Posts tagged with 'autos'



13-February-2009
Recapturing energy lost to shock absorption on vehicles.
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04-January-2009
After failing at Dillard's but succeeding at Macy's, I drove home. On the way, I got a check engine light. Blurg. No problem, right? I'll just hook up my gizmo and read the code to find out what's wrong.
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I grabbed my Scantool reader, but I realized that I no longer have a portable computer old enough to sport the 9-pin serial port required. Oh, and also Scantool stopped providing their software for free. I've got to use a very old version of the software that I have kicking around....once I obtain a USB to RS232 converter.
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19-November-2008
Interesting charts and graphs (warning: PDF) about fuel economy of the US car and truck fleet. Some graphs toward the end show how your fuel economy peaks around 55 mph. Driving 20 mph is almost as inefficient as driving 70 mph.
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13-August-2008
Conditions permitted weather radar to detect moving cars in Chicago.
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10-July-2008
The British brigands on Top Gear stole my "Star Wars is a documentary" joke.
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01-March-2008
Who would think to look in the Wikipedia for the 2008 Formula One schedule? Well, anyone who typed that into Google, since that's the first result. Of note: no USGP this year.
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15-February-2008
Here's an idea! glue a bunch of junk to your car.
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07-February-2008
I have discovered You Ain't No Picasso, so I shall plunder them for links. For example, did you know that Johnny Cash actually made the One Piece at a Time car?
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...the misinformed craze for hybrid vehicles especially in the USA...could represent a red light for more innovative technologies...
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17-January-2008
Canada will tell you how efficient your car is and how much it pollutes.
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10-January-2008
Gloriously Glam V8 engine computer case.
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02-January-2008
Drivers who talk on the phone aren't just dangerous, they also slow us down.
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28-December-2007
RX-9 you say?
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20-December-2007
How far can your car go after the low fuel light goes on? Thanks, the Greg!
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14-December-2007
I checked out Autoblog today for the first time in months. I came back with some interesting bits.
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Ugh, Knight Rider is coming back. I'm sure this will be a darker version of the show with some kind of sinister conspiracy background noise. Because that's what we do in the new millennium.
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DashDAQ looks pretty cool. It is a linux computer that plugs into your car's OBDII port and displays dashboard information. You can also hook up your GPS and other stuff.
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07-December-2007
Speed Racer trailers are out. Thanks, Russ.
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09-November-2007
F1 Lawnmower, for when you have to mow fast.
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08-November-2007
Top Gear on BBCAmerica.
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25-October-2007
IEEE Spectrum podcast has a roundup of high tech cars.
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23-October-2007
2009 Nissan GT-R reviewed at Edmunds. (via BoingBoing Gadgets) Note that the multifunction display was "designed in conjunction with" Polyphony Digital, makers of the Gran Turismo series of video games.
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17-September-2007
The Top Gear test track in Google Earth. Gordon Ramsey holds the 2007 record for celebrity laps.
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16-September-2007
Scottish champion rally driver, Colin McRae, died in a chopper crash at his home. Also his two kids. Sad.
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09-August-2007
I don't pay much attention to NASCAR. A racecar needs fenders like a fish needs a bicycle. But it's cool that they're using technology to show the draft effects in realtime.
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30-July-2007
Making the rounds and submitted by Russ: measure your car's acceleration using a Wii controller.
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16-July-2007
Hot fuel means you get ripped off at the gas pump in warm weather.
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05-July-2007
When "wash me" just won't do.
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01-July-2007
The Plain Dealer recently had an article about hypermilers, just three months after Russ pointed me to an article about the same topic.
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27-June-2007
What car to buy if you are broke, flakazoid, and car-ignorant.
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13-June-2007
You know that alternative fuels are gaining ground when the government starts putting the smackdown on them. (via Slashdot).
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12-June-2007
Did you see the F1 race from Montreal? Some very sloppy driving and a big wreck (YouTube). So many caution laps that I thought I was watching an IRL race.
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29-May-2007
I wish I were cool enough to use my OBDII connector to monitor fuel efficiency in real time, like this dude.
