IT guy, weekend SCCA racer, new Subaru owner, Foursquare SU3, PSU alum, gadget lover, Apple user, all-around regular guy.
Going into any autox season is usually a pretty exciting time for me… and with a brand new car that (at the time) was just 6 months old, there was a whole other level of anticipation involved. I was going from a 160-ish HP, FWD, naturally aspirated car with quite a few suspension modifications to a 100% stock, 265 HP, AWD, turbo monster. Time to throw out the rule book. Everything I had learned in [...]
Before we begin… let’s make sure you’re up to speed. You’ll want to read this. Go ahead… I’ll wait. Back? Awesome, let’s go. So after waiting over a week to get an appointment because they only have ONE certified Subaru technician (this makes me very nervous) I dropped my car off yesterday to finally get everything fixed (and by “everything” I mean fixing the wheel bearing, replacing the steering rack, fixing the rear seat latch [...]
I bought my last car brand new… drove it over 80k miles and had 3 warranty claims in total. One was a weather seal pealing up on the rear window. The second was a problem with the alignment adjustment bolts in the rear – they had seized up. And the third was a check engine light (CEL) for a vacuum leak. All were fixed promptly and correctly. The first time. I’m at just over 11k [...]
Buying a new car means, to me, that everything should be perfect. No strange noises, no weird smells, no funky behavior. And if any of those things should creep up, it’s going to the dealer to be fixed. Back in May I noticed a rattle… I actually thought it was something with my suspension. It sounded like a loose sway bar endlink or something (I’ve had that problem before, on the tC). It started on [...]
I know I filled out one survey a few months ago after buying a my new car (and I know I did a few of them years ago when I bought the tC). I don’t recall what that first one was – maybe JD Power or something. Not sure. I got another one yesterday from Maritz. This one is a “Vehicle Comparison Study.” My assumption is that they want to figure out why I bought [...]
It’s been 2 weeks since we closed up the first event of the season. It’ll be about 5 weeks until we hit event #3 (6/19 at the Arnot Mall). And let’s hope that after those 5 weeks, we get a little bit better weather. To say that the 5th event was a wet one would be quite an understatement. It was a soggy one. It was beyond soggy actually. It was whatever that next level [...]
I wish I had something to compare all of this data to. It might put my mind a bit at ease. But here we are, just over half way through the initial 30 days of the Snapshot connected to both cars. So far I’m really not sure what to think. I guess I’ll know more on that in about 11 days (how many more days of data it says that it needs for my car). [...]
It’s a new season. With a new car. And…. not much else has changed. Well… one other thing has changed. We lost a great competitor and friend a couple weeks ago. And the event was not the same without him. We definitely missed you, Tom. But Tom wouldn’t want us to stop the show on account of him. So we proceeded as normally as we could. And turns out, the event was great. We had [...]
Ever. Despite the still-freezing-weather, I chose to have my summer tires mounted this past Friday. Fortunately when I bought the car, they were immediately removed (with only 5 miles) and put in storage. Now, they’re back on the car. Brand new tires for $0. Win. And because of my ridiculous paranoia, I made sure to look over my car before I took it in. I even took a quick photo of each wheel, since those [...]
Toyota debuted the “FT-86 II” this week at the Geneva Motor Show. And I have to say, it looks good. Unfortunately, they’re WAY late, for me anyway. As anyone that has talked to me in the 6 months would know, I have my new car already. And sadly, the FT-86 wasn’t even part of the discussion. After rumor after rumor of delay, and no real news from Toyota on what was going on, I gave [...]
