Fear This!

The tan Camry I was following this afternoon while running errands in my fancy European race car had a sticker in the back window, which is unfortunately illegible. It reads "FEAR THIS".

I literally do fear that. Every time I get in my car I'm afraid of the tan Camrys and Corollas I see. Those dents and scrapes on those tan Toyotas are mirrored on other, innocent vehicles all over the place.

Another thing I fear is MICROWAVE POPCORN. I told you readers months ago about the acrid stench of it, which had been banned by both the City of Seattle and by me in my home. Since then, two things have happened that have shown that I was way, way ahead of the curve on this popcorn problem.

The first thing happened about 1:00 AM on a Thursday morning last month when I was on vacation with my wife and daughter. While staying in an Embassy Suites hotel in one of our coutry's top three strip mall scourged suburbs, the fire alarm with automated voice annunciation started sounding, indicating that we needed to prepare to evacuate. There were sirens, a disembodied voice, and a screaming two-year old. The culprit: a hotel guest who burned their microwave popcorn. The lobby was filled with disheveled guests, while the sloppy night manager stammered apologies about the "false alarm". The alarm was real. And so was the stench. It all came from that bag of chemicals and popcorn.

The second thing happened last week, when the dangers of diacetyl were made public. Diacetyl is a buttery flavoring used in products like microwave popcorn, popcorn oil (for use in movie houses), potato chips, and other junky food that fat or poor people eat. It turns out that people in factories where food products are made from diacetyl are suffering lung failure from exposure to the chemical. Manufacturers are scrambling to find replacement ingredient(s) for diacetyl. Perhaps they should (a) stop making microwave popcorn, and (b) start using BUTTER to make butter flavored things.

Banning microwave popcorn is still a viable issue in my campaign for governor. So is an overhaul of the Washington State Patrol. Now they've started yet another "crackdown" on speeding on I-5 in the Seattle area. Word is that whereas they used to give speeders a 5-MPH leeway, now they get only a 3-MPH leeway. Sounds like revenue generation at its finest. I insist that the roads would be safer if the KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS law was strictly enforced.

Oh and another thing... don't get me started on "illegal use of vehicle horns"...

You may have an expensive car, but you don’t know how to drive it!

I attended a performance driving school this week in my fast, fancy European sport wagon, the Volvo V70R. It’s got 300 HP, All-wheel drive, and a 6-speed manual transmission. I special-ordered it from the factory to be sure I got the exact high-performance car I wanted.

The school consists of a morning classroom session followed by driving exercises focusing on car control, handling, and braking. Then we drive at slow speeds (50-60 MPH max) around the racetrack to become familiar with it. After lunch and a short discussion of the track, we spend the afternoon lapping at speeds with which we are comfortable, and which our vehicles can handle.

One year ago, a bunch of us owners of new Volvo R cars were invited to a local European dealership chain’s performance driving school. Six or seven of us attended last year. The dealership chain sells Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, and Volvo, and most of the other cars were Porsches.

I decided to attend again this year. Four of us from last year’s crew were debating attending, but this year only two of us did. The other repeat attendee recently sold his S60R and bought a used 2004 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S. He has 3 kids, his wife drives a Toyota Sienna minivan. I’m afraid an entire fleet of Porsches won’t make up for owning a Toyota Sienna minivan. But I digress. His Porsche is below. He's going faster than my high-end digital camera makes it look.


This year, the only other Volvo at the school was a new 2007 XC70: basically, a decently powered, tall station wagon on very soft springs with an automatic transmission. I’m thrilled I wasn’t driving it. I can't imagine.

About half of the remaining cars were Porsches (mostly 911s but a few Boxsters), about half were Audi sedans (mostly S4, with an RS4 thrown in plus a TT, A6 and A8). The handful of others were an Acura NSX, Mazda RX7, and a handful of Mercedes: CLS550, CLK55 AMG, C230 Sport, and new GL320 diesel (yes, their biggest SUV, in a 6-cyl diesel), as well as a new Infiniti G35S sedan and a first-gen G35 coupe.

