It's Been a Long Time/ What I've Learned

While an analog gas gauge may seem to be more accurate, I find they vary a bit with temperature and also hit E with a few gallons left in the tank, so really no big difference. On my Prius, each bar corresponds to about a gallon of gas, so when 9 bars are gone and one is left it's about a 9 gallon fill-up. When the last bar starts flashing it's 10 to fill up, and about 2 left in the tank. By that time I've gone 400-500 miles which is farther than I can go in any other car I've owned, excepting the Chevy pickup with the 34 gallon tank.

I'll save my whining for the digital speedometer. An analog speedo (ie, moving needle) makes it so much easier to judge the rate of change of speed.

 

+1

Saved me the effort of typing! Except I prefer the digital speedometer.

 

The "extra" services are a huge profit center for the dealerships ... I'm amazed at all the "protection" plans available .. from lost keys, interior protection .. wheels and tires .. unreal. Same goes for the service department -- they try and sell a $99.00 Tbody cleaning for a two year old car w/ 25k on it .. as "recommended " .... to maintain fuel economy. Some goes for injector cleaning and the BG brake flush.

I had my local guy do the transaxle around 100k -- questionable .. but easy to do.

 

i buy the pizza that taste good to me. seems to be the bet 'value'.

 

I choose the pizza that has the most calories, which coincidentally is often the one that tastes the best. I've even calculated calories per dollar when choosing a pizza. You almost always get more pizza per dollar ordering the largest size pizza. It's an easy mistake to think that going from a 12" pizza to 14" is only a 16% increase in pizza, but the area grows exponentially with an increasing diameter, and the true increase is 36%.

Regarding new tires; they often get poorer fuel economy for several reasons. First, if the new tires are the same model as the old set, then they have more tread and a larger circumference, which means the odometer will under-report miles driven compared to the worn tires. Second, the increased tread creates higher rolling resistance since more rubber is being forced to bend as the tire rotates. Third, you're traveling faster on the new tires at any displayed speed since the increased tire diameter causes you to go more distance per revolution of the wheel. What was indicated at 60 MPH on worn out tires is a little faster on the new tires even though the speed indication is the same. Increasing speed decreases fuel economy.

 

Stability, as in: understeer. Higher tire pressures in front will increase the tendency to understeer. Front sway bars also increase the tendency to understeer. Vice versa for oversteer. Understeering is safer in panic situations for inexperienced (read: the vast majority of) drivers, so nearly all mass-market cars have moderate to significant understeer dialed in from the factory.

 

One more gripe: after driving around sunny California I've noticed the sun visor is a bit short when trying to block the sun in the driver side window. I realize the sun visor has to be short to fit when it's in its normal position in the front windshield. However, there should be an insert in the sun visor that allows you to extend the length of the visor to cover the driver side window.

 

Agreed.
And "VisorMates" on Amazon was the simplest fix I found:

 

FroggyTaco - thanks for the info regarding the "Visor Mates." I'll order mine off Amazon too.