Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

Take that PT Cruiser up in altitude past about 5 or 6000 feet, give it a bit of snow and it's a horrid car. The ride height is so low the front becomes a plow, when the little engine can gasp enough air to even get it to power it through more than say 4-6 inches of snow. Everyone I've known here with them hates them for those reasons.
 
Well , from my point of view. Lets take the overall crappiest sort of small car available in the U.S today.

Dodge-Avenger_RT_2008_800x600_wallp.jpg


Between this and the Aveo you drove, you can see why the American Auto industry is in shambles, ugly, crappy, not that economical, shoddily built interior, the lot.

Now think of the crappy cars of the 70s. The Pinto exploded if you so much looked at the back badly, The Vega rusted in the showrooms (Literally) European cars were no better, and you and I know the Japanese still had not got all their act together.

The point I'm trying to make is that for all it's worth, ?Bad cars? of now are way better than bad cars back then.
 
Take that PT Cruiser up in altitude past about 5 or 6000 feet, give it a bit of snow and it's a horrid car. The ride height is so low the front becomes a plow, when the little engine can gasp enough air to even get it to power it through more than say 4-6 inches of snow. Everyone I've known here with them hates them for those reasons.

Most if not all of those complaints can be levelled against anything in its class - and, in fact, many others. A Ferrari F40, for example, would also get stuck, for the same ride height reason.

Well , from my point of view. Lets take the overall crappiest sort of small car available in the U.S today.

Dodge-Avenger_RT_2008_800x600_wallp.jpg


Between this and the Aveo you drove, you can see why the American Auto industry is in shambles, ugly, crappy, not that economical, shoddily built interior, the lot.

Now think of the crappy cars of the 70s. The Pinto exploded if you so much looked at the back badly, The Vega rusted in the showrooms (Literally) European cars were no better, and you and I know the Japanese still had not got all their act together.

The point I'm trying to make is that for all it's worth, ?Bad cars? of now are way better than bad cars back then.

The Avenger actually isn't in the "worst" class. It's in the "almost the worst" class. The Chrysler products in the "worst" class would be the Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass. And leaving fuel tank explosions out of it, the 'worst' still have problems with rust and other issues, like electrical fires.
 
Last edited:
At least the Avenger looks decent. I drove one of those as well, and it was.... a car. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing jumped out at me as "OMGWTF THIS IS TERRIBLE."
 
In other news, replacing the oil pressure switch in the Mustang so my oil pressure gauge works again makes driving around a bit less worrisome since I can see I have good oil pressure again.
 
Well , from my point of view. Lets take the overall crappiest sort of small car available in the U.S today.

Dodge-Avenger_RT_2008_800x600_wallp.jpg

Even though Caliber and Avenger share the same platform, I think it's loads better than the Caliber. It probably rides better due to it being a mid size car, and before the interior refresh of the Caliber, had a slightly better interior.

That said, i'd drive the PT over the Caliber or Avenger.
 
I'd pick a PT over a Caliber, too, but I'd pick the whole lot over a Jeep Compass.
 
The ElmScan is pretty much the de facto USB scanner interface for a reason...
 
Anyone think this is a good buy for an OBD-II scanner?

http://www.amazon.com/ElmScan-5-Compact-USB-423001/dp/B002PYBZJO

The ELMScan 5 uses an ELM327 chip at its core.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/OBD-2-OBD2-ELM327-Can-Bus-Auto-Code-Scan-Car-Scanner-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem45f24f8ddcQQitemZ300418043356QQptZMotorsQ5fAutomotiveQ5fTools is a bit cheaper and uses the same chip and therefore is compatible with all the same software. Either way, the ELM327 is prettymuch the gold standard for inexpensive PC interfaces.

You can do better, but you're going to need a loan to do it :p
 
Last edited:
So I can understand people getting in fender benders, but then only having the money to fix the necessary bits like lights but not the bodywork, or not fix it at all if the damage is only cosmetic, but I do get at least a little bit terrified if i'm driving and I get near a car that is absolutely full of dents all over the place.


seriously, if you can't get your driving skills together enough to keep from constantly having accidents, start getting farmiliar with your local bus scheduals.
Theres an old Ford Mondeo I see nearly every morning, and it looks as though someone has attacked it with a sledgehammer. I don't even know if all the dents were caused by accidents, theres so many of them and the car is pretty much covered. I'll try and get a pic next time I see it, its truly laughable.

Also, while walking home this afternoon, I was able to witness a traffic jam being formed. A badly beat up Hyundai Lantra wagon came clunking to a stop in the middle lane of a busy main road, and it wouldn't start for quite some time. I laughed. It eventually got moving, but by that time the traffic was well backed up.
 
looks like they made a coupe, and "oh, it needed four doors? wait..."
 
It was apparently to make the car look like it was rear-wheel drive. Quite how they can do that by having stupid rear doors is beyond me, but that was the point.
 
The ElmScan is pretty much the de facto USB scanner interface for a reason...

That's what it looked like from other reviews.

The ELMScan 5 uses an ELM327 chip at its core.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/OBD-2-OBD2-ELM327-Can-Bus-Auto-Code-Scan-Car-Scanner-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem45f24f8ddcQQitemZ300418043356QQptZMotorsQ5fAutomotiveQ5fTools is a bit cheaper and uses the same chip and therefore is compatible with all the same software. Either way, the ELM327 is prettymuch the gold standard for inexpensive PC interfaces.

Isn't that a clone that might not work with certain software or possibly not work correctly?

You can do better, but you're going to need a loan to do it :p

Yeah, umm, that loan is going for a bike or a car... either way a stupid investment. :D
 
The AD of my old office bought a Dodge Avenger 2.7 V6 with his own money. I can't take him seriously any more.
 
https://pic.armedcats.net/k/kn/knarkas/2010/04/22/298.jpg

Transport wrap is hard.
 
Isn't that a clone that might not work with certain software or possibly not work correctly?

The ELM chip is $19, which is only a bit more than the PIC microcontroller it's built on - if anyone cloned that, they're fucking crazy. As for the rest of the hardware, it's so braindead simple that it's either going to work perfectly or not at all - the chip does all the logic conversion, so everything else is just plumbing. The only questionable bit is that the ELM chip puts out RS232 serial for the computer, which then needs to be adapted to USB - the ELMScan has the chip that does that business onboard, the Chinese one has an adapter cable included. The model and manufacturer of that serial conversion chip will determine things like what driver it needs, but on the whole most of them work well enough. The common trouble spot with those adapter cables is in how much power they can supply to the device - but the ELM chip can be configured to draw power from the OBD anyway, so it's likely they did that if they wanted to cheap out on the adapter cable.

Software compatability and functionality will be absolutely unaffected - the ELM chip was designed with the intention not of mass-manufactured devices but of hobbyists gluing it into circuits themselves.
 
Top