Buy Snow Tires

 We live in a region that has snow for four to six months of the year.  Growing up, we used to have ‘all-season’ tires on our vehicles and thought that was fine.  Since then, they had come up with specially formatted ‘winter’ tires but we never really thought much of them, until we tried them.

Up here, the temperature can drop to as low as -40 degrees Celsius (234 Kelvin), and regular tires, even all-season tires, get solid and lose a lot of their grip.  Fishtails and sliding on ice are sort of a rite of passage for young drivers.  It’s like drifting, but with actual snow drifts.

When we inherited the van from Shan’s dad, it also came with snow tires.  When we had them installed, we noticed a major difference in the stopping ability.  Instead of that slow sliding which normally accompanied stopping with all-season tires in deep winter, braking occurred at a much shorter distance.  It is a total game changer, and one that I highly recommend for those people who experience actual winter.

It is a major expense, both for the tires themselves, and for the extra rims and possibly sensors needed.  Plus add the cost of having them changed, or having to change them yourselves twice a year.  But it is easily worth it, both in the better traction and safety as well as not having to deal with cracked bumpers, or the hassle of getting stuck.  Plus, your tires will last longer as they are only being driven on half as much.  You can’t use snow tires all year as they as softer than regular tires and wear out much quicker on the summer roads.

The only thing to watch out for is that people behind you may not be able to stop as short as you are if they are still trying to get by on all-seasons.

 

Freestar finished, torch passed to Terrain

Because we were having trouble with the Freestar we started looking for a new vehicle. We figured that we would rather do it on our time instead of having to rush and get a car when the next car died.

In July we ended up getting a new 2019 GMC Terrain. It was brand new - with only 50 km on it. It has a sun roof, and the black-out package - which means that the chrome and rims are black. It doesn't have a CD player so I finally had to figure out how to rip our CDs onto a USB drive. It also doesn't have a gear shifter so I am getting used to changing gears with the buttons instead.

We've mostly been using it on the weekends, and gave it a good run out to Regina on the August long weekend. It seems like it will be a good fit for us. It's also the first new brand new car that we have bought.


Which is good as the Freestar didn't want to start after Labor Day long weekend. We had it towed to the shop and they asked if we had driven through water. It seems that it wasn't the battery or even the starter. They said the engine crankshaft had seized. If we wanted to fix it, we were looking at replacing the entire motor - about $3500.

It's a tough call, as we hoping to get at least another winter out of it. But it is starting to rust, and the brakes would probably need to have been done soon as well. So we really can't justify putting that much into it.
It's a shame as it was a good fit, and had tons of room. But it really doesn't owe us anything. We had a lot of good road trips in it and I will miss it.

Time for a new vehicle?

Last week Wednesday, the van stalled out while backing out from the library parking lot and it took three times to restart it. On the Thursday it stalled on the way to work but I was able to pop it into neutral and restart while it was still rolling. So I called the garage and booked it in to get checked and get the oil changed.

I dropped it off last Friday and they looked at it. It stalled a few times for them when they tried it. Which is always nice in that’s it’s not just me.

They worked on it on Saturday, and Monday, and were having trouble figuring out what was wrong since it wasn’t giving them an engine code. We had had trouble with the alternator back in December so they checked that and found that it was overcharging. It should be sending 140 magical units and it was producing 210 magical units instead. So they tried swapping that but then it wouldn’t work at all.

On Tuesday we got a call on the machine and when I called them back this morning then found that it might be the battery. I had asked them about the battery when I dropped it off but I’m not really a car guy, so I was only guessing as it was one of the few systems I am familiar with. They replaced that, and it seems to be working now.
Another $400 dollars later, for an oil change, and a new battery. We’ll still have to look for a newer vehicle but at least now we are not as rushed.

It's been a rough ending to the year on the vehicles.

In the Freestar, we had the alternator replaced. Three times. I've had alternator trouble before so I knew to have it checked out when the dash lights started throbbing. I replaced the plug on the block heater. Then we just had the thermostat replaced as it's not getting good heat.

For the Uplander, we had the check engine light cleared when the car was having trouble starting. We had the fuel injection system adjusted. We just had to replace the wipers when one tore with the ice. Now we just had the 'reduced engine performance' message. It seems that the throttle body will need to be replaced. So. it's ending 2018 in the garage to be picked up on Wednesday.

So, all-in-all, it's been a fairly pricy year.

new Van

We bought a newer van – a Ford Freestar (which is what they called the Windstar models between 2000 and 2007). It seems in pretty clean shape and has minimal rust.


The only thing is that the ‘emission control’ light kept coming on the day after I filled up with gas. I’ve taken it back to the dealership twice to have it looked at.