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24-May-2007
Hammer Down, Track 16: Pink Cadillac by Bruce Springsteen.
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Hammer Down, Track 17: Running Down a Dream by Tom Petty. Me and Del (Shannon) were singing Little Runaway.
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Hammer Down, Track 18: I've Got a Rock N' Roll Heart, by Eric Clapton. This is the only one I couldn't find on YouTube. It's off the Money and Cigarettes album.
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Hammer Down, Track 19: Truckin' by the Grateful Dead.
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Hammer Down, Track 20: Go Speed Racer Go by Sponge. Punked-up version of the first cut on the album.
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If I were doing Hammer Down today, I'd add Drag Racing Robot, which I can't find on YouTube, by the Donut Kings. That about wraps it up for Hammer Down.
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23-May-2007
Hammer Down, Track 11: The Distance by Cake. This song was pretty popular about the time I made Hammer Down, and it's clearly automobile-themed, so I thought I should include it. It's getting tiresome faster than the other tracks, though. Don't know if I'd include it if I had it to do over.
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Hammer Down, Track 12: Stickshifts and Safetybelts, also by Cake. When I bought Fashion Nugget to get The Distance, I discovered Stickshifts and Safetybelts, which I like even better.
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Hammer Down, Track 13: Rabid Child by They Might Be Giants. "Hammer Down" and "Rabbit Ears" are the only words they know. I guess this would be the title track of the mixtape.
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Hammer Down, Track 14: The Motorcycle Song by Arlo Guthrie. Talk about a whimsical song!
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Hammer Down, Track 15: Hot Rod Lincoln. I had the Johnny Bond version on there, but on YouTube I found this version by Deuce, which is pretty good.
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21-May-2007
Hammer Down, Track 6: Highway Star by Deep Purple. Wikipedia says it's an example of speed metal.
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Hammer Down, Track 7: Detroit Rock City by KISS. OK, there's one thing cooler than Speed Racer when you're five, and that's KISS. I have not seen the 1999 movie based on this song.
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Hammer Down, Track 8: Going Mobile by The Who. (Covered on YouTube by Generation Who).
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Hammer Down, Track 9: Switchblade 327 by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. (Covered on YouTube by Sky King). Brian and Rachel.
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Hammer Down, Track 10: Open Road Song by Eve 6. This song perfectly captures the spirit of a road trip -- at least the first hour of a road trip, before boredom sets in.
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20-May-2007
Back in the day, I made a car-themed mixtape (on CD) called Hammer Down. Today it exists as a playlist on my iPod. On a whim, I decided to check YouTube to see how many of the tracks are out there. All but one. Ready? Here they come. I'm going to blog them as separate entries, so that I can comment on each song. It might take a few days to post them all. If you want to see them all at once, I'll tag the entries with 'hammerdown'. Most of the YouTube tracks aren't quite the same versions as what I used originally, but if George Lucas can tweak his work after it's done, so can I.
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Hammer Down, Track 1: Speed Racer Main Title. Speed Racer is about the coolest thing in the world when you're five years old.
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Hammer Down, Track 2: Route 66. HD used the version by Asleep at the Wheel, but I like Nat King Cole's version. Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, and the cachet of this road is a bit lost on me, but if people dig it, that's cool with me.
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Hammer Down, Track 3: Little GTO by Ronnie and the Daytonas. The GTO's cachet is not lost on me.
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Hammer Down, Track 4: Drive My Car by the Beatles. It's a little known fact that this song was performed at Douglas Adams' funeral. Beep beep. Beep beep. Yeah.
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Hammer Down, Track 5: Crosstown Traffic by James Marshall Hendrix. If you think that crosstowntraffic would be a good name for a web site, you're not alone: .ca, .be, .nl, .biz, .ie, .fr, .de, .co.uk. Plus others, but we don't link to squatters and spammers.
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09-May-2007
Rings for your fingers that look like tires for your car. Tight!
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21-April-2007
The new Lego Ferrari looks pretty hot.
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12-April-2007
Start with a block of aluminum and scrape away everything that's not a V8 engine (YouTube).