We had 2 run groups at the school, so that half of the cars were on the track at a given time. The GL, CLS, and C230 were all in my run group, as was the G35S. The CLS was driven by a 40 year old Chinese man who spoke with a very thick accent, and who explained that he bought himself the car several months ago for his 40th birthday. Seriously, he looked like a bad driver, even when standing apart from his car. The CLS is a BIG car, but the 550 isn’t the performance version of that vehicle. As we were standing around discussing our cars, he explained that it has a 6-speed automatic transmission (it’s actually 7 speeds). One of the other Mercedes drivers (the C230 driver) asked about the paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Mr. CLS said there are no paddle shifters. It turns out he didn’t know what those things behind the steering wheel were, he thought they operated the cruise control which he had never used. Looks like he’s off to a good start…

When we got out on the track, the C230 and the GL were obviously underpowered in comparison to the other vehicles on the track. They were easy targets for passing. The CLS was an easy target because the driver didn’t understand what a “Line” through the corner was, nor was he able to understand when it was best to use the accelerator or brake pedals to quickly make his way around the track. He was an idiot. He should have been cited for DWA. He did get to see the R’s taillights pulling away more than once.
Better him than me!

The Porsche owners in attendance were split in to two groups: The gearhead guys who bought their cars to drive them fast (and already knew how to), and the poseurs who bought Porsches so they could be seen in Porsches. I passed two such 911s in my R. If I can outrun your new Porsche in my Volvo wagon, you probably shouldn’t be driving a Porsche. You should be driving a Camry. Also, just a tip: don’t wear Birkenstock sandals to driving school... or even to just drive your Porsche. Just ride the bus. Idiot!
(Birkenstock guy holding up the erstwhile R owner)

Interestingly enough, two different Porsches had mechanical problems while on the track. The first was towed in after it started smoking heavily from the exhaust after turn 2. The second I actually found by driving right into a smoke cloud exiting turn 2. Somehow on fast, sweeping left-hand turns oil can enter the intake, causing it to be ingested to the cylinders. Evidently, it’s a known problem with Porsche 6-cylinder engines. Yes, really… Porsches have this problem at race tracks. It’s shameful. No wonder the only dealer representative at the track was the Porsche Service Manager. He “fixed” the problem by wiping the oil from the intake with rags, and revving the engines in the parking lot to burn all of the oil off. What a sight. Seems like the service department at the Porsche store must keep busy.

The guy in the G35S had cool Puma driving shoes, poor driving skills, and a terribly unattractive car. The new G35 sedan is being tested by the auto magazines as a BMW 3-series competitor, but I don’t know how people can credibly compare the two when the new G35 is so anonymously styled. He thought his car was way cooler than my R. I guess "cooler" doesn’t mean faster around the track, loser!

On my final laps, light rain began to fall. It’s so liberating to drive 100 MPH with the windows open in the rain, feeling the fresh air buffeting the cabin, sensing the car and the track with my eyes, ears, nose, skin, and the “seat of my pants”. For any of you loyal readers who are actual “car drivers” rather than “automobile operators”, I recommend a performance driving school. It will help you become a better driver, learn the handling limits of your car, and give you a day of enjoyment lapping on the race track. The extra bonus is that you can come home and make derisive comments about all of the dumb-asses who own expensive cars and think they’re hot shit. What could be better than that?

Isn't this interesting???

According to this post on Autoblog, Toyota "has created a "Committee to create interesting cars" in response to grass roots criticism that recent Toyotas are uninteresting."

A committee to create interesting vehicles sounds to me like a bunch of clueless nerds forming a club whose goal is to make themselves cool. They're so clueless about what "interesting" means that they wouldn't know "interesting" if it ran them over in a parking lot. Interesting cars aren't designed by a committee, nor by following a corporate formula that has created millions of tan transportation blobs. I predict uninteresting, poor-driving (and poorly driven) cars in Toyota's foreseeable future.

Your car is a piece of JUNK and you're a bad driver!!

