” in my experience, things tend to be just fine.  Also, keep note of whether any fluids are dripping out of your car into parking spaces.  I guess that's kind of more of a homework assignment than a “right now” sort of thing.

When you close your hood, don't gently push it down into place.  That won't work.  Lift it up about six inches above its final resting place and let go.  The loud clang is very satisfying, and the hood actually closes.

Check your tires.  People don't see their tires while driving, and in most cars, there aren't any blinking lights to tell you to freak out about them.  So people usually don't worry.  But the thing is, if you don't monitor them (things like treadwear, pressure, and general condition), they could just randomly explode and kill you, or at least scare you to death.  Please worry at least a little.

Pressure: Inside your door jamb on the driver's side (or somewhere hidden deep within the bowels of your owner's manual), you can find information on what your tire pressures should be.  I usually inflate (HAR HAR) these by about two PSI because I like a firmer ride.  And generally you're gonna want a little bit of a higher pressure in the front and a little less in the back.  My dad told me it was because inflating the front more is good for steering and inflating the back less is good for having a gentler ride, but other folks just say the engine's heavier so you use more air.  Whatever.  You can find some gas stations with air stations outside, but of course it's always easier if you have a friend with a compressor.  (The QT near the Clifton/Briarcliff intersection has free air outside, FYI.)  The actual mechanics of checking the pressure with the gauge and putting air in are things I can't easily explain. You want not to hear air hissing out in either case, and you want a perpendicular connection to the stem.

In other news, if you have a new fancy car with a tire air pressure monitor and it goes off, you don't need to panic.  A very sweet fellow student in college came up to me in a parking lot and asked if I knew anything about cars.  I said, “Um, kind of, what's up?” and she explained that her car's pressure monitor was on and she didn't know if she should worry.  So we walked back to her car, looked at the tires, and I said “ehhhhhh, they all look okay. I wouldn't worry too much, just fill it up when you can.”  Your tires are going to wear more if they have too little air in them since the wall is going to be flexing more while you're driving, but it doesn't mean you have a flat or that your tire will explode.  So it's okay...for now.

Tread: Having nice deep grooves in your tires helps keep you from falling off the road in a rainstorm.  So we see that tire tread is important.  I rest my case.  I found a cool site that talks about how having 4/32's of an inch halves your stopping distance in rain, compared to the 2/32's you're legally required to have.  http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=85  For 2/32's, you can measure with an upside-down penny.  (How disrespectful!  Sorry Lincoln!)  If the tire reaches up past Lincoln's head, you're legally good.  For 4/32's, which is better, you can use an upside-down quarter and Washington's head.

When you do have to get those nice new tires, you're gonna want to put them on the rear.  If your front tires can't deal with water on a wet road and they begin to hydroplane, it's easier for you to control than if the rear wheels start hydroplaning and your tail comes out.  So you want the nice tires on the back to make sure that the rear of the car is solidly capable of handling rainy conditions.

General condition: If your tire is leaking, you know it, because it keeps going flat overnight.  If your tire has a big gouge on the outside wall of it, you know it.  If it has a gouge on the inside, I guess you're kind of screwed.  Generally speaking, holes on the sidewall are worse because the sidewall flexes with every rotation of the tire, worsening the hole and increasing the danger. Holes in the flat part of the tire (the part that meets the road) are less severe given that they flex less.

Change your oil.  How often?  Synthetic or regular?  Well, it depends on how much money you want to spend.  Generally you can follow the owner's manual on how often to change it.  (I don't though—I usually change every 5,000 miles as opposed to 7,500 in my owner's manual.)  And if you've got extra money, synthetic is better—there aren't any impurities and you can run that oil longer in your engine.  (Folks who advocate changing regular oil every 3,000 miles say you could go 5,000 with synthetic.  My guess is that if you're changing regular every 7,500 miles, you could do 10,000 with synthetic.  But I wouldn't.)  Also, when you're checking fluids, see if you're losing oil—if you drive a rotary, that's okay.  If you don't, it's not.  (Dear Mazda: Why did you stop producing the RX-8?  Are you going to abandon manual transmissions the same way you abandoned the rotary engine?  With remorse and reproach, Allison)

A point about octane.  Follow what's in the manual.  For most folks who aren't running on turbos and who don't drive sports cars, it'll be 87.  Putting 89 in your Corolla doesn't make it go faster or run smoother.  It actually negatively impacts performance since the engine is optimized for use of 87.

When to pay attention to your check engine light.  Always!  What I do is I at least go to Autozone or Advance Auto and have them read it.  I try to do that the same day the light comes on.  They can tell you if it's something not so bad like an emissions problem (Pepper's light is on right now for that), or something kind of scary like a misfire (if you remember Birdy...yeah that happened).  You can ask the nice folks there if your car will die if you wait until tomorrow to fix it.

