Wisconsin Weather

Well you know I never blog about the good weather in Wisconsin, so it must be snowing again... I almost posted last week with temps in the 70s at the start of November, just because it was so nice, but I didn't. However, it was in the 70s for three days in a row, then the 50s, and now we're on out third day in a row of flurries. Not flurries of sunshine. So far nothing sticking, but it is supposed to get more frigid, and maybe get up to an inch or two over the next couple of days.
Soon on tap also is replacing the brake pads and rotors on the Volvo. It would have been better when it was in the 70s!!!
And with this talk of snow, I'm looking at more of the 700c Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 35mm tires for Dr. Katie's bike.

Auto Shop Class

So, I didn't really have too much time to get this car stuff done, but the Volvo needed it. Especially since the T5 is now our only automobile. Tuesday I came home and pulled her up on some makeshift ramps and changed the oil. It was not too messy, but while I was under there I noticed that some oil had leaked, and is dripping slowly from the turbocharger. The cause is as yet unnown, as my ramps were not high enough to get all the way under there. I think the oil change went okay, but I inda wreced my thumb when the drain plug finally loosened and my hand slammed into something on the bottom of the car. Well, it wouldn't be working onthe car if you didn't hurt yourself, right?
So, since that Auto Shop 101 project was done, it was time to get started on 102 and maybe 103. Here is what arrived last week from IPD: Spark plug wires, spark plugs, distributor & rotor, torx tool set, brake fluid & brake pads (not pictured).So I removed my bike from the garage and pulled down the workbench to get started.First step was to remove the spark plug cover, which is the black piece on the engine that proudly says "Volvo 20 Valve." I noticed while taking it off that one of the special Torx screws that holds it on is missing, and another is stripped. The rest are corroded, so I'll need at least two, but may as well get all six new. They're $1 each from IPD.

I removed the spark plug cover and was surprised to see oil sitting in the indentations on top of the engine. It looks like oil somehow seeps up out of the oil fill cap, and then trickles under the cover. That is a bit of a relief, since I was a little concerned about the old oil on the back side of the engine, and I'm sure this is where it is coming from, not from a bad gasket.

So I replaced the spark plugs one at a time with Denso Iridium plugs. I'd had Bosch Super plugs, which were copper. I've actually heard conflicting reports. But it sounds like if you are driving a Turbo and really pushing it a lot, Iridium plugs are not as good as copper, since they run hotter and Turbocharged engines generate lots of heat. But they actually do better where you are in a lot of traffic or colder climates where the engine does not achieve as high of temp. Sadly, I don't take many spirited drives in the T5 these days, so I think these plugs will be good.

After changing each plug, I went through and replaced the wires with a higher-quality upgrade. The routing of the wires was a bit of a pain, especially trying to get all of the clips back in place. I did it pretty well, but then lost part of a clip that clamps down on all five wires where they exit the spark plug cover. It sprung out of my hands while I was trying to force it onto a wire, and fell behind the fuel injector rail, and then out of sight.

Here are the new wires installed. I decided not to do the rotor and distributor last night, because I had a lot of other stuff to do and was tired of working on the car!

So what is next? Brake pad replacement and brake fluid flush need to be done, and maybe my dad will be able to help with that while he is in town. Also I need to take the car in to have somebody look at the turbo oil leak and at least tell me what the problem is. I've also started to notice some noise coming from the fuel pump, which is located under the back seat/cargo area. Hopefully that doesn't go out!

Finally, a weather report: Bring clothes for rain/snow/wind if you are coming to Wisconsin on Sunday.

The Garage Project

So I've had the goal since we moved into the new house of being able to park my Volvo in the garage. The garage is not big, and besides the car we want to keep bicycles and the lawn mower inside. There is a low ceiling in the garage, and I'm pretty sure it is not structural. The ceiling supports run perpendicular to the roof beams. I'm not sure what exactly is holding up the roof, but it doesn't seem like it would be these ceiling beams. Before I started this project, I took out some shelves that extended two feet out from the back wall of the garage.

I cleared out the attic area on the small side of the access, and removed the floor boards. Then I used my new reciprocating demo saw and cut out the beams. This allowed me to hang the bikes up higher, and park the car below them.

