Austin Car Repair
I work pretty close to a place called Friendly Car Care (9110 Burnet Rd) in Austin. Last week I got my oil changed there, and when I went to pick my car up, they said it needed some repairs. I knew it was overdue for a few things (e.g., it has over 100,000 miles on it, and it never even got a 50,000 mile tune-up). They listed all of the things they wanted to do: A general tune-up, new timing belt, yada yada. They itemized everything for me over the phone and said it would cost around $2700.
Yikes. So, I took the car to Riethmeyer's, a repair shop recommended by Karianne's parents. I had them do a tune-up, and they suggested more or less the same list of repairs as the other place. But they quoted a price of
$1350.
HALF!They itemized, too, and said they would replace the timing belt and another belt together for about $350. The other place would do just the timing belt for around $900! Holy cow.
The moral: If you need car repair in Austin, go to:
Riethmeyer's Auto Repair
12172 N Mo Pac Expy
Austin, TX 78758
(512) 836-6615
Now, in fairness, I will say that Friendly Car Care wanted to replace 2 tires, which Riethmeyer's didn't include in their estimate, so that knocks a couple hundred bucks off the difference. But it's still pretty substantial.
Easter Gallery
There's a new gallery with photos of Kaeta from Easter
here.
I'm Dreaming of a White.... Easter?
Something unheard-of is happening right now in Central Texas this Holy Saturday evening.... it is
sleeting. Sometimes, if Easter happens to fall in late March, we might get a cold front that comes through that cools it off into the upper 50s. But in April? Cold enough for sleet??
Kaeta had her first Easter egg hunt (since she's big enough to gether her own eggs) this morning at the neighborhood park. Since it was too cold and wet for a traditional hunt, we stayed under the shelter of the pavilion while the kids took turns pulling eggs out of a big box. Normally we might poke a little fun at the idea, but Kaeta had a great time.
Poor little Marty just came back inside, and after being out there for less than two minutes, came in covered in little ice pellets. Poor dog would have held it if he could.
It is kind of appropriate, I guess, to have a white Easter -- because of Christ's death and resurrection, "though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18). We hope you have a blessed Easter and manage to stay warm!
Tax Rap???
So I just filed my taxes with Turbo Tax, and when you're done, there's a link to
The Tax Rap. It's a contest to make the best rap video about taxes, and the winner will be announced by Vanilla Ice.
WHAT???
Anyway, I watched a few of the videos, and this one made me laugh. If you want to see a cross-dressing rap video about Turbo Tax,
click here.
A Sane Person Attempts Hypermiling
Today, I filled up my gas tank. I have driven 99.5 miles farther than I am able to drive on an average tank in the same conditions.
A few weeks ago, I read
this article about hypermiling, in which people go to insane lengths to squeeze the best possible gas mileage out of their cars. Wayne Gerdes, the guy featured in the article, gets 59 mpg in a Honda Accord. At one point in his daily commute, he exits a freeway going 50 around a 270-degree turn, shuts his engine off, and coasts for over a mile, carefully timing it so he hits two green lights. He keeps the windows up and the A/C off no matter what, wearing an ice vest from his day job at a nuclear power plant to keep cool. This is truly nuts.
But, as luck would have it, I had to fill up my gas tank on the same day that I read that article. So, I decided to make an effort to get the best gas mileage I could out of that tank. Today, my fuel light came on and I filled the tank again, so I'm reporting on the results of this experiment.
I drive a '97 Honda Civic (standard transmission) to and from work every day, and almost never anywhere else. My daily commute is 20 miles round trip. I've been making the same exact commute for months, and I've kept track of my mileage with every tank, so I have a good historical data set to compare to.
On the average tank of gas (averaged over my last 20 tanks) driving this commute, I go for 271.14 miles, getting 28.0 miles per gallon. On this tank, I went for 370.7 miles, getting 35.88 miles per gallon,
for an improvement of 99.56 miles and 7.88 miles/gallon. At the current gas price here ($2.49/gal), I figure I saved myself about $8.85 on this tank.
So, here's what I did differently this time:
- Never accelerate uphill (fighting gravity)
- Look far ahead for lights. If they are red, just shift into neutral and coast. Don't gun it to hit a green light.
- Take turns as fast as safely possible.
- In general, avoid using breaks if at all possible. Try to conserve momentum (okay, physics nerds, momentum is conserved whether I try to conserve it or not... you know what I mean!)
- Don't speed. According to this Sierra Club interview with Wayne Gerdes, for every 5mph you drive over 60mph, you lose 7% of your gas mileage.
- Learn the details of my commute. For example, I now know how fast I need to be going to coast all the way into my driveway from a particular stop sign.
- There are some other good tips here.
Also, for the last few days, I turned off my engine if I was going to stop for more than 7 seconds. I have heard various figures for how long you need to be stopped before it makes sense to cut the engine, but Wayne Gerdes says 7 seconds, and I figure if anyone would know the optimal value, it's him!
The bottom line is, this cost me nothing and had a big impact! I didn't notice it taking me longer to get to work and back, and it was fun. For the next tank, I'm going to try increasing my tire pressure, tossing all the junk out of my car, going on a diet... okay, maybe not that. My goal is to get 400 miles on one tank.
UPDATE! Your mileage may vary! I can't believe I didn't think to say that when I was writing this.