The first time they reset the sensor and the second they actually changed the sensor. They second time they also fixed the door trim from the driver’s side door. It had fallen off at the end of our street but I had found it on the way home.

Van - brakes and head gasket

The brake warning light came on in the van. When we had it checked out last week it was leaks in the front cylinders and the self-adjusting calipers in the back. All told, it worked out to almost $800 in repairs. We had it done and they threw in an oil change since the oil was low and dirty (odd since I had just had the oil changed in October).

When we got the van back it didn’t have any heat. Well, it did have enough heat to eventually defrost the front window but it just felt like cold air blowing. So we took it back on Saturday to have them check it out. It turns out that the antifreeze was low about 4 litres. They called and asked if we wanted to do a pressure test to see where it was leaking. As much as we feared the worst, we went ahead with it and it came back that the head gasket was leaking. Repairs would total almost two and a half grand. With the age of the vehicle, we had to really think about it for a few days but decided to go ahead with it.

I dropped the van off on Monday and we just got it back today.  In the mean time, I've been driving a Dodge Grand Caravan.  It's not bad as a choice if we can't get a Windstar/Freestar as a newer vehicle.  We were thinking about getting a newer vehicle anyways so this allows us a bit more time to look.

Car woes - new battery

We had a bit of trouble with the van on the weekend. On Sunday, the signals stopped working and we were unable to restart it. We got a boost and it stalled out again on the way home. We picked up a new battery but the battery light kept coming on.

On Monday, I drove the van to work and back and the battery light would come on occasionally. That night I took it to Walmart to return the old battery and it stalled again on the way home.  We tried to boost it but had to call CAA to have it towed.

It seems that there is a problem with the alternator – which is apparently what the battery light actually indicates. So my dad is going to change that out for us.  Luckily it did not happen while on holidays or in the depths of winter.

The dog ate my homework

To no-one’s surprise but mine, I’m still not done yet. We ended up having an issue with the white car – in the belt/flywheel area. Haven’t had time to get it looked at but it created a lot of squealing and then smoke.

The other computer finally went. It’s been hobbled together a few times in the last 10 years and finally gave in. So we popped over to XS Cargo on Saturday and bought a refurbished Dell for $99. It’s not great, but it has 1GB RAM and I spent a chunk of time getting it connected for the kids.

Plus my dad’s been a bit short of breath for the last while. We finally convinced him to go in and get it checked. No heart damage but he had an angioplasty done to clear two blockages – one was 95% and was 70% blocked. So we popped over on Saturday to see how he’s doing. He’s much better now.

Our neighbor came over last week to talk about our crab apple tree. Some of the branches are over his yard and dropping apples onto his lawn. We haven’t pruned back the tree in a few years. The last time we did he complained about how much the missing branches opened up his shade. But we spent about three hours on Sunday climbing a ladder into the tree and we cut off a few branches. Then we cut them down and took them into the back. The kids helped with that, more or less grudgingly.

Also, the bumpers on one of D3’s Xbox controllers were not working. A check on the internet showed that this was a simple problem to fix – as long as you had the right tool to open them, a T8H torx screwdriver. I checked and don’t have one yet – I have torx but none with the security hole. I ordered one off of ebay but also popped in to Digikey while we were in the area on Saturday at XS Cargo and picked up a set of torx H screwdrivers for $10.
On Sunday, I got him to open up his controller and we put small pieces of duct tape on the back of the bumpers as the internet instructed. He sealed it back up and it seems to be working fine again. Problem solved.

I did manage to get down there and put a few hours into it. With a bit more tonight, I should have enough for another load to the storage unit and should have cleared out a lot of the mess from the family room.

But we’ll see.
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Update
My dad, who's not really supposed to be doing anything this week and next, popped over and looked at the white car. He thinks it's coming from the air conditioning unit. The one we just had fixed.

The week so far

Monday I had to take the white car out to get the air conditioning fixed. It should cost between $200 and $400.
The tire in the van had been low after work and I drove slow on it until I could get it filled.

On Tuesday morning it was flat again so Dad swapped cars with me so he could have it looked at while we went to work and the movies. It turns out the sidewalls were in rough shape. He ended up getting both the rear tires replaced. The cost - $260.

On Wednesday I drove out to pick up the car. The cost - $500, so far.

So, it doesn't look like I will finish cleaning out the room before this weekend. I'll see what I can get done on Monday.

Locked out

It happens to all of us at some time. But it hasn’t happened to me in quite a while. Last night I got locked out of my vehicle.
I had started it up and then went to brush the snow off my front window. When I finished, I found that the doors were locked. Since the Windstar has a feature that is supposed to prevent you from being able to lock the door with the engine running I don’t even carry a spare key.