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04-April-2007
Three Fords race. One's an F1 car; one's a rally car; one's a passenger car.
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03-April-2007
An X Prize for a high-mileage car. (via Slashdot) This is a good idea. Now about an annual 500 mile race with participants limited to five gallons of gas?
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10-March-2007
The latest edition of IEEE Spectrum Radio is all about cars.
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Silverware and tea service for gearheads.
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09-March-2007
Russ wants to be a hypermiler, which is a fine goal. But I think we'd see a lot of accidents out on the road if everyone drove like that.
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03-March-2007
Why CAFE standards may not improve fuel economy the way we think.
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18-January-2007
Russ told me about the Jeep Waterfall (YouTube), which is undeniably cool. I wonder if it'll be at Cleveland's Auto Show?
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27-December-2006
EPA changes fuel efficiency measurements. Supposed to be more accurate, but most models will see lower numbers.
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20-December-2006
Tank vs. Car. (video) Predictable results.
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19-December-2006
Parking with your handbrake. Yeah, handbrake turns make me giggle and clap like an imbicile, too.
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18-December-2006
Lego car parallel parks itself! (YouTube)
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15-December-2006
An entry on davidj's blog about gas mileage reminded me of a similar experiment I did two years ago at this time. My spreadsheet shows the results. I found that my fuel economy goes up with the ambient temperature. My car might be a bit more sensitive than average to air temperature, though, because of my cold air intake.
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27-November-2006
Mad driving skillz via Look At This.
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24-November-2006
Alex Zanardi, whose lost both legs in a racing accident five years ago, test drove an F1 car. Good for him.
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23-October-2006
Mario Andretti to be knighted.
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10-September-2006
The streets of Boston (Ohio) are jammed with (vintage) cars. There were a bunch of Corvairs there today for some reason.
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06-September-2006
Another Andy I know chronicles his rebuildification of a 1975 Corvette.
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25-August-2006
Wired's Autopia blog entry "Hybrid Debate Misses the Point" misses the point. Quibbling that a hybrid pays you back in four years instead of six won't make anyone change their mind. A new technology's payback has to be obvious, immediate, or huge in order for people to take the risk. Besides, if you've locked yourself into a gas/electric hybrid for the next six years, you'll still be burning dinosaurs while everyone else is running their new cars on willow bushes and kudzu!
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24-August-2006
Mazda to recall RX-8's.
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14-August-2006
In case you want to play Hollywood Squares with cars. via Neatorama.
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Now that everything's been uploaded to YouTube, I can re-watch everything I've ever seen. For example, the Ignited Colors of Benetton.
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03-August-2006
Piston engine goes boing boing boing boing boing.
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Russ continues to make the bloggin' world go round by pointing us to Wikicars (dot org).
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02-August-2006
A mobile made from a F1 car.
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22-July-2006
If you're counting on federal tax breaks to make a hybrid affordable, your time is running out.
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20-July-2006
Make ice while the moon shines so that you can make cars while the sun shines.
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Russ is so cool that he sent me a link to this Formula One Chess Set. Pricey!
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19-July-2006
Russ sent a link to an excellent article about fuel economy, how to improve it, and how to test it.
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18-July-2006
Toyota recalls some small cars (Echo, Yaris, Prius) due to faulty engine parts.
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If your shifter knob is engraved with a lithium atom, you may be a chemistry geek.
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16-July-2006
Juan Montoya quits F1 midseason to head for NASCAR, a racing league more suited to his strategy of slapping opponents' cars off the race track.
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07-July-2006
Microsoft to supply electronic control units to Formula One cars in 2008. Oh noes!
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26-June-2006
Gasoline taxes by state. Warning: PDF.
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25-June-2006
Ford designs chubby dummies for crash testing.
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15-June-2006
Why would somebody knit something like this? Yeah, I know you saw it on Fark.
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13-June-2006
One barrier to using E85 as a motor fuel is its lack of availability. Kroger to the rescue.