I always intended this blog as a place to show off all of the crappy, banged-up Toyotas I see every day driving around. As it turns out, I don't always have my camera handy when I'm driving around, and I pass most of the crap-mobiles without snapping a photo.

That being said, I've managed to take just a few, which, I've decided, it's time to share.

The first is this faded, rusty red Corolla. It's a bit tough to see in the photo, but the original driver-door mirror is broken off. It has been stylishly replaced by a truck mirror. Beautiful. At least it should help reduce blind spots. Notice that this fat guy is driving in the 2nd lane, even though the right lane is empty. I would expect nothing less.

Next is the following Yaris, which I was lucky enough to follow through Coeur d'Alene last week. Good job on the customized body work. All 5 people in the car (yes, 5) were smoking with the windows open in the 102 degree F heat. Seems like a great time.

That brings us to my across-the-street neighbor. I hate to air the neighborhood's dirty laundry here on my personal blog, but really. He doesn't really ever wash his 2 tan Toyotas. But when he does, he really washes them. Here he is, POWER WASHING the two banged up appliances. BTW, the Corolla has had a headlight out since winter, and the Camry is scraped on the front-right fender, with the scrape terminating in a missing passenger-door mirror cover. Awesome. He also told me that the Corolla's Check Engine light goes on when he runs the air conditioning... when he called the dealer to enquire, they told him that "the light shouldn't come on until after 100,000 miles." Hmm... He actually drove the Camry out to his wife in Chicago earlier this month... that would have been an interesting, scary sight to behold. I'm happy to have been safely here in Washington. I'd like to be able to say that the absense of the Camry reduced the Toyota count on our street, but that isn't the case. His next-door neighbor traded the family's Chrysler Town & Country for a new Prius last week. Another family falls for the hype. And we're down to just two Toyota-free houses on my street, though the other holdout's Buick Skylark sedan doesn't win him any prizes.

Finally, a bit of Zen provided by cars other than Toyota: we spied this awesome PT Cruiser limo near Scappose, Oregon on Saturday. There it is, poking along in the left lane of HWY 30. Nobody has ever accused the PT Cruiser of being overpowered, and adding the extra weight of the stretch certainly didn't help.

I thought people rented limos when they wanted to celebrate, or for a special occasion. What would anybody possibly want to celebrate by renting this car? Poor taste? Poor crash ratings? Or maybe just poor driving in general. Thanks, Mr. PT Chauffeur, for driving in the left lane in your bad idea. You've given us all something to laugh at this week.

Somebody- maybe me- needs to start a car rental company for people just like me. People who can't stand automotive automotive incompetence... or even automotive mediocrity. I'd rent out Volvos, Saabs, Volkswagens, Minis, maybe even BMWs and Smarts. . And Porsches. Nothing crappy.

My boss is long-winded. He can come into my office to answer what shoud be a 15 second question and sit there flapping his gums for two hours. During last week's marathon chat a co-worker had to send me a text message on my phone to see if I needed her to pull the fire alarm so I could get him out of my office, enabling me to get some work done. In any case, my big old long-winded boss told me that he'd had a new Ford Escape rental the previous week, and that it was horrible. It felt rollover-prone, had poor handling, and terrible dashboard materials. This from a guy who (a) rents a lot of cars, and (b) owns a Kia Spectra. I'm not making this up.

In any case, his portrayal of the Escape, plus a fairly underwhelming experience with one in snowy Anchorage several years ago, caused me to ask for another car today when Ms. Avis-Spokane handed me the keys to an Escape. The "only thing" she had available was a Mercury Grand Marquis. When she told me that, I stood there, thinking about it, for a while. Seriously it must have been at least a full minute of me standing there at the Avis counter, going "Hmm... mmm... you said an Escape or a Grand Marquis...hmm.."