I saved the lumber, and removed all the nails. Too bad I don't have room to put any shelves in the garage!

Here is a picture from the "attic" looking down through the narrow access.
In the Next photo, I've taken off the "floor" boards.
Now, I've used the new sawz-all and taken out two of the beams!
There is a much better view into the "upstairs" storage area.
Success! It fits! But the car is so leafy and dirty...
Here is where we will keep the commuter bikes for easy access.
Notice that in this picture the car is clean, and in the garage so hopefully it will stay that way!

I back the car into the garage so that I can open the door to get out. There is no passenger-side access to the car while it is in the garage. The garage is quite narrow, and as I'm backing in, there are only about 3-4 inches to spare between the mirrors and the garage door frame. My brother won't be allowed to move the car in or out of the garage!
This project is pretty much done. I need to mount a support for the commuter bikes to that they don't fall over while propped on the wall, and I think I'll repair the concrete where the garage meets the driveway. There is a pretty decent curb there now.
The next projects will be car-related, as I need to work on brakes, oil change and spark plugs and wires.

Analytical Site Statistics

So a while back I signed up for Google Analytics, a program designed to track usage on the site. I thought it would be interesting to see how many visitors see my ramblings about bikes, Swedish cars, and the weather in Wisconsin. The results are presented with big colorful graphs and maps.Over the last month I've had 286 visits from 39 countries! I've had 191, 15, 11 and 8 visitors from the USA, Canada, the UK and Germany respectively. Mostly domestic, but the rest of the world is starting to catch on. So how do they get to my site?
About 90-95% are referred from Google. Images.google.com referred 25%, google (organic) referred another 16%, and google.ca referred all 11 of my Canadian visitors (3.85%). sixteen percent of people type in the address directly, and another nine percent are directed to the page from another blogger.com site. Minimal referrals come from saablog.blog.com, auto-snob.blogspot.com, autosnob.blogspot.com and forums.sweedspeed.com. The rest come from worldwide google sites.

So what keywords are people searching for that land them on the site? Various combinations of "Madison," "earthquake," and "icequake" make up 12 of the first 30. Fields Auto Group comes in at number three though, so don't think that my ranting and raving has not been heard! Most of the rest are various combinations of "Volvo," Tailgate struts," "running costs" or "madison snow." Only a couple about bikes.

So what does this all tell me? Well, not too much, but it does tell me that although not too many people see these pages, a few people from all around the world do see the site. It also tells me that since most google hits came from images.google.country, having pictures in the blog is the way to draw more traffic. Pretty soon, I'll be an internet superstar!

Must be time to talk about the weather...

I guess we've been lucky here so far this fall in Wisconsin. But the good times are past. Even as we had temps around 70 last week, today we've had our first snowflakes of the season. We'll have flurries and 25-25 mph wind tonight, and a "hard freeze" in the middle of this week. Brrr. At least I got some new gloves. Working outside my hands have been getting cold (because when I'm working outside, I'm pretty much the only one not working hard enough to stay warm....)

Now onto one of my other favorite topics. I was walking to my car today and as I walked past the back, I noticed that my rear bumper had been tagged by some idiot, scraping the paint off of the corner. Pretty typical for the clientelle around here. We have a few really nice Euro rides in the lot, but quite a few dumpy Japanese cars in various states of disrepair. I'm pretty sure one of them pulled in and didn't quite make it past my car.

In other Volvo news, the old "R" wheels I used to have on my car were sold this weekend. I have had the standard "Turbo" wheels on since the fall of 2004. It was pretty sporty with the old ones, but I couldn't find tires for them that were up to the challenge of carrying the heft of the Volvo.

On a last note about the Volvo, I purchased petrol today for the first time Sept. 30.

Cost Calculators

Here is a really simple tool for figuring petrol cost per mile, adjustible for the current price of gas. It puts me at about $0.15/mile at today's prices ($3.20) but was about $0.10/per mile at $2.00, which it was not so long ago.

As far as determining cost per mile, the IRS give $0.405/mile for tax purposes, so based on raw numbers, I am still (amazingly) ahead of that, but that is figuring in depreciation as well. When I figure depreciation (I paid $14,565 and dorve 73,396 miles, the car is now valued at near $3848) this comes to $0.146 per mile.

