Archive for the ‘ Driving Blog ’ Category

Hyundai i30

For the last week I’ve been driving dad’s Hyundai i30 turbo diesel around, and while it’s pretty boring to drive, it’s a nice car.

The car feels solid and well constructed all round, no flappy plastic-ey bits.

Performance is as can be expected from a diesel, boring, but it’s very fuel efficient, and on a shade under three quarters of a tank, I drove more than 500 kilometres. Dad says he regularly gets around 650-750 kilometres around town.

The suspension was firm, but not sporty. Cornering did not feel at all boat-like.

All up, if you’re looking for a cheap runabout that’s fantastic on fuel, this is a good car to consider.

Car registration time

For the last two days, I’d noticed that the car had started pulling to the left slightly. Very un-usual, given this car drives absolutely perfectly.

Last night, as I came out of Cats (the musical), I noticed that the left rear tyre was almost flat. I stopped in at a BP to fill it, and heard the distinct sound of an air leak.

This morning when I got up, I found the tyre flat again, so I drove to the nearest service station (200 metres or so?), filled it, and drove straight to Bridgestone.

I had a bit of a discussion with the Bridgestone guys about my enthusiastic driving style, and it was decided that they would fit their highest performance tyres, the Bridgestone Adrenaline.

My choices were:
235/45/17 – $249 each.
245/40/17 – $395 each.

I took the cheaper option.

The tyres that came off the car also Bridgestone Adrenalines (completely bald), and anyone that’s spoken to me about these tyres knows that I don’t think much of them in the wet, but I was prepared to give the benefit of the doubt. They were on the car when I bought them, and I treated them with utter contempt.

After the tyres were fitted, the car passed it’s rego inspection with flying colours (I didn’t have any doubt that it would, I try to keep it in decent condition).

What do I make of Bridgestone’s top high-performance tyre so far?
In wet weather, it’s fucking useless.
The car does feel a little more stuck to the road around corners, but as soon as I hit the accelerator, it’s all over.

These tyres simply do not have the wet weather grip to put the power (or any power, really) to the ground.

If I drive like grandpa, they’re just like any other tyre, I guess, but that’s not exactly credit. From a standing start, if I try for anything more than light acceleration, they spin.
If I get rolling, and ease on the power, as soon as the boost comes on, they also start to spin.

I really hope that the dry weather performance makes up for what they lack in the wet.

Mum’s Hyundai Excel

I jumped in to mum’s car a few days ago, when I went to the place WauloK was house-sitting, and it ran rubbish.

I thought the timing may have been retarded, because every time I pressed on the accelerator, the motor started shuddering, but there were not too many issues cruising at a constant speed.

I took it to Mark’s, and suggested we check out the timing. Mark started with the spark-plugs and leads first.
Turns out there was no continuity on two of the four spark-plug leads, and after a quick trip to SuperCheap Auto for some new leads, the car runs fine.

Now that the car is running more properly, we have discovered a fairly decent exhaust leak towards the back of the car.
I don’t know whether or not I’ll fix it, or just sell the car on eBay.
The only real issue is the hail damage, but at $500, I’m sure I’ll find a buyer soon enough.

Rooty Hill Rocks

Because it’s been sitting around for a while, I decided to take mum’s car out today. It’s running like a bucket of shit, it shudders under load. I think the timing must be out.

I drove it round to the place that WauloK is house-sitting, and we then jumped in to his car, and drove to a place to hide our cache.

After walking for hours, trying to find a suitable location to hide our first cache under the Two Goth Geeks name, we came up with nothing.

River crossings, clambering under road bridges, checking out tree stumps, there was no place at all that we found to hide the cache.

With little daylight left, we thought it best to try and pick up a cache to have something to show for the day, and headed for ‘Rooty Hill Rocks’, and while there were no muggles around, we had very little daylight left.

20 minutes of searching, and it was too dark for me. WauloK tried to stick out another ten minutes or so by the light of his iPhone, but then gave up also.
The comments on this cache suggest that it is really easy to find, and we did find the tyre referenced as “nearby”.
No sign of much in the way of rocks, though, and certainly no cache found.

I’ll get you Gadget..