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11-June-2006
The eyebrowed spaniard wins another F1 race in Silverstone, England. Good for him. The only bad part was CBS's dreadful coverage of the race. Almost as bad as two weeks ago when CBS covered the Monaco Grand Prix, and they were calling the "piscine" corner "swimmin pool" -- because, of course, CBS thinks americans are too dumb to comprehend that sections of a racetrack in a french-speaking country might be named after french words instead of english words. Why not just talk down to NASCAR level and call it the cement pond corner?
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06-June-2006
The Opel Club Of Finland linked to my OBDII page. Wish I knew enough Finnish to figure out whether they're saying nice things or mean things. Babelfish and Google language tools don't translate finnish. We don't have Opel in the U.S., but they were bought by GM, and some Saturn models share platforms with equivalent Opels. Some Opel models show up in excellent Gran Turismo 4, which I picked up at Amazon when it was on sale for $10.
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05-June-2006
A new transformer car commercial.
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29-May-2006
A six stroke internal combustion engine sounds interesting. After the normal four strokes, they spray in water, which turns to steam and creates another power stroke, followed by a steam exhaust stroke. Not only do you get more power, you also reduce your cooling needs, since the water stroke soaks up a lot of heat. But how do we keep moisture out of the motor oil and from rusting your exhaust system? Thanks for the tip AK.
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The Mighty Engine from Angel Labs uses a whole different way of combusting fuel to get more power from a simpler, lighter engine. Sounds too good to be true!
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08-May-2006
Gas-saving tips tested.
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03-May-2006
Autoblog's engine management and emission controls primer: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
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A roundup of alternative fuels.
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30-April-2006
Thanks to high gas prices and temporary tax incentives, hybrid vehicles are beginning to make economic sense.
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Whether you have a car or not, Congress wants to give you $100 because of high gas prices.
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27-April-2006
I saw a Ford GT40 at the gas station today.
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24-April-2006
Fabulous interactive map of gas prices.
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19-April-2006
Old skool automotive air conditioning at the Knockers Car Show.
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18-April-2006
Ethanol -- which offers lower fuel economy than gasoline -- is being mandated as a replacement for MTBE, due to environmental concerns. Restricted supply of ethanol as the changeover deadline approaches is partly to blame for the current gas price spike. One wonders what will happen as more cars start running on 85% ethanol fuel?
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11-April-2006
The Ferrari FXX is pretty cool, and here is shaky hand camera video to prove it.
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The next generation Prius will get -- wow -- 100+ MPG.
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22-March-2006
I mounted an AC adaptor in my car.
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16-March-2006
A new X-Prize for super-efficient cars.
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02-March-2006
It's hard to work on your own car these days.
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15-February-2006
If you're in Japan, you can get a special Mazda RX-8 that runs on either hydrogen or gasoline.
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06-February-2006
Yesterday's PD had an article with an interesting sidebar. It compared the Toyota Camry (built in Kentucky), the Honda Accord (built in Ohio), the Hyundai Sonata (built in Alabama), and the Ford Fusion (built in Mexico). Buy American, folks.
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02-February-2006
I made an OBD-II HOWTO page
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11-January-2006
Turns out drivers rely on all those safety gadgets to stay safe.
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10-January-2006
Jeepers, Ferrari makes some fierce looking cars!
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07-January-2006
Now that is how to do a retro car. The 1970 concept Dodge Challenger.
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04-January-2006
2003 Proteges recalled.
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06-December-2005
Catalytic converters don't help keep our air clean so much as they dirty it in a different way.
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30-November-2005
Skinnable cars!!!
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24-October-2005
Geography of North American auto parts plants. Bad news for the car industry means bad news for the midwest.
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19-October-2005
Fancy driving in Saabs. Awesome.
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07-October-2005
Oil prices, SUV sales are falling.
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27-September-2005
This video proves that it is not impossible to run yourself over with your own car.
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07-September-2005
Keep those air filters clean, guys!
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21-July-2005
The new Hummer H3. Congratulations, Hummer. You just invented the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
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20-July-2005
This Opel commercial will be funny for car lovers, but no so funny for dog lovers.
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