So, figuring that my average price put me somewhere around $0.12 per mile, the depreciation at $0.146 per mile and repairs at $0.158 per mile, total cost per mile is $0.424.

The AAA says that it costs $0.522 per mile. Here is a guy who says he did it for $0.375 driving 20,000 miles per year in his FoFo. I don't really trust his judgement too much because he has another post in which he says "I’ve always wanted a Toyota Camry V6 XLE!" Arrgh!

I guess that I have generally overlooked the obvious here. The key to the whole cost per mile problem is that as mileage goes up, cost per mile goes down. Time to start piling on the miles!!!

Fuel mileage

So, I've kept track of fuel consumption since my trip from Chula Vista to Princeton in March of 2003. On that trip I used 106.75 gallons and drove 2701.7 miles for an average of 25.878 mpg.

This picture was taken just before the start of that trip. And I took the picture because I thought prices were super-high!!! Since the start of that trip I've used 1,932.534 gallons of petrol. I've driven 42,786 miles in that time, earning a total of 22.139 mpg over that time.
Best one-tank total: 28.936 mpg
Worst one-tank total: 13.220 mpg I will not add up the total cost of the fuel, because I don't have all the receipts. And I don't want to know.
Maybe somebody could figure out what the average price of premium fuel was over that time frame, but it has gone up quite a bit. It used to be less that $40 per tank, now it pushes $50. An average of $42 per tank over the 130 or so tanks in this record would come to $5460 at roughly $2.62 per gallon.
Depending on the cost of gas and the mileage, it comes out between 10-14 cents per mile.
Maybe I should buy a Camry hybrid and, like a typical Camry owner, never make repairs. It would be much cheaper, and since it is a hybrid, I'd save scores of cash on fuel. Probably I'd just plug it in. Left lane, here I come!

Volvo Running Costs, breakdown (pun intended)

Here are the cost, broken into categories to spare you having to sift thru the vast data:

Planned Service (60K, 90K, 120K, 130K service): $3288.48
Unpanned Service (thermostat, rear main seal, A/C fix): $2389.19
Tires & Wheels (3 sets tires, one set wheels): $2146.69
Suspension repair/Upgrade: $1860.11
Oil Changes: $703.36
Accessories: (Roof Rails, Spare Key, Car Cover): $664.82
Mileage since I bought the car: 73,396
Cost per mile (excluding petrol & insurance): $0.1588

It might be cheaper to run a Ferrari!

Volvo Running Costs

A staggering $11662.28 over 68 months for an average of $171.50 each month.
I spent an hour making a table with each line item, but it *poof* and disappeared. Maybe I'll do it again later. Maybe not.
It was seen as a performance car for me, and some of the costs were modifications I made to enhance performance (air filter, brakes), some were to enhance its hauling capacity (heavy duty springs, shocks and struts). Some were repairs due to overuse or overestimating capabilities.
Several times I just got bent over by the shop.

This Old Car

Well, if the saablog's author can lament the 900, I feel able to do the same about the 855 T5. His car was bought about 15 months ago for $800 for a fun project. Mine was purchased in 2002 for $14,565 for tong-term transportation. The 1997 Volvo is now past its 10th birthday, and starting to show it. Today I waxed the roof and hood and discovered that the paint is not in the best of shape. It has several rock chips on the hood which need to be filled (I need to go the dealer and get some, since the container I had exploded in the golve box last year.) The roof is another story. It is covered, or maybe pitted, all over with black spots. Maybe other cars of mine have had blemishes like this, but it shows more on the Volvo since the car is white. The waxing I did today did nothing to solve the black-spot problem. It just put a shine over the top of them. I expect that I need to get some sort of semi-abrasive rubbing compound to get a bit deeper into the finish, and then get another wax job. But I would probably need to get a buffer to do it, since it would take some serious rubbing to get the paint back to good. The biggest problem is that I don't have a good place to do the work where I could plug in the buffer. I'm not really supposed to do it at work. Another thing the Volvo needs is new spark plugs, and probably fuel injectors. I'll have to check the service recommendations and look at the last time these things were done. The car has definitely lost a step.