I called home to see if my wife could bring me the extra key but she didn’t want to drive down or take the bus so she just told me to call CAA. I’ve had a CAA membership for several years as I used to have a wagon that had issues but haven’t used it for anything in a few years beyond getting triptics for vacations.

I called them and they said it could be up to 90 minutes but because it was a simple lock-out they would get any truck on the way to pop in. In the end it took them an hour to show up and about another five to ten minutes to open the door (he had a bit of an issue trying to jimmy the lock and had to go through the frame instead and ended up pushing the button to open the window.

Needless to say, the car was toasty-warm on the way home.

Rust be gone?

So we had got the car back a week ago Saturday. It had taken a week longer than they had told us it would but the rust does indeed seem better. They said that they had to cut out a piece and replace it. We’ll see how well it holds up. So far, it’s been a week and it seems okay.

On the upside, the small car we had for the two weeks was much better and cheaper on gas.

Car - rust repair - 3rd time the charm?

Shan has been dealing with arbitration about the Windstar for the last two months. It’s not been easy – mostly due to the fact that the lady she was dealing with wasn’t really listening to her. The end result is that the Windstar is back in at Birchwood to have the rust fixed to “industry standards”. We were a bit leery about they defined that but they basically mean “cut out the rust, weld in a new metal piece, grind down, and repaint.”

Since this was what we had wanted originally, we were happy to learn that they could do this after all. The arbiter thought we were being unreasonable about wanting it fixed “like new” and wouldn’t listen to us tell her that Birchwood was the one who brought up replacing the panels in the first place.

We did get them to provide a courtesy car again – but it took us hammering away at the arbiter that this wasn’t later repair work but rather work that was supposed to have been done before we bought the car. I think when we started bandying around the word “fraud” she finally understood.

I dropped it off on Monday morning. They had said that it should be fixed by Thursday so we shall see.

Birchwood - bad dealership?

We had gone in to Birchwood to talk about the rust on quarter panels that had come back one month after they were to have fixed it. It turns out that in order to fix it properly, they would have to replace the entire door assembly and they feel that that cost’s too much for them. Even though this was something that they had approved as a condition of us buying the van, and that had delayed us for a week in picking up the car as they sent it off to get fixed, they don’t want to do it. Not that they are saying that they can’t do it, just that they don’t want to.

We explained to them that, one of their managers approved this and if they had an issue with that manager’s decision, they should take it up with them. Also, if they had sent this off to get fixed and the place merely painted over the rust instead of fixing it, that is something that they could take up with the body shop.

They were thinking of just giving us some minor financial compensation. We proposed that, since they had said that they would fix this, but now don’t want to, we could take the amount it would take to get fixed. They explained that this cost was almost what we had paid for the vehicle and that they didn’t think that was fair to them.

Shan also proposed that they could give us another similar vehicle in a straight trade for this one that they sold us under false pretenses. They had two other Windstars on the lot – both newer. They were all excited to show us them and were ready to make the trade because they weren’t listening and thought that we would pay then another $6000 for the difference. When Shan repeated that we would do a straight trade but not pay more, they were less enthused about the idea. You have to wonder at their mentality – “I know that we lied about fixing this vehicle that we sold you, but how about giving us that one back, plus more money again, and we’ll give you a newer vehicle that will be fine this time, we promise”. Isn’t that the whole definition of bait-and-switch?

Andrew wasn’t able to make that kind of decision so he had to get his manager to call Shannon back. When he did the next, he basically offered her the same deal that she had already turned down. So we’ll have to go back and see them after the holidays. At least we have out vehicle back. Since they weren’t fixing it after all, they didn’t see the need to keep paying for a rental.

dealership delays

Birchwood has had the Windstar in for two weeks now getting the rocker panel fixed. When we called last week to check the status of it I had been told that the part had been fixed and was just waiting to be repainted. They said there were about 20 cars waiting so it would probably be sometime this week.

Yesterday, we came home from the movies to a message on our machine telling us that they were unable to fix the panel and have been having trouble trying to find an aftermarket part to replace it. They mentioned that they might have to order the whole assembly from Ford and have to cut and weld it. Shan will call back later today to find out what’s up. Either they were lying to us (again) when they told us last week that it had been fixed or they had fixed it and someone realized that the fix wasn’t good enough after all.

Either way we’re driving around in a Nissan Sentra. It’s tiny. In many ways it reminds me of the old days of driving around in my old Chevette – except that had more interior room.

boxes full of figures

Another box of love from ebay showed up yesterday. I have gotten two boxes with close to 200 cheap Heroclix figures to fill in some of my many gaps in my sets. I've brought a few more sets closer but haven't completed any more yet.
Ebay is presently dangerous. Our dollar topped out recently at $1.10 US and is now back to par. I've won a few items I've tried off and on for over the last few years to buy. Shipping is still a bit but I'm hoping they will survive the trip. With Christmas coming, I'm trying to pace my purchases.

