7th-March-2008
All that
snow out there is going to melt. This I
guarantee.
And as it melts,
it will ensure that the roads remain
wet and your windshield will be bombarded
with muck and moisture.
On the other
hand, the temperature is going to rise
and fluctuate up and down about the freezing
mark.
All of which
means that this is the season when windshield
washer fluid becomes absolutely essential.
"Ustabe", years
ago, that a 4 litre bottle of the blue
stuff cost a buck and was rated for minus thirty
degrees Celsius.
Now it's three
dollars a container and is rated for
minus forty five degrees. Seems as though
the minus 30 stuff has disappeared,
which increases
sales volume nicely. Forget the "Teflon"
crap, they can't even give it away and
it doesn't make any difference
anyway to clean
windshield performance.
The costs of
the stuff are, of course, related to George
Ws' big favour to the farmers of the US
midwest in the mandating of alcohol
as the fuel of
choice, which has immediately doubled
the price of bread and as it happens, windshield
washer fluid.
But who needs
fluid rated for -45C?
In March?
I have carried
out a little experiment and I absolutely
guarantee that you can dilute this ubiquitous
fluid half and half with water and
it is still rated
at -15C which in most of Canada is more
than sufficient.
So the next time
your existing container is empty, don't
throw it in the blue box, keep it, buy another
-45 bottle, pour half of it into
the old container
and then fill both containers with water.
You'll cut your washer fluid costs
in half and you'll still get very good
performance from
your wipers.
Actually, even
at -30C ambient temperature, half and half
will work, but some icing does occur.
As the price
of alcohol continues to rise, you might
want to take the trouble to increase
your supply of this fluid, which ends up
wasted, out on
the road under the car.
Read your
owners manual!!
Twice in the
last few weeks we've had cars come in with
check engine lights on and after investigation,
we've found that the
catalyser was
the fault and needed an expensive replacement.
In one case,
the car had already been to a muffler
shop, which had charged $900 to completely
butcher the system and install
the wrong catalyser!
The check engine
light, however was not back on because
of the catalyser, but because there was a major air
leak past one
of the oxygen
sensors. After three return visits to
the "Butcher" produced nothing but denials
of responsibility, we were able to
extinguish the
light permanently, but the whole exhaust
system is a mess!
In both cases,
the cars in question were actually still
under manufacturers' warranty for emissions
related devices. Even though the
cars were over
5 years old, the warranties for the catalysers
were good for seven years. The owners assumed
that once the five
years were up,
they were on their own, which is why they
came to us for after warranty service.
In one case,
we telephoned the dealer and confirmed
that, sure enough, the catalyser was still
a warranty item.
In the other
case of the butchered system, it was too
late and the poor chap was out a neat and
unnecessary $1000.
The moral of
this story is to check your owners manual
carefully and if you are still in doubt,
call or visit your dealer for advice.
A dealer will
be recompensed by the manufacturer, but
watch out for "piling on".
You know, "Yessir
that item is under warranty,
but this, this and this are also needed
and they're NOT warranted"