Of course all of these things are in addition to the sunroof leak (previous post). I have ordered a new weatherstrip seal to hopefully fix the leak problem. That is not a project I'm looking forward to.

I just saw a commercial for the new MB C-Class. I like the looks of that! But if any new cars are in the future it will likely be somthing more economical (but likely still something German.) I'm thinking that long-term maybe Katie and I will get a small two-seater for in the city (maybe Smartcar, maybe something sportier like a Miata, S2000 or Boxster) and then something bigger (wagon or hatchback) to put all of our toys onto or into. But that is still a year or two away. It doesn't make too much sense to me to get something else without a garage to put it in to keep it nice, anyway.

Some mileage notations:

February 2002: 59,147 (Seattle)

Mar 29, 2002: 63,130 (Princeton)

Oct 29, 2002: 71,309 (Princeton)

Oct 27, 2003: 83,283 (Princeton)

Mar. 26, 2004: 90,610(Chula Vista)

Sept 16, 2004: 103,371 (Princeton)

Mar. 27, 2005: 110, 925 (Renton)

Sept. 6, 2005: 118,043 (Renton)

Apr 3, 2006: 125, 568 (Madison)

Sept 10, 2006: 128,439 (Madison)

Mar 29, 2007: 131, 089 (Madison)

Sept. 3, 2007: 133,346 (Madison)

I definitely don't drive the Sprotswagon as much as I used to. Maybe that is why I feel more like spending money on bikes than on the Volvo. Also, since I don't use it as often, I feel like I neglect the car, and am unsure of what maintenance it needs regularly.

Swimming in Volvos

Oohhh. Looks like I will have some work to do on the 855. The more it rains, the more it gets wet in the car due to the sunroof. I'll need to check the drains, and make sure they are not clogged, but I believe the culprit to be rust on the metal frame which supports the sunroof glass. This allows water to seep between the glass and the frame. If unmolested, the water then will either stay put and drip into an area feeding the drain, or the sun will come out tnd the water will evaporate. However, if I move the car (specifically, turn the car) the water spills out of a channel in the metal frame and onto one or the other of the front seats--it depends on the direction of the turn. It does not yet drip onto the headliner and does not drip into the interior of the car when the car is not in motion.
The fix seems to involve removing the glass from the sunroof, separating the metal from the glass, removing the rust and repainting the frame, sticking the metal and glass back together again, and then re-installing the glass and fine-tuning its position once in place. Details here: Sweedspeed.com...

The worst car care town in America

I'm pretty sure that Madison is the worst place to try to get a Volvo worked on in the USA. Or any car for that matter. I was driving home from a missed dentist appointment yesterday morning (I showed up a day late for a 7:00am appointment) and drove past a tire store. I had noticed that I have a really slow leak in one of my tires, and the place was open, so I decided to stop. They couldn't fit me in immediately, but I could come back at 10am. Fine. As I left the tire store I drove past the Jiffy Lube from a previous post where the moron there though I was driving a Saab ("Saab, Volvo--They're the same thing!") and they had a sign out front readin "Qualified Technicians Wanted." Indeed.
So anyway, after giving my friend Amy a jump-start in her P.O.S. 1990-something Isuzu Trooper/Nissan Pathfinder crappy old SUV I drove over to West Town Monona Tire. I re-affirmed my request that they find the leak and repair it, and then also rotate the tires. I've had the tires for maybe 6000 miles, and they should have been rotated already. The fronts are showing a fair bit of wear at the shoulders. They said that there would be no problem!
So I went into the cramped waiting room which smelled of old coffee and old people and started reading a two-day-old copy of the Wisconsin State Journal. Not much of a paper, but the best there is around here.
So after a little bit more than half-an-hour, they come and get me from the waiting room and tell me I'm free to go, as the guy is processing my payment, he confirms that they have patched a hole in the tire which was from a screw in the tread, and he confirmed they had rotated the tires. $48.00 or so.
So I left the West Town Monona Tire and went to see my friend the Octopus. It had been a long time since I'd had the Volvo washed (I would wash it myself, but I don't have a place to do it.) So $10 to the Octopus and I get home and look at the car, and I'll be switched if the tires with the balding shoulders aren't still on the front!! So I look closer, and yep, the good ones are on the back. Damn.
So I head back out to West Town Monona Tire and walk into the shop and ask them how they normally rotate the tires. I know how you should do it, but maybe they "rotated" them side to side or some crap like that. Nope. It should have been swapping the fronts and rears with the fronts switching sides. "Oh, well let me ask Teddy if he rotated them or not." Walks out. Walks back in. "Uh, no, he didn't rotate them. We'll, uh, rotate them right now. Do you have your keys? I'll pull it in right now. So I paced back and forth in the lobby for another 15 minutes while they actually rotated the tires.
I'm not sure if they did it on purpose, (most Camry drivers wouldn't notice probably) or if they just "forgot" to do half of the service I asked for. They certainly didn't forget to charge me for it.
Don't go to West Town Monona Tire.