I had to take the Windstar in for repair. They were supposed to have fixed the rusty rocker panel when we bought it but it looks like it had only been painted over. With the rust module and the repair, it shouldn't have visibly rusted through again in just a month. So that's back in getting fixed.

home again, home again

Just a quick update. I popped in to work to send out the email for the work Survivor pool. I had cleaned down my wallet for the trip and had forgotten to put back in my security ID so I had to get a visitor tag.

We're back from the states - since we had already booked the week off for the Valleycon that was moved, we decided to still go down for the weekend. As holidays go, it was pretty relaxing. The vehicle handled well, and we had no trouble with it.
Crossing back over the border was as easy as it usually was. We came back earlier on Sunday afternoon so the lines weren't anywhere as bad as they were last year.

More and more of our stores are closed. On Friday we did a day trip to Albertville and Bloomington. The KB Toys outlet used to be a fantastic place to shop. I had picked up a trunk of Star Wars models for $1 - $5 back in the day. This time, we hardly found anything worthwhile.

The Mall of America was a bust as well. We still managed to spend a lot there, but more of our stores are on the missing side. Suncoast and Magic Max join Scientific Revolutions, the Bone Store, Techno Comix, KB Toys, Gamekeeper and the other stores that used to make the drive worthwhile.

With Suncoast and the Media Play out, I was unable to find any of the Master Replica's Pirates of the Caribbean things I was looking for. I did finally find some foam cutters at the Hobby Lobby. That was something that I've been trying to find again since I passed on them at GenCon close to a decade ago.

Fly like the Windstar

So, it’s become that time again. We need to buy a newer vehicle. We have two vehicles right now – a Ford Crown Victoria and a Mercury Grand Marquis. The Crown Vic has been out of service for a while now – some problem with the electrical system. The Grand Marquis is fading fast. Both are well over ten years old, we got them as hand-me-downs from our respective parents when our Taurus wagon passed on about five years ago.
My wife and I hate shopping for vehicles. I’m over 6 feet tall and she is just over 5 feet tall. Finding a vehicle that fits us both well can be a bit of a challenge. In looking around, my dad was trying to get us to pick up a Montana but, sitting in it, I couldn’t even see out of the window because the roof was too low.

We were impressed with the trunk space of the Taurus sedan but a 2000 Ford Windstar caught our eye. It was less than a decade old and the price was in our range. We test drove it and it handled well. We both fit in and it was decided that we would buy it.

Then the dance begins.

We finally settled on a price that was amenable to us and included some minor repairs – squeaky windows, stone chips, rust on the rocker panels. Then we had to talk to the guy to see if we wanted to add the extras. We definitely wanted undercoating and fabric protection and were intrigued by the ‘magic box’ that prevents rust. The science behind the rust inhibitor module is sound, whether it works in practice will be something about which we’ll have to let you know.
So, $1000 later, we’re getting the full package and they tell us to come and pick it last Friday.

We go to get it, and the rocker panels haven’t been done. The back windows still squeak. I test the fabric guard and the water does bead minimally, but mostly just soaks into the fabric – like someone did a halfhearted spray with a can of scotchgard. So they promise to get it done for this week, Monday or Tuesday. Both of which have now passed and we still don’t have the vehicle yet.

Birchwood Super Centre, the used car division of Birchwood Saturn, so far you haven’t impressed us.

visual proof

These pictures show what the load looked like. This is the before picture showing the old picnic table in brown and the pool supports in white. You can also see the composter on the right. It's actually quite big. The wood under the table is the old composter we used to have. It was just 4 pieces of plywood nailed together at the corners.

The after shot gives a better shot of how much we took away. Our yard actually goes as far back as the wood fence - the chain link fence separates the side with the pool from the other side of the yard. The blue roll in the upper right corner is the old pool cover. The new pool is round so it doesn't quite reach that far back.

On Friday, I finally got the box of Heroclix that I had bought back in April on ebay. Over 20 figures, bringing my Icons and Indy sets to very close.

At BJ Supertoys, they have the Teen Titans CCG boosters on sale for $0.25 each. Naturally, we have picked up quite a few of them. Between the kids and I, we have a full set. Now we just have to find a starter set to see how it actually plays.

The other exciting thing that happened on the weekend was that the tie rod in the car broke on the way home. Luckily, it held together enough until we were just backing into our driveway. Dad was able to fix it yesterday. With the fix, the rattling sound from the front end is no longer there. We were looking at getting a newer car this summer but this puts a bit more of an incentive to get it done.

David