I would say that if the light is accompanied by a noticeable change in the handling or ride, or any weird noises, I would go to a mechanic immediately.  Not that that's ever happened to me with a light on, and not that it necessarily would.  And remember I know nothing about mechanical things.  I just know what I do, and that the average person can't drop everything and run to the mechanic.  Keep in mind that I killed Birdy; take heed of the warning.  (In my defense: she was 13 years old and treated poorly before me and had 183,000 miles on the clock.  May she rest in peace.)

When your oil light comes on*.  Pull over RIGHT NOW.  Turn OFF the car.  Do not pass go (in fact, do not go at all) and do not collect $200.  Or you will potentially be paying upwards of $2,000 for engine replacement.  Quick note: I had a friend whose engine seized after he took it to Jiffy Lube for an oil change and they didn't screw the oil cap on all the way.  My word of advice is never to take your car to a crappy mechanic (that $5 you save is never worth the destruction, lies, and woe), and if your light comes on, heaven forbid, pull to the side of the road and make everything stop right now.

*Here's what you're ACTUALLY supposed to do. http://voices.yahoo.com/what-oil-light-comes-car-281127.html?cat=27 What's a lifter again?! I am so unqualified for this!

Why You Should Be Driving a Stick Shift

Subtitle:  My Brief Exercise in Futility

If you don't know how to drive a stick, you probably either A) never wanted to learn, or B) never got the chance.  For the individuals of letter B--your next car will be a stickshift.  No--no objections.  Just learn it.  It's better that way.  And as for the individuals of letter A--this post targets you.  The following is a laundry list of reasons to stop being so lame.  Also most things I will be saying are completely in jest, so please don't take offense.  I will also be making fun of stick elitists like myself, because we are pretty unreasonable.  So without further ado--why the vast majority of you are wrong-headed and silly.

Car control.  I can floor my car while I'm in fourth and I will actually stay in fourth. If I want to access the power available to me in third, I can choose to do it. My car will not drop me into second without my express direction.  This is in contrast to automatics, where if you step far enough down on the pedal, you're gonna get shot down into a lower gear unexpectedly and, depending upon how much horsepower you have, your hat might fall off.  When you purposefully shift down into a lower gear in a manual, you know you're gonna have to catch that hat.

Learning a lost art.  It's like learning scrimshaw or tapestry-weaving, except it's functional.  People who can do it or are interested in learning understand why it's so super-great(!); others find it harder to comprehend.  Why would I learn how to row through gears manually when I can just lean back and step on the gas and let the car take care of everything?  Right.  And why would you weave tapestry?  Because if no one did it, it would take something away from the world that made the world a better place.  It is your moral obligation as a human to preserve beauty in this world, and if you are not driving a stickshift you are negatively affecting the value of humanity.  And if you don't think stickshifting is a beautiful thing, you're probably right.  I don't know.  On to the next.

Supporting a dying breed.  This is along similar lines to the previous one.  "Progress" threatens to take away the third pedal forever.  Speedier shift changes in paddle-shifter supercars have all but obviated manual transmissions for folks who care about things like lap times instead of fun (and nostalgia) and tradition.  Meanwhile, sales of manual transmissions have decreased from probably about fifty-fifty with automatics in the '50's (great mnemonic) to about 4% last year.  And for some freaky reason, in 2012 the number of manuals sold jumped to about 7%.  VICTORY YOU GUYS.  Everyone can go home now!  But seriously, there ain't none anymore.  In fact, chances are that your parents can drive them but you can't.  And that is something to be ashamed of.

Paying attention to the road.  Your left hand controls the wheel.  Your right hand controls the gearshift.  Do you have a third hand for a cell phone?  Didn't think so.  Of course the other side to this is that if you're still stubbornly going to talk on the phone, you're stuck with sandwiching it between your shoulder and your ear and looking at the road at a 45 degree angle—I definitely have never, ever done this in my life.  Ever.

Having fun and feeling good about yourself.  Yes, the first few days of learning to drive a stick are filled with grief and overwhelming shame.  Yes you will stall in the middle of intersections.  Yes you will make your car make scary noises, jump, and over-rev (I couldn't figure out how to pull straight back from 3^rd into 4th...I always pulled it back to me, into second, and then my engine was at 4 or 5,000 RPMs going ERRRRNNRNNNNNRNNNN and I was attempting to troubleshoot as I panicked).  BUT.  But.  Once you get good at it, you will learn to shift perfectly almost every time.  You will learn to rev match so everything is smooth.  Sometimes there will be people in your car who apparently don't have spines and who leeeeean forward every time you shift.  You will feel guilty and you will learn to shift such that this doesn't happen.  You will shift a million times on your way to work, you will do it well each time, and you will feel good about yourself.  It's an easy pick me up.  My favorite thing to do is drive my car.

Anti-theft bonus.  This might be wrong (I did hear it on the Internet), but apparently no car thief, ever, anywhere, can drive a stick shift.  Few car thieves are classy enough to.

And if you guys really need another justification, here's a link to a video of Ayrton Senna driving an NSX in loafers heel-toeing (is that a verb?).  I hope someday I'll be half this cool, or, hell, at the least be able to heel-toe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8By2AEsGAhU

You're welcome.