"Who has the Saab out here?"

Okay, so maybe I'm not an over-the-top auto snob. A real auto-snob probably would not take their car to Jiffy Lube to get an oil change. The reason I did so is that there is no good Volvo shop in Madison. (I mean, why would there be, it is such a rare, exotic FOREIGN car!). I refuse to go back to that horrible dealership. So last time I had the oil changed was at the Volvoeria when I had the suspension work done. And I do need to find a place to get work done and get some new spark plugs and fuel injectors installed.
But since I was going to go up to LaCrosse over the weekend, and i knew Jiffy Lube offered Mobil1 Synthetic oil, I decided to go. Besides, I found a $5 off coupon!
So I drove to the Jiffy Lube and told the "technician" that I wanted the oil changed and I wanted the Mobil1 put in. So I go into the waiting room and pretend to read a magazine while watching the service on my car. As they pulled my car into the work bay the driver turned off the car and searched and searched for the hood release. It is in the same place on the Volvo as in just about every other car I've driven, sort f below the dash next to the side of the car. And you'd think that at a place like Jiffy Lube, they'd be pretty good at finding the hood release lever, since it is something they have to find on every car that comes into the place! Well, finally after only 30-45 seconds of searching, he found it and was able to access the engine compartment!
The next step was to vacuum the car and wash the windows. When I pulled up I only had the driver's door unlocked. So vacuum guy came up and vacuumed the driver's seat area, and then tried the back door on the driver's side. It was locked. So he went back to the driver's compartment, and looked and looked and looked and looked for the "unlock" button. He looked on the door, between the seats, on the dashboard, and a host of other places. He was looking as long for it was his friend was looking for the hood release! Finally, defeated, he gave up and climbed across the front seat and pulled the lock pin on the door to release the lock. Then he reached around the b pillar and got into the back seat. Mission accomplished! Great job, Brownie!
So the other technician, the one I had initially talked to had been looking at his computer, going over the specs and whatnot. He'd been looking at the computer for quite a while, and there were some other cars in the shop, so I didn't know if he'd been looking at my car or another one. So he comes into the waiting area and proclaims, "Who has the Saab out here?" No response. "Who has the the white Saab 900?" Still nothing. "Whose is this white station wagon right here?" (pointing to the car) Oh, my car? The Volvo? "Yep, that's mine," I said.
The "tech" looked at the car again as we were walking back out the door to the magic computer where he found all the pertinent info about my "Saab". He looked real close and said "Oh, I guess it's a Volvo, well, it's the same thing anyways!" Hardy har har. What a maroon!
so he takes me over to the magic computer where, sure enough, it has all the service-related up-sells for a Saab 900 of questionable vintage. The first thing he tried to sell me was the high-mileage oil, even though I'd specifically asked for the Mobil1. After his minute-long sales pitch I told him, "I think I'll still just go with the Mobil1, thanks." "Oh yeah, gosh, I'd forgotten about that! Duh!" Awesome. After that he tried to sell me a coolant system flush, a tranny flush and some sort of other service, all of which were recommended maintenance for a Saab like mine. I declined all other services. I watched them put the oil in (at least they get the Mobil1 out of new cans, so it is not just coming out of an anonymous hose filled with who-knows-what!) and then I cashed in my $5 coupon and left.
I phoned my brother on the way home and told him about my adventure and he said that my midwestification must be complete if i was so brainwashed as to take my car to a jiffy lube. I'm still looking for any sort of recommendation about a decent Volvo shop in Wisconsin.

