TireSmoke.org

Last weekend was snowy and this weekend was cold and rainy, but we had some really nice days this week so I changed out the tires and washed the car. While we didn’t get a lot of snow this winter, the snow tires proved their worth a few times. The most interesting was 8” of fresh unplowed snow clogg...

Yeah, 2.0 turbo sedan.

I remember the last time you hit a deer. I think that was on 306 just north of Fairmont. Did you keep the deer this time, too? While none of that looks horrible, I am guessing this was not a project you wanted added to your list right now. I could send you a link to a guy who has a frame straighteni...

A few weeks ago, I took the car to Rapid City for its 20,000 mile service. I was about 600 miles early, but we had a big trip to Asheville coming up. The trip was another successful 2900-mile road trip, although fuel economy was quite a bit worse on this trip averaging only 37.4 mpg. With the road t...

https://take4digital.com/IMG_1862.jpg I pulled the trigger on a snow tire and wheel package. I kept looking at our sloped roads and driveway and decided that traction in snow was going to be important. I bought both the cheapest wheels and the cheapest tires that Tire Rack was showing for my car, b...

Here is an image with the dark gray flaps reinstalled over the black rockers. https://take4digital.com/IMG_1853.jpg I only took the black up to the door and there were a few chips in the white above that (some of the big ones are visible in the image above). I have since dug out my very old bottle o...

The first repair on the VW was with a Permatex windshield repair kit. We got peppered with gravel by a truck going the other way on a 65mph two-lane road in rural Nebraska on our way to Ohio. On the advice of the owner of that Auburn inn that I stay at, I tried the kit. The idea makes sense. It trie...

What size are those dirt tires?

Today’s effort was rocker panels. A few years ago, I removed the front mud flaps and the deflectors that were mounted on the front side of the rear wheel wells. From the stone chip patterns on my rocker panels, it appears that Nissan had a good design with those plastic pieces. Now that high speed g...

The Nissan is up to 59,906 miles and is exactly 11 years old today. Two days ago, I washed the vehicle and cleaned up the interior. Between yesterday and a little bit of time this morning, I finally addressed the rusting rear bumper. I completely removed the bumper (and trailer hitch as it uses some...

I'll be there Friday, believe it or not.

https://take4digital.com/tenk.jpg The GLI has crossed the 10K milestone. That also means it has had its first of three free oil changes. It was somewhat of a rip-off since they charged me to rotate the tires even though I am certain they would have removed the wheels for the brake inspection they a...

Today I washed both cars. I think the last time I washed the Nissan was in Ecuador. The rear bumper is showing some rust along some edges. I should probably get a can of rustoleum. I wonder what the frame is looking like. I also replaced the floor mats today. I bought a set of cheap carpeted floor m...

6 months, 8,255 miles, 25 tanks of gas, 34.0 mpg average The car now has a garage; we got off the waiting list here at the apartment complex. While I can’t really work on a car in the apartment garage, it will be quite valuable to have shelter from hail. It is shocking to see how many hail-damaged c...

The Nissan is barely over 57,000 miles. I bought a new battery last week. The old one was over five years old and one cold morning it wouldn’t start. I probably hadn’t done anything to get the battery to a good state of charge after storing it for two months and then taking lots of short trips in co...