I went with the Mercury, because I remember how tippy and horrible my recent Jeep Liberty experience was, and I know how underpowered the Escape can be. I chose poorly. I'd forgotten that the Grand Marquis platform dates back to like 1990, a time when the "classic" Saab 900 was still in current production. The car's hard points are very 1980s in their locations, as is the horrific driving position. Much like Saab kept adding more electronic subassebmlies to their 17 year old 900 platform, so has Ford added the electronics to the Grand Marquis. The idea, however, remains the same. All the slippery, low-grade leather/vinyl, door-mounted seat controls (a la Mercedes), dim-witted automatic climate control, and in-dash info displays in the world can't dress up the old pig underneath.

The car floats on the highway like I remember floating on a waterbed once as a child. Shift quickly left then right, and a wave will come back to get you, an unwanted chassis oscillation upsetting the car's intended path. Venture on to a gravel road, and the "extremely isolated" steering and brake feel leave you with no clue whether the car is braking or skidding; accellerating or spinning the tires; turning or about to plow right off the outside edge of the curve.

Chrysler has come out with newer full-size cars in the Magnum/Charger/300 series; GM has very nice large cars like the Buick Lucerne (OK, one very nice large car plus a couple of AWESOME Cadillacs... the current Impala doesn't qualify as nice)... but Ford has the Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis, and Lincoln Town Car. It's disgraceful. Ford is trying to come back and is doing OK with the Edge and the Fusion triplets, but their current large cars are dinosaurs. Yuck. I'm not looking forward to the next few days piloting that beast around Coeur d'Alene.

Idiot Corolla operator at the gas station!

I stopped by the local Costco gas today in my snooty Euro-Sportwagon and, fortunately, I was able to pull right up to begin fueling my thirsty car with premium gas.

In the next lane over, a car had pulled away from the front pump but a second car was still fueling at the rear pump. Typical etiquette is to pull around the car which is still fueling and back up to align yourself with the pump. However, the Fat Female in the filthy white Corolla was just sitting there waiting for the second car to leave. She had her windows open. The station attendant approached the car and told the lady she could pull around. Her response was something like "No, I'll just wait, I'm not that good at backing up." WTF??!!

Fortunately there was nobody behind her. If I had been behind her I would have had an anyeurism, or shouted obscenities at her, or pulled around her, effectively "cutting" in line. Or maybe all three.

This is just another example of why Corollas and Camrys (and probably all Toyotas) should come with mandatory driver training. If this female couldn't pull around the car in front of her and back up a few feet to fill up her car, she probably shouldn't even be on the road. Imagine how many fewer cars we'd have on the road if the new Toyotas had this mandatory Driver Training requirement... people would take the class, fail the exam, and their blandmobiles would just have to be parked at home or returned to the dealership.

Right. Well, we can dream, at least.

The Storyteller

Let’s just say that you were at a social gathering, and there was a guy telling the entire assembled group a story, about how people think the rules apply to everybody except for themselves. He began to tell some stories about examples of this behavior.

As an example, the storyteller mentions those traffic circles in neighborhood intersections, saying that for a “left turn”, you’re really supposed to go 270° around the circle rather than cutting the corner to the left, but that he figures that rule applies “to everybody else”, that it’s OK for him to cut the corner.

Then he gives another example, one about talking on the cell phone while driving. He says it can be distracting, but he feels that he’s a better driver than most people; it’s OK for him to talk on the phone while driving.

All the while, you’re thinking that this guy is your typical Camry driver. Not so much oblivious to the rules of the road as figuring that because he’s a “good” driver, the rules don’t’ really apply to him. Mister Unremarkable, who feels that it’s just fine to bend the rules a bit. Umm hmm. You might become more and more disenchanted with the story, while gaining insight into the average Camry driver’s mind.

When the story is over, people are mingling, and maybe you go ask Mr. Unremarkable if his stature as a great storyteller grants him the privilege to cut corners and yak while driving. He just laughs and says something like “Yep, perks of the job, I guess.”

After the gathering is over and you’ve eaten all of the host’s very good food, you head out to the parking lot, and as you’re pulling out in your sleek Euro ride, you see the grand storyteller getting into his car. What do you think he drives? As if the stars had foretold this moment, you witness the storyteller climb into his tan Camry with a dented rear bumper and drive away.