Arrgg!!! Don't go to Fields Auto Group!!!

Never a good sign...Work to be done.

So the local Volvo had been Smart Volvo Toyota. They got rid of the Volvo part of the dealership and decided to sell only to Toyota customers. I guess they didn't want the high-end business brought in by the Volvo customers. They sold it to Fields Auto group. Smart was so-so about service. They only liked working on Toyotas, but it seemed like maybe they had some decent techs who at least knew their stuff about Volvos. Fields just opened up in Madison with a Jag/Land Rover/Volvo place. Volvo is sort of displayed in the Janitor's closet. There is definitly no independent Volvo shop in Madison.
Anywho, to get to the point of the story, I've been chasing down a mystery rattle/clunk sound that sounds like it has been coming from the right rear of the car. It has been driving me crazy. I took the whole back end of the car apart when I was replacing the tailgate strut to see if I could track it down. So today I had Katie drive while we were going to the store so I could try to get a better handle on where it is coming from. On the way home I sat in the back seat. It was less pronounced while I was there. So then I moved to the rear, driver's side. I could hear it again. It sounded like it was coming from under the carpet. So we got home and I looked under the car at the suspension. The very same suspension that was removed from the car and had some new parts put on in December. The bolt holding the end of the "delta-link" suspension was nearly half an inch out and loose!! These fools didn't tighten the bolt all the way! This is besides the fact that they were supposed to replace the bolts with new ones. So this rattle that I have been chasing for the last 2-3 months has been this damn loose bolt. I guess I'm lucky that the suspension didn't just rip off of the car... Pictures shortly...

VolvoBlog...tailgate struts

Following the content of the ever-popular Saablog I decided that my blog needed some car-repair stories to spice things up. So I will detail my project.

My rear hatch on the Volvo had been a bit saggy. The struts were able to hold the gate open under most conditions, but if the car was facing uphill or the weather was particularly cold, I would generally need to hold the hatch open in order to keep it from crashing down onto my head while I was getting my cargo from the cargo area. I asked my brother for replacement struts for my birthday, and he got some for me. I looked up instructions on Volvospeed and they seemed very straightforward. The trim seemed easy to remove, held in place by plastic clips and one screw on each side. It was removed more easily than I had anticipated.

Here is the original strut in place. At this point, it started to rain, so I went to my place of employment so I would be able to work on it inside. I would also have access to more and better tools from the shop. If I could find them.

The next step was to pry the old strut off of the car. Struts are held in place on each end by ball and socket joint. The ball is on the car, and the socket is on the strut. Removal was quite straightforward. Installation is the same as reverse...

So I got the first strut out, and it took not long at all. When only one strut is on the car, you need to prop the hatch open with a broom or something. While it was propped up, I was pretty nervous about it falling down and breaking my leg or skull...

So now installation. Should be easy. The first end went on...

So then the other end should be easy, right? Hah!!! The thing was seemingly too long. I could not raise the hatch high enough to get the socket over the ball. It was maybe 1/4 inch too long!!!

So, lets look at the struts. Old one on bottom, new one on top...

So, They're the same, right? They look the same. But I tried and tried for more than an hour to get the back end on. I used clamps, cables, zip-ties and pliers, but there was no way I could shorten up the strut and make it fit on. So, I'm looking and looking, and it looks like maybe the new one is just a touch longer. So I'm looking at the new one that is not on the car, andI notice that the silver end is loose. The ends are just screwed on. Look at the ends... The new one is on the left, the original is on the right.

The new one is that much longer and won't go on the car!!! So I just swapped the ends, and bing, bang, boom--it is on the car!! The right side took 2 hours, the left side took 5 minutes.

So while I was screwing around in the back of the car, I decided to see if i could figure out what the rattling was in the back. I ordered an anti-rattle kit for the hatch in the hopes that it would help. I got the interior of the back hatch off. I broke a couple of the clips holding it together. At least they should be included in the kit I ordered.

Here are the bits I broke off while removing the interior of the hatch. I hope I get some more! And then to add insult to injury, when I got the hatch off, I found that the upgrade for the anti-rattle had alerady been completed!!! The one thing I did find out was that the rattle was not coming from the rear hatch. With the hatch cover off, driving around the rattle that has been driving me crazy was still there. Arrgg!!! I'll be taking more parts off and driving around until I've removed the rattle!!!

