Tech with a twist of lime! & FLHybrid Club.

My ears! Make it stop!

OK, the subtitle is dramatic but, have you ever wondered why some of first stops of the day in car sound so bad?  Look at this picture of one of my Prius' front wheels.

If all of your stops sound bad not just the first few you may be hearing your brake wear indicators and its now time to start thinking about your next braking system servicing.

The disks in the disk brake assembly oxidize, and what you hear is brake-pads on rust.  After the first few stops the oxidized coating is worn off and all you get is pads on disks as the engineers intended.  This is the same reason many new cars (cough Acura cough) come with plastic covering the whole wheel during shipping, the covering helps prevent unsightly rusty spots on the brakes of brand new cars.  This problem is common on many models disk brake equipped vehicles in moist climates like we have here in Gainesville not just Prius.   I wish the plural of Prius was different than the singular.

What can you do about this?

• Park in areas with lower humidity levels.  (a garage or shed)
• Use your brakes like normal and the problem will take care of itself
• Or put the vehicle in neutral and give the brakes a good pump.  Operating a motor vehicle out of gear on public roads is illegal in many areas.
• Turn the sound system up

All kidding aside this is usually a cosmetic issue and will correct itself through normal use, if the layer of oxidation remains after a couple of good stops that use your friction braking system (as opposed to your regenerative braking system).

When I returned from my most recent trip to South Carolina, I stopped in a part of Georgia close to where I first heard about the Subway personal pizzas.  I picked the wrong exit but this location did have the pizzas in stock.

Wednesday we will be having another race night at Gainesville raceway everyone's invited, bring a friend if you can.
It would be awesome if we could get several hybrids there, it would blow the minds of some of the gear-heads, others have seen me race and know hybrid power-plants aren't slouches.

Track opens: 6:30
Look for my Prius with the club lettering.

I am drag-racing the Prius and  will be arrive at the Gainesville Raceway at ~6:30 P.M.  Click here for directions the fee to participate is $20 cash, the fee to watch is $5 cash payable to the Gainesville Raceway (These are the track fees not money for the club).  Their phone number is: (352) 377-0046.  I hope everyone has fun, I will be in the '04 silver Prius with FLhybrid.com markings, feel free to find me and chat in the pits or to challenge me to a race.   Why race?

Edmunds reports: 3/7

Edmunds has posted a fine article about the new EPA fuel economy ratings.

Car buyers shopping for fuel economy this year should expect to see some unexpectedly low mpg figures on 2008 models, some of which are hitting showrooms now. Don't get all stressed. New cars have not suddenly become thirstier.

Starting with 2008 models (which went on sale as early as January 2, 2007), the methodology for measuring and reporting fuel economy has been reworked to make published miles-per-gallon (mpg) ratings more accurate. The trouble for consumers is this: 2007 models and leftover 2006 vehicles on the lot next to the '08s will appear to have superior fuel economy. But they don't. This conundrum exists because 2007-and-earlier models use an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel economy measurement that is being phased out.

Thanks to several spammers, trackbacks have been disabled. All trackbacks have been removed, all 3500+. My finger is actually numb from pressing delete so many times.

Now they've made me rant.
This is yet another example of the scum of the marketing world destroying technology designed to help people get together.

If I had the time I'd track down and invoice every one of those buggers. Stealing from my readers, or from me will not be tolerated. That bandwidth and drive space was reserved for the enjoyment of my guests.

These scumbags should man-up and find out legitimate sources of new customers. People actually want their products, all they have to do is put up a Google or Microsoft adcenter ad that says: "Free pills here", or "People doing private things here", the cost is minimal and they would get their money back plus profit.

Kacey Green
www.GRLT.com
"Tech with a twist of lime!"