Live Free or Die!

Ah, the motto of New Hampshire. I bet they don't have too many rules and regulations up there in the Granite State. Here in Wisconsin, it is a whole 'nother ball game.
Last night I noticed that I had a head light out. It was easy to notice, because I have an indicator on the dashboard to inform me of the problem. So this morning I went to my local auto parts store to procure a replacement. Last time I bought lights, I went with Sylvania's Cool Blue. I was pretty happy with them. They are more white than blue, and more white than the traditional "yellow" headlamps. I have been looking in auto magazines, and noticed that now they've come out with an even brighter white light. it is Sylvania's SilverStar Ultra. Here is a comparison between the different types. So I thought obtaining these lights would be about as easy as going to the local auto-parts-eria and picking some up. But when I got there all they had were the el-cheapo lights. (Also, the first place I went to smelled very much like the inside of the 1979 Toyota pickup my brother and I used to drive--old cigarette smoke covered up with vanilla.) I bought one and decided to go somewhere else. The next place had the same crap. When I told the guy behind the counter what I was looking for he told me, "Oh, they don't sell those in Wisconsin. They're illegal." Huh? Headlights are illegal? On the website they are advertised as "100% street legal in Canada and the USA." So i know how to beat that system: amazon.com.
I had a similar problem last summer when i tried to buy a recharge kit for my A/C system. I was in LaCrosse, WI and they told me to drive across the river to Minnesota. What do you know, they had it! So I think I have found another reason that helps to explain why so many people in Wisconsin drive crappy cars: There are laws against improving them. A/C goes out? you can't fix it yourself. Bad headlight? Keep putting in the dim off-brand ones. I think that Wisconsin also has some sort of embargo against fashionable clothing, so most people just default to wearing Badgers and/or Packers gear. I'll have to go to the mall and see what sort of clothing is not available...

I'm no longer cool...

Here is my old cool license plate, my lame new plate and that paper is my new license. Isn't the Wisco plate about the ugliest you've ever seen? It even says "Dairyland" Ugh. Made by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (Badger Industries). I feel like it shouldn't go on a Volvo. This license plate would dress up a Pontiac or Ford or Chevy. But it is detracting from the Volvo. Bringing it down. The plate should be on a 1986 Ford Tempo, driven by a 5'8" 317lb guy wearing a worn out 'Green Bay Packers' jacket and sweat pants.

And that piece of paper? Yeah, it is my new driver's license. If I get pulled over by one of Wisconsin's finest (most likely for driving a foreign car, or maybe for speeding) I'm supposed to show the cop that piece of paper! It is 1/3 of an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, signed very officially by the lady behind the counter at the Wisconsin DMV. Nobody'd every be able to forge a document like that!

While I was passing time yesterday at the DMV I looked at the vast selection of different plates available for my vehicle. "Ducks Unlimited", "Celebrate Children" "Protect Wildlife" "State Patrol" etc. Some were maybe $15-20 extra, some were maybe not available to the general public. I thought of getting one that said "Collector," since I collect all sorts of things, but that plate was only available for cars more than 20 years old. They also have an "antique" plate for cars pre 1945. Check out their very bureaucratic website at http://http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/plateguide/special.htm. I thought of the University plates, but that adds on an additional $20 every year, and personalized plates are an additional $15. I don't think that I really have anything to say to the world on my license plates anyway.

So now I have until the end of tomorrow to get the plates on the car. I suppose that the chances of getting nabbed this month are pretty slim (wile I am still displaying valid tabs from Washington), but I'd rather not try to explain why I'm running my car with invalid, out of state plates. So now I have to get motor vehicle insurance, since my current company only writes insurance in Washington.

What is in the glove box?

Uh oh. That looks like an open can of touch up paint... which will forever be touching up the interior of the glove box. :(

I found it while trying to find required registration documents to transfer to Wisconsin plates. I don't know if it opened up when it got too hot, or too cold, but the lid and canister came apart, and what was inside came outside and dried . Bummer.

Uh oh

What does this look like on the under